Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 5/25/18
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(ACC Mentioned) No April Showers for Commodity Resins
May 25, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
April was a calm month by the chaotic standards of North American resin pricing. -
EPA Seriously Underestimates Its Costs Under TSCA and Lowballs Industry Fees as a Result
May 25, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
Yesterday EDF filed extensive comments on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal for the last of the so-called “framework rules” called for under the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Next Steps on Toxic Chemicals Draw Scrutiny
May 25, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
EPA is poised to take a handful of initial steps to address toxic water contamination after its summit this week, but few experts are optimistic that those actions will be enough — if they are even taken at all. -
Meeting Set to Address US Formaldehyde Rule Issues
May 25, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has convened a public meeting on technical issues in its final rule for formaldehyde emission standards for composite wood products. -
Advice for Parents: Find Nap Mats Without Flame Retardant Chemicals
May 24, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Tasha Stoiber
When looking for a child care center, parents usually ask about the number of children and the number of adult caretakers in the center, what educational activities are offered, and what’s for lunch. -
Ireland’s HSA Launches Brexit Webpages
May 25, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The Irish Health and Safety Authority has created webpages to keep businesses informed, including those in the chemicals industry, of the potential impacts of Brexit. -
New NAFTA Must Protect US Investments
May 25, 2018 | Real Clear Energy
By Pınar Çebi Wilber
There are lots of reasons a U.S. firm might choose to invest in another country. In some cases, labor costs or access to new markets might provide valuable incentives for foreign investment. -
Judge Lets Cities Probe Oil Giants for Documents
May 25, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
A federal judge yesterday ordered oil companies to submit to discovery on the question of the court's jurisdiction to hold them liable for climate-related damages to California cities. -
Koch Industries Looking to Bakken for More Oil Exports
May 25, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Koch Industries is actively trading U.S.-produced oil to Europe and Asia, and more Bakken production from North Dakota increasingly will become part of the export mix, an executive said Wednesday. -
China Is Preparing to Buy a Lot More Natural Gas from the US
May 25, 2018 | Quartz
By Youyou Zhou
It looks like China will make another bet on US natural gas, building new gas terminals at ports in four provinces. The facilities will accommodate the country’s increasing reliance on foreign gas. -
Standards Too Weak to Prevent Chemical Plant Blast After Harvey, Probe Finds
May 25, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Christopher M. Matthews
Safety plans fell short of industry standards at a chemical plant that caught fire and exploded following Hurricane Harvey last year, but the standards were probably too weak to prevent the crisis anyway, a U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board probe has found. -
Texas Chemical Plant Failed to Take Necessary Precautions Despite Warnings, Investigators Find
May 25, 2018 | Think Progress
By Mark Hand
After reviewing the handling of a crisis at a chemical plant near Houston last August, federal investigators determined the chemical industry needs to work much harder at preparing for severe weather events, especially in areas prone to extreme flooding from tropical storms and hurricanes. -
Republican Promises Climate Action — If He Wins
May 25, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Kelsey Brugger
It's not surprising that the race for the southernmost district of Florida is between two Hispanics who have made climate change one of their key issues. -
Groups Say EPA Still Flouting Law on Ozone Designations
May 25, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Even if EPA has now made almost all attainment designations for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard, the agency is still breaking the law by failing to officially publish them, a coalition of states and advocacy groups said in court papers this week. -
Mcdonald's Rejects Proposal to Report on Plastic Straw Use in Blow to Environmental Group
May 25, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Avery Anapol
McDonald’s shareholders on Thursday voted against a proposal to examine its plastic straw use from an organization seeking an eventual ban on the straws.
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(ACC Mentioned) No April Showers for Commodity Resins
May 25, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
April was a calm month by the chaotic standards of North American resin pricing.
Polypropylene and PVC were the only commodity resins that saw any price movement for the month. Average selling prices for PP in the region slid an average of 1 cent per pound, with PVC declining by 2 cents. Regional prices for polyethylene, polystyrene and PET bottle resin all were flat.
The 1-cent drop for PP followed a 6-cent plunge that hit the market in March. Prices also had fallen 6 cents in February after jumping up 9 cents in January. This four-month roller coaster has left regional PP prices down a net of 4 cents per pound so far in 2018.
The market continues to follow supplies of polymer-grade propylene feedstock. The April decline was slightly less than expected by some buyers.
For PP, profit margin expansion "is largely being pushed out to May," according to Scott Newell, a market analyst with Resin Technology Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas. "However, there will be some price points taking a portion of it."
North American PP sales through March were down more than 1 percent vs. the same period in 2017, according to the American Chemistry Council. A domestic sales decline of 1 percent was worsened by a plunge of almost 12 percent for sales into the export market.
PP posted positive domestic sales results for those three months in film — up 8 percent — and injection molded caps and closures, where sales grew more than 3 percent.EspositoPVC price movement
Regional suspension PVC prices moved down an average of 2 cents in April after increasing 2 cents for March and 3 cents in February. PVC prices had been flat in January, placing regional market prices up a net of 3 cents through the first four months of 2018.
"We'll see what's happening in building and construction to see how May shapes up," a PVC market source told Plastics News. "If volume increases, [PVC resin] prices may hold."
U.S./Canadian PVC sales grew more than 3 percent through March, with export growth of almost 5 percent adding to an increase of more than 2 percent in domestic sales. Three-month PVC sales into its flagship rigid pipe and tubing end market were up 3.5 percent.
In other major PVC end markets, sales into film and sheet slumped almost 6 percent through March, while PVC sales into extruded windows and doors are off to a scorching start in 2018, surging more than 16 percent.
Regional PE prices were flat for the second straight month in April after climbing 4 cents in February. U.S./Canadian PE sales got off to a mixed start through March. Regional sales of high density PE were up more than 3 percent, with linear low density PE sales rising 8 percent. But sales of low density PE had a rough start to the year, slipping almost 5 percent.
For HDPE, domestic sales growth of 4 percent was dampened slightly by export growth of less than 1 percent. Domestic HDPE sales growth in that period was boosted by a gain of more than 17 percent for sales into pipe and conduit, including a gain of almost 30 percent in water pipe.
In LLDPE, exports boomed more than 40 percent in the three months — fueled by new capacity throughout North America — boosting domestic sales that slid almost 1 percent. Domestic LLDPE sales into injection molding grew almost 10 percent in the three-month period.
LDPE's 4 percent domestic sales drop in the first 90 days of 2018 was worsened by a plunge of almost 6 percent in export sales. In spite of the overall sales drop, sales of LDPE into extrusion coating outside of paperboard jumped almost 15 percent for the three months of the year.
Regional PS prices were flat in April after moving up an average of 4 cents per pound in March. North American PS sales slumped more than 8 percent in the first three months of 2018. A domestic sales loss of almost 9 percent was softened somewhat by an increase of 2.5 percent in export sales.
One bright spot for regional PS sales in the first three months of the year came in sales to distributors and resellers, which grew more than 4 percent. That category accounted for 11.5 percent of domestic PS sales during that period.
