Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 5/23/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Meet the Man Helping Pruitt Reshape Science
May 23, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
One of Scott Pruitt's most enduring legacies may be the way he curtailed EPA's use of science. -
India Clears Bayer-Monsanto Deal With Conditions
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Eleanor Tyler
Bayer AG’s proposed merger with Monsanto Corp. cleared another important hurdle on its way to a planned closing this quarter. -
(ACC Mentioned) Pruitt’s Bid to Rid Water of Toxic Chemicals Won’t Help States Now (1)
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid and Ayanna Alexander
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt spelled out a years-long, ambitious plan to tackle pervasive toxic fluorochemicals contaminating soil and drinking water systems but fell short on what steps localities should take now. -
(ACC Mentioned) Cleaning Up EPA Chemicals List Could Ease Corporate Risks
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA’s list of chemicals allowed in commerce is plagued by redundancies and errors, according to companies that face fines and increased regulatory costs. -
EPA Doubts EDF's Standing to Challenge TSCA Inventory Rule
May 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is urging a federal appellate court to reject a suit brought by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) challenging its rule updating the inventory of existing chemicals that could be regulated under the new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)... -
(ACC Mentioned) States Seek EPA Leadership at Water Contaminants Summit
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ayanna Alexander
State regulators seeking clear criteria for cleaning up an emerging class of toxic contaminants found in firefighting foams and nonstick coatings will press the EPA at a national summit May 22 and 23. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Gears up for Controlling Poly- and Perfluorochemical Pollution
May 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
The U.S. EPA is moving on several fronts to control four poly- and perfluorinated alkyl compounds (PFASs) that contaminate or threaten to taint drinking water in at least 20 states across the nation. Some of these efforts will to take years to complete. -
(ACC Mentioned) Big Question at EPA Summit: How Many PFAS Do We Regulate?
May 23, 2018 | MLive.com
By Garret Ellison
Catherine McCabe, new commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, had a tongue-in-cheek question for the PFAS panel. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Reverses Media Ban at Summit on Toxic Chemicals
May 23, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Emily Holden and Annie Snider
The Environmental Protection Agency temporarily barred journalists and the public from a national summit Tuesday addressing toxic chemicals contamination in drinking water, a week after top agency officials' effort to delay publication of a study on those chemicals... -
EPA Bars Reporters From Chemical Summit, Then Reverses Course (1)
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Lee
The EPA barred three reporters from attending a major May 22 meeting on toxic fluorochemicals found in drinking water systems, drawing criticism and prompting the agency to open an afternoon session to all journalists. -
Pruitt Plans to Declare Two Fluorochemicals Hazardous
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Two pervasive toxic fluorochemicals found in drinking water systems around the U.S. will be classified as hazardous substances, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced May 22 at a national summit of states to address the chemicals’ health risks. -
Stockholm Convention Screening Criteria 'Not Always Relevant'
May 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
The screening criteria for the Stockholm Convention are not always relevant, and should sometimes be ignored in favour of analysis of modelling data, according to an expert in chemical persistence. -
Ueapme Calls for Improved REACH Measures After Review
May 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
European SMEs trade body Ueapme has published a position paper commenting on the European Commission’s actions to improve REACH following its second five-year review. -
3M Can’t Extinguish Pa. Residents’ Firefighting Foam Suit
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
3M Company and other manufacturers failed to shake claims by Pennsylvania residents over exposure to chemicals in firefighting foam used at nearby military bases. -
Detente on China Trade War Could Lift Proposed Gas Projects
May 23, 2018 | Reuters (In E&E Energywire
By Scott DiSavino
Liquefied natural gas executives think China's gestures toward reducing its trade surplus with the U.S. could help new LNG projects come to fruition. -
Texas Project Expansions Mark LNG's 'Second Wave'
May 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
The developers of an under-construction liquefied natural gas terminal going up in Freeport, Texas, have applied to expand it to export more LNG, while another project expansion announced plans yesterday to move forward. -
Energy Boon Makes U.S. a 'Credible Threat'
May 23, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Energy analysts told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee yesterday the United States' success in domestic oil and gas production gives the nation and its allies added security from hostile regimes like Russia. -
‘Massive Opportunity’ for U.S. to Supply Energy to China, Says Mnuchin
May 22, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
The United States will not lift new tariffs on steel and aluminum from China, even as both countries said over the weekend trade talks had been "constructive" and China had agreed to purchase more American goods and services, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. -
Dems Introduce Bill to Block Alaska Refuge Drilling
May 22, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A group of House Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday that would block oil and natural gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). -
New Mexico Senators Want to End Oil, Gas Leasing in Chaco Region
May 22, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
One month after a federal judge ruled that the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) did not violate environmental law when it approved applications for oil and gas drilling in a sensitive area of northwest New Mexico, the state's two Democratic senators... -
Senate Subcommittee Advances Energy and Water Spending Bill
May 22, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Eric Wolff
A Senate subcommittee today advanced the Energy-Water appropriations bill to the full committee. -
Is Gas the Next Coal? One Think Tank Says Yes
May 23, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
U.S. utilities are on track to invest more than $500 billion in new natural gas plants by 2030, saddling consumers with costly projects while pumping billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to a new analysis. -
Chemical Safety Board Chair to Resign
May 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
The chair of the U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board, Vanessa Allen Sutherland, announced on May 21 that she will resign from the board next month. She gave no reason for her departure. -
Bonuses Cut for Drilling Execs After Fatal Rig Fire
May 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Patterson-UTI CEO Andy Hendricks got a $2.25 million bonus for 2017. -
Former CASAC Chairmen Fault Pruitt for Not Consulting on NAAQS Reform
May 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Two former chairmen of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) are faulting Administrator Scott Pruitt for not consulting with the independent panel before issuing his memo on overhauling the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) review process... -
Panel Advances Revised CCUS Bill to Boost Senate Democrats' Support
May 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
The Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) has approved a newly modified version of bipartisan legislation that would boost research for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and ease permitting for carbon dioxide pipeline projects... -
Maryland Launches Academy to Fight Warming
May 22, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Arianna Skibell
Maryland state officials this week announced the launch of a government-led Climate Leadership Academy to help communities plan for the impacts of global warming. -
Former Trump Aide Targets ‘Activist’ Climate Investors
May 22, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
A former energy adviser to President Donald Trump will head up a new campaign to stop major investors from using shareholder votes to press companies to act on climate change. -
Government Revenue from Carbon Pricing Surges to $33 Billion
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Mathew Carr
Government revenue from carbon markets and levies around the world surged by 50 percent last year as more countries implemented taxes on pollution, and prices in markets jumped.
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(ACC Mentioned) Meet the Man Helping Pruitt Reshape Science
May 23, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
One of Scott Pruitt's most enduring legacies may be the way he curtailed EPA's use of science.
He didn't do it alone.
Richard Yamada is a quiet force behind Pruitt's effort to add industry voices to agency advisory boards, sideline some research used to craft regulations, and debate climate science.
Yamada, the deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development, is an applied mathematician with a Ph.D. from Cornell University who started in Washington as a fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Now, he's working on sweeping changes to the way EPA uses science. Critics, including AAAS, say it will block the agency from using valid research when developing rules to limit pollution.
Yamada is also a bridge between EPA and Rep. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who heads the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. The panel generated many of the controversial science reform ideas adopted by Pruitt. Yamada worked on those initiatives as a congressional staffer before coming to EPA. Yamada's role was revealed through emails and public schedules obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Natural Resources Defense Council.
The policies advanced by Yamada stand to change the way that EPA regulates air pollution, greenhouse gases and chemicals. Pruitt has used the changes to amplify the voices of industry researchers while portraying academics who receive EPA grants as conflicted. Pruitt's science transparency effort, which bars research that uses private data, like personal health information related to air pollution, was shaped into a proposed rule at EPA by Yamada and other staffers. Critics say it could restrict important studies on air pollution that form the basis of major EPA regulations.
In September, Democratic lawmakers complained that Yamada was ignoring the advice of EPA career staff members, who warned against bringing in industry-affiliated researchers. Some lacked scientific experience, while others had conflicts of interest, the lawmakers said.
Ultimately, they were appointed to agency science advisory boards. Some had worked on research about air pollution health risks that was funded by the American Petroleum Institute. Earlier, Pruitt announced that any board member who received EPA grants had a conflict of interest and could no longer serve in an advisory role. Yamada helped craft that policy, which was criticized by some lawmakers for politicizing the scientific boards.
Democratic Sens. Tom Carper of Delaware and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island sent a document to the Government Accountability Office detailing Yamada's connection to the initiative.
"Political appointees at EPA under Administrator Pruitt are disregarding normal procedures and advice from career staff," the lawmakers wrote, referring to Yamada. "By doing so, they are avoiding the procedures put in place by the agency to ensure compliance with federal law and risk undermining the integrity and impartiality of these boards."
Yamada's work is a critical part of Pruitt's effort to constrain the agency, said Yogin Kothari, senior Washington representative at the Union for Concerned Scientists. And he might be around longer than his boss if Pruitt is forced from office due to the controversy around his ethical missteps, he said.
"Regardless of whether Scott Pruitt is there or not there, it's the people he has brought in to dismantle the agency that will remain," Kothari said.
Yamada said science produced by EPA's Office of Research and Development is an example of taxpayer-funded studies that are publicly available. He said his experience as an applied mathematician taught him that access and sharing of data are crucial to help "inform our best understanding of the science." When asked whether the agency would respond to concerns from science groups and others that the policy would be too restrictive, he said the public comment period is the time to voice concerns.
"The notice and comment period will ensure that the Agency develops the best policy moving forward," Yamada wrote in an email. "EPA welcomes all comments, and will take and deliberate on all these comments seriously."
He responded to his critics in the March/April issue of The Environmental Forum, the Environmental Law Institute's policy journal.
"Reading the popular press about science in the Trump administration, one cannot help but recall the famous quote about 'the nattering nabobs of negativism,'" he wrote. "Science and technology have always played a pivotal role in what makes America great, and EPA is constantly advancing this proud tradition by engaging in a continuous, thoughtful conversation about meeting the research needs of the nation. This work has never been more important, as the number of environmental issues facing us is increasing in both scope and complexity."
Some EPA critics see Yamada as a moderating force. Joseph Majkut, director of climate policy at the Niskanen Center, reached out to Yamada about the red-team climate debate, an idea promoted by Pruitt to question mainstream science. Majkut, whose group works to promote acceptance of climate science among conservatives, spoke with Yamada about crafting a red-team exercise in a way that wouldn't amplify fringe researchers.
"I found Richard to be a really receptive and intelligent guy working in a place that's obviously not pleasant; it's hard days to be a well-intentioned political appointee at EPA, for all the obvious reasons," Majkut said.
Before he was shaping policy in the nation's capital, Yamada was an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan. In his research, he "focused on developing and testing mathematical models of transcription regulation, merging experimental data, numerical algorithms and theory," according to his EPA biography.
Yamada worked in Washington from 2011 to 2012 as a fellow for the American Mathematical Society and AAAS. He got a firsthand account of how lawmaking and budgets work. The bitter partisan bickering over policy left him unimpressed, he wrote in one AMS publication.
