Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 5/14/18
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Hearing on EPA Budget
May 16, 2018 | Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment
Location: 124 Dirksen / 9:30 AM -
Markup Interior-EPA Funding Bill
May 15, 2018 | House Appropriations Committee
Location: 2007 Rayburn / 5:30 PM -
Hearing on New Source Review Permitting
May 16, 2018 | House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment
Location: 2322 Rayburn / 10:15 AM -
Hearing on Water Infrastructure
May 17, 2018 | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Location: 406 Dirksen / 10:15 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) SOCMA Head Jennifer Abril Wants to Take the Trade Association Back to Its Roots
May 14, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Rick Mullin
Walk into the new offices of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates (SOCMA) in Arlington, Va., and you’ll find an environment utterly different from the association’s previous headquarters across the river in Washington, D.C. -
Pruitt Back on the Hill for Another Round
May 14, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
Senators will have their first chance to question EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt since he has been beset by allegations of excessive spending and misuse of his Cabinet-level office. -
Interior-EPA Bill Set for Release Amid Busy Week of Votes
May 14, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Manuel Quiñones, George Cahlink and Nick Sobczyk
The House Appropriations Committee has a heavy agenda this week for moving several spending bills, starting with the release this evening of legislation to fund the Interior Department and EPA. -
EPA Will Send Final Methylene Chloride Rule to OMB “Shortly”
May 11, 2018 | The National Law Review
On May 10, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced several upcoming actions on methylene chloride. Under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, EPA is required to perform risk evaluations on the uses of ten specific chemicals, including methylene chloride. -
(ACC Mentioned) Congress Seeks Data on Firefighter Cancer Risk
May 11, 2018 | Duluth News Tribune
By John Lundy
More knowledge about the cancer risks facing firefighters is sought from legislation that passed the U.S. Senate this week with unanimous support. -
(ACC Mentioned) Family of a Charleston Man Who Died After Inhaling a Paint Stripper Last Year Urges EPA to Act
May 11, 2018 | AP (In The Charleston Post Courier)
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt met with families of two men this week whose deaths were linked to a toxic compound in a widely sold paint stripper, weeks after lawmakers pressed him about an Obama-era rule that would limit sales to consumers. -
Lawsuit Targets EPA for Withholding Records on Trump Nominees
May 13, 2018 | Northern California Record
By Elizabeth Alt
The grassroots environmental organization Sierra Club filed a lawsuit on May 2, claiming the Environmental Protection Agency has violated the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to respond to requests from Sierra about two EPA nominees. -
Three Moms on a Mission to Ban the Chemical That Killed Their Sons
May 11, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Liz Hitchcock
Mother’s Day is this weekend and I hope you honor the mothers in your life. -
On Eve Of EPA Summit, Agencies At Odds Over Calculating PFAS Risks
May 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan and Maria Hegstad
On the eve of a major EPA summit over how to address contamination from widespread exposures to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), EPA and other agencies are split over how to calculate the substances' risks, a division that recently prompted EPA and the Defense Department (DOD) to ask the White House to block a federal health agency from releasing draft risk values stricter than EPA's. -
Environmentalists Appeal Power Plant ELG Delay Rule Decision
May 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are appealing a federal district judge's dismissal of litigation challenging EPA's two-year delay of power plant effluent limitation guidelines (ELG), where the judge agreed with EPA and industry that the Clean Water Act (CWA) requires such challenges to be heard in appellate court. -
How Trump’s EPA Is Moving to Undo Fracking Wastewater Protections
May 11, 2018 | DeSmog
By Sharon Kelly
Back in 2008, residents of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and surrounding areas received a notice in the mail advising them to drink bottled water instead of tap water — a move that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) internal memos at the time described as “one of the largest failures in U.S. history to supply clean drinking water to the public.” -
US Will Be 'Very Strong' for Next 15-20 Years Due to Shale Boom, Petrochemicals CEO Says
May 13, 2018 | CNBC
By Ryan Browne
The growth of the shale industry will strengthen the U.S. for the next 15 to 20 years, Borealis Chief Executive Mark Garrett told CNBC on Sunday. -
U.S. Adds Three Natural Gas Rigs as Oil Count Surges
May 11, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
The United States added three natural gas rigs for the week ended Friday but was overshadowed once again by a big jump in oil-focused drilling, according to data from Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI). -
Army Corps Chief to Testify on WRDA Bill
May 14, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Ariel Wittenberg
The head of the Army Corps of Engineers this week will head up to the Hill to discuss a water infrastructure authorization bill that sponsors say would boost project approvals. -
Updated EPA Agenda Details Slew Of Efforts To Relax Clean Air Act Rules
May 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's newly updated regulatory agenda includes a slew of efforts to relax Clean Air Act requirements for a wide range of industrial sectors, such as formalizing recent guidance easing new source review (NSR) permit mandates, revising the Obama-era utility air toxics rule, and softening air monitoring policies. -
Panel Eyes Bill to Revamp New Source Review Program
May 14, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
Three months after holding a hearing on EPA's New Source Review permitting program, a House panel is poised to tackle legislation to amend it. -
Trump Backs Oil Companies, Argues Climate Case Could Force Paris Deal
May 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kartikay Mehrotra
President Donald Trump is siding with the oil companies being sued in California by cities demanding compensation to cover the cost of combating climate change. -
Cut NASA Carbon Program a Loss for Climate Research: Scientists
May 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bobby Magill
Scientists are calling NASA’s cancellation of a federal carbon dioxide monitoring program a loss for climate research but not a fatal setback for the ability of the U.S. to track and verify global climate pollution.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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May 16, 2018 | Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment
Witness: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
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Markup Interior-EPA Funding Bill
May 15, 2018 | House Appropriations Committee
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Hearing on New Source Review Permitting
May 16, 2018 | House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment
Witnesses: Paul Baldauf, assistant commissioner, air quality, energy and sustainability, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection; and Bruce Buckheit, former director of EPA's Air Enforcement Division in the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Others TBA.
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Hearing on Water Infrastructure
May 17, 2018 | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Witness: R.D. James, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, Army Corps of Engineers.
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(ACC Mentioned) SOCMA Head Jennifer Abril Wants to Take the Trade Association Back to Its Roots
May 14, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Rick Mullin
Walk into the new offices of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates (SOCMA) in Arlington, Va., and you’ll find an environment utterly different from the association’s previous headquarters across the river in Washington, D.C. The spacious office boasts plenty of windows offering a prospect of the capital. Activity is more visible, with staff and visiting members darting between open work spaces. And the corner office is fundamentally changed.
When Jennifer Abril took that office in late 2016, she personified transition. The first woman to head the association of fine and specialty chemical makers, Abril is also its first CEO without a degree in chemistry or any other science. Nor has she any experience working for, much less running, a chemical company.
With an undergraduate degree in international studies and a master’s degree in business management, Abril can be viewed as typical of a new breed of industrial association manager—one with demonstrated skill in leading nonprofit groups and facilitating interaction between a large number of members.
It is also true, given the advance of women in industrial leadership, that Abril’s role as head of a chemical association is less of an anomaly than it would have been a decade ago. Indeed, a radical break from tradition is not a topic of particular interest to Abril.
“I think we are seeing quite a number of women in executive leadership positions at the CEO level now,” she says. “What I’m hearing in our own specialty chemical industry is that there is a lot of focus on diversity.”
Nor is Abril new to this industry. She began work with trade associations at the Chemical Manufacturers Association, now the American Chemistry Council (ACC), in 1997. There she met staff from SOCMA while developing GlobalChem, an annual policy and regulatory conference.
“I respected them and liked them,” she says. “At the end of my tenure with ACC, I moved to SOCMA to eventually head the performance improvement department.” She would leave SOCMA in 2008 for the opportunity to run the International Fragrance Association North America, returning eight years later to once again work on performance improvement—this time as CEO with a focus on improving SOCMA’s performance as an association.
To hear Abril tell it, her first and second arrivals at the specialty chemical association coincided with periods of change.
“SOCMA was definitely going through a major transition at that point,” she says of her first stint. The organization had just sold Informex, the trade show at the center of its activity for over a decade. It had recently decided not to renew its subscription to Responsible Care, ACC’s environment, health, and safety (EHS) code, opting to develop its own regimen, called ChemStewards. It also decided to repurpose its brand acronym, putting Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association out of its misery.
When Abril came back in 2016 she noticed a new set of changes. “Whereas my first time here it was all about tolling and contract manufacturing,” she says, “it has now moved beyond transactional relationships to partnerships and strategic alignment between the specialty chemical manufacturer and its clients.”
