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ACC PM 5/16/18

Industry and Association News

(ACC Blog) EPA Can Increase Transparency and Protect Individual Privacy
May 16, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters

Many critics of EPA’s proposed rule on “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” would have people believe that protecting individual privacy and increased public access to research data are mutually exclusive, which is false.
(ACC Mentioned) Instead of Tariffs ...
May 15, 2018 | World Trade Online

While issues surrounding the future of the U.S.-China trade relationship are playing out at multiple levels, threats of U.S.-imposed tariffs remain both on the table and at the center of ongoing hearings and thousands of comments following a U.S. Section 301 investigation and subsequent tariffs pledge.
Scott Pruitt on Capitol Hill: Highlights from Round 3
May 16, 2018 | The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman and Coral Davenport

Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday and fielded questions from lawmakers about allegations of ethical abuses and excessive spending.
4 Policy Questions Pruitt Might Face Today
May 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen

Scott Pruitt is back in the hot seat on Capitol Hill this morning, this time to defend the Trump administration's EPA budget request before Senate appropriators.
Pruitt's Advisers Question 'Secret Science' Plan
May 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman

EPA's Science Advisory Board wants to review Administrator Scott Pruitt's plan to restrict studies the agency uses when crafting regulations.
Pruitt Quietly Advances Planned Regulatory Overhaul
May 16, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow

While EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's "secret science" plan has garnered a good deal of publicity and criticism, another proposal that could transform the agency's rulemaking process has largely flown under the radar.

LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Chemical Management News

EPA Move on Chemical Study May Trip up Pruitt
May 16, 2018 | Politico
By Annie Snider

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is facing a new controversy over chemical contamination that could prove even more damaging than his spate of recent ethics scandals.
Pruitt Says He Was Unaware of Interference with HHS Chemical Study
May 16, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said he did not know that his staff had worked to block a scientific assessment of a hot-button class of chemicals.
Pruitt Says Meeting Victims’ Families Moved Him to Push for Chemical Ban
May 16, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt today said he will push to finalize a ban on the use of methylene chloride in paint strippers following a recent meeting with the families of several people who have died from exposure to the chemical.
NGOs Decry Biocides Exemption in EPA 'Science Transparency' Proposal
May 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch

A controversial proposal from the US EPA on science transparency has come under fire from two environmental NGOs, which fault it for exempting registration data on biocides and pesticides.
NGO Coalition Urges EU Commission to Publish EDC Strategy
May 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch

A coalition of more than 70 health and environmental NGOs is calling on the European Commission to publish its strategy on endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), before this summer.
Study on Rats Finds Glyphosate Disrupts Genes, Gut Bacteria
May 16, 2018 | London Guardian (In E&E Greenwire)
By Arthur Neslen

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weedkiller Roundup, can disrupt genes, sexual development and healthy gut bacteria at doses previously considered safe, according to a new study on rats.
Osha to Align US Rules with Latest GHS
May 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie Miller

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) plans to propose regulatory amendments in 2019, to better align US rules with the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of classification and labelling of chemicals.
Stakeholders Await Canadian Chemical Management Proposal
May 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie Miller

The Canadian government is expected to reveal its proposal for revising the country’s chemicals management system by mid-June, but consultations have left stakeholders guessing on what the plan will contain.
Danish Epa Move Threatens Chemicals Processing Delays
May 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The future relocation of the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could create significant delays to chemicals regulatory work, due to an expected exodus of experts.

Energy News

U.S. Gulf Coast Lacks Deep, Wide Ports -- an Issue for Oil Exports, Says EIA
May 16, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis

The surge in domestic oil exports happened so swiftly that the Gulf Coast’s onshore ports are struggling to ensure space for larger, more cost-effective oceangoing vessels, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
House Appropriators Advance Energy-Water Bill
May 16, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Kelsey Tamborrino

The House Appropriations Committee advanced its fiscal 2019 Energy-Water appropriations bill today by a vote of 29-20, with Democrats voting against a host of policy riders.
Senate Panel Approves Nominee for Energy Post
May 16, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee today moved forward the nomination of Frank Fannon to be assistant secretary for energy resources at the State Department.
FirstEnergy's Dangerous Push for an $8B Bailout: What You Need to Know
May 16, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Dick Munson

A mega utility from Ohio is appealing to the Trump administration for an unprecedented $8-billion, ratepayer-funded bailout, even pointing to a 1950s Korean War Act for relief. It’s FirstEnergy’s last-ditch appeal after losing previous efforts to prop up a fleet of failing coal and nuclear plants.

Chemical Security News

DHS's 5-Year Cyber Plan Comes at 'Turning Point'
May 16, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak

The Department of Homeland Security yesterday released a five-year plan for keeping hackers out of federal agencies and U.S. infrastructure networks.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

FRA Announces $250 Million in PTC Grants
May 16, 2018 | Progressive Rail Roading

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) yesterday issued a notice of funding opportunity for $250 million in grants to help fund the deployment of positive train control technology on freight, intercity passenger and commuter railroads.

Environment News

Trump Has a Messaging Problem on Climate
May 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman

It was noteworthy because of his job title and how infrequently it occurs, but here was Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, talking about climate change.
State Works with Other Countries to Fight Climate Change
May 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Kelsey Brugger

Alaskan officials have been working with diplomats in China, Russia and Canada to combat climate change, Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott said yesterday.
EPA on Track to Meet Court's Ozone Deadline
May 16, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly

EPA remains on course to complete past-due attainment designations for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard by mid-July, according to a court-ordered status report.
Someone, Somewhere, Is Making a Banned Chemical That Destroys the Ozone Layer, Scientists Suspect
May 16, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney

Emissions of a banned, ozone-depleting chemical are on the rise, a group of scientists reported Wednesday, suggesting someone may be secretly manufacturing the pollutant in violation of an international accord.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Blog) EPA Can Increase Transparency and Protect Individual Privacy

May 16, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters

Many critics of EPA’s proposed rule on “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” would have people believe that protecting individual privacy and increased public access to research data are mutually exclusive, which is false. EPA should always strive to base its regulations on the best available science—science that is reliable and unbiased—and make the underlying research and data publicly available in ways that protect personal privacy, confidential business information, proprietary interests and intellectual property rights.
The impetus for EPA’s proposed rule is virtually the same as the agency’s policy put into place by Gina McCarthy during the Obama Administration. The goal of the McCarthy plan was to “increase public access to research data while protecting proprietary interests, intellectual property, and personal privacy.” For years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has also supported public access to data by clearly stating that “all data should be considered for data sharing,” and noting that “sharing data reinforces open scientific inquiry….”
Take a look for yourself at the similarities between NIH’s goals of data sharing and the EPA’s new data transparency proposal. From NIH:
“Sharing data reinforces open scientific inquiry, encourages diversity of analysis and opinion, promotes new research, makes possible the testing of new or alternative hypotheses and methods of analysis, supports studies on data collection methods and measurement, facilitates the education of new researchers, enables the exploration of topics not envisioned by the initial investigators, and permits the creation of new datasets when data from multiple sources are combined.
“In NIH’s view, all data should be considered for data sharing. Data should be made as widely and freely available as possible while safeguarding the privacy of participants, and protecting confidential and proprietary data.”
And here is what EPA’s proposed rule says:
“Enhancing the transparency and validity of the scientific information relied upon by EPA strengthens the integrity of EPA’s regulatory actions and its obligation to ensure the Agency is not arbitrary in its conclusions. By better informing the public, the Agency [is] enhancing the public’s ability to understand and meaningfully participate in the regulatory process.
“Where the Agency is making data or models publicly available, it shall do so in a fashion that is consistent with law, protects privacy, confidentiality, confidential business information, and is sensitive to national and homeland security.”
Further, NIH clearly explains that such information can be protected while improving transparency:
“The rights and privacy of human subjects who participate in NIH-sponsored research must be protected at all times… Prior to sharing, data should be redacted to strip all identifiers, and effective strategies should be adopted to minimize risks of unauthorized disclosure of personal identifiers. Stripping a dataset of items that could identify individual participants is referred to by several different terms, such as ‘data redaction,’ ‘de-identification of data,’ and anonymizing data…”
In addition, advancements have been made and continue to be refined to protect location privacy, which is often referred to as “geomasking.” These new approaches can protect location privacy while allowing for localized epidemiological analyses—such as the investigation of disease clusters.
It is interesting that some organizations, particularly the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), who now criticize EPA’s proposed rule supported the Obama Administration’s efforts to increase public access to scientific data. Following up on that effort, UCS released a 2017 report that listed “transparent decision making” as one of four principles that scientific integrity in federal policymaking should include. UCS describes transparent decision making as:
“Public access to the science itself (allowing for privacy and confidentiality constraints), to the scientists responsible for it, and to information about how it is used to make policy.”
EPA’s proposed rule, like the Obama administration’s directive, clearly states that it contains nothing that “compels the disclosure of any confidential or private information in a manner that violates applicable legal and ethical protections.” So why the change of heart from UCS and others that once supported this important principal of scientific integrity in federal policymaking?
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2018/05/epa-can-increase-transparency-and-protect-individual-privacy/

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(ACC Mentioned) Instead of Tariffs ...