"Most legislation that is proposed is a combination of political kabuki dashed with media theatrics, resulting in no concrete action," he wrote. "Legislation is introduced to raise awareness of an issue, to keep debate on a subject alive, or to make core constituents happy. Serious legislation, however, involves dialogue with all stakeholders, with extensive input and communication from all interested parties."
Critics say that Pruitt has largely ignored the voice of science, and they say Yamada has not heeded the concerns of the groups he once championed, including AAAS. In June, Yamada was included in an email conversation about AAAS and 17 other science organizations that wanted to brief agency officials on the latest climate science. The request was never granted.
Yamada has been willing to meet with members of AAAS, but the red-team debate did not come up, said Joanne Carney, director of the organization's Office of Government Relations. She said he does consider some input from scientists.
"When I've reached out to him, he has been open to talking," she said.
AAAS made clear its opposition to the science transparency plan as it was being developed at the House Science Committee. The agency implemented it anyway.
In contrast, Yamada included the concerns of the chemical industry when crafting the plan. Earlier this year, Nancy Beck, deputy assistant administrator of EPA's chemicals office, raised pointed concerns to Yamada and other EPA staffers about what a "secret science" policy would mean for regulating chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Beck, a former senior director at the American Chemistry Council, wrote that requiring underlying data to be public would affect pesticide registrations and TSCA implementation, particularly if it did not account for confidential business information, or CBI.
"Yes, thanks this is helpful — didn't know about the intricacies of CBI — ok, we will need to thread this one real tight! Thanks Nancy!" Yamada wrote in response to Beck's warning.
The Trump administration's environmental policy on science will continue under people like Yamada for some time, said Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the head of Trump's EPA transition team. Yamada played an important role in some of the most consequential actions taken by Pruitt's EPA, and his work to reform science will continue even if Pruitt is not there, Ebell said.
"I think he's very capable; he has a lot of energy; he has a good mixture of a science background with a certain amount of political intelligence," Ebell said. "I think Richard has a bright future, and I think he can be an important political appointee at EPA for a long time."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/23/stories/1060082467
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India Clears Bayer-Monsanto Deal With Conditions
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Eleanor Tyler
Bayer AG’s proposed merger with Monsanto Corp. cleared another important hurdle on its way to a planned closing this quarter.
India’s Competition Commission cleared the deal with unspecified conditions, it saidMay 22 in a tweet. Because both companies are active in India, the clearance was an important step in sealing the deal, which the parties announced in late 2016.
The U.S. is among the final regulatory clearances the parties need, although Bayer CEO Werner Baumann said in early May that his company is in “good, constructive” talks with the Justice Department’s antitrust division.
Bayer and Monsanto have said they remain confident the deal will close in the first half of 2018 and note that they are closing in on the clearances they need worldwide. The European Union cleared the deal last month with concessions.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/india-clears-bayer-monsanto-deal-with-conditions
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(ACC Mentioned) Pruitt’s Bid to Rid Water of Toxic Chemicals Won’t Help States Now (1)
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid and Ayanna Alexander
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt spelled out a years-long, ambitious plan to tackle pervasive toxic fluorochemicals contaminating soil and drinking water systems but fell short on what steps localities should take now.
The agency will take four steps through its various offices to reduce environmental exposure and identify cleanup strategies, Pruitt announced May 22 at a national summit in Washington to address the chemicals’ health risks.
Exposure to this ubiquitous class of several thousand chemicals, used to create heat- and water-resistant products is linked to a range of health effects from low birth weights to elevated cholesterol levels.
Some representatives of the 40 state officials, three tribal representatives, and groundwater and drinking water trade organizations at the summit lauded the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan, but wondered what they should do in the interim.
“These actions are achievable and ambitious, but they will take time,” Alan Roberson, executive director of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators in Arlington, Va., told Bloomberg Environment. “The question is what do we do in the interim?”
Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), whose district covers Flint, Mich., where a switch in the city’s drinking water source led to a health crisis, was skeptical.
“Under Scott Pruitt’s EPA, there’s lots of talk but little action,” Kildee told Bloomberg Environment in a statement. “Time and time again, Administrator Pruitt has claimed he is working to address harmful contaminants in drinking water.
“But yet his EPA continues to kick the can down the road on taking any real action to protect American families,” he added.
Ambitious Plans for PFOS, PFOAPruitt said the EPA plans to designate two fluorochemicals—perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)—as hazardous substances.
The agency aims to deliver by the year’s end groundwater cleanup recommendations for sites already contaminated by these two chemicals, and work closely with federal and state partners to characterize the toxicity risk posed by two other fluorochemicals: perfluorobutane sulfonic acid, used by Minnesota-based 3M in its water repellent product, Scotchgard; and GenX, produced by The Chemours Company.
Above all, Pruitt said he would direct the agency to develop maximum contaminant levels—enforceable drinking water standards—for the two fluorochemicals under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Pruitt’s plan will take some time to see fruition, Alexandra Dunn, EPA’s region 1 administrator, told reporters. But, she said, many communities can take steps to reduce exposure such as not using water from wells found to be contaminated.
States Want SolutionsStates want federal regulators to provide further guidance on how to tack this issue, Craig Butler, director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, said.
The absence of regulation has made it difficult to clean up sites contaminated by these chemicals, he said. Federal and state governments also lack clear authority to investigate and cleanup contaminated sites. For states, Butler said it’s a question of priorities because they have to divert resources from other pressing drinking water concerns.
As the EPA and states work at finding solutions, Butler emphasized the need to inform the public about “what we do know and what we do not know” about the risks posed by these chemicals.
Although the EPA set 70 parts per trillion health advisory levels for these two chemicals, some states worry that exposure even at those levels isn’t safe and have adopted levels as low as 14 parts per trillion.
It’s a “big deal” Pruitt wants to set a drinking water standard for PFOA and PFOS, Dave Andrews, a senior scientist with the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, said. But he said he was skeptical whether the EPA would be able to set a single new drinking water standard, a feat that has eluded the agency for two decades.
“Setting a limit for the sole purpose of making current levels of PFAS pollution ‘legal’ would not make consumers safer,” Andrews said, adding that he expects states to continue taking the lead in cleaning up drinking water and setting real health protective standards.
Not All Fluorochemicals Are RiskyBut not all fluorochemicals pose a risk, Jessica Bowman, American Chemistry Council’s senior director for Global Fluoro-Chemistry in Washington, said at the meeting.
Manufacturers have already moved away from using long chain fluorochemicals to short-chain compounds that don’t pose as much of a risk, but she added the chemicals are still being produced in China. The council urged the EPA to finalize a significant new use rule (SNUR) to prohibit the import of products containing legacy PFAS substances.
The process of identifying which chemicals can be safely used in commerce has been outlined in the nation’s amended chemicals law, the Toxic Substances Control Act, Jeff Morris, director of the EPA Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, said.
While the EPA has started work on identifying PFAS chemicals in use to see which should be prioritized for study, Morris noted that merely studying which chemicals should be prioritized can take up to nine months.
(Adds more comment from the American Chemistry Council.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/pruitts-bid-to-rid-water-of-toxic-chemicals-wont-help-states-now-1
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(ACC Mentioned) Cleaning Up EPA Chemicals List Could Ease Corporate Risks
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA’s list of chemicals allowed in commerce is plagued by redundancies and errors, according to companies that face fines and increased regulatory costs.
An accurate inventory also would help the Environmental Protection Agency implement the nation’s amended chemicals law—the Toxic Substances Control Act—which requires the agency to evaluate the risks of the estimated 85,000 chemicals on the list.
Having an accurate inventory will be critical as the agency decides which chemicals warrant scrutiny, Karyn Schmidt, a senior director at the American Chemistry Council in Washington, told Bloomberg Environment. And that scrutiny can affect customers’ willingness to buy a chemical or prompt the agency to restrict the molecule.
The inventory lists existing chemicals that are or have been in U.S. commerce, and it’s illegal to make or sell a commercial or industrial chemical unless it is on the list. The EPA published the original inventory in 1979 and presumed about 62,000 chemicals in commerce then were safe. Since then, 20,000 or more chemicals have been added but none removed.
“This cleanup of the inventory is critically important,” said Schmidt, whose association represents companies including Dover Chemical Corp., Honeywell, and 3M.
$32,500 A Day Fines
Chemical manufacturers can face fines of up to $32,500 a day and other obstacles when the agency and the producer disagree about whether a particular chemical is on the inventory, Jim Cooper, a senior adviser with American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers in Washington, told Bloomberg Environment.
Unless the EPA “rationalizes the inventory,” chemical manufacturers risk being hit with fines that they don’t deserve, said Cooper, whose association represents companies like Andeavor, BASF Corp., and Exxon Mobil Corp.
Dover Chemical in Dover, Ohio, for example, was a party to one well-known dispute when it challenged the EPA’s allegations that a chemical it made wasn’t on the list. Dover settled in 2012 for $1.4 million in civil penalties and agreed to cease production.
Chemical management costs can also increase when two or more identical chemicals have different names but have to be managed differently, Schmidt said.
There are so many acceptable ways to name a chemical that different manufacturers could give the same substance different names, Frankie Wood-Black, principal for Sophic Pursuits, Inc., an independent consulting firm in Ponca City, Okla., told Bloomberg Environment.
“We struggle all the time” to decide how to name a chemical, Wood-Black said. She referred to her experience as a consultant and former chemical manager at ConocoPhillips Co.
The EPA guidances that Bloomberg Environment reviewed showed a single chemical’s name may include such information as the feedstock from which the chemical is produced, the manufacturing process that generates it, the shape of the molecule, and the range of carbon or other atoms it could have.
Bloomberg Environment asked the EPA for comment May 3. The agency asked to be given until May 18 to reply, but didn’t.
Same Chemical, Different Rules
Three different companies could choose three different names, yet “essentially it’s the same stuff,” Wood-Black said.
The three molecules “wouldn’t look any different” if a chemist analyzed them—the same chemical can be made with canola oil or sunflower oil, Wood-Black said.
“From a health perspective there’s no difference,” she said.
Yet, the chemical from those two sources of oil could have different names because different oils are used to make them. If both chemicals were added to the inventory after it was originally released, they would have been reviewed by the EPA as new chemicals, Wood-Black said.
Those reviews could result in divergent regulations of identical chemicals.
Guidance Authorized by TSCA
The EPA is updating the inventory so it can distinguish chemicals that have been in commerce since 2006, 10 years before the law was updated, from those that were sold before then.
In addition to this required update, the chemistry council and trade groups told Bloomberg Environment that they want the agency to issue guidance that TSCA authorizes but doesn’t require.
The law allows chemical manufacturers and processors to demonstrate to the EPA “that a chemical substance appears multiple times” on the inventory. The agency can then “recognize the multiple listings as a single chemical substance.”
It’s important that the EPA issue new guidance while it updates the inventory, so companies know what information the agency would need to prove that one chemical on the inventory is indistinguishable from another, Schmidt said.
Avoiding EPA’s Review?
But some are skeptical about the manufacturers’ efforts to make any inventory changes beyond what the law requires. One of the inventory’s core functions is to determine whether a chemical is existing or new, Daniel Rosenberg, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, told Bloomberg Environment.