The challenge was clear: SOCMA needed to demonstrate its value to members in a commercial context. That meant broadening its focus beyond establishing and implementing performance codes, reporting on the regulatory front, and flying members in for meetings on Capitol Hill.
In the past, tallying up SOCMA’s activities was enough to make the case for membership, Abril says. “But these days, associations need to really demonstrate a specific impact, a business impact.” In essence, she says, SOCMA needed to return to its core offering in the Informex years—providing batch and specialty chemical manufacturers with a venue for commercial networking.
The job would require some organizational finesse; many of the skills she’d honed in the world of fragrance came into play.
Abril says she had gained a new perspective on the chemical supply chain during her years away from SOCMA. “I had always thought of it from the raw materials side of the business,” she said. “I was only seeing part of the way down the chain. But the fragrance industry is much closer to the end of the chain.”
Fragrance makers, she says, are more focused on providing customized manufacturing and marketing services to demanding customers, such as L’Oréal Paris and Procter & Gamble, than the specialty chemical companies she’d worked with at SOCMA. But she’d come to understand that SOCMA’s membership had a lot in common with fragrance suppliers—some of which are members themselves—when it comes to dealing with customers.
“They really have to understand the use of their specialized material and how it is going to interrelate and interplay with all the other components of the formulated product,” she says. “It was also clear to me that the pace of the industry had quickened. Private equity ownership had driven it to a quicker pace and higher yield, with a stronger clarity of focus.”
Abril established a new industry development and strategic partnership position and hired Paul Hirsh to fill it. With 25 years of association management experience at ACC and other organizations, Hirsh is catering SOCMA’s services to members via three newly established groupings: pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals, and performance chemicals.
According to Abril, the new structure replaces one that divided members into pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical groups. It’s intended to better acknowledge members that serve agriculture and other industries.
The key to Abril’s new approach is networking. “During the past year and a half, I’ve seen that small regional meetings are what people want,” she says. “New this year, SOCMA will host a series of specialties forums focusing on each of the three new sectors.” The first meeting on pharmaceutical chemicals will take place in Philadelphia in June.
SOCMA is also continuing a program of regional EHS roundtables, with events planned for Pittsburgh, Houston, and Marietta, Ga., this month. Government affairs staff will now attend these meetings, Abril says. And the annual fly-in, which gives members face time with congressional representatives, will now also feature meetings with staff from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, and the Small Business Administration.
“I am a big believer, and I know some of my counterparts are big believers, that what is going to be useful in trade associations from this point forward is creating opportunities for personalized experiences,” Abril says. Concurrently, SOCMA will scale back internet-based programs such as webinars that have proved ineffective. The association will also work to establish a SOCMA presence at trade shows that cater to end markets for fine and specialty chemicals.
A SOCMA-hosted meeting area at CPhI North America—an annual trade show into which Informex was folded in 2016 by the conference company that acquired it—was packed last month as members cycled in and out for meetings with customers. Abril points to this kind of networking, rooted in SOCMA’s former core activities, as the look of the future.
“I think the role of the trade association is changing,” she says. “We talk about that when association directors get together. All of us recognize that the traditional model of advocacy, education, and networking continues to be important, but there needs to be a specific return on investment. We need to know what impact we’re having, how we’re helping move the needle for this industry, and why each individual member company should care.”
https://cen.acs.org/business/specialtyChemicals/SOCMA-head-Jennifer-Abril-wants/96/i20
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Pruitt Back on the Hill for Another Round
May 14, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
Senators will have their first chance to question EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt since he has been beset by allegations of excessive spending and misuse of his Cabinet-level office.
On Wednesday, he will appear before the Senate Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. The hearing is meant to focus on President Trump's fiscal 2019 budget plan for the agency but could be consumed by queries related to Pruitt's pricey travel and expansive security.
Six out of the seven Democrats who sit on the subcommittee have already signed onto a resolution calling on Pruitt to resign from EPA. Ranking member Tom Udall (D-N.M.) is the measure's lead sponsor.
Udall also signed onto a letter last week with other Democratic lawmakers questioning EPA's expenses in refurbishing Pruitt's office, including its installation of a secure phone booth. They asked for information on any agency spending on Pruitt's office going forward.
Pruitt could be in for a tough time. Late last month, he appeared at two House hearings on the same day, giving close to six hours of testimony where he faced questioning on several ethics mishaps, including substantial pay raises for close aides and alleged retaliation against those who raised concerns.
The EPA inspector general has already begun several reviews of EPA spending by Pruitt and his aides, which has also attracted congressional scrutiny.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is also investigating the agency, requesting several different batches of documents as well as transcribed interviews with top officials. Staff has already interviewed Pasquale "Nino" Perrotta, the former head of Pruitt's personal security detail.
A Democratic committee aide told E&E News that EPA's production of documents related to the panel's requests has been rolling. Further, minority staff members have been participating in interviews and seeing EPA records alongside their Republican counterparts.
White House officials last week gave public support to Pruitt despite pressure on him to leave EPA. President Trump himself gave backing to the administrator on Friday.
"Yes, I do," Trump said when asked by a reporter whether he had confidence in Pruitt (Greenwire, May 11).
Pruitt and senators will have plenty to discuss on policy, as well. Appropriators tend to focus on their own parochial interests affecting their constituents.
Just in recent days, EPA said it would finalize a rule to restrict the sale of the paint-stripping chemical methylene chloride, responsible for several deaths, after it had delayed moving forward on a ban.
In addition, Pruitt moved last week to rework the agency's air quality standards in several ways, including having them take account of adverse effects on the economy and energy.
Trump's budget proposal could also draw attention, given its deep cuts proposed for EPA. Under the White House plan, the agency would receive $6.15 billion, a nearly $2 billion cut from current funds, and reduce EPA's workforce by hundreds of employees.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the subcommittee's chairwoman, huddled Thursday with her appropriations staff to prepare for the hearing. She signaled she'll have questions for Pruitt on both policy and ethics.
"This is my opportunity to ask him about what he's laying down for the budget, as well as other questions that relate to operations and accountability within the agency," she told E&E News.
Given the scrutiny of Pruitt in recent weeks, she also predicted that "we'll probably have pretty good attendance."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/05/14/stories/1060081583
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Interior-EPA Bill Set for Release Amid Busy Week of Votes
May 14, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Manuel Quiñones, George Cahlink and Nick Sobczyk
The House Appropriations Committee has a heavy agenda this week for moving several spending bills, starting with the release this evening of legislation to fund the Interior Department and EPA.
The Interior-EPA bill will head straight to a subcommittee markup tomorrow, with the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee lined up for its markup Wednesday.
Also on the agenda and following last week's subcommittee votes, the full House Appropriations Committee this week will consider amendments to spending bills for the departments of Energy and Agriculture, and water programs (E&E Daily, May 8).
The Interior-EPA bill is among the most contentious of all spending bills, and appropriators usually leave it for the end. But this year, both sides have talked up doing fiscal 2019 work in a more bipartisan manner.
President Trump's fiscal 2019 budget proposed cutting EPA by more than 20 percent and letting go of hundreds of workers.
Following this year's budget deal, the White House did move to provide some extra dollars for polluted site cleanups.
For Interior, the budget would set aside $11.7 billion, a decrease of $1.8 billion from the fiscal 2018 blueprint.
Even if the spending bill includes some controversial riders and cuts, it will likely buck the White House's wishes.Transportation
The House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee will mark up its spending bill Wednesday.
Lawmakers are likely to ignore many of the transportation and infrastructure proposals laid out in Trump's fiscal 2019 budget. The White House called for steep cuts to transportation programs to pay for its infrastructure plan, which has yet to fully materialize.
The panel is unlikely, for example, to go along with Trump's proposal to halve funding for Amtrak. Lawmakers will also probably avoid zeroing out funding for the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program, which got $1.5 billion in the most recent omnibus.
The Department of Transportation now calls those grants the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program, using the money to emphasize highway and rural projects.
Either way, the administration has proposed eliminating the program entirely two years in a row.
One potential point of contention could be the Gateway Project, a proposed set of rail improvements that would connect New York and New Jersey, which faces strong opposition from the White House.
The House and Senate are moving fast in an effort to get a fiscal 2019 spending deal at some point, but the president wants them to move much faster.
