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ACC PM 18/05/18
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(ACC Mentioned) The EPA's “Leadership Summit” on PFOA Pollution Will Exclude Victims and Community Groups
May 18, 2018 | The Intercept
By Sharon Lerner
KRISTEN MELLO wasn’t invited to the EPA’s upcoming “National Leadership Summit” on PFOA, PFOS, and other PFAS chemicals. -
DOJ Seeks Full Dismissal of Challenge to '2-1' Order
May 18, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is urging a federal district judge to reject environmentalists' and other Trump critics' suit over the administration's “2-for-1” regulatory reform order once and for all, charging that the groups' revised legal complaint suffers from the same legal flaws that led to the dismissal of an earlier version. -
EPA Watchdog Will Examine Agency Email, Text Message, FOIA Habits
May 18, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Andragna
The EPA inspector general announced today it would look into the agency's efforts to properly preserve text messages and emails, as well as its responsiveness to public records requests. -
EPA To Ban Methylene Chloride In Paint Strippers: Science Or Scaremongering?
May 18, 2018 | American Council on Science and Health
By ACSH Staff
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has moved to place a ban on methylene chloride (dichloromethane, DCM) citing associations to a higher risk of cancer and neurological and liver problems. -
(ACC Mentioned) US EPA Eyes Proposal on Costs and Benefits of Rules
May 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA is working on a proposal to address how it weighs costs and benefits in its regulations. -
US Osha Seeks Input on UN GHS Conference
May 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) will host a public meeting to discuss proposals in preparation for the 35th session of the UN Sub-Committee of Experts on the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (UNSCEGHS). -
How American Science Made Government Regulations On Emissions Unnecessary
May 18, 2018 | American Council on Science and Health
By Hank Campbell
In 2009 the U.S. government attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and pledged to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020. -
FERC to Tackle PURPA Reform
May 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is responding to the clamor of members of Congress and large electric utilities asking the regulator to re-examine an arcane 1978 law in light of today's vastly different power market conditions. -
FERC Approves Gulf South's Westlake Natural Gas Expansion in Louisiana
May 18, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By David Bradley
FERC on Thursday authorized Gulf South Pipeline Co.'s proposal to build and operate the Westlake Expansion Project in Calcasieu Parish, LA, with one notable dissent. -
CFTC Sees Prices, Hedging Headed Up with LNG Trade
May 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
U.S. and other financial exchanges will play a key role in the fast-evolving global market for natural gas derivatives, and domestic prices could increase significantly as the United States takes a larger share in trade. -
Japan's Push for Cleaner Fuel Opens New Lane for U.S. LNG
May 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
U.S. exporters of liquefied natural gas could be the major beneficiaries of a push by Asia's shipping giants to slash emissions from container vessels crisscrossing the open seas. -
Big Oil Investors Say More Needed to Tackle Climate Change
May 18, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Kelly Gilblom
Some of the world’s biggest fund managers are ratcheting up the pressure on oil and gas companies, expressing fear that a lack of action over tackling climate change could risk their investments. -
(ACC Mentioned) Scott Pruitt Accused of Doing ‘Bidding of Powerful Lobbyists’ with EPA Chemical Safety Rollback
May 18, 2018 | ThinkProgress
By Mark Hand
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to roll back an Obama-era rule meant to reduce the risks of chemical disasters at more than 10,000 facilities across the nation. -
Pruitt Moves to Rescind Regulations Inspired by West, Tex., Chemical Explosion That Killed 15
May 18, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Meagan Flynn
Sometime before 7:30 p.m. on April 17, 2013, in the small town of West, Tex., a fire broke out at the West Fertilizer Company plant. -
The Stakes on Infrastructure Remain High, We Accomplished A Lot in the Last Year But Must Keep Pressing On
May 18, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Jeff Denham
Last year during Infrastructure Week, I penned an op-ed on the state of our infrastructure and the responsibility of Congress to upgrade our transportation systems to the 21st Century. -
Trump Torpedoes One of Obama's Last Climate Orders
May 18, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
With the stroke of a pen, President Trump last night rescinded a rule on environmental sustainability and climate change. -
Texas Presses EPA for Break on San Antonio Smog
May 18, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Even if San Antonio isn't meeting the 2015 ground-level ozone standard, EPA should cut the booming growth hub some slack and let it come into compliance on its own, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) wrote this month in a newly released letter that urges the agency to revive an approach abandoned a decade ago.
Industry and Association News
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Energy News
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Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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May 18, 2018 | The Intercept
By Sharon Lerner
KRISTEN MELLO wasn’t invited to the EPA’s upcoming “National Leadership Summit” on PFOA, PFOS, and other PFAS chemicals. For most of her life, Mello, a member of Westfield Residents Advocating for Themselves, drank water contaminated with the chemicals that are going to be discussed at the meeting. At least six compounds in this class seeped into local drinking water from firefighting foam used at the Air National Guard base in her hometown of Westfield, Massachusetts. Mello and several of her immediate family members have developed some of the health problems associated with the chemicals, including thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, and liver problems. While most people in the United States have been exposed to PFAS, Westfield is one of the growing number of communities to learn they’ve had an especially high dose of the chemicals as the result of living near a military installation or manufacturing site that used them.
But when Mello sent the EPA a request to attend the PFAS summit, which will be held May 22-23 at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., the agency said she wasn’t welcome. “EPA has limited the invitation to federal partners, states, territories, tribes and representatives from national organizations,” the EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water wrote to Mello in an email. Although the summit is intended to identify actions “needed to address challenges currently facing states and local communities,” according to the agency’s website, the people in these communities who are directly affected by the chemicals will be strikingly absent from the meeting.
“We have 35 members as part of our coalition and every single one of them has reached out either to the EPA or to their state agencies asking to be represented at the summit,” said Shaina Kasper, Vermont and New Hampshire state director at the Toxics Action Network. “In each case, we’ve heard ‘no, there will be no community group representation.’ We’re so disappointed.”
While the people suffering from this contamination will not be at the meeting, the manufacturers of the chemicals used in the production of Teflon and other nonstick, water resistant, and stain resistant products will be well represented. Jessica Bowman, an attorney who works for the American Chemistry Council and the Fluorocouncil, an international group representing companies that make PFAS chemicals, will be speaking at 9:15 a.m., according to the meeting agenda.
When asked how the EPA had decided whom to invite to its meeting, an agency spokesperson replied in an email that that “EPA’s goal in this effort has always been to ensure that states and local communities have the tools they need to address PFAS contamination in their local areas. With that goal in mine, we are working with our partners at the state and tribal levels and our across the federal family for this event. We also understand the importance of having representation from utilities, non-governmental organizations, industry, Congress and other national associations.” When asked which non-governmental organizations were invited to the meeting, the EPA didn’t respond.
The EPA will stream one hour of the meeting and also recently announceda plan to visit states with impacted communities this summer.Suppressing New Standards
The summit comes on the heels of the revelation, first reported by Politico, that the EPA and the White House tried to suppress a report from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry that calculated safety levels of certain PFAS chemicals that were up to 10 times lower than health advisory levels the EPA set in 2016.