PET bottle resin prices also were flat in April after declining 1 cent in March. That slight drop ended a remarkable streak of nine consecutive months in which prices had increased, raising prices a total of 13 cents per pound. Demand for PET should be increasing as warmer weather drives demand for bottled water and carbonated soft drinks, two of the material's major end markets.
Plastics News also in April reported prices increases for engineering resins polycarbonate, ABS and nylon that took hold in the first quarter of 2018. Those materials were impacted by solid demand, higher raw material costs and scattered production and supply issues, according to market sources.
Regional PC resin prices increased by an average of 7 cents per pound, while ABS was up 4 cents, nylon 6 was up 6 and nylon 6/6 up 7. Sources also indicated that regional prices for ABS and nylon 6/6 could see additional price increases in the second quarter.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180525/NEWS/180529938/no-april-showers-for-commodity-resins
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EPA Seriously Underestimates Its Costs Under TSCA and Lowballs Industry Fees as a Result
May 25, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
Yesterday EDF filed extensive comments on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal for the last of the so-called “framework rules” called for under the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This rule, once finalized, will establish the “user fees” Congress authorized EPA to collect from chemical manufacturers and processors to help defray EPA's costs for implementing TSCA.
The 2016 Lautenberg Act amendments to TSCA greatly expanded both EPA authorities and responsibilities under TSCA. These extended to chemical testing; conducting risk reviews of new chemicals and prioritizing and conducting risk evaluations of existing chemicals; managing potential or identified risks of both new and existing chemicals; collecting, reviewing and providing access to chemical information; and reviewing confidential business information (CBI) claims asserted by companies when submitting information to EPA.
To determine the level of user fees, EPA is first required to determine its full costs to exercise these authorities and carry out these responsibilities. Fees are then to be set so as to recoup 25% of those costs or $25 million annually, whichever is lower. Separate fees are to be collected to cover EPA’s costs to conduct risk evaluations of chemicals companies request, apart from risk evaluations EPA initiates.
So it is vital that EPA fully and as accurately as possible account for its costs, and that it set fees that meet the intent and letter of the law.
Unfortunately, EPA’s proposed rule falls far short of the mark. EPA has severely underestimated its baseline program costs, both by omitting costs for some relevant activities altogether and by understating the extent or actual cost of other activities. In some cases EPA set fees at a low level based only on industry’s request that it do so or by invoking factors that are not consistent with the law. In the proposal and supporting documents, EPA has provided scant detail or conflicting information on how it calculated many of its costs, making it difficult or impossible for stakeholders to know whether EPA’s estimates are at all accurate.
As a result of these flaws, EPA has set some fees at levels below those required by TSCA and the resulting funds will not be sufficient to recoup the costs TSCA authorized EPA to defray through user fees.
This post will highlight some of the many concerns and questions we discuss in detail in the comments we have submitted.
Cost omissions or under-estimatesWhen estimating costs under section 4, EPA has significantly underestimated the amount of testing EPA will need to require to fill information gaps and fulfill its expanded obligations under the Lautenberg Act.When estimating costs under section 5, EPA failed to account for several activities necessary to carrying out section 5, such as pre-notification consultations, and has underestimated the costs of others, such as the development of orders and significant new use rules. EPA has also inconsistently stated its obligation under TSCA to review reasonably foreseen as well as intended conditions of use of new chemicals.With respect to prioritization under section 6, EPA has failed to include any costs associated with identifying potential candidates for prioritization; and has provided no breakdown of or basis for its cost estimate for prioritization.With respect to risk evaluations under section 6, EPA relied on the costs of risk evaluations under the old law, and EPA failed to increase those estimates to reflect EPA’s new, broader obligations under the Lautenberg Act.With respect to risk management actions under section 6, EPA provides estimates far lower (65% lower) than the costs of prior, narrower actions, based on unspecified “efficiencies.”With respect to the costs of collecting, processing, and reviewing information under TSCA, EPA has failed to include any estimates beyond the cost of reviewing confidential business information (CBI) claims under section 14. As a result, EPA has ignored the costs associated with activities such as reporting rules under section 8.EPA’s estimated costs under section 14 are unreasonably low (as much as five-fold lower) compared to EPA’s prior budget estimates for these activities under the old law, and EPA has failed to account for its many new duties under this section as amended by the Lautenberg Act. EPA has provided no estimate whatsoever as to how many CBI claims it receives or must review, and omits any costs associated with providing access to CBI to qualified persons or to providing public access to information that does not qualify for protection from disclosure.
Missing or unjustifiably low fees
Manufacturer-requested risk evaluations
In the proposed rule, EPA assumes without basis that the cost of conducting a manufacturer-requested risk evaluation will be 67% of the cost of conducting a risk evaluation EPA initiates, and has therefore proposed charging a proportionally lower fee than it would otherwise. Its discounted fee for such risk evaluations does not recover EPA’s full costs, in violation of the Lautenberg Act, and reflects arbitrary and capricious reasoning.
EPA omits any mention, let alone the costs, of conducting risk evaluations for two persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) substances that were exempted from expedited risk management based on manufacturer requests that EPA conduct risk evaluations of them.
First ten chemicals
EPA has stated it will not collect any fees for the first ten chemical undergoing risk evaluations. EPA must charge fees to recoup costs for the work remaining to be completed on the risk evaluations for the first ten chemicals that are currently underway, as well as the costs of any associated risk management under section 6. The cost of those risk evaluations and risk management activities is a significant portion of EPA’s near-term total budget, and EPA must ensure that it is collecting fees for the portions of those activities that remain to be undertaken.
Testing
EPA’s proposed fee structure provides for disproportionately low fees for testing relative to those for new chemical reviews under section 5 and risk evaluations under section 6. EPA has done so merely based on the request of the industry. EPA should set fees for testing, and more generally, in a manner that is proportional to the costs of the underlying activities.
Conclusion
Based on EDF’s review of the proposed rule and the other materials EPA has provided in the docket, it appears that EPA has failed to fully account for its costs of “carrying out sections 4, 5, and 6, and of collecting, processing, reviewing, and providing access to and protecting from disclosure as appropriate under section 14 information under [TSCA],” as required by the law. As a result, it has established fees at levels that will not provide the agency with the extent of dedicated funding from fees that Congress intended and that TSCA authorized.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/05/25/epa-seriously-underestimates-its-costs-under-tsca-and-lowballs-industry-fees-as-a-result/
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Next Steps on Toxic Chemicals Draw Scrutiny
May 25, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
EPA is poised to take a handful of initial steps to address toxic water contamination after its summit this week, but few experts are optimistic that those actions will be enough — if they are even taken at all.
Opening this week's meeting on nonstick PFAS chemicals that taint the drinking water of at least 16 million Americans, Administrator Scott Pruitt announced four “concrete steps” that the agency will take to address the contaminants, including determining whether to regulate two of the best-known chemicals in drinking water.