"The Senate should get funding done before the August break, or NOT GO HOME. Wall and Border Security should be included," the president tweeted. "Also waiting for approval of almost 300 nominations, worst in history. Democrats are doing everything possible to obstruct, all they know how to do. STAY!"Rescission package
Republican concerns over some of the proposed cuts in the White House's $15.4 billion rescission package could prevent the House from taking it up this week. It would claw back already-approved spending.
"There are some points of contention," said House Rules Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas), while the bill was being whipped to measure Republican support on the floor last week.
Sessions said several members raised concerns about cutting $7 billion in unobligated funds for the Children's Health Insurance Program, an initiative that generally has had bipartisan support.
Sessions said "ideas were being floated" for how to move the package and perhaps make changes, but he did not specify what those options might be.
The rescissions package is not scheduled to be on the floor this week, according to the legislative schedule sent out Friday.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), however, said it could still come up next week and continued to tout it as a way to cut unneeded and wasteful spending.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), meanwhile, wrote to GOP leaders late last week urging them not to act until the Government Accountability Office completes a review of the impact of the rescissions. She suggested the GAO report would be done by May 22.
"It is unacceptable for Republicans to continue their practice of ramming bills through the House in order to escape public scrutiny," the letter said.
The package's pathway in the Senate is even less certain with most senators declining to commit to moving it until the House acts.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said he may have a problem with $45 million in cuts to the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), which would specifically target the Appalachian Development Highway System program. Shelby noted ARC has "benefited" his state over many years.
Shelby noted that Congress has infrequently backed rescissions offered by various White Houses. He also said he was not sure if the administration had first vetted the proposed package with lawmakers.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), another senior appropriator, also expressed skepticism about the proposal.
"It is hard to discern the criteria that were used to support the rescissions, without a doubt," said Collins.
Congress has until June 22 to decide on the rescissions proposed by the White House last week. If they fail to approve them, the plan for cuts dies. The legislation could pass with only Republican votes as budget rules exempt it from a Senate filibuster threat.
About a third of the proposed rescissions would claw back unspent money from Energy Department loan programs for automakers to develop more energy-efficient vehicles and for renewable energy production projects.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/05/14/stories/1060081569
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EPA Will Send Final Methylene Chloride Rule to OMB “Shortly”
May 11, 2018 | The National Law Review
On May 10, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced several upcoming actions on methylene chloride. Under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, EPA is required to perform risk evaluations on the uses of ten specific chemicals, including methylene chloride. According to EPA, it is nearing completion of problem formulations for these first ten chemicals. EPA’s announcement states that it will send a final methylene chloride rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) “shortly.” EPA notes that is not reevaluating the paint stripping uses of methylene chloride, and instead is relying on its previous risk assessments.Background
In 2014, EPA identified the risks posed by methylene chloride when it is used in paint removers in a final risk assessment, TSCA Work Plan Chemical Risk Assessment Methylene Chloride: Paint Stripping Use. On its web page “Risk Management for Methylene Chloride,” EPA states that the final assessment “followed an extensive process of public drafts and peer review.”
On January 19, 2017, EPA proposed risk management restrictions under Section 6(a) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) on methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP). EPA proposed, among other restrictions, to prohibit the manufacture (including import), processing, and distribution in commerce of methylene chloride for all consumer and most types of commercial paint and coating removal. EPA also proposed to prohibit the use of methylene chloride in these commercial uses; to require manufacturers (including importers), processors, and distributors, except for retailers, of methylene chloride for any use to provide downstream notification of these prohibitions throughout the supply chain; and to require recordkeeping. EPA proposed an initial ten-year time-limited exemption from these proposed regulations on methylene chloride for coating removal uses critical for national security. EPA did not propose to regulate methylene chloride in commercial furniture refinishing, however, stating that it intended to propose such a regulation at a later date, after obtaining more information on this use.
On September 12, 2017, EPA held a workshop in collaboration with the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy on the use of methylene chloride in furniture refinishing. The meeting was intended to “facilitate an exchange of information on existing use practices and furniture refinishers’ experience, in general, with paint removal products and methods.” Federal and state government representatives, industry professionals, furniture refinishing experts, non-government organizations, and academic experts, among others, discussed the role of methylene chloride in furniture refinishing, potential alternatives, economic impacts, and other issues identified in the January 2017 proposed rule.Commentary
It is notable that EPA has decided not to revise and complete a new risk evaluation of methylene chloride but instead will rely on the existing risk assessment when preparing in final its proposed Section 6(a) regulation on methylene chloride as allowed by the “savings provision” at Section 26(p)(3). Both the risk assessment and the proposed rule were developed by the prior Administration.
As EPA has yet to submit the final rule to OMB for review, after which it would be published in the Federal Register, it is not publicly available. While it will be interesting to see what changes, if any, EPA chooses to make in the proposed rule on the basis of public comments, of keen interest to all stakeholders will be the decisions that EPA makes and the approaches that it uses in making final this first Section 6(a) rule under new TSCA. Of specific interest in this regard will be how EPA meets the legal requirements for regulating an existing chemical found at Sections 6(a), (c), (d), and (g) (these pertain to, respectively, the scope of the regulation, procedures for promulgation, the effective and compliance date(s) of the control measures, and exemptions (in this regard, EPA had proposed a Section 6(g)(1)(B) exemption for national security-related uses)) as well as how it meets the “sound science” provisions in Sections 26(h) and (i). It is unclear if this new development will have any impact on N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), which was part of the methylene chloride proposed rule. We infer from this development that EPA is not ready to advance that part of the regulation at this time.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-will-send-final-methylene-chloride-rule-to-omb-shortly
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(ACC Mentioned) Congress Seeks Data on Firefighter Cancer Risk
May 11, 2018 | Duluth News Tribune
By John Lundy
More knowledge about the cancer risks facing firefighters is sought from legislation that passed the U.S. Senate this week with unanimous support.
"With cancer becoming the leading cause of death for firefighters, we need to learn more about the cancer risks our firefighters face so we can support them if they get sick," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, R-Minn., in a statement about the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act, which she co-sponsored.
"Right now we don't know enough to protect the people protecting us."
The bill, which was passed previously by the U.S. House and awaits President Donald Trump's signature, would require the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to collect data about how firefighters' risk of cancer compares with the population as a whole. It would authorize $2 million in spending through fiscal year 2022.
Some evidence already is in. A 2015 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study of nearly 30,000 career firefighters from Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco found that the firefighters had a modest increase in cancer diagnoses overall (9 percent) and cancer-related deaths (14 percent) compared with what would be expected for people with similar demographic characteristics in the general population. It also found firefighters had about twice the rate of malignant mesothelioma, which is caused by asbestos, as the population at large.
In an April 3 News Tribune story, George Esbensen, president of the Minnesota Firefighter Initiative as well as the chief of the Eden Prairie Fire Department, blamed fire retardants for that. He charged that when fire occurs the retardants release carcinogens but do little to slow the fire's spread.
Bryan Goodman of the American Chemistry Council's North American Flame Retardant Alliance disputed that, saying, "Generalizations about products or chemicals, like flame retardants, is not the answer."
The 2015 study was limited in scope and needs to be expanded on, said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., in a news release after the U.S. House passed the legislation in September.
The bill was led by Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., in the Senate, and Pascrell and Chris Collins, R-N.Y., in the House.
https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/healthcare/4445041-congress-seeks-data-firefighter-cancer-risk
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May 11, 2018 | AP (In The Charleston Post Courier)
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt met with families of two men this week whose deaths were linked to a toxic compound in a widely sold paint stripper, weeks after lawmakers pressed him about an Obama-era rule that would limit sales to consumers.
One of those men, 31-year-old Drew Wynne, died last year at his business in North Charleston.
He was stripping the floor of a commercial refrigerator on Oct. 13 and was found dead the next day. Wynne was the co-founder of Riptide Coffee.
The Obama administration proposed a rule designed to keep paint strippers containing methylene chloride off the shelves of hardware and home-improvement stores for use by do-it-yourselfers. Exposure at close range can overcome and kill users, the EPA has acknowledged.
Brian Wynne told The Post and Courier last month that his family is raising awareness about his brother’s death by meeting with elected officials to advocate for the proposed ban.
“There’s no stone that we’ll leave unturned,” he said.
Kathy Davis, the grandmother of a 21-year-old Nashville man who died in April 2017 after using a paint stripper containing methylene chloride, urged Pruitt to rethink his moves to roll back regulations.
“Americans are stupid. That’s why we have rules. That’s why we’re told to wear seatbelts,” Davis told the EPA administrator, according to her daughter, Wendy Hartley, who also was in the half-hour meeting Tuesday at EPA headquarters.
