Preview Newsletter
ACC PM
-
Lawsuit Over BPA-Like Compounds Prompted Rhetorical Shift
Feb 16, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
Companies that have tried to win over health-conscious consumers by touting plastics as "BPA-free" may need a new catchphrase: "EA-free," or free of any chemicals that mimic the estrogen hormone. -
Public Comment On Chemical Regulations Ends Tuesday
Feb 16, 2015 | AP (In WABI TV)
Maine officials are almost finished with the public comment period on proposed regulations of household chemicals that could harm children and pregnant women in particular. -
Loosely Regulated Substance Could Cause Respiratory Ailments in Workers
Feb 16, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
Doctors suspect a chemical used to flavor food products, diacetyl, harms the respiratory system when inhaled, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has failed to develop an exposure limit for workers who manufacture the compound. -
Lawmakers Mull Boosting Chemical Disclosures, But Not to Public
Feb 16, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
Lawmakers in Texas have proposed new information-sharing rules for chemical companies, but proposed legislation would not disclose the data to the public. -
Trash-Burning Plant Protected in California Climate Fights
Feb 15, 2015 | The Sacramento Bee
By David Siders
Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León proposed legislation last week to increase the amount of electricity California derives from renewable sources, continuing the Capitol’s longstanding tradition of excluding from what counts as “renewable” any power generated from burning household trash. -
Incinerator's Special Status May be on Chopping Block Amid Climate Battle
Feb 16, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
As California readies to battle climate change, some state lawmakers are trying to save a special carveout for one trash-burning facility. -
Train Carrying Crude Oil Derails in Ontario
Feb 15, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Carolyn King and Rita Trichur
A train carrying crude oil and operated by Canadian National Railway Co. derailed near the town of Timmins in northern Ontario just before midnight on Saturday, causing a fire but no reported injuries. -
Train Carrying Crude Derails, Burns in Ontario
Feb 16, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
A train carrying crude oil derailed in northern Ontario on Saturday and caused a fire but no injuries.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
-
Lawsuit Over BPA-Like Compounds Prompted Rhetorical Shift
Feb 16, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
Companies that have tried to win over health-conscious consumers by touting plastics as "BPA-free" may need a new catchphrase: "EA-free," or free of any chemicals that mimic the estrogen hormone.
Court proceedings between Eastman Chemical Co., maker of the BPA-free plastic Tritan, show how the plastic helped Eastman gain market share in the face of consumer unease over BPA, or bisphenol-A.
George Bittner, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Texas, Austin, has urged consumers to avoid Tritan. Bittner is the founder of PlastiPure, a company that makes plastics without estrogenic chemicals, and a testing company called CertiChem. PlastiPure has distributed materials that said Tritan was not free of all hormone-disrupting chemicals.
Eastman began touting Tritan as "EA-free" in response and sued Bittner's firm. In 2013, a federal jury agreed with Eastman, and the ruling was upheld on appeal in 2014.
The court battle has put a stop to PlastiPure's comments about Tritan, but that doesn't mean consumers won't understand the issue, Bittner said.
"I think people are recognizing that it's not the courts that determine scientific questions," Bittner said (Jon Hamilton, NPR, Feb. 16). -- SP
-
Public Comment On Chemical Regulations Ends Tuesday
Feb 16, 2015 | AP (In WABI TV)
Maine officials are almost finished with the public comment period on proposed regulations of household chemicals that could harm children and pregnant women in particular.
The proposal would elevate four phthalates from “high concern” to “priority chemical” status under state rules. Manufacturers would need to report the use of the chemicals in products sold in Maine.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is taking public comment until Tuesday.
Phthalates are used in products like raincoats and personal care items. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says some types of phthalates have affected reproductive systems in lab animals.
The Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine says the state’s proposal leaves pregnant women under-informed about which products — like cosmetics and shampoo — contain phthalates.
-
Loosely Regulated Substance Could Cause Respiratory Ailments in Workers
Feb 16, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
Doctors suspect a chemical used to flavor food products, diacetyl, harms the respiratory system when inhaled, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has failed to develop an exposure limit for workers who manufacture the compound.
Doctors assumed Emanuel Diaz de Leon, who poured jugs of the concentration into giant vats at a coffee roasting plant in 12-hour shifts in Tyler, Ill., had asthma or bronchitis when he had trouble breathing. Eventually, they learned he had a disease called bronchiolitis obliterans, which causes irreversible damage to the lungs.
Manufacturers and the National Coffee Association have held meetings to discuss the health risks of diacetyl, and the compound is on OSHA's radar, but the agency has declined to restrict it because it fears companies would shift to other chemicals that are just as dangerous.
Diacetyl has spread during this time into other products like e-cigarettes, where consumers directly inhale it. A study by the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco found as many as 70 percent of e-cigarettes contain the chemical.
OSHA proposed regulating exposure to diacetyl in January 2009 but backed away in the face of opposition from a variety of industries, which argued that they did not use enough of the chemical to justify imposing new restrictions.
