Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 14/05/18
-
State AGs Request Withdrawal of US EPA Science Proposal
May 14, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Attorneys General from seven states and the District of Columbia have requested the US EPA withdraw its ‘science transparency’ proposal, owing to the "far-reaching impact" it could have on the agency’s core activities. -
Debate Over EPA’s ‘Transparency’ Rule
May 14, 2018 | FactCheck.org
By Vanessa Schipani
The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule to only use scientific studies with “publicly available” data when it develops regulations. -
Why Sustainable Chemistry Is Key to the Success of a Circular Fashion Industry
May 14, 2018 | Sustainable Brands
By Frank Michel
Earlier this year, the Global Fashion Agenda released the CEO Agenda for the fashion industry, which highlights the “efficient use of chemicals, water and energy” as a core priority for immediate implementation. -
(ACC Mentioned) White House, EPA Headed Off Chemical Pollution Study
May 14, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
Scott Pruitt’s EPA and the White House sought to block publication of a federal health study on a nationwide water-contamination crisis, after one Trump administration aide warned it would cause a "public relations nightmare," newly disclosed emails reveal. -
Trump Officials Feared PR 'Nightmare' from Drinking Water Standards
May 14, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Officials at the White House and Environment Protection Agency fretted about a public relations "nightmare" from an agency’s expected move to change suggested standards for fluorinated chemicals in drinking water, according to internal emails. -
After Docket Goof, EPA Reopens Comment Period on Toxics Rule
May 14, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
EPA is reopening the public comment period on proposed changes to its hazardous air pollutant rules for leather-finishing operations after initially failing to release an analysis of the potential demographic impact on people living nearby. -
EU Commission Publishes 11th ATP to CLP Regulation
May 14, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has published amendments to the Regulation on the classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP). -
EU Regulation of FCMs 'Outdated and Full of Holes'
May 14, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Nick Hazlewood
The EU's regulation of food contact materials is "outdated, ineffective and full of holes", a Chemical Watch Food Contact Regulations Europe summit has heard. -
The Latest Trends in Renewable-Energy Tech, Markets, and Policy
May 14, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Energy Dialogues
Renewable energy, and its role in energy future, is an intense topic that spans across all corners of the energy spectrum. -
Gulf's Head Start Trumps Northeast's Petrochemical Ambition
May 14, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Global demand is fueling refining and petrochemical investments along the U.S. Gulf Coast, dampening prospects for an industrial build-out in Appalachia. -
Trump Attorneys Side with Oil Companies in Climate Lawsuits
May 14, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Anne C. Mulkern
The Trump administration wants a federal court to throw out two California cities' lawsuits that seek to make oil companies pay for climate change damages. -
Court Flags Concerns About Judicial Review of FERC Permits
May 14, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Federal judges appeared sympathetic last week to the plight of landowners in the path of the Mountain Valley pipeline. -
Troubling Link Found Between Pollution Exposure in Pregnancy, High Blood Pressure in Children
May 14, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
High blood pressure typically occurs in adulthood, so when children develop the condition, it often means something is very wrong. A child might have kidney disease, hyperthyroidism or a heart problem. Obesity can also be a factor. -
DOJ Seeks to Avoid Discovery in Youth Climate Case
May 14, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking a federal district judge in Oregon to halt discovery in a novel climate case brought by 21 youth plaintiffs, who claim the federal government is violating their constitutional rights by failing to protect them from the impacts of climate change, and is instead seeking a ruling based on the pleadings so far. -
U.S. Fines Cargo Company for Dumping Waste with Hidden Pipes
May 14, 2018 | Wall Street Journal (In E&E Greenwire)
By Erica Phillips
The Justice Department has fined a Japanese cargo-vessel company $1 million for polluting waters off North Carolina.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
-
State AGs Request Withdrawal of US EPA Science Proposal
May 14, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Attorneys General from seven states and the District of Columbia have requested the US EPA withdraw its ‘science transparency’ proposal, owing to the "far-reaching impact" it could have on the agency’s core activities.
The proposed rule – which seeks to allow increased transparency and public validation of studies underpinning agency regulatory decisions – has met heavy criticism from NGOs who fear it could be used to discard important health and safety data.
And the state AGs have joined a chorus of stakeholders requesting that the agency put the brakes on it.
In a letter submitted to the public docket, the states’ chief legal advisors noted concerns "both from the truncated timeline under which EPA seeks to change fundamental agency policy, and from the vagueness of the proposal".
They have requested the agency withdraw its proposed rule and begin a consultation with the National Academy of Sciences and other independent scientists before deciding whether changes are needed to the agency’s current approaches.
Should the agency decline this path, the AGs requested that the EPA extend the consultation by at least 150 days. "A full six-month comment period would be consistent with past practice for matters of similar importance and complexity, and is necessary to provide the public and other stakeholders a meaningful opportunity to evaluate the proposal and its implications for the agency’s ability to meet its obligation to protect public health and the environment under federal environmental laws," they wrote.
The current 30-day consultation is "woefully insufficient", they added. Unless extended, this is set to expire on 30 May.
The letter is co-signed by the AGs from New York, California, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC.
https://chemicalwatch.com/66858/state-ags-request-withdrawal-of-us-epa-science-proposal
-
Debate Over EPA’s ‘Transparency’ Rule
May 14, 2018 | FactCheck.org
By Vanessa Schipani
The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule to only use scientific studies with “publicly available” data when it develops regulations. This has sparked a debate in Congress on whether the proposal would prevent the EPA from considering studies that analyze private health information, including those that underpin air pollution standards.
During congressional hearings on April 26, critics of the rule claimed it would force the agency to exclude important studies because releasing data publicly would violate confidentiality agreements between study participants and researchers. Proponents maintained it wouldn’t exclude important studies because confidential information can be redacted.
Who’s right? We find fault with both characterizations of the proposed rule.
Studies that use confidential health information might still be considered by the EPA under the new rule — but not because private data can simply be redacted. Sometimes it can’t, including in the case of a 1993 Harvard study used to craft air pollution standards — a study cited by critics to support their argument.
Still, the rule includes a provision that would allow the EPA administrator to exempt regulations if releasing study data publicly conflicts with protecting privacy. The rule also allows for alternatives to full-on public release in cases where the data include confidential information.
Here we will detail the EPA proposal, what was said about it at the April 26 hearings, and use the 1993 Harvard study on air quality to explain why protecting confidential health information is not always as easy as redacting personal data.Who Said What
The debate over this proposed rule in Congress is split down party lines, with Democrats opposing it and Republicans supporting it.
During an April 26 hearing on the EPA’s fiscal year 2019 budget request, for example, Rep. Raul Ruiz, a doctor and a Democrat from California, challenged EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on the rule.
Ruiz first argued that the “type of studies” the EPA wants “to exclude are the same kind of scientific studies that were used to prove that lead in pipes and paints harm children and that secondhand smoke is a dangerous carcinogen.”
“We’re talking about landmark studies, such as the Harvard School of Public Health’s Six Cities Study, which proved a connection between air pollution and early death back in 1993,” he added.
Ruiz then asked Pruitt if the EPA’s proposed rule would cause the “agency to disregard” these studies.
Ruiz, April 26: Will these new regulations cause your agency to disregard these sentinel studies?
Pruitt: If they provide the data and methodology to the agency and the findings, they will be used.
Ruiz: But that is a clear violation of ethical rules protecting patient confidentiality. Who’s protecting …
Pruitt: Those can be redacted, congressman.
During the same hearing, Rep. Kevin Cramer, a Republican from North Dakota, had an exchange with Pruitt that exemplified the proponents’ argument.
Cramer, April 26: Maybe you could elaborate a little bit, how personal data can be protected and is protected. Nobody’s asking for the names of every victim of every, you know, of every pollution source that’s ever happened in the world, or that’s been sourced in any study. They’re not asking for personal data. We’re asking simply for the science to be revealed. You can protect the data, right?
Pruitt: Both the personal data, congressman, as well as confidential business information, both CBI and person information can be redacted and can be addressed and still serve the purposes of the proposed rule.
As we’ll explain, private health data includes more than just a person’s name. Still, studies that analyze confidential information — both of people and businesses — don’t necessarily have to be excluded, as Ruiz claimed.