“Chemical manufacturers want to avoid the potential scrutiny of a properly administered new chemicals program, and that may be a driver for some of the claims of mistake, error, duplication or equivalency on the inventory,” Rosenberg said.
But, Schmidt said, the guidance trade groups seek has nothing to do with introducing a new chemical to commerce.
“If you’ve got chemicals A, B, and C, they’re already on the inventory,” Schmidt said.
Chemical manufacturers want a process companies can follow to make the case that the chemicals are the same, she said.
The EPA would make the final decision, Schmidt told Bloomberg Environment.
Correcting Errors
In addition to seeking guidance on duplicative chemicals, David Wawer, executive director of the Color Pigments Manufacturers Association in Arlington, Va., said that group would like the EPA to update its process of correcting inventory errors.
The names of some chemicals—especially ones stemming from the late 1970s and early 1980s—are wrong, he said.
Individuals who weren’t chemists and didn’t understand how to properly identify the molecule sometimes named them, and the errors have been realized since then, said Wawer, whose association represents companies including Flint Group and Lansco.
Yet the EPA’s process to correct errors largely is “unworkable,” as only the original chemical manufacturer or a successor company can ask the agency to correct an error, Wawer said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/cleaning-up-epa-chemicals-list-could-ease-corporate-risks
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EPA Doubts EDF's Standing to Challenge TSCA Inventory Rule
May 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is urging a federal appellate court to reject a suit brought by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) challenging its rule updating the inventory of existing chemicals that could be regulated under the new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), charging the group lacks standing to sue because it will not be injured and that the update is “reasonable” and within the statute.
EDF claims that confidential business information (CBI) provisions the Trump EPA added to its inventory update rule are unlawful. In its March opening brief, the environmental group urges the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to partially vacate and remand the rule, charging that EPA's rule for re-setting the TSCA inventory of chemicals in commerce violates both TSCA and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because of the CBI provisions.
In its May 21 reply EPA argues that its “decision was required by the statute, which mandates EPA to 'require any manufacturer or processor of a chemical substance on the confidential portion of the [TSCA Inventory] that seeks to maintain an existing claim for protection against disclosure of the specific chemical identity' to submit such request when submitting their notice of activity. . . . Even if the statute were ambiguous on this point, EPA’s interpretation is reasonable and entitled to deference.”
Specifically, EDF's suit targets Trump administration changes to the final rule, arguing that the Obama-era proposed version included upward of two dozen questions for evaluating claims to keep a chemical identity or other data confidential. The final version narrowed the criteria to roughly a half dozen more general questions, EDF argues.
But EPA argues that “EDF does not have standing to challenge EPA’s substantiation questions because it has not shown that the removal of one substantiation question will make any difference in EPA’s ultimate merits determination on a confidentiality claim. Moreover, EPA’s decision regarding substantiation questions was well within the discretion Congress gave it to formulate them.”
Similarly, EPA argues that EDF lacks standing to claim that the inventory rule will violate procedural requirements of TSCA regarding EPA's review of confidentiality claims. “EDF has shown no risk of imminent injury and lacks standing to challenge these aspects of the Inventory Rule,” EPA's brief states. “Moreover, EDF merely speculates that EPA’s compliance with the Inventory Rule will somehow lead to noncompliance with TSCA § 14, 15 U.S.C. § 2613. Instead, EPA must follow, and fully intends to follow, all statutory requirements regarding confidentiality claims when implementing the Inventory Rule.”
EDF's suit is one of three environmentalists and public interest groups have filed challenging Trump EPA rules issued last summer that establish a framework for reviewing existing chemicals, as required by reforms to the original TSCA. Existing chemicals are those that were on the market before the 1976 TSCA was enacted, and they were largely grandfathered from the original law. The TSCA inventory delineates existing chemicals from new chemicals, which undergo EPA review before they can enter the market.
EDF and other advocates have argued that Trump appointees revised the Obama EPA's proposed rules along industry talking points before issuing final versions last summer. Challenges to two other framework rules for prioritizing and evaluating existing chemicals have been consolidated in the 9th Circuit and are pending.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-doubts-edfs-standing-challenge-tsca-inventory-rule
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(ACC Mentioned) States Seek EPA Leadership at Water Contaminants Summit
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ayanna Alexander
State regulators seeking clear criteria for cleaning up an emerging class of toxic contaminants found in firefighting foams and nonstick coatings will press the EPA at a national summit May 22 and 23.
The gathering will allow states to share information and strategies for cleaning up per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from drinking water systems. The chemicals, used to create heat- and water-resistant products, can contaminate groundwater and soil. Exposure can cause a range of health effects from low birth weights to elevated cholesterol levels.
Some of the states attending the summit will call for the government to provide information on the toxicity of PFAS, their risks, and how to clean up current contamination.
Although the Environmental Protection Agency has issued 70 parts per trillion health advisory levels for two PFAS chemicals—perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)—some states worry that exposure even at those levels is not safe.
‘Regulatory Consistency’“At this moment, the only true guidance we have is the 70 part per trillion health advisory for drinking water,” Ohio EPA head Craig Butler, who will speak at the summit, told Bloomberg Environment. “What’s the level where you have to start the remediation [of the polluted water]? What’s the level when you continue remediation? When can you stop?”
The National Ground Water Association hopes for “regulatory consistency” and that whatever standards that the EPA set, are “based on good science,” according to Seth Kellogg, a scientists and engineers board member for the association.
“I’m hoping to get some sort of maximum contaminant limit,"Kellogg told Bloomberg Environment. “Several states have some sort of limit, while some states have no limits at all, so as a groundwater professional, it’s hard to have different standards in different places. It makes it difficult to advise clients and it also makes it difficult to communicate to public what the risks and limits are without federal standards.”
Recent emails obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which investigates emerging environmental health threats, was set to recommend safe exposure levels for those chemicals in a range between 12 parts per trillion and 516 parts per trillion.
The low limit caused alarm at the EPA and Defense Department, which often uses firefighting foams containing those compounds.
The chemicals were manufactured for years by companies like 3M, Saint-Gobain SA, and what is now DowDuPont Inc., but the industry has already worked to phase out most of those compounds, Jonathan Corley, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, told Bloomberg Environment in an email.
States Seek Testing Guidance
The lack of federal regulation is causing confusion, Tracie White, federal facilities remediation and restoration unit leader for the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, who will also attend the summit, told Bloomberg Environment. States need federal guidance on testing groundwater and soil for contamination, she said.
“I plan to focus on specific challenges related to performing PFAS site characterization,” White said. “Having said that, most of the questions surrounding PFAS site characterization can be attributed to the lack of regulatory infrastructure currently in place, as well as the number of unknowns regarding the science and toxicology associated with PFOA, PFOS, and the entire universe of PFAS compounds.”
Safer States, a coalition of environmental health advocates, submitted a list of recommendations in a press release, calling for the EPA to release all information on PFAS health risks and how they’re used an manufactured, and more. They’re also urging state governments to eliminate the use of PFAS in consumer products.
Environmental advocates will also take part.
“I’ll be calling for EPA and ATSDR to release their summary of the toxicity of these compounds. It really ought to be manufacturers, not taxpayers, paying for cleanup,” Erik Olson, head of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s health program, told Bloomberg Environment. “I will definitely make a large number of recommendations for what the EPA should do, like develop analytical methods to detect these chemicals in soil and water.”
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/states-seek-epa-leadership-at-water-contaminants-summit
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Gears up for Controlling Poly- and Perfluorochemical Pollution
May 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
The U.S. EPA is moving on several fronts to control four poly- and perfluorinated alkyl compounds (PFASs) that contaminate or threaten to taint drinking water in at least 20 states across the nation. Some of these efforts will to take years to complete.
Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced a four-pronged plan to address PFASs on May 22 at a meeting with representatives of states and tribes, other federal agencies, and industry groups, along with congressional aides and a sprinkling of environmental and community activists. No academic scientists, who have done much work on identifying PFAS contamination and the toxicity of these substances, were present at the meeting.
In a first step, EPA will evaluate the need to set a legally enforceable drinking water limit for two substances formerly widely used but no longer manufactured in the U.S., perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), Pruitt said. These two substances, which are each linked to health problems, contaminate drinking water across the U.S. EPA in 2016 established a nonbinding advisory level of 70 ppt for the compounds, individually or combined. PFOA and PFOS pollution stems from decades of industrial activity, including chemical manufacturing and the disposal of waste tainted with the substances. It is also found near military sites where fire-fighting foams containing these chemicals have been and continue to be used.
In a second action, Pruitt said EPA will propose designating PFOA and PFOS pollution as hazardous waste. This would establish liability for companies responsible for PFOA and PFOS pollution to clean it up, a boon for state regulators struggling to get remediation efforts underway. In a related third step, EPA is developing recommendations for cleaning up these two compounds at contaminated sites, guidance that Pruitt said will be completed this autumn. Both actions will help address concerns of state regulators who, through the Environmental Council of the States, say the current situation leaves EPA and states lacking clear authority to order investigations or cleanup of PFAS pollution.
In a fourth move, EPA is working with states and other federal agencies to establish human health toxicity values for two fluorochemicals that in the last decade or so replaced PFOA and PFOS, respectively: hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA), which is formed through hydrolysis of Chemours’s GenX fluoroether surfactant; and perfluorobutanesulfonic acid, which is a 3M product.
At the meeting, Carel Vandermeyden, director of engineering for a North Carolina water utility that is contending with a river water supply tainted with HFPO-DA and other fluorochemicals, said ratepayers so far are stuck with the bill for removing PFAS from drinking water.
The largest trade association for the U.S. chemical industry, the American Chemistry Council, endorsed the use of best available science to determine an appropriate maximum contaminant level in drinking water for PFOS, PFOA, and other so-called legacy PFASs that are no longer made or used domestically. At the meeting, Jessica Bowman, ACC senior director of global fluorochemistry, also expressed support for a possible EPA move that Pruitt did not mention—a regulation to prohibit imports of productions containing legacy PFASs.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/EPA-gears-controlling-polyperfluorochemical-pollution/96/i22
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(ACC Mentioned) Big Question at EPA Summit: How Many PFAS Do We Regulate?
May 23, 2018 | MLive.com
By Garret Ellison
Catherine McCabe, new commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, had a tongue-in-cheek question for the PFAS panel.
Should New Jersey set drinking water standards for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS -- which the state is poised to roll out -- or wait years for the federal government to establish nationwide standards for the seemingly ubiquitous pollutants.
The panel and audience laughed at the question, which sliced to the heart of the Environmental Protection Agency's national PFAS Summit on May 22 in Washington, DC., where 200 people representing 38 state governments, industry, tribes, environmental groups and federal agencies convened for a daylong conference.
Embattled EPA administrator Scott Pruitt announced at the summit outset that "the process needs to begin" to set a nationwide maximum contaminant level (MCL) in drinking water for PFOS and PFOA, two very problematic PFAS compounds.
But states with PFAS drinking water contamination like New York and New Jersey aren't interested in waiting the decade or more one panelist estimated it could take to set new nationwide standards. And many speakers and audience members expressed interest in seeing more than just two PFAS compounds regulated.