The EPA issued a press release Thursday explaining it intends to implement the ban “shortly.”
In 2017, the American Chemistry Council trade group said it supported “reasonable and efficient” regulation of the compound.
The council, which helps oversee chemical-safety regulation at the EPA, did not immediately respond to an email asking if it supported the pending rule.
Pruitt has been one of the most successful members of the Trump administration in rolling back government regulation.
At a congressional hearing last month, Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, appeared with the brother of a 31-year-old South Carolina man, Drew Wynne, who died while stripping paint from the concrete floor of his cold-brew coffee warehouse.
“You have the power to finalize the ban of methylene chloride now and prevent more deaths, but you haven’t done it,” Pallone told Pruitt at the hearing. “Do you have anything to say to these families at this point?”
The Environmental Defense Fund arranged Tuesday’s meeting between Pruitt and the families. It was also attended by Nancy Beck, a former executive at the American Chemistry Council.
At the families’ urging, Pruitt looked at photos of men whose deaths in 2017 were linked to paint strippers, and at the current warning labels on cans of paint stripper with methylene chloride, Brian Wynne said.
At one point, Wynne said he asked Pruitt if he thought it was a problem. And he said, “I do,’” according to Wynne.
https://www.postandcourier.com/health/family-of-a-charleston-man-who-died-after-inhaling-a/article_fc942259-3784-501d-aec4-24a6ac30859e.html
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Lawsuit Targets EPA for Withholding Records on Trump Nominees
May 13, 2018 | Northern California Record
By Elizabeth Alt
The grassroots environmental organization Sierra Club filed a lawsuit on May 2, claiming the Environmental Protection Agency has violated the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to respond to requests from Sierra about two EPA nominees.
Sierra alleges the EPA has violated the FOIA by failing “to adequately respond to requests for agency records submitted by the Sierra Club.” There is a 20-day deadline to which the EPA had to respond to Sierra Club with a “responsive determination.”
In October 2017, Sierra sent two requests under the FOIA for communication records between the EPA and Susan Parker Bodine and Michael Dourson, who President Donald Trump nominated for appointments to the EPA, but were awaiting Senate confirmation at the time.
Sierra noted in its complaint that media sources published stories detailing how, “Mr. Dourson and Ms. Bodine participated in EPA decision-making within the offices to which they had been nominated, prior to their confirmation by the United States Senate.”
Sierra noted in the FOIA request that the two nominees were still under consideration for their appointments, and “the nature of their activities prior to their appointment are of critical, and immediate, public interest." Sierra specifically noted its concern over the role Bodine and Dourson had as “unconfirmed nominees” and pointed to the “significant concerns” surrounding the nomination of Dourson, who was alleged to have corresponded with chemical industry officials when he was being considered to head the agency's Chemical Safety Division.
According to the complaint, the EPA notified Sierra in January 2018 that it would not expedite processing per Sierra's request and granted the fee waiver to one of Sierra’s requests. Sierra states, “EPA has failed to make a final determination with regard to Sierra Club’s requests for records, to produce responsive materials, or to identify any grounds to withhold the responsive records.”
Sierra Club stated in its FOIA request that, “The public has, to date, no meaningful information as to the nature of Ms. Bodine and Mr. Dourson’s role at EPA during the period prior to their nomination. The “level of public understanding prior to the disclosure” sought here is, consequently, near zero ... the information sought by the request will illuminate the manner in which the agency understands its obligations to respect the Senate’s constitutional power of advice and consent.” Bodine was confirmed in December 2017 and Dourson withdrew.
Sierra Club is requesting a court order for EPA to produce the requested documents, attorneys’ fees and other costs of litigation.
Sierra Club is represented by Nathaniel Shoaff and Sanjay Narayan with Sierra Club Environmental Law Program in Oakland.
https://norcalrecord.com/stories/511413907-lawsuit-targets-epa-for-withholding-records-on-trump-nominees
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Three Moms on a Mission to Ban the Chemical That Killed Their Sons
May 11, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Liz Hitchcock
Mother’s Day is this weekend and I hope you honor the mothers in your life.
We have spent the past few days with three courageous moms, who have taken the unimaginable grief of losing their sons and turned it into tenacious advocacy. They’re working to get the deadly chemical their sons were all exposed to off store shelves and out of workplaces.
In April 2017, Wendy Hartley’s son Kevin died while refinishing a bathtub for his uncle’s home renovation business. He was using a coating remover that contained methylene chloride.
In October 2017, Cindy Wynne’s son Drew was found by his business partner after he succumbed to the deadly effects of methylene chloride in the product he had purchased at Lowe’s to strip the floors in his new business.
In February 2018, Lauren Atkins returned home to find her son Joshua, who had died while stripping the fork of his BMX racing bike with a product containing methylene chloride.
All three moms traveled to Washington DC this week to deliver a strong and clear message to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt – he should finish the job of getting these dangerous chemicals out of workplaces and off store shelves so that no other mother experiences the tragedy that these women are living through.
In addition to meeting with the Administrator, Cindy, Lauren and Wendy, along with Kevin’s grandmother Katherine and Drew’s brother Brian met with Senate and House offices, including meetings with South Carolina’s Senator Tim Scott and Rep. Mark Sanford, New York Representatives Nita Lowey and Paul Tonko, New Mexico Senator Tom Udall, Tennessee Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, asking them to push the EPA to finish the job of banning this deadly chemical in paint strippers immediately.
Yesterday, we heard a reply from the EPA that is encouraging, but as my own mother likes to say – “The proof is in the pudding.”
EPA put out a press release yesterday announcing that:“EPA intends to finalize the methylene chloride rulemaking;EPA is not re-evaluating the paint stripping uses of methylene chloride and is relying on its previous risk assessments; andEPA is working to send the finalized rulemaking to OMB shortly.
Personally, I like to say that the devil is in the details, so along with Cindy, Lauren and Wendy, we’ll be monitoring EPA’s action on the proposed rule closely, looking for a true ban on the use of methylene chloride on an aggressive timeline. (When is “shortly,” exactly?)
I know that Cindy, Lauren and Wendy will keep calling for a ban, and so will we. We’ll keep following up with EPA staff until the final rule is sent to the Office of Management and Budget, and then we’ll meet with the OMB staff. We’ll keep on encouraging Senators and representatives on both sides of the aisle to contact the EPA in support of the 2017 proposed ban on methylene chloride and N-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP is another chemical used in paint strippers that poses a host of health threats. Replacing it for methylene chloride just replaces one set of health risks with another.).
We hope EPA will act and if they don’t, we’ll continue calling on retailers like Lowe’s and The Home Depot to ban these dangerous chemicals. This week we held a national “week of action” calling on Lowe’s and EPA to act.
Over the past month, over 120,000 people nationwide have signed petitions urging Lowe’s to ban methylene chloride and NMP.
https://saferchemicals.org/2018/05/11/three-moms-on-a-mission-to-ban-the-chemical-that-killed-their-sons/
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On Eve Of EPA Summit, Agencies At Odds Over Calculating PFAS Risks
May 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan and Maria Hegstad
On the eve of a major EPA summit over how to address contamination from widespread exposures to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), EPA and other agencies are split over how to calculate the substances' risks, a division that recently prompted EPA and the Defense Department (DOD) to ask the White House to block a federal health agency from releasing draft risk values stricter than EPA's.
As a result of the dispute, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), an agency under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has not yet released the draft risk values it floated to other agencies last year for four PFAS chemicals.
One factor that may account for the differences is that ATSDR sought to include the adverse immunological toxicity risks the substances pose while EPA does not.
But such differences make it unlikely that EPA or any other agency will agree on PFAS risk values anytime soon, despite calls from states and DOD to craft cleanup standards to provide national consistency as a growing number of states develop their own limits.
And communities across the country are urging DOD to remediate drinking water and groundwater contamination stemming from its use of fire-fighting foam that contained several of the PFAS substances at issue in ATSDR's draft toxicological profile.
The continuing debate comes as EPA is slated to hold a May 22-23 PFAS National Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., with other federal agencies and state officials to work on challenges and issues related to PFAS contamination.
“As federal partners, EPA works closely with ATSDR on a wide range of projects. The Agency has provided input, at ATSDR’s request, at multiple stages throughout the process of developing minimal risk levels for PFAS,” an EPA spokeswoman says.
ATSDR's draft May 2017 profile, which has yet to be publicly released, included minimal risk levels (MRLs) for “intermediate” oral doses -- meaning limits derived for exposures lasting between 15 and 364 days -- for four PFAS. These include the two most commonly found chemicals: perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), as well as perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS).