Dissecting the Rule
Let’s take a closer look at what the proposed rule itself stipulates. The rule says it intends to “strengthen the transparency of EPA regulatory science” by ensuring study data are “publicly available.”
EPA, April 30: The proposed regulation provides that, for the science pivotal to its significant regulatory actions, EPA will ensure that the data and models underlying the science is publicly available in a manner sufficient for validation and analysis.
By “significant regulatory actions,” the proposed rule means any regulation that would likely “adversely” affect a whole host of entities, including the economy, jobs, the environment, public health, or state and local governments. This definition comes from Executive Order 12866, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
The rule also clarifies that it applies specifically to “dose response data and models,” which it defines as “data and models used to characterize the quantitative relationship between the amount of dose or exposure to a pollutant, contaminant, or substance and the magnitude of a predicted health or environmental impact.”
The rule distinguishes these kinds of data from those “that are designed to predict the costs, benefits, market impacts and/or environmental effects of specific regulatory interventions on complex economic or environmental systems.”
In other words, the proposed rule would likely apply to studies that look at the effect of air pollution on mortality, for example, but not necessarily studies that evaluate how much it would cost to implement air pollution standards.
The rule also includes provisions that specifically pertain to protecting privacy and confidentiality, stating that “requirements for availability may differ” depending on the nature of the data.
Some data may be fully accessible through “public data repositories,” the rule says. Other data may have “controlled access in federal research data centers,” meaning members of the public may have to apply for access and sign “nondisclosure agreements” to access the data.
The rule also allows the EPA administrator to exempt certain regulations “if he or she determines that compliance is impracticable because” the agency can’t find a way to release study data in a way that “protects privacy and confidentiality.”
So, given the language of the proposed rule, it would be up to Pruitt (or future administrators) to decide which regulations are exempted and which aren’t.
The rule also says it’s “intended to apply prospectively to final regulations,” meaning it wouldn’t apply to past regulations created by previous administrations, only future ones.
However, the EPA does ask for comment on how the agency should handle regulatory programs that base future regulations on past ones. Take the National Ambient Air Quality Standards program, which the rule points to as an example of such a program.
Every five years, the EPA is required under the Clean Air Act to review studies on how six air pollutants, including particle pollution and lead, harm human health and the environment. After that review, the agency may decide to amend its air quality standards in light of new evidence.
What the proposed rule doesn’t clarify is whether studies included in previous reviews — likely to be considered again in future reviews — would be required to have their data made publicly available.
The Harvard Study
In the course of criticizing the proposed rule, multiple Democrats pointed to a 1993 Harvard study that the EPA used to develop air quality standards for particle pollution. This study would likely be considered again in future NAAQS reviews. So we’ll use it to explain why protecting confidential health information is not always as easy as redacting people’s names.
As we already mentioned, Ruiz, from California, pointed to the study during the April 26 hearing, arguing it was an example of the “type of studies” the EPA wants “to exclude” from rule-making. During another EPA budget hearing on the same day, Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota, also cited this study when asking Pruitt if it’s “appropriate” to “ask Americans to give up their personal health information for public consumption.”
So what exactly did this study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in December 1993, find?
Led by Douglas Dockery, a professor of environmental epidemiology at Harvard, the study looked at the effect of air pollution on the mortality rate of six U.S. cities — Watertown, Massachusetts; Harriman, Tennessee; St. Louis, Missouri; Steubenville, Ohio; Portage, Wisconsin; and Topeka, Kansas.
To do so, the researchers collected data on more than 8,000 individuals total, including their ages, heights, weights, education levels, occupations, smoking histories and medical histories. The researchers also followed up on study participants annually for about 15 years to see who was still living and who had died. During this same period, they monitored air quality in each location as well.
The study found that the death rate of people living in the city with the dirtiest air — Steubenville — was 26 percent higher than the rate of people living in the city with the cleanest air — Portage. For death due to lung cancer and cardiovascular disease in particular, the rate was 37 percent higher in Steubenville than in Portage. This was after the researchers excluded the effect of other risk factors for these diseases, such as cigarette smoking and occupational exposure to pollutants.
As we’ve explained in a previous article, long-term studies like this one are particularly apt at providing causal evidence for relationships, as opposed to only correlational evidence. In this case, this is because the study collected information on other risk factors for death, such as smoking and certain occupations, with the aim of singling out the effect of air pollution.
The study also showed that, among all of the pollutants the researchers examined, fine particle pollution had the largest effect on mortality. Larger particulates can do damage to the lungs, but fine particulates can do the most damage because they can be breathed deeply into the lungs. Fine particle pollution primarily comes “from the combustion of fossil fuels in transportation, manufacturing, and power generation,” the researchers explained.
In March 1995, Dockery and others at the American Cancer Society published another studyin the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine that found a similar effect. But this study followed more than 500,000 people living in more than 150 U.S. metropolitan areas for seven years, collecting health, death and air quality data along the way.
Based on these studies and others, the EPA created a new standard for fine particle pollution in 1997.
By email, Dockery explained to us why he and his colleagues can’t release all of their data to the public “in a manner sufficient for validation and analysis,” as the proposed rule stipulates.
The data the researchers used is actually multiple data sets collated together. There’s one data set of air pollution levels, which he said is already publicly available.
There’s another data set that consists of covariates, or each individual’s characteristics, such as age, height, weight, smoking history, occupation and other information. “Knowing their individual characteristics alone would not be sufficient to identify an individual in the study,” he said. “These types of non-identifiable data have been released to other researchers.”
And then there’s a third data set of health outcomes, which comprises when people died and why. “The difficulty arises when these individual characteristics (covariates) are combined with death records (date of death) and exposure information (place of residence),” he explained.
To reanalyze the study, all of its data sets need to be linked together for each participant. When they’re linked together, then it becomes possible to identify individuals. “Knowing when someone died, how old they were, [their] sex and where they lived is enough to identify them,” he wrote.
If the researchers were to release their data publicly, they would likely have to redact information that would prevent others from being able to reanalyze their findings.
Dockery told us the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, is a “benchmark” for researchers when it comes to the kind of information they wouldn’t release to prevent violating privacy agreements with their study participants.
Under HIPAA, the researchers would have to redact the participants’ names, birthdates and death dates, among other information, to release the data publicly. But without their death dates, for example, the study couldn’t be reanalyzed.
However, the Health Effects Institute, a nonprofit funded by the EPA and the motor vehicle industry, did gain access to the researchers’ data to conduct a reanalysis of their studies in 2000. How so?
First some background: After the EPA introduced the new standard for fine particle pollution in 1997, this led some in Congress, industry and the scientific community to have a debateabout public access to data much like the one that is occurring today, HEI explains in a 2000 report.
“Some insisted that any data generated using federal funding should be made public,” the report says. “Others argued that these data had been gathered with assurances of confidentiality for the individuals who had agreed to participate.”
To address the debate, Harvard University and the American Cancer Society asked HEI to “organize an independent reanalysis of the data from these studies,” the report says. This was under the condition that HEI and members of the reanalysis team would agree to keep the study participants’ information confidential.
What did HEI find? For the most part, it came to the same conclusions as Dockery and his team.
HEI, July 2000: Overall, the reanalyses assured the quality of the original data, replicated the original results, and tested those results against alternative risk models and analytic approaches without substantively altering the original findings of an association between indicators of particulate matter air pollution and mortality.
This is all to say that it does appear possible in some instances to release confidential health information to select organizations and individuals, so long as they also agree to protect the privacy of study participants. But data couldn’t be made completely public.
To be clear, the case may be different with other studies. It’s also possible that the rule itself will change. When the comment period for the proposed rule ends on May 30, the EPA will write a final rule, which may differ from the proposed one.
The final rule may also be challenged in court. Richard J. Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard, told the New York Times that Pruitt would be “walking into a judicial minefield” if he prevented the EPA from using certain studies when it develops rules.
Still, what is clear at this point is that politicians on both sides of the aisle mischaracterized the proposed rule. The EPA could still consider studies that use confidential health information under the proposed rule — but not because this private data can simply be redacted. It’s more complicated than that.
https://www.factcheck.org/2018/05/debate-over-epas-transparency-rule/
-
Why Sustainable Chemistry Is Key to the Success of a Circular Fashion Industry
May 14, 2018 | Sustainable Brands
By Frank Michel
Earlier this year, the Global Fashion Agenda released the CEO Agenda for the fashion industry, which highlights the “efficient use of chemicals, water and energy” as a core priority for immediate implementation. However, while chemical management is listed high on this agenda, time and again, the importance of this topic is not reflected in key conferences and events.