"We will take the next step under the Safe Drinking Water Act process to evaluate the need for a Maximum Contaminant Level for PFOA and PFOS," Pruitt said. "It’s something that has been talked about for a number of years. The process needs to begin."
That evaluation will decide whether acontaminant warrants a legal limit, a process called a regulatory determination, which is based not just on the dangers that a chemical poses, but the scale of the problem and the cost to clean it up.
And Pruitt said the agency will take the first steps to propose designating those two chemicals as hazardous substances under the Superfund law, which would help states and local water utilities force the companies responsible for contaminationpay for its cleanup.
Pruitt also said EPA is “currently developing” groundwater cleanup recommendations, which experts say could help fill the gap while the Superfund process plays out. That could be especially important in places like Dayton, Ohio, where drinking water wells are in the path of a groundwater plume of PFOA and PFOS that originated at the nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. So far, the military has been reluctant to begin remediation without a clear cleanup standard.
Lastly, EPA will establish toxicity values for two other PFAS chemicals, information that states could use to set their own limits.
None of those four actions is controversial — in fact, they're in line with the actions the states collectively asked EPA to take.
But participants of this week's summit at EPA headquarters noted Pruitt's speech leaned heavily on phrases like taking “steps” to “evaluate” issues, leaving some people unclear on exactly what would happen next.
Asked to clarify if Pruitt was committed to making a formal decision about regulating the contaminants, an agency spokesman said, "EPA remains committed to evaluating PFOA and PFOS under the regulatory determination process. As noted by the Administrator, we are taking steps to accelerate the determination process before the existing statutory deadline.”
Environmentalists, for their part, were skeptical.
“It was pretty clear to me that EPA has not actually decided to do anything specific that will be meaningful at this point,” said Erik Olson, who heads the Natural Resources Defense Council’s health program.
Olson described Pruitt’s plan as “a little bit of kabuki theater” meant to signal that the agency is going to take action, which could prompt states that are considering setting their own standards to put any efforts on hold. Those state pollution standards are often at far lower levels than EPA’s 70 parts per trillion health advisory level for PFOA and PFOS.
“Either they’re going to adopt something very weak that the chemical industry would be happy with, or they’ll continue making noise like they’re going forward to try and cool off any state effort for doing these standards,” Olson predicted of Pruitt's EPA.
Even if the agency does move forward swiftly with regulating PFOA and PFOS under the Safe Drinking Water Act, experts say it's most likely to take five years before such a limit could go into effect. Amendments made to the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1996 require EPA to conduct a number of analyses on the costs and benefits before it can promulgate a new rule. No new contaminants have beenregulated under the law since then.
Alan Roberson, who heads the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, estimated that the fastest the agency could possibly finalize a new drinking water regulation would be December of 2021.
“I think that would be blinding speed,” he said.
Moreover, PFOA and PFOS are just two of roughly 3,500 chemicals in the PFAS class, many of which are still in active use.
State representatives speaking at the conference Tuesday repeatedly voiced the need for more information about these chemicals, since they lack the ability to even detect many of them, let alone treat contaminated sites.
Brandon Kernen, with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services Drinking Water and Groundwater Bureau, said the newer chemicals have a shorter half-life, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re less harmful for humans.
“There’s a lot more questions than answers, and we can’t say they’re safer,” he said, and he called on businesses to submit more confidential data to EPA.
Increasingly, states, water managers and public health advocates are arguing that EPA and other federal agencies need to prevent PFAS chemicals from reaching water supplies in the first place. And some groups are urging EPA to use its authorities under the 2016 toxic chemicals law to restrict the use of these chemicals, and to curb or prohibit discharges into waterways under the Clean Water Act.
There’s also increasing concern about the Food and Drug Administration's approvals to allow PFAS chemicals in food packaging — a use that chemical companies predicted could lead to hundreds of pounds of the chemicals being dumped into waterways daily, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Environmental Defense Fund.
But restricting the chemicals' uses in those ways would be controversial. While the industry has supported some regulatory steps to deal with “legacy” chemicals like PFOA and PFOS that have been phased out in the U.S., it has argued that the newer chemicals it has replaced them with don’t pose the same environmental concerns.
Many state officials argue that PFAS chemicals should be dealt with as a class, since developing analytical methods and setting limits for each individual one could suck up a huge amount of resources. But the chemical industry's lead lobbying group has specifically fought that approach.
"PFAS chemicals make up a family of chemistry encompassing a broad range of chemicals and products with widely varying physical and chemical properties, health and environmental profiles, uses and benefits," Jessica Bowman, senior director of global fluoro-chemistry for the American Chemistry Council said at the summit on Tuesday.
"Federal and state regulators must recognize these distinctions and the science that is available relative to the broad range of PFAS chemicals as they consider further actions,” she said.
But states say the problem is already stretching them to capacity.
Heidi Grether, director of Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality, told the summit Tuesday at least five of her state’s agencies are involved with PFAS issues, ranging from environmental contamination to effects on animals and crops.
“As you all know, we have a lot more questions than we have answers and that is an important part of this,” Grether said.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/05/epas-next-steps-on-toxic-chemicals-draw-scrutiny-571874
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Meeting Set to Address US Formaldehyde Rule Issues
May 25, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has convened a public meeting on technical issues in its final rule for formaldehyde emission standards for composite wood products.
The 28 June meeting in Washington, DC, will be used by the agency to inform its potential development of a proposed rule to help it align the standards more closely with the California programme upon which they are based.
The action comes in response to concerns raised by industry groups following publication of the final rulein late 2016. Some of these the EPA has already addressed, including allowing early labelling of compliant products and extending the original compliance dates.
But other issues surrounding the testing and certification of products – including correlation and equivalence of test methods, treatment of test data and sampling requirements – remain. And the EPA says it "may consider proposing additional technical amendments to clarify the rule requirements or further align EPA's regulation" with California's.
The agency will accept comments on these or other issues that can "improve consistency with CARB's [California Air Resources Board’s] regulation, improve clarity in the rule where needed, and help improve overall implementation of the rule."
https://chemicalwatch.com/67205/meeting-set-to-address-us-formaldehyde-rule-issues
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Advice for Parents: Find Nap Mats Without Flame Retardant Chemicals
May 24, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Tasha Stoiber
When looking for a child care center, parents usually ask about the number of children and the number of adult caretakers in the center, what educational activities are offered, and what’s for lunch.
But new research from Toxic-Free Future, a nonprofit research organization, shows that parents should also ask about chemicals in the nap mats on which their children will sleep and play.
Until 2013, children’s nap mats – the easily cleanable and portable foam mats used in child care centers for nap time – were made with foam loaded with chemical flame retardants. Despite their name, independent research found these chemicals do very little, if anything, to protect against fire risks. Meanwhile, breathing in or swallowing dust with flame retardants chemicals has been linked to weight gain, trouble learning and, in the long term, elevated cancer risk.
To comply with a California state law, which has since been updated, manufacturers added chemical flame retardants to all foam furniture products, like sofas and mattresses. The old law called for burn testing that was not useful in real-life scenarios, but remained in place for decades based on the claim these chemicals would improve fire safety.