According to an email written by an unnamed White House aide and forwarded on January 30 by James Herz, Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy and Science at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Defense contacted the White House office of intergovernmental affairs because of concerns about a draft toxicological profile of PFOS, PFOA, and two other PFAS chemicals that ATSDR was preparing to release. The safety levels ranged as low as 12 parts per trillion, considerably lower than the 70 ppt levels the EPA set for both PFOS and PFOA in 2016.
“The public, media, and Congressional reaction to these numbers is going to be huge,” the White House aide predicted in the email, which EPA made public in April in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Union for Concerned Scientists. “The impact to EPA and DOD is going to be extremely painful. We (EPA and DOD) cannot seem to get ATSDR to realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be.”
No doubt the EPA and Department of Defense would have received plenty of unwelcome media attention had ATSDR released the study as planned. The proposed safety levels indicate that levels of the chemicals the EPA previously deemed “safe” may actually harm people. But the press coverage of their efforts to suppress the study has been arguably worse, with the Washington Post observing that the EPA’s behind-the-scenes work to downplay the dangers of the chemicals makes the agency look “secretive and uncaring” and Politico suggesting that the move to quash the study may be more damaging to Pruitt than his ethics scandals.
But there is far more at stake in the controversy over safety thresholds than optics or headlines. The ATSDR’s numbers, which were calculated based on the chemicals’ effects on the immune system, a more sensitive impact than EPA used to derive its own limits, recognized that human health effects can occur at extremely low levels of exposure, which are present on and near many military installations where firefighting foam containing PFAS was used.
The Department of Defense, which is responsible for hundreds of these sites, has much to lose from the ATSDR’s proposed risk levels, which could ultimately be used to calculate safe water levels and engineering standards that would guide the cleanup of these sites. Already the cost of cleaning up the bases and surrounding areas to EPA’s current standards has been estimated in the billions of dollars. Lowering the acceptable level of the chemicals further could add billions more to cleanup costs.
And because ATSDR’s report, which was drafted last May, also included evaluations of the toxicity of two other PFAS chemicals — perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) — it could hasten the addition of those chemicals to the list of chemicals the Department of Defense has to remediate. Currently, the Pentagon is only attempting to measure and address on the two best known in the class, PFOS and PFOA.
ATSDR’s numbers also suggest that levels of the chemicals already present in many parts of the United States are dangerous. “As the toxicological values continue to come down, we’re going to realize that there are more areas of concern than we originally suspected,” said Summer Streets, an environmental research scientist at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Minnesota, where 3M, which makes PFAS, is headquartered, has several bodies of water, including parts of the Mississippi River, in which the level of the chemicals is significantly higher than the safety level proposed in the ATSDR report.
The potential consequences of recognizing the breadth of this health threat go beyond the military. Should the ATSDR publish its report, which some Congressional Democrats have already demanded, anyone who has put PFAS into the environment could be held responsible for cleaning it up.Kirsten Gillibrand✔@SenGillibrand
Outrageous. In fear of a "public relations nightmare," the White House and @EPAScottPruitt are failing to protect public health. Victims of PFOA and PFOS contamination, and their families, deserve answers. This report should be released immediately. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/14/emails-white-house-interfered-with-science-study-536950 …11:28 PM - May 14, 2018White House, EPA headed off chemical pollution study
The intervention by Scott Pruitt’s aides came after one White House official warned the findings would cause a ‘public relations nightmare.'politico.com1,274742 people are talking about thisTwitter Ads info and privacy
“It shows we’re finally inching closer to the stage where we might get a regulatory standard on a federal level,” said Rob Bilott, the attorney who brought the chemicals to the attention of EPA and the rest of the world 18 years ago. “That could trigger not only the ability of communities and citizens to enforce these standards to get clean water, but also massive cleanup liabilities. You’re talking about global contamination on a pretty unprecedented scale.”
Some scientists who have studied the chemicals see the ATSDR’s proposed numbers as long-awaited vindication. “I’m immensely pleased,” said Philippe Grandjean, a toxicologist and physician who co-authored a studyin 2013 showing that PFAS chemicals weakened children’s immune responses. Based on that and other research, Grandjean issued a warningthat PFAS limits for drinking water were far too high. Although Grandjean sent his research to EPA, the agency declined to consider it when setting its health advisory levels in 2016.
“They did not use the results because they felt we were just looking at associations,” said Grandjean. “In my mind, this is an unreasonable critique because the only way we could get proof would be to experiment with our children.” Grandjean said he recognizes that directly administering PFAS to children in experiments comparable to those done on lab animals would be unethical. “But that’s what we’re doing now because we continue to allow our children to be exposed to doses that affect their health without monitoring.”
Grandjean said that the EPA had evidence that PFAS chemicals cause immune dysfunction well before his 2013 study. “EPA knew since 2000 that the immune system in monkeys was very susceptible to PFOS and PFOA,” he said. While the ATSDR is catching up with research on PFAS, according to Grandjean, “EPA today is at least 10 years behind the scientific evidence.”
Were they to attend the PFAS summit, Grandjean and Bilott would no doubt have much to share about the chemicals, but neither was invited to participate. While Maureen Sullivan, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment, Safety & Occupational Health, is scheduled to speak on behalf of the Department of Defense, representatives of ATSDR and any other division of Health and Human Services were, until recently, notably absent from the agenda. On Wednesday, Patrick Breysse, director of the ATSDR, was added to the agenda.
Had she been able to attend, Mello had plenty she wanted to say. Because her hometown owns the land that is the source of her local PFAS contamination and rents it to the National Guard, Westfield has wound up with the financial burden of cleaning up the chemicals. She wanted to ask the EPA to move forward with regulating PFAS, which could help the city in its ongoing battle with the National Guard over cleanup costs.
“Without the EPA’s help, not only are we sick, but we — the victims — have to pay to clean it up,” said Mello. “My goal was to go and beg them for help and we’re not even invited. I’m furious.”
https://theintercept.com/2018/05/18/the-epas-leadership-summit-on-pfoa-pollution-will-exclude-victims-and-community-groups/
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DOJ Seeks Full Dismissal of Challenge to '2-1' Order
May 18, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is urging a federal district judge to reject environmentalists' and other Trump critics' suit over the administration's “2-for-1” regulatory reform order once and for all, charging that the groups' revised legal complaint suffers from the same legal flaws that led to the dismissal of an earlier version.
In a May 15 motion to dismiss the suit, DOJ says plaintiffs in Public Citizen, et al., v. Donald Trump, et al., have again failed to raise any valid legal “harms” caused by executive order (EO) 13771, which requires EPA and other agencies to target two existing rules for repeal for every new rule they issue.
The complaint says that even though it has been over a year since Trump signed EO 13771, “In that time, and despite two opportunities to amend their Complaint, Plaintiffs have not identified a single harm that has occurred, or will imminently occur, as a result of the Executive Order.”