Perhaps we don’t see “effective chemistry” headlining sustainability events because people find the topic complex or confusing. Whatever the reason, sustainable chemistryis an urgent issue and must be included as part of a holistic approach to finding circular solutions for the fashion industry.
In a closed-loop system, materials will be used and reused for long periods of time. This will give new life to the enormous amount of textile waste currently burned and dumped each day. A circular model holds great promise, and yet complications could arise when materials no longer deemed ‘waste’ are recycled.
How, for example, can we ensure consumer safety when a rain jacket is repurposed into a pillow, or shoes turned into sunglasses? Currently, there is little control over chemical ingredients. As Dr. Michael Warhurst, executive director of CHEM Trust, told Chemical Watch, “a few scandals in this area could massively damage the cause of the circular economy.”
This is where effective input chemistry can play a part. If safer chemicals are used at the beginning of the production process, then the final output, supported by good processes, will be safer, too. By controlling the input chemistry, we can ensure that products used beyond their original purpose won’t have a negative impact on human and environmental health.
Since 2015, I have led the ZDHC Foundation and its Roadmap to Zero Programme. Our goal is to eliminate or substitute priority hazardous chemicals in products and their manufacture. Today, we are a collaboration of 92 contributors (24 brands, 53 value chain affiliates, and 15 associates) within the sports, fashion, luxury and outdoor industries.
We are working to shift the dial in a tangible way; however, more research and innovations are needed. The Pulse of Fashion Report 2018, released last week, confirms this. It says that while brands are taking more steps to improve the sustainability of their supply chains, frontrunners have begun to plateau:“At a certain point, companies realize that improvement levels off, as they reach the limits of available technologies and infrastructure. To unlock the next level, companies must collaborate with other stakeholders, driving systemic change through bold leadership and creating innovation ecosystems that lead to the disruptive technologies truly needed.”
Unless we raise the subject, flag the demand for innovations for substitutions and outline the commercial benefits of using safer chemistry, progress will continue to be slow. Chemicals are key for product performance and style; they colour fabric and make our clothes waterproof, shiny and soft. And they will continue to be used.
Transitioning the industry towards safer chemistry cannot be achieved by one actor alone. Our tools are only as powerful as those that use them. While the urgency of sustainable chemistry is already noted in reports, the urgency of this issue needs be reflected at events, in boardrooms, and throughout the supply chain.
As Gwen Cunningham, Circle Textiles Program Lead at Circle Economy, says, “While the why of circularity is understood, the how is still largely unknown.”
To ensure new measures taken to transition the industry to a circular model are successful, sustainable chemistry must be included in this approach.
http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/chemistry_materials_packaging/frank_michel/why_sustainable_chemistry_key_success_circ
-
(ACC Mentioned) White House, EPA Headed Off Chemical Pollution Study
May 14, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
Scott Pruitt’s EPA and the White House sought to block publication of a federal health study on a nationwide water-contamination crisis, after one Trump administration aide warned it would cause a "public relations nightmare," newly disclosed emails reveal.
The intervention early this year — not previously disclosed — came as HHS' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry was preparing to publish its assessment of a class of toxic chemicals that has contaminated water supplies near military bases, chemical plants and other sites from New York to Michigan to West Virginia.
The study would show that the chemicals endanger human health at a far lower level than EPA has previously called safe, according to the emails.
“The public, media, and Congressional reaction to these numbers is going to be huge,” one unidentified White House aide said in an email forwarded on Jan. 30 by James Herz, a political appointee who oversees environmental issues at the OMB. The email added: “The impact to EPA and [the Defense Department] is going to be extremely painful. We (DoD and EPA) cannot seem to get ATSDR to realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be.”
More than three months later, the draft study remains unpublished, and the HHS unit says it has no scheduled date to release it for public comment. Critics say the delay shows the Trump administration is placing politics ahead of an urgent public health concern — something they had feared would happen after agency leaders like Pruitt started placing industry advocates in charge of issues like chemical safety.
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) called the delay "deeply troubling" on Monday, urging Pruitt and President Donald Trump "to immediately release this important study."
"Families who have been exposed to emerging contaminants in their drinking water have a right to know about any health impacts, and keeping such information from the public threatens the safety, health, and vitality of communities across our country," Hassan said, citing POLITICO's reporting of the issue.
Details of the internal discussions emerged from EPA emails released to the Union of Concerned Scientists under the Freedom of Information Act.
The emails portray a “brazenly political” response to the contamination crisis, said Judith Enck, a former EPA official who dealt with the same pollutants during the Obama administration — saying it goes far beyond a normal debate among scientists.
“Scientists always debate each other, but under the law, ATSDR is the agency that’s supposed to make health recommendations,” she said.
The White House referred questions about the issue to HHS, which confirmed that the study has no scheduled release date.
Pruitt‘s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, defended EPA’s actions, telling POLITICO the agency was helping “ensure that the federal government is responding in a uniform way to our local, state, and Congressional constituents and partners.”Still, Pruitt has faced steady criticism for his handling of science at the agency, even before the recent spate of ethics investigations into his upscale travels and dealings with lobbyists. In his year leading EPA, he has overhauled several scientific advisory panels to include more industry representatives and recently ordered limits on the kinds of scientific studies the agency will consider on the health effects of pollution.
On the other hand, Pruitt has also called water pollution one of his signature priorities.
The chemicals at issue in the HHS study have long been used in products like Teflon and firefighting foam, and are contaminating water systems around the country. Known as PFOA and PFOS, they have been linked with thyroid defects, problems in pregnancy and certain cancers, even at low levels of exposure.
The problem has already proven to be enormously costly for chemicals manufacturers. The 3M Co., which used them to make Scotchguard, paid more than $1.5 billion to settle lawsuits related to water contamination and personal injury claims.
But some of the biggest liabilities reside with the Defense Department, which used foam containing the chemicals in exercises at bases across the country. In a March report to Congress, the Defense Department listed 126 facilities where tests of nearby water supplies showed the substances exceeded the current safety guidelines.
A government study concluding that the chemicals are more dangerous than previously thought could dramatically increase the cost of cleanups at sites like military bases and chemical manufacturing plants, and force neighboring communities to pour money into treating their drinking water supplies.
The discussions about how to address the HHS study involved Pruitt's chief of staff and other top aides, including a chemical industry official who now oversees EPA’s chemical safety office.
Herz, the OMB staffer, forwarded the email warning about the study's "extremely painful" consequences to EPA’s top financial officer on Jan. 30. Later that day, Nancy Beck, deputy assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, suggested elevating the study to OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to coordinate an interagency review. Beck, who worked as a toxicologist in that office for 10 years, suggested it would be a "good neutral arbiter" of the dispute.
"OMB/OIRA played this role quite a bit under the Bush Administration, but under Obama they just let each agency do their own thing...," Beck wrote in one email that was released to UCS.Beck, who started at OMB in 2002, worked on a similar issue involving perchlorate, an ingredient in rocket fuel — linked with thyroid problems and other ailments — that has leached from defense facilities and manufacturing sites into the drinking water of at least 20 million Americans. Beck stayed on at OMB into the Obama administration, leaving the office in January 2012 and going to work for the American Chemistry Council, where she was senior director for regulatory science policy until joining EPA last year.
Yogin Kothari, a lobbyist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, called Beck's January email "extremely troubling because it appears as though the White House is trying to interfere in a science-based risk assessment."
Environmentalists say such interference was routine during the Bush administration.
"It’s why the Obama administration issued a call for scientific integrity policies across the federal government," Kothari said in an email to POLITICO. "Dr. Beck should know firsthand that the Bush administration sidelined science at every turn, given that she spent time at OMB during that time."
Soon after the Trump White House raised concerns about the impending study, EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson reached out to his HHS counterpart, as well as senior officials in charge of the agency overseeing the assessment to discuss coordinating work among HHS, EPA and the Pentagon. Jackson confirmed the outreach last week, saying it is important for the government to speak with a single voice on such a serious issue.
“EPA is eager to participate in and, contribute to a coordinated approach so each federal stakeholder is fully informed on what the other stakeholders' concerns, roles, and expertise can contribute and to ensure that the federal government is responding in a uniform way to our local, state, and Congressional constituents and partners,” Jackson told POLITICO via email.