Such MRLs estimate the daily human exposure to a hazardous substance that is likely to be without appreciable risk of adverse non-cancer health effects over a specified duration of exposure, according to ATSDR, and are similar to the reference values that EPA develops to estimate non-cancer risks from inhalation or ingestion.
ATSDR's risk levels are used as “a screening tool to help public health professionals decide where to look more closely,” and most contain a degree of uncertainty due to the lack of precise toxicological data on those individuals who might be most sensitive to the substance's effects, it says. The agency stresses that “MRLs are not intended to define clean-up or action levels,” though they can be used as part of such a calculation.
ATSDR's Levels
For at least two of these chemicals -- PFOS and PFOA -- the levels ATSDR suggested are significantly more conservative than reference dose levels EPA used in its 2016 health advisories for those chemicals.
ATSDR's May 2017 draft toxicological profile for PFOS suggests an MRL for intermediate, oral dose of 2x10^-6 milligrams/kilogram/day (mg/kg/day) -- 10 times lower than EPA's health advisory.
While ATSDR's dose is for intermediate exposures, if extrapolated, the level for chronic exposure would presumably be the same or even lower than EPA's.
EPA's health advisory for PFOS and PFOA is for lifetime chronic doses. For PFOS, EPA's reference dose is 2x10^-5 mg/kg/day, which EPA then translated into a health advisory of 70 parts per trillion in drinking water for PFOS alone or combined with PFOA.
For PFOA, the May 2017 draft MRLs propose a level of 3x10^-6 mg/kg/day -- which is approximately seven times lower than EPA's reference dose of 2x10^-5 mg/kg/day.
For the other two chemicals, the draft MRLs ATSDR suggested in the May 2017 document are 4x10^-6 mg/kg/day for PFNA, and 2x10^-5 for PFHxS -- the latter of which is believed to have the longest human half life of any of the PFAS.
But according to internal agency emails obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists under the Freedom of Information Act, top EPA and DOD officials challenged the draft MRLs and suggested the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to intervene to prevent their public release.
The emails show they feared a “potential public relations nightmare” should the draft MRLs be released unchanged.
In EPA email exchanges from Jan. 17-18, EPA's acting research chief, Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, says that on a call among ATSDR and various EPA offices, ATSDR “made the point that when converted to represent a drinking water intake level (as milligrams per liter) [the MRLs] do not differ significantly from EPA's Health Advisory.”
But both Nancy Beck, the top political appointee in EPA's toxics office, and Peter Grevatt, director of EPA's Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water, disagreed, arguing there is a significant difference.
“I think there may be significant concerns, especially considering implications for susceptible populations which came as a surprise to [toxics office] staff,” Beck says in a Jan. 18 email to Grevatt, Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson, Richard Yamada, the top political appointee in EPA's research office, and others at EPA.
And in an email distributed Jan. 30, the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs summarizes the debate, indicating that “the public, media and Congressional reaction to these new numbers is going to be huge. The impact to EPA and DOD is going to be extremely painful. We (EPA and DOD) cannot seem to get ATSDR to realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be” if it releases the draft values.
Beck, in a subsequent email, says if DOD has concerns, “perhaps OMB can step up and coordinate interagency review of this important guidance document before it is released,” noting they may be “a good neutral arbiter.” She says that OMB played this role heavily under the Bush administration, but under the Obama administration, agencies were given more free range. She adds that ORD was planning to go to DOD to discuss the issue.
Immunotoxicity Risks
In response, Yamada says one big difference between EPA's reference dose and ATSDR's draft analyses appears to be over whether to include immunotoxicity data that ATSDR factored in.
For PFOS, EPA did not include such risks in its calculations but at least two state programs -- New Jersey and Minnesota -- have, as has the Department of Health and Human Services' National Toxicology Program (NTP).
In 2016 NTP produced a monograph on immunotoxicity linked to exposure to PFOS and PFOA, concluding that both chemicals are “presumed to be an immune hazard to humans,” based on a “high level of evidence” that the chemicals suppressed antibody response in animal studies and a “moderate level of evidence” from human studies.
In addition, Minnesota's Department of Health in 2017 in its updated reference dose for PFOS included an additional uncertainty factor for immune system toxicity. And the New Jersey Drinking Water Quality Institute (DWQI) in 2017 support documentation for its PFOS draft maximum contaminant level criticizes EPA for not factoring in immune toxicity data. “In light of the weight of evidence for the immunotoxicity of PFOS at low levels of exposure, [the DWQI's health effects subcommittee] concludes that USEPA does not make a strong case for its decision not to choose the animal immune toxicity data for this endpoint as the basis for the PFOS Health Advisory.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/eve-epa-summit-agencies-odds-over-calculating-pfas-risks
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Environmentalists Appeal Power Plant ELG Delay Rule Decision
May 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
Environmentalists are appealing a federal district judge's dismissal of litigation challenging EPA's two-year delay of power plant effluent limitation guidelines (ELG), where the judge agreed with EPA and industry that the Clean Water Act (CWA) requires such challenges to be heard in appellate court.
Nine environmental groups filed a notice May 11 that they are appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit an April 18 ruling from Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Clean Water Action, et al., v. EPA.
Friedrich found that the agency's two-year delay of some compliance deadlines in the ELG is effectively a change to the power sector's effluent standards, and thus falls under the CWA provision that sends any suit over effluent limitations to appeals court.
She rejected environmentalists' argument that a change in deadlines is fundamentally different from a change in the ELG's substantive standards.
An attorney for the environmental groups said immediately after the ruling that they will continue to press for a ruling that would bring the ELG into force on its original schedule, noting that “the district court’s decision did not reach the merits of 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,” the source said.
Due to ambiguity in the CWA judicial-review provisions on which courts should hear such challenges, the environmental groups initially filed identical cases in both the D.C. district court and the D.C. Circuit.
But EPA got the D.C. Circuit challenge moved to the 5th Circuit, which is weighing environmentalists' and industry groups' facial challenge to the 2015 ELG, which sets minimum wastewater treatment standards for power plants that are incorporated into their CWA discharge permits.
The 5th Circuit had held litigation over the ELG delay in abeyance until Friedrich ruled but announced April 23 that the case would be moving ahead and issued a modified briefing schedule May 8.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/environmentalists-appeal-power-plant-elg-delay-rule-decision
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How Trump’s EPA Is Moving to Undo Fracking Wastewater Protections
May 11, 2018 | DeSmog
By Sharon Kelly
Back in 2008, residents of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and surrounding areas received a notice in the mail advising them to drink bottled water instead of tap water — a move that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) internal memos at the time described as “one of the largest failures in U.S. history to supply clean drinking water to the public.”
The culprit: wastewater from oil and gas drilling and coal mines. This included fracking wastewater that state officials had allowed to be dumped at local sewer plants — facilities incapable of removing the complex mix of chemicals, corrosive salts, and radioactive materials from that kind of industrial waste before they piped the “treated” water back into Pennsylvania's rivers.
The levels of corrosive salt in some of the oil and gas wastewater was so high that at some sewage plants, it was suspected of killing off the “good bacteria” that removes fecal coliform and other dangerous bacteria from raw sewage.
State and federal regulators responded with a mix of voluntary requests and, eventually, rules designed to stop drillers from bringing their wastewater to ill-equipped water treatment plants.
Eight years after the Pittsburgh incident, in 2016, the EPA finished writing the rules that would stop that kind of failure from reoccurring, specifically forbidding sewage treatment plans from accepting untreated wastewater from fracked wells.
A few months earlier, the EPA had announced its long-awaited national study of the risks that fracking-related pollution posed to American drinking water supplies. That study specifically examined the impacts of using sewage plants and commercial wastewater plants to handle fracking waste. It made special note of the dangers of toxic chemicals called trihalomethanes that were created during the treatment process, as well as the likelihood that “radium, metals, and organic compounds can also be discharged.”
Changing the Rules Again?
Now, the Trump administration's EPA is announcing that it wants to study the industry's wastewater all over again. The Trump-era study will examine oil and gas wastewater, asking, in the administration's words, “whether any potential federal regulations that may allow for broader discharge of treated produced water to surface waters are supported.”
In other words, Trump's EPA is questioning whether the rules should be changed, allowing wastewater from oil and gas wells, including fracked wells, to make its way into America's rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs after some treatment.
The problem is that treating oil and gas waste from fracked wells remains particularly tricky because the industry is still allowed to keep secret information about which chemicals drillers use when injecting fluids to crack open shale formations to release oil and gas.