Public Citizen and its allies, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, are trying to revive their case after District Judge Randolph D. Moss dismissed their first complaint and set a high bar for claiming harm to them or their individual members from the EO even if they can show that it has led agencies to delay issuing new rules.
The amended complaint filed April 2 adds few details concerning EPA rules, instead focusing on adding new details of harms the groups say their members have seen or will see in the near future thanks to delayed rules from agencies including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Department of Energy and others governing workplace safety, vehicle technology, airline baggage fees and energy efficiency in some appliances.
But DOJ says that even when the groups have added new facts to their complaint, the underlying legal theory is the same as the one Moss rejected earlier this year.
“[A]lthough some of these allegations might involve new facts or new rules, they do not present a new theory of injury. Instead, they primarily rest on the same circuitous argument about an increased risk of harm caused by purported delays in agency rulemaking that this Court has seen, and found wanting, once before,” DOJ's new motion says.
The government says Public Citizen and its allies have shown no evidence that EO 13771 has been the decisive factor in postponing any particular rulemaking, and should be suing over those delayed rules individually rather than targeting an order that DOJ maintains is merely part of the overall process.
“The Executive Order provides just one consideration among many that an agency will weigh when deciding whether and how to regulate on a specific issue over which it has discretion. Plaintiffs are free to challenge the delay of individual rules in separate actions if they believe that the delay violates legal requirements. However, as this Court has previously explained, the limitations of Article III preclude the type of wide-ranging challenge Plaintiffs present here,” DOJ says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/doj-seeks-full-dismissal-challenge-2-1-order
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EPA Watchdog Will Examine Agency Email, Text Message, FOIA Habits
May 18, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Andragna
The EPA inspector general announced today it would look into the agency's efforts to properly preserve text messages and emails, as well as its responsiveness to public records requests.
According to a memo, the project was requested by members of Congress and will also involve a hotline complaint received during fiscal year 2018. The investigation also will address how well the agency is implementing a series of prior recommendations in those areas.
The new probe is broader than the one confirmed earlier in the week concerning whether Administrator Scott Pruitt's multiple non-public accounts are being properly searched in response to public records requests and preserving messages, according to an IG spokesman.
Email issues and slow responses to FOIA requests have dogged administrators from both parties, but POLITICO reported that Pruitt's senior aides are giving public records requests high-level vetting that's slowed the release of information to the public.
Pruitt's use of multiple non-public emails has also drawn the ire of Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso, though the agency assured him it searches all accounts.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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EPA To Ban Methylene Chloride In Paint Strippers: Science Or Scaremongering?
May 18, 2018 | American Council on Science and Health
By ACSH Staff
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has moved to place a ban on methylene chloride (dichloromethane, DCM) citing associations to a higher risk of cancer and neurological and liver problems. This was proposed in 2014 and under the Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA was required to perform risk evaluations on the uses of ten specific chemicals, including methylene chloride.
With a new administration and concern about "secret science" and "sue and settle" efforts at EPA in the past, it was unclear if EPA would want to revisit the risk assessments of this volatile organic compound. They have accepted the findings from 2017 and will prohibit consumer and commercial paint stripping uses of it.
Why it is a concern.
DCM is the paint stripper of choice and that is why it's so popular. It works very well. But it is volatile (has a low boiling point) so fumes are inevitable. Inhaling the fumes can be harmful and it is also absorbed through the skin. It can be detected at very low concentrations by its sweet smell but smelling it doesn't speak to whether a dangerous exposure has taken place. As with all chemicals, it's the exposure that determines the harm, even though OSHA maintains that once you can smell it you are already overexposed (2).In high concentrations, it can be deadly. In a high-profile 2012 case, a worker using a methylene chloride product to refinish a bathtub died in an unventilated bathroom.
In industrial settings, there is much less risk because workers wear full-face respirators like in the image, and that is why the ban will only be for commercial and residential paint stripping products.
1. Why not create a new standard instead of banning it?
There is no way to significantly reduce exposure to methylene chloride if it is being used to strip paint, especially in a non-industrial setting, such as homes. It takes a lot to do the job completely, and it is so volatile that it is impossible not to inhale some unless you are using a commercial full-face respirator, something that do-it-your-selfers are unlikely to do.
When a chemical is banned finding an alternative can be challenging. The Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance (HSIA) argues that current replacements are less effective, may be as toxic, and some are flammable (1).
2. Is the ban an example of EPA overreach?
"Methylene chloride is arguably the most dangerous of all the solvents sold at Home Depot," said Dr. Josh Bloom, Senior Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. "Chemists use it all of the time, but we do so in fume hoods. Some argue it's not necessary to ban it, but this is not a knee-jerk chemophobic response by EPA. There is real risk here."
It is used in for other applications, like adhesives, pharmaceuticals, and aerosols, but only paint strippers have any risk.
Given the assessments done, this is an instance where EPA concern is warranted.
NOTE:
(1) Halogenated hydrocarbons, such as methylene chloride and chloroform are not flammable. Another, carbon tetrachloride is actually used in fire extinguishers.
(2) The OSHA position is more regulatory than scientific. One drop of DCM in a room will probably be detected by smell but will cause no harm to anyone. A comparison of this to workers exposed to high concentrations of the chemical, especially in poorly ventilated areas, is meaningless.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/05/18/epa-ban-methylene-chloride-paint-strippers-science-or-scaremongering-12982
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(ACC Mentioned) US EPA Eyes Proposal on Costs and Benefits of Rules
May 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA is working on a proposal to address how it weighs costs and benefits in its regulations.
According to its website, the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is conducting a standard interagency review of the proposal, "Increasing consistency and transparency in considering costs and benefits in the rulemaking process". Its status is listed as "prerule stage".
An EPA spokesperson told Chemical Watch the agency does not comment on the substance of actions under formal interagency review. But the spokesperson said the agency is "seeking to provide consistency and certainty in the way EPA calculates costs and benefits of its regulations."
The OMB website reflects three stakeholder meetings on the proposal. These were requested bythe American Petroleum Institute (API);the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM); andthe American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA).
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) attended two of these.
Consideration of the proposal comes as the EPA takes comment on a controversial proposed rule aimed at increasing the transparency of the science it uses to underpin its regulatory decisions.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67043/us-epa-eyes-proposal-on-costs-and-benefits-of-rules
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US Osha Seeks Input on UN GHS Conference
May 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) will host a public meeting to discuss proposals in preparation for the 35th session of the UN Sub-Committee of Experts on the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (UNSCEGHS).
At the 12 June meeting, Osha, along with the US Interagency GHS Coordinating Group, will provide updates on GHS-related interests. And it will consider comments submitted during the meeting when developing governmental positions for the UN session.
It will also give an update on the Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC), the Federal Register notice says.
The meeting will take place at the Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington, DC. The UN meeting will be held between 4 and 6 July in Geneva.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67042/us-osha-seeks-input-on-un-ghs-conference
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How American Science Made Government Regulations On Emissions Unnecessary
May 18, 2018 | American Council on Science and Health
By Hank Campbell
In 2009 the U.S. government attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and pledged to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020.