Pruitt has made addressing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a priority for EPA. The unpublished HHS study focused on two specific chemicals from this class, PFOA and PFOS.
States have been pleading with EPA for help, and experts say that contamination is so widespread, the chemicals are found in nearly every water supply that gets tested.
In December, the Trump administration's nominee to head the agency's chemical safety office, industry consultant Michael Dourson, withdrew his nomination after North Carolina's Republican senators said they would not support him, in large part because of their state's struggles with PFAS contamination. Dourson's previous research on the subject has been criticized as too favorable to the chemical industry.
Shortly after Dourson's nomination was dropped, Pruitt announced a “leadership summit” with states to discuss the issue scheduled for next week.
In 2016, the agency published a voluntary health advisory for PFOA and PFOS, warning that exposure to the chemicals at levels above 70 parts per trillion, total, could be dangerous. One part per trillion is roughly the equivalent of a single grain of sand in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The updated HHS assessment was poised to find that exposure to the chemicals at less than one-sixth of that level could be dangerous for sensitive populations like infants and breastfeeding mothers, according to the emails.
Dave Andrews, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, said those conclusions line up with recent studies on the health effects of PFAS.
“They are looking at very subtle effects like increased risk of obesity for children exposed in womb, lowered immune response, and childhood vaccines becoming not as effective,” Andrews said.
The HHS document at issue is called a toxicological profile, which describes the dangers of a chemical based on a review of previous scientific studies. It would carry no regulatory weight itself, but could factor into cleanup requirements at Superfund sites.
EPA scientists, including career staffers, were already talking with the HHS researchers about the differences in their two approaches to evaluating the chemicals when officials at the White House raised alarm in late January, the emails show. Those differences, according to the correspondence, stemmed from the agencies’ use of different scientific studies as a basis, and from taking different approaches to accounting for the harm that the chemicals can do to the immune system — an area of research that has burgeoned in the two years since EPA issued its health advisory.
Enck, the former EPA official, said she sees one troubling gap in the emails: They make “no mention of the people who are exposed to PFOA or PFOS, there’s no health concern expressed here.”
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/05/emails-white-house-interfered-with-science-study-to-head-off-public-relations-nightmare-536950
-
Trump Officials Feared PR 'Nightmare' from Drinking Water Standards
May 14, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Officials at the White House and Environment Protection Agency fretted about a public relations "nightmare" from an agency’s expected move to change suggested standards for fluorinated chemicals in drinking water, according to internal emails.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), which is part of the Centers for Disease Control, is currently readjusting its standards for acceptable levels of the chemical in drinking water and is expected to propose that safe levels be almost six times stronger than EPA's current recommendation.
Internal Trump administration emails that the Union of Concerned Scientists obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit paint a picture of an administration bracing for the heightened standards, fearing the conflicting guidance's impact on other parts of the federal government.
In one of the emails obtained and first reported by Politico Monday, an unnamed White House intergovernmental affairs official called the expected fallout from the stronger recommendations "extremely painful."
“The public, media and Congressional reaction to these new numbers is going to be huge,” the official wrote in a letter forwarded to EPA. “The impact to EPA and DoD is going to be extremely painful. We [DoD and EPA] cannot seem to get ATSDR to realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be.”
Fluorinated chemicals are used by a number of industries, including in products such as hoses to reduce emissions for cars and planes, sterile equipment used in pharmaceuticals and stain resistance in clothing and non-stick cookware. But the chemicals are also associated with serious health risks, including kidney and testicular cancer.
Another series of emails between agency officials show that the EPA and the Pentagon sought to get interagency review of the rule before publishing, but as one EPA staffer wrote, "It seems like [the ATSDR] want to roll out [the report] and do they [sic] own thing.”
The exchange reported that ATSDR Director Patrick Breysse provided the proposed levels to EPA officials but would not give the other agencies a full draft of the proposal or say when the standards would be formally published in the Federal Register.
One conversation between EPA officials discussed the wide differences between the level sought by ATSDR and those cited by EPA in its own study. Peter Grevatt, director of EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, remarked that while ATSDR said its drinking water intake level doesn't not differ significantly from EPA's health advisory, "I think it's important to note that we disagree with the perspective that there is not a significant difference between our drinking water values."
The ATSDR is responsible for defining minimal risk levels in drinking water, estimated as the daily safe exposure to a hazardous substance that is most likely to be without risks over time.
In their exchanges, agency officials feared how the public and the media would react to the higher standards, which EPA staffers said was based off a different study than EPA based its findings on.
At least one environmental group viewed the exchange as EPA's attempt to circumvent the stronger drinking water standards.
“Unlike Scott Pruitt’s Pollution Protection Agency, there is still one government agency clearly trying to safeguard the public from these dangerous chemicals,” said Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook in a statement Monday. “Only Scott Pruitt and the Trump administration would consider reducing drinking water contamination for the American people to be a ‘nightmare.’”
While the ATSDR's recommendations are non-binding and don't force EPA to change its standards, they are considered important screening levels.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/387573-trump-admin-fears-stronger-chemical-regulations-will-be-public
-
After Docket Goof, EPA Reopens Comment Period on Toxics Rule
May 14, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
EPA is reopening the public comment period on proposed changes to its hazardous air pollutant rules for leather-finishing operations after initially failing to release an analysis of the potential demographic impact on people living nearby.
In a notice set for publication in tomorrow's Federal Register, EPA says the new comment period will run 30 days.
The analysis — which examines characteristics of people living close to the four facilities covered by the rules — was "inadvertently" omitted from the regulatory docket, the notice says.
Following publication of the proposed changes to the rules in mid-March, the original deadline for public feedback was April 30.
Earthjustice, working on behalf of the Sierra Club, had flagged the missing analysis in comments filed late last month. Earthjustice staffers also charged that EPA's summary in the proposed rule of some aspects of the analysis's findings runs counter to what the analysis says.
"It is unclear what information is correct — EPA's proposed rule preamble or the document not provided in the docket," Earthjustice staffers wrote, adding it was uncertain whether similar lapses affected other parts of the rulemaking. They also accused EPA of violating public notice and comment requirements by failing to make the analysis available.
The proposed rule, which followed a legally required "risk and technology review" of hazardous air pollutant standards, would apply to companies in Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New York (Greenwire, March 13).
While the review was the first for the leather-finishing industry since the standards were set in 2002, EPA found that they still suffice to protect public health with an ample margin of safety and there were no new "cost-effective" controls to further reduce toxic pollutants.
The draft proposal otherwise makes relatively minor changes to reporting requirements and other aspects of the existing rules estimated to cumulatively cost the industry about $705.
Welcoming EPA's conclusion was John Wittenborn, president of Leather Industries of America, a Washington-based trade group.
Even before the hazardous air pollutant regulations were first developed, the industry was moving away from solvent-based finishes — which contain volatile organic compounds — to water-based finishes, Wittenborn wrote.
It has also reduced reliance, he said, on another class of regulated chemicals known as glycol ethers.
"As a result, there are very few, if any, actual major sources left in the United States," Wittenborn added.
But Earthjustice alleged the proposal is "unlawful and arbitrary," in part because EPA staffers failed to include hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen, in their risk evaluation, although "there is significant evidence that leather finishing operations emit this chemical," the group said in its submission last month.
According to the demographic analysis, about 4.6 million people live within 50 kilometers — about 31 miles — of one of the four leather-finishing facilities, the group said. EPA belatedly released the analysis on April 27, three days before the original comment period ended.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/14/stories/1060081647
-
EU Commission Publishes 11th ATP to CLP Regulation
May 14, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has published amendments to the Regulation on the classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP).
This is the 11th adaptation to technical and scientific progress (ATP). It includes the chemical names of substances subject to harmonised classification and labelling listed in Table 3 of Annex VI CLP in all languages.
The 11th ATP has neither added substances nor amended information on any of the chemicals regulated under CLP. It was published in the Official Journal on 16 April and will apply from 1 December 2019.
The 10th ATP to CLP was published a year ago. It introduced new and revised entries for the harmonised classification and labelling of 37 substances.
https://chemicalwatch.com/66862/eu-commission-publishes-11th-atp-to-clp-regulation
-
EU Regulation of FCMs 'Outdated and Full of Holes'
May 14, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Nick Hazlewood
The EU's regulation of food contact materials is "outdated, ineffective and full of holes", a Chemical Watch Food Contact Regulations Europe summit has heard.