David Michaels, assistant secretary of Labor for OSHA, said regulating diacetyl would shift the industry to other chemicals, and the agency would have to start over again with a crackdown on the new chemicals.
"It's regulatory Whac-A-Mole," Michaels said. "This chemical-by-chemical approach doesn't work" (Raquel Rutledge, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb. 14). -- SP
-
Lawmakers Mull Boosting Chemical Disclosures, But Not to Public
Feb 16, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
Lawmakers in Texas have proposed new information-sharing rules for chemical companies, but proposed legislation would not disclose the data to the public.
Three state lawmakers have filed bills to require the implementation of a statewide safety protocol for sites that store ammonium nitrate, the type of fertilizer that exploded nearly two years ago in West, Texas. The bills would also grant the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality responsibility for gathering facility compliance data, rather than the Department of State Health Services.
The bills would allow the state fire marshal to request inspections of the facilities and require more information sharing between state and local planners and response workers. The legislation, however, would not require facilities to share additional information with the public on the types and levels of their chemical stockpiles.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said during his campaign last year that he didn't support requiring state agencies to disclose new information on chemical stockpiles, arguing that it would present a security risk. He said Texans could "drive around" if they wanted to figure out where these facilities are located.
Craig McDonald, director of the liberal watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, said the lack of transparency would harm the public.
"Texas is turning back from the principle of transparent and open government," McDonald said (Lauren McGaughy, Houston Chronicle, Feb. 13). -- SP
-
Trash-Burning Plant Protected in California Climate Fights
Feb 15, 2015 | The Sacramento Bee
By David Siders
CROWS LANDING Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León proposed legislation last week to increase the amount of electricity California derives from renewable sources, continuing the Capitol’s longstanding tradition of excluding from what counts as “renewable” any power generated from burning household trash.
But de León, like lawmakers before him, acknowledged one exception: Any garbage-burning facility “located in Stanislaus County that was operational prior to September 26, 1996.”
The carve-out, tucked into existing law and included – with significant limitations – in de León’s proposal, applies to only one plant in California, a Central Valley incinerator that has stood for years as a tradeoff to moderate Democrats for their support on controversial environmental bills.
Former Rep. Dennis Cardoza, then a Democratic assemblyman from Merced, demanded the Legislature make the facility eligible for renewable energy credits when it adopted an energy standard in 2002. Lawmakers sustained the facility’s special status when they updated the bill nine years later, leaving the provision intact to avoid complicating passage of an already-difficult bill.
Cardoza supports waste-to-energy technology and cited the economic benefit to his district of the Stanislaus County plant. But the environmental benefits of burning garbage are hotly debated, and the state’s two other plants that burn municipal solid waste, both in Southern California, have never been classified as renewable energy sources.
Now, as the Legislature prepares to take up a sweeping package of environmental legislation – including a proposal to expand California’s renewable energy law – the Stanislaus County facility, off Interstate 5 in the farmlands south of Patterson, is emerging as a point of focus once again. The plant’s energy designation is significant because renewable power can be sold at a premium.
“These pet projects, it seems kind of ridiculous,” said Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. “It seems like decisions should be made on whether it’s beneficial to the state as a whole.”
De León’s proposal would let stand any renewable energy credits claimed by utilities for electricity they have already purchased from the Stanislaus Resource Recovery Facility, as well as energy produced this year. But it would eliminate the facility’s special status as a renewable energy source starting in 2016.
Two days after the pro tem announced the bill, Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, began pushing back. He said that while the Legislature has given wealthier, coastal California areas special treatment, including with a film tax credit benefiting Hollywood interests, the Valley “seems to keep coming out on the losing end.”
Gray defended the carve-out for the Stanislaus County facility and said its permanent extension should be “part of the discussion” in the upcoming debate over de León’s environmental package.
“I’m not going to support policies that don’t ensure some success for every Californian in every community,” he said.
De León and Gov. Jerry Brown have proposed, among other measures, reducing petroleum use in cars by as much as 50 percent within 15 years and increasing to one-half from one-third the proportion of electricity derived from renewable sources such as wind and solar.
The Stanislaus County plant, operated by a New Jersey-based company, Covanta, is one of three municipal waste-burning facilities that opened in California in the 1980s. The company said the plant processes about 800 tons of municipal solid waste each day and generates as much as 22 megawatts of power, enough for about 20,000 homes.
The technology, in which steam from burning trash is converted into electricity, diverts garbage from landfills, a source of the potent greenhouse gas methane. It also recovers metals that might otherwise not be recycled.
But the process itself emits greenhouse gases and smog-forming pollutants, and the Legislature generally excluded such facilities when it first required utilities to get a portion of their electricity from renewable sources in 2002.
The exemption for the Covanta facility, said Matt Freedman, staff attorney for The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, was a “naked special interest deal.” By contrast, a bill by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, to expand renewable energy eligibility to the state’s other two combustion facilities, in Long Beach and Commerce, died in committee in 2013.