This situation means even the EPA doesn't know what exactly to test for if inspectors want to find out whether that treated wastewater is safe to re-enter American water supplies.
The EPA has long struggled with internal conflict between the agency's scientific experts and its political appointees, but that battle has taken on an entirely different dimension under its current leadership.
The problem is so severe that George W. Bush's EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman penned a column calling Administrator Scott Pruitt “unfit to run the EPA,” adding that his proposals are “a surefire way to kill science at the agency.”
Pruitt is also under multiple investigations for misconduct so glaring that The New York Times editorial board described him as “not just an industry lap dog but also … [a] small-time grifter.” His personal grasp on basic science has been frequently questioned — perhaps in part because recently released internal EPA emails show that he has sought briefings from industry-funded science deniers while rejecting meetings with premier scientific organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The EPA's May 2 announcement seems to have largely flown under the radar, generating virtually no press coverage outside of the industry trade press. Its timing could play into that. The announcement came just one day after two high-level EPA aides left the agency under ethics investigation.
In addition, most of the national press has been focused on Pruitt's ever-growing list of ethics and personal spending scandals: the first-class flights, bullet-proof desk and high-security motorcades to fancy restaurants, his sight-seeing trips, and other apparent abuses of taxpayer funds.
While the press spotlight shines on those issues, Trump's EPA is moving to shake the foundations of protections for American drinking water supplies from contamination by oil and gas waste, opening the doors for the industry to sell its wastewater as a product instead of paying for its disposal.
“Currently, the majority of this wastewater is managed by disposing of it using a practice known as underground injection, where that water can no longer be accessed or used,” Trump's EPA wrote in a release announcing the new study.
“Some states and stakeholders are asking whether it makes sense to continue to waste this water, particularly in water scarce areas of the country, and what steps would be necessary to treat and renew it for other purposes.”
Not Just Fracking: Radioactivity and Brine
The levels of pollution found in oil and gas wastewater can vary, depending on which heavy metals and radioactive materials are found in the ground where the well is drilled, whether the waste comes from a conventional oil and gas well or a fracked well where drillers mix large amounts of chemicals into the water, and how long after drilling and fracking the water rises up from the ground.
There's no set definition for many of the labels that the industry uses to describe that wastewater, to differentiate between “produced water” or “brine,” for example.
When EPA wrote its 2016 rules, officially known as the Oil and Gas Extraction Effluent Guidelines, the agency believed that no wastewater, whether from fracked wells or conventional, was still being trucked or piped to sewage treatment plants, but it turned out that some conventional oil and gas drillers in Pennsylvania had in fact kept on trucking. They objected and the EPA gave them until August 29, 2019 to stop their dumping.
An industry group has now filed a lawsuit, still pending, seeking to block the 2016 rules from applying to conventional oil and gas drillers.
Though public awareness of the hazards of fracking waste has grown over the past decade, oil and gas wastewater that has nothing to do with fracking can be heavily polluted as well. Conventional oil and gas wastewater, which the industry often calls brine, carries high levels of corrosive salts, and it has in some cases been linked to pollution problems similar to those associated with fracking.
For example, researchers have continued to find radioactive pollution in Pennsylvania's streambeds, just downstream from commercial treatment plants that accepted brine from conventional wells. (Unlike sewage treatment plants, commercial water treatment plants are designed to handle some industrial wastes.)
Radium levels up to 650 times higher than those upstream from the commercial treatment plants were found downstream of discharge pipes, according to a peer-reviewed study by Duke University published in January.
The sediments that the team, led by Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke, found in Pennsylvania's streambeds carried levels of radium as high as 25,000 Becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) — about eight times the threshold at which radioactive oilfield waste like sludge is considered “contaminated.”
Radium mostly emits alpha radiation, which can be blocked by people's skin, and the health risks associated with radium stem primarily from drinking contaminated water or eating fish that lived in those polluted waters. Radium has a half-life of 1,600 years, meaning it persists in the environment for an unusually long time, and researchers were able to establish that the pollution occurred during the last three years.
“Despite the fact that conventional oil and gas wastewater is treated to reduce its radium content, we still found high levels of radioactive build-up in the stream sediments we sampled,” Vengosh said. “Radium is attached to these sediments, and over time even a small amount of radium being discharged into a stream accumulates to generate high radioactivity in the stream sediments.”
Recycling, Trump-Style
Trump's EPA wants to explore whether it makes sense to use more oil and gas wastewater instead of requiring it to be disposed. The main disposal method currently used in most states involves trapping that wastewater deep underground using injection wells, a practice that has led to earthquakes in Oklahoma, Texas, and other states.
It's a significant problem given that the sheer volume of wastewater coming from the oil and gas industry is enormous, with one 2015 estimate putting it at over 800 billion gallons a year.
“In New Mexico's arid environment, conserving our resources by recycling produced water for more beneficial uses presents a significant economic development and water supply opportunity,” New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department Cabinet Secretary Ken McQueen said in an EPA statement.
The industry has struggled to find effective treatment methods to recycle the volume of wastewater it generates, which is sometimes calls “produced water.” That produced wastewater can be five to eight times saltier than ocean water, and those salts aren't simply the familiar table salt but are instead corrosive salts that lace the water from oil and gas wells.
Recycling wastewater not only raises concerns about spills, transportation, and other logistical headaches, it also begs the question of what to do with the waste left over from the wastewater recycling process itself. That process can concentrate toxic and radioactive materials into highly contaminated sludges. And re-using the water for more drilling can also raise the levels of pollutants in that water which will ultimately have to be disposed somehow.
Trump's EPA is forging ahead with plans to re-open the question of what rules the industry will have to play by as it seeks to offload its waste.
“In the coming months, EPA plans to reach out to stakeholders — including states, industry, and nongovernmental organizations — to facilitate conversations,” the agency's announcement states. “Following this study, EPA will determine if future agency actions are appropriate to further address oil and gas extraction wastewater.”
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/05/11/trump-epa-undo-fracking-oil-gas-wastewater-protections
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US Will Be 'Very Strong' for Next 15-20 Years Due to Shale Boom, Petrochemicals CEO Says
May 13, 2018 | CNBC
By Ryan Browne
The growth of the shale industry will strengthen the U.S. for the next 15 to 20 years, Borealis Chief Executive Mark Garrett told CNBC on Sunday.
"We're very positive on the U.S. because the shale oil, the shale gas, we think that the ethane pricing, and the ethane through to polyethylene — and you could even go through into polypropylene from the propane — we think that will be very strong for the next 15-20 years out the U.S.," Garrett said in an interview with CNBC's Hadley Gamble.
"So we've actually got a large project with Total, we're building a $3.2 billion complex near Houston. And we think that that's going to be the future. The U.S. for the next 15-20 years looks very promising."
Garrett added that President Donald Trump's tax cuts "have not been bad for business."
Borealis, Total and NOVA Chemicals formed a joint venture to boost petrochemicals facilities in Texas earlier this year.
The U.S. shale market has grown in recent years following the advent of drilling techniques including fracking, or hydraulic fracturing. The growth of natural gas production and exports in the U.S. comes at a time when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) — a collective of the world's biggest oil exporters — and Russia are cutting supply.No impact from US' Iran deal exit
Oil prices rose last week after Trump said he would withdraw from a historic nuclear deal with Iran.
Trump said the U.S. administration would restore sanctions on Iran. The deal, achieved in 2015 under former President Barack Obama, lifted sanctions on Iran that had cut its oil exports roughly in half. In exchange for sanctions relief, Iran accepted limits on its nuclear program and allowed international inspectors to visit its facilities.
Asked whether he was concerned about Trump's move, Garrett told CNBC: "Well, for us at the moment we don't have a specific impact. It's much more that we have to watch these global movements and then you have impacts because the oil price starts to move up, the cost of products starts to change and things like that."
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/13/us-shale-story-has-been-very-positive-for-borealis-ceo-says.html
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U.S. Adds Three Natural Gas Rigs as Oil Count Surges
May 11, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
The United States added three natural gas rigs for the week ended Friday but was overshadowed once again by a big jump in oil-focused drilling, according to data from Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI).
Against a backdrop of rising crude prices, recent oil-driven growth in the U.S. onshore showed no signs of letting up during the week as the United States added 10 oil-directed rigs to finish the week with a combined 1,045 units, up 18% from a year-ago tally of 885. Eight directional units were added, along with five horizontal units. Ten rigs were added on land for the week, along with two in the offshore and one in inland waters, according to BHI.