May 15, 2018 | World Trade Online

While issues surrounding the future of the U.S.-China trade relationship are playing out at multiple levels, threats of U.S.-imposed tariffs remain both on the table and at the center of ongoing hearings and thousands of comments following a U.S. Section 301 investigation and subsequent tariffs pledge. Many of the filings by U.S. industry and their associations argue against tariffs and offer alternative approaches. Here’s a sampling:
·       Instead of tariffs, Boeing says, “bilateral engagement can facilitate constructive progress toward the objective of protecting U.S. technology and intellectual property. The U.S. and China on a bilateral basis, and more broadly the G-7, should consider adopting a framework to comprehensively address technology and IP concerns.”
The aviation giant says U.S. aerospace “enjoys a significant trade surplus” with China and adds that the administration’s proposed tariff regime would place the U.S. “at a significant disadvantage” in selling new jets to China, soon to be the world’s largest airplanes market. New tariffs “could increase Boeing’s direct airplane costs by up to $100 million per year,” the company says, and would threaten “a mutually beneficial global business arrangement.”
·       Instead of tariffs, the American Chemistry Council says, the administration should implement a “comprehensive strategy” to address longstanding policy issues; prepare a “list of political and binding commitments and actions China can take to meaningfully address” significant intellectual property issues; and join with “like-minded trading partners” to address China trade practices through “bilateral and multilateral forums with China” and joint enforcement actions.
The national association of chemical companies urges avoidance of “the imposition of tariffs and therefore preempt retaliation by China.” Ample evidence, it says, shows that tariffs produce “higher costs for downstream producers,” fewer jobs and “less economic growth, investment and innovation.” The ACC notes that 5 percent of the more than 1,300 products on the U.S. tariff list involve chemicals and cites “the large amount of equipment, steel, iron and aluminum products on the list.” The effect of tariff imposition will be “chilling,” the group says.
·       Instead of tariffs, the U.S.-China Business Council says, “a holistic approach that considers the economic effects of U.S. actions is needed to effectively address China’s explicit and implicit trade and investment barriers.” The group of 200 U.S. companies doing business in China urges the U.S. to create with China “a regularized, results-oriented dialogue” to address “the valid concerns of American and other foreign companies.” Negotiations would point to, among other things, equal treatment (“regardless of ownership nationality”) under China’s Company Law; elimination of joint venture requirements and foreign equity limitations; and adoption of WTO-consistent criminal penalties “in cases of commercial-scale infringement.”
Unilateral tariffs, USCBSC says, won’t address any of the outstanding issues “and will inflict real economic harm on U.S. businesses and consumers.” A “better” way “would be to work with like-minded countries to develop common or parallel approaches that address these issues with China, rather than singularly expose U.S. companies and workers to retaliation.”
·       Instead of tariffs, Cargill says, the U.S. should enter into a “substantive negotiation” with China and “address some of the most significant challenges facing the U.S. agricultural industry.” Specifically, the Minnesota-based multinational, which focuses on food and agriculture products and services, says the U.S. should urge China to modify its zero-tolerance policy for genetically engineered traits in imported grains; eliminate import quotes for corn and cotton, “which would allow the market to determine demand”; and adopt policies of non-discriminatory treatment of foreign companies (in the context of China’s current review of foreign investment laws).
Recognizing that the administration’s threat of Section 301 tariffs reflects an effort to “generate substantive bilateral dialogue,” Cargill says, “we are concerned that this approach will not effectively advance the goal of addressing distortive trade practices” and could result in “an escalating trade war with long-term consequences in both markets.... There are no winners in a trade war.”
·       Instead of tariffs, the National Association of Manufacturers says, the U.S. should “seize the moment and shift from narrow remedies” to a “comprehensive strategy.” At its center, the national association says, should be pursuit of a “modern, innovative, and comprehensive bilateral trade agreement that wholly restructures our economic relationship with China.” A “radical idea,” NAM admits, but “the most pragmatic and effective way forward.”

NAM says tariffs “will not effectively advance the shared goal of changing ... harmful Chinese practices.” A tariff approach, the group says, would increase direct costs for some manufacturers, “cripple businesses that depend on imports of components and other materials” not currently available from U.S. manufacturers and “harm U.S. exports.”
https://insidetrade.com/trade/instead-tariffs

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Scott Pruitt on Capitol Hill: Highlights from Round 3

May 16, 2018 | The New York Times

By Lisa Friedman and Coral Davenport

Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday and fielded questions from lawmakers about allegations of ethical abuses and excessive spending.
The hearing, before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the environment, was Mr. Pruitt’s third congressional appearance in a month. It is the first opportunity, though, for senators to ask Mr. Pruitt about his first-class travel, his renting of a $50-a-night condo from the wife of a lobbyist with business before the agency and other issues that have become the subject of a series of investigations into Mr. Pruitt’s stewardship of the agency. His earlier appearances were in the House.
This week, a 12th investigation was announced, this one examining Mr. Pruitt’s use of E.P.A. email addresses that he did not disclose, lawmakers said on Tuesday.
Here are the highlights.A rebuke from a fellow Republican
Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, chairwoman of the subcommittee, noted in her opening remarks the heavy interest in Mr. Pruitt’s testimony, including the tightly packed hearing room.
“I would suggest that the size of the audience this morning is an indicator of substantial interest in this hearing,” she said. She told Mr. Pruitt she was concerned that his work at E.P.A. was being overshadowed by his ethics and spending concerns.
“I’m being asked, really constantly asked, to comment on housing and security and travel,” she said. “Instead of seeing articles about efforts to return your agency to its core mission, I’m reading articles about your interactions with the industries that you regulate. Some of this undoubtedly is a result of the ‘gotcha’ age, but I do think there are legitimate questions that need to be answered.”Sharper words from Democrats
Senator Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the full appropriations committee, drew laughter when he questioned Mr. Pruitt’s claim that he was required by his security detail to fly first class because of threats to his life, saying “Nobody even knew who you were.”
“You have to fly first class? Oh come on,” Mr. Leahy said. He said Mr. Pruitt had become “a laughingstock.”
Senator Leahy told Mr. Pruitt he should be protecting the air and water rather than “big polluters” and “industry friends.”
Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico said he had asked the investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, to investigate whether the E.P.A. acted improperly when it appeared to mock Democrats on Twitter after the Senate voted to confirm the agency’s second-in-command, Andrew Wheeler.
The tweet, sent from the agency’s official account on April 13, said, “The Senate does its duty: Andrew Wheeler confirmed by Senate as deputy administrator of @EPA. The Democrats couldn’t block the confirmation of environmental policy expert and former EPA staffer under both a Republican and a Democrat president.”
Senator Udall has asked the accountability office to issue a legal opinion on whether the tweet violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the use of federal funds for publicity or propaganda.
Senator Udall also noted that the G.A.O. had found that the E.P.A. violated federal laws when Mr. Pruitt’s office purchased and installed a $43,000 secure phone booth. “I have a lot of questions for you on this topic,” the senator said. “One month later you haven’t followed the law by reporting to congress or the president, your boss, how you let this happen and how you plan to fix it.”
He called on Mr. Pruitt to resign.A lifeline is thrown
As Democrats continued to level accusations against Mr. Pruitt, Senator Murkowski asked the administrator, “Do you have anything you would like to add in response?” It was a move we’ve seen before: citing concern in an opening statement about Mr. Pruitt’s spending and ethical issues but then allowing Mr. Pruitt to issue an open-ended defense.
In response Mr. Pruitt denied, as he did before two different House panels last month, that he was to blame.
“I would not make the same decisions again,” he said, without detailing which ones. But, he noted, in some cases the E.P.A. was not organized in a way to prevent spending abuses. He specifically cited the secure phone booth, saying, “There were not proper controls early to ensure a legal review.”
Mr. Pruitt said he had introduced a new process afterward to ensure that any expenditure over $5,000 must be approved by the E.P.A. chief of staff and chief financial officer.The condo controversy
Senator Udall questioned Mr. Pruitt about reports that one of Mr. Pruitt’s aides had worked without pay to find housing for the administrator.
(E.P.A. aides have said that Millan Hupp, a scheduler for Mr. Pruitt, helped him find the Capitol Hill condominium that he ultimately rented for $50 a night from the wife of a lobbyist who had business before the agency.)
Mr. Pruitt acknowledged that Ms. Hupp was not paid for her work finding his housing but noted that she was a longtime family friend.
“It doesn’t cut it that they’re a friend,” Senator Udall said. “Did you pay them at the time?”
“All activity that was engaged with was on her personal time,” Mr. Pruitt responded.
Senator Udall: “And did you pay for it?”
Mr. Pruitt: “No, I did not.”
Senator Udall: “Then it’s a gift. It’s a violation of federal law.”
Federal law prohibits officials from accepting gifts from their subordinates that exceed $10.
Mr. Pruitt promised to provide copies of all emails and documents from himself and Ms. Hupp related to the housing search.The Mueller investigation
Senator Udall asked Mr. Pruitt if he supported the completion of the investigation by a special prosecutor, Robert S. Mueller III, into whether the Trump campaign had colluded with Russians.
Mr. Pruitt, who has labored to remain in President Trump’s good graces, initially seemed to suggest that he was unaware of the investigation.
“As a former attorney general — and you and I share that responsibility, we didn’t serve at the same time — and you’re also a law enforcement official at the E.P.A., do you support special counsel Mueller completing his investigation?” Senator Udall asked.
Mr. Pruitt responded, “I’m sorry, ranking member Udall, investigation into? — ”
“A simple yes or no,” Senator Udall responded.
“I’m not familiar — I think the process is continuing,” Mr. Pruitt replied. He added: “I think as attorney general, it’s important for law enforcement, those investigators that serve prosecutors to be able to provide adequate information to them to make informed decisions about how they will proceed as a prosecutor. I did that as attorney general and I would trust that would happen at the federal level as well.”
Senator Udall shot back, “As you know, the right answer is yes.”Lights and sirens
Senator Udall asked Mr. Pruitt if he had ever requested the use of lights and sirens on his E.P.A.-issued vehicle when he traveled for personal reasons. Several E.P.A. aides have said that Mr. Pruitt often wanted to use lights and sirens to expedite trips to airports and dinner, including at least one trip to Le Diplomate, a trendy French restaurant in Washington.
Mr. Pruitt said, “I don’t recall that happening.”
“There were policies in place that govern the use of lights,” Mr. Pruitt said. “Those policies were followed to the best of my knowledge.”
Senator Udall then entered into the record an email from Mr. Pruitt’s former head of security, Pasquale Perrotta, saying that the administrator had encouraged the use of lights.A legal defense fund
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, asked Mr. Pruitt about a New York Times report that the administrator had set up a legal defense fund to to defray the costs related to the investigations into his conduct.
Mr. Pruitt confirmed that the fund had been established. “I understand that’s being set up, yes,” he told Senator Van Hollen. “It’s been set up.”
Senator Van Hollen asked Mr. Pruitt to pledge that all donations to the fund would be made public, and that he would not accept donations from lobbyists or corporations that have business before the E.P.A.
“Absolutely,” Mr. Pruitt said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-hearing.html

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4 Policy Questions Pruitt Might Face Today