To make it happen, the Obama administration directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to lead the way starting with carbon dioxide (CO2) and that resulted in the Clean Power Plan (CPP) in 2015. While the goal was laudable, no one is in favor of more pollution, it was a blunt instrument because it unfairly penalized fossil fuel power plants in order to provide nearly half the overall reductions the Obama administration sought under the Paris Agreement commitment. Energy is a basic need so it didn't make much sense to unfairly penalize the poor with increased costs for unknown benefit.
The Paris Agreement is now gone in America, what federal politicization of science giveth politicization of science can taketh away, but the emissions reductions the government sought still happened despite a lack of regulations and for that we can thank American science and technology.
Though the added regulations have not come to pass, that's been a good thing. Without onerous cost increases on the poor, built-in higher rates due to solar and wind programs aside, the free market has continued to cause CO2 emissions to plummet, so much so that in 2017 America reached the CPP’s desired 2025 target. That's not due to solar or wind, finds the study in Environmental Science & Technology, it is overwhelmingly due to natural gas. Thanks to modern natural gas extraction techniques such as hydraulic fracturing, power plant emissions have declined from 2.7 billion tons in 2005 to 1.9 billion tons in 2017, a reduction of almost 30 percent.
Historical and projected CO2 emissions from the U.S. power sector in relation to natural gas prices (as delivered to electric generators). Projected emissions and gas prices are national averages based on scenarios in the AEO 2017 for the reference case and the high oil and gas resource and technology case.
Though it is hoped that subsidies for solar and wind will eventually pay off, the emissions savings right now have largely been in natural gas and at the expense of coal, whose emissions are back at 1970s levels. The same efficiencies that have gone into making 4K big screen televisions cheaper than an iPhone have been leveraged to vault America into energy dominance again, with less pollution. While American emissions have dropped, global emissions have increased 21 percent. Like in agriculture, if the rest of the world adopted American acceptance of science and technology when it comes to energy, our environmental footprint would plummet without impacting the poor in a negative way. Instead, it would be positive. A billion people in the developing world use decentralized fuel for heating and cooking, things like wood. With centralized power plants, yes even using fossil fuels, their emissions would decline as rapidly as ours have and their standard of living would rise.
If the federal government stays out of picking winners and losers in energy, the trend toward lower emissions is likely to continue. As Erik Solheim, Executive Director of the United Nations ;Environmen Programme predicted, "In all likelihood, the United States of America will live up to its Paris commitment, not because of the White House, but because of the private sector."
That's something we can all cheer.
And cheer it we do. When government gets it right about science, we tell them, and when they get it wrong, we tell them that too. We are in our 40th year of calling out bad science and promoting the good kind. And I thank you for making that possible.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/05/18/how-american-science-made-government-regulations-emissions-unnecessary-12979
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May 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is responding to the clamor of members of Congress and large electric utilities asking the regulator to re-examine an arcane 1978 law in light of today's vastly different power market conditions.
A long-standing debate over the law's continued usefulness has pitted state regulators, utilities and their customers against an array of interests representing industrial co-generators, independent power producers, and solar and wind developers.
FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre announced the review yesterday at the commission's monthly meeting. FERC has been mulling what to do about the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) for a while, having hosted a technical conference in June 2016 on a law originally established in response to an energy crisis (Energywire, June 29, 2016).
PURPA was enacted after oil prices skyrocketed during the 1973 Arab oil embargo. The statute aimed to encourage conservation, more reliance on domestic energy sources and, in particular, developing renewable energy technologies.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House Energy and Commerce Committee last year asked FERC to amend PURPA's rules concerning small power producers to prevent project developers from "gaming" the law's intent and driving up consumer costs for electricity (Energywire, Nov. 3, 2017). The committee has a bill pending that would make some fundamental changes to the 40-year-old law.
A controversial aspect of the law is a provision allowing developers to build small power projects — known as qualifying facilities (QFs) — without the consent of the utility or regulator in a given state. Then the utility has to enter into a long-term contract to buy that power whether it is needed or not, and those costs are borne by the utility's customers.
"[The] makeup of the commission is significantly different than it was in 2016," McIntyre said. "And in recent months, we have been focusing on other issues such as resilience and our review of the commission's gas certificate policy statement."
McIntyre said progress on those issues opens the door to an examination of PURPA and what options FERC has for updating regulations tied to the law. He said he is still talking with the other commissioners "on the format, scope and timing of this review."
Commissioner Rob Powelson, a former Pennsylvania state regulator, expressed his impatience with the lack of reform to date and urged that the commission review be "expedited."
"There are things we know full well from the 1-mile rule to QF reform we can address quickly," Powelson said, relying on the record from the technical conference.
The 1-mile rule in PURPA controls how close, for example, turbines in a wind farm need to be to receive QF treatment.Summer power demand
FERC staff members yesterday also reported their projections on summer electricity demand.
Most of the country will have more than enough power to meet demand this summer, FERC analysts said in their summer market assessment, even as government forecasters call for a warmer-than-average season across the country.
Net demand is expected to be about the same as summer 2017, with the lack of growth "mainly attributable to the higher implementation of demand response in certain areas, and an increase in behind-the-meter distributed energy resources," FERC said.
Natural gas will be plentiful and may provide a record amount of fuel for power generation, the report said, as gas production "will climb to near record highs."
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs the state's grid, is an exception in the forecast, which could have less electricity available than needed, although ERCOT "has mapped out procedures to maintain grid reliability," FERC said.
In the West, a low snowpack could lead to lower-than-average hydroelectric production, and that could "create challenges" as gas-fired generation may be "limited due to reduced gas storage capacity and local pipelines outages."
NOAA forecasts an above-normal chance for higher-than-average temperatures for the West, South and East for June, July and August. The expectation for higher-than-average temperatures is greatest in New England and along a band running from West Texas through the Pacific Northwest.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/18/stories/1060082043
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FERC Approves Gulf South's Westlake Natural Gas Expansion in Louisiana
May 18, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By David Bradley
FERC on Thursday authorized Gulf South Pipeline Co.'s proposal to build and operate the Westlake Expansion Project in Calcasieu Parish, LA, with one notable dissent.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved by a 4-1 vote Gulf South's proposal, which would enable the company to provide up to 200,000 Dth/d of firm transportation service to Entergy Louisiana LLC's proposed 980 MW natural-gas fired combined cycle electric generating unit, the Lake Charles Power Plant, near Westlake, LA [CP17-476].
Gulf South's plans call for firm transportation service from a primary receipt point at the Westlake Compressor Station and various supplemental receipt points, including a new receipt point with Entergy Louisiana's existing Varibus pipeline to a primary delivery point at the proposed power plant.
Commissioner Richard Glick was the lone dissenter against the order. As he did when dissenting against FERC's approval in March of the Southeast Market Pipelines (SMP) project, which includes the Sabal Trail, Hillabee Expansion and Florida Southeast Connection pipeline projects, Glick cited concerns about the project's potential contribution to climate change.