Canada saw its count fall by seven, finishing at 79 active rigs, down one from last year’s total of 80. The combined North American rig count ended the week at 1,124, up from 965 a year ago.
Among the major basins tracked by BHI, the Permian Basin -- overlying West Texas and southeast New Mexico -- led all gainers for the second straight week. The Permian added five rigs to grow its tally to 463, a 30% increase year/year. A more detailed breakdown of BHI data by NGI’s Shale Daily shows the week’s gains focused in the Permian’s Midland sub-basin, with the Delaware sub-basin flat week/week and one “Other Permian” rig departing.
Other gainers among plays included the Denver Julesburg-Niobrara, the Eagle Ford Shale and the Granite Wash, which each added two rigs. The Cana Woodford, Marcellus Shale and Mississippian Lime each added one rig for the week, according to BHI.
Among states, Texas added eight rigs during the week, while Colorado and Oklahoma each added three and Alaska saw two rigs return. Louisiana and West Virginia each added one.
Meanwhile, the new Permian rigs this week apparently weren’t added in New Mexico, which saw its tally fall by four week/week. Wyoming dropped one rig.
Among the biggest news in the energy space during the week was President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal.
Genscape Inc. natural gas analyst Rick Margolin noted earlier in the week that the president’s announcement helped lift West Texas Intermediate crude prices above $70/bbl “for the first time since November 2015.”
June New York Mercantile Exchange crude oil futures finished the week above the $70/bbl mark Friday, settling at $70.70/bbl.
Meanwhile, analysts with Bank of America Corp. made headlines Thursday with a particularly bullish forecast predicting global crude prices could reach $100/bbl by next year.
And higher crude prices will lead to more associated gas from the U.S. onshore, according to analysts.
“These rallies in crude keep lifting our Spring Rock production forecasts” for natural gas, with forecasts during week showing a “year-on-year increase of more than 7.5 Bcf/d for the calendar strip,” Margolin said. “The crude rally’s impact on gas production resonates in liquids-rich plays” like the Permian Basin, Denver-Julesburg and Bakken Shale. “Even in areas like the Eagle Ford, which -- just a few months ago -- was priced to show declining gas production is now poised to add more than 0.3 Bcf/d year-on-year.”
EBW Analytics Group CEO Andy Weissman called the proposition of reinstating U.S. sanctions on Iran “a distressing development” for natural gas producers.
“Over the next 12-24 months, a large gap is likely to develop in global oil supplies, pushing global prices up sharply,” Weissman said. “To fill this gap, it will be necessary to grow U.S. production at a record rate. Due to infrastructure constraints, it is possible that the full impact of this rapid growth may not be apparent until Q3 or Q4 of next year. From that point forward, however, production of associated gas is likely to soar -- potentially constraining natural gas prices for several years.”
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114362-us-adds-three-natural-gas-rigs-as-oil-count-surges
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Army Corps Chief to Testify on WRDA Bill
May 14, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Ariel Wittenberg
The head of the Army Corps of Engineers this week will head up to the Hill to discuss a water infrastructure authorization bill that sponsors say would boost project approvals.
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works R.D. James will appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for the panel's second hearing on "America's Water Infrastructure Act," S. 2800.
The bill contains multiple provisions aimed at reforming the way water projects are authorized. The bill would require the Army Corps headquarters and districts to provide Congress with a work plan and four-year projected budget on an annual basis, which senators contend will lead to the authorization of more projects.
The bill also would create an appeals board for water storage projects, like dams, which the Army Corps does not recommend for authorization.
Advocates and alwamkers applauded the bill's reforms at a hearing last week (E&E Daily, May 10). And support for the bipartisan legislation is still rolling in.
Last Thursday, the Water Environment Federation, Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies and American Water Works Association sent a letter of support to EPW Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.).
The groups say they back the bill "in large part" because it would extend EPA's Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program, which provides low-interest loans to municipalities to help repair water infrastructure, for two years.
The letter also urges senators not to combine S. 2800 with another bill, S. 2364, the "Securing Required Funding for Water Infrastructure Now Act."
Sponsored by Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), that bill would offer up to $7 billion in financial assistance per state between fiscal 2019 and 2023.
The water utility groups say S. 2364 is "inequitable" in part because it would expedite the processing of infrastructure funding through the state revolving funds, which, they say, could in turn slow processing WIFIA requests.
"In sum, the SRF WIN Act does not offer a level playing field to individual communities and water utilities that may wish to access WIFIA loans because it denies them the opportunity to access the preferential application, evaluation and financing rules that would be available to state SRF agencies," the letter says.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) will release his own Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) authorization soon, an aide said.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/stories/1060081571
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Updated EPA Agenda Details Slew Of Efforts To Relax Clean Air Act Rules
May 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's newly updated regulatory agenda includes a slew of efforts to relax Clean Air Act requirements for a wide range of industrial sectors, such as formalizing recent guidance easing new source review (NSR) permit mandates, revising the Obama-era utility air toxics rule, and softening air monitoring policies.
The Unified Agenda, updated May 9 on the White House Office of Management & Budget's (OMB) website, reflects various priorities of President Donald Trump's EPA from the nascent pre-rule stage to the final rule stage. The agenda covers all of the agency's main offices for air, water, waste and other policies.
Among the many EPA Office of Air & Radiation rulemakings is one of several steps agency air chief William Wehrum and Administrator Scott Pruitt have announced to overhaul the NSR program.
EPA is advancing steps to ease NSR implementation for industry, using a mix of non-binding guidance and regulation. So far, the agency has issued non-binding guidance on NSR and other air permitting issues, but has indicated it will also proceed with some rulemakings. Wehrum in his prior role as President George W. Bush's acting EPA air chief tried to do some NSR reform rules but they were either defeated in court or never completed.
In the Unified Agenda, EPA announces it intends to issue a proposed rule by September to formalize its policy, announced in a March 13 memo from Pruitt to all 10 EPA regions, that allows NSR permit applicants to weigh emissions decreases as well as increases when deciding whether a full-blown NSR review is necessary. This is a “streamlining” measure Pruitt believes will save permit applicants time and money.
EPA further aims to issue a proposal in May resulting from a reconsideration of a 2009 rule on “project aggregation,” which will address issues relating to whether air pollution sources should be grouped together for air permitting purposes. The rule may make it less likely that regulators aggregate, or group together, projects' emissions, making them less likely to breach regulatory thresholds requiring onerous “major source” permitting.
In a related development, Wehrum in a recent memo to a top Pennsylvania environment official outlining a change in the agency's policy on aggregation for permitting purposes.
Also in the agenda for the first time is a review of the agency's 2011 mercury and air toxics standards (MATS), the landmark rule setting maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics limits for power plants.
EPA intends to issue a proposal evaluating the stringency of the MACT itself, but will also examine the underlying finding that it is “appropriate and necessary” to regulate the sector.
The Obama EPA revised the finding to include consideration of costs under instructions from the Supreme Court, but Wehrum regards the finding as flawed. He has been wrestling with whether to weaken the MACT or scrap it altogether, noting that the underlying finding provides the legal justification for the rule.
The utility sector has already invested billions of dollars to comply, making this a tough decision, Wehrum has said. EPA plans to issue a proposed rule addressing the cost finding and also the risk and technology review (RTR) for the MACT in August -- one possible outcome could be faulting the cost finding to justify using the RTR to relax the rule.
RTR Rules
Many of the rules EPA is slated to propose or finalize this year or next are RTRs, which the agency must conduct eight years after it first issues a MACT rule. If EPA finds there are residual risks to public health, or new, cost-effective control technology, or both, it can tighten the standards.
The planned rules are being issued under court order, after EPA missed statutory deadlines to issue them. The Trump EPA in the few RTR rules it has issued so far has taken minor steps to relax the rules.
Also appearing for the first time on the agenda is EPA's proposed rule for easing light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for model years 2022-2025. The agency says it plans to propose the rule in June, although like many of the rules listed on the agenda for release in the near future, it has not yet been transmitted to OMB for pre-publication review than can typically take 90 days.
EPA in an April 13 Federal Register notice reversed the Obama administration's Jan. 12, 2017, determination that the MY22-25 vehicle GHG standards remain feasible and should be left unchanged. The April announcement has already drawn a lawsuit from states led by California seeking to maintain the stringency of the Obama-era rules.
Meanwhile, EPA in the Unified Agenda says it is planning two rules to implement the renewable fuel standard (RFS), which Trump has directed Pruitt to overhaul to allow more ethanol sales but also ease regulatory burdens on refiners. The first is the regular rule setting annual fuel blending volumes required under the RFS, which EPA says it intends to propose in June and finalize by the Nov. 30 statutory deadline.