May 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Niina Heikkinen

Scott Pruitt is back in the hot seat on Capitol Hill this morning, this time to defend the Trump administration's EPA budget request before Senate appropriators.
The EPA administrator is slated to testify before the Senate Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, where he could face pointed questions about everything from regulatory rollbacks and budget cuts to his plans to hold a climate research debate.
The hearing also marks the first opportunity for senators to question the administrator about a litany of ethics allegations that have piled up since the last time he appeared in the upper chamber of Congress. It's unclear how much of the questioning will stick to policy and funding over scandals, but Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland will be subcommittee members to watch for climate comments as both have been vocal critics of Pruitt's policies on greenhouse gas emissions.
Here are some of the climate change questions Democrats could ask in today's hearing:Can EPA slow down its science overhaul?
EPA has proposed a rule that would change which types of research could be used to support the development of new regulations. The agency wants to require that all data for studies supporting regulations be made publicly available. Critics warn the approach will discount much of the public health data underpinning EPA regulations. The new policy could have implications for how the agency goes about crafting a replacement for the Clean Power Plan, President Obama's signature climate change rule.
Yesterday, Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees EPA, joined fellow Democratic Sens. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Van Hollen and Merkley in signing onto a letter calling for EPA to offer more time to submit public comments on the proposed science rule. The current comment deadline is July 31.
"This proposed rule is expected to have a significant effect on the types and number of scientific studies EPA considers during rulemaking," the senators wrote. "EPA would be well served by giving stakeholders adequate time to draft and submit thorough, well-reasoned comments and by conducting at least one hearing to hear public feedback."
This letter follows a similar one signed by 65 House Democrats two weeks ago, also calling for an extension in the comment period (Greenwire, May 4).When's this climate debate coming?
Last week, the Natural Resources Defense Council released over 500 pages of internal EPA emails regarding the agency's push to publicly debate climate science using a military-style "red team-blue team" exercise. The documents show EPA staff engaging with many of the most strident critics of mainstream climate science.
The emails could be fodder for Merkley, who grilled Pruitt on his planned debate during the administrator's last appearance before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
In January, Merkley told Pruitt the perception of the red team exercise was that it was "on behalf of the Koch brother cartel, [to] continue to mislead the American people about the very significant impacts of carbon pollution, casting doubt on carbon pollution, casting doubt on established science."
Pruitt did not respond when the senator went on to ask him whether he believed climate scientists were split down the middle in terms of how many doubted humans' responsibility for climate change.
Merkley stated he would continue to follow whether Pruitt proceeded with the proposed debate.
"I'll be watching with interest whether you conduct it, if you do conduct it, since we are a year in and haven't seen any evidence of [it] in a way that sheds additional information on important issues as you suggested, or it's just another effort to confuse the public more on well-established scientific information," Merkley said.What's the status of rule rollbacks?
Senators on both sides of the aisle are likely to ask about the deregulatory actions happening at the agency, specifically the Trump administration's efforts to roll back auto emissions standards and controls on greenhouse gases from power plants.
Last month, Pruitt faced numerous questions from lawmakers about his plans for regulating auto emissions and the future of California's waiver authority to set stricter emissions standards. Today, senators are likely to have similar concerns.
A leaked plan shows the administration is considering freezing fuel economy standards at 2020 levels and opposing California's continued ability to tighten auto regulations on its own (E&E News PM, April 27).
Van Hollen is likely to press Pruitt on the specifics of his plan. The Maryland senator has recently introduced legislation with five other Democrats that would stop the Trump administration from rolling back the vehicle emissions standards.
"By reversing the current emissions standards, the Trump Administration is taking money out of the pockets of American consumers and putting it into the coffers of the Koch Brothers and oil companies. ... In the last decade, we've made progress in addressing climate change — rolling back these standards jeopardizes that progress," Van Hollen said in a statement in April.
Pruitt has also avidly touted his efforts to roll back the Clean Power Plan, a regulation aimed at controlling greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
Lawmakers could ask Pruitt for an update on the agency's progress, both in reviewing comments on a proposed rollback that were due last month, and about plans for a likely replacement. EPA is due to release a notice of proposed rulemaking on a replacement for the Clean Power Plan by next month, according to the agency's unified agenda.Are budget cuts appropriate?
The Trump administration has proposed a steep 23 percent cut to EPA for fiscal 2019, a fact that critics have used to put Pruitt's own spending habits in even sharper relief in recent weeks.
The budget cuts include zeroed-out funding for nearly all climate-related research and programs at the agency.
Among the programs the administration proposed eliminating was a voluntary partnership program aimed at helping farmers recover biogas from livestock waste. The Natural Gas STAR Program, a voluntary program for reducing methane leaks, would also lose funds under that proposal.
The White House budget would have taken an even bigger bite out of EPA's funding, but a significant portion of the proposed cuts was offset by an additional $724 million the White House allocated to the agency to comply with Congress' two-year budget deal. This year, the Trump administration did not seek to eliminate the popular Energy Star program. Instead, EPA is seeking to restructure how the program is funded (Climatewire, Feb. 13).
Congress appears poised to reject the deep spending cuts the White House has proposed for the next fiscal year, just as it did for fiscal 2018. A recently released House appropriations bill for fiscal 2019 cut funding to the agency by $100 million (E&E Daily, May 15).
Still, the administration's proposed budget is likely to draw comparisons from lawmakers to reports of Pruitt's spending on travel, security, office improvements and substantial raises for certain political appointees. Udall and a number of other subcommittee members have called for Pruitt to be fired for his misuse of agency funds.
"I always believed Scott Pruitt would be a disaster for health and safety, but even so, I have been shocked at how brazenly he has abused the taxpayers' trust, his office, and this administration," Udall said in a statement last month. "New revelations keep coming to light, and there's no sign that we've reached the end. It's past time for Pruitt to go, and I will be introducing a 'Sense of Congress' resolution calling on him to resign for the good of the American people."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/16/stories/1060081795

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Pruitt's Advisers Question 'Secret Science' Plan

May 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Scott Waldman

EPA's Science Advisory Board wants to review Administrator Scott Pruitt's plan to restrict studies the agency uses when crafting regulations.
The board is now led by a Pruitt appointee, Michael Honeycutt, who signed off on the request for more discussion on Pruitt's plan to limit the agency's use of scientific studies to those that use public data.
In a May 12 memo, members of an SAB working group flagged potential problems with the rule and determined that it could affect regulations by making them more or less stringent. They wrote that they learned of the proposed rule from news articles and the Federal Register and noted that EPA did not provide a description of the proposed action.
EPA is required by law to provide the SAB with "proposed criteria documents, standards, limitations, or regulations provided to any other Federal agency for formal review and comment, together with relevant scientific and technical information on which the proposed action is based," the group said in the memo.
Among the criticisms was that the agency appears to have developed the rule without consulting actual researchers.
"The precise design of the rule appears to have been developed without a public process for soliciting input from the scientific community," the group wrote. "Nor does the preamble to the rule describe precisely how the proposal builds on previous efforts to promote transparency such as the Information Quality Act and EPA's Information Quality Guidelines."
The proposed rule is based on legislation by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Pruitt adopted Smith's legislation, once known as the "Secret Science" bill, after it passed the House multiple times but failed to make it through the Senate. Smith and other proponents of the legislation say it's necessary to increase accountability in science used in regulations that can have an economic impact.
Critics say it's designed to eliminate consideration of major health studies that form the backbone of the Clean Air Act and air pollution provisions. One of the targets of the proposed rule is widely considered to be the Harvard Six Cities Study, a groundbreaking body of research that connected air pollution to significant health problems.
The researchers wrote in their memo that the Harvard study has been reviewed multiple times, by researchers who did not have access to its underlying data but came to similar conclusions.
"EPA's Science Advisory Board plays an important role in informing EPA actions on policy and regulatory matters," an EPA spokesman said. "We value the Board's expertise, and we welcome feedback from the chartered panel on areas in which they are interested in getting additional scientific information that is relevant to the rulemaking process."
The SAB working group found that the proposed rule did not ascertain the effect of data restrictions on existing regulations, nor did it consider the costs of imposing such a program. The researchers acknowledged that some scientific disciplines need more transparency but said the field has already been moving in that direction. They noted that many human health studies are conducted with the condition and agreement that the subject's confidentiality will be protected. They wrote that the proposed rule might be better applied to future studies, rather than those that are already in use at the agency.
"The Work Group also found that the rule is highly controversial (indeed a similar legislative effort in the House has been stalled in Congress for several years) and could have long-term implications," they wrote. "Furthermore, the rule could have the effect of removing legal, ethical, and peer-reviewed studies of health effects as sources to support the agency's regulatory efforts."
The researchers noted that EPA already has "mechanisms for vetting science through several expert panels," including the SAB itself. They also requested that EPA provide a scientific and technological basis for its proposed actions.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/16/stories/1060081837

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Pruitt Quietly Advances Planned Regulatory Overhaul