Speaking at last week’s event in Brussels, Michael Warhurst, executive director of NGO CHEM Trust, said: "it’s not a pretty picture. The public would be very surprised at the lack of effective food contact material regulations.
"They expect protection. The fact that it's not under control is a potential scandal, even if it's not visible at the moment."Legislation
The overarching piece of FCM legislation is the 2004 EU Framework Regulation. This works in tandem with the good manufacturing practice for materials and articles intended to come into contact with food Regulation (GMP) from 2006.
Both harmonised and non-harmonised materials sit under the framework's umbrella. Harmonised materials, which include, for example, plastics, ceramics and regenerated cellulose, are subject to EU-wide rules. Non-harmonised materials, which include adhesives, printing inks and paper, have no specific European legislation covering them, and are subject to member states' national provisions.
According to Dr Warhurst the regulatory approach in this area has not been systematically assessed since it was introduced in 1976. There has also been no formal evaluation work or reports done on the 2004 framework.
"The world is moving on," he said, "and Europe is rather a long way behind".Review
Late last year the Commission consulted on a roadmap for evaluating the legislation. Among the responses were a number of calls for fully harmonised rules for all FCMs, including from Cefic and the European Printing Ink Association (EuPIA).
Peter Oldring, European regulatory affairs manager at coatings company Sherwin Williams, told the conference that the EU executive is now planning a study to determine how the present legislation is functioning. It is expected, he said, that a contractor will start work in the Autumn.
And, Dr Oldring (pictured) told the summit that industry is as frustrated as the NGOs at the lack of Commission action.
"We keep getting roadmaps," he said. "Somehow the Commission's roadmaps and actions are subject to delays – often considerable – against their original target. We need to come up with a strategy to show those outside the Commission that something needs to be done."
To this end Dr Oldring directed the summit's attention to the work of an industry cross-sector group that has been in existence for 18 months and takes in 25 associations.
"The Commission is overloaded and the rate of progress is perhaps not as much as industry would like," he said. "In the absence of legislation, industry has been trying to tackle this problem so that we can fill a void that is there."Fit for purpose?
However, Anna Gergely (also pictured), director of environment, health and safety regulatory at law firm Steptoe and Johnson, drew attention to the role REACH plays in the regulation of FCMs.
In response to the question "is the food contact regime fit for purpose?" she answered that there is great complexity to the legislation and FCMs are not exempt from REACH restrictions.
"Don't let people spread the news that food contact materials are not properly regulated," she said.
"There are some exemptions for food and feed in the REACH Regulation, and they include food additives, but there are no such exemptions for food contact materials. So don’t be mistaken, packaging is not exempt in any way from the Regulation."
https://chemicalwatch.com/66851/eu-regulation-of-fcms-outdated-and-full-of-holes
-
The Latest Trends in Renewable-Energy Tech, Markets, and Policy
May 14, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Energy Dialogues
Renewable energy, and its role in energy future, is an intense topic that spans across all corners of the energy spectrum. For example, our recent Mexican Energy Series featured a lively discussion of whether Mexico is on course for the 2024 target of 35% renewable energy, and what this pledge means for the country. Each year, as new corporations, municipalities, and countries make bold and vocal commitments to offsetting energy consumption, and to pursuing clean energy resources at a higher level, the conversation intensifies.
For an insider perspective about the current state of renewable energy, we called upon Lenae Shirley, Senior Director, Technology Innovation and Market Adoption for Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Lenae is working at the nexus of technology, markets and policy, leading efforts with EDF’s demonstration partners to prove the impact of clean technology innovations. As a result of these initiatives, Lenae identifies trends and market opportunities to accelerate the transformation of the electricity sector, with data-driven decisions that push forward market adoption for renewable methods. Here is our conversation.The latest trends in renewable-energy markets, tech, and policy
CLICK TO TWEET
ED: How are investors currently spurring technological innovation for renewable energy resources?
There is a lot of effort being driven by the DOE to try and figure out how to increase investors’ confidence in investing in energy technology.
LS: There is a lot of effort being driven by the DOE to try and figure out how to increase investors’ confidence in investing in energy technology. And, so, the DOE is putting some funding into trying to figure out how to encourage more investment. You know, we (the United States) are investing a lot in deployment through a lot of different new investment tools, but you don’t see near the levels that you see in research and development that you see in, say, China, or even Europe. The Research and Development side is pretty lean, comparatively speaking.A Sustainable Energy Future – Corporate Commitment
ED: What kinds of measures are corporations taking in regards to their energy consumption?
LS: Corporations are leading on not only renewable energy, but they’re also doing a lot regarding efficiency, and they’re also looking at and expanding into participation in wholesale markets through demand response programs. Sometimes, a manufacturing facility will choose to delay manufacturing if the price signals in the market warrant it. In some cases, they’ll go offline and use their own backup generation, and in others they will just simply shift their production to a different time to take advantage of some of those opportunities.
Corporations are leading on not only renewable energy, but they’re also doing a lot regarding efficiency, and they’re also looking at and expanding into participation in wholesale markets through demand response programs.
You know about Google’s wind farms, and Walmart – some of their buildings have solar on their rooftops. So, there are a lot of different ways you’re seeing corporations start to participate in the clean energy economy, and basically offset usage.
ED: Is there room for a stronger corporate commitment to renewable energy?
LS: I think there is a challenge in figuring out how you actually reach certain goals. You know, the low hanging fruit, typically energy efficiency, LED lighting, things like that, a lot of corporations have already done, and so what’s next? There are opportunities where corporations can do more. They sometimes set fairly aggressive goals, and they need to do more to figure out how they’re going to reach those goals.
The low hanging fruit, typically energy efficiency, LED lighting, things like that, a lot of corporations have already done, and so what’s next?
I think even some of the companies that are making the strongest commitments… You know, Walmart, for example, has a gigaton commitment, which is, basically, they’re trying to get a gigaton of carbon out of their supply chain. That’s a very aggressive goal, and they’re not directly controlling the decisions. They’re relying on their supply chain. So, it’s a very interesting tactic. I think that’s a great example of a company who’s going beyond, and that more companies could look at not just their own operations, but their supply chain.
ED: Do you find that these clean energy initiatives are largely coming from the major players, with smaller companies following suit?
LS: I think the large companies have the resources to focus on it, so you certainly see more from them. They’re also larger and have a bigger impact. However, I do think that there are non-Fortune 500 companies who are really taking these commitments seriously and moving forward. You know, even local businesses are starting to take action.
When you recognize that a lot of people understand and believe in climate change, and a lot of people really want to support clean energy for various reasons, some of them economic and some of them for freedom principles, or energy independence, what have you… There are a lot of people who are really trying to embody that, since the political landscape is not driving it.
ED: To what extent do you think that companies are greenwashing?
LS: There are certainly companies greenwashing. What we look for are corporations that really strive for additionality. If you’re buying RECs [renewable energy credits], you need to make sure that the REC comes from a new project and not an existing project that doesn’t add anything to the emissions profile. Some companies unknowingly do this, and don’t realize that they’re not going to ever meet their goals for greenhouse gas emissions.The Future of Renewable Energy – Cities
ED: With Minneapolis as an example of a public statement about 100% clean renewable energy, what does the foundation need to be in order to make such a unilateral commitment?
If you’re buying RECs, you need to make sure that the REC comes from a new project and not an existing project that doesn’t add anything to the emissions profile.
LS: In order for them to make that commitment, what they’re basically saying is that any demand that is coming into the Minneapolis area will be provided by renewable energy. What happens one foot outside of Minneapolis may not be the same. The grid is a system, and the system is regional, and, so, while Minneapolis can procure enough energy to cover their demands, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the system around them is going to be clean, or any cleaner.
ED: Is there a specific roadmap that needs to be followed by cities such as Minneapolis that pinpoint an exact target for sustainable energy?
LS: The roadmap will depend on what the kind of resources are in the area, and, you know, Minnesota is a pretty strong wind state, and they have some pretty good rules regarding community solar, and other solar programs. I could imagine them putting together a roadmap that would basically show increasing procurement over time, and/or investment in actual resources over time, you know, again, maybe through a PPA [power purchase agreement], where a developer owns the property and they’re just procuring the power. Minneapolis could also be a community aggregation city, where they’re basically procuring all the demand for any resident who wants to sign up for that program.