“It’s not a big deal in the scheme of things,” Freedman said. “However, I think that there is a goal of trying to rationalize the policy going forward, and it’s not clear why a single facility of this resource type should receive special treatment when there’s a general policy of not allowing trash burning to count as a renewable energy.”
Jeff Ruoss, the manager at the Covanta facility, said the ability to sell renewable energy credits is “part of the basic financial stability of the plant.” As truckloads of trash pulled into his facility one recent morning, Ruoss lamented environmentalists’ ongoing criticism of household waste-to-energy technology.
“It’s kind of sad,” he said. “I got into this business right out of college because I thought – and I still believe – it’s environmentally friendly.”
Cardoza on Friday said it’s better to turn trash into energy “and not have to use ag land to landfill it.” Including the Stanislaus County facility in the energy bill in 2002, he said, “made the economics work.”
“You know, Stanislaus County was really trying to do some cutting-edge things that were really unique and forward-leaning at a time when it wasn’t common,” Cardoza said. “This was a really important economic plant and ecological plant that panned out for the county and, I think, for the region.”
-
Incinerator's Special Status May be on Chopping Block Amid Climate Battle
Feb 16, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
As California readies to battle climate change, some state lawmakers are trying to save a special carveout for one trash-burning facility.
The Stanislaus Resource Recovery Facility in Stanislaus County was made eligible for renewable energy credits in 2002 when the California Legislature adopted a statewide energy standard.
Supporters of the facility's special status said there are many economic benefits of the waste-to-energy plant, but environmentalists question the ecological impact of the plant.
The plant processes about 800 tons of solid waste each day and generates as much as 22 megawatts of power, which is enough to provide electricity for 20,000 homes, said the company.
The Legislature is preparing to take up a huge package of environmental legislation, including a proposal to expand the state's energy law, and the plant's renewable energy designation is expected to be up for debate.
One of the proposals being floated would let the incinerator's energy status expire in 2016. Other incinerators in the state do not receive the same renewable energy status (David Siders, Sacramento Bee, Feb. 15). -- MH
-
Train Carrying Crude Oil Derails in Ontario
Feb 15, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Carolyn King and Rita Trichur
A train carrying crude oil and operated by Canadian National Railway Co. derailed near the town of Timmins in northern Ontario just before midnight on Saturday, causing a fire but no reported injuries.
The train derailed in a remote wooded area, according to a spokesman for Montreal-based CN, Canada’s largest railroad company. He said the railway company had deployed firefighting and environmental crews to the scene. The cause of the incident wasn’t yet known, he said.
“Our emergency crews continue to conduct a full site assessment to determine the number of rail cars derailed and involved in the fire, and if any product has been spilled,” said CN spokesman Patrick Waldron in an emailed statement on Sunday afternoon.
“Seventy-one cars of the 100-car train have been safely moved away from the derailment site. Early site assessments indicate that at total of 29 cars are involved in the incident. That same assessment indicates that seven cars of those 29 are involved in the fire,” he added.
Canada’s transportation safety agency said separately that it had sent a team of investigators to the site of the derailment. It is believed that all of the train’s 100 cars were carrying oil, said Rob Johnston, a spokesman for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. The area did not require an evacuation, he added.
The accident, however, disrupted passenger-rail service. VIA Rail said it was canceling trains running between Toronto and Winnipeg until the rail line was passable.
“VIA Rail will provide alternate transportation to customers already en route or scheduled to board the train today, for those passengers travelling between Toronto and Winnipeg, in both directions,” said VIA, a government-run company, in a release.
The CN spokesman said the train was traveling eastbound and that CN was working to determine the cause of the derailment. Still, he noted the train “was visually inspected four times and passed over a wayside safety detector approximately 20 miles before the derailment with no issues identified.”
Added Mr. Waldron: “The track was last inspected visually Saturday morning, and with rail flaw detector and geometry test car within the last week.”
The transportation of oil by rail has soared in recent years amid the boom in North American oil production. The practice has come under intense scrutiny since an oil train derailed and exploded in a small town in Quebec in 2013, killing 47 people. There have been numerous other, non-deadly incidents since that one, which led Canadian and U.S. regulators to tighten multiple rules around the practice.
-
Train Carrying Crude Derails, Burns in Ontario
Feb 16, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
A train carrying crude oil derailed in northern Ontario on Saturday and caused a fire but no injuries.
The train, operated by Canadian National Railway Co., derailed in a remote wooded area, and the cause of the incident is still under investigation.
Firefighting crews and environmental cleanup specialists were immediately dispatched to the scene.
"Our emergency crews continue to conduct a full site assessment to determine the number of rail cars derailed and involved in the fire and if any product has been spilled," said Patrick Waldron, a company spokesman.
Twenty-nine of the 100 cars of the train were involved in the accident, and seven of those cars sustained fire damage, said Waldron (King/Trichur, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 15). -- MH
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
Add recipients
Suggested