May 16, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

By Maxine Joselow

While EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's "secret science" plan has garnered a good deal of publicity and criticism, another proposal that could transform the agency's rulemaking process has largely flown under the radar.
EPA last month quietly submitted a proposal titled "Increasing Consistency and Transparency in Considering Costs and Benefits in the Rulemaking Process" to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The proposal is in the prerule stage and is under standard review at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. EPA has not yet published a draft version.
Like the "secret science" plan, this proposal could have profound consequences for EPA's overall approach to assessing the need for new or stiffer regulations to protect public health and the environment.
But while the "secret science" plan would restrict the types of studies that can be used in crafting new regulations, this proposal would improve the cost-benefit analyses that provide the economic justification for new rules.
An EPA spokeswoman told E&E News, "While we do not comment on the substance of an action under formal interagency review, the agency is seeking to provide consistency and certainty in the way EPA calculates costs and benefits of its regulations." She declined to answer a list of emailed questions.
According to the site Reginfo.gov, EPA has already held meetings on the proposal with three industry groups: the American Petroleum Institute, American Forest & Paper Association and National Association of Manufacturers.
The three powerful trade associations regularly weigh in on environmental regulations. For instance, API has been a vocal opponent of the renewable fuel standard, while NAM has repeatedly urged EPA to reform its New Source Review permitting program.
All three groups were tight-lipped about the meetings.
API spokesman Reid Porter said in an email, "API regularly engages with members at all levels of the administration on public policies that will strengthen our country and benefit all American workers, consumers and the environment." He declined to comment further.
A spokeswoman for AF&PA said Paul Noe, the lobbyist who was listed as attending an April 25 meeting with EPA, was unavailable for an interview. She declined to answer emailed questions.
NAM didn't respond to multiple emails seeking comment.
When contacted for this article, regulatory policy experts at progressive organizations said they hadn't heard of the proposal, but once they learned of it, they grew concerned.
"I think it's just another way to put their thumb on the scale and rig how benefits are counted for EPA regulations," said Yogin Kothari, Washington representative with the Union of Concerned Scientists' Center for Science and Democracy.
"This, of course, is all window dressing for: (1) justifying weaker regulations and (2) wasting agency resources," James Goodwin, a senior policy analyst with the Center for Progressive Reform, said in an email.'Justify whatever ends it wants'
In order to justify the repeal of major rules — defined as those that have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more — agencies must find that their costs outweigh their benefits.
Environmentalists have previously expressed concern that in its zeal for implementing President Trump's deregulatory agenda, EPA has downplayed the benefits of rules in favor of emphasizing the compliance costs (Greenwire, Jan. 26).
For example, EPA's proposal to ax the Clean Power Plan suggested the rule's climate benefits could be about $20 billion less annually than the Obama administration contended, while the compliance costs could be about $20 billion more annually than previous estimates.
"I think the Clean Power Plan cost-benefit analysis — and the difference of opinion between this administration and the previous administration — shows that cost-benefit analysis is a means for any administration to justify whatever end it wants," Kothari said. "This administration is using it to roll back and weaken a lot of science-based safeguards."
And EPA’s proposal to repeal the Clean Water Rule maintained the previously calculated costs but reduced the benefits by 85 to 90 percent (Greenwire, July 7, 2017).'Consistent best practices'
Regulatory policy experts at conservative organizations, meanwhile, expressed cautious optimism that the proposal would introduce more consistency into the rulemaking process.
"We need to look closer at how [cost-benefit analyses] are being done and establish some consistent best practices," said Diane Katz, senior research fellow in regulatory policy at the Heritage Foundation.
James Broughel, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said, "Whether or not what the Trump administration proposes is going to be a step in the right direction or not, I don't know. But I think movement toward more consistency and more transparency is clearly a good idea."
He added, "Up until the Trump administration, most of the air quality regulations tended to include estimates of co-benefits. So they could be trying to introduce more consistency into how these co-benefits are accounted for."
Susan Dudley, who served as OIRA administrator during the George W. Bush administration, said she would reserve her judgment for when the draft text becomes available.
"It's under review at OIRA now, and I really don't know what to expect from it," said Dudley, who now heads the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, in an email.
"It's unusual to write a rulemaking to guide internal agency regulatory analysis," she added. "I will be very interested to read it when OIRA concludes review!"
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/16/stories/1060081865

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Chemical Management News

EPA Move on Chemical Study May Trip up Pruitt

May 16, 2018 | Politico

By Annie Snider

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is facing a new controversy over chemical contamination that could prove even more damaging than his spate of recent ethics scandals.
When Pruitt returns to Capitol Hill Wednesday, he will likely be asked to explain why EPA helped to bury a federal study that would have increased warnings about toxic chemicals found in hundreds of water supplies across the country. A handful of Republicans were quick to demand answers after POLITICO reported Monday that senior aides to Pruitt intervened after the White House warned of a "public relations nightmare" from the impending Health and Human Services Department assessment.
While Pruitt has said partisan witch hunts are to blame for the controversies around his first-class travel, extensive security spending and friendliness with lobbyists, he will struggle to make the same case this time. Emails released under the Freedom of Information Act indicate the HHS study was being prepared for release in January, before EPA intervened. It has not been made public more than three months later, and the agency producing it says it has no timeline for doing so.
Long used in Teflon and firefighting foam, the chemicals PFOA and PFOS are linked with certain cancers, thyroid problems and life-threatening pregnancy complications. Studies have found them in 98 percent of Americans’ blood, and communities from West Virginia to Michigan to New York have been in an uproar after discovering that their drinking water has been contaminated with the chemicals.
Tristan Brown, who served as the Obama administration’s liaison between EPA and members of Congress when the agency issued a health advisory for PFOA and PFOS in 2016, said that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are deeply concerned about the issue. He said anger over the Trump administration’s interference could snowball if powerful Republicans who have experienced contamination in their states speak out strongly.
“That could be the beginning of a breach of the dam,” Brown said.
Already, key Senate Republicans have shown their willingness to break with the Trump administration when it comes to chemical contamination. In December, North Carolina’s two Republican senators came out in opposition to the administration’s nominee to head EPA’s chemical safety office, industry consultant Michael Dourson, in part because of a crisis in their home state with a chemical similar to PFOA and PFOS, called GenX.
At least three Republican lawmakers have joined a host of Democrats in demanding answers from the Trump administration about the HHS study.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, which experienced a major chemical spill a few years ago and has a major PFOA and PFOS problem, said she wants to see the study made public.
“It’s important that the findings of the study are released so we can determine the health impacts and any potential threats our communities may face as a result of exposure to perfluorinated chemicals. I would encourage the administration to look into this matter,” Capito, a member of the Appropriations subcommittee with EPA jurisdiction, where Pruitt will testify Wednesday, said in a statement to POLITICO.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), who chairs a House Armed Services subcommittee, chimed in as well.
“This is not an issue of public relations — this is an issue of public health and safety,” he said in a statement Tuesday after writing to Pruitt on the matter.
"It would be unacceptable if the political considerations of those at the highest levels of the EPA led to the suppression of information concerning the public health of Americans," Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said in a statement. "The EPA must provide my constituents with answers to these allegations immediately.”
“It is vital that there are proper measures in place to perform accurate, expeditious, scientific assessments for chemicals that pose a threat to public health,” he said in a statement to POLITICO, citing his state’s “tragic history” with chemical contamination.
Pruitt says he is taking the chemicals issue seriously. Not long after the North Carolina senators torpedoed the chemicals nominee, Pruitt announced a “leadership summit” on PFOA, PFOS and related chemicals that is scheduled to be held at EPA headquarters next week.
But few are expecting his response to include any new regulatory action.
EPA has not regulated a single new contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act in more than two decades. The agency’s 2016 drinking water advisory only provided advice to the states and local water managers — it set no mandatory limits.
And Pruitt’s EPA doesn’t even plan to go that far for other chemicals. The agency’s No. 2 water official, Dennis Lee Forsgren, has told drinking water groups that under Pruitt, the agency won’t issue any new health advisories for GenX or other chemicals.
Betsy Southerland, a career staffer who led work on the 2016 health advisory as director of science and technology at EPA’s water office before resigning last year, said states would have to translate the information provided by EPA about the chemicals into health advisory levels or drinking water limits on their own, something few are equipped to do.
Pruitt’s “not allowing EPA to provide the state with that expertise,” she said.
EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox, defending the agency's approach, said officials are "stressing that all options — not just health advisories — are on the table as we move into the National Leadership Summit and taking additional steps to address PFAS."
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/16/pruitt-chemical-study-epa-590947

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Pruitt Says He Was Unaware of Interference with HHS Chemical Study

May 16, 2018 | PoliticoPro

By Annie Snider

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said he did not know that his staff had worked to block a scientific assessment of a hot-button class of chemicals.
“I was not aware that there had been some holding back of the report. I think it is important to have all information in the marketplace,” Pruitt said in response to tough questioning from West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito.
Capito pressed Pruitt at a Senate hearing today to “encourage this information to come forward” before an EPA summit on the chemicals next week.
“I appreciate the fact that you are trying to reach the scientific limit that would impact any kind of health impacts in our areas, regardless of who has to remediate and what the remediation costs are going to be,” she said, alluding to the fact that cleanup requirements would create major costs for the Defense Department and chemicals manufacturers. Concerns about those impacts were raised by a White House staffer in internal emails, POLITICO reported on Monday.
Pruitt said that the option of regulating the chemicals PFOA and PFOS under the Safe Drinking Water Act remains on the table, along with the option of listing it as a hazardous substance for the purposes of Superfund cleanups.
“We need to take concrete action to address these things,” Pruitt said.
EPA has not regulated a new drinking water contaminant in more than two decades, after Congress set new scientific and financial justification requirements. Rural groups and some states oppose setting a legal limit for PFAS chemicals.
Betsy Southerland, the former EPA career staffer who led work on a 2016 drinking water advisory for the chemicals before resigning from EPA last year, toldPOLITICO Tuesday that the agency had decided not to issue drinking water advisories for additional PFAS chemicals, let alone set a regulation.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/05/pruitt-says-he-was-unaware-of-interference-with-hhs-chemical-study-1230991

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Pruitt Says Meeting Victims’ Families Moved Him to Push for Chemical Ban

May 16, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Alex Guillen

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt today said he will push to finalize a ban on the use of methylene chloride in paint strippers following a recent meeting with the families of several people who have died from exposure to the chemical.
“The meeting I had with those families helped cement the process that we’re taking,” he told Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) at an appropriations hearing.
Pruitt said EPA would finalize a rule the Obama administration proposed in January 2017 that would ban the chemical’s use in paint strippers. Long-term exposure to the chemical can cause liver toxicity, liver and lung cancer and ultimately death.
“This is a matter that we needed to act on, in my view, sooner than what we did,” Pruitt said.
The final rule is essentially the same as the ban proposed by the Obama administration in January 2017, Pruitt said, although he said EPA is working to clarify some language regarding the military’s use of methylene chloride, also known as DCM.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard

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NGOs Decry Biocides Exemption in EPA 'Science Transparency' Proposal

May 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch

A controversial proposal from the US EPA on science transparency has come under fire from two environmental NGOs, which fault it for exempting registration data on biocides and pesticides.
The proposal, which was issued late last month, seeks to ensure that the data, models and science underpinning agency regulatory decisions are "transparent" and "available to the public for validation".
It has been fiercely criticised by the scientific community, environmental and consumer advocacy groups, and even members of the EPA itself.
Adding to the outcry, NGOs have now slammed the proposal for failing to cover registration and review processes under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticides Act (Fifra).
A paper by Beyond Pesticides and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says the rule only applies to a very limited set of studies, used to support certain EPA regulations.
Data submitted to back pesticide or biocide registrations will remain secret, unless made public through a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) – a "long and unwieldy" process, the NGOs say.
"Under a false flag of scientific transparency, [EPA Administrator Scott] Pruitt's scheme hobbles scientific work used to protect the public, but shields industry data that may demonstrate the public health peril," said PEER general counsel Paula Dinerstein.
The proposed science transparency rule is open for comments until 30 May. Stakeholders are calling for this consultation period to be extended, but the EPA has yet to respond to these demands.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67003/ngos-decry-biocides-exemption-in-epa-science-transparency-proposal

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NGO Coalition Urges EU Commission to Publish EDC Strategy