Typically, what you’ll see is a focus on the electricity sector, and then typically that translates to a commitment to basically procure the same amount of supply of renewable energy that meets the demand of the city.The Future of Alternative Energy – Voters & Policy
ED: Why is it so imperative that voters receive impartial facts about the economic impact of emerging clean industries?
LS: Yes, that’s critically important. I just worked on a project about the facts at a political district level for job creation, for wind, and solar, and energy efficiency industries. Part of it is, is that it’s hard to know what the economic impact is. There’s a lot of hype around clean energy, there’s a lot of hype around coal losing jobs, there’s an ebb and flow in the natural gas space for jobs.
There’s a lot of hype around clean energy, there’s a lot of hype around coal losing jobs, there’s an ebb and flow in the natural gas space for jobs.
I think it is critically important to figure out the economic impact of any energy resource and understand, as a transition occurs, where are you going to see job growth and where should you focus on the future instead of focusing on the past.
ED: Why has there been such voter confusion about job growth in the energy industry, especially renewable energy?
LS: Because it’s such a political issue, where you’re actually seeing the jobs and what kind of jobs you’re seeing. There’s been some, you know, push and pull between coal jobs versus solar jobs, and we’ve done some analysis ourselves. From our perspective, we’re seeing a lot of job growth in solar and energy storage, and not hardly anywhere else.
ED: What actions are you seeing domestically to strengthen the commitment to solar, electricity, wind, and other forms of renewable energy?
One of the things that was a big win very recently was Florida. Florida’s been known as being one of the worst solar states, and they just recently passed a bill that allows third-party leasing to participate in the market. Before, they weren’t allowed to have a SolarCity or a Sunrun anywhere in the state, so those businesses could not actually go into that state. And, so, that has been overruled, and that gives a huge opportunity for, increasing the amount of distributed solar in that state.
Florida’s been known as being one of the worst solar states, and they just recently passed a bill that allows third-party leasing to participate in the market.
The ugliest feud happened in Nevada, but Nevada has actually, through a very negative experience, turned around and created some very positive regulations for solar and allowing investors in rooftop solar to be paid for the value that their system’s creating, not just the electrons that it creates.
I think those kinds of policies, where you’re looking at not only the cost of the system, of adding solar, but the benefits of adding solar, and rewarding the people who are making those investment decisions, are incredibly important. There’s a lot of negative stuff out there right now, but there are some shining spots, no pun intended.
This post originally appeared on Energy Dialogues.
http://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2018/05/14/the-latest-trends-in-renewable-energy-tech-markets-and-policy/
-
Gulf's Head Start Trumps Northeast's Petrochemical Ambition
May 14, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Global demand is fueling refining and petrochemical investments along the U.S. Gulf Coast, dampening prospects for an industrial build-out in Appalachia.
The demand boom for fuel and plastics in Asia and Latin America has led to more investment at established energy hubs along the U.S. coast. In the process, plans for a major expansion of petrochemical capacity near the Marcellus and Utica shale gas formations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia have been put on a slower track.
Politicians in those states have been gunning for an industrial boom tied to the region's natural gas liquids, which feed petrochemical plants.
LyondellBasell Industries NV, a global chemical and refining powerhouse, recently celebrated the centennial anniversary of its Houston refinery. Built in 1918 along the Houston Ship Channel by Sinclair Oil Corp., the plant is a centerpiece of the company's Gulf operations.
A century later, officials there still see no reason to stray further inland or shift their manufacturing to the Northeast, said David Kinney, LyondellBasell's director of investor relations. "The combination of a well-trained workforce and the unmatched, interconnected infrastructure found in the region continues to make the U.S. Gulf Coast the preferred location for LyondellBasell's investments," Kinney said.
The Marcellus and Utica states hope to lure some of the tens of billions of dollars being spent on new plants and new production capacity (Energywire, March 22). Royal Dutch Shell PLC remains committed to building a new ethane cracker close to Pittsburgh. Other smaller, specialized petrochemical manufacturers are also expanding or building new facilities in that region, though mainly as a way to meet regional demand.
During a recent analyst meeting, executives at Exxon Mobil Corp. moved to placate investors worried about abandoned investment plans in Russia by emphasizing the company's bold vision for the Permian Basin and its Beaumont, Texas, refining and petrochemical center.
Exxon says it's eyeing another expansion of Beaumont, on top of investments it made there in 2016. New investments could make that plant the largest refinery in the United States.Demand south of the border
Latin America is seen as a linchpin in companies' plans to expand exports. Sandy Fielden, an oil products researcher at Morningstar Commodities Research, points to Exxon's expansion of retail gasoline stands in Mexico as a sign of things to come.
"With U.S. domestic demand basically static in recent years and the Gulf Coast region crowded with competitor refineries, Exxon Mobil will need to look overseas for transport fuel markets," Fielden said in a note to clients. "To this end, the company's push into the downstream Mexico market provides a good indication of its strategy."
Others see rising demand south of the border. "Our refineries are well-situated to take advantage of discounted heavy sour and domestic sweet crude oils versus Brent and to meet the growing demand for refined products in Latin America," Valero Energy Corp. CEO Joe Gorder said in a financial statement, in which the company reported a nearly $300 billion profit boost tied to its refining business in the first quarter compared with the same period last year.
A recent industry assessment by IHS Markit compares the rise in liquids demand growth globally to the commodities "super cycle" period of roughly 2003 to 2007. The period culminated in $148-per-barrel oil prices but ended with the global financial crisis.
As in the prior bull market, demand appears to be driven by appetites for liquid fuels and petrochemicals in Asia, but other regional markets are showing strength. Analysts see demand growth remaining solid until at least the end of this decade.Limited EV influence
IHS Markit analysts Spencer Welch and Eleanor Budds argue in a report that the demand for oil-derived fuels will come despite aggressive investments in electric vehicles. They see demand growth of 1.1 million barrels a day per year out to 2020.
"Although electric vehicles are making headlines, they are not yet a market force to replace the internal-combustion engines that power today's automotive fleets, so oil demand is currently growing strong," wrote Welch. "Although EVs undoubtedly have the potential to disrupt the energy and automotive sectors in the longer term, they currently make up around 1.5 percent to 2 percent of total global vehicle sales, and account for less than 0.5 percent of the global vehicle fleet, so their influence on the oil market, in the short term, is limited."
The two analysts see the current demand growth surge as more durable than during the 2003-07 period because demand is growing for a wide swath of refined products, whereas diesel demand drove the prior cycle. Better economic performance in advanced economies is also helping to lift fuels and petrochemicals demand in those markets.
Some companies, including Exxon, see a potential market for petrochemical-derived plastics production stemming from future growth in lightweight and electric vehicles. Exxon is weighing a U.S. Gulf Coast project that the company says would see it greatly expanding polypropylene manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand for high-performance, lightweight durable plastics.
Company officials say they hope to make a final investment decision by the end of the year. Asian demand will drive its thinking.
LyondellBasell is also looking to Asia. The company credited in part a new polypropylene plant in China for its 2017 success.
LyondellBasell continues to strongly believe in the profitability and competitiveness of its Gulf Coast assets. The region's advantages include access to supplies and natural gas and liquids from a wide array of sources, including the Northeast. Another regional advantage lies with the Houston Ship Channel, where shipments of products to Asia and Latin America are poised to expand.
Kinney, LyondellBasell's director of investor relations, said the rise of the Marcellus Shale has not dented the Gulf Coast's prominence in petrochemicals and refining investments.
"[The Gulf Coast's] advantage persists with developments in shale-based technology elevating regional oil and gas production and driving increased downstream investment," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/14/stories/1060081599
-
Trump Attorneys Side with Oil Companies in Climate Lawsuits
May 14, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Anne C. Mulkern
The Trump administration wants a federal court to throw out two California cities' lawsuits that seek to make oil companies pay for climate change damages.
The Justice Department on Thursday filed an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief in the cases filed by San Francisco and Oakland against the five biggest oil companies: Chevron Corp., BP PLC, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC.