There are thousands of PFAS chemicals in use worldwide and many more than just PFOS and PFOA contaminating water supplies.
New Jersey is ready with rules for three: PFOA, PFOS and PFNA.
"We can't wait to move forward," said McCabe afterwards, citing the time it would take EPA -- where she is former acting administrator -- to establish standards for what PFAS levels are safe to drink. "Clearly, it's in the nature of years."
Setting an MCL for PFAS was among several regulatory goals Pruitt announced Tuesday during a highly-technical conference that grabbed national headlines after EPA security guard roughly shoved an Associated Press reporter seeking access to the summit, generating backlash among news outlets the EPA press office denied entrance.
The 7:35 a.m. incident, witnessed by MLive, quickly overshadowed the conference subject matter online and helped prod EPA staff members to re-open the conference to reporters who had only been allowed in for the first hour as well as other news outlets.
Summit access was a contentious issue Tuesday and in the lead up to the gathering, as community groups impacted by PFAS contamination wondered angrily why they were shut out. The EPA eventually allowed Andrea Amico of Portsmouth, N.H., to attend. Amico created the Testing For Pease group to bring attention to PFAS drinking water contamination at the former Pease Air Force Base.
nside the summit room, panels comprised of mostly regulators talked PFAS in minutiae, guided in part by interactive polling responses displayed as word clouds on a projector.
In a morning keynote address, Pruitt called PFAS contamination a "national priority," noting the persistence and durability of the manmade contaminants -- sometimes called "forever chemicals" -- in the environment, where they move quickly through groundwater, bio-accumulate up the food chain, but do not naturally breakdown.
The EPA is developing "groundwater cleanup recommendation" this fall for PFOS and PFOA at contaminated sites around the country, and Pruitt said the agency may add them to the list of hazardous substances regulated under the federal Superfund law.
The EPA will visit states with PFAS-impacted drinking water like Michigan, New Hampshire and Colorado this summer as it drafts a national PFAS management plan, he said.
Michigan, which has 31 known PFAS contamination sites, was represented at the conference by Department of Environmental Quality director Heidi Grether and Michigan PFAS Action Response Team (MPART) chief Carol Isaacs.
"We look forward to working with our federal partners and stakeholders to achieve the outcomes," Pruitt said.
Jessica Bowman with the American Chemistry Council said companies which manufacture PFAS chemicals want to be "instructive stakeholders" in that process during a presentation stressing the difference between "legacy PFAS," or longer carbon-chain molecules like PFOS and PFOA, and "today's PFAS," which have shorter chains and are supposedly safer.
The ACC supports a "risk-based approach" to regulating PFAS that "recognizes the differences" between chemistries, she said.
Whether those replacement chemicals are actually safer is an open question, said Brandon Kernen, with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. Shorter carbon chain chemicals could spread more easily in the environment. There are also little known about the toxicity of thousands of newer PFAS chemicals.
"There's a lot more questions than answers," Kernen said.
"I have yet to see any information that says these chemicals are safer to drink in your water."
Ansje Miller from the Center for Environmental Health, who lives in North Carolina where the Cape Fear River has been contaminated by a PFOA replacement fluoropolymer called GenX made by DuPont spinoff company Chemours, said she noted a consensus among the room that regulating PFAS chemicals individually was a fools errand.
That PFAS should be regulated as a class "almost seemed universal."
The wide-ranging discussion on PFAS regulation did not shy away from the elephant in the room -- a pending Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) report on draft toxicological profiles for PFOS, PFOA, PFNA and PFHxS, the latter of which is closely associated with PFAS-laden firefighting foam and has the longest half-life in the human body of any PFAS compound.
Patrick Breysse, ATSDR director, declined to say when the report would be released, saying the agency was "working aggressively" toward that, but was first engaged in developing "consistent messaging" with the Pentagon and EPA.
"We're committed to making sure everyone is on the same page."
According to emails obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists through the Freedom of Information Act, the ATSDR is poised to recommend a safety level for PFAS exposure in drinking water that's six times lower than the current EPA benchmark guiding federal and state contamination response efforts in Michigan and elsewhere.
The ATSDR thinks the "minimal risk level" should be dropped to less than 12 parts-per-trillion (ppt) for exposure to some PFAS compounds in drinking water. The current EPA health advisory level for PFOS and PFOA is 70-ppt, a guidance level set in 2016.
Adequacy of the 70-ppt benchmark has been the subject of substantial debate, with regulators and polluters generally loathe to endorse lower levels and public health advocates pointing to new studies calling its effectiveness into question.
McCabe noted that New Jersey's pending MCLs for PFAS were very close to the levels ATSDR is reportedly considering.
Erik Olson, health director with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the NRDC is recommending the state of New York develop PFAS standards in the 4 to 10-ppt range.
"These numbers weren't meant to be bright lines," Breysse said, noting that the study of PFAS compounds is evolving rapidly and more is learned every day. He said the goal is to develop target risk levels that are set progressively lower over time.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/05/epa_pfas_summit.html
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Reverses Media Ban at Summit on Toxic Chemicals
May 23, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Emily Holden and Annie Snider
The Environmental Protection Agency temporarily barred journalists and the public from a national summit Tuesday addressing toxic chemicals contamination in drinking water, a week after top agency officials' effort to delay publication of a study on those chemicals came to light.
EPA later reversed course and said it would allow reporters to attend the afternoon sessions of the summit, three hours after initially ejecting the media. The White House plans to "look into the matter," press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at the briefing later Tuesday.
But activists from the communities that have been exposed to the chemicals, known as PFAS, were still granted little access to the summit.
“Last week, we learned that the EPA suppressed a PFAS study," Kristen Mello, co-founder of Westfield Residents Advocating For Themselves in Westfield, Mass, said in statement. "This week, they’re convening a summit on PFAS, and, out of millions affected, only one of us is allowed to attend on only one day to bear witness. How are we supposed to trust anything about this?”
Administrator Scott Pruitt opened the two-day summit at the EPA headquarters by calling the issue one of his top priorities.
Pruitt said the agency would start a process to decide whether it should set legal limits on the concentration in drinking water of two of the chemicals, which were used in products like Teflon and firefighting foam and have been linked to immune disorders, thyroid disease and cancer. Those chemicals are contaminating the drinking water of at least 16 million Americans.
A small group of journalists including a POLITICO reporter were permitted to attend Pruitt's opening remarks at the event where federal and state regulators gathered with business organizations and environmental groups. But those journalists were escorted out shortly after — and other news organizations, including The Associated Press and CNN, were barred from attending."While several news organizations were permitted, the EPA selectively excluded CNN and other media outlets. We understand the importance of an open and free press and we hope the EPA does, too," a CNN spokesperson said in a statement.
The AP reported Tuesday that a senior aide to Pruitt called to apologize to its reporter, who had been physically removed from EPA headquarters.
The meeting comes after POLITICO reported that agency leadership had worked to delay a controversial study on the chemicals that would have showed the substances posed health risks to humans at far lower concentrations than EPA has said. Releasing that study, one unnamed White House official said in emails obtained by POLITICO, would be “public relations nightmare.”
One lawmaker was quick to blast EPA's closed-door meeting.
"Our communities deserve answers, and the EPA seems to be doing everything in its control to block the public from getting them. It’s reprehensible," said Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH).
EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said journalists were excluded from the meeting of about 200 people because of space constraints. However, a reporter at the scene said there were dozens of empty seats in the room.
“The leadership summit quickly reached capacity with a wide variety of stakeholders including representatives from over 40 states, territories, and tribes,” Wilcox said in a prepared statement.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act states that “any committee, board, commission, council, conference, panel, task force, or other similar group” used by an agency “in the interest of obtaining advice or recommendations” for the federal government must be open to the public.
Andrea Drinkard, an EPA communications staffer, said the meeting was at capacity and that attendees would be raising their hands to vote in a “polling system” and would not be comfortable with media in the room.
The only person in attendance at the summit representing contaminated communities was Andrea Amico from the New Hampshire group Testing for Pease. A list of groups present also indicates that no independent scientists were present, including those responsible for most of the known research about the compounds’ effects on human health.
The head of an HHS agency overseeing the controversial chemical safety assessment confirmed at the summit that the delayed study will find that the contaminants can be dangerous at much lower exposures than EPA has previously said were safe — and that report would be released soon.
"We're committed to making sure that everybody's on the same page about what our minimum risk levels are and what they mean," Patrick Breysse, who directs the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, told the panel.
Another participant on the panel, Erik Olson, the director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's health program, said the report “really needs to be in the public domain.”
“It may be a draft but virtually everyone in this room I’m sure has read the press coverage of it. This really deserves to be out in the public. We need to allow people to see it. It just creates suspicion to not be releasing it,” he said.
Olson said told POLITICO earlier this week that keeping media away had increased his skepticism of Pruitt’s motives and those of other officials like Nancy Beck, who worked for the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, before Pruitt hired her as EPA’s deputy assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety.
“I find it hard to believe that Scott Pruitt, Nancy Beck and the EPA management have suddenly realized that PFAS are a big problem and are actually planning to take meaningful action,” Olson said in an email. “This concern is reinforced by their refusal to let the press into most of the meeting, and failure to allow those most affected by PFAS contamination (people with tap water contamination, firefighters, etc.) into the meeting.”
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/agriculture/article/2018/05/epa-boots-reporters-from-summit-on-toxic-chemicals-560977
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EPA Bars Reporters From Chemical Summit, Then Reverses Course (1)
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Lee
The EPA barred three reporters from attending a major May 22 meeting on toxic fluorochemicals found in drinking water systems, drawing criticism and prompting the agency to open an afternoon session to all journalists.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s meeting was a national summit of states to address the problem of fluorochemical contamination, and was held at EPA headquarters in Washington. The EPA had announced the meeting two months ago.
Ellen Knickmeyer, an Associated Press reporter who was among the three denied access, tweeted that “EPA guards grabbed AP reporter by shoulders, shoved reporter out of building when she asked to talk to agency public-affairs person about covering meeting.”
The other reporters initially excluded from the meeting represented CNN and E&E News.
“The Environmental Protection Agency’s selective barring of news organizations, including the AP, from covering today’s meeting is alarming and a direct threat to the public’s right to know about what is happening inside their government,” Sally Buzbee, AP’s executive editor, said in a statement. “It is particularly distressing that any journalist trying to cover an event in the public interest would be forcibly removed.”
After the EPA reversed course and allowed reporters to attend the summit’s afternoon session, Lauren Easton, AP’s director of media relations, said in a statement: “We are pleased that the EPA has reconsidered its decision and will now allow AP to attend the remainder of today’s meeting. The AP looks forward to informing the public of the important discussions at the water contaminants summit this afternoon.”
In a statement prior to the agency’s decision to open up the meeting, CNN said: “We understand the importance of an open and free press and we hope the EPA does, too.”
EPA ExplainsThe EPA’s relationship with journalists also was strained during the Obama administration; reporters often were denied interviews with agency officials and didn’t receive responses to their questions.
And EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in this case, the meeting room had simply reached capacity, which he said reporters were aware of before the event began.
“We were able to accommodate 10 news outlets and provided a livestream for those we could not accommodate,” Wilcox said.