Manufacturers across the country often follow California’s lead, so when the law was revised, they started developing foam products without chemical flame retardants and met fire safety standards with alternative methods. Despite this shift, flame retardant chemicals are still in use and nap mats filled with the chemicals remain in child care centers across the U.S.
With friction and ordinary wear and tear, flame retardants chemicals migrate out of foam and into indoor dust and air. Children can absorb these chemical flame retardants through their skin while lying on foam mats during naptime, or they can inhale or ingest the chemicals through air or dust.
As scientists from Toxic-Free Future and Indiana University found, when day cares replace nap mats that contain flame retardants with chemical-free versions, the levels of flame retardants in children’s bodies decrease by 40 to 90 percent. The simple exchange of nap mats can drastically cut young children’s exposures to harmful flame retardants.
But don’t stop with nap mats! As EWG reported, flame retardants might lurk in many different products. The best bet to protect your child from flame retardants is to reduce the number of treated products in your home and in the child care centers you use.
To protect your child from exposure to flame retardant chemicals, EWG recommends you:
Encourage your child care provider to buy nap mats and furniture without chemical flame retardants. Fabric cots are a good alternative if flame retardant-free nap mats are not available. If your child participates in gymnastics, ask the gym about the foam in its tumbling pits.
Ask teachers and child care providers to have your child wash their hands frequently – using soap and water, not hand sanitizer – to prevent ingestion of flame retardants and other contaminants that build up in dust. This is especially important before meals, and for babies and young children who put their fingers in their mouths.
Always choose flame retardant-free products, including mattresses, for your home. Swap out foam from older furniture for products made with flame retardant-free foam.
Look for pajamas made of 100 percent cotton that are snug fitting. Children’s pajamas that are snug fitting do not require flame retardants and are labeled as such.
Check labels – foam furniture and mats made without chemical flame retardants will say so on the label.
Vacuum and dust with a wet rag frequently to prevent flame retardants and other harmful chemicals from building up in your home.
https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/22050/advice-parents-find-nap-mats-without-flame-retardant-chemicals#.Wwgzd-6FPX4
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Ireland’s HSA Launches Brexit Webpages
May 25, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The Irish Health and Safety Authority has created webpages to keep businesses informed, including those in the chemicals industry, of the potential impacts of Brexit.
The HSA says that "potentially significant implications for Ireland and Irish companies are anticipated due to our shared market with the UK".
It has established an internal committee to prepare for Britain's withdrawal and has urged companies in Ireland to start considering the potential effects of Brexit to their business immediately.
They may face new and different UK rules on the import and use of chemical substances, it says, and they may also need to review their supply chains involving UK-based business partners.
The webpage dedicated to REACH and CLP includes information about:
registrations and any role change concerning them;
joint submissions with a UK based lead registrant;
only representatives; and
impact on authorisations.
In February an Irish government report said that regulatory divergence between EU and UK chemical laws after Brexit could reduce Ireland's export volumes in the sector.
And in June last year, the HSA warned Irish downstream users of chemicals of the serious problems they could face when the UK leaves the EU.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67206/irelands-hsa-launches-brexit-webpages
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New NAFTA Must Protect US Investments
May 25, 2018 | Real Clear Energy
By Pınar Çebi Wilber
There are lots of reasons a U.S. firm might choose to invest in another country. In some cases, labor costs or access to new markets might provide valuable incentives for foreign investment. In the case of energy, however, investment follows geology. As energy analyst Jude Clemente recently pointed out in Forbes, location of natural resources plays a key role in where U.S. firms invest their dollars overseas. Energy-rich nations such as Canada and Mexico — also vital energy trading partners of the U.S. — continue to attract high levels of interest from American capital sources.
That’s what makes current discussions about the future of NAFTA, which serves as the basis of trade with Canada and Mexico, particularly important when it comes to the energy sector. That’s also why a recent claim by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that the United States might abandon the Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS) mechanism should signal an alarm for American companies. Today, the ISDS is the only recourse for justice for U.S. firms sinking significant capital into Canadian and Mexican markets. It ensures that American companies and workers are treated fairly by our Mexican and Canadian trading partners and that profits and assets aren’t unjustly seized.
The track record of the ISDS mechanism is strong. Consider that as of 2017, Canada has been sued 25 times under the ISDS, while 18 lawsuits have been filed against Mexico, with American investors recouping more than $100 million. This justice, as well as the compensation provided, would have been impossible without ISDS. On the other hand, the U.S. has faced 18 cases filed by foreign investors over the past decade and a half, winning every case. The value of this mechanism and its record of success is one main reason why U.S. negotiators have included the ISDS in more than 3,000 international agreements.
Keeping the ISDS mechanism in a renegotiated NAFTA will be especially invaluable when it comes to the quickly expanding North American energy trade. Even amid the current U.S. oil boom, our nation’s import of Canadian crude has nearly doubled since 2008, and we’re still importing more than 8 billion cubic feet of natural gas from north of the border. Mexico, with more than 60 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Gulf and 550 trillion cubic feet of recoverable shale gas, will also be a major energy player in the coming years. As U.S. investors send money southward to take advantage of these resources, the ISDS helps ensure that what happened in Venezuela, where American energy assets were suddenly and unjustly seized, doesn’t happen again in Mexico.
The ISDS helps more than just the energy sector, of course. Take agriculture, for instance. The mechanism helped Cargill win a $77 million settlement after Mexico erected new trade barriers related to high-fructose corn syrup; it was also instrumental in helping Archer Daniels Midland win $33.5 million over the same issue. In the pharmaceutical sector, Eli Lilly used ISDS to secure a neutral arbiter in its case over the Canadian government’s invalidation of the company’s Strattera and Zyprexa pharmaceutical patents.
Simply put, walking away from the ISDS mechanism would be a grave mistake. Not only does it protect American companies investing overseas, it also creates certainty for the average American citizen who holds stock in these companies. Business leaders underscored this point in August when they warned U.S. trade officials that eliminating or weakening ISDS will harm American businesses and workers, which will also have repercussions for an average investor. Many in U.S. leadership agree, including more than 100 members of Congress who support including the ISDS in a renegotiated NAFTA.
The ISDS should be a keystone of a modernized NAFTA. It can help to safeguard U.S. investments in Canada and Mexico, create neutral and transparent venues for settling trade disputes, and pave the way for the free and open trade that President Trump continues to advocate. If the president truly wants to strike a good deal in favor of the U.S. — and if he wants Congress and the business community on board with a modernized NAFTA — he should ensure that ISDS keeps working to the benefit of American investors.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2018/05/25/new_nafta_must_protect_us_investments_110294.html
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Judge Lets Cities Probe Oil Giants for Documents
May 25, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
A federal judge yesterday ordered oil companies to submit to discovery on the question of the court's jurisdiction to hold them liable for climate-related damages to California cities.
Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California gave attorneys representing San Francisco and Oakland nine weeks to request documents from BP PLC, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and ConocoPhillips. The oil companies argue that they do not exercise enough control over their U.S. operations to be held liable for their actions, and the court's decision yesterday allows the cities to seek documentation related to those claims.
"You want all these trenches, you're going to get all these trenches," Alsup said, comparing the case to warfare. "Strategically, you should ask yourself on both sides whether you are pursuing the right course for teeing these issues up for an ultimate decision."
Alsup bristled at the argument by Shell's attorneys, in particular. The Dutch company claims it isn't subject to the suit because it doesn't manage the "continuous flow of business from the foreign corporation to the state of California."
"That is so unconstitutional," Alsup said. "Your declaration I have to accept as gospel, and they don't even get to probe it?"
The opportunity for discovery will be limited to jurisdictional issues rather than the broader question of whether the claims are displaced by federal authority to address greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The companies assert that the case should be dismissed because Congress and the Trump administration hold the authority to regulate carbon emissions.
Alsup's order applies only to Shell, BP and ConocoPhillips — not Chevron Corp., a California-based company that did not challenge the court's jurisdiction. It was unclear whether it also applied to Exxon Mobil Corp., which did not make the same arguments about the company's location.
"You might be the smart one in this group," Alsup said. "Exxon at least admits you can be sued somewhere in the United States."
In March, Alsup demonstrated an appetite to delve into the details of climate science during an unusual "tutorial" that he made a required event for the cities and the oil companies (Climatewire, March 22).
Legal experts described the court's order on discovery as an incremental win for the cities. But Alsop also spoke of the societal contribution from fossil fuels.
"This will be inconvenient for the defendants and could drag things out, and could also make clear that the court does in fact have jurisdiction over the defendants, but it isn't blowing the case wide open as an order to conduct discovery more broadly would be," Ann Carlson, faculty director of the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said in an email. "It shows that he is not going to take assertions from the defendants lightly. So if they are claiming that the court doesn't have personal jurisdiction he's not just going to believe them, but he's going to want evidence that that is true."'New set of facts'
Alsup expressed curiosity about the companies' arguments that the court is not the proper venue to address damages from greenhouse gases. He ordered each side to deliver a 10-page brief within a week on the balance between fossil fuels' damages and benefits.
The balancing test stems from the question of whether the production of fossil fuels should be considered a public nuisance, as the cities have alleged. The companies are arguing that the courts should not take on the question of public nuisance as it applies to greenhouse gases.
"If the test is a balancing test of what is reasonable or not, I look at the broad sweep of history and see that we needed oil and fossil fuels, coal would be another one, to get from the 1850s or 1859, when they struck oil in Pennsylvania, to the present," Alsup said. "And yes, that's causing global warming, that's a negative, but against that negative we need to weigh in the large benefits that have flowed from the use of fossil fuels."
U.S. Justice Department attorney Eric Grant backed up the oil companies by citing American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court decision that found corporations can't be sued for greenhouse gases because EPA regulates them under the Clean Air Act.
"This issue involves complex trade-offs," Grant said. "Individual federal district courts really lack competence to undertake that task. ... This court, and certainly other courts as well, should not recognize the type of remedies sought by the plaintiffs."
Alsup wondered whether he would be extending public nuisance law to a new area. "There's no court in the history of the universe that has ever extended this to global warming," he said.
"We'd be extending it to a new set of facts," said the cities' attorney, Steve Berman. He argued that the court wouldn't need to weigh complex policy trade-offs because plaintiffs are only seeking damages, not an injunction to stop fossil fuel production.
"You're asking for billions of dollars for something that hasn't happened yet in Oakland, for example, that may never happen to the same extent that you're predicting in the complaint," Alsup said. "Why don't we just wait and see if it happens? ... If the city of Oakland has to pay millions of dollars for a sea wall, then OK, but it hasn't even occurred yet, and it may not occur until you and I are long gone."
Berman also argued that the companies' efforts to "muddy" up the scientific consensus on climate change should play into the "constellation of conduct" that would lead to a finding that producing fossil fuels constitutes a public nuisance. "We're not doing something that is as novel as defendants claim," he said.
Alsup seemed unconvinced that they should pay damages. "We've been using fossil fuels for the entire Industrial Revolution; we won the Second World War with fossil fuels," Alsup said. "If we didn't have fossil fuels, we would've lost that war and every other war and airplanes couldn't fly. ... Trains couldn't run and we would be back in the Stone Age. We've derived a huge benefit from fossil fuels, right?"
Alsup also questioned whether the outcome would have been different without the oil companies' actions.
"You understand how very much dependent our nation has been on oil," he said. "Isn't it logical that if these defendants hadn't ramped up, somebody else would've ramped up?"
Berman said that if the oil companies had disclosed their research into global warming in the early 1980s, "we would have changed our energy policy. ... I can't just accept your proposition that someone else would have stepped in and taken over production."
Chevron's attorney, Ted Boutrous, pushed back. "There's no evidence that consumer demand would have changed," he said. "No one's changed their behavior now after five [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports. It's completely speculative, it's incoherent."
A legal observer said it was surprising that Alsup asked for more analysis on the question of public nuisance.
"It's premature in the case for the judge to be making any sort of decisions about the benefits and harms of fossil fuel," said Sean Hecht, co-executive director of UCLA's Emmett Institute. "Instead, the judge's job is to figure out whether it's possible for the plaintiffs to bring an action like this. It seemed a little bit of an odd choice to me on the judge's part to ask for briefing on something that should come later in the case."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/25/stories/1060082725
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Koch Industries Looking to Bakken for More Oil Exports
May 25, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Koch Industries is actively trading U.S.-produced oil to Europe and Asia, and more Bakken production from North Dakota increasingly will become part of the export mix, an executive said Wednesday.
"Koch wants to be an active participant in the export of Bakken oil," said Senior Vice President Brady Cook, who handles oil and trading. Cook, who spoke at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference (WBPC), said Koch’s Flint Hills Resources ships Bakken crude from Deming, ND, to a Koch refinery in Minnesota.
Koch Supply & Trading “participates in the export of Bakken crude and arbitrages Bakken to the rest of the world." With Cushing Hub and Gulf Coast storage, as well as a fleet of 50 oil tankers, Koch has sold Bakken crude to overseas refineries, most recently to China, Cook said.
The Bakken, he added, is "an amazing story full of exceptional entrepreneurs in many functions, many of them sitting in this room today; and as the story continues incremental production will have to find its way to the water, where it can be exported to the international markets."
He also detailed his analysis for the audience about how to benefit along the supply chain in exporting light, sweet Bakken crude. In contrast to the United States, where there hasn't been a refinery constructed in 40 years, global refining capacity has increased rapidly in recent years, particularly in the Asian nations, he said.
Cook was on a panel that discussed where the Bakken is headed. Hess Corp. COO Greg Hill, whose company is a big Bakken producer, said the play was "leading the way on shale" globally and concluded that with demand rising, additional U.S. oil supplies "are needed more than ever."