The environmental assessment (EA) for the Westlake Expansion found that it "would result in direct and downstream GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions and would contribute to global increases in GHG levels," Glick said.
But the EA also concluded that FERC "cannot make a finding that the project's emissions would significantly contribute to climate change." FERC, Glick said, "nevertheless proceeds to find that the project will have no significant impact on the environment...
"As I stated in my Sabal Trail dissent, I do not agree that 'no standard methodology exists to determine how a project's contribution to GHG emissions would translate into physical effects on the environment for purposes of evaluating the project's impact on climate change.' The social cost of carbon, which translates the long-term damage done by a ton of carbon dioxide into monetary value, provides a meaningful approach to convert GHG emissions into a qualitative figure demonstrating impact."
When Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur dissented from FERC's approval of the Appalachian-to-Southeast Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines in October, it was seen as a rare split decision. Critics have long complained that the Commission wields a "rubber stamp" for proposed pipeline projects.
Since then, both LaFleur and Glick -- the two Democratic members of the five-member Commission -- have voted against SMP. Glick also dissented in January when FERC issued a certificate order authorizing the PennEast Pipeline. In the latter case, Glick said the order relied "exclusively" on the project's precedent agreements, which had PennEast's affiliates holding more than 75% of the pipeline's subscribed capacity.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114428-ferc-approves-gulf-souths-westlake-natural-gas-expansion-in-louisiana
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CFTC Sees Prices, Hedging Headed Up with LNG Trade
May 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
U.S. and other financial exchanges will play a key role in the fast-evolving global market for natural gas derivatives, and domestic prices could increase significantly as the United States takes a larger share in trade.
"Rarely does a new market spring into existence in a sector as large and mature as natural gas," the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission wrote in a new study of world liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets. "The amount of capital to be invested and the consequences will have a profound impact" on the global gas industry, it said.
The CFTC study is pinned on the shift in the U.S. trade position in 2016 from net importer of gas to net exporter, with the startup of the first of several LNG export facilities in December of that year. Since then, a second LNG terminal has come online, and several more are under construction.
The commission says the market for natural gas derivatives — financial products that allow gas buyers, sellers and other market participants to hedge their bets on gas prices or seek to cash in on the industry — has boomed over the past several years. A key natural gas futures contract trades an average of 200,000 to 500,000 lots per day on the New York Mercantile Exchange, CFTC said, and saw more than a million lots trade hands at a peak earlier this year.
A major driver for that growing financial traffic is a shift within the global LNG market toward short-term contracts. CFTC pointed to a U.S. Energy Information Administration assessment that spot and short-term natural gas deals grew fivefold as a share of the market between 2000 and 2015, from 5 percent to more than 25 percent.
Another factor driving market changes is a shift away from a historical indexation of LNG prices to oil, and toward gas benchmarks. International Gas Union data show that the share of European gas imports pegged to oil prices fell from over 90 percent to less than 40 percent in just 10 years, the CFTC noted.
As world LNG markets evolve, the U.S. share in global exports is expected to grow. The domestic LNG plants that are in operation or currently under construction have a capacity of 10 billion cubic feet per day of exports, which amounts to about 13 percent of U.S. gas production.
The commission did not conduct its own analysis of the potential domestic price impacts of increased LNG exports. But it pointed to a range of forecasts produced over the last several years by groups including the Department of Energy and the American Petroleum Institute. Those projections range from a negligible domestic price impact to an increase of 20 percent in domestic natural gas prices. Changes are likely to be most significant in the Gulf of Mexico area, CFTC noted.
A significant part of the price impact of LNG exports comes from greater demand driving sale prices up. But changes could also come from increasing linkages to more volatile world pricing.
"Aside from limited pipeline gas traded with Canada and Mexico, U.S. natural gas has been relatively insulated from international market dynamics," CFTC noted in its assessment. "Increasing exports of LNG from the U.S. may mean that the domestic market will be influenced more by global forces."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/18/stories/1060082077
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Japan's Push for Cleaner Fuel Opens New Lane for U.S. LNG
May 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
U.S. exporters of liquefied natural gas could be the major beneficiaries of a push by Asia's shipping giants to slash emissions from container vessels crisscrossing the open seas.
Japan and South Korea have historically been the biggest importers of LNG, but the energy industry has largely written off future demand growth from the two nations because of their sluggish economies and shrinking populations.
Now hope is emerging out of Asia's busiest ports after an agreement by Japan's major shippers to use cleaner fuels to meet tightening emissions standards under the International Maritime Organization.
The build-out of infrastructure that permits a ship-to-ship transfer of LNG to fuel an ocean vessel could change the calculus for natural gas shipped from the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.
Japan's four corporate partners said they plan to establish two joint ventures that would both supply LNG ship fuel and expand its use in regional shipping. The four Japanese partners are Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd., Chubu Electric Power Co., Toyota Tsusho Corp. and Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha.
"Asia Pacific is projected to be the fastest growing market for LNG bunkering," according to a report by Seattle-based Coherent Market Insights.
Toyota Tsusho, a conglomerate, also invests in solar power in Hawaii and geothermal power in Kenya. It supplies lithium and technology for next-generation cars and trucks. Chubu Electric generates electricity for central Japan and is partnering with LNG export projects in the United States.
Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, or "K" Line, and Nippon Yusen, or NYK Group, are two of the largest shipping companies in the world.
NYK Group officials said that an increasingly aggressive push by the London-based International Maritime Organization (IMO), a U.N. agency, to tackle shipping emissions led the Japanese competitors to team up. New rules aim to virtually eliminate the sulfur content of ship fuel to substantially reduce harmful sulfur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions. Last month, IMO greenlighted a plan to lower global shipping's greenhouse gas emissions.Selling cleaner ships
IMO, which regulates global shipping, is taking aim at the heavy fuel oil used in shipping. The organization already tightened standards for sulfur content in fuel but is now going further. Starting in 2020, ships will be instructed to use fuel oil with no more than 0.5 percent sulfur content.
Stripping more sulfur from heavy fuel oil will prove difficult for refineries. Still, IMO officials say they'll spend the next two years working out the technical challenges. With mass fuel switching on the horizon, LNG is poised to be a fuel of choice for some vessels. Switching from heavy fuel oil to LNG could lower a vessel's SOx emissions by up to 100 percent and NOx by nearly 80 percent.
Carbon dioxide emissions could also be cut by 30 percent. The new plan to tackle climate change approved at the IMO in London in April envisions a 50 percent cut in global CO2 shipping emissions under 2008 levels by 2050.
About half of the respondents to a survey by the World Refining Association said they expected significant fuel switching as ship emissions rules tighten. Forty percent said the fuel switching would favor LNG suppliers the most, but tighter emissions regulations will also benefit suppliers of lighter-grade fuels and distillates as ships turn away from sulfur-heavy fuels. A quarter of the fuel companies surveyed could see a mass shift by shipping companies to using LNG-powered vessels.
Port cities around the world suffer some of the worst air pollution. Most developed nations have tighter restrictions on shipping emissions within their territorial jurisdictions, but in the past, ships were free to switch to dirtier fuels while traversing the high seas.
IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim has said the agency's new mantra is "Better shipping for a better future." And he's pressed delegates to find creative ways to make shipping "ever safer, cleaner and sustainable."
Peter Thomson, U.N. special envoy for ocean affairs, echoed Lim's insistence that the IMO not let up on its emissions-cutting work. "We will make these technological changes because we have to. Humanity bends in the direction of survival," he said.
For LNG exporters, the most sought-after prize remains the Chinese market.
China overtook South Korea as the second-largest LNG importer last year, but the spike in consumption in China was driven by seasonal demand for winter heating. Nevertheless, China is deemed the most promising future demand growth market for LNG.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/18/stories/1060082073
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Big Oil Investors Say More Needed to Tackle Climate Change
May 18, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Kelly Gilblom
Some of the world’s biggest fund managers are ratcheting up the pressure on oil and gas companies, expressing fear that a lack of action over tackling climate change could risk their investments.
The comments come days before Big Oil kicks off annual shareholder meetings, where they are already facing calls from smaller investors to set clear targets on climate change and even cut their investments in fossil fuels. That could now gain momentum with the nudge from large investors who manage trillions of dollars of funds.
Companies must take tougher action on emissions if they want to survive the energy transition and make a success of the Paris climate deal, according to a letter from a group of investors, including Standard Life Aberdeen Plc and Legal & General Group Plc, which together oversee about $10.4 trillion of funds. They plan to take up the issue with the world’s biggest oil companies at their upcoming AGMs, the investors said in the letter published in the Financial Times on Friday.
“Investors are embracing their responsibility for supporting the Paris agreement,” they said. “It is time for the entire oil and gas industry to do the same.”
Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s shareholders will on May 22 vote on a resolution that wants the company to set specific targets to tackle climate change. While the management has urged investors to reject the proposal, saying it is already investing in biofuels and clean power and working on cutting emissions, some smaller holders support the resolution.
Friday’s letter stopped short of pledging to support the initiative, but said companies should provide more clarity on climate change.
Oil companies are facing one of their biggest challenges. They have churned out trillions of dollars of profit over the the past century, and investors and pension funds often look to them for steady dividends. Yet, calls for decarbonization are growing louder as the world attempts to limit temperature increases and tackle pollution.
The investor letter also said there could be increased regulation on carbon, creating extra costs for the companies. The impact on the environment could become serious enough to leave some oil and gas fields stranded and uneconomical to exploit.
Investors said companies shouldn’t just direct their focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from their own operations, but look at the emissions from their products once sold.
“Reducing the carbon impact of their products is the most effective strategy for these companies to move to a low-carbon world,” they said in the letter. “The capital allocation decisions they make today are important to determine how likely they are to survive that transition.”
Other signatories include BNP Paribas Asset Management and HSBC Global Asset Management Ltd.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-18/big-oil-investors-say-more-needed-to-tackle-climate-change
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May 18, 2018 | ThinkProgress
By Mark Hand
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to roll back an Obama-era rule meant to reduce the risks of chemical disasters at more than 10,000 facilities across the nation. The Chemical Disaster Rule, issued a week before President Trump took office, was the EPA’s central response to the 2013 fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, which killed 15 people.
The Obama-era rule amended the EPA’s outdated risk management program in response to data showing thousands of fires, explosions, and other chemical releases that the existing framework had failed to prevent. But on Thursday, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt introduced a proposal to rescind the measures, saying it would save the industry tens of millions of dollars a year.Advertisement
“The rule proposes to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens, address the concerns of stakeholders and emergency responders on the ground, and save Americans roughly $88 million a year,” Pruitt said in a statement.
In the Thursday news release announcing the planned rollback of the safety regulations, the EPA included statements from chemical industry officials thanking Pruitt for saving them from the cost of updating their operations.
The EPA’s Chemical Disaster Rule, as proposed by the Obama administration “would have imposed significant new costs on industry without identifying or quantifying the safety benefits to be achieved through new requirements,” National Association of Chemical Distributors President Eric Byer said in a statement.
ON MAY 17, 2018, EPA ADMINISTRATOR SCOTT PRUITT SCOTT PRUITT SIGNED THE RISK MANAGEMENT PROGRAM RECONSIDERATION PROPOSED RULE AT EPA HEADQUARTERS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. TRADE UNIONS AND PUBLIC SAFETY ADVOCATES CONDEMNED PRUITT'S EFFORT TO WEAKEN CHEMICAL PLANT SAFETY RULES. CREDIT: EPA
There are about 150 major industrial chemical accidents each year in the United States, according to the BlueGreen Alliance, a group composed of labor unions and environmental organizations. At least one-in-three schoolchildren attend a school in the vulnerability zone of a hazardous facility.Advertisement
On August 1, 2013, President Obama issued executive order, Improving Chemical Facility Safety and Security, following several catastrophic chemical facility incidents, including the disaster in West, Texas. The focus of the executive order was to reduce risks associated with hazardous chemicals to owners and operators, workers, and communities by enhancing the safety and security of chemical facilities.
The Obama rule included requiring more analysis of safety technology, third-party audits, incident investigation analyses, and stricter emergency preparedness requirements for facilities such as petroleum refineries, large chemical manufacturers, wastewater treatment systems, chemical and petroleum terminals, and agricultural chemical distributors.
But the EPA received a petition from a coalition of chemical and energy industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council and American Petroleum Institute, to delay and reconsider the Obama-era amendments. Last year, Pruitt issued a delay of the rule in response to the industry requests.
Pruitt’s proposed rule change would “reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens while maintaining consistency” with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s safety standards, the EPA said.
The decision to rollback the safety standards was condemned by trade unions and public safety advocates. The United Steelworkers accused the administrator of doing “the bidding of powerful industry lobbyists by rescinding important requirements to prevent and respond to catastrophic chemical incidents at industrial facilities.”
Trump puts public, workers at risk as he tries again to eliminate nation’s chemical safety agency
The EPA risk management program “is a crucial tool that the Obama administration rightly decided to modernize” after numerous incidents, the union said Thursday in a statement. The United Steelworkers pointed to the deadly explosion in West, Texas, and earlier incidents at United Steelworkers-represented facilities in Anacortes, Washington and Richmond, California.Advertisement
The proposed rule will be available for public comment for 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register. A public hearing on the rule is scheduled for June 14 at EPA headquarters in Washington.
“Trump’s EPA revealed a shocking, but unfortunately not surprising, plan to delete ‘all accident prevention program provisions’ of the Chemical Disaster Rule that President Obama’s EPA issued based on robust evidence of harm to workers, first-responders, and fenceline communities,” Emma Cheuse, an attorney with Earthjustice, said Thursday in a statement.
The people living and working near oil refineries and chemical manufacturers, who face repeated toxic releases and fires like the dozens of serious incidents documented in recent months, are disproportionately people of color and low-income people, Cheuse said.