The meeting was invitation-only for reporters. Wilcox had earlier told Bloomberg Environment that E&E had not been invited. In addition to Bloomberg Environment, other invited media included The Washington Post, Politico, and The Daily Caller.
Reporters were initially only allowed to attend for the first hour and 15 minutes of the meeting, during which Pruitt spoke.
First Amendment GroupsFirst Amendment groups expressed their concerns.
“It’s obviously very disturbing that a government agency would selectively bar reporters from certain news organizations from attending a matter of public concern,” Katie Townsend, legal director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Bloomberg Environment. “And it’s particularly disturbing that a reporter from one organization would be forcibly removed after raising questions. It’s very possible that this was just very poor, ineffective planning by EPA. But that’s not really an excuse. This is a national summit on a matter of real concern.”
Townsend wasn’t convinced by Wilcox’s explanation about space constraints. “To the extent that they have space constraints, they could have done pool coverage,” she said. “It seems that no steps were taken in advance, other than closing the doors to certain reporters after having handpicked other reporters.”
Knickmeyer referred an interview request from Bloomberg Environment to the AP’s editors. E&E News reporter Corbin Hiar, among the journalists denied access, also referred questions to his editors.
—With assistance from Amena H. Saiyid.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-bars-reporters-from-chemical-summit-then-reverses-course-1
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Pruitt Plans to Declare Two Fluorochemicals Hazardous
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Two pervasive toxic fluorochemicals found in drinking water systems around the U.S. will be classified as hazardous substances, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced May 22 at a national summit of states to address the chemicals’ health risks.
The agency will begin to develop maximum contaminant levels for the two fluorochemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), under the Safe Drinking Water Act, Pruitt said. Maximum contaminant levels are enforceable drinking water standards.
Pruitt added that the EPA is committed to taking action to address the risks posed by posed by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances to drinking water systems and strategies for cleaning them up.
This ubiquitous class of several thousand chemicals, used to create heat- and water-resistant products, can contaminate groundwater and soil. Exposure to these chemicals is linked to a range of health effects from low birth weights to elevated cholesterol levels.
Although the EPA set 70 parts per trillion health advisory levels for these two chemicals, some states worry that exposure even at those levels isn’t safe and have adopted levels as low as 14 parts per trillion.
Some of the states attending the summit at EPA headquarters in Washington will call for the government to provide information on the toxicity of the chemicals, their risks, and how to clean up current contamination.
Craig Butler, director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, said states want federal regulators to provide further guidance on how to tackle this issue. The absence of regulation has made it difficult to clean up sites contaminated by these chemicals.
Butler said it’s a question of priorities for states that would have to divert resources from other pressing drinking water concerns.
“We must decide how sufficient and protective and should this work be a priority,” he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/pruitt-plans-to-declare-two-fluorochemicals-hazardous
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Stockholm Convention Screening Criteria 'Not Always Relevant'
May 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
The screening criteria for the Stockholm Convention are not always relevant, and should sometimes be ignored in favour of analysis of modelling data, according to an expert in chemical persistence.
Speaking at scientific conference in Rome last week, Michael McLachlan, a professor at Stockholm University, said that, in some cases, the criteria represented an overly simplistic approach. He also said that, in the case of D4 – an organosilicon compound used to produce silicone polymers – misalignment of the criteria had led to what could be a "false positive".
The conference was run by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (Setac).
There are four screening criteria for determining whether a substance should be regulated via the Convention. The substance must:
· be persistent (the P criterion);
· bioaccumulate (B);
· be capable of long-range environmental transport (LRET); and
· be toxic (T).
But they are not always aligned across the environmental media, Professor McLachlan said. For example, D4:
· persists in sediment, but not in air or water;
· bioaccumulates in fish, but not in air-breathing mammals;
· is capable of long-range transport via the atmosphere, but not via water; and
· is toxic in fish and daphnia.
This means that the substance meets all the criteria, but arguably is not a persistent organic pollutant as defined by the aims of the Convention.
"D4 is persistent in a medium – sediment – that it does not actually reach via long-range transport," Professor McLachlan said.
Furthermore, it does not partition from air, the transport medium, to water, the medium relevant for effects, and has, in any case, very low solubility in water, he added. D4 also degrades quite rapidly in air.
Echa and EU member states are currently considering whether D4 is a "substance of very high concern" (SVHC) under REACH and whether it should be added to the candidate list for authorisation. The public consultation on the proposal closed on 23 April.
The misalignment problem results from applying the Convention to substances outside its "applicability domain", Professor McLachlan said. The Convention was written in response to societal concern about semi-volatile chlorinated compounds, but is now being applied to a much broader range of chemicals. Modelling fate and transport can help by integrating diverse sources of knowledge and accounting for complex interactions, he added.
Professor McLachlan has received industry funding to study cyclic volatile methylsiloxanes, such as D4, and testified for the Canadian government in the hearings of the Siloxane D5 Board of Review. Earlier this year, he published a paper in Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts that included ideas similar to those in his Setac talk.
In June of last year the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) called for the modernisation of the process for evaluating substances under the Stockholm Convention.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67102/stockholm-convention-screening-criteria-not-always-relevant
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Ueapme Calls for Improved REACH Measures After Review
May 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
European SMEs trade body Ueapme has published a position paper commenting on the European Commission’s actions to improve REACH following its second five-year review.
Ueapme’s main points are that:
· efforts to simply the Regulation should be "much more concrete" than those outlined and should target authorisation and registration procedures;
· a revised, more efficient strategy to raise awareness of REACH for all enterprises, particularly SMEs, is urgent
· changes to the core text of REACH to bring simplifications for enterprises could be open for discussion;
· measures to support SME compliance "will not be enough" to ensure all REACH requirements are met by an average company; and
· the positive impact of REACH on innovation is exaggerated.
The trade body’s Marko Sušnik expressed doubts in March as to whether the average SME could successfully implement REACH.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67120/ueapme-calls-for-improved-reach-measures-after-review
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3M Can’t Extinguish Pa. Residents’ Firefighting Foam Suit
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
3M Company and other manufacturers failed to shake claims by Pennsylvania residents over exposure to chemicals in firefighting foam used at nearby military bases.
The residents may proceed with their claims of negligent failure to warn and negligent design defect, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said.
The court dismissed the plaintiffs’ property damage and medical monitoring claims, but gave them an opportunity to amend their complaint to address the missing elements of those counts.
Plaintiffs Larry and Jacquelyn Menkes allege the defendants—3M, Chemguard Inc., Tyco Fire Products LP, Buckeye Fire Equipment Co., and National Foam Inc.—manufactured and sold firefighting foam containing perfluoroctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which spread to the Warminster, Pa., public water supply.
Larry was diagnosed with bladder cancer caused by his exposure to PFOS/PFOA in the water, the complaint alleges.
It would be in the public interest to impose a duty on manufacturers to produce nontoxic firefighting foam, the court said..
But the medical monitoring claim failed because the plaintiffs didn’t allege a monitoring procedure that would detect any serious latent disease, or that monitoring is reasonably necessary, the court said.
The property damage claim also failed because the plaintiffs didn’t allege their property is serviced by the public water supply or that any public water that reaches their property has been contaminated, the court said.
Judge Petrese B. Tucker issued the opinion.
Williams & Cuker represents Larry and Jacquelyn Menkes.
Lavin O’Neil Cedrone & Disipio and Mayer Brown LLP represent 3M.
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP represent Chemguard Inc., and Tyco Fire Products LP.
Taylor & Colicchio and Gray Layton Kersh Solomon Furr & Smith PA represent Buckeye Fire Equipment Co.
Greenberg Traurig LLP represents National Foam Inc.
The case is Menkes v. 3M Co., 2018 BL 179080, 2018 BL 179080, E.D. Pa., No. 17-0573, 5/21/18.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/3m-cant-extinguish-pa-residents-firefighting-foam-suit
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Detente on China Trade War Could Lift Proposed Gas Projects
May 23, 2018 | Reuters (In E&E Energywire
By Scott DiSavino
Liquefied natural gas executives think China's gestures toward reducing its trade surplus with the U.S. could help new LNG projects come to fruition.
More than two dozen LNG plants have been proposed in the U.S. and are waiting for commitments from customers. Many cater to China, the world's second biggest importer of LNG and the recipient of 13 percent of U.S. cargoes last year.
William Daughdrill, director of health, safety and environmental compliance at Delfin Midstream, said his company's chief executive traveled to Asia last week to persuade customers.
"We see it as a positive development," Daughdrill said
The White House is especially interested in promoting oil and gas deals with China. On Saturday, the two countries said in a joint communiqué that a U.S. trade team would make a visit to discuss new deals in the energy and agricultural sectors.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/23/stories/1060082435
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Texas Project Expansions Mark LNG's 'Second Wave'
May 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
The developers of an under-construction liquefied natural gas terminal going up in Freeport, Texas, have applied to expand it to export more LNG, while another project expansion announced plans yesterday to move forward.
The Freeport LNG project is currently authorized to build three LNG "trains," each of which could liquefy up to 500 million metric tons per year (mtpa) of natural gas and sell them into world markets.
In a notice to be published today in the Federal Register, the company seeks authorization from the Department of Energy to export the output of a fourth 500-mtpa train.
The Energy Department has authority over LNG exports, which it can allow to either just U.S. free-trade partners or to non-free-trade nations, as well. Construction and siting of projects is overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which accepted Freeport's construction application last year.
Freeport's first three trains are expected to be brought into commercial service late this year and early next year.
"Following closely on the heels of our successful development of the initial three trains of the Freeport Liquefaction Project, Train 4 will position Freeport LNG to supply the next wave of U.S. Gulf Coast LNG," the company said in a statement when it began the construction review with FERC.
There are currently two LNG export plants operating in the U.S., Cheniere Energy Inc.'s Sabine Pass LNG and Dominion Energy Inc.'s Cove Point LNG, and four others under construction, plus ongoing expansion work at Sabine Pass.
Many industry analysts have said that since the first wave of export plants were approved several years ago and have gone into construction, markets and financing conditions have become tighter and could make it difficult for the next round of projects to get off the ground.
Among the challenges they point to are a shift toward spot and short-term markets that have reduced buyer interest in the 20-year, long-term contracts that have traditionally underpinned financing for the costly projects (Energywire, May 18).
As global LNG markets shift in response to the growing availability of LNG, some analysts say smaller projects are more likely to pull together the necessary financing to go forward. Brownfield projects like Freeport's that expand on existing — or almost-existing — capacity to control costs may also have an advantage.
Another LNG export project announced yesterday that it would also add capacity.
Cheniere said it had decided to proceed with a third train of export capacity at its under-construction Corpus Christi plant. That project eventually envisions up to five LNG production trains, but the final investment decisions are being made incrementally. It is reportedly the first new U.S. capacity to get a financial green light since 2015.