Continental Resources Corp. CEO Harold Hamm also discussed exports with Citigroup Inc.’s Ed Morse, managing director and global head of commodities research.
Crude oil exports, banned by Congress in the 1970s, seemed like a "no-brainer" to the industry, but it took some 200 meetings and support from producers across the country to convince federal lawmakers in 2015 that the ban should be lifted, Hamm said.
"In the end, we got it done. But it had to be attached to a large omnibus spending bill," he added.
"People need to understand that we've been exporting a tremendous amount of refined products out of this country for a very long time," Hamm said. "We're talking 5-6 million b/d of refined products, and the only thing we couldn't export was crude oil, which was silly. Today we're exporting more than 2 million b/d, so that's good. I think that number will grow as the U.S. sees more production. We're expecting an added 800,000 to 1 million b/d addition."
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114508-koch-industries-looking-to-bakken-for-more-oil-exports
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China Is Preparing to Buy a Lot More Natural Gas from the US
May 25, 2018 | Quartz
By Youyou Zhou
It looks like China will make another bet on US natural gas, building new gas terminals at ports in four provinces. The facilities will accommodate the country’s increasing reliance on foreign gas.
The CEO of Kunlun Energy said in its annual shareholders meeting(paywall) that the company is conducting feasibility studies to build import terminals in four provinces. Kunlun is a subsidiary of China’s state-owned oil and gas company China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
Earlier this year, CNPC signed a 25-year contract (paywall) with Cheniere Energy, a US-based liquified natural-gas producer. It was the first ever long-term contract to export liquefied natural gas from the US to China.
The US wasn’t selling liquified natural gas to China in any significant amount before 2016, and just last year China became the third largest export market for US liquefied natural gas, making up about 15% of the total exports, after Mexico and South Korea, according to figures from the US Energy Information Administration.
But even then, the exports were timed to meet the surge in demand during China’s winter months last year. With Cheniere’s new long-term deal, exports are likely to increase even further.
China’s domestic production of natural gas can’t keep pace with the country’s needs. The nation’s effort to reduce air pollution and replace coal has led to a spike in natural gas use. Building new import terminals is an important step towards facilitating long-term energy-based trade partnerships. CNPC estimated (link in Chinese) that US exports of liquefied natural gas to China this year could be worth up to $6.7 billion dollars. For two governments already sparring on the international stage over trade imbalances, efforts like these—however small or incremental—are critical as they discuss the future of their trading relationships.
https://qz.com/1288259/china-is-preparing-to-buy-a-lot-more-natural-gas-from-the-us/
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Standards Too Weak to Prevent Chemical Plant Blast After Harvey, Probe Finds
May 25, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Christopher M. Matthews
Safety plans fell short of industry standards at a chemical plant that caught fire and exploded following Hurricane Harvey last year, but the standards were probably too weak to prevent the crisis anyway, a U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board probe has found.
Workers at the Arkema SA ARKAY -0.90% plant in Crosby, Texas, had a disaster plan in place before the flooding that hit the city last August, but it didn’t anticipate the 6 feet of floodwater that hit the facility, the independent safety board concluded in an investigative report released Thursday.
The flooding caused the plant’s main power source to fail and then forced workers to shut off emergency generators. That, in turn, caused refrigerated chemicals at the plant to grow unstable and ignite, spreading plumes of noxious smoke for miles in a tense drama that unfolded over days.
“None of Arkema’s safeguards for electrical power failure met company or industry standards” for having backup systems, the board found. It also concluded that industry guidance for companies on preparing for storms or floods is inadequate, and many companies may be susceptible to future flooding events. For example, the guidance doesn’t require elevating critical equipment to locations that would have been safe during Harvey.
“This guidance … is either too generic or did not require conservative enough precautions that would have helped Arkema prevent this incident,” the board found.
Federal regulations on chemical safety standards also don’t require companies to consider flood insurance maps in their safety planning and only require companies to retain incident data for five years, the board found, meaning many companies may be unaware of their flooding risks. The board stopped short of proposing regulatory changes.
Arkema said in a statement the report accurately portrayed the “unforeseeable nature” of the water levels.
“The CSB report makes clear that Arkema employees took precautions to prepare for Hurricane Harvey well before it made landfall, even though the site was not projected to be in the direct path of the storm,” the company said.
Arkema has apologized publicly for its handling of the incident but said it was impossible to predict the historic rainfall and flooding caused by Harvey.
No one was killed during the fire, but hundreds of residents were forced to evacuate and seven first responders have suedArkema, alleging they were exposed to dangerous fumes and hospitalized because the company didn’t properly prepare for the power outage. The French company has denied the allegations.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office has also opened a criminal investigation into the incident. A spokesman for the office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Chemical Safety Board said Thursday that many of Arkema’s employees at the plant appeared to be unaware of the flooding risk at the site. The company’s insurer had flagged the issue in 2016 report, but most employees relied on their recollection of past storms as a barometer for flooding risk, according to the board.
The board’s investigation found that other companies may also not be aware of the potential for flood risks. Federal safety regulations only require companies to retain incident data for five years, which meant that, at Crosby, employees were unaware of how high water had risen in past storms.
“Since 1994, the water gauge closest to the Crosby facility recorded three 100-year flooding events and Hurricane Harvey, a 500-year flooding event,” the board said. “In recent years, flooding from extreme rainfall events has increased and according to a 2015 EPA report, this trend is projected to continue.”
The board said chemical companies should perform flood-risk assessments and urged the industry to review its standards for preparing for and mitigating floods.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/standards-too-weak-to-prevent-chemical-plant-blast-after-harvey-probe-finds-1527181748
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Texas Chemical Plant Failed to Take Necessary Precautions Despite Warnings, Investigators Find
May 25, 2018 | Think Progress
By Mark Hand
After reviewing the handling of a crisis at a chemical plant near Houston last August, federal investigators determined the chemical industry needs to work much harder at preparing for severe weather events, especially in areas prone to extreme flooding from tropical storms and hurricanes.
A new report, released Thursday by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, focused on the Arkema chemical plant — located in a flood-prone areas of Crosby, Texas — that caught fire and exploded after Hurricane Harvey hit the Gulf Coast region in 2017.
Arkema, a French multinational company that manufactures chemicals used to create plastic products, was not prepared for the flooding from Hurricane Harvey that wiped out the facility’s power and backup generators, the report said. This is despite Arkema officials having been warned the facility was at risk of flooding a year before Harvey hit.
“Considering that extreme weather events are likely to increase in number and severity, the chemical industry must be prepared for worst case scenarios at their facilities,” Chemical Safety Board Chairperson Vanessa Allen Sutherland said Thursday in a statement. “We cannot stop the storms, but working together, we can mitigate the damage and avoid a future catastrophic incident.”
Earlier this week, Sutherland announced she will be resigning from her top position at the Chemical Safety Board in June. The agency’s board members will be required to vote on an interim executive until President Trump nominates, and the Senate confirms, a new chairperson.