Scott Pruitt embraces industry-backed chemical approval process under the guise of public safety
Pruitt’s EPA wants to rescind amendments related to safer technology and alternatives analyses, third-party audits, incident investigations, and information availability. The agency is also proposing to modify amendments relating to local emergency coordination and emergency exercises, and to change the compliance dates for these provisions.
In response to Pruitt’s plans to weaken the rule, Environmental Working Group (EWG) President Ken Cook said EPA administrators are supposed to push for safeguards to protect workers and residents from deadly catastrophes. The EWG is a nonprofit group that works to protect human health and the environment.Advertisement
“But this is Scott Pruitt,” Cook said Thursday in a statement. “There apparently is no favor he won’t do for the chemical industry. Repealing safety measures at industry’s behest is just all in a day’s work.”
https://thinkprogress.org/public-safety-advocates-condemn-scott-pruitt-for-chemical-plant-rule-rollback-c205950eec0c/
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Pruitt Moves to Rescind Regulations Inspired by West, Tex., Chemical Explosion That Killed 15
May 18, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Meagan Flynn
Sometime before 7:30 p.m. on April 17, 2013, in the small town of West, Tex., a fire broke out at the West Fertilizer Company plant.
Thirty volunteers made up the town’s fire department. They heard the beep on their pagers, said goodbye to their families and headed to the source of the menacing black smoke.
Some of them, 12 of them, wouldn’t come back.
Twenty minutes after the fire started, the plant exploded — so powerfully that it registered as a 2.1-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale. A total of 15 people died in the blast, including the 12 volunteer first responders. Two hundred sixty people were injured, and 150 buildings in the vicinity were damaged. Half of them, including two schools, had to be demolished.
Arson caused the fire, federal investigators concluded three years later. But 80,000 to 100,000 pounds of unsafely stored fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate was the source of the disastrous explosion.
The fatal blast prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to make serious changes to regulations about how companies store dangerous flammable chemicals and how they develop risk-management plans. The new rules were set to take effect in June 2017, but they were held up by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt after he took office.
Now Pruitt wants to rescind most of the safety regulations, saying that a lot of them imposed “unnecessary regulatory burdens” on the chemical industry. Pruitt’s proposed changes, signed Thursday, are subject to public comment.
“Accident prevention is a top priority at EPA, and this proposed rule will ensure proper emergency planning and continue the trend of fewer significant accidents involving chemicals,” Pruitt said in a statement. “The rule proposes to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens, address the concerns of stakeholders and emergency responders on the ground, and save Americans roughly $88 million a year.”
The bulk of the claimed savings would come from getting rid of a rule requiring owners of a chemical plant to evaluate options for safer technology and procedures that would mitigate hazards, according to an EPA report. He also seeks to rescind rules requiring companies to conduct a “root-cause analysis” after a “catastrophic” chemical release or an incident that might have caused one and to perform a third-party compliance audit after an accident at a plant or when conditions are discovered that could lead to an accidental release of chemicals.
Pruitt’s move to dismantle these regulations is part of a broader push to scrap Obama-era environmental rules, a strategy that has drawn intense criticism from environmental groups. On Thursday, some accused Pruitt of bending to the chemical industry’s will.
“EPA administrators are supposed to push for safeguards to protect workers and residents from deadly catastrophes, like the one we saw in 2013 when the West, Tex., fertilizer plant explosion killed 15 people,” said Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook in a statement. “But this is Scott Pruitt. There apparently is no favor he won’t do for the chemical industry. Repealing safety measures at industry’s behest is just all in a day’s work.”
Pruitt also would eliminate a requirement that chemical plants release information to the public about the types of chemicals stored, the types of procedures the plant has in place to mitigate the risks and, crucially, what to do in case of an emergency. He is not seeking to rescind the portion of the rule that made this information more readily available to first responders.
That Obama administration’s rule was proposed after an investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which called the explosion “one of the most destructive incidents ever investigated.” The board stressed the need for changes in both regulations and transparency to prevent a repeat tragedy.
“CSB’s analysis shows that the risk to the public from a catastrophic incident exists at least within the state of Texas, if not more broadly,” the agency wrote. “For example, 19 other Texas facilities storing more than 10,000 pounds of fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate are located within 0.5 miles of a school, hospital, or nursing home, raising concerns that an incident with offsite consequences of this magnitude could happen again.”
In addition to identifying safety-inspection failures and other lax regulations, the CSB report found that few people in West appeared aware of the explosive nature of the fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate inside the West Fertilizer Co. Some of the plant’s own workers were not aware of the chemical compound’s hazards, the report said. The volunteer firefighters had no plan in place to combat a hazardous-materials incident at the plant, it said. And instead of evacuating immediately, residents watched the fire from parking lots and front yards, exposing them to the blast and flying debris.
But Pruitt argued that making the information about the risks of the chemicals and the company’s emergency response plans available to the public exposed the plants to terrorists, a position he took before he became President Trump’s EPA administrator.
“The safety of these manufacturing, processing and storage facilities should be a priority for us all,” Pruitt wrote in a July 2016 letter to then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy while he was the attorney general of Oklahoma, “but safety encompasses more than preventing accidental releases of chemicals, it also encompasses preventing intentional releases caused by bad actors seeking to harm our citizens.”
On Thursday, the chemical industry cheered Pruitt’s decision to toss out the Obama-era regulations during a signing ceremony.
“The EPA’s Risk Management Plan Rule as proposed under the Obama Administration would have imposed significant new costs on the industry without identifying or quantifying the safety benefits to be achieved through the new requirements,” Eric Byer, president of the National Association of Chemical Distributors, said in a statement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/05/18/pruitt-moves-to-rescind-regulations-inspired-by-west-tex-chemical-explosion-that-killed-15/?utm_term=.b7e32b875b9e
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May 18, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Jeff Denham
Last year during Infrastructure Week, I penned an op-ed on the state of our infrastructure and the responsibility of Congress to upgrade our transportation systems to the 21st Century. We were just over 100 days into a new administration that had made infrastructure a top campaign issue. The American Infrastructure Report Card for 2017 was a D+. Stakes were high.
This year, stakes remain the same. Our infrastructure is still in dire need of enhancement, and goods and people continue to move over and through our roads, rails, waterways, and skies at all-time highs. The indefinite role of the federal government to facilitate interstate commerce has not diminished, and the president’s $1 trillion-plus pledge still remains. For these reasons, I continue to be optimistic that Congress will get this done.
My top priority is creating an environment to build big things and sustain projects and programs that will last far beyond my lifetime.
The path and vehicle to a $1 trillion-plus investment might not look as we originally pictured, but the topline investment is what matters. For example, Congress made a $20 billion down payment in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 dedicated to transportation over the next two years. We made good on that promise in the omnibus spending bill, dedicating over $10 billion. The investment includes a $1 billion increase in BUILD grants, over $3.5 billion to highways, over $3 billion for rail including $250 million for State of Good Repair, $1.4 billion for water infrastructure, and over $1 billion for discretionary airport grants. These will yield significant improvements across all modes, and we stand poised to double down in fiscal year 2019.