Other large projects continue to advance, though. In addition to those projects, FERC lists 11 import-export terminals as proposed and pending approval. Four other projects — Lake Charles LNG, Magnolia LNG and Cameron LNG in Louisiana, and Golden Pass in Texas — have been approved by FERC but are not under construction.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/23/stories/1060082429
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Energy Boon Makes U.S. a 'Credible Threat'
May 23, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Energy analysts told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee yesterday the United States' success in domestic oil and gas production gives the nation and its allies added security from hostile regimes like Russia.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/05/23/stories/1060082445
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‘Massive Opportunity’ for U.S. to Supply Energy to China, Says Mnuchin
May 22, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
The United States will not lift new tariffs on steel and aluminum from China, even as both countries said over the weekend trade talks had been "constructive" and China had agreed to purchase more American goods and services, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.
The Trump administration also is focused on reaching a trade deal with Canada and Mexico over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and wants Congress to ultimately approve any changes, Mnuchin said.
However, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) said he thinks it would be smarter for the White House to bypass Congress by concluding a "skinny," or "NAFTA Lite," deal.
'Never Was A Trade War'
In an interview Monday on CNBC, Mnuchin said China and the United States had "made very meaningful progress" in their bilateral trade talks, but it was now up to both sides to implement a final agreement. He said the United States agreed to suspend tariffs totaling $150 billion, and China agreed to suspend $50 billion in tariffs it had applied on American goods in response.
"This has been a trade dispute all along," Mnuchin said. "It never was a trade war; it's a trade dispute on significant issues."
President Trump first proposed levying a 25% tariff on steel imports and a 10% tariff on aluminum imports on March 1. Three weeks later, he issued a proclamation calling forsuspending the tariffs until May 1 while negotiations were ongoing. Although the White House extended trade negotiations with Canada, Mexico and the European Union on April 30 for another 30 days, Chinese imports were hit with the tariff on May 1.
Mnuchin said there is a "massive opportunity for the U.S. to become a major supplier of energy to China." To illustrate the point, he mentioned last November's joint development agreement (JDA) with three Chinese companies to develop liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from Alaska.
"They have incredible amounts of demand at these prices for our shale and our LNG," Mnuchin said. "I think we can easily get about $40 or $50 billion of energy [sales], and if we can produce and send more with infrastructure, they can even take more.”
However, during testimony before the Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee on Tuesday, Mnuchin said the tariff on steel and aluminum imports from China will remain in force.
"Those were not part of our discussions," he told the Senate panel. "We were merely focused on the proposed $150 billion [of tariffs]. Those are not being touched.”
He said the president has instructed the Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer “to have discussions with other countries. In certain places [the tariffs] have already gone into effect. In certain places they are on hold pending discussions with those other countries and getting various assurances."
In a joint statement last Saturday, China and the United States said both sides had "agreed on meaningful increases in United States agriculture and energy exports. The United States will send a team to China to work out the details." Negotiations were ongoing, the two nations said.
The JDA calls for China's state-owned Sinopec Group, the Bank of China and China Investment Corp. to work with the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. to develop the Alaska LNG project. The project has been estimated to cost $43 billion and would have the capacity to annually export up to 20 million metric tons of LNG.
'NAFTA Lite'
On NAFTA, Mnuchin said he had "good" conversations with finance ministers from both Canada and Mexico last week.
"I think there is a desire on all three parties to try to get this deal done," Mnuchin told CNBC, adding that Lighthizer "has done an enormous amount of work. We'll see where we get over the next few weeks.
"The president is involved in these discussions. I know he's had conversations with [Canadian Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau. We'll see where we get. We're still trying to get a new deal done. That is a priority for the president, but he wants a good deal and that's what he's focused on."
Earlier in the day, Barrasso, a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, told CNBC that NAFTA was a big source of debate among his Senate colleagues. While he believed the current version of NAFTA was "working well" for the U.S. economy and Trump could possibly get a "better deal" in ongoing negotiations with Canada and Mexico, Barrasso said he would "rather not" see a revised NAFTA come to Congress for its approval.
"There's ways that Lighthizer has to do kind of a 'NAFTA Lite,' if you will, without needing to go to Congress," Barrasso said. "The question is: How can NAFTA be changed to our advantage, [so it] doesn't have to go back to Congress to get another vote?
"To try to get this passed in Congress is a lot of heavy lifting. And most people in Congress, certainly on the Republican side and the trader side, would say let's leave it as it is. If you can work around the edges to improve it for the United States, absolutely do that."
Mnuchin said he had heard of the "NAFTA Lite," or "skinny" deal on NAFTA, but that for now the Trump administration is "still focused on a new NAFTA that would go through Congress.
"We easily can look at the 'skinny deal' as an alternative, and that's something that the president can consider. For the moment, the president is focused on the agreement that he wants to get between the three countries, and then we'll figure out how to get it through Congress."
Earlier this month, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) had set a May 17 deadline for Congress to receive a notification that the United States would sign a deal over NAFTA. Three days earlier, Lighthizer said significant issues remained.
"For many weeks now, the United States, Mexico and Canada have engaged in intensive, continuous discussions to renegotiate NAFTA, building on the seven rounds of rigorous negotiations that have taken place since August 2017," Lighthizer said. "The negotiations have covered a large number of very complex issues...such as intellectual property, dairy and agriculture, de minimis levels, energy, labor and more."
Trade Group Recommendations
Several trade associations, including many representing the oil and gas industry, have submitted comments on an interim final rule outlining a procedure for requesting an exemption to the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The interim final rule, conceived by the Commerce Department, was published last March in the Federal Register.
At issue are specialty steel products, which are used in oil and gas pipelines and at LNG export facilities. The oil and gas industry and its allies argue that such products meet the criteria for an exemption from the 25% tariff on steel imports because there is an insufficient supply of comparable products from domestic steel manufacturers.
Last week, the trade groups, which include the American Petroleum Institute, the American Gas Association, the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, the GPA Midstream Association, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, recommended a list of 11 changes to the interim final rule.
The first recommendation called for tariff exclusions to be applied both retrospectively and prospectively, with relief granted for a minimum of five years and subject to renewal thereafter. Other recommendations focused on metrics Commerce would use to determine the demand for and quality of the aforementioned specialty steel products.
"Impediments to developing, transporting, refining and distributing domestic oil and gas resources could reduce supplies of critical fuels used by consumers, the U.S. military and manufacturers, which could have the unintended consequence of negatively affecting the national security upon which these tariffs are premised," the trade groups wrote.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114462-massive-opportunity-for-us-to-supply-energy-to-china-says-mnuchin
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Dems Introduce Bill to Block Alaska Refuge Drilling
May 22, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A group of House Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday that would block oil and natural gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
The bill from Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and others would reverse Congress’s decision last year to approve drilling in a portion of ANWR, which was included as part of the Republican tax overhaul.
The sponsors of the anti-drilling legislation warned that with the Trump administration hoping to hold an auction for drilling rights next year, lawmakers have to work fast to overturn the provision.
“Plain and simple: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a national treasure worth protecting for future generations,” Huffman said in a statement.
“Although Republicans in Congress snuck a dangerous drilling provision into their tax bill last year, it’s not too late to keep drills out of this iconic landscape,” he continued. “But time is not on our side: we need to repeal this oil and gas giveaway soon to ensure that the Arctic Refuge’s coastal plain remains unspoiled for future generations to experience and enjoy.”
Last year’s tax law passed with only GOP support. After decades of efforts by Alaskans, the oil industry and Republicans, it for the first time allowed drilling in ANWR’s small coastal plain, subject to the same environmental rules as other federal land areas.
The Interior Department was instructed in the law to hold at least two drilling rights lease sales in the next decade, limited to 2,000 acres leased.
Polling has consistently showed that most Americans oppose ANWR drilling. The conservative-leaning Rasmussen Reports found last year that 53 percent of Americans opposed it, and only 12 percent supported it.
But most Alaskans and state leaders have long supported drilling.
Environmentalists cheered the House Democrats' bill on Tuesday.
“The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a land of incredible beauty, ecological value and cultural importance. Oil rigs have no place there,” Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/388852-dems-introduce-bill-to-block-alaska-refuge-drilling
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New Mexico Senators Want to End Oil, Gas Leasing in Chaco Region
May 22, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
One month after a federal judge ruled that the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) did not violate environmental law when it approved applications for oil and gas drilling in a sensitive area of northwest New Mexico, the state's two Democratic senators introduced a bill to withdraw the area from future lease sales.
Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich on Tuesday introduced the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act. The bill calls for withdrawing 316,076 acres containing oil, natural gas, coal and other minerals owned by the federal government within the Proposed Chaco Protection Zone from future leasing and development. The zone, which measures 909,000 total acres, surrounds the Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
In a joint statement, Udall said the greater Chaco region "is being threatened by expanding energy development." Heinrich concurred, adding "Chaco Canyon is a sacred site that is revered by all New Mexicans and deserves to be protected from any harmful development that would damage its precious historical and cultural resources."
The bill follows a ruling last month in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico that disappointed a coalition of environmental groups that had sued the BLM in March 2015, after the Interior agency approved at least 130 applications for permits to drill (APD) targeting the Mancos Shale and the Gallup formation.
The groups claimed the BLM had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) when it approved the APDs. But in April, District Court Judge James Browning disagreed and dismissed the lawsuit.
"The BLM adequately involved the public in its NEPA process, as it gave notice of finalized environmental assessments' availability through its online NEPA logs, and sent notices of and hosted public meetings at each proposed well's site," Browning said. "The BLM did not violate the NHPA, because it considered the effects on historical sites within the wells' areas of potential effects."
WPX Energy Production LLC, Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc., BP America Co., ConocoPhillips, Burlington Resources Oil & Gas Co. LP, Anschutz Exploration Corp. and the American Petroleum Institute intervened on behalf of the defendants, which was Diné Citizens Against Ruining our Environment et al v. Sally Jewell et al, No. 15-0209.
Last March, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke postponed an oil and gas lease sale near Chaco. The sale was to include 25 parcels covering 4,434 acres in New Mexico's Rio Arriba, Sandoval and San Juan counties, which are in the Four Corners area of the state.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114469-new-mexico-senators-want-to-end-oil-gas-leasing-in-chaco-region
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Senate Subcommittee Advances Energy and Water Spending Bill
May 22, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Eric Wolff
A Senate subcommittee today advanced the Energy-Water appropriations bill to the full committee.
The bill appropriates $43.8 billion in discretionary funding, $566 million more than last year’s appropriation and $7.2 billion more than the administration requested. Non-defense activities rose $474 million, while defense activities were increased $92 million.
The bill provides $6.65 billion for the Office of Science, $390 million more than the last appropriation. And it funds an increase for ARPA-E. It also maintains funding for a weatherization assistance program and includes an extra $196 million for drought resilience, among other measures.
Chairman Lamar Alexander lamented that writing the bill was made more difficult because the committee "started with an unrealistic budget proposal from the administration.”
Appropriators funded DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at $2.3 billion, the same level as the current appropriation, but $1.6 billion than President Donald Trump’s budget.
The bill also provides $6.9 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers, the largest appropriation for the corps, according to Alexander. It makes full use of the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, specifically the top four priority projects.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Is Gas the Next Coal? One Think Tank Says Yes
May 23, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
U.S. utilities are on track to invest more than $500 billion in new natural gas plants by 2030, saddling consumers with costly projects while pumping billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to a new analysis.