The second RFS rule, due for proposal in May, will reduce the blending volume for cellulosic biofuels for 2017, claiming “inadequate domestic supply.” This rule will also delay compliance deadlines to all categories of biofuel under the RFS, EPA says, a move likely to please refiners but anger the biofuels sector.
Deregulatory Policies
EPA is further preparing a series of lower-profile rules on diverse topics, with a common deregulatory theme. For example, EPA plans to relax continuous emissions monitoring requirements for some power plants covered by the “NOx SIP Call,” a legacy emissions trading program.
The agency will further propose a pair of rules easing implementation of its new source performance standards (NSPS) for wood heaters and similar devices.
One rule about the NSPS, due in June, would initially take the form of an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, soliciting comment on how to streamline testing processes for heaters.
The other rule will be a proposal, due in May, to allow for a “sell-through” for retailers to sell non-compliant heaters for a limited period.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/updated-epa-agenda-details-slew-efforts-relax-clean-air-act-rules
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Panel Eyes Bill to Revamp New Source Review Program
May 14, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
Three months after holding a hearing on EPA's New Source Review permitting program, a House panel is poised to tackle legislation to amend it.
At a Wednesday hearing, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment will take up a "discussion draft" proposed by Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) that a spokeswoman said last week "would make it easier for industries to modernize existing facilities" and install air pollution controls and other "beneficial projects."
The program, a cornerstone of the Clean Air Act, requires manufacturers, power producers and other major industries to get preconstruction permits before building a new plant or embarking on a major modification of an existing facility that could result in significant amounts of added pollution.
The program has been a long-standing source of contention. Industry groups and some state regulators view it as in desperate need of an update; environmental organizations say that it remains an important safeguard in ensuring that new or expanded plants have up-to-date pollution controls.
The draft appears to incorporate elements of both H.R. 3127 and H.R. 3128, which have languished in the committee since Griffith introduced them last June.
It would, for example, waive NSR permitting requirements for projects that reduce air pollution or are intended to improve safety and reliability.
For permitting purposes, it would also change the definition of a pollution increase to a formula tied to the source's original "maximum achievable hourly emission rates" and whether that rate was actually met during the past decade.
At the subcommittee's February hearing on NSR issues, John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council had blasted both H.R. 3127 and H.R. 3128, saying they would weaken the Clean Air Act to allow "enormous" increases in air pollution to evade controls and oversight.
Walke, who is not a witness for Wednesday's hearing, said in an email last week that he did not have a chance to look at the draft bill. Other witnesses representing industry groups and state regulators did not comment on either measure.
For this week's hearing, subcommittee Democrats have invited a senior New Jersey regulator and a former EPA air enforcement official to testify on the bill.
A spokesman for the panel's Republican members did not respond to messages Friday asking for a list of the GOP's witnesses. Griffith will also be on hand to discuss the draft measure.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/05/14/stories/1060081573
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Trump Backs Oil Companies, Argues Climate Case Could Force Paris Deal
May 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kartikay Mehrotra
President Donald Trump is siding with the oil companies being sued in California by cities demanding compensation to cover the cost of combating climate change.
The U.S. Justice Department has joined Chevron Corp., BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc as a so-called friend of the court in asking a San Francisco federal judge to dismiss the case. At stake for the Trump administration is its “strong economic and national security interests in promoting the development of fossil fuels,” according to a court filing May 10.
No “remedy” exists under federal law to compensate the cities, the Justice Department said in the filing. A decision to support San Francisco and Oakland by forcing energy companies to pay-up would empower “every person on the planet” to file similar claims. Such a decision would require the government to make “complex scientific and policy judgments,” at the behest of federal courts, a violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers principles.
Allowing the courts to enact policy changes would also handcuff the U.S. from addressing the impact of climate change through domestic and foreign policy on its own, according to the Trump administration’s filing. At home, supporting the cities would undermine the government’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Internationally, such an order may force the U.S. to re-evaluate its position on the Paris climate accord, which it is currently in the process of withdrawing from.
“By suggesting a judicial remedy for climate change divorced from any statutory construct, this case has the potential to lead the judiciary to improperly disrupt and interfere with the proper roles, responsibilities, and ongoing work of the executive branch and Congress in this area,” according to the filing.
The Justice Department argued May 10 that Trump should be immune from facing a lawsuit by a group of teenagers accusing the federal government of doing little to nothing to combat climate change. There, too, the government invoked the separation of powers doctrine.
Lawyers for the teens say the president shouldn’t be excused for failing in his official capacity to protect the environment from rising global temperatures while subsidizing industries dependent on fossil fuel.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/trump-backs-oil-companies-argues-climate-case-could-force-paris-deal
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Cut NASA Carbon Program a Loss for Climate Research: Scientists
May 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bobby Magill
Scientists are calling NASA’s cancellation of a federal carbon dioxide monitoring program a loss for climate research but not a fatal setback for the ability of the U.S. to track and verify global climate pollution.
Congress—in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus passed in March—eliminated NASA’s $10 million Carbon Monitoring System, a carbon dioxide research support program that Congress created in 2010, NASA spokesman Steve Cole told Bloomberg Environment.
But he said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would continue to monitor carbon dioxide and its effects on Earth through other programs.
The Carbon Monitoring System developed prototypes for systems that verify and monitor countries’ carbon dioxide emissions and help scientists gather information about the global carbon cycle so they can better understand climate change.
The program covers “everything from trying to understand how healthy a rainforest is to how much dissolved organic carbon there is in the ocean,” David Crisp, a senior research scientist in the Earth sciences division at the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, told Bloomberg Environment.
“The Carbon Monitoring System was a wonderful resource for doing basic research in a range of different areas that were related to the carbon cycle.”
The system helped scientists develop more sophisticated models for analyzing carbon emissions data gathered by other programs, Crisp said, calling the system’s cancellation “a loss.”
NASA Administrator Denied Climate LinkThe program’s cancellation followed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Jim Bridenstine as NASA administrator. Bridenstine is a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma who claimed that human carbon dioxide emissions are not linked to climate change, contradicting NASA’s own research.
The Senate confirmed Bridenstine in April.
“The [Carbon Monitoring System] cut was first proposed in early 2017 in the Trump administration’s proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2018,” Cole said.
The program’s cancellation will not affect NASA’s ability and commitment to monitor global carbon emissions, and the agency will be launching a new carbon monitoring device on the International Space Station later this year, he said.
“And, NASA continues to maintain several spacecraft in orbit that are currently collecting data relevant to carbon studies,” he said.
The White House budget outline for NASA that year said it provided "$1.8 billion for a focused, balanced Earth science portfolio that supports the priorities of the science and applications communities” while reducing spending by $102 million compared with the annualized amount in the continuing resolution for 2017.
Program Shines Light on Carbon CycleNASA’s carbon dioxide monitoring is crucial to scientists’ understanding of where humans are emitting the most climate pollution and how effectively the Earth is naturally absorbing some of the carbon dioxide emitted from power plants and vehicle tail pipes, Drew Shindell, a Duke University climate scientist and a former scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Bloomberg Environment.
“One of the things that many scientists worry about is that the biosphere will become somewhat saturated with all of this increase in carbon dioxide and stop removing as much of our emissions as it does currently,” Shindell said. “That would make the impacts of climate change and damages much greater in the future.”
“We won’t be able to see that without these data,” he said.
But NASA has other programs that monitor carbon pollution and the carbon cycle, and the loss of the Carbon Monitoring System would not undermine U.S. carbon data or its credibility, Shindell said.
The loss of the system is a “source of concern,” Crisp said. “But it’s a very small piece of the main program. It’s not as big an issue, as big a kick in the gut” as it would be if NASA lost its satellites and other carbon measurement programs.
Scientist: ‘A Bad Decision’Other scientists contacted by Bloomberg Environment on May 11 said they consider the program’s cancellation a loss and part of the Trump administration’s pattern of weakening climate science.
“I guess the idea is that if we don’t measure it, they can just pretend it doesn’t exist. But the rest of the world is looking on, in horror,” Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, told Bloomberg Environment.
The decision to cancel the program is “another bad decision” by the Trump administration “without any rationale,” Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., told Bloomberg Environment.
“Climate change is real and causing billions of [dollars] of damage, and tracking and understanding carbon dioxide and its sources and sinks is a vital activity,” he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/cut-nasa-carbon-program-a-loss-for-climate-research-scientists
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