May 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch

A coalition of more than 70 health and environmental NGOs is calling on the European Commission to publish its strategy on endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), before this summer.
In July last year, following member state adoption of the Commission's proposal for criteria to identify EDCs, the EU executive said it would start work on the strategy. This would minimise exposure of EU citizens to endocrine disruptors beyond pesticides and biocides.
The strategy, it said, will aim to cover products such as toys, cosmetics and food packaging.
The Commission published its delegated Regulation setting out the criteria for EDCs under the biocidal products Regulation (BPR), in November last year. These criteria will apply from 7 June.
The proposal for EDC criteria for plant protection products, however, hit a series of obstacles but was finally adopted in April this year.
Led by the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), the NGO coalition says the strategy must "reflect the most recent advances in science and draw the logical conclusions from them, by complementing existing obligations in the EU regulatory context".
It names eight "essential elements" that should be covered.
These are:consider public health and precaution as the ‘cornerstones’ of a new EU EDC strategy;enhance public awareness of the chemicals;improve regulation by increasing control of their use across all sectors;reduce the EDC ‘daily cocktail’ by replacing the substance-by-substance approach and include all possible sources of exposure to multiple chemicals;speed up testing, screening and identification of EDCs;work towards a clean ‘circular economy’ and a non-toxic environment by avoiding toxic substances, such as EDCs, in products from the start;enhance European market leadership for safer substitution with "no regrets" and promotion of innovative solutions; andmonitor the health and environmental effects of single, groups and mixtures of endocrine disruptors, to capture all sources of exposure and respond swiftly to minimise them.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67001/ngo-coalition-urges-eu-commission-to-publish-edc-strategy

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Study on Rats Finds Glyphosate Disrupts Genes, Gut Bacteria

May 16, 2018 | London Guardian (In E&E Greenwire)

By Arthur Neslen

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weedkiller Roundup, can disrupt genes, sexual development and healthy gut bacteria at doses previously considered safe, according to a new study on rats.
The authors of the crowdfunded study concluded that glyphosate poses a "significant public health concern."
The research adds to the controversy surrounding glyphosate that has raged since the World Health Organization deemed it a "probable human carcinogen" in 2015. Monsanto Co., which makes Roundup, has disputed this claim. And the European Union last year approved glyphosate for five more years of use (Greenwire, Nov. 28, 2017).
Daniele Mandrioli, one of the study's authors who is based at the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna, Italy, said it was concerning that rat pups whose mothers were exposed to glyphosate had their gut bacteria disrupted.
"It shouldn't be happening, and it is quite remarkable that it is," Mandrioli said. "Disruption of the microbiome has been associated with a number of negative health outcomes, such as obesity, diabetes and immunological problems."
Philip Landrigan, another study author who is based at New York's Icahn School of Medicine, cautioned that "these early warnings must be further investigated in a comprehensive long-term study."
Monsanto official Scott Partridge called the Ramazzini Institute "an activist organization with an agenda that they have not disclosed as part of their crowdfunding efforts."
"This is not about genuine research," he said (Arthur Neslen, London Guardian, May 16). — MJ
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/16/stories/1060081859

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Osha to Align US Rules with Latest GHS

May 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Julie Miller

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) plans to propose regulatory amendments in 2019, to better align US rules with the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of classification and labelling of chemicals.
Osha last updated its Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) in 2012, aligning it with the third version of the GHS. Globally, the GHS, which covers hazard classification, standardised labelling and safety data sheets, is in its seventh edition.
The plan is revealed in the Labor Department's spring 2018 regulatory agenda.
The department, which includes Osha, has moved the update project from the "long-term action" list to "proposed rule" status. The projected publication date is February 2019.
The rulemaking now underway aims to "harmonise the HCS to the latest edition of the GHS and to codify a number of enforcement policies".
Maureen Ruskin, director of the Office of Chemical Hazards-Metals, said in October 2017 the agency was working on a proposal to update the HCS with the intent of improving alignment with the system and Canada's Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS 2015). She said political appointees from the Trump administration had yet to endorse the initiative.
https://chemicalwatch.com/66957/osha-to-align-us-rules-with-latest-ghs

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Stakeholders Await Canadian Chemical Management Proposal

May 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Julie Miller

The Canadian government is expected to reveal its proposal for revising the country’s chemicals management system by mid-June, but consultations have left stakeholders guessing on what the plan will contain.
The House Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development released a report in June last year, urging sweeping revisions to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (Cepa) and the Chemicals Management Plan (CMP). Among its 87 recommendations is reversing the burden of proof onto industry for demonstrating the safety of 'substances of very high concern' – a hazard-based approach borrowed from the EU's REACH regime.
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna agreed in October "changes are needed to modernise and improve" Cepa and she committed herself to providing a complete response by this June.
"We have no idea what they are leaning toward; if they are going to introduce a bill, if their response will even propose changes," Muhannad Malas, toxics programme manager at Canadian NGO Environmental Defence, told Chemical Watch. There have though been multiple indications from Ms McKenna "that her department is looking at strengthening Cepa", he said.
"We know she plans to respond to every one of the committee’s recommendations," said Isabelle Des Chênes, executive vice president of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC).
J Gary LeRoux, president of the Canadian Paint and Coatings Association, told Chemical Watch he is more confident than last autumn that the government will not endorse the committee’s most controversial recommendation to move toward a hazard-based regime. "I don’t think they will do that, because they have heard loud and clear that it would not be wise to do so," he said.Consultations held
Stakeholders said government officials have engaged in both large consultation meetings and more private ones in the past month. Officials have talked about a release date in early June, and realistically need to table the government response before Parliament breaks for its summer recess on 22 June.
Mr LeRoux said the consultations were framed in terms of "looking at the list of concerns raised by the NGO community to see if industry could make any accommodations," indicating that the government may be seeking consensus points.
"We have to wait and see if they will go towards proposing amendments to Cepa, or just address some of the recommendations within the parameters of the existing programme," he said.
Participants said consultations covered the gamut of recommendations, including:how substances of very high concern are addressed;how endocrine disruptors can be more effectively regulated;increasing transparency while protecting confidential business information;improving protections for "vulnerable populations"; andalternatives assessment.Political pressures
Any proposal the government makes effectively faces a 2019 deadline. Federal elections must be held by 21 October 2019, although the current regime could remain in power.
Observers noted that the government has already proposed a number of revisions to other environmental laws, which will compete with Cepa for attention. Proposals are pending related to fisheries, navigable waters, climate change and natural resources impact assessment.
https://chemicalwatch.com/66960/stakeholders-await-canadian-chemical-management-proposal

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Danish Epa Move Threatens Chemicals Processing Delays

May 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The future relocation of the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could create significant delays to chemicals regulatory work, due to an expected exodus of experts.
The EPA announced in January that it would relocate to the city of Odense 170km, west of its current base in Copenhagen, by next year.
Four hundred and forty out of 800 EPA people will move to Odense, while a further 150 will transfer from the agency to the Ministry of Environment and Food, where they will work on policy issues. The EPA’s remit will focus on technical tasks.
The move is part of Denmark's plan to create a fairer spread of government jobs throughout the country.
But insiders warn that the agency will lose experienced staff as a consequence. The EPA told Chemical Watch it is already experiencing a loss of staff and expecting to lose more.
Although the EPA is in the process of recruiting about 100 new people by 1 June and expects to employ additional staff in the coming months, there are concerns it will take new employees a long time to pick up on complicated chemicals-related tasks.Internal worries
An internal EPA risk assessment of the relocation illustrates the problem. The paper, published by Danish newspaper Altinget, outlines the areas that will be affected:work on endocrine disrupting chemicals;participation in Echa committees and EU expert groups on chemicals;activities on poison centres;processing of REACH registrations; andecolabelling schemes.
It also says biocides will be one of the worst affected areas. Only one in eight toxicologists and three in eight ecotoxicologists are expected to stay on the team, it says. It will take new recruits up to two years to learn how to carry out the biocides approval tasks independently, and around five years to become an expert in the area, the EPA paper warns.
This lack of expertise will significantly reduce the EPA’s ability to evaluate biocides dossiers, it adds. The agency expects it will no longer be able to meet its deadlines for evaluating EU authorisation or mutual recognition applications.
Additionally, efforts regarding public information and guidance to stakeholders – such as maintaining an informative website, running the help desk, or offering face-to-face advisory meetings – will also suffer. The EPA expects it will only deliver 20% of such activities it had planned for the next few years.EPA response
Since publication of its risk assessment, the EPA’s management team has issued a statement which cautions that the paper highlights worst-case scenarios.
"We are currently not affected by loss of expertise to the extent that the paper describes," deputy director Mads Leth-Petersen says in the statement. However, he adds it may be "necessary to prioritise" efforts and it "cannot rule out longer processing times for a while".
https://chemicalwatch.com/66951/danish-epa-move-threatens-chemicals-processing-delays