The report from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) — a think tank that advocates for a move to low-carbon energy — found power companies could save money and cut emissions by instead investing in a combination of renewables, energy efficiency, storage and demand response.
"Renewables and demand response and batteries are about to do to gas what gas has done to coal," said Mark Dyson, the report's author.
He argued that technological advancements and falling prices have made renewables, storage, energy efficiency and demand response a suitable replacement for fossil fuel generation.
RMI's findings come amid a boom in natural-gas-fired generation nationwide.
Richmond, Va.-based Dominion Energy Inc. said earlier this month it plans to build at least eight natural gas plants in the next 15 years. In Arizona, regulators have asked the Arizona Public Service Co. to reconsider its long-term plans, saying they included too much new gas (Climatewire, March 19).
All told, the U.S. Energy Information Administration expects new natural gas plants to represent 64 percent of new power plant capacity in 2018, the first time gas has outstripped renewables in terms of plant additions since 2013.
The shift to gas has largely coincided with the aging of the U.S. coal fleet. RMI estimates that half of U.S. fossil-fuel-fired power plants are set to retire by 2030. Already, power companies have announced plans to invest $110 billion in new natural gas generation through 2025.
If utilities were to replace all that power with gas, they would spend more than $520 billion. That would result in 5 billion tons of CO2 emissions through 2030 and 16 billion tons of carbon through 2050, RMI found.
"There is a near-term [emissions] reduction from replacing old coal capacity with new natural gas," Dyson said. "But by doing that, you lock in emissions from new natural gas generation for the next couple decades."
RMI compared four gas plants planned around the country — two combined-cycle projects and two peaking facilities — with proposed clean energy portfolios. The portfolios varied by region.
In Texas, for instance, a clean energy portfolio relying on a large measure of residential demand response would offer a 25 percent savings on the capital costs of a new gas peaker.
On the West Coast, a clean energy portfolio with a large dose of wind would have higher capital costs than a proposed combined-cycle facility but would save consumers $120 million over 20 years through lower operating costs.
In all but one scenario, the clean energy portfolio was less expensive, RMI found. Across all four cases, the clean energy portfolios saved $308 million and avoided 157 million tons in carbon dioxide emissions.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/23/stories/1060082427
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Chemical Safety Board Chair to Resign
May 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
The chair of the U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board, Vanessa Allen Sutherland, announced on May 21 that she will resign from the board next month. She gave no reason for her departure.
“I am saddened to leave the wonderful mission and incredible work of the CSB,” Sutherland said in a statement. “This mission is unique and critically important because we are the only agency conducting independent, comprehensive root cause chemical incident investigations.”
CSB is supposed to have five board members; Sutherland’s departure will leave it with three. The remaining board members will be required to vote on an interim leader, CSB officials say, unless and until the White House nominates and the Senate confirms a new chair. A nomination is unlikely since the Trump administration has sought to eliminate the board in its last two budget proposals.
“Three is a quorum,” and the board will continue to do its work, senior CSB adviser Thomas Zoeller says. Sutherland “had personal and family reasons to leave,” Zoeller says.
Sutherland has led the board since August 2015. She took over during a difficult time for the board, after former chair Rafael Moure-Eraso was forced to resign by members of Congress and then-president Barak Obama over charges of mismanagement. Two CSB top aides had also been terminated. All this followed a lengthy congressional investigation and House of Representative oversight hearings.
Sutherland had been a Department of Transportation lawyer and chief counsel for the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration since October 2011. Her five-year CSB term would have expired in 2020.
https://cen.acs.org/safety/industrial-safety/Chemical-Safety-Board-chair-resign/96/web/2018/05
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Bonuses Cut for Drilling Execs After Fatal Rig Fire
May 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Patterson-UTI CEO Andy Hendricks got a $2.25 million bonus for 2017.
It would have been higher, but all of the bonuses for top executives at the company were reduced because of a deadly fire at a Patterson-UTI oil and gas rig in Oklahoma in January. Five men died. Three were Patterson-UTI Energy Inc. employees.
The company's six top executives asked the board of directors' compensation committee to waive any payout for the safety portion of their bonus calculation, according to a proxy filing last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the document, the Houston-based company had revised its system for determining executive compensation for 2017. The safety component was one of the changes.
The "key performance indicator" for safety judges the executives on "maintenance of Patterson-UTI's leadership position in operating and safety standards."
It's not clear how much higher Hendricks' bonus would have been without the fatal fire. The maximum bonus Hendricks could have received was $2.5 million, according to the filing, $250,000 more than he got.
There were two other key performance indicators that earned him $250,000 and $187,500, respectively, on top of a base $1,750,000 for financial performance.
The bonus is on top of his $854,000 salary. His total compensation, including stock awards, was listed as $14,253,839.
The explosion and rig fire occurred Jan. 22 near Quinton, Okla., a rural community about 100 miles southeast of Tulsa.
The explosion happened while the crew was removing pipe from the hole. The rig burned for eight hours. The workers' bodies were found in the rig's control room. The rig was owned by Patterson-UTI Drilling Co. LLC, a subsidiary of Patterson-UTI Energy.
It was the deadliest oil field accident since at least 2010, when 11 men were killed in the BP PLC explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. The damaged BP well was permanently plugged.
Patterson-UTI has a troubled safety record. Since 2008, when a U.S. Senate committee called the Houston company "one of the worst violators of workplace safety laws," at least 12 of its workers have been killed on the job.
The company has said it was improving safety before the accident, investing millions of dollars in training and protective equipment. A statement released to news outlets after the explosion said the company sought "to instill a company-wide culture where safety is the top priority of each employee."
About a month after the Quinton explosion, another Patterson worker was seriously injured by falling pipe at another well in Oklahoma.
State officials confirmed last week that the operator of the well, Red Mountain Energy LLC, is "fracking," or hydraulically fracturing, the well in order to bring it into production. Patterson-UTI did not perform the remaining drilling.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is also investigating the explosion. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating Red Mountain and Patterson-UTI. Families of the victims have also filed several lawsuits.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/05/23/stories/1060082463
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Former CASAC Chairmen Fault Pruitt for Not Consulting on NAAQS Reform
May 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Two former chairmen of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) are faulting Administrator Scott Pruitt for not consulting with the independent panel before issuing his memo on overhauling the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) review process, and faulting plans to include costs as a factor in reviews.
Air quality researcher Jonathan Samet, a former CASAC chairman, told Inside EPA in a recent interview that he was not consulted by the agency on Pruitt's memo -- despite the document citing a Samet quote from several years ago as part of its broader justification for steps to simplify and accelerate the often-delayed NAAQS process.
Pruitt's May 9 memo puts the ongoing reviews of the ozone and particulate matter (PM) NAAQS on a fast track to completion in 2020, after years of EPA failing to meet a Clean Air Act mandate that it review its six NAAQS every five years. The memo announces a “streamlined” review process that will collapse three currently separate steps in the review process into one, which could limit CASAC's potential input.
Describing the need to speed up NAAQS reviews, Pruitt cites a December 2008 letter from Samet -- then chairman of CASAC -- to George W. Bush EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson saying, “any slippage in schedules” for key steps in the standards review process “may jeopardize the quality of CASAC's input.”
But Samet told Inside EPA that CASAC issued the letter at a time when the NAAQS process had just been overhauled by the Bush administration in order to create the distinct review steps: The integrated science assessment (ISA) that assembles new science available since the last review, the risk and exposure assessment (REA) that estimates a criteria pollutant's actual risk to the public, and finally a policy assessment (PA) giving EPA options to set the NAAQS sufficient to protect public health “with an adequate margin of safety,” as the air law requires.
Samet in the interview said that the three-step process is a sequencing that now makes sense. The REA builds from the ISA,” and these in turn inform the PA document. Referring to Pruitt's push to consolidate all three steps into one action, Samet asked, “Would putting everything into one document be helpful?”
The review process overhaul of the Bush era was the result of extensive consultation with CASAC, Samet notes, and he defends it as a marked improvement on the “unfocused” two-step process used before.
Samet further said that Pruitt's goal of issuing NAAQS rules in 2020 for ozone and PM is “very ambitious,” and a hard task. The PM review began under the Obama administration, with a view to updating the last PM NAAQS rule issued in 2012, but the review has not progressed beyond its initial stages. The ozone review, required by Oct. 1, 2020, to update the most recent ozone standard set Oct. 1, 2015, has not even started.
'Rush This Through'
Similarly, Chris Frey -- a professor of environmental engineering at North Carolina State University, former CASAC chairman and current member of CASAC'S PM NAAQS review panel -- told Inside EPA in a separate interview that he is concerned by Pruitt's lack of consultation on the memo.
He also warned, “I don't think it is feasible or desirable” to combine the currently separate review steps into one, and that EPA's deadlines for PM and ozone NAAQS reviews are probably not realistic.
“I don't see how you can rush this through,” Frey said, noting that for PM, for example, a number of significant studies have been released since the last review that will take time to evaluate.
Both Frey and Samet also questioned language in Pruitt's memo that orders consideration of economic impacts as part of the review process -- a requirement that has created legal doubts given a Supreme Court bar on weighing costs in NAAQS reviews, which must be set based solely on a pollutant's impact on public health.
Samet said the potential for a cost review under CASAC could “complicate” the NAAQS review process, saying, “it is not so clear what the precedent will be” for considering economic factors.
To consider implementation costs, the seven-member chartered CASAC and its larger specialized review panels would have to expand its range of expertise beyond the focus on air quality. EPA is now recruiting new CASAC members, but Samet worries that the “most knowledgeable” experts “will not be on those panels.”
Separately, Frey noted that the charge to CASAC to consider economic, social or other adverse consequences of NAAQS would need to come from EPA itself in a future charge document. Consideration of such issues “is a separate issue” from the appropriate level of NAAQS themselves, and risks getting “co-mingled” with setting the NAAQS, Frey argued. “I personally think that is not a great idea.”
Democrats' Queries
Meanwhile, House Democratic lawmakers questioned EPA Office of Air & Radiation (OAR) Assistant Administrator William Wehrum at a recent hearing about the agency's consultation on Pruitt's memo.
At a May 16 House Energy & Commerce Committee environment panel hearing, ranking member Paul Tonko (D-NY) queried Wehrum on the agency's external consultation both on the NAAQS memo and a separate proposed EPA rule to require that all science used in NAAQS reviews be “transparent” and “reproducible.”
Critics say the proposed rule could exclude from consideration high-quality studies that rely on confidential medical records, potentially undermining science that could back stricter NAAQS.
Tonko asked Wehrum whether EPA consulted with the public, the agency's Science Advisory Board (SAB), or CASAC before issuing the NAAQS reform memo.
Wehrum answered, “We receive input on a continuous basis, in a variety of ways, on how we do NAAQS reviews” and that in crafting NAAQS and their implementation rules, “we always solicit comments from the public.”
On the science proposal, Wehrum deferred to Pruitt saying only that OAR offered written comments on the plan, which the lawmakers requested that Wehrum supply to the committee. Wehrum did state, however, that SAB review of the science policy shift is not required.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/former-casac-chairmen-fault-pruitt-not-consulting-naaqs-reform
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Panel Advances Revised CCUS Bill to Boost Senate Democrats' Support
May 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
The Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) has approved a newly modified version of bipartisan legislation that would boost research for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and ease permitting for carbon dioxide pipeline projects, after adding language to boost Democratic support for the measure.