The chemical safety board is an independent agency that Trump has proposed to eliminate, even though it performs valuable investigations of chemical accidents. The board released its report on the Arkema chemical plant one week after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed to roll back chemical safety standards put into place during the Obama administration to protect first responders and people who live near chemical plants.
The Chemical Disaster Rule, targeted for elimination by Pruitt, was the EPA’s central response mechanism to a disaster at another Texas plant — the 2013 fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, that killed 15 people.Advertisement
In response to the report on the Arkema incident, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the Chemical Safety Board’s recommendations are especially important following the EPA’s recent “dangerous proposal” to weaken the Chemical Disaster Rule.
“We saw in Crosby, West, and countless other towns what can happen without strong safety and security requirements for chemical facilities,” Pallone said Thursday in a statement. “The EPA should abandon this dangerous proposal, and instead work to improve protections for workers and vulnerable communities.”
The Trump administration also is working hard to avoid incorporating sea level rise and extreme modeling into the government’s preparedness efforts. Under Trump, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) no longer mentions climate change in its strategic plan. The plan guides the agency’s response to hurricanes, flooding, and wildfires through 2022.
The FEMA plan fails to link last year’s record-setting disasters to the changing climate and does not mention that natural disasters exacerbated by global warming are expected to become more frequent and severe as temperatures rise, Inside Climate News reported in March.
In his statement, Pallone also emphasized that climate change and extreme weather have the potential to increase risks to workers and vulnerable communities around chemical and other dangerous facilities, which too often are low-income communities and communities of color.
Along with its investigative report, the Chemical Safety Board released a new safety video about the incident at the Arkema plant titled “Caught in the Storm: Extreme Weather Hazards.”
At the Arkema plant, the fires and explosions in the wake of Hurricane Harvey released toxic chemicals in the surrounding community. The Chemical Safety Board learned that officials at Arkema plant were told the facility was at risk of flooding a year before Hurricane Harvey’s deluge resulted in a chemical fire at the plant.
In fact, the company’s insurers warned of the high potential for flooding. But the investigation found that plant officials based their flooding preparation plans on memories of long-term employees rather than more sophisticated estimates.
A report released in 2016 by insurer Swiss Re — a year before Hurricane Harvey struck the Houston area — concluded that companies are increasingly relying on the memories of their employees. The Chemical Safety Board cited the Swiss Re report, noting that “this attitude was prevalent at the Arkema Crosby facility as well, with flooding expectations based on employee memories of previous rain events and how they had affected the facility.”
“Reliance on personal experience, which has a limit of several decades, is an unreliable method of risk evaluation,” the board said in the report.
In a statement, Arkema refused to accept any responsibility for the disaster at its chemical plant. A company spokeswoman said in a statement that it was pleased with the board’s investigation because it “accurately depicts the unforeseeable nature of the situation Arkema faced during Hurricane Harvey.”
More than 200 residents living near the facility were evacuated and could not return home for a week. Twenty-one people sought medical attention from reported exposures to the fumes and smoke released into the air.
The Chemical Safety Board can offer recommendations and guidance, but it cannot fine or punish a company based on its findings. Harris County, Texas District Attorney Kim Ogg said Thursday that evidence, including findings in the report, will be presented in the coming weeks as part of the county’s lawsuit against Arkema, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday.
https://thinkprogress.org/texas-chemical-plant-failed-to-take-necessary-precautions-c620f72b46f0/
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Republican Promises Climate Action — If He Wins
May 25, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Kelsey Brugger
It's not surprising that the race for the southernmost district of Florida is between two Hispanics who have made climate change one of their key issues.
Like the entire state of Florida, the 26th District has become a purple battleground where voters, Republicans and Democrats alike, worry about rising seas. Much of the district felt the punch of Hurricane Irma last year as it swept over the low-lying Keys and inundated island roads.
Elections can be as unpredictable as a storm's path. Hillary Clinton won the district by 16 percentage points in 2016, even as its Republican congressman, Carlos Curbelo, sailed to victory with a 12-point advantage.
This year promises to be rockier.
Democrats have a 6 percent advantage in voter registration. The Cook Political Report calls the race a toss-up, and Democrats see the district as a cornerstone in their effort to grab the 23 seats they need to take control of the House in November. It stretches from Miami to the tip of the Keys.
Curbelo, a 38-year-old born to Cuban immigrants, is facing a tough opponent in Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a 46-year-old born in Ecuador who is expected to win the Democratic primary in August. A relative newcomer to politics, Mucarsel-Powell has spent 20 years working for nonprofits and colleges. She already has the backing of prominent Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.
In 2016, the district hosted one of the most expensive races in the nation. It promises to be the same this year. Democratic donors are already pouring money in. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reserved $2 million in TV and radio ads in Miami, and a group of New York progressive donors — dubbed the House Victory Project — identified the race as one of 10 to support, according to The New York Times. The latest campaign finance filings show that Curbelo had about $2 million on hand, compared with $700,000 for Mucarsel-Powell.
Both Curbelo and Mucarsel-Powell have spoken passionately about environmental issues, particularly climate change. Voters see them as being in agreement on the issue, said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida.'We are ground zero'
Co-founder of the Climate Solutions Caucus, Curbelo credits himself for bringing together 78 bipartisan lawmakers for action on climate change.
"When I arrived here in Congress, there were maybe two or three Republicans willing to talk about the issue and acknowledge it," Curbelo said in an interview. "And today we have 39 Republicans on the record acknowledging that climate change is a serious challenge and that Congress has a role in addressing it. We've really helped establish a bipartisan dialogue based on science and facts on this issue."
His critics, though, say the Climate Solutions Caucus has not gone far enough and merely provides cover for Republicans in close races. They point to the newest members of the caucus: Of the three Republicans who joined earlier this month, two are in toss-up races, according to Cook.
In an interview, Mucarsel-Powell said that the caucus has failed to introduce any climate legislation. "I think it's very typical of Curbelo to say a lot of things that sound great," she said. "We need action immediately. We see flooding with 2 inches of rain. We see it around the coast. There was horrendous destruction in Monroe County. We are ground zero."
Curbelo scored 23 percent on the League of Conservation Voters' scorecard, down 20 percent from last year. The drop is attributed in part to the congressman's absence during a number of key votes last year in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.
But Mucarsel-Powell said, "I would expect someone in a climate caucus to have an upgrade on the rating."
The LCV is staying out of the race, and a spokesperson declined to comment. In the past, environmental groups have disagreed about whether to back green Republicans. In 2016, the Sierra Club worked against Curbelo and backed Joe Garcia, the Democrat whom Curbelo had unseated two years prior (Climatewire, Jan. 3).
Asked about his LCV rating, Curbelo told the Miami Herald earlier this year: "I don't know and I don't care. I don't follow NRA ratings, chamber ratings, League of Conservation Voters ratings. I just try to do the right thing on every vote and I usually end up finding out about my scores later come campaign season."
Mucarsel-Powell has personal experience with climate change. She worked at the Coral Restoration Foundation for three years. She has been scuba diving in Florida since 1997, she said, and in recent years, she could "really see the reefs are not as lush as they used to be."