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Energy News

U.S. Gulf Coast Lacks Deep, Wide Ports -- an Issue for Oil Exports, Says EIA

May 16, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Carolyn Davis

The surge in domestic oil exports happened so swiftly that the Gulf Coast’s onshore ports are struggling to ensure space for larger, more cost-effective oceangoing vessels, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
“The inability to fully load larger and more cost-effective vessels has pricing implications for U.S. crude oil exports,” EIA said in a note Wednesday led by principal contributor Mason Hamilton. “Using a number of smaller ships requires a wider price spread between U.S. crude oil and international crude oil prices to compensate for the lower economies of scale and costs associated with reverse lightering and partial loadings.”
The costs for using smaller vessels are less for exporting over short distances, EIA noted. However, “as exports to Asia are a growing share of total U.S. crude oil exports, these costs will become more important.”
U.S. oil exports last year averaged 1.1 million b/d, and to date this year, they have averaged 1.6 million b/d, even though Gulf Coast ports “cannot fully load very large crude carriers (VLCC), the largest and most economic vessels used for crude oil transportation.” The ports instead have had to rely on small, less cost-effective vessels.
A VLCC is able to carry around 2 million bbl, and it requires a port with a waterway wide and deep enough for safe navigation. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) in the Gulf of Mexico is today the only U.S. facility able to accommodate a fully loaded VLCC, according to EIA. Weekly U.S. exports of crude oil have surpassed 2 million b/d four times to date this year. Two of those instances, for the weeks of Feb. 16 and March 30, corresponded with weeks in which LOOP loaded a VLCC for export, EIA noted.
The U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD), which permits deepwater offshore ports, currently has no pending applications for new deepwater ports similar to LOOP. However, reports indicate the “most likely” export projects with the intention to fully load VLCCs may be sited near the Port of Corpus Christi in South Texas.
South Texas, with access to overseas and Mexico exports, is increasingly becoming a destination for Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale oil and natural gas.
Several Corpus Christi-destined oil pipeline projects from the Permian are underway, including Gray Oak Pipeline LLC, Plains All American Pipeline LP and Epic Crude Oil Pipeline. Epic also has a natural gas liquids pipeline project in the works that is running parallel to the oil line.
In addition, global crude oil trader Vitol Inc. and a Hilcorp. Energy Co. affiliate are developing Harvest Pipeline Co., an export terminal near Corpus to move Permian volumes to overseas markets.
“Corpus Christi has access to increased domestic production of light-sweet crude oil from the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford and regularly exports crude oil from the Oxy Ingleside Energy Center and other facilities,” EIA noted. The terminal began exporting in October 2016.
All Gulf Coast ports actively trading petroleum today are in inland harbors connected to the open ocean through shipping channels or navigable rivers. Because the waterways aren’t deep enough for fully loaded VLCCs, partial loadings and ship-to-ship transfers known as lightering typically are used. Lightering allows a larger vessel to partially unload to a smaller vessel, while reverse lightering allows smaller vessels to load onto a larger vessel.
MARAD data for 2015, the latest year available, reported that the two largest U.S. ports of call for tankers carrying oil/petroleum products were lightering zones: South Sabine Point and Southtex. The ports in 2015 each allowed nearly 250 million deadweight tons of tanker traffic volume.
Most Gulf Coast petroleum ports are capable of accepting vessels with capacities of about 500,000 bbl, but the number of ports that can accept vessels with capacities of 900,000 bbl to 1 million bbl is relatively limited, EIA noted.
“By comparison, other nations that export large volumes of crude oil generally have deeper and wider navigable waterways that are not located in inland/onshore harbors,” researchers said.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114396-us-gulf-coast-lacks-deep-wide-ports----an-issue-for-oil-exports-says-eia

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House Appropriators Advance Energy-Water Bill

May 16, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Kelsey Tamborrino

The House Appropriations Committee advanced its fiscal 2019 Energy-Water appropriations bill today by a vote of 29-20, with Democrats voting against a host of policy riders.
The $44.7 billion bill puts total funding at $1.5 billion above 2018 enacted levels and boosts spending for the Energy Department and Army Corps of Engineers. It provides additional funding for fossil fuels and nuclear research while making cuts to renewables and energy efficiency programs.
Funding in the bill is $8.17 billion above President Donald Trump’s budget request.
Republicans blocked Democratic amendments to add policy riders that would have restored funding for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and ARPA-E to 2018 levels.
Republicans also voted down an amendment offered by subcommittee ranking member Marcy Kaptur that would have struck eight bundled policy riders, including one to legislatively repeal the Waters of U.S. rule and another that seeks to block a court-ordered change in operations of dams along the Columbia and Snake River systems.
Kaptur said the WOTUS repeal measure was simply a poison pill rider.
“It is the WOTUS bill itself that is the poison pill,” GOP Rep. Mike Simpson responded. It failed on a vote of 30-19.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard

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Senate Panel Approves Nominee for Energy Post

May 16, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee today moved forward the nomination of Frank Fannon to be assistant secretary for energy resources at the State Department.
Fannon, a former aide to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), passed by voice vote. Ranking member Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), however, asked to be recorded as "no" votes.
"Frank Fannon has considerable energy policy experience, but I do not think his experience represents the American public's best interests," Menendez said. "He has spent most of his career advocating for what is in the best interest for one of the most polluting industries on the planet — the oil and gas industries."
Menendez went on to say that Fannon lobbied against climate change legislation and Menendez's own S. 3165, the "Big Oil Bailout Prevention Unlimited Liability Act of 2016."
But Inhofe issued a statement of support for his "good friend."
"As Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources, Frank can use his leadership and expertise effectively to advance American energy dominance and enforce energy sanctions, like those against Russia and Iran," Inhofe said.
Fannon's previous jobs include senior director of Murphy Oil Corp. and head of corporate affairs at BHP, which is the trading entity for BHP Billiton Ltd. and BHP Billiton PLC, a mining, metals and petroleum company. His LinkedIn profile lists him as a partner at the Coefficient Group, a consulting practice that specializes in managing energy and environmental risks and investments.
He went to Radford University for his undergraduate studies. He earned a Master of Arts in international affairs and a law degree from the University of Denver.
Separately, the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week supported a bipartisan bill that would elevate energy diplomacy at State (Greenwire, May 9).
H.R. 5535, the "Energy Diplomacy Act," would help alleviate U.S. allies' reliance on natural gas from "unpredictable regimes" such as Russia, said the bill’s sponsor Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/16/stories/1060081883

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FirstEnergy's Dangerous Push for an $8B Bailout: What You Need to Know

May 16, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund

By Dick Munson

A mega utility from Ohio is appealing to the Trump administration for an unprecedented $8-billion, ratepayer-funded bailout, even pointing to a 1950s Korean War Act for relief. It’s FirstEnergy’s last-ditch appeal after losing previous efforts to prop up a fleet of failing coal and nuclear plants.
The company’s Washington-based lobbyists have the ears of Energy Secretary Rick Perry, an avid coal champion, who could make a decision any day.
What neither FirstEnergy nor Perry are telling us is that a government handout of this magnitude could have implications for energy markets nationwide – while saddling Americans with a flurry of bailouts that go far beyond $8 billion. For no valid reason at all.A dangerous precedent
If the U.S. Department of Energy grants FirstEnergy’s latest request, which spans 80 plants in a 13-state region managed by the PJM grid operator, expect indebted utilities in other regions to listen up.
If FirstEnergy gets a bailout, power companies from California to Florida to New Hampshire may ask for similar favors. Illegal government handouts could then ripple through America’s far-flung energy landscape.
Left holding the bag will be ratepayers like you and me. So how did we get here?Years of bad business decisions and schemes
Even before President Trump took office, the utility has been cooking up creative ways to get out from under a string of bad corporate decisions [PDF].
As many other energy companies were turning to cheaper natural gas and renewable technology over the past decade, FirstEnergy headed the opposite direction, acquiring a Pennsylvania utility with a fleet of uneconomic coal plants. Mired in debt, the company’s power generation subsidiary recently declared bankruptcy.
Corporations in a competitive market normally don’t ask ratepayers to pay for their mistakes. But FirstEnergy does, time and time again, even as it runs into roadblocks.FERC: A bailout would disrupt markets
First, the company begged for help from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, which initially agreed to billions in bailout funds. That plan was, however, blocked by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which said it would illegally disrupt regional competitive markets.
FirstEnergy then turned to the U.S. Department of Energy, asking Perry to declare more than 80 power plants in Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic states “emergency” units under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act.
Used rarely during times of war or natural disasters, the obscure designation would provide guaranteed profits to these coal and nuclear plants, including FirstEnergy’s, to the tune of $8 billion a year.Regional grid operator: What emergency?
But PJM, the grid operator for FirstEnergy’s territory, rejected the notion that the utility’s troubled plants are needed and that their retirement constitute an emergency.
So did the pro-fossil fuel group American Petroleum Institute. Electricity markets are working just fine, the API said, adding that bailing out a flailing energy company that doubled down on coal would be at odds with the government’s goals of “energy dominance, economic growth and improving America’s infrastructure.”FirstEnergy’s next move: 1950 Korean War Act
Yet even before the Section 202(c) play is complete, the coal lobby has floated another desperate possibility.
FirstEnergy’s latest hope is for President Trump to invoke The Defense Production Act of 1950 [PDF]. Passed at the start of the Korean War, the act gives the president powers to “influence domestic industry in the interest of national defense.”
Using national security as an excuse, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has also weighed in [PDF]. He’s urging the president to use the act to justify billions in government handouts to old and uneconomic coal and nuclear plants unable to compete on their own.
Note that Manchin wasn’t talking about just FirstEnergy. He wants the president to prevent the retirement of coal and nuclear plants anywhere, with an emphasis on coal. “This industry,” he wrote, “and the men and women who work in it can no longer do it alone.”
Perry says he’s “looking very closely,” at a proposal that, in other words, could cost all Americans and send ripples of chaos throughout our competitive power markets. As crazy as it sounds, he may go for it.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2018/05/16/firstenergys-dangerous-push-8b-bailout-what-you-need-know

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Chemical Security News

DHS's 5-Year Cyber Plan Comes at 'Turning Point'

