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AM ACC 6/7/2018

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Corker Introduces 232 Tariff Bill with Bipartisan, Business Backing
Jun 7, 2018 | Inside US Trade
By Anshu Siripurapu

With bipartisan support and the backing of major business groups, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) on Wednesday introduced legislation that would compel the president to obtain congressional approval before imposing Section 232 tariffs.
(ACC Mentioned) Europe Says 232 Retaliation Coming in July; Mexico Unveils Its Tariff List
Jun 7, 2018 | Inside US Trade
By Anshu Siripurapu

The European Union plans to move forward with its full list of retaliatory tariffs in response to the U.S. Section 232 steel and aluminum duties, with the first phase of levies on roughly $3.3 billion of U.S. goods coming in July, the European Commission announced Wednesday.
(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals Makers Worry About Collateral Damage From Steel Tariffs (1)
Jun 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington

U.S. plans for tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from the European Union, Mexico, and Canada are bad news for U.S. chemical and petrochemical companies, which are experiencing an unprecedented building boom.
(ACC Mentioned) Many Factors Discourage New Styrene Plants in US, EU
Jun 6, 2018 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood

Several factors are discouraging companies from adding new styrene capacity in the US or in Europe, the CEO of Trinseo said.
(ACC Mentioned) Clariant’s Deepak Parikh to Join American Chemistry Council Board of Directors
Jun 6, 2018 | APN News

Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, today announced that Deepak Parikh, Clariant’s Region President of North America, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
(ACC Mentioned) Trade Groups in Turmoil in the Trump Era
Jun 7, 2018 |
By Kate Ackley

When Pamela Bailey, who heads the Grocery Manufacturers Association, announced in February that she will leave her $3 million-a-year gig, it came as no shock.
Republicans Losing Patience with Scandal-Scarred Pruitt
Jun 6, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Anthony Adragna and Emily Holden

Republicans on Capitol Hill are growing frustrated with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt — and many are now publicly questioning whether he can hang on to his job amid the unending stream of scandals.
Two of Scott Pruitt’s Closest Aides, Also Facing Scrutiny, Are Leaving EPA
Jun 6, 2018 | Washington Post
By Brady Dennis, Josh Dawsey and Juliet Eilperin

Two of Scott Pruitt’s most trusted aides have given notice that they are leaving the Environmental Protection Agency as its embattled administrator faces growing scrutiny over his spending and management decisions, according to current and former agency officials...

LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) Industry Calls for Tiered Fees for TSCA Risk Evaluation
Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin

Industry groups have called on the US EPA to modify its "relatively simplistic" proposed fees for conducting TSCA risk evaluations. The fees, they say, should more accurately reflect the costs of the assessments.
(ACC Mentioned) Donald Trump Called Asbestos Poisoning a Mob-Led Conspiracy, Now His EPA Won’t Evaluate Asbestos Already in Homes
Jun 7, 2018 | Newsweek
By Nicole Goodkind

The Environmental Protection Agency will not consider the health risks and impacts of asbestos already in the environment when evaluating the dangers associated with the chemical compound, Scott Pruitt quietly announced last week.
EPA 'Narrowing' Scope of First Ten TSCA Risk Evaluations
Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie Miller

The US EPA has made it clear it does not intend to evaluate exposure routes it considers adequately regulated under other laws. This narrows the scope of the assessments of the first ten substances subject to risk evaluation under the amended TSCA.
Snur Would Ban New Use of Asbestos in the US
Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Julie Miller

The US EPA has announced it will propose a significant new use rule (Snur) to prevent industry from freely initiating new uses of asbestos, or resuming applications abandoned after the substance's connection to mesothelioma and lung cancer was established.

Chemical Management News

IRIS Poised to Restart Stalled Studies on Arsenic, Cr6 Under New Schedule
| Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad

EPA's influential Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program is slated to release new protocols for its long-running assessments of the human health risks of arsenic and hexavalent chromium (Cr6) -- two ubiquitous and potent contaminants...
Senate to Vote on Victims Registry Bill for Foam Contaminant
Jun 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz

The Senate is poised to vote on an annual defense authorization bill that would, among other measures, create a registry of people exposed to perfluorinated chemicals on military bases.
At Industry’s Behest, EPA Caves on Banning ‘A Civil Action’ Carcinogen, Lays Ground to Downplay Potential Birth Defects
Jun 7, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Melanie Benesh

After intense lobbying by the chemical industry, last week the Environmental Protection Agency signaled plans to delay or scrap proposed bans on some uses of the drinking water contaminant made notorious by the book and film “A Civil Action.”
What’s in Your Product? N.Y. to Require Chemical Disclosure
Jun 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman

S.C. Johnson & Son Inc., Unilever, Procter & Gamble Co., and other manufacturers of household cleaners will have just over a year before they must disclose the chemical ingredients and other information about their products in New York state.
Cosmetics Giant L'oréal Commits to Disclosing Fragrance Ingredients
Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell

French personal care brand L'Oréal has announced plans to disclose some of the fragrance ingredients in its products.
US EPA Received 17 Pre-Manufacture Notices in February
Jun 6, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The US EPA received 17 new pre-manufacture notices (PMNs) in February, and recorded ten amendments to existing PMNs.
REACH Registered Substances Total ‘Worse Than Expected’ – Ueapme
Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton

The number of substances registered under all three REACH deadlines is "worse than expected", according to European SMEs trade body Ueapme.
Brexit Showing ‘Little Impact’ on 2018 REACH Registrations – Hansen
Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton

Registration figures under the 2018 REACH deadline show there is "no indication" that UK companies are not fulfilling their obligations under the Regulation, Echa head Bjorn Hansen said.
Survey Shows Decline in Consumers Reading On-Pack Information
Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell

European soap and detergents trade body, Aise, is calling for cleaning product labels to be simplified, following its consumer behaviour survey which claims fewer people are reading information on packaging.
EU Criteria for Identifying EDCs Under BPR Take Effect
Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The European Union’s agreed criteria for identifying endocrine disruptors under the biocidal products Regulation (BPR) come into effect today.

Energy News

Republicans Seek to Blunt NEPA in Latest Push for More Drilling
Jun 7, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bobby Magill

House Republicans continued efforts to weaken a major environmental law during a hearing June 6 on bills meant to streamline fossil fuel permits and development on federal land.
Bottlenecks, Shmottlenecks, Permian Activity and Investments Still Strong
Jun 6, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis

The Permian Basin may be facing oil and natural gas pipeline bottlenecks, as well as a dearth of supplies and labor, but that has not stopped activity levels and investments from increasing, particularly by private operators.
Oil Lobby Looks to Drum up Support for Southeast Leasing
Jun 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson

The American Petroleum Institute is formally launching a coalition of business and government leaders to drum up support for oil and gas leasing along the U.S. southeastern coast.
Bill to Protect Legacy Oil, Natural Gas Producers Passes Pennsylvania House
Jun 7, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin

A Republican-sponsored bill introduced in the Pennsylvania House earlier this year to update the state’s Oil and Gas Act of 1984 to clarify language and address the current challenges facing conventional producers has passed and now moves to the Senate for consideration.

Chemical Security News

Bill to Bolster Grid Defense Advances in House
Jun 7, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Blake Sobczak

The House Homeland Security Committee advanced legislation yesterday to bolster the Department of Homeland Security's role defending the power grid from hackers.
White House Challenges FERC on Grid Security
Jun 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr

The Department of Energy's national security policy proposal to guarantee business for money-losing coal and nuclear power plants directly challenges the authority of the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, responsible for safeguarding the nation's power supply, energy lawyers agree.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Politico Pro New York: SSchumer Pushes for Federal Standards as Oil by Rail Shipments Tick Upward
Jun 6, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Marie J. French

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer today called on the federal government to develop safety standards to reduce the volatility of crude oil shipped by rail through New York state.

Environment News

D.C. Circuit Sets July 31 Deadline for EPA Ozone Designations Report
Jun 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman

S.C. Johnson & Son Inc., Unilever, Procter & Gamble Co., and other manufacturers of household cleaners will have just over a year before they must disclose the chemical ingredients and other information about their products in New York state.
California Votes With Wallet to Address Climate Change
Jun 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joyce E. Cutler

California voters—especially in the San Francisco Bay Area—showed a willingness to dig into their wallets to support measures aiming to improve the region’s water and air quality and address future climate issues.
Hawaii Working With California Toward Carbon Neutrality Goal
Jun 7, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David McAfee

Hawaii is in talks to join California’s carbon offset program, a move the Aloha State said will help achieve its goal to become carbon neutral by 2045.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Corker Introduces 232 Tariff Bill with Bipartisan, Business Backing

Jun 7, 2018 | Inside US Trade

By Anshu Siripurapu

With bipartisan support and the backing of major business groups, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) on Wednesday introduced legislation that would compel the president to obtain congressional approval before imposing Section 232 tariffs.
Inside U.S. Trade reported on Tuesday that Corker was planning to introduce the legislation and eyed the National Defense Authorization Act as a vehicle to attach his bill.
“While we all agree on the need to ensure the international trade system is fair for American workers, companies and consumers, unfortunately, the administration is abusing the Section 232 authority delegated to the president by Congress,” Corker said in a June 6 statement. “Making claims regarding national security to justify what is inherently an economic question not only harms the very people we all want to help and impairs relations with our allies but also could invite our competitors to retaliate.”
U.S. allies and trading partners including Canada, Mexico and the European Union have announced retaliation against the U.S. over its Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. Mexico’s levies went into effect on Tuesday while Canada and Europe’s are expected next month. Multiple countries have filed World Trade Organization disputes over the U.S. duties as well. The Trump administration has maintained that the duties are necessary to ensure the domestic industry’s ability to supply future military demand for the metals.
But Corker said if Trump “truly believes invoking Section 232 is necessary to protect the United States from a genuine threat, he should make the case to Congress and to the American people and do the hard work necessary to secure congressional approval.”
Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Mark Warner (D-VA), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) introduced the legislation along with Corker.
“Our bipartisan bill would make sure Congress has a key oversight role if a president imposes tariffs under the claim of national security reasons,” Heitkamp said in a statement. “Right now, the president is implementing tariffs on our allies, like Canada, Mexico, and the EU -- countries that don’t pose national security threats but which are critical trading partners for North Dakota.”
“Huge economic policy decisions like tariffs shouldn’t be taken lightly, and Congress should serve as a needed check to make sure we aren’t losing out in the end,” she added.
Van Hollen, who successfully attached an amendment to the defense bill that would prevent Trump from unwinding sanctions on Chinese telecom giant ZTE, said “Ensuring American businesses, consumers, and workers get a fair deal when it comes to trade is crucial -- there’s no doubt that we need to crack down on China for its efforts to prey on American technology. But misusing Section 232 to levy tariffs on our allies is risky and will hurt American