The cities' complaints before Judge William Alsup in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California argue that the companies make and sell products that when combusted create a public nuisance, contributing to sea-level rise and other damages. They say the oil companies knew about climate effects decades ago and hid that information to protect their assets.
But the Trump administration contends that the cities' claims raise questions that should be answered by the executive branch, not the courts.
The case "has the potential to interfere with the United States' ongoing attempts to address the impacts of climate change, both domestically and internationally," the DOJ filing said. "Domestically, the United States has the principal responsibility for implementing and enforcing the Clean Air Act ... which provides the Executive Branch with authority to respond to climate-change effects by regulating greenhouse gas emissions."
EPA has the primary responsibility for administering programs under the law, it said, including those that affect greenhouse gas emissions.
Internationally, DOJ said, "the United States is a party to the Paris Agreement on climate change but is also in the process of withdrawing from that agreement — issues that raise important and complex questions of diplomacy and foreign affairs."
"By suggesting a judicial remedy for climate change ... 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," the filing said.
The complaints from San Francisco and Oakland are the first to move forward among a growing group of lawsuits pitting cities and counties against oil companies on the climate issue. A hearing is scheduled for May 24 in Alsup's court on the oil companies' motions to dismiss the cases.
Also in California, Imperial Beach, San Mateo, Marin County, Richmond, Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz County have sued two dozen or more fossil fuel companies and trade associations in separate cases. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision is pending on whether to uphold U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Judge Vince Chhabria's order sending those suits back to state court from federal court.
Boulder, Boulder County and San Miguel County in Colorado have sued Suncor Energy Inc. and Exxon Mobil, demanding "past and future damages" for climate impacts. King County, Wash., last week sued the same five companies named in the San Francisco and Oakland suits (Greenwire, May 10). The county has the same law firm as those cities, Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.
The DOJ filing additionally raised the issue of prior court cases decided against those seeking action on climate issues. In American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, states sought to cap utility greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations cannot be sued for greenhouse gas emissions because EPA regulates those through the Clean Air Act.
"The Cities ask this Court to fashion a new judicial remedy to address the claimed nuisance of sea-level rise caused by emissions from the combustion of fossil-fuel products produced and sold by Defendants," the DOJ filing said.
"The Cities' approach is novel, but their goal is not: by suing defendants that sell fossil fuels, rather than defendants that use them for combustion to create energy, the Cities hope to avoid the fate of the plaintiffs in AEP, while seeking the same goal through the same theory," it added.'Novel but not crazy'
Legal experts said DOJ filings are taken seriously by judges.
"The government is no ordinary private litigant; its views and advocacy often carry weight with the federal courts beyond that of privately-retained or corporate counsel," said Rick Frank, director of the California Environmental Law & Policy Center at the University of California, Davis.
DOJ appears on "solid ground," Frank said in an email, in its argument that the cities' federal law nuisance claims are displaced by the Supreme Court's finding in the AEP case. He noted, however, that the cities "carefully framed their case as one based on state common law nuisance principles."
The San Francisco and Oakland cases started in state court. The oil companies filed to moved them to federal court, which happened automatically. Alsup ruled that they belonged in the federal venue.
Alsup "has attempted to recast it as one raising federal common law principles," Frank said.
"My quick review of the government's amicus brief indicates that it doesn't speak to plaintiffs' originally-filed state common law nuisance claims."
The Supreme Court did not resolve the issue of state nuisance claims in the AEP decision.
Ann Carlson, co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, in an email noted that Alsup early on in his decision keeping the cases in federal court "indicated that he doesn't believe the lawsuit against oil extractors is displaced by federal law."
"I'm not sure DOJ's presence in the case will have much influence on his decision," Carlson said. "Indeed DOJ's presence could even help the plaintiff cities in the case."
Cara Horowitz, the other co-executive director of the Emmett Institute at UCLA's School of Law, noted that Alsup asked for DOJ's opinion on the viability of claims against fossil fuel companies for climate change harms.
"These claims are novel but not crazy, and Judge Alsup has a reputation for wading through complexity," Horowitz said. "I'm not sure how much DOJ throwing sand into the gears will matter here."Has Trump 'abandoned the field'?
Carlson and Frank said the Trump administration's actions on climate policy could factor in.
"It is a tough position for the U.S. to take that federal common law is displaced because of federal action under the Clean Air Act and internationally at the same time that the administration has announced it will withdraw from the Paris Agreement and repeal the Clean Power Plan," Carlson said.
Frank said that the Trump administration "is retreating as quickly as it possibly can from the fields of climate change policy and greenhouse gas regulation."
He added, "So it seems to me pretty hard for the government to argue that courts don't have a role to play here when the Executive Branch — and Congress — have largely abandoned the field."
Chevron highlighted parts of DOJ's filing in an email to reporters.
The oil company noted that DOJ said that under the cities' theory that the combustion of fossil fuels causes a nuisance, "innumerable foreign, federal, state, and local governments — including the Cities themselves — have contributed to the alleged harms. So has anyone who has ever driven a car." Chevron has made a similar claim in its filings in the case.
John Coté, communications director for San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, on the DOJ filing said that "it's hardly a surprise that Donald Trump's Justice Department is cozying up to Big Oil."
"But this is a legal matter, not a political one," Coté said in an email. "These fossil fuel companies knew for decades that their products were causing global warming and they worked tirelessly to mislead the public about it. Now that they've been caught, they're trying to stick cities like San Francisco with the bill. No thanks ... It's time for them to pay their fair share."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/14/stories/1060081557
-
Court Flags Concerns About Judicial Review of FERC Permits
May 14, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Federal judges appeared sympathetic last week to the plight of landowners in the path of the Mountain Valley pipeline.
In oral arguments at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a coalition of Virginia and West Virginia residents made their case for grappling with legal questions about eminent domain, even though federal regulators haven't yet made a final determination on the issue.
The high-stakes case involves sweeping claims about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's eminent domain process, as well as critical questions about the timing of judicial review for pipeline-related lawsuits. The immediate question before the 4th Circuit: Can the landowners' eminent domain lawsuit move forward in district court right now? If their lawsuit has to wait for further FERC action, will it be too late?
Construction on the 303-mile EQT Corp. project, which stretches from West Virginia to Virginia, is already underway.
"It would be less meaningful to the landowners, obviously, here if by the time they get their complaints heard, the pipe is already in the ground, a $3.7 billion project," Gentry Locke attorney Justin Lugar told the court last week. "The likelihood, I think we all know, of something like that being ripped out of the ground is pretty slim."
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia in December tossed the landowners' key claims, finding that only an appeals court can field a challenge to a FERC pipeline approval.
But the Natural Gas Act stipulates that pipeline certificates cannot be appealed in court until FERC issues a final decision on any rehearing requests. Pipeline construction generally proceeds while such requests are pending, often keeping challengers out of the courtroom until after a pipeline is already in the ground.
The landowners say they're entitled to judicial review now, even though their rehearing requests are still pending at FERC, because their lawsuit is not a claim under the Natural Gas Act, but a constitutional challenge: that FERC's practice of granting eminent domain authority to pipeline developers violates property rights protected under the Fifth Amendment (Energywire, Sept. 13, 2017).
"You can't let FERC allow construction to proceed while these important questions are out there being resolved," Lugar told the 4th Circuit.'An important distinction?'
Judges on the appeals panel seemed frustrated by the judicial review options available to the landowners if FERC's argument is correct that the challenge can be filed only after the agency acts on rehearing requests. FERC usually issues "tolling orders" to extend its 30-day deadline to act on rehearing requests and often takes many months to issue a final decision. Construction is sometimes nearly completed during that time.
Judge Stephanie Thacker, an Obama appointee, asked whether the fact that a delay in FERC action is "guaranteed" sets the case apart from legal precedent that has upheld various judicial review specifications in other contexts.Mountain Valley pipeline route
[+] Landowners in the path of the Mountain Valley pipeline are challenging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's eminent domain process. Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC
"Here, it appears they are barred as a practical matter from all access to the courts until the damage is done," she said. "Isn't that an important distinction?"
Judge Roger Gregory, a Clinton and George W. Bush appointee, continued that thread, asking how a court could grant meaningful relief to landowners who bring a challenge once the pipeline is in the ground.
"What would the remedy look like, the prevailing party's remedy look like, after the pipeline is in the ground and proceeding along its route?" he asked.
FERC attorney Susanna Chu noted that completed pipelines can be excavated.