Creating a streamlined regulatory structure to deliver projects faster will leverage these dollars into more roads and deeper harbors. The administration has proposed a One Federal Decision environmental review and approval policy, which would significantly reduce the process from 10 years to two. The framework for this reform was introduced in February, and Congress has an opportunity to make it a reality. This policy does not require revenue and should be considered in upcoming infrastructure legislation.
In conjunction with regulatory streamlining, we must utilize emerging technologies to keep pace with innovation. We have seen companies like Uber transform the landscape, and the federal government must provide enough guidance so industry has the certainty to invest while understanding that over-regulation restricts innovation. Safety is and always will be the top priority in this space, which is why the U.S. Department of Transportation is preparing its third iteration of autonomous vehicle guidance. Ensuring that the manufacturers have the tools they need, and that those tools are up to date and evolving with technology, is essential to a 21st Century system.
Next up for the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is the Water Resources and Development Act (WRDA). This important legislation authorizes harbor deepening, lock and dam, water storage, and supply projects. The legislation is an opportunity to make operational reforms for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. This year, we have an opportunity to expand the Water Infrastructure Financing Act (WIFIA) to include reclamation projects that include water storage in the Central Valley of California. The proposal encourages private investment in systems that serve the public interest by providing low-interest, government-backed loans with a long repayment period. The WIFIA program just recently approved its first loan, and the benefits are evident. Expanding to water supply projects is an opportunity that the administration supports and Congress must achieve.
Overall, we have made progress and shown a commitment to infrastructure this year. We still have a number of pending items to accomplish like the Federal Aviation Authorization, the next $10 billion investment for fiscal year 2019, WRDA, and a whole host of policy reforms including the Infrastructure Principles. These items significantly move the ball forward and represent a down payment towards the president’s $1 trillion-plus promise. We must address the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, and the time to act is now.
Denham is a chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure's Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/388317-the-stakes-on-infrastructure-remain-high-we-accomplished-a-lot
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Trump Torpedoes One of Obama's Last Climate Orders
May 18, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
With the stroke of a pen, President Trump last night rescinded a rule on environmental sustainability and climate change.
He replaced it with an order that prioritizes energy efficiency and waters down climate policies.
Trump issued an executive order instructing agencies to cut waste and costs to "enhance the resilience" of federal facilities and to lower the energy use of the buildings they oversee.
The document eliminates an executive order issued by former President Obama in 2015, called "Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade." It focused heavily on efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Trump's order requires agencies to track their efforts in lowering energy use, but it does not require them to set goals to limit greenhouse gases, and the word "climate" does not appear in its text.
The elimination of the Obama-era provision was long anticipated by experts in federal contracting and energy efficiency circles.
The White House this spring proposed an increase of $500 million in funding for a unit of the Department of Energy that focuses on energy efficiency. "Agencies have identified energy efficiency projects which if implemented could save the Federal Government millions of dollars annually in energy and maintenance costs," the White House said in its funding request.
Yesterday's executive order had been expected for months, and a draft of it was circulating as early as October, according to a person familiar with the order.
Mike Catanzaro, a former energy adviser to Trump, supported energy efficiency projects across the federal government, according to people familiar with his work. Catanzaro left the White House last month.
Under the new order, federal agencies will no longer have to publish reports on their environmental sustainability — documents called "strategic sustainability performance plans."
The administration had mostly ignored the Obama-era rule and failed to publish those reports, which were required to be shared with the public annually.
Only four of 30 federal departments contacted by E&E News recently had put their reports online. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Climatewire, April 23).
The Trump order also supports performance contracting, a technique to retrofit buildings using budget-neutral principles.
In a statement, Jennifer Schafer, executive director of the Federal Performance Contracting Coalition, called the order a "positive step forward by this administration." She added that the group is glad Trump waited to revoke the previous order until he had a replacement ready.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/18/stories/1060082083
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Texas Presses EPA for Break on San Antonio Smog
May 18, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Even if San Antonio isn't meeting the 2015 ground-level ozone standard, EPA should cut the booming growth hub some slack and let it come into compliance on its own, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) wrote this month in a newly released letter that urges the agency to revive an approach abandoned a decade ago.
"EPA has long used discretion to avoid nonattainment designations," Abbott said in the letter to agency chief Scott Pruitt, posted online yesterday as part of a regulatory docket.
Abbott reiterated his preference that Bexar County — the heart of the eight-county San Antonio metro region still awaiting a final decision from EPA — should be deemed in attainment. If not, regulators should at least defer the effective date of a nonattainment designation and give the county a chance to independently meet the 70-parts-per-billion standard "without federal intervention," he said.
Abbott pointed to EPA's use of "early action compacts" during most of George W. Bush's administration following the 1997 revision of the ozone standard. The compacts, initially pushed by Texas, allowed some problem areas to sidestep formal nonattainment designations, which start the clock for states to come up with mandatory cleanup plans. Under the compacts, state regulators instead agreed to meet air quality benchmarks through customized agreements hammered out with EPA. The agency stopped using compacts in 2008 after environmental groups charged in a lawsuit that the approach violated the Clean Air Act, according to an EPA report released the following year.
Abbott's bid to resurrect it again attests to the state's eagerness to avoid a nonattainment label for the San Antonio region, one of the nation's fastest-growing areas; Bexar County alone is home to an estimated 1.9 million people. Under a court order, EPA is required to make a final decision by July 17. In a status report filed earlier this week, agency officials affirmed that they will meet the deadline.
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is a lung irritant linked to asthma attacks in children and worsened breathing problems for people with chronic respiratory ailments.
The designation for the San Antonio region will be the last of three rounds for the 2015 standard. While all of the designations were legally due by last October, EPA without explanation failed to hit that target. The first round, covering areas clearly in compliance with 70-ppb threshold, then came in November. The second, also made under court order in response to lawsuits by states and public health groups, followed last month. The San Antonio designation is particularly delayed because Texas officials last September abruptly switched their recommendation for Bexar County from "nonattainment" to "unclassifiable/attainment." In March, EPA Region 6 Administrator Anne Idsal replied that the agency would at best rank the county as "unclassifiable."
Not only do air quality monitors show a violation of the 70-ppb threshold, but the county has emissions of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides that are about four times higher than those of any other county in the region, according to an accompanying technical analysis.
In this month's letter, Abbott countered that the analysis contained significant "legal and factual errors," and blamed foreign emissions for pushing ozone levels above the 70-ppb limit. "There is no legitimate reason to punish Bexar County for emissions that it cannot control, regardless of whether those emissions are naturally occurring or man-made," he added. In a report last year, the San Antonio area council of governments predicted that a nonattainment designation could lead to at least $3.2 billion in long-term economic damage because of lost manufacturing projects and other factors. EPA has acknowledged that Bexar County will in any case meet the ozone standard by 2020, Abbott said.
In legislation introduced last May, Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) sought to expand EPA's use of early action compacts on a national scale. A year later, the bill, S. 1203, is still awaiting action by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/18/stories/1060082137
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