May 16, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Blake Sobczak

The Department of Homeland Security yesterday released a five-year plan for keeping hackers out of federal agencies and U.S. infrastructure networks.
The long-awaited strategy paints the agency as a crucial backstop for making sure cyberthreats to critical computer systems don't disrupt daily life.
The document sets out seven goals, many of which mirror new strategic cybersecurity goals laid out by the Department of Energy on Monday (Energywire, May 15). Both agencies have played up the need to protect critical infrastructure, respond effectively to cybersecurity incidents and fund research, all while viewing cyberthreats as a risk to be managed rather than a war to be won.
"As the world becomes ever-more connected, the number and scale of cyber incidents are certain to grow despite network protection and law enforcement best efforts," the DHS strategy notes.
DHS and DOE have both said they need to synchronize their handling of cyberthreats to the bulk power grid, given the potential for overlapping authorities. DOE is the sector-specific agency for interactions with the power sector, but DHS is the primary hub for collecting and sharing information on the latest hacking threats.
DOE has said it is aiming to reach a memorandum of understanding on cybersecurity with other federal agencies by 2020, according to its own five-year action plan.
Meanwhile, Politico first reported yesterday that the White House has done away with the cybersecurity coordinator position, a role established during the Obama administration to help untangle interagency conflicts and unify the cybersecurity activities of the executive branch.
"Today's actions continue an effort to empower National Security Council senior directors," said NSC spokesman Robert Palladino, noting that the NSC's cyber office "already has two very capable senior directors" who sit 6 feet apart from each other. "Streamlining management will improve efficiency, reduce bureaucracy and increase accountability."
Several Democratic lawmakers criticized the move and yesterday introduced legislation to force President Trump's hand into reinstating a cybersecurity coordinator.
The "Executive Cyberspace Coordination Act" would carve out a National Office for Cyberspace at the White House, whose director would adopt many of the responsibilities once held by the cyber coordinator.
"It is an enormous step backwards to de-emphasize the importance of this growing domain within the White House," said Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), one of the bill's co-sponsors and co-chair of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus. "We need a designated expert to harmonize cyber policy across the many agencies in government with responsibility in this space."
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told lawmakers at a hearing yesterday that she had not been in contact with a top White House adviser on plans to scrap the cyber coordinator role, which was last held by Rob Joyce, a veteran of the National Security Agency who steered the Trump administration's cyber policy for the past year.
"I have not had a conversation with Ambassador [John] Bolton about that particular issue," Nielsen told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, referring to Trump's new national security adviser who reportedly opted to close the curtains on the cyber coordinator position.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said he was "disappointed" by reports that Bolton was doing away with the job. He pressed Nielsen on the need to break down "silos" among various federal agencies, noting that "we have to bring all our resources to bear in order to thwart this threat."
"Your underlying point is valid," Nielsen replied. "It's top of mind for me because no one entity has all the authorities, the capability and the capacity to address this."DHS goals
In a statement accompanying the release of the strategy, Nielsen said, "We have reached a historic turning point" in the cyberthreat landscape. "Digital security is now converging with personal and physical security, and it is clear that our cyber adversaries can now threaten the very fabric of our republic itself."
The report calls for the agency to glean a better understanding of fast-moving cyber risks, citing growing links between cyber and physical systems, such as those that control the flow of electricity along the power grid.
"Complicating the threat picture, nation-states are increasingly using proxies and other techniques that blur the distinction between state and non-state cyber activities," DHS notes.
The agency is also setting out to protect federal information systems from intrusion, starting with its own.
"Many DHS information systems remain largely decentralized and are operated by Components without a standardized cybersecurity approach or methodology," the strategy says.
Another goal is to help secure lifeline infrastructure, noting that DHS serves as the sector-specific lead or co-lead for 10 of 16 federally designated critical infrastructure sectors, from chemicals to transportation.
DHS said it would prioritize defending entities that would have the biggest impact if crippled by hackers — a category that includes energy systems like gas pipelines and the power grid. The agency also pledged to delve further into the interdependencies among various critical industries, identifying where there may be gaps in U.S. defenses.
DOE has similarly promised to look at interdependencies, such as the power sector's growing reliance on natural gas as a fuel source.
But unlike DOE, DHS is a law enforcement agency with the authority to investigate hacks that target U.S. critical infrastructure and financial systems.
To that end, DHS said it aims to "prevent and disrupt criminal use of cyberspace," working with the FBI and international partners to chase down and arrest far-flung hackers.
The agency also cited the need for international cooperation in responding to cyber incidents. Several recent malware crises — such as the WannaCry and NotPetya ransomware epidemics that struck companies last summer — spread quickly across the world, affecting everything from global shipping conglomerate Maersk to a chocolate factory in Australia.
"DHS must ... ensure that we have in place mechanisms to coordinate with international partners as cyber incidents, whether they originate domestically or abroad, assume international implications," the strategy states.
The overall vision, DHS concluded, is for it to build a "more secure and reliable cyber ecosystem through a unified departmental approach, strong leadership, and close partnership with other federal and nonfederal entities."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/16/stories/1060081825

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

FRA Announces $250 Million in PTC Grants

May 16, 2018 | Progressive Rail Roading

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) yesterday issued a notice of funding opportunity for $250 million in grants to help fund the deployment of positive train control technology on freight, intercity passenger and commuter railroads.
Eligible projects for the grants include back-office systems; wayside, communications and onboard hardware equipment; software; equipment installation; spectrum; any component, testing and training for the implementation of PTC systems; and interoperability, according to an FRA press release.
Applications are due no later than 45 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.
Also yesterday, the FRA released the first-quarter 2018 status report on railroads' self-reported progress toward PTC implementation.
"The railroads are making progress towards meeting the congressionally mandated PTC requirement, but there is still work to be done," said FRA Administrator Ronald Batory. "The FRA will continue to work with railroads and suppliers to assist in fully implementing PTC."
The federal deadline for PTC implementation is Dec. 31. Some railroads may apply for a two-year extension under certain circumstances.
Fourteen railroads reported they've installed 100 percent of the hardware necessary for PTC system implementation as of March 31. Six other railroads — Altamont Corridor Express, Central Florida Rail Corridor (Sunrail), Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail), Maryland Area Regional Commuter (MARC), MTA Metro-North Railroad and South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (Tri-Rail) — increased their percentage of hardware installation by more than 10 percent since fourth-quarter 2017.
However, passenger railroads have made less progress, with PTC systems in operation on only 25 percent of required route miles. That's up only 1 percent from the previous quarter, FRA officials said.
https://www.progressiverailroading.com/ptc/news/FRA-announces-250-million-in-PTC-grants--54676

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Environment News

Trump Has a Messaging Problem on Climate

May 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Zack Colman

It was noteworthy because of his job title and how infrequently it occurs, but here was Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, talking about climate change.
That might have been a welcome development for environmentalists if not for one significant detail: Pruitt was declaring that energy derived by burning biomass, such as trees, won't increase greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. He decided that a decade of debate was over by calling biomass carbon-neutral.
The scientific community, though, has not agreed on that point.
To critics, the Trump administration's inconsistent embrace of climate messaging is problematic. The White House only acknowledges that the globe is warming when doing so helps promote its favored energy policies, these critics say. Industry allies usually benefit.
Biomass was the latest example, they said.
"I think the bottom line is that Scott Pruitt and the Trump administration have repeatedly rejected any scientifically established link between carbon pollution and climate change," said Sami Yassa, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's ironic that Pruitt decides to recognize concerns over carbon emissions only when he thinks it could help the industry. And sadly, he gets the science wrong."
Pruitt has offered misinformed comments on climate science in the past, including downplaying the role that carbon dioxide plays in warming the Earth (Greenwire, March 9, 2017). He also supports a public debate on climate science. Emails released to NRDC under the Freedom of Information Act showed how agency officials were coordinating that debate, an exercise Trump reportedly supports (Climatewire, May 11).
Even as Pruitt questions the underlying science on global warming, he has touted greenhouse gas reductions recorded by EPA. (The agency documented an 11 percent drop in CO2 since 2005.) So in the span of months, he suggested that carbon dioxide is not the driver of rising temperatures while also applauding its curtailment.
Pruitt used the CO2 reductions as a way to rebuke policies like the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. But that rule never went into effect. Experts, including those with the U.S. Energy Information Administration, contend that the emissions decrease largely reflects cheaper natural gas displacing coal in the power supply. The Trump administration, meanwhile, wants to increase the use of coal.
"He's doing his thing," said Dina Kruger, the former director of EPA's climate change division. "He's going to suck EPA dry, and when he's done with that, he's going to go back to Oklahoma."
The administration's somewhat confused promotion of climate progress stretches beyond its environmental agency. Some former Trump aides say that exposes a messaging problem in the White House.
Part of that stems from the vacancy in the top spot at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said George David Banks, Trump's former international energy and climate aide.
President George W. Bush's administration took years to find a "comprehensive" footing on climate, Banks said. Eventually, it participated in multilateral forums, spent heavily on climate research and signed legislation creating the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and the renewable fuel standard.
"I think the messaging around the science has to be developed. And I don't know how long that's going to take," Banks said. "There has to be some comfort level around the science. How do you talk about the science? The administration is still working through that."
Here are recent moves by the Trump administration that illustrate those shortcomings:Biomass
The biomass decision has riled the forestry and climate communities.
Timber interests that long wished for neutral credentials for biomass — giving their products greater marketability in the process — got a big lift from Congress, which passed a spending bill that says EPA "shall" develop a policy to "reflect" carbon neutrality of forest bioenergy.
Pruitt's policy statement defining biomass as carbon-neutral merely implements the law as the Constitution requires, said Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
"It's quite unequivocal," he said in an email.
The policy's supporters said it provides certainty that properly values forest resources and encourages best management practices. It's a better alternative to addressing deforestation emissions than regulating land use, which would be politically difficult, said Brent Sohngen, a professor and forest economist at Ohio State University.
"If you valued the forest correctly, standing stock is enormously valuable," Sohngen said. "We've looked globally at where you would do biomass energy and where you would preserve the forest because it's a huge sink."
Yassa of NRDC disagreed. He noted that EPA cannot predict whether timber interests or foresters will replant trees. The climate factor for biomass is also about time scales, as burning trees emit carbon instantly, and it takes decades for growing trees to recapture all that carbon dioxide.
Therefore, Yassa said that if EPA policy were to "reflect" anything, as Congress required, it should account for what the agency's science advisers have said: "It is not scientifically valid to assume that all biogenic feedstocks are carbon-neutral."
"It is well-established even within the EPA's own Science Advisory Board — biomass is not categorically carbon-neutral, and that it depends on the feedstocks, the end use and so many other factors," Yassa said.Global fossil fuels
The Trump administration positioned fossil fuels as a solution for addressing climate change at last year's U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
Say what? Environmentalists were aghast. But the White House sees natural gas and efficient coal plants as a way to advance U.S. economic interests while reducing emissions.
It's a message the Trump administration continues to sharpen. Documents obtained by E&E News yesterday show that the administration is discussing a "new, central institution" to convene scientists, policymakers and industry to plot a path for coal and natural gas technology and exports. The administration said it's trying to be realistic about projections that countries will continue using fossil fuels for years (Greenwire, May 15).
"Right now, we don't have any platforms for existing international institutions where we can have an honest discussion about the important role that fossil fuels will play in the global energy economy," said Banks, who led initial efforts on the alliance when he was at the White House. "The [International Energy Agency] was founded to help improve cooperation on energy security, and unfortunately, it's become another forum to discuss climate mitigation with politically correct energy technology and tools."
Even the IEA suggests that countries, especially those with swelling middle classes in emerging economies, will use more and more fossil fuels. Banks and the administration's supporters contend that's a reality people can't wish out of existence, so it makes sense to figure out ways to use those fuels in the cleanest way possible.
But scientists and climate activists say prolonged use of coal and natural gas — especially without emissions control technologies, such as carbon capture and sequestration — is anathema to combating rising emissions in a meaningful way.
Scientists say that even if nations achieve cuts pledged through the Paris climate accord, global emissions will far surpass the ceiling to avoid locking in a 2-degree-Celsius global temperature increase by 2100. Long-term use of coal and natural gas is incompatible with the goals of the Paris deal, from which Trump has said he will withdraw.
While the White House has touted more efficient fossil fuel deployment as part of the global answer to climate change, it's also made the world's job in assessing greenhouse gas mitigation more difficult.
The Trump administration quietly canceled NASA's Carbon Monitoring System, as first reportedlast week by Science. It was a key program that measured carbon sinks and sources, and scientists worry it could complicate tracking global progress under the Paris accord.
That hit Kevin Gurney hard. The Arizona State University professor and atmospheric scientist leads a project called Vulcan, which maps all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion down to very fine scales, updated every half-hour. He's now unsure whether his team can continue its work.
"You really can't mitigate what you don't measure," Gurney said. "The information was also helping us efficiently target what to mitigate."
The disconnect between the Trump administration's strategy on fossil fuels as a climate solution and the move to cut the program for his work was apparent to Gurney. Beyond the Vulcan project, the Carbon Monitoring System supported scientists around the globe.
"Comical," he said. "It's not just U.S. researchers — and this is true of many programs across the federal agencies in science — this affects the whole world. We're a beacon."Small, modular coal
Energy Secretary Rick Perry has positioned the Energy Department as a participant in the mission to solve climate change through its reputation as an innovation hub, hewing to the GOP's interest in technology development as a climate solution.
In that vein, Perry surprised many in the electricity industry when he floated a new technology idea — small, modular coal-fired power plants. He conceived it as a way to boost electric grid resilience, and DOE put out a request for information for proposals that said the effort "promotes the advancement of coal-fired power plants that provide stable power generation with operational flexibility, high efficiency, and low emissions."
The concept induced head-scratching from experts. While it's technically feasible, the economics for smaller coal plants simply don't work, said Michael Webber, a mechanical engineering professor and co-director of the Clean Energy Incubator at the University of Texas, Austin. He called it "a goofy idea."
On top of that, the efficiency metric DOE sought — 40 percent — isn't that impressive, paling in comparison with new units being built in China, said Jennifer Wilcox, an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering at the Colorado School of Mines.
In terms of keeping coal viable in a climate-constrained world, Wilcox said, the Trump administration would be better off marshaling finances toward carbon capture and sequestration technologies. Any money funneled to what she called a "discouraging" effort is funding taken away from what she considers more reasonable endeavors, like CCS, she said.
"I absolutely disagree with the concept of putting money to advancing coal with an efficiency of 40 percent," she said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/16/stories/1060081831