"Has that ever happened that you excavated a pipeline after meaningful review found that there was an inappropriate grant by FERC?" Gregory replied. "It hasn't, has it?"
Chu acknowledged that she wasn't aware of any example of that but maintained that courts can and have remanded pipeline certificates to the agency to conduct additional review. Congress specifically set out this judicial review process in the Natural Gas Act, she said.
"They will have access to the court at the conclusion, but in the meantime, they simply can't bypass those procedures and bring a free-standing complaint in district court to try to sidestep the congressional procedures," she told the panel, which also included Judge James Wynn Jr., an Obama appointee.
Lugar, the landowners' lawyer, said he was encouraged by the court session.
"I think the judges understand and were asking the right questions," he said Friday. "They really homed right in on the key issues."
A decision is expected in the coming months. Another set of landowners has made similar arguments against eminent domain for both the Mountain Valley pipeline and the nearby Atlantic Coast pipeline. That case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; several other lawsuits taking aim at various federal approvals for the projects are also in progress.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/14/stories/1060081593
-
Troubling Link Found Between Pollution Exposure in Pregnancy, High Blood Pressure in Children
May 14, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
High blood pressure typically occurs in adulthood, so when children develop the condition, it often means something is very wrong. A child might have kidney disease, hyperthyroidism or a heart problem. Obesity can also be a factor.
But what about seemingly healthy youngsters whose blood pressure has shot up?
Their risk, a study suggests, may trace back to before their birth.
In a paper published Monday in the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension, researchers reported that children of mothers who were exposed in their third trimester to higher levels of fine particulate pollution — the tiny airborne matter that causes haze in many cities around the world — were at a 61 percent higher risk of elevated blood pressure.
The study of families in the Boston area involved 1,293 mothers and their children, ages 3 to 9. About 160 of the children had elevated blood pressure. Pollution levels were gauged by looking at home addresses and nearby Environmental Protection Agency monitors to measure air quality. Those readings are taken as often as every three days.
Noel Mueller, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and his colleagues zeroed in on the microscopic solids and droplets that are 2.5 microns or less in width and are particularly insidious because they can get into the lungs, bloodstream and heart.
There is a large body of research — the EPA cites thousands of studies — that shows the severe impact of fine particulate matter on human health, particularly the respiratory system. But this is among the first to show that a pregnant mother's exposure may harm her offspring.
Mueller said that it is possible the particles may have caused intrauterine inflammation in the mothers, thus altering fetal growth patterns and “programming a baby to have a higher risk for blood pressure during childhood.” But he emphasized in an interview that this is only a theory and that much more work must be done to confirm the association and understand what might be happening.
While high blood pressure in children does not usually produce any symptoms, it can lead to early heart attack, stroke or other serious health issues. In 2017, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated its guidelines for screening and managing high blood pressure in youth. Diagnosing hypertension in adults is simple, with the threshold now set at 130/80. But the bodies of children change so quickly that the definition of “normal” has to take into account age, sex and height.
In the study, the researchers adjusted for race and ethnicity, birth weight, maternal smoking and alcohol intake, as well as other factors known to influence blood pressure.
The highest level of pollution exposure the mothers experienced was 11.8 micrograms per cubic meter or greater, which is just below the EPA’s air-quality standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter. Exposures at higher levels are considered to be risky, but Mueller said the new study provides more support for maintaining or even lowering the standard to ensure that Americans are breathing healthful air.
It also suggests some practical advice for pregnant women in the third trimester: “You might consider not going outside in highly polluted areas during that time because of the risk,” he said.
The families involved are part of the long-term Boston Birth Cohort study, which is partially funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, so researchers hope to continue tracking them and publish follow-up reports. A previous study from California found a similar relationship between maternal exposure to a different pollutant — nitrogen dioxide, which comes from cigarette smoke or the burning of fossil fuels — and high blood pressure in children.
In an opinion piece published with the study, Diane Gold and Antonella Zanobetti of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health noted that the research did not look at the season of a child's birth, which might affect pollution levels in a temperate zone such as Boston's. Nor did it look at differences in the city's pollution levels over time. The young subjects were enrolled from 1998 to 2012, a period when much of the country woke up to the harmful effects of pollution and undertook greater efforts to reduce pollution.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/14/troubling-link-found-between-pollution-exposure-in-pregnancy-high-blood-pressure-in-kids/?utm_term=.fa51f6225838
-
DOJ Seeks to Avoid Discovery in Youth Climate Case
May 14, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking a federal district judge in Oregon to halt discovery in a novel climate case brought by 21 youth plaintiffs, who claim the federal government is violating their constitutional rights by failing to protect them from the impacts of climate change, and is instead seeking a ruling based on the pleadings so far.
The May 9 filings come after DOJ failed to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to halt the case,Juliana, et al. v. United States of America, using an extraordinary remedy known as a writ of mandamus that allows a higher court to get involved in a case pending at a lower court before it is complete.
Then the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon scheduled a trial for Oct. 29 to determine whether the government should be forced to adopt a broad “climate protection plan” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to levels scientist deem safe.
The litigation is seen as facing an uphill battle on the merits, but a high-profile trial just days before the midterm elections could increase public pressure on the Trump administration to reduce GHGs.
DOJ's motion to stay discovery claims that the process of gathering information about the position of administration officials on climate change is “precluded by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and barred by the Constitution.” DOJ's earlier appeal effort was based on claims that the plaintiffs' discovery request was overly burdensome -- claims that both the plaintiffs and the 9th Circuit rejected.
In the new filing, DOJ says the suit is nonjusticiable and that there is no judicial right in the earth's climate under the Constitution or public trust doctrine. It also argues that the APA limits judicial review to the administrative record, “and therefore precludes and obviates the need for any discovery” here.
It adds that APA provisions for notice-and-comment rulemaking and agency statutory authority “foreclose any prospect for the Court to require the Defendant agencies and officials to take public policy positions or make factual assessments on matters concerning climate change through depositions.”
And it says even if discovery were not barred by the APA, it would be by the Constitution because the plaintiffs are seeking positions that would “invade the President's exclusive constitutional authority to supervise the Executive Branch, require the opinions of his principal officers, and formulate policy recommendations. . . .
“Limiting review of agency action to the agency record reflects fundamental separation of powers principles.”
A separate motion for judgment on the pleadings asks the court to decide the complaint “with prejudice,” claiming that the court lacks jurisdiction over President Donald Trump. “This Court lacks jurisdiction over Plaintiffs' claims against the President, and Plaintiffs fail to state valid claims against all other Defendants,” it says.
The same court already ruled against the Obama administration, which sought to dismiss the case on procedural grounds, including claiming that the plaintiffs lack standing, that there is no constitutional right to be free of carbon dioxide emissions, that there is no federal public trust doctrine and that courts lack jurisdiction to consider the “political questions” that other branches of government must address.
But just days after Trump won election in 2016, Judge Ann Aiken rejected all of those claims and said the case could move to trial. The Trump DOJ then sought a belated mandamus appeal to the 9th Circuit. Industry intervenors exited over discovery concerns, saying the new administration could adequately articulate their positions.
The 9th Circuit then returned the case to the district court to proceed.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/doj-seeks-avoid-discovery-youth-climate-case
-
U.S. Fines Cargo Company for Dumping Waste with Hidden Pipes
May 14, 2018 | Wall Street Journal (In E&E Greenwire)
By Erica Phillips
The Justice Department has fined a Japanese cargo-vessel company $1 million for polluting waters off North Carolina.
The fine for Nitta Kisen Kaisha Ltd. is the latest in the U.S. government's effort to crack down on shipping companies that discharge pollutants into ocean waters.
In particular, the government has been trying to crack down on "magic pipes"; ships release oily waste through hidden hoses that circumvent cleaning devices.
The Coast Guard found that the Japanese ship contained such hidden hoses during an inspection in May 2017, according to prosecutors. And Nitta engineers admitted to pouring pollutants through the hoses during the vessel's recent transport of industrial materials to North Carolina.
Nitta and its chief engineer have both been placed on probation, and the company has been ordered to develop a compliance plan that will be subject to monitoring for three years.
Since the late 1990s, when DOJ first began prosecuting shipping firms for pollution crimes, 140 companies have been convicted and fined a total of around $472 million.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/14/stories/1060081633
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested