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ACC PM 01/06/18

Industry and Association News

(ACC Blog) The Other Dicamba Story: Chemistry Innovations That Reduce the Volatility Potential of an Extremely Effective Herbicide
Jun 1, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters
By William Abraham

There was lot of excitement in the farming community with the long-awaited EPA approval of a low volatility dicamba formulation (Xtendimax®) in November 2016 and subsequent launch of three low volatility dicamba products for use over the top of dicamba-tolerant crops in 2017.
(ACC Mentioned) Advisory Board to Review Pruitt's Science Overhaul
Jun 1, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman

EPA's Science Advisory Board is ideologically divided over many science-based decisions made by the agency in the last year, but you might not know it from the board's first meeting after it was significantly reworked by Administrator Scott Pruitt.
(ACC Mentioned) US Companies Leery of Trump Tariffs
Jun 1, 2018 | Daily Mail
By AFP

US companies in the farm, auto and other sectors fear tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump's administration on imported steel and aluminum will damage their businesses as Washington's trading partners retaliate.
(ACC Mentioned) Is The Use Of Bleach Questionable – A Halachic Analysis
Jun 1, 2018 | Yeshiva World News
By Yair Hoffman

Everyone has an aunt or a sister-in-law who is, perhaps, a little bit too bleach-happy.

LCSA News

EPA Sends Final CBI Guides to White House Review
Jun 1, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA has sent for White House review a trio of final guidance documents the agency had promised to provide following changes Congress made to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2016 allowing states and other local governments to access trade secret information about chemicals that EPA maintains.
EPA Approach to Asbestos Will Not Include 'Legacy' Uses
Jun 1, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen

EPA today said it would not address longstanding concerns around the use and disposal of asbestos contained in millions of tons of building insulation.

Chemical Management News

Risk Communication About EDCs
Jun 1, 2018 | Science 2.0
By Gregory Bond

Several contemporary events scheduled for the European Union are bringing increased focus to the topic of communicating risks about Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs).
More Than 21,000 Substances Registered Under REACH
Jun 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton

Echa has received 33,363 registration dossiers for 11,114 substances manufactured or imported in quantities of between 1 to 100 tonnes/year. These were the final figures achieved yesterday, the third and final REACH deadline.

Energy News

Study: Premature Births Drop After Coal, Oil Power Plants Shut Down
Jun 1, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Grant Smith and Olga Naldenko

The rate of premature births to California mothers living near coal and oil power plants dropped significantly after the plants were shut down, researchers from the University of California and Johns Hopkins University reported in a recent study.
Tariffs Run Counter to Trump's 'Dominance' Agenda — Industry
Jun 1, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel

The energy industry roundly criticized President Trump's announcement yesterday that steel and aluminum products from Mexico, Canada and the European Union would be subject to tariffs starting today, in a move that heightens tensions across a web of ongoing trade negotiations and was described by industry as countering other, pro-energy administration policies.
Is Big Oil Serious About Methane Emissions?
Jun 1, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum

The American oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron are typically the bane of environmentalists, but their recent annual meetings only attracted muted protests compared to previous years.
Pope to Meet with Oil Execs to Discuss Climate Change: Report
Jun 1, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By John Bowden

Pope Francis will meet with top executives in the oil industry and major investment firms next week at the Vatican to discuss the global effects of climate change, Axios reported.
FERC Defends Tolling Orders Amid Avalanche of Gas Pipeline Rehearing Requests
Jun 1, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin

FERC this week defended its use of tolling orders to stop the statutory clock on challenges to the certificates issued in the face of a slew of rehearing requests filed by natural gas pipeline opponents.

Chemical Security News

Would-Be Grid Hackers 'Will Fail,' says Cyber Executive
Jun 1, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak

The rules of engagement in cyber conflict may be "eroding," a cybersecurity executive warned yesterday, but there are a few lines hackers won't cross in the United States.

Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

Cabinet Heads Told to Praise Paris Exit. 'No Exceptions'
Jun 1, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Kevin Bogardus

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos last year praised President Trump's decision to pull the United States from the Paris climate accord.
Trump Team Wanted to Kill Agency Authority on CO2 — Emails
Jun 1, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Robin Bravender

Trump administration officials had a plan to pull EPA climate regulations out by the roots.
Trump Withdrew from the Paris Climate Deal a Year Ago. Here’s What Has Changed.
Jun 1, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney

A year ago today, President Trump shocked the world by announcing that the United States would be the first and possibly only country to join, but then subsequently withdraw from, the Paris climate change agreement.
A Year After Trump’s Paris Pullout, U.S. Companies Are Driving a Renewables Boom
Jun 1, 2018 | The New York Times
By Brad Plumer

When President Trump announced on June 1 last year that the United States would exit the Paris climate deal, many of America’s largest corporations said they would honor the agreement anyway, vowing to pursue cleaner energy and cut emissions on their own.
Attorneys General Sue EPA, Claiming Illegal Delay of Landfill Regulation
Jun 1, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green

Nine state attorneys general (AG) filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency late Thursday alleging the agency is breaking the law by failing to enforce landfill methane regulations.
Two Clean Energy Buildings Bills Moving Forward in CA
Jun 1, 2018 | Natural Resources Defense Council
By Pierre Delforge

Two bills that will cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution from homes and commercial buildings just moved forward in the California Legislature.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Blog) The Other Dicamba Story: Chemistry Innovations That Reduce the Volatility Potential of an Extremely Effective Herbicide

Jun 1, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters

By William Abraham

There was lot of excitement in the farming community with the long-awaited EPA approval of a low volatility dicamba formulation (Xtendimax®) in November 2016 and subsequent launch of three low volatility dicamba products for use over the top of dicamba-tolerant crops in 2017. These products are excellent at controlling palmer amaranth in soybean and cotton fields planted with dicamba tolerant crops. However, soybeans that are not engineered for dicamba tolerance are extremely sensitive to dicamba; these plants may present with distinctive cupped and wrinkled leaves at very low-level exposure to dicamba, although they often show a complete recovery from such symptoms.
The sensationalism in the media around pictures of crop response in the form of cupped leaves has overshadowed the record yield from soybeans in 2017[1]. Based on the comments of individuals, misunderstandings about the chemistry have been amplified in a variety of media including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and many regional news outlets. More recently, even C&E News has waded into the controversy, calling these formulations enemy number two with the invasive palmer amaranth as enemy number one[2]. What is missing from these reports is the perspective of a physical chemist with intimate knowledge of the technology.
A closer look at the chemistry behind one of these products, Xtendimax® tells a different story of this critical and innovative technology and how it is designed to be a safely and effectively used according to label instructions.
Click here to read the full story: https://blog.americanchemistry.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Dicamba_TheOtherDicambaStory.pdf
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2018/06/the-other-dicamba-story-chemistry-innovations-that-reduce-the-volatility-potential-of-an-extremely-effective-herbicide/

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(ACC Mentioned) Advisory Board to Review Pruitt's Science Overhaul

Jun 1, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Scott Waldman

EPA's Science Advisory Board is ideologically divided over many science-based decisions made by the agency in the last year, but you might not know it from the board's first meeting after it was significantly reworked by Administrator Scott Pruitt.
At its first meeting after an eight-month hiatus, the SAB had a cordial first dive into policies that would have dramatic effects on vehicle emissions, the science used in regulations and the ability of super-polluting trucks to evade clean air rules.
There were no fireworks at the public meeting, which was mostly attended by journalists, advocacy groups and EPA employees. However, at the end of the five-hour meeting in a room with little air conditioning on a muggy day in Washington, D.C., board members did disagree, very politely, over whether to defer some regulatory reviews and about the merits of a proposed rule to limit the science used by the agency to craft regulations.
The latter issue, which the group voted to review, has received extensive blowback, including 120,000 public comments in just a month, according to EPA.
"There is a real lack of clarity in how you would unroll this and actually apply it," said Alison Cullen, a professor at the University of Washington and a member of the board.
Stanley Young, a statistician and frequent critic of well-established air pollution studies that have been extensively peer-reviewed and replicated, said he supports the science rule. He suggested air pollution researchers behind groundbreaking studies may be guilty of misconduct.
"This is a sticky issue. It's been well-discussed in the literature, and there are examples where, I would say, mischief has been done," Young said at the meeting.
In the end, the board agree to move forward with its review of the science on a number of EPA actions, including those related to greenhouse gas emissions and science transparency.
Despite the somnolent tone to the proceedings, the Science Advisory Board has experienced a sea change since it last met in person. Gone are a number of academic researchers, leaders in their fields of expertise. Their replacements include researchers allied with and funded by industry, whose work is used to fight against public health regulations. Some are longtime critics of EPA.
At yesterday's meeting at the Washington Plaza Hotel in D.C., 17 new members were at the table, which had a decidedly stronger industry presence.
At the head was the new chairman of the SAB, Michael Honeycutt, who previously served as head toxicologist for the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality and who has said there is evidence that air pollution "makes you live longer."
Among the others at the table were the statistician Young, who has produced work funded by the American Petroleum Institute that says EPA's air regulations are based on faulty science; Kimberly White of the industry group American Chemistry Council; and Robert Phalen, who heads the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine, and has said "modern air is a little too clean for optimum health."
During a discussion of air pollution regulations, industry-affiliated researchers expressed concern about EPA actions. White expressed concern over an "overestimation of risk" at the agency.
Don van der Vaart, a Pruitt appointee who questions mainstream climate science and is the former secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, questioned air emissions data, saying, "Emissions data is always wrong; the question is, how wrong, and can you do anything about it?"
Young asked whether companies subject to more stringent pollution regulations would have the ability to dispute them and said the review of some research would depend on one's perspective about whether carbon dioxide and air pollution are bad.
In September, the SAB requested that Pruitt join its meeting. He was not in attendance.
About two dozen people spoke during the meeting's public comment period, almost all in opposition to the science overhaul plan and the proposed rollback of vehicle fuel efficiency standards.
"The core science/policy problem with EPA's proposal is that it elevates what it calls 'transparency' above all other attributes of a published study as a criterion for assessing its value," said John Bachmann, a former EPA official who worked in the agency's air office in North Carolina. He is not a member of the board. "Thus, a study that has been replicated many times may be excluded from consideration, while one that uses an inferior database that is publicly available would be considered."
One theme that fired up some board members was their complaint that they're not getting enough scientific information from EPA to back up its decisions.
Christopher Frey, an engineering professor at North Carolina State University, said an SAB working group asked the agency for more information but was rebuffed. He said the board should send a "nastygram" to the agency, because it has typically been deficient in providing information for review, not just during Pruitt's tenure but stretching back into the Obama administration, as well.
"We make a request to EPA for information, and we get hardly anything in return," he said.
Jeanne VanBriesen, director of the Center for Water Quality in Urban Environmental Systems at Carnegie Mellon University, said the board's work has been significantly affected by the lack of response from the agency. She said reviewing the science behind the rulemaking would "light a fire" under EPA officials and that deferring would unnecessarily delay actions for months.
"We mean something when we defer," she said. "We mean there isn't information to have been reviewed. There is information to be reviewed here; we were not provided it, that's a very different case."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1060083179/search?keyword=%22american+chemistry+council%22

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(ACC Mentioned) US Companies Leery of Trump Tariffs

Jun 1, 2018 | Daily Mail

By AFP

US companies in the farm, auto and other sectors fear tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump's administration on imported steel and aluminum will damage their businesses as Washington's trading partners retaliate.
While Trumps' move was praised by the steel industry, other industries bemoaned the effect of new 25 percent levies on steel and 10 percent on aluminum from the European Union, Canada and Mexico. The new tariffs took effect Friday.
"Make no mistake: restricting the raw material supply to the US and imposing tariffs on imports from our closest trading partners places American manufacturers directly in harm's way," said Paul Nathanson, a spokesman for the Coalition of American Metal Manufacturers and Users, which represents some 30,000 enterprises that use the affected metals.
"Plans by US manufacturers to expand will be put on hold indefinitely," Nathanson said. "Companies will be forced into difficult choices about technology, investment and jobs."
Trump administration officials have defended the tariffs as essential to protecting key long-suffering manufacturing capacity in steel and aluminum, which they view as crucial to national security, which includes the US economy.
"The president's trade actions have already begun putting steel workers back to work in Ohio and Illinois, and we are grateful for the administration's commitment to the nearly two million jobs supported by the domestic steel industry," said Thomas Gibson, president of the American Iron and Steel Institute.
But economists warn that the negative effect of the trade actions, while diffuse, ultimately will overwhelm any upside.
The moves affect sectors that rely on aluminum for soda and soup cans and on steel for any number of construction and industrial activities. The consequences will be more severe if significant retaliatory actions harm US exports.
"While the tariffs may encourage some pickup in domestic metals activity and employment, they are likely to be a net loss for the US economy," Oxford Economics said in a research note, which estimated a loss of 70,000 jobs due to the tariffs and a potential spillover effect in supply chain disruptions.
- Rising cost pressures -+2
US steel imports, 2017
Metals prices already had risen in anticipation of the tariffs on key suppliers. But the duties will further pinch supply chains, adding perhaps a week and a half for imported steel to clear customs, said Timothy R. Fiore, chair of the Institute for Supply Management's Manufacturing Business Survey Committee.
"If the tariff does go into effect, the near-term effect is going to be supply disruptions and not really financial if you just look at aluminum and steel," Fiore said Friday during briefing with reporters.
The tariffs add to the challenges facing the manufacturing sector that already was facing higher prices for oil and other commodities amid strong global demand.
Ford, which uses aluminum in its best-selling F-150 pickup trucks, said in late April that it expected to spend $1.5 billion in 2018 due to higher material costs.
Arconic, which uses aluminum for composite materials to the aviation and auto industry, cut its profit estimates due to higher costs, and other companies such as Kraft Heinz have complained of a hit from higher freight and packaging costs.
Among manufacturers, "the current plan is that these input costs will be pushed through to the consumer and we'll see how successful that will be," Fiore said.
- Food fight? -
Agricultural groups too have reacted negatively to the tariffs, fearful over what reaction the US moves will prompt.
Mexico has said it will impose retaliatory duties on host of agricultural goods, including pork, apples and various cheeses. Canada and the EU are also eyeing action on a wide swathe of goods that includes food.
"These tariffs will harm US farmers and take many American farm operations to the breaking point," said Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade.
"American farmers overwhelmingly supported President Trump in 2016 but will not be silent in the face of trade wars that harm US agriculture."
Others speaking out include Here for America, which represents international automakers and dealers that operate in the US, and the American Chemistry Council, which said the tariffs would mean higher costs to build US manufacturing capacity.
"When these tariffs go into effect on Friday, trains arriving to the US from Mexico and Canada will be carrying metals that are 25 percent more expensive than when they left the station just a few days ago," the council said.
"The impacts will be felt immediately in the form of higher prices for chemical manufacturers who rely on these imports to expand or build new production facilities, many of which are under construction at this very moment."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-5796165/US-companies-leery-Trump-tariffs.html

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(ACC Mentioned) Is The Use Of Bleach Questionable – A Halachic Analysis

Jun 1, 2018 | Yeshiva World News

By Yair Hoffman

Everyone has an aunt or a sister-in-law who is, perhaps, a little bit too bleach-happy. A new child is born into the family and someone brings out an older crib or other baby product. It could be anything, a high chair, a baby swing, a play item. The bleach-happy relative is there (it could also be an uncle as well) and out comes the bleach.
The bleach goes here. The bleach goes there. The bleach is everywhere. And many find the bleach unpleasant. The reader may be thinking. “Yes, I too have experienced this and it is unpleasant. But what does this have to do with halacha?”
Let’s first look at some background. In 2015, a European study was published that looked at more than 9,000 children between the ages of 6 to 12. The study discovered some shocking repercussions of the use of bleach.
THE NETHERLANDS STUDY
Those children whose parents who used bleach to clean their homes at least once a week had higher rates of respiratory and other types of infections. Specifically, the study found that these children had a 20 percent higher risk of having the flu at least once in the previous year. They also had a 35 percent higher risk of recurrent tonsillitis. Finally, they had an 18 percent higher risk for any other recurrent infection.
The study was led by Lidia Casas of the Center for Environment and Health at KU Leuven in Leuven, the Netherlands. The subjects were found in the Netherlands, Finland and Spain. The study was published April 2, 2015 in the Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
THE HALACHA
Now on to the halachic discussion. There is no question that a] if cause and effect were determined to truly be at play here and b] these figures would be unquestionably true – there would be halachic implications as to whether we should be using bleach in our households on a regular basis.
For the sake of this discussion we will assume that both of the above factors are true – even though that may not necessarily be the case. In general, the concept of how and when medical studies ultimately enter into normative halachic practice is a fascinating topic that needs further examination.
THE SHOMER PSA’IM HASHEM DEBATE
There is a rather fascinating debate between two major Poskim of the last century – Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l and Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky zt”l. The debate revolves around how to halachically understand the Gemorahs that invoke a pasuk in Tehillim (116:6). The Gemorah in several places (see, for example, Shabbos 129b, Yevamos 12b, Sanhedrin 110b) invokes the pasuk to justify why certain ostensibly dangerous practices were not, in fact, violations of the halacha of “VeNishmartem Meod b’nafshosaichem.”
Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l (in Igros Moshe YD II #49) in a discussion that, according to his son Rav Dovid ylc”a, has since changed – presents the view that the pasuk indicates that social acceptability of the activity is the determining factor. [The view was later clarified to this author.] So even though there may be a statistically significant danger in an activity, as long as society still views that practice as within the norm of responsible behavior it is still permitted. Rav Feinstein was discussing the permissibility of smoking. Later, Rav Dovid Feinstein reclarified his father’s view and stated that his definition only applied when the known percentages of danger were smaller. However, after the release of overwhelming evidence of the relationship between smoking and death, he stated that his father’s definition does not apply here. Nonetheless, the general explanation of Rav Feinstein is still intact that for some issues the application of Shomer Psaim Hashem is determined by social acceptance.
THE OTHER VIEW
In the responsa of Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky, (Achiezer Vol. I #23) there is a different view of the parameters of the concept of “Shomer P’sa’im Hashem – Hashem watches over fools.” He writes that this concept only permits dangerous things when the danger is not uncommon. When it is common – there is no question that it would apply.
THE CASE OF BLEACH
If the statistics presented in the Netherlands study are accurate and there is a cause and effect relationship proven – then it would seem that, at least according to the Achiezer it would be prohibited to use bleach so often in the household.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
But if true, how does it work? How would the use of bleach increase infections? The authors suggest that either airborne components of bleach and similar products may irritate the lining of children’s lungs, triggering inflammation and making it easier for infections to take hold, or, that somehow, someway, bleach may suppress the immune system, making infections more likely.
WILL JEWISH MEDICAL ORGANIZATIONS START MAKING THIS RECCOMENDATION?
When this question was posed to an executive of Refuah Healthshare, the Director of Operations, Moishe Katz responded: “United Refuah Healthshare takes all preventative healthcare activities very seriously, as should everyone. We will carefully look at this study and monitor any further research on it. Besides providing for the medical needs of our members, we update them regularly as to what preventative measures can be taken to safeguard their health and those of their family members.”
DOES EVERYONE AGREE TO THIS STUDY?
The answer to this is clear. The American Cleaning Institute which represents bleach manufacturers released the following statement:
“Since there was no data presented on the children’s actual exposure to bleach — nor any diagnoses of actual diseases — the authors are merely speculating.” The group also stated that disinfecting household surfaces with bleach can protect people from bacterial infection.
Dr. Kimberly Wise of the Chemical Products & Technology Division of the American Chemistry Council, points to specific design flaws in the study:
1] The study data rely on questionnaires completed by parents who were asked to differentiate between specific medical conditions (ie, influenza, tonsillitis, sinusitis, otitis and bronchitis). It is unclear if any information was provided to the parents regarding these conditions and how to diagnosis the conditions or if the diagnosis was confirmed by a physician.
2] The high frequency of use of disinfecting irritant cleaning products may be of public health concern
3] The study did not account for potential confounding factors that could influence the occurrence of infection in the children studied (ie, passive smoke, local air pollution, pre-existing health conditions).
4] The questionnaire is limited by relying on a yes/no question regarding frequency of exposure to bleach. Specifically, parents were asked to respond yes/no regarding whether bleach was used to clean the home at least once per week. This yes/no response provides no information to help characterize the actual exposure or whether the bleach was used in appropriate quantities for cleaning or disinfection. It also does not take into consideration or request information on whether the child was present while the bleach was being used or specifically how the bleach was being used (ie, to disinfect household surfaces, toys, laundry).
5] No information has been included to determine if other cleaning products were utilized in the home and, if they were, at what frequency they were used. This information could impact the conclusions of the report.
The author of the study responded to Dr. Wise’s critique saying that these are not design flaws. Doctors in the area that this author consulted with, however, are concerned with the overuse of bleach in the household.
WHAT ARE THE HALACHIC OBLGATIONS INVOLVED HERE IF ITS PROVEN TRUE?
There is, of course, the Mitzvah of “veNishmartem me’od b’nafshosaichem (Dvarim 4:9) – the Mitzvah of protecting our health and well-being. But is there a halachic obligation for taking preventative measures? Furthermore, are there any other Mitzvos involved other than veNishmartem?
The general import of the Pasuk in Shmos 23:25 – vehasirosi machala mikirbecha – generally indicates that it is a good thing to have disease entirely removed from within our midst. This point is made by the author of Siach Shaul (page 267) – who was a leading dayan in Eretz Yisroel and a student of Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer zt”l.
We find regarding Yaakov Avinu (Bereishis 28:11) that he placed the stones around himself in a circle before he went to sleep. Rashi explains that it was in order to protect himself against animals. We therefore find that it is necessary to take protective measures.
OTHER TWO MITZVOS
Many people are unaware that there is actually more than the one Mitzvah of VeNishmartem. There is also a not-so-well-known second Mitzvah. The verse later on (Dvarim 4:15), “Rak hishamer lecha” is understood by most Poskim to actually comprise an actual second Mitzvah (See Rav Chaim Kanievsky Shlita in Shaar HaTeshuvos #25) – to take special care of one’s health. There is very often a third Mitzvah, “V’Chai Bahem – And you shall live by them” (VaYikra 18:5).
The author can be reached at yairhoffman2@gmail.com
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/1529995/is-the-use-of-bleach-questionable-a-halachic-analysis.html

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LCSA News

EPA Sends Final CBI Guides to White House Review

Jun 1, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA has sent for White House review a trio of final guidance documents the agency had promised to provide following changes Congress made to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2016 allowing states and other local governments to access trade secret information about chemicals that EPA maintains.
EPA sent its final version of “Guidance for Requesting Access to TSCA [Confidential Business Information (CBI)] for States, Tribes, and Local Governments; Health and Environmental Professionals; and Emergency Responders to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review May 29, according to OMB's website.
EPA released drafts of the three guides for public comment in March. They are intended to assist states, tribes, local governments, emergency responders and other health and environmental professionals who are now able to access the CBI as a result of language Congress inserted into the new TSCA law.
The language, which amended section 14 of the original 1976 TSCA, allow these entities to gain access to the data as long as they can provide the same level of security as EPA does.
Inside EPA learned of the local government guidance's development last spring, when Alex Dunn, then the executive director and general counsel of the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), discussed the need for such a guidance.
“To obtain access to CBI under the new law, because this is new authority, states will have to set up an agreement with EPA,” said Dunn, who is now the regional administrator of EPA's Region 1, covering six New England states. “EPA will have to agree [that states] have the same level of security as EPA,” she added.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-sends-final-cbi-guides-white-house-review

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EPA Approach to Asbestos Will Not Include 'Legacy' Uses

Jun 1, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Alex Guillen

EPA today said it would not address longstanding concerns around the use and disposal of asbestos contained in millions of tons of building insulation.
Administrator Scott Pruitt had raised the possibility of considering such "legacy" uses as it evaluates regulating asbestos under the Toxic Substances Control Act, but the agency stopped short of that approach today. In a “problem formulation” document that outlines how EPA will approach the carcinogen, the agency said it does not believe TSCA allows it to consider prior uses of asbestos that have since been phased out.
The law requires EPA to focus on current manufacturing or importing plans “rather than reaching back to evaluate the risks associated with legacy uses,” the agency argued in the document.
Pruitt in December told lawmakers that he had already raised the legacy use issue with his chemicals office after Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) urged him to expand the review to include legacy uses.
EPA separately proposed a “significant new use rule,” known as a SNUR, that would require companies to get EPA’s permission before using asbestos in new ways or resuming formerly abandoned applications, including insulation and other construction materials. The proposed SNUR does not cover asbestos' ongoing uses, such as in chlorine production and automotive brakes. EPA is reviewing those uses separately.
EPA also released problem formulation documents for the other nine chemicals that are first to be reviewed, along with a systemic review approach document that describes how EPA will conducts its reviews.
WHAT’S NEXT: The problem formulation documents and systemic review approach document will be open for public comment for 45 days once published in the Federal Register. The asbestos SNUR will be open for public comment for 60 days once published.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard

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Chemical Management News

Risk Communication About EDCs

Jun 1, 2018 | Science 2.0

By Gregory Bond

Several contemporary events scheduled for the European Union are bringing increased focus to the topic of communicating risks about Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs). The first took place on May 16 at the annual meeting of the European Chapter of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) which was held in Rome. The second will be a moderated discussion to be held at the annual Helsinki Chemical Forum on June 14. These separate, but related, events and the continued discussions that may follow, make it timely to explore the topic of risk communication of EDCs in greater detail.
Do EDCs pose a unique challenge for risk communication?
No, although some would like us to think so. Virtually all environmental health threats pose the same set of challenges for risk communication. Endocrine disruption is simply one among many different known modes of action by which chemicals may potentially produce toxicity. They all are complex, multifactorial, only partially understood, involve high degrees of scientific uncertainty and potentially may lead to chronic health effects that occur at low probability from months to decades later. To some, EDCs are that shiny new toy that cause people to lose historical perspective — think Andy’s enthusiastic embrace of Buzz Lightyear at the expense of Sheriff Woody in the first Toy Story movie.
For decades, regulators around the globe have effectively identified and managed various chemical threats based on preventing adverse effects without knowing the specific modes of action by which they cause toxicity. Indeed, many of the chemicals most often cited as EDCs (e.g., polychlorinated dioxins and biphenyls, organochlorine insecticides such as DDT, dieldrin and lindane, nonylphenol ethoxylate surfactants, etc.) have been banned or voluntarily withdrawn from the market without knowledge of the precise mode of action or mechanisms by which they act.
In advice directed at clinicians, Solomon and Janssen tacitly acknowledged that there is nothing that differentiates risk communication for EDCs from other environmental health concerns:
“The overall approach involves having some knowledge of the toxicity of the contaminant of concern, assessing the route and likelihood of exposure, and being able to communicate a science-based approach to reducing unnecessary exposures.”
Notably, Solomon and Janssen failed to address the likely quantity or duration of exposure. However, later in the same article they wrote:
“It is often impossible to quantify or predict how much greater risk a person faces from an environmental exposure. In most situations, the exposure happens only once or a few times, is at a low concentration, and it is not likely to substantially increase the risk of adverse effects above that seen in the general population. In addition, there is often little or nothing that can be done in retrospect about the exposure incident. Providers can use this opportunity to offer reassurance and to educate the patient on how to reduce future exposures.”
Need for Balance in Risk Communication
All individuals, regardless of whether they are technical experts, policymakers or laypersons, require credible, trustworthy, balanced and understandable information about the scientific evidence of environmental health threats, including exposures to EDCs, in order to make informed risk decisions. However, As David Ropeik, formerly at the Harvard Center for Risk Assessment and now a consultant, complained in a recent blog, too often the media jumps at stories that they know will scare the public—“if it scares it airs” —, but deliberately shy away from stories that provide reassurance. How are the public supposed to make good decisions when they get only half the story?
Ropeik cited some specific examples to drive home the need for balance:
“Incomplete or imbalanced and alarmist information can lead directly to harmful decisions—like a pregnant mother who, to protect her unborn child, foregoes eating seafood because she is unaware of the potential cons and pros of eating certain species of fish. Fear of vaccines contributes to reduced immunization rates and the return of nearly eradicated diseases. Fear of processed milk leads some to choose raw milk despite the vastly increased likelihood of illness or death from pathogens. Moreover, selectively alarmist coverage can harm us just by making us worried. In a contest between stress and BPA or mercury, stress is far and away the greater risk. The more worried we are, the worse it is for our health. The stress from alarmism is a risk all by itself.”
He also discussed the risk-reward tradeoffs that exist, and pointed out the need for effective risk communication to include a discussion of the benefits that a particularly technology, such as the specific chemical plays in a consumer product, so that those receiving the information can make better informed choices.
Recently, several Nordic countries met to exchange their experiences with risk communication and concluded that it should be positive, warm and focused on delivering a relatively few, simple, practical tips. They warned about alarming pregnant women about chemicals risks with the unwanted consequence that they won’t breastfeed their babies. Instead, keep messages in a positive and constructive tone, they said. Use channels to reach audiences that they trust, including social media, as appropriate. Their final advice was to present comparative risks to other better known, and more well-established factors.
Scientists Need to Demonstrate Greater Humility
In a seminal paper published in 2005, Dr. John Ioannidis demonstrated that the majority of scientific findings published in peer-review journals are later proved to be wrong. Specifically, he wrote:
“There is increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims. However, this should not be surprising. It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false.”
Ioannidis cited multiple reasons for the phenomenon, including small sample sizes and misuse or misinterpretation of statistical tests and a lack of adherence to common standards of study design, measurements and analysis.
Many hoped that Ioannidis’ paper would cause academic researchers to become more circumspect and cautious, but unfortunately, more than ten years later nothing much has changed and many researchers continue to over-hype their findings much to the detriment of the science, medical practice and public policy.
Even Solomon and Janssen acknowledged the importance of humility in communicating risk:
“It is important to approach questions of risk humbly with an understanding of the limitations of the science and the importance of the social context. It is also important to understand factors that contribute to different perceptions of risk to anticipate ways patients or communities may react to a hazard.”
Just recently at the above referenced SETAC conference, Sofie Vanthournout from Sense about Science, a UK charity that promotes the public understanding of science, stressed that risk communication should focus on the public’s concerns and needs, rather than scientists simply telling them what we think they need to know.
Less arrogance and greater humility are needed when communicating with the public about health risks.
Acknowledge Uncertainty and Alternative Viewpoints
As noted above, the science is most often incomplete and substantial uncertainties exist. Rarely is there complete consensus among scientists on the risk of a given threat, and even then that consensus can be wrong. For risk communication to be credible, it must acknowledge the uncertainties and opposing viewpoints. Scientists and regulators who engage the public in risk communication must:
Restrict their communications to areas in which they have expertise. Present information accurately, in clear, understandable terms. Disclose relevant interests. Discuss weaknesses and limitations of their work and opinions. Outline uncertainties and opposing scientific views.
Employ the International Consensus Definition of an EDC
All too often those communicating about EDCs are mistakenly conflating the terms “endocrine activity” with “endocrine disruption”. The distinction is very important and needs to be maintained. The World Health Organization (WHO), International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) defines an endocrine disrupting chemical as “an exogenous substance or mixture that alters function(s) of the endocrine system and consequently causes adverse health effects in an intact organism, or its progeny, or (sub)populations.”
This internationally accepted definition of an endocrine disruptor has two very important elements: first, that the substance alters the function of the hormonal system, and second, by doing so causes an adverse health effect (i.e. toxicity). The likelihood that an endocrine disruptor will cause harmful effects is based on its potency (how active it is) and potential for exposure (dosage, frequency, and duration). The definition is important so as not to confuse beneficial or neutral “endocrine effects” with negative “endocrine disruption,” with the latter term being linked to adverse health effects.
Scientists and regulators who engage in risk communication about endocrine disruption should use accurate and precise characterizations and refrain from applying labels that imply concern, when that concern is not supported by the evidence.
Communicate Risk and Not Merely Hazard Alone
For effective risk communication to take place, a risk assessment must first be done, even if it is qualitative rather than quantitative. Risk Assessment is the analysis of the possibility of a harm arising from a particular exposure to a chemical substance, under specific conditions. Risk is a function of the inherent hazardous properties of a chemical substance, but also of its potency (the relative steepness of the dose-response relationship) and the potential for exposure.
Much too often, the public receives only hazard information (e.g., chemical X is likely to cause cancer), but does not receive adequate information about potency or about the likelihood and/or magnitude of their exposure in the course of their daily activities. If there is little or no exposure, then there is little to no possibility that harm will occur.
As an example, a chemist in Langley who also writes a blog, recently complained about a new study that found food can linings still contained trace levels of BPA and its substitutes. To quote from the blogger:
“The scientists who conducted the study used a metal tool to scrape the inside of the cans to get a sample of the coating which they then analyzed using a Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The result was simply an identification of the polymer used in the can lining, nothing more. Hoping for more (like say a concentration or a detection limit) I went to look at the raw data at Healthy Stuff (the people who actually conducted the science part of the study) and all they provided was a spreadsheet saying what polymer had been identified in what can. To be clear here, they didn’t test any food from these cans. Moreover, they had to use aggressive techniques to pull off enough material from the cans and lids to do their testing (because it is affixed so firmly) and even then they didn’t even tell us how much of the stuff was in there?”
Studies such as this one serve a dubious purpose and are incapable of informing the public about the risks they face from chemical exposures. Instead, they confuse rather than enlighten us.
California’s Proposition 65 (more formally known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986) is yet another example of where communicating hazard only, without the context of exposure or risk, can mislead and confuse the public. In a recent editorial entitled “Warning: Too many warning signs are bad for your health”, the Los Angeles Times complained that the law requires posting of signs that don’t provide the context to help people make educated decisions about the risk they face. The Times called for the law to be fixed or replaced.
Communicate Absolute Risk in Addition to Relative Risk
Human observational epidemiology studies are frequently the scientific source of much of the medical findings that consumers read about. The results are often expressed as a relative risk, i.e., the risk of disease among persons who have in common exposure to some particular risk factor, e.g., a chemical substance, relative to those who did not experience such exposure.

Regrettably, the scientists who conduct and communicate such studies almost always focus exclusively on relative risk and totally ignore absolute risk. So, it is common that we read that exposure to chemical X increases your risk by two, three or an even greater amount. However, absolute risk is critical to understanding the magnitude of the threat.
Kevin Lomangino, the managing editor of HealthNewsReview.org has urged the use of absolute risk and has even published a primer on the topic for reporters. Small relative risk values, when consistent, are important when the number of people affected is large. However, a large relative risk of a rare disease amounts to only a small absolute risk, which may reasonably be considered not meaningful, either by public health planners or by individuals assessing their own choices. By contrast, a small relative risk may amount to a large number of cases for a common disease.
Scientists and regulators need to include measures of absolute risk when communicating with consumers so that they can better place the risks in context.
Acknowledge the Existence and Influence of Reporting/Publication Bias
Hazard and risk assessments may overstate the strength and weight of scientific evidence that underlies their assumption that a chemical is associated with a particular adverse health effect because it has been shown repeatedly that studies which fail to find an association between an exposure and a health effect (i.e., negative or near null findings) are less likely to be published in the scientific literature.
There’s even a name for this phenomenon: “publication bias”. It is but one form of what is referred to as reporting bias. Studies have been done which estimate that positive findings are 4-5 times more likely to be published in the literature than negative or near null findings. There are two reasons for this:
(1) Academic scientists are less likely to seek to publish near null results — they don’t view it as a good use of their time and negative/near null results are perceived as not helpful to career advancement. Instead, they stick them in a file drawer. Of course, scientists are also less likely to pursue publication of near negative/near null results because they have learned that journal publishers and editors don’t like them either and are more likely to reject them.
(2) Most reputable journals receive far more manuscripts than they have space to publish and so they have to prioritize them. Some journals such as Science and Nature, consider themselves as a significant source of news for the public and again prioritize articles that show adverse effects.
The consequences of publication bias can be severe. It distorts the scientific record. Clinicians and policy makers may be seriously misled. Conclusions derived from critical reviews of existing evidence that are based only on a review of published data should be interpreted cautiously, especially for observational studies which have been shown to be particularly vulnerable to the phenomenon.
As a consequence, the problem, although well recognized, persists, and is another source of the uncertainties discussed above.
Scientists must be encouraged to publish their results, regardless of the direction of the findings. Journal editors need to become more receptive to publishing such results. And scientists and regulators need to be aware of and become sensitive to the phenomenon and exercise caution when communicating about risks.
Activism is Jeopardizing the Integrity of Science and Risk Communication
Finally, public health and environmental activism is on the rise and is increasingly influencing the design, analysis and reporting of scientific research and thus jeopardizing the integrity and credibility or risk communication.
This is certainly the case for EDCs, whereby a group of US-based scientists has aggressively lobbied the European Commission on its proposed criteria for identifying EDCs, even going so far as to conduct studies using questionable methodology leading to grossly exaggerated health burden costs they attribute to EDC exposures.
Geoffrey Kabat, author of Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risksrecently published a blog in which he summarized a keynote address given by the surgeon and writer Atul Gawande:
“Gawande opened by giving several definitions of science that emphasized what an unusual and delicate balance science represents. ‘…having a scientific understanding of the world is really about helping people to understand how you judge which information to trust, while understanding that the scientific mindset is one where you never have complete trust.
He went on to describe the increasing prevalence of mistrust of science over the past four decades. And he acknowledged that, in fact, much of what is published is wrong and that the scientific consensus can be wrong. The task, as he framed it, is to distinguish science from pseudoscience, which has certain distinct hallmarks. The key, is to go back to what genuine science looks like as opposed to what pseudoscience looks like, he argued.
As an example of how to decide what to believe on a contentious question, Gawande took the case of BPA and used the discussion of the chemical in my book Getting Risk Right.
He extracted about half a dozen criteria for making a judgment:
Which side tends to favor the data that supports their theory?Which side tends to cherry-pick the data?Which side is more likely to narrow the focus to the papers that bolstered their point-of-view?Which ones grappled with the weakness of the BPA effect?Which papers were searching for alternative explanations?Which ones cited the contrary data?Which ones assessed the totality of the views vs. taking a litigious position?
Gawande continued:
“And you can never rule it out, but his [Kabat’s] conclusion was that one direction was quite clear. The groups that were doing the science and approaching it in a more scientific way consistently came out with the finding that BPA was not a significant health threat. This is an approach for being able to arrive at a way of finding your way through the maze – you look at what is the scientific approach.”
Kabat further opined “One could add further criteria to the list. For example, which studies come from groups which have a clear professional stake in the hypothesis, by virtue of having devoted much of their career to this question? Also, which side tends to resort to extra-scientific arguments to score points, such as asserting that the opposing side has conflicts-of-interest, rather than keeping the discussion focused on the science? These are quite regular features of controversies in the area of public health.”
Kabat and Gawande make a strong case that scientist activism can be problematic. That is not to say that scientists should be automatically disqualified from engaging in policy debates for they have an important perspective that needs to be heard. However, scientists who wish to engage in advocacy need to adopt and practice a code of conduct to help ensure protection of the integrity of science and of risk communication.
In Conclusion
Communicating risks about EDCs presents no unique challenges compared with communicating risks about many other potential environmental health threats. Effective risk communication must be scientifically-based, credible, trustworthy, balanced, present benefits and risks, and targeted in an understandable way for the intended audiences. It should be driven by the needs of the public, be constructive and focus on a few simple, practical tips. It should be delivered humbly, and openly acknowledge uncertainties and credible alternative viewpoints.
Communication about risks from EDCs should employ the internationally recognized WHO/IPCS definition, and distinguish between mere endocrine activity and true disruption. In order to provide people with information useful for making choices, the focus should be on communicating risks and not hazard alone. Absolute risks and risks of exposures to better known and more well-established health threats should also be communicated to provide audiences with important context and perspective. Risk communicators must try to remain objective, restrict themselves to areas in which they have expertise, disclose relevant interests, and seek to avoid letting their personal interests cloud their messages.
http://www.science20.com/gregory_bond/risk_communication_about_edcs-232750

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More Than 21,000 Substances Registered Under REACH

Jun 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Luke Buxton

Echa has received 33,363 registration dossiers for 11,114 substances manufactured or imported in quantities of between 1 to 100 tonnes/year. These were the final figures achieved yesterday, the third and final REACH deadline.
For all three registration deadlines of 2010, 2013 and 2018 combined, the agency has received 88,319 dossiers for 21,551 chemicals.
The number of registrations submitted, and substances registered for, was lower than forecast, Echa said. It had previously predicted that by 1 June up to 25,000 chemicals would be registered for the first time in the 1-100 tonnage band.
The agency’s director of registration Christel Musset said "it’s a bit too early to say" if Echa should be concerned about the shortfall because the agency will not have the final registration figures until after the completeness checks are finished.
In comments to Chemical Watch, Cefic said: "despite the data showing fewer registrations than was initially expected, we are convinced that the absolute majority of the substances currently used on the market have been successfully registered".
It added that the initial expectations were based on the information collected 15 years ago, "which no longer accurately reflects the current market situation" and was done "before the rules on registering similar substances together were clarified".
The chemical industry, it said, "will continue supplying its markets and customers with no disruptions".
European SMEs trade body Ueapme has long raised concerns over the impact such a shortfall could have on supply chains and said that Echa and industry associations have failed to explain why "thousands" of chemicals have not materialised.Numbers in detail
For the 2018 deadline, 6,824 chemicals to be manufactured or imported, below 100 tonnes/year, have been registered for the first time.
In total, 6,242 dossiers were submitted for 4,263 chemicals with uses including as an intermediate. Those registered as intermediates numbered 3,525.
Close to the 31 May deadline, Echa said it saw many indications that companies were starting their registration preparations very late. A high number of REACH enquiries were submitted for:companies wanting to get in contact with the existing registrants of their substance;data-sharing disputes filed; andapplications made for solutions offered by the REACH Directors’ Contact Group (DCG) for companies in ‘exceptional situations’.
And based on these observations, the agency said it expects "many registrations still to arrive after the deadline".
Next year, an EU-wide enforcement project (Ref-7) will assess to what extent European companies have fulfilled their registration obligations.Looking ahead
"The ten-year journey stopped yesterday at midnight," Echa head Bjorn Hanson said. "The next ten years start today."
The work now begins, he added, on using the data on chemicals available on the European market. In a REACH framework, he said, this means that industry "will continue to use the information to handle and use chemicals safely in the supply chain to improve product quality and become more sustainable".
Echa, member state authorities and the European Commission will use this information "to find those areas where further action beyond what industry is already taking needs to be done to protect our citizens and to protect the environment".
Ms Musset reminded companies that "REACH is not over". It is very important, she added, that they continue to update their dossiers, including new information in safety data sheets. Echa will begin evaluating these dossiers and "we will ask companies to provide additional information if need be. There is a lot of work still to be done."
Cefic’s Marko Mensink said that now it is time "to turn REACH from a regulatory compliance issue to a competitive advantage for the European chemical industry".
The first step in doing this, he added, is to "make sure that starting this weekend no unregistered substances cross the EU border, including substances in articles". The next step is making sure that compliance with REACH "gives an easier access to global markets".
Following the registration deadline, the focus of both industry and regulators will shift to other REACH processes such as evaluation, authorisation and restriction, he said. "These processes need to be efficient, transparent and lead to informed and science based decisions, minimising the risks and optimising the benefits of chemicals."
https://chemicalwatch.com/67362/more-than-21000-substances-registered-under-reach

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Energy News

Study: Premature Births Drop After Coal, Oil Power Plants Shut Down

Jun 1, 2018 | Environmental Working Group

By Grant Smith and Olga Naldenko

The rate of premature births to California mothers living near coal and oil power plants dropped significantly after the plants were shut down, researchers from the University of California and Johns Hopkins University reported in a recent study.
The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, analyzed birth records for nearly 60,000 mothers who lived within about three miles of eight power plants that were shut down between 2001 and 2011. Researchers found that after these outdated and inefficient plants closed, air pollution emissions decreased dramatically, and within a year the rate of preterm births declined by more than one-fourth. The decline was greatest for mothers living closest to the plants, particularly among African-Americans and Latinas.
The clear connection was a big surprise to the researchers.
“The ‘aha’ moment was probably just seeing what a large, estimated effect size we got,” lead author Joan A. Casey, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, told Inside Climate News. “We were pretty shocked by it – to the point that we did many, many additional analyses to try to make it go away, and didn't succeed.”
The findings join an array of studies demonstrating the harmful effects of air pollution, particularly car and power plant emissions, on the developing fetus and the health of a newborn child. Children born prematurely are often at a higher risk of chronic diseases during childhood and later in life, including cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes.
In a groundbreaking study published in 2012, Columbia University researchers reported that children born to mothers who lived in urban neighborhoods with more polluted air were twice as likely to be obese by age 7. Recently, Johns Hopkins researchers reported that mothers’ exposure to air pollution during pregnancy increases the risk for high blood pressure in their young children.
“High blood pressure in children portends high blood pressure in adults, which leads to higher cardiovascular disease risk,” Noel T. Mueller, one of the authors of the Johns Hopkins study, told The New York Times.
Heart health, weight management and healthy metabolism are regulated by a fine-tuned hormonal network that orchestrates communication between the brain and other organs. Eating a good diet and exercising during pregnancy is important for the health of both the mother and the developing fetus. So is limiting exposure to toxic chemicals in consumer products.
But outdoor air quality isn’t something individuals can directly control. Protecting children from harmful pollution from power plants and cars will require fundamental changes in energy policy.
Rachel Morello-Frosch, a UC Berkeley professor and co-author of the study on premature births, told EWG that the findings “highlight the community health benefits of climate and energy policy shifts.”
This is why the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back air pollution standards for coal plants and mileage standards for automobiles aren’t just economic issues, but severe threats to children’s health. For kids’ sake, we must all join the fight for clean air.
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/06/study-premature-births-drop-after-coal-oil-power-plants-shut-down#.WxFkju6FO6I

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Tariffs Run Counter to Trump's 'Dominance' Agenda — Industry

Jun 1, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Jenny Mandel

The energy industry roundly criticized President Trump's announcement yesterday that steel and aluminum products from Mexico, Canada and the European Union would be subject to tariffs starting today, in a move that heightens tensions across a web of ongoing trade negotiations and was described by industry as countering other, pro-energy administration policies.
The decision to impose the penalties is "very troubling to the U.S. pipeline industry and inconsistent with the administration's long-standing goal to capitalize on our nation's energy abundance to help bring low-cost energy to American consumers," Don Santa, president and CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, said in a statement. "Pipelines require specialty steel products not always available in sufficient quantities and specifications from domestic manufacturers. For certain steel products used in pipelines, no domestic product is available today."
The American Petroleum Institute similarly criticized the announcement. "The implementation of new tariffs will disrupt the U.S. oil and natural gas industry's complex supply chain, compromising ongoing and future U.S. energy projects, which could weaken our national security," said API President Jack Gerard.
The administration announced penalties of 25 percent on imported steel products and 10 percent on imported aluminum products in March, and then repeatedly waived them for key trading partners as negotiations progressed (Energywire, April 19). Yesterday, it said that a June 1 deadline for the tariffs on imports from North American and European allies would hold.
The White House order issued yesterday granted permanent exemptions from the duties to Argentina, Australia and Brazil in light of "satisfactory" negotiations to address excess production in those countries through import caps. Some nations that weren't exempt reacted promptly.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday said he would dispute the tariffs before the World Trade Organization and impose "dollar for dollar" retaliatory measures; the E.U. and Mexico announced their own long lists of retaliatory targets, largely focused on a variety of food and consumer goods.
The steel and aluminum tariffs have been a factor in the administration's ongoing renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, as it seeks additional leverage to force concessions on a deal that the White House views as unfavorable to domestic manufacturing.
Energy is not a central issue in that discussion, and the existing trade deal does not have a section addressing energy. Insiders have been split on whether to add trade-positive provisions for energy or leave the issue out of an updated deal.
But pipeline companies and the pipeline mills that supply them are especially exposed to the steel tariffs that take hold today, and liquefied natural gas exporters and parts of the electric industry are also energy players that could see incrementally higher costs from the trade battle.
Since the tariffs were announced, U.S. businesses have been able to apply for exemptions for individual product imports if they can show that the material is not produced in the U.S. "in a sufficient and reasonably available amount or of a satisfactory quality or should be excluded based upon specific national security considerations."
The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security manages the exemption process, which requires an application detailing the specification, size and other qualities of the material that a company seeks to import. More than 6,800 entries have been posted to the system since April 10.
Among oil and gas interests, BP PLC, Chevron Corp., Hess Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Plains All American Pipeline have all applied for tariff exemptions.
The Coalition of American Metal Manufacturers and Users, a new group organized to fight the tariffs, said in a statement yesterday that its members have seen price increases in both U.S.-made and imported steel and aluminum products since the trade measures went into effect, and said the impacts more than undo the benefits to manufacturing from the Trump tax cuts enacted last year.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/01/stories/1060083163

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Is Big Oil Serious About Methane Emissions?

Jun 1, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By Jordan Blum

The American oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron are typically the bane of environmentalists, but their recent annual meetings only attracted muted protests compared to previous years.
Both companies are pledging to produce more oil and gas in the future to keep up with growing global demand, but they still managed to win measured accolades from environmental groups in recent days.MOST POPULARThe Preacher's SonTrump meets Santa Fe families, raises money in HoustonHeart FailureRockets plan to keep expensive core intact, be creative with other movesThrowback Thursday to Houston's pastRockets Q&A: From the Beard to CP3 to LeBron and moreMusk vs. Bean: Houston’s future as Space City at risk [Editorial]
The main reason is both companies are pledging to reduce methane emissions from natural gas production and refining activities. Natural gas is touted as the cleaner-burning alternative to coal and crude oil and many energy companies are betting on natural gas as climate change regulations get tougher.
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“We see our role as helping close the gap between what people want and what can be responsibly done,” said Exxon Chairman and Chief Executive Darren Woods. “We’re also committed to being part of the solution to climate change.”
But natural gas has an environmental Achilles heel: associated methane emissions from oil and gas production. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and reining in methane emissions is essential to energy companies making the case for natural gas as a so-called bridge fuel until non-polluting sources like wind and solar can provide the energy the world needs.
A year ago, amid a more tense environment, more than 60 percent of Exxon Mobil shareholders voted in favor of a resolution asking for an analysis of the risks posed to the company’s business by climate change and the resulting public policies. The vote came when environmentalists viewed Exxon even more skeptically than usual because of allegations — which Exxon Mobil denies — that the company's research found a link between fossil fuels and global warming decades ago, but it withheld the evidence.
Exxon didn’t ignore the shareholder vote.
Last fall, Exxon Mobil announced efforts to stem its methane emissions in its U.S. onshore activities. Then, in May, Exxon pledged a broader effort to reduce its methane emissions by 15 percent worldwide by 2020. Exxon said its goals include reducing its natural gas flaring — the burning off of excess gas and its components — by 25 percent during the same timeframe.
RELATED: Shell joins Exxon in climate change spotlight
In December, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and most of the world’s other top energy companies joined the American Petroleum Institute in an initiative to voluntarily reduce methane emissions from U.S. oil and gas operations.RELATEDBig Oil back to raking in billionsCEO pay towers over median salary of workersExxon Mobil commits to methane emission reductions
As for Chevron, 45 percent of shareholders last week supported a resolution asking for reduced methane emissions. While the resolution didn’t pass, Chevron had already seen the writing on the wall.
Prior to last week’s annual meeting annual, Chevron for the first time released more information about the intensity of its methane emissions. Chevron also agreed to follow voluntary principles set by the environmental advocacy group Climate and Clean Air Coalition, which seeks to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations and pipeline leaks.
The lead author of the methane shareholder resolution, a sustainable investing group called “As You Sow,” commended Chevron for its efforts.
“This is an important first step, but joining a voluntary program… is no substitute for demonstrated methane reduction action,” said As You Sow President Danielle Fugere. “Shareholders recognize Chevron’s progress, but underscore the importance of demonstrating on-the-ground change on this important climate change issue.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Is-Big-Oil-serious-about-methane-emissions-12960075.php

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Pope to Meet with Oil Execs to Discuss Climate Change: Report

Jun 1, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By John Bowden

Pope Francis will meet with top executives in the oil industry and major investment firms next week at the Vatican to discuss the global effects of climate change, Axios reported.
Among the guests scheduled to attend are Larry Fink, the CEO of asset manager BlackRock, as well as Bob Dudley, CEO of BP, and Eldar Sætre of Norway's oil and energy company Equinor.
Former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who served in the Obama administration, will also attend, according to a spokesperson.
Axios also reports multiple sources that say ExxonMobil would send a representative, but the company did not confirm those reports.
The effort is reportedly being organized by the U.S.-based University of Notre Dame, which refused to comment to Axios on the report.
“All along the way, we have said that any energy-related meeting involving the Vatican and Notre Dame would be a private dialogue among the attendees,” said Leo Burke, director of Notre Dame's business school climate investing initiative.
BP spokesman Geoff Morrell confirmed the meeting to Axios and stated that Dudley is “looking forward to the Vatican dialogue. He believes gatherings of this kind help develop a better understanding of the energy transition and the best ways for corporations, countries and wider society to participate in it.”
The efforts by the Vatican to raise global awareness of climate change come one year after Trump's announcement that the U.S. would pull out of the Paris Climate Accords, the largest international agreement dedicated to fighting climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in history.
Since winning the White House, the Trump administration has questioned climate science and eliminated references to climate change from official documents at the Environmental Protection Agency.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/390208-pope-to-meet-with-oil-execs-to-discuss-climate-change-report

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FERC Defends Tolling Orders Amid Avalanche of Gas Pipeline Rehearing Requests

Jun 1, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Jamison Cocklin

FERC this week defended its use of tolling orders to stop the statutory clock on challenges to the certificates issued in the face of a slew of rehearing requests filed by natural gas pipeline opponents.
Specifically, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Wednesday denied two challenges filed against the tolling orders it issued on dozens of requests for rehearing of the certificate order authorizing the PennEast Pipeline. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network (DRN) and the Sourland Conservancy had urged FERC to reconsider the tolling orders, arguing that the practice prevents timely judicial review and violates landowner rights by allowing condemnation proceedings to advance while broader certificate challenges are pending.
Under the Natural Gas Act, the Commission has 30 days to address requests for rehearing before they are deemed denied. FERC issues tolling orders to freeze the clock and extend the time it has to consider the applications. Pipeline opponents, however, have had little success in courts, as judges have been unwilling to entertain appeals until the FERC rehearing process, which opponents argue is elongated by the tolling orders, has been completed.
FERC spokeswoman Tamara Young-Allen stressed that all of the rehearing requests for the order authorizing PennEast are still pending, including one filed earlier this year by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. She said an order on rehearing could be issued at any time. FERC issued the PennEast certificate order in January.
“The purpose of a rehearing is to afford the Commission an opportunity to review allegations of error in its decision,” FERC said In its order denying the tolling order challenges. “Here, approximately 30 requests for rehearing of the January order have been filed raising a host of purported errors. The Commission is obligated to respond meaningfully to the matters.”
Commissioners added that a tolling order is “merely a procedural ruling that affords the Commission additional time to consider the requests for rehearing,” and they don’t prohibit requests for stays or interim relief from the courts. They added too that certificate orders are conditional and do not permit construction to begin until a pipeline has all the documentation and regulatory approvals it needs under federal law.
However, in a separate statement concurring with Wednesday’s order denying DRN and Sourland’s challenges, Commissioner Richard Glick said he had “serious concerns regarding the Commission’s practice of issuing conditional certificates -- which, notwithstanding their name, vest the pipeline developer with full eminent domain authority -- in cases where the record does not contain adequate evidence to conclude definitely that the pipeline is in the public interest.”
Glick dissented from the January order authorizing PennEast, when he questioned FERC’s reliance on affiliate precedent agreements in greenlighting the project. He noted, though, that Wednesday’s order on the tolling orders “affirms the Commission’s authority under the Natural Gas Act to toll the date for issuing a merits determination on a request for rehearing.”
PennEast would move more than 1 Bcf/d of gas from Northeast Pennsylvania to New Jersey. About one-third of the 120-mile pipeline would be in New Jersey, where the project is facing strong opposition from Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration, which has also filed a petition in federal court challenging the pipeline’s FERC certificate. The project is targeting a 2019 in-service date.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114571-ferc-defends-tolling-orders-amid-avalanche-of-gas-pipeline-rehearing-requests

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Chemical Security News

Would-Be Grid Hackers 'Will Fail,' says Cyber Executive

Jun 1, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Blake Sobczak

The rules of engagement in cyber conflict may be "eroding," a cybersecurity executive warned yesterday, but there are a few lines hackers won't cross in the United States.
"You don't take down a utility; you don't change the results of elections," Kevin Mandia, CEO of FireEye Inc., told a group of reporters at a cybersecurity conference yesterday in Washington, D.C.
He said hacking groups backed by foreign governments would have to "think long and hard" to change vote tallies or activate malware inside a utility that could harm its control systems, given the risk of retaliation.
"Those are rules that — in my experience — I have not seen any nation break yet."
Russian hackers are suspected to have briefly disabled parts of Ukraine's power grid in December 2015 and again in 2016, according to Ukrainian security authorities and multiple cybersecurity companies, including FireEye.
But those attacks, while alarming, were hardly disastrous — cutting off power to little more than a quarter-million people for a few hours each time.
"We've been incredibly lucky that we haven't seen a catastrophic attack against critical infrastructure," said Charles Carmakal, vice president of Mandiant, a subsidiary of FireEye focused on cyber incident response. "Threat actors who are actually capable of disrupting our critical infrastructure aren't motivated to do it, and those that are motivated to do it aren't yet capable of doing it."
Despite countries' reluctance to launch cyberattacks that carry physical consequences, Carmakal said some groups toe the line.
"We have seen Russian operators probe nuclear power plants, oil and gas pipelines in the U.S.," he said. "There have been situations where Russian government operators have gotten access to critical infrastructure. ... What I have not yet seen is a deliberate attempt by a foreign government to disrupt operations in the U.S., from a critical national infrastructure perspective."
FireEye has investigated several recent cyber intrusions that have targeted the industrial control systems that keep the lights on, or oil and gas flowing.
A recent hacking threat that FireEye dubbed "Triton" disabled core components of an industrial safety system at a petrochemical facility in the Middle East. The hackers were booted out, but not before causing the plant to shut down multiple times while they tampered with lifeline safety instrumented systems, according to FireEye.
Dragos Inc., another cybersecurity company focused on threats to industrial control systems, recently warned that the hackers behind Triton had expanded their operations and were targeting other sites globally. FireEye experts confirmed yesterday that the threat had spread to the U.S., while noting that actually disrupting industrial systems, from refineries to power utilities, remains a tall order.
Carmakal credited the "acute awareness of the potential for an attack against critical infrastructure in the U.S.," adding that vital companies "tend to have better defensive capabilities than organizations in other parts of the world."
Or, as Mandia put it, "The first person who tries to take down a utility will fail, and you'll likely notice it."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/01/stories/1060083167

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Environment News

Cabinet Heads Told to Praise Paris Exit. 'No Exceptions'

Jun 1, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Kevin Bogardus

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos last year praised President Trump's decision to pull the United States from the Paris climate accord.
Her staff later told her what she had said about it.
DeVos' chief of staff approved the secretary's two-sentence statement on Trump's exit from the climate change agreement, with her espousing the president's rollback of "overreaching regulatory actions" and keeping his promise "to put America and American workers first." Aides later worked to bring it to DeVos' attention, according to emails obtained by E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act.
The emails offer a behind-the-scenes look at how the White House ordered agency leaders to publicly praise Trump's announcement on Paris, which was a year ago today. Cabinet secretaries and their communications shops jumped into action, with messages ranging from DeVos' vague praise of putting "America first" to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross decrying the "economic carnage" of the climate treaty.
Liz Hill, the Education Department's press secretary, said that day in an email to another aide, "We didn't send out a press release or anything, but we did [sic] out a statement on the website that she should be made aware of. It was approved by josh before it went up."
The Josh she referred to is Josh Venable, DeVos' chief of staff at the department. Earlier that day, when Trump was announcing his decision on the climate deal, Hill sought his approval of DeVos' statement.
"Are you ok with this title and intro sentence?" Hill asked in one email. Venable responded, "yes."
Hill also later checked in with another aide to see whether DeVos had seen her own statement. "Were you able to send this over to BDV?" the press official asked.
"Sent over. Haven't heard back," said the aide.
The day after Trump's announcement on the Paris Agreement, reporters pressed DeVos on her statement during an event at a Washington, D.C., charter school. The Education secretary repeated her praise of the president but didn't share much more, including her views on climate change.
"I'm here to talk about students and schools today, and I would hope that we could focus on the opportunity that these kids have in this unique environment and this unique school with amazing teachers and administrators," DeVos said, according to The Washington Post.
Her Paris statement attracted criticism from Democratic senators. They sent a letter the following week to DeVos, saying her statement was "a quick about-face" considering that during her confirmation hearing, she said she would defer to other agencies on the issue of climate change.
Education Department press officials, including Hill, didn't respond to questions from E&E News for this story.'Cabinet Communicators!'
DeVos was one of several Trump Cabinet officials to issue statements on the president's Paris decision. At least nine officials, including many not heavily involved in the move to withdraw from the agreement, released statements that day (Greenwire, June 2).
The public relations push came after a request from the White House, according to other records obtained by E&E News under FOIA.
"Cabinet Communicators!" Kaelan Dorr, then an aide in the White House press office, said in an email a little over two hours before Trump announced his decision.
"Please join our surrogate briefing call at the below number at 1:30pm. We need all Cabinet agencies to prep statements of support for the decision being announced at 3:00pm in the Rose Garden," he said, asking those statements be sent to him and other White House press aides for approval within 30 minutes of the call's conclusion.
"No exceptions," Dorr said, adding that talking points would also be distributed after the call.
Asked why the White House wanted agencies across the federal government to comment on the climate accord, a spokeswoman said the decision to leave the deal was the result of "an interagency policy process."
"The Trump Administration, after conducting an interagency policy process, concluded that withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord was the best decision for the United States and for the American people. One year later, there has been no change in the U.S. position," said Lindsay Walters, the White House deputy press secretary.
Other agencies, too, quickly got to work after the White House request. The Commerce Department put together a statement from Ross saying the Paris deal's "economic carnage" was "unjustified."
"Let it fly at end of presser," James Rockas, a Commerce press aide, said in an email.
Other agency staffers had some questions.
"Ill start drafting a statement. ... Does he have an opinion on it?" Jillian Rogers at the Labor Department said in an email. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said in a statement that withdrawing from the climate deal would grow jobs and stimulate the economy.
After Trump announced his decision, the White House also urged Cabinet members to do television and radio interviews on the Paris accord. That request was greeted with a question at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
"What would his message be?" G. Payne Griffin, a deputy chief of staff at USTR, asked in an email.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, in his own statement on Trump leaving the Paris Agreement, had espoused jobs and said the accord represented "another unfair trade barrier."
Click the following to read how the departments of Commerce, Education and Labor as well as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative drafted their statements on the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/06/01/stories/1060083155

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Trump Team Wanted to Kill Agency Authority on CO2 — Emails

Jun 1, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Robin Bravender

Trump administration officials had a plan to pull EPA climate regulations out by the roots.
One month after President Trump's inauguration last year, then-EPA official David Schnare sent an email with a document that laid out a strategy for reconsidering EPA's 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, the scientific determination that underpins federal climate change rules, according to documents released to E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act.
"The President has no faith in the 2009 finding, believes regulation under that finding is inappropriate, has directed reconsideration as a primary element in his EPA Action Plan, is expected to direct reconsideration in his forthcoming executive orders on climate, and is expected to direct EPA to grant any petitions seeking consideration," the document says.
Schnare, who was on the EPA transition team and "beachhead" team of early political appointees, pushed the administration to be aggressive on unraveling the finding. He's previously spoken about his disappointment that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt wasn't more aggressive on undermining the finding and that its reconsideration was axed from a major Trump executive order on "energy independence" (Climatewire, Dec. 4, 2017).
The newly released document shows exactly how the Trump team planned to wage its attack.
The document notes that the agency had already received petitions to reconsider the finding and that climate science completed since 2009 "significantly undercuts the finding."
It also says that if the reconsideration finds there's no endangerment from greenhouse gases, it "automatically provides the authority needed" to withdraw "high-cost, low value" climate rules. That would include the Obama administration's signature climate rule, the Clean Power Plan.
Also included are steps for reconsideration. Those include: building a record of decisionmaking that would hold up in court, relying only on studies where the underlying data are publicly available and relying on an "open public process (crowd sourcing)" to provide "independent peer review."
Schnare told E&E News in an interview yesterday that the document was intended to deliver on what Trump wanted.
The transition team prepared plans for the administration based on Trump's speeches, Schnare said. "It was very clear that climate change regulations were high on his list of things that needed to be addressed."
Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who led Trump's EPA transition team, said yesterday that the document "certainly represents the thinking of the transition" on "why and how the endangerment finding should be reopened." He added that the work of the transition team was confidential.
But Pruitt fought the plan, said Schnare, who left EPA in March citing disagreements with the EPA boss.
"Once Pruitt showed up, that process ended," he said. "He had been led to believe that the political cost was too high, and he was led to believe that by people in the Senate and staffers." Pruitt's chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, previously worked for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.).
"As a result, Pruitt and I discussed it, and he said, 'I'm not doing it,'" Schnare said. Pruitt told Schnare he had his own solution but wouldn't say what that was, Schnare added.
Pruitt has repeatedly questioned mainstream climate science and has called for a military-style "red-team" debate on the issue. Some who hope to see EPA jettison the endangerment finding are hopeful that such a red-team exercise would ultimately set a foundation for that to occur.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/06/01/stories/1060083175

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Trump Withdrew from the Paris Climate Deal a Year Ago. Here’s What Has Changed.

Jun 1, 2018 | The Washington Post

By Chris Mooney

A year ago today, President Trump shocked the world by announcing that the United States would be the first and possibly only country to join, but then subsequently withdraw from, the Paris climate change agreement. In his speech, Trump cited “the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country” — even though in fact, each country chooses its own contributions under the agreement.
Trump’s move felt dramatic at the time and was hugely controversial. A year later, though — and despite his administration efforts to roll back environmental protections — there has been little change in the metric that matters most: the nation’s overall greenhouse gas emissions trajectory.
One prominent group studying how countries are faring in their Paris goals, the Climate Action Tracker, actually just improved its assessment of the United States’ expected performance, rather than downgrading it, citing a continuing reduction of carbon in the electricity sector that’s mainly being driven by market forces, rather than Trump policies.
“Although the Trump administration is working hard on rolling back climate policies, we do not yet see an effect on our projections of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Niklas Höhne, a founder of NewClimate Institute and professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “In fact, still it’s the opposite. We have revised our projections for the U.S. in 2030 downward because there have been more renewables online and less coal.”
It’s just one indicator of just how complex it is to assess the effect of Trump’s Paris move. Underscoring that ambiguity, the United States isn’t even out of the Paris agreement yet — it merely announced an intention to withdraw, but can’t formally do so until the year 2020.
“It’s hard to say what the impact of all of this has been,” said Jessika Trancik, a climate policy researcher at MIT. “But maybe that is the story.”
Trancik argues that what has really occurred is not a big change in the numbers, per se, but rather a policy vacuum and lack of a “national narrative” around what the United States intends to do about the globe’s biggest environmental problem. Others — international actors, states and cities — have tried to fill that gap, but with uncertain results.
The Trump administration, since the Paris withdrawal, has largely lacked a consistent message about climate change (although the White House did consider adopting one after Trump’s speech). Instead it has had many contradictory voices, from the climate change doubt of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to the recent embrace of climate science by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
Similarly, while the administration has launched a wave of attempted regulatory rollbacks of Obama policies meant to curb climate change, like the Clean Power Plan, litigation by states and environmental groups makes it unclear how far those will advance. Thus far, market trends that continue to punish coal and reward renewable energy and natural gas remain the dominant driver of the U.S. energy picture.
“We’re on track to meet or exceed the Clean Power Plan goals, and all of that is driven by cheap renewables and cheap natural gas,” said Kate Larsen, who manages climate change research at the Rhodium Group.
The lingering effect of last year’s announcement, however, has still been a climate of uncertainty for business leaders who thought they were supposed to be acting on climate change — and for other countries who thought the world was united.
“Officially all nations have maintained that despite what the U.S. has announced it is going to do, that they are still going to stick with Paris,” said John Sterman, an MIT professor who works with the D.C. based Climate Interactive on projections of where the world is headed on climate change. “That’s the official story, and that’s good. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that behind the scenes, if the U.S. is not going to follow through, other nations are finding it harder to maintain their commitments in view of domestic political pressures.”
Most of all, while the United States has not made any sudden or dramatic turn in its emissions trajectory, that’s not really the point. Even achieving the Obama administration’s Paris goals, of a 26 to 28 percent emissions cut below 2005 levels, would ultimately be too little, at least if the agreement’s formal objectives are to be taken seriously.
The whole world is off course on climate change by that metric, meaning that many countries, including the United States, under-promised in Paris. The world’s commitments thus far, assuming they are realized, would lead to a warming of 3.3 degrees Celsius (5.94 degrees Fahrenheit), rather than the 2 or 1.5 degree Celsius (3.6 or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) targets of the Paris agreement, according to Sterman.
So the United States, as the second largest global emitter of greenhouse gases, would need to do considerably more than Obama promised to cut its emissions. Instead, it is underperforming even those modest commitments.
The country is currently on course for a roughly 11 to 13 percent decrease in its emissions below 2005 levels by the year 2025, according to a new analysis by the Climate Action Tracker, which is produced by Climate Analytics, the NewClimate Institute and Ecofys. That’s about halfway to the Obama administration’s pledge.
Höhne cautions, though, that it’s early. Attempted Trump rollbacks continue and weakened fuel efficiency standards for cars, if those come to pass, could certainly lead to increased carbon dioxide emissions. One analysis by the Rhodium Group suggests they could add over 100 million tons annually by the year 2035 due to an auto standards rollback alone.
Another analysis, also released last year by the Rhodium Group, found slightly better overall numbers for the United States — a 15 to 19 percent projected cut in emissions by 2025 — but still, well short of the Obama promise.
These figures on the national level, however, are being amplified by intense activity at the state and local level, with Virginia and New Jersey becoming the latest states looking to cut their emissions, new electric vehicle policies in Colorado and California, and much more. Much of this has been an explicit reaction to Trump’s Paris withdrawal.
“There’s a lot that is happening, fortunately,” said Vicki Arroyo, the director of the Georgetown Climate Center. “Nobody would say it’s enough, but at least we’re not losing the momentum in the way we feared a year ago.”
The effects of state and local policies are hard to quantify, and new commitments are still rolling out. Höhne thinks all of this could potentially rescue the Obama administration’s Paris commitment — meaning the United States could still meet its official goal. But not everyone is so sure.
“Cities that are progressive and doing more are in states with pretty clean energy already, or that have made those types of commitments, so it’s hard to know what’s additional,” Larsen said.
In the end, then, despite the uproar over the Paris withdrawal, it’s notable that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are hardly set to explode and the country is still slowly moving toward lower greenhouse gas emissions.
But what Trump’s move did do was create a fog when it comes to what U.S. national policy is or should be — something not even the administration seems to know. The fundamental reality remains that neither the U.S. pledge nor other countries’ commitments under the deal were strong enough to achieve what all those countries said they wanted in the first place. Slow progress didn’t end under Trump, but according to physics, slow progress and the world’s climate change goals are not compatible.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/06/01/trump-withdrew-from-the-paris-climate-plan-a-year-ago-heres-what-has-changed/?utm_term=.bc47f0157404

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A Year After Trump’s Paris Pullout, U.S. Companies Are Driving a Renewables Boom

Jun 1, 2018 | The New York Times

By Brad Plumer

When President Trump announced on June 1 last year that the United States would exit the Paris climate deal, many of America’s largest corporations said they would honor the agreement anyway, vowing to pursue cleaner energy and cut emissions on their own.
A year later, there’s one area where that pledge is highly visible: renewable energy. Dozens of Fortune 500 companies, from tech giants like Apple and Google to Walmart and General Motors, are voluntarily investing billions of dollars in new wind and solar projects to power their operations or offset their conventional energy use, becoming a major driver of renewable electricity growth in the United States.
“You’re definitely not seeing corporations slow down their appetite for renewables under Trump — if anything, demand continues to grow,” said Malcolm Woolf, senior vice president for policy at Advanced Energy Economy, a clean energy business group. “And it means that many utilities increasingly have to evolve to satisfy this demand.”
One big question, however, is whether these corporate renewable deals will remain a relatively niche market, adding some wind and solar at the margins but not really making a sizable dent in overall emissions, or whether these companies can use their clout to transform America’s grid and help usher in a new era of low-carbon power.
A Corporate Clean Energy Wave
Last year in the United States, 19 large corporations announced deals with energy providers to build 2.78 gigawatts worth of wind and solar generating capacity, equal to one-sixth of all of the renewable capacity added nationwide in 2017, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewable Center. (Power companies themselves added much of the rest, often in response to state mandates.)
That trend appears to be accelerating. Corporations have already announced deals for another 2.48 gigawatts of wind and solar in the first half of 2018, as companies like AT&T and Nestlé join the search for cleaner power to fulfill their sustainability goals and take advantage of the rapidly declining cost of renewables.
“We didn’t intend to do this as a statement about Paris, though it has become a statement that we’re definitely still in,” said Brian Janous, general manager of energy at Microsoft, which has so far bought enough wind and solar power to match 50 percent of the demand from its global data centers.
“But with how fast wind and solar prices have fallen, we see this as something that makes financial sense,” he said.
At least 22 companies in the Fortune 500 have committed to buying enough renewable power to match 100 percent of their electricity use in the years ahead. And some analysts say these goals could help spur electric utilities to continue reducing their own emissions even as the Trump administration rolls back Obama-era policies like the Clean Power Plan, a regulation focused on reducing carbon emissions from power plants.EDITORS’ PICKSWhat Drove a Man to Set Himself on Fire in Brooklyn?Their Husbands Abused Them. Shouldn’t Divorce Be Easy?Flow of Refugees to U.S. Has Slowed to Nearly a Halt
“We think this is a major trend,” said Lisa Wood, vice president of customer solutions at the Edison Electric Institute, a major utility trade group. “Customers are becoming the driver.”
How to Go Renewable
It can often be difficult for a company that isn’t a utility to procure large quantities of renewable electricity on its own. Walmart has installed on-site solar panels on the roofs and parking lots of at least 350 stores, but not every company has that much real estate in play.
Another approach: In deregulated electricity markets, like California or Texas, companies can sign long-term power purchase agreements with energy providers to build new solar or wind facilities. The electricity from these projects typically feeds into the local grid, mixing with electricity from other sources such as coal or natural gas, but the company can legally claim the wind or solar power as its own by buying the renewable energy certificates generated by the project.ImageThe San Gorgonio Pass wind farm near Banning, Calif.CreditBill Clark/Roll Call, via Getty Images
These agreements have gotten increasingly sophisticated: Companies can even arrange to pay for a new wind farm in a different state, such as Oklahoma, and obtain credits from the project even if the electricity is going to someone else. (Basically, the buyer is creating new wind power without using it directly.)
But these large individual deals can be costly and complicated. Apple, for instance, arranged in 2015 to pay $848 million over 25 years for most of the electricity from a large solar farm in California built by First Solar, while selling the excess back to the grid.
While Apple has said it expects to save millions of dollars over the long term, there is still risk involved in any such deal. And the company had to create its own energy subsidiary and receive federal approval to trade its excess power, which wouldn’t be practical for most smaller businesses.
Other large corporations are wielding their influence to persuade utilities themselves to add more renewables and offer more options for their customers. In Michigan, G.M. and Switch, a telecommunications firm, made a deal with their local utility to pay a fixed price for electricity from a new wind farm.
Programs like this, known as “green tariffs,” have recently popped up in more than a dozen states, though they are still often limited to larger companies. But some analysts hope that if green tariffs become more popular, utilities will start offering them to everyone else, too. In Washington State, Puget Sound Energy is piloting a program that would allow smaller customers to buy shares of renewable projects.
“If we can show utilities that the demand is there, that could convince regulators to expand these programs and allow access for smaller companies,” said Rob Threlkeld, global manager for renewable energy at G.M., which has set the goal to buy 100 percent renewable power by 2050.
Even that’s only the first step. Industry groups like the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance are currently trying to explore other ways that small businesses might be able to band together and voluntarily purchase green power.
Mr. Janous of Microsoft, who is engaged in these discussions, says that this aggregation has so far proven to be incredibly challenging. “But if it’s just Microsoft or just the Fortune 500 companies buying renewable power, that’s not going to be transformative,” he said. “We need to go beyond that.”Beyond 100 Percent Renewable
A few companies, most notably Google, are now wrestling with an even harder question: What if simply buying up large quantities of wind and solar power isn’t enough?
At the end of 2017, Google announced that it had purchased an amount of renewable electricity equivalent to all the power used by its data centers and facilities worldwide. Apple achieved a similar benchmark in April, and other companies are hoping to follow suit.
But, as Google itself readily acknowledges, this doesn’t mean that the company is truly powered by 100 percent renewable energy. In many cases, its wind and solar farms operate in different regions (or different countries) than the company’s data centers do. What’s more, the wind and solar farms it has procured don’t provide steady power 24 hours a day, whereas Google’s data centers run around the clock. That means the company is essentially still reliant on fossil fuels to keep the broader grid running.
For its next phase, Google wants to locate all of its clean-energy projects in the same grid regions as its data centers, even though that will mean prodding policymakers in places like Taiwan to overhaul electricity markets and allow companies to make direct purchases. Google is also trying to figure out how to assemble a suite of zero-carbon energy sources that can run 24 hours a day, which may require additional technologies like battery storage, demand response programs or even nuclear power.
But achieving that goal will take years, and is likely to be far more complicated than simply signing renewable energy contracts.
“Reaching 100 percent renewable energy is an important milestone, but it’s just the beginning,” said Michael Terrell, head of energy market strategy at Google. “We have to keep our eyes on the ultimate prize, which is to enable carbon free power in every hour of every day.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/climate/companies-renewable-energy.html

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Attorneys General Sue EPA, Claiming Illegal Delay of Landfill Regulation

Jun 1, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Miranda Green

Nine state attorneys general (AG) filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency late Thursday alleging the agency is breaking the law by failing to enforce landfill methane regulations.
The regulation at issue is a 2016 guideline developed to help solid waste landfills reduce emissions. While the guideline went into effect in October 2016, the Trump administration has since delayed the rule, saying it will instead complete a reconsideration of it by the spring of 2020.
The attorneys general say the multi-year delay is a violation of the Clean Air Act.
"We will not turn a blind eye as he illegally refuses to implement this critical landfill methane regulation,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a statement. “Climate change is the most important global environmental issue of our time. We must act to address it now for the sake of our children.”
Other states joining the lawsuit include Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Landfills are the third largest source of human related methane emissions in the country. The AGs argue that the regulation not only helps to cut the pollution but also the stench in neighboring communities.
The suit is the second filed against EPA this week. Becerra and 16 other state AGs also sued EPA Wednesday over suspended safeguards for agricultural workers handling pesticides.
California has taken the lead in challenging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's regulatory rollbacks dealing largely with pollution and climate change.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/390249-attorneys-general-sue-epa-over-methane-regulations

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Two Clean Energy Buildings Bills Moving Forward in CA

Jun 1, 2018 | Natural Resources Defense Council

By Pierre Delforge

Two bills that will cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution from homes and commercial buildings just moved forward in the California Legislature. The Senate approved SB 1477 by Senator Stern on Wednesday and the Assembly passed AB 3232 by Assemblymember Friedman yesterday. Each bill now moves on to the other house for committee hearings and a final vote by the end of August.
These bills address a gap in California’s policies to mitigate the impacts of climate change and to clean up the air in a state that sees some of the worst air pollution in the country. For example, 93 percent of Californians still live in areas that exceed the federal limits for ozone pollution. And the building sector as a whole is responsible for a quarter of California’s GHG emissions.
A large share of those emissions come from furnaces and water heaters, most of them burning fossil fuels like natural gas and propane. Clean technologies for space and water heating exist, such as super-efficient electric heat pumps, but they currently have a low market share in California.
These clean heating technologies have the potential to significantly reduce utility bills. However, they often cost more upfront today, in large part because they are still a new technology like solar panels were 20 years ago.
Senate Bill 1477 would create two new programs to develop the market for low-emissions new building construction, and for emerging clean heating technologies. Just as California has done with solar, SB 1477 spurs early market development for clean heating technologies with the aim to lower technology costs and enable mass market adoption. SB 1477 will enable Californians to choose clean and affordable heating technologies when they next replace their furnace or water heater, or buy a new home.
Assembly Bill 3232 would require the California Energy Commission to assess the potential for the state to reduce emissions from buildings by 40 percent by 2030 below 1990, in line with the state’s goal for the entire economy. In spite of major progress such as the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015 and the building energy code that was recently updated to require zero-net electricity on new homes by 2020, there is still a significant gap to achieve this goal in the building sector. The first step to bridging this gap is to identify key options and policies to achieve this target in residential and commercial buildings. The assessment will inform future state policy and ensure Californians get the best deal for their wallets, health, and kids’ future.
These two policies are foundational to ensure Californians have the opportunity to choose clean and affordable heat and hot water, while cleaning up California’s air and helping the Golden State lead the nation and the world toward a clean and affordable energy future.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/pierre-delforge/two-clean-energy-buildings-bills-moving-forward-ca

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