"It is very clear," she said. "One of the things that I saw were farms of corals that are growing ... and you can see that there is hope — things that we can actually do to address the effects of climate and the warming of our oceans."
For his part, Curbelo pointed to last summer, when the caucus blocked an amendment that would have eliminated a requirement for the Department of Defense to report on military base exposure to sea-level rise. "We defeated [it by] voting as a bloc," he said. "Now our hope is that this caucus can become an ideas factory — promote good legislation, not just oppose [bad legislation]."
Asked how far he would go to fight climate change — and whether he could support carbon pricing or caps on emissions from power plants — he said the caucus has been looking at all of those ideas.
"I am personally biased toward a market-based solution putting the consumer in charge of something," he said.'You could easily lose'
The Climate Solutions Caucus, which was formed in February 2016, has had briefings on the impact of climate change on tourism, expanding energy efficiency and coastal impacts, according to the Citizens' Climate Lobby. "We are figuring out what could be viable here, if not this Congress, then soon after," Curbelo said.
Danny Richter of the Citizens' Climate Lobby pushed back against accusations that the caucus is ineffective or merely an attempt to greenwash Republicans in moderate districts.
"In our experience, the caucus has been both active and transformational," he said. "I think the people who are most likely to throw out that greenwashing argument were more likely to say getting something like the caucus was impossible. Now that the impossible is achieved, they are attacking it."
Mucarsel-Powell claimed she would push much harder. She would "not stop working to make an introduction to end subsidies for fossil fuel companies," she said, adding that a coalition of both sides is necessary. "I know it's not easy. I know it's complicated, but it is possible," she said.
MacManus doesn't think Curbelo is vulnerable to attacks on his climate positions. Republicans and Democrats in Florida tend to agree on environmental issues, she said, because the changing climate is happening right in front of them. A poll by the University of South Florida found that Miami respondents said rising sea levels are a top environmental concern.
Still, Curbelo has voted against environmental stances in a number of bills, including to open up oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (as part of the tax reform proposal), in support of the Keystone XL pipeline and against clean energy subsidies.
Curbelo's office addressed Arctic oil drilling by pointing to Curbelo's interview with Yale University: "I'm upset about that provision as well, and it's not the only provision in the tax bill that I would have deleted if I could have written it myself, but when you're weighing broad comprehensive legislation such as an overhaul of the tax code, you really have to consider the bill in its entirety," Curbelo said.
Curbelo envisioned the Climate Solutions Caucus in three stages, his office added. The first was to bring people together to talk and educate. The second — and current stage — is opposing anti-climate legislation. The third is proposing proactive bills.
Last week, the caucus sent a letter — its first — to the Appropriations Committee to oppose any policy riders that undermine action on climate change.
Is the letter an indication that the caucus will take a stronger stance?
"Yeah," Curbelo said. "It shows we are prepared to engage in the appropriations process if we believe there is any attempt to undermine policies that mitigate policies. It is kind of a warning that we are watching."
Politicos, meanwhile, are watching his race.
Recent polling shows that Curbelo has about a 5-point advantage, within the margin of error, according to MacManus.
"If a Republican holds on in this district, the pressure is on other [Republicans] to be more pro-environment," she said. "Brian Mast [a GOP congressman in Florida] is in another competitive district, and even Matt Gaetz [R-Fla.] in the Panhandle. I think what you are going to see if he wins here, environmentalists will point to other parts of the state [and say] if you ignore the environment, you could easily lose."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/05/25/stories/1060082721
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Groups Say EPA Still Flouting Law on Ozone Designations
May 25, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Even if EPA has now made almost all attainment designations for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard, the agency is still breaking the law by failing to officially publish them, a coalition of states and advocacy groups said in court papers this week.
While EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt signed off on the bulk of the overdue designations by an April 30 deadline, those decisions will not take effect for compliance purposes until 60 days after they are published in the Federal Register, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood (D), joined by officials from 14 mostly Democratic-run states and the District of Columbia, said in the joint filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. EPA has not taken that step or said when it will, they said; as a result, "the various Clean Air Act deadlines intended to reduce air pollution in nonattainment areas remain illegally delayed."
In a separate filing yesterday, the American Lung Association and a dozen other public health and environmental groups agreed, adding that EPA also has yet to make final designations for an eight-county area in and around San Antonio, and that therefore the appeals court should keep their lawsuit alive.
Under the Clean Air Act, EPA was supposed to have completed all attainment designations for the 70-parts-per-billion standard by last October.
The states and advocacy groups had both filed suit after Pruitt last June imposed a blanket one-year delay that would have pushed back all of those decisions until this October.
Although Pruitt later reversed course and rescinded the postponement, the D.C. Circuit has so far rebuffed EPA's attempts to have the consolidated litigation thrown out as moot.
In an added sign that the court remains wary of the agency's intentions, a three-judge panel on its own ordered EPA to submit a May 15 status report (Greenwire, May 16). This week's filings came in response to that report.
Why EPA has not proceeded with Federal Register publication of the April 30 attainment designations is unclear; a spokeswoman had no on-the-record comment today when asked when it plans to do so.
After Pruitt signed off on a previous round of designations on Nov. 6 of last year, publication followed 10 days later (Greenwire, Nov. 16, 2017).
The designations — once they become effective — mark an important compliance milestone because they start the clock for states to come up with cleanup plans for areas that aren't meeting the 2015 standard.
Under a timetable set by a federal judge in California in a separate bout of litigation involving many of the same plaintiffs, EPA must make the San Antonio area designations by July 17 (Greenwire, March 29).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/05/25/stories/1060082777
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Mcdonald's Rejects Proposal to Report on Plastic Straw Use in Blow to Environmental Group
May 25, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Avery Anapol
McDonald’s shareholders on Thursday voted against a proposal to examine its plastic straw use from an organization seeking an eventual ban on the straws.
The proposal, backed by advocacy group SumOfUs, asked the fast food giant to report to shareholders about its use of disposable plastic straws, the first step toward joining the environmental movement to cut down on ocean pollution.
Just 7.65 percent of shareholders voted in favor of the proposal at the company’s annual meeting, according to USA today.
SumOfUs said that McDonald’s uses an estimated 95 million straws worldwide daily. The group told the BBC that the rejection of the proposal was “not surprising.”
Company leaders had called the move "unnecessary" and "redundant," according to the BBC.
Nearly half a million people signed a petition organized by SumOfUs calling on McDonald’s to stop using the straws at its U.S. locations.
The company announced it would stop using them in the U.K., shortly before Prime Minister Theresa May announced a nationwide ban.
McDonald’s has in recent years committed to other environmentally friendly measures, including using only packaging made from renewable, recycled or certified sources in its restaurants by 2025.
Some U.S. cities, including Seattle and Miami Beach, Fla., have banned the use of plastic straws, and many companies, including restaurants and airlines, are electing to stop using them.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/389393-mcdonalds-rejects-proposal-to-report-on-plastic-straw-use-in-blow
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