EPW approved the measure, S. 2602, by voice vote during a May 22 business meeting. The bill now awaits action on the Senate floor.
The favorable vote came after the committee approved a substitute amendment that incorporated several changes, including new language clarifying that permitting for CO2 pipelines is to be completed in an expeditious matter “while maintaining environmental, health and safety protections.”
The amended bill also includes a new two-step process that requires a report by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), in consultation with EPA and other federal agencies, on topics including the current CCUS permitting landscape and gaps in the current federal regulatory framework for CCUS deployment. That report would come ahead of CEQ issuing planned new permitting guidance on CO2 projects. It would also specify that CEQ put that guidance out for public comment.
The amendment was backed by EPW Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY), panel ranking member Tom Carper (D-DE), as well as Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL). The bill is also co-sponsored by Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), who is not an EPW member.
During the meeting, Barrasso referenced the recent opening of a CCUS research facility in Wyoming known as the Integrated Test Center, adding the bill supports such efforts and will help the country “maintain its leadership” in CCUS technologies.
Carper added that the amended measure is a “good compromise,” and particularly cited the requirement for a “robust report” on CCUS that would inform the CEQ guidance, as well as a mandate for EPA to consult with the Energy Department on research to avoid duplication.
Carper said the bill is not something he or Barrasso would have written on their own, but if lawmakers are to confront climate change, “we are going to have to find compromises that can work with both parties. . . . With assurances this will not be used as a vehicle to attack the Clean Air Act, I will be voting yes.”
He also said there is more work to be done before the bill can be passed, but that he hopes it would be enacted this year.
Prior to the meeting, a Senate aide declined to elaborate on a timeframe for moving the bill after its committee approval but said the goal is to obtain an agreement to move the measure by unanimous consent on the Senate floor. Should that occur, it would be the second -- and likely last -- climate change measure approved this year, after enactment of legislation to extend and expand the so-called section 45Q tax credit for carbon capture projects.
Environmental groups, however, have raised concerns about whether the new bill would lead to inadequate review of the projects, and it is not yet clear the extent to which the new language has addressed their concerns.
Project Risks
Other changes to the measure include a new requirement for EPA to prepare in consultation with other federal agencies a report on permanent storage of CO2 in deep saline formations, including risks and benefits to developers of such projects and any risks unique to public lands -- as well as any policy changes that might be needed to manage such risks. The report is said to be a particular priority of Duckworth's.
The legislation represents rare bipartisan consensus on climate policy, and would advance CCUS technologies that capture CO2 from power plants and other industrial sources, while using the gas for valuable products or permanently storing it.
Barrasso noted, for example, at a April 11 legislative hearing that the measure “would encourage the commercial use of man-made CO2 emissions. We cannot afford to leave our resources stranded in the ground. That is why America must lead through innovation and not regulation as we continue to reduce emissions.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/panel-advances-revised-ccus-bill-boost-senate-democrats-support
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Maryland Launches Academy to Fight Warming
May 22, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Arianna Skibell
Maryland state officials this week announced the launch of a government-led Climate Leadership Academy to help communities plan for the impacts of global warming.
Led by Gov. Larry Hogan (R), senior state and local leaders laid our their vision for the academy at Maryland's inaugural State of the Coast conference, saying it would aid governments, critical infrastructure organizations and state agencies in developing and implementing climate change initiatives.
The academy will also be used to help the private sector incorporate the impacts of global warming into its decisionmaking and long-term planning.
"Under Governor Larry Hogan's strong and independent leadership, Maryland is well-equipped to lead the country in driving creative, innovative and successful strategies aimed at addressing anticipated climate change-related impacts on our businesses, citizens and communities," Maryland Natural Resources Secretary Mark Belton said in a statement.
"Through the Climate Leadership Academy, we will support locally-designed and led efforts and initiative by providing a forum for community leaders to build their own capacity, convene with their peers and partners, and share best practices and results."
In addition to Belton and Maryland Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles, a number of Maryland organizations came to the table to design the academy.
Those include the Association of Climate Change Officers, the Maryland Department of Health, the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, the Maryland Energy Administration, Maryland Sea Grant, NOAA and the University of Maryland.
"Ensuring secure, healthy and prosperous communities in the face of a changing climate will require us to deploy a force of leaders across organizations and occupations that have the capacity to successfully address climate related risks and opportunities, and weave them into the DNA of their decision-making," Daniel Kreeger, executive director of the Association of Climate Change Officers, said in a statement.
"We hope that other states will follow Maryland's lead in taking bold steps to ensure an appropriate resource for their communities, as well as to shape policies that compel participation," he said.
The State of the Coast conference began May 21 and goes through tomorrow in Cambridge. It's sponsored by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
More than 200 officials from local offices and scientists to business and industry leaders are gathering to discuss the future of Maryland's environment.
Conference speakers include representatives from the Nature Conservancy, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Oyster Recovery Partnership, among others.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/05/22/stories/1060082403
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Former Trump Aide Targets ‘Activist’ Climate Investors
May 22, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
A former energy adviser to President Donald Trump will head up a new campaign to stop major investors from using shareholder votes to press companies to act on climate change.
George David Banks, who left the White House in February, will lead the Main Street Investors Coalition, which is backed by groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation.
Banks said he will focus on educating retail investors — the small investors who don't trade stocks through mutual funds or other major investment organizations — about “politically motivated” resolutions that major investment funds operated by companies like BlackRock or Vanguard are now throwing their considerable weight behind.
“What political activists have done, because they haven’t been able to achieve what they want in Washington, then they are using the shareholder proposal process as kind of a backdoor way of creating policy,” Banks said.
The new coalition will focus on climate and environmental issues, as well as other shareholder resolutions it views as political, including on gun control, diversity and lobbying disclosure.
At least 66 climate change-related resolutions were filed for the 2018 proxy season, according to The Wall Street Journal, after support for those measures climbed last year.
Environmentalists and green-minded investors have increasingly sought to compel fossil fuel companies to recognize and plan for climate change when making decisions about future work. For example, BlackRock made waves last year when it helped pass a resolution requiring Occidental Petroleum to report to shareholders on climate change, the first time such an initiative succeeded at a major U.S. oil and gas company. BlackRock owned 7.8 percent of Occidental shares, giving it significant influence in the vote.
Similar resolutions passed last year at Exxon Mobil and utility group PPL Corp., and shareholders earlier this month voted to have pipeline company Kinder Morgan issue an annual sustainability report, disregarding the board's complaints that such a report would not provide any new meaningful information.
“The vast majority of retail investors have no idea what’s going on. They have no idea that BlackRock and Vanguard are sort of leveraging their assets for political and social causes,” Banks said.
He pointed to a recent online survey by the consulting firm Spectrem Group that questioned individuals whose pensions are managed by major state groups and found 75 percent want fund managers to focus on maximizing returns, while just 14 percent preferred a focus on political and social causes.
“The average retail investor doesn’t care about the political and social considerations,” Banks said. “The average retail investor just wants to make sure that he or she has a stock that’s performing really well.”
Laura Campos of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, which pressured BlackRock to support last year’s Occidental resolution, pushed back on the idea that small investors don’t care about climate change or other progressive issues.
“Investors have for a very long time been making the case to BlackRock, Vanguard and others that environmental, social and governance issues can be and often are material for companies' bottom lines,” she said. The NCF is itself a significant investor, with a half-billion-dollar endowment that it says has been invested to focus on investments to solve climate change and inequality.
BlackRock and Vanguard aren’t making politically motivated voting decisions that would hurt their holdings, Campos argued.
“I think they’re truly about long-term shareholder value,” she said.
Others said the new campaign was simply the latest step in an ongoing effort by conservative business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to limit shareholders’ ability to push these resolutions.
“In this particular political climate, they think they can be much more successful and so they and the Business Roundtable have been quite aggressive in pushing for new rules to limit shareholder resolutions,” said Tim Smith, director of environmental, social and governance shareholder engagement at Boston-based Walden Asset Management.
Vanguard defended its practices, saying it served as a steward for its 20 million clients and only voted on proposals to protect investors' assets.
"Vanguard does not engage with companies to further a political or social agenda, but rather to uphold our responsibilities as fiduciaries and protect the value of our shareholders’ investments," the company said in a statement.
BlackRock also said it's focused on long-term asset value. "Our activities in this area are aimed at maximizing shareholder value, not at implementing social values," the company said. And it noted that of 19 climate-focused resolutions it faced in 2017, it supported just two.
Much the motivation for these shareholders has come because the Trump administration is rolling back climate actions, so they see corporate advocacy as a way to address the issue.
“On climate change, there certainly is the recognition that the voice of investors and companies is exceedingly important because we’re not getting leadership from Washington,” Smith said.
Seth Duppstadt, a senior vice president at shareholder analysis firm Proxy Insight Limited, questioned whether there really has been a sea change of major investors backing climate-friendly resolutions. Most of the measures that have passed so far only require companies to report more about climate change’s effects on company activity or future plans, not to actually shift away from fossil fuels.
“The institutional voters are still siding with management frequently still,” he said. “There’s some green shoots, I guess you could call them, in terms of some voting changes, but it’s not like the norm.”
DISCLOSURE: Vanguard manages retirement accounts for POLITICO employees.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/05/former-trump-aide-targets-activist-climate-investors-561659
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Government Revenue from Carbon Pricing Surges to $33 Billion
May 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Mathew Carr
Government revenue from carbon markets and levies around the world surged by 50 percent last year as more countries implemented taxes on pollution, and prices in markets jumped.
Payments for allowances sold in auctions and carbon tax receipts amounted to $33 billion, the World Bank Group said May 22. European Union emission permits jumped in value last year as the region dealt with a glut, while Canadian provinces, Chile, and Colombia were among jurisdictions to see higher revenues.
The portion of global emissions covered by pricing will rise to about 20 percent from 15 percent once China begins its national carbon market in 2020, according to the bank’s State & Trends of Carbon Pricing 2018 report. But prices in the programs are not high enough to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), the target in the 2015 Paris climate accord, it said.
“We expect this momentum in carbon pricing to continue,” said John Roome, senior director for climate change at the World Bank. Allowance levels, including $18 a metric ton of carbon dioxide in the EU, are mostly “short of where prices need to be,” he told reporters on a conference call.
About 90 percent of carbon emissions “are not priced at a level reflecting even a conservative estimate of their climate cost,” the report found.
A price of about $40 a ton along with adoption of other policies that encourage emission cuts would achieve targets in the Paris accord, according to a report published last year by a commission of economists and scientists.
Prices in current programs ranged from a Mexican carbon tax of less than $1 a ton to $139 a ton for a measure in Sweden.
Fossil fuel subsidies, which are effectively negative carbon prices, continue to work against climate action and governments are not on track to meet their commitments to phase them out, according to the report.
Almost half the countries that signed up to the Paris deal expect to use some form of carbon pricing to meet their pledges, the bank said. That represents about 56 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/government-revenue-from-carbon-pricing-surges-to-33-billion
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