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State Works with Other Countries to Fight Climate Change

May 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Kelsey Brugger

Alaskan officials have been working with diplomats in China, Russia and Canada to combat climate change, Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott said yesterday.
"We are engaging in ways above our pay grade," he told a crowd of academics, government staffers and others at an event held by the Woodrow Wilson Center's Polar Initiative in Washington, D.C.
Mallott said that when it became clear that the Trump administration was "beginning to step away from climate change" policies, he and Alaskan Gov. Bill Walker "became very vividly focused" and felt obliged to become engaged. Mallott, a Democrat, and Walker, a Republican-turned-independent, were elected in 2014 after teaming up on a "nonpartisan" ticket.
Asked which government is easier to work with — the Canadian or the American — Mallott joked, "I refuse to reply." He added he has issues with both. In some ways, he said, Trump's climate change policies have propelled him to be involved "in ways we otherwise wouldn't be."
Last fall, Walker and Mallott formed the Climate Action for Alaska Leadership Team. The task force, a 20-member team Mallott leads, set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. The state also hopes to increase energy efficiency by 15 percent and receive half of its electricity generation from renewables by the same year.
"The Arctic is warming twice as fast as everywhere else," Mallott said yesterday, calling Alaska "ground zero" for climate change.
He ticked off some of the significant impacts of climate change: "Melting permafrost, changing weather patterns, sea temp rise, the advance of ocean acidification, the impact on communities by coastal and river bank erosion where many of our smaller communities are present, the advance of new forms of insect life in existing ecosystems."
He said climate change "can literally determine the fate of our planet." But, he added, "very easy" efforts can be made to address it. "The most difficult part [is] to wrap our emotional and intellectual [minds] around [it]."
Mallott, who was born in the small village of Yakutat, weaved personal stories into his speech.
He recalled going seal hunting as a boy with his grandfather, "never having thought that glacier might not be there some point in the future."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/16/stories/1060081791

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EPA on Track to Meet Court's Ozone Deadline

May 16, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

By Sean Reilly

EPA remains on course to complete past-due attainment designations for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard by mid-July, according to a court-ordered status report.
After issuing two rounds of attainment decisions in November and last month, the agency "intends to make final designations" for an eight-county area in and around San Antonio by July 17, an attorney for EPA said in the report, filed yesterday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Earlier this year, a three-judge panel on the appellate court had ordered the status report. The panel also deferred action on EPA's bid to dismiss as moot lawsuits brought last summer by a coalition of Democratic-led states and an array of public health and environmental groups (Greenwire, Feb. 7).
The challengers had launched the litigation after EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in June announced a blanket one-year delay in making the attainment designations for the 70 parts per billion standard on the grounds that more information was needed.
Although Pruitt backed down two months later, the plaintiffs argued that their lawsuits should be kept alive in the event EPA tried anew to delay the designations, which were statutorily required by last October.
Without explanation, EPA missed that deadline. After the agency then made a first round of designations in November covering only areas that were clearly in compliance with the 70 ppb threshold, many of the same states and advocacy groups sued again, this time in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
In March, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam ordered the agency to make most of the remaining designations by April 30, followed by the San Antonio-area decisions by July 17 (E&E News PM, March 12).
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is a lung irritant linked to asthma attacks in children and added breathing difficulties for people with emphysema and other chronic respiratory diseases. From a compliance standpoint, the designations are a key milestone because they start the clock for states to come up with long-term cleanup plans for areas that are in nonattainment.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/16/stories/1060081853

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Someone, Somewhere, Is Making a Banned Chemical That Destroys the Ozone Layer, Scientists Suspect

May 16, 2018 | The Washington Post

By Chris Mooney

Emissions of a banned, ozone-depleting chemical are on the rise, a group of scientists reported Wednesday, suggesting someone may be secretly manufacturing the pollutant in violation of an international accord.
Emissions of CFC-11 have climbed 25 percent since 2012, despite the chemical being part of a group of ozone pollutants that were phased out under the 1987 Montreal Protocol.
“I’ve been making these measurements for more than 30 years and this is the most surprising thing I’ve seen,” said Stephen Montzka, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who led the work. “I was astounded by it really.”
It’s a distressing result for what’s widely seen as a global environmental success story, in which nations — alarmed by a growing “ozone hole” — collectively took action to phase out chlorofluorocarbons.
The finding seems likely to prompt an international investigation into the mysterious source.
Officially, production of CFC-11 is supposed to be at or near zero — at least, that is what countries have been telling the United Nations body that monitors and enforces the Protocol. But with emissions on the rise, scientists suspect someone is making the chemical in defiance of the ban.
“Somebody’s cheating,” said Durwood Zaelke, founder of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development and an expert on the Montreal Protocol, in a comment on the new research. “There’s some slight possibility there’s an unintentional release, but … they make it clear there’s strong evidence this is actually being produced.”
But for now, the scientists don’t know exactly who, or where, that person would be. A U.S. observatory in Hawaii found CFC-11 mixed in with other gases that were characteristic of a source coming from somewhere in east Asia, but scientists could not narrow the source down any further.
Zaelke said he was surprised by the findings, not just because the chemical has long been banned, but also because alternatives already exist, making it hard to imagine what the market for CFC-11 today would be.
The research was led by researchers with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with help from scientists in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Their results were published in the journal Nature.
There is a small chance that there is a more innocent explanation for the rise in CFC-11 emissions, the scientist say.
They considered a range of alternative explanations for the growth, such as a change in atmospheric patterns that gradually remove CFC gases in the stratosphere, an increase in the rate of demolition of buildings containing old residues of CFC-11, or accidental production.
But they concluded these sources could not explain the increase, which they calculated at about 13 billion grams per year in recent years. Rather, the evidence “strongly suggests” a new source of emissions, the scientists wrote.
“These considerations suggest that the increased CFC-11 emissions arise from new production not reported to UNEP’s Ozone Secretariat, which is inconsistent with the agreed phase-out of CFC production in the Montreal Protocol by 2010,” the researchers wrote.
CFC-11, used primarily for foams, can lasts up to 50 years in the atmosphere once it’s released. It is only destroyed in the stratosphere, some 9 to 18 miles above the planet’s surface, where the resulting chlorine molecules engage in a string of ozone-destroying chemical reactions. That loss of ozone, in turn, weakens our protection from UV radiation at the Earth’s surface.
The chemical is also a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
The paper’s findings are “environmentally and politically quite serious,” said Robert Watson, the former NASA scientist who organized bracing flights high into the Antarctic stratosphere to study ozone depletion in the 1980s, in an emailed statement.
“It is not clear why any country would want to start to produce, and inadvertently release, CFC-11, when cost effective substitutes have been available for a long while,” Watson continued.
“It is therefore imperative that this finding be discussed at the next Ministerial meeting of Governments given recovery of the ozone layer is dependent on all countries complying with the Montreal Protocol (and its adjustments and amendments) with emissions globally dropping to zero.”
Watson suggested that aircraft flights might be necessary to better identify the source of the emissions.
Keith Weller, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, which administers the Montreal Protocol, said the findings will have to be verified by the scientific panel to the Protocol, and then would be put before the treaty’s member countries.
“If these emissions continue unabated, they have the potential to slow down the recovery of the ozone layer,” Weller said in a statement. “It is therefore, critical that we take stock of this science, identify the causes of these emissions and take necessary action.”
Unreported production of CFC-11 outside of certain specific carve-out purposes in the treaty would be a “violation of international law,” Weller confirmed, though he said that the Protocol is “non-punitive” and the remedy would probably involve a negotiation with the offending party, or country.
But Zaelke thought the finding could promote tougher action.
“This treaty cannot afford not to follow its tradition and keep its compliance record,” he said.
“They’re going to find the culprits. This insults everybody who’s worked on this for the last 30 years. That’s a tough group of people.”
Overall, it is important to underscore that the ozone layer is slowly recovering and ozone-depleting substances are still declining. But the apparent increase in emissions of CFC-11 has slowed the rate of decrease by about 22 percent, the scientists found. This, in turn, will delay the ozone layer’s recovery, and in the meantime leave it more vulnerable to other threats.
“Knowing how much time and effort and resources have gone into healing the ozone layer, and to see this is a shocker, frankly,” said Montzka.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/05/16/someone-somewhere-is-making-a-banned-chemical-that-destroys-the-ozone-layer-scientists-suspect/?utm_term=.aaa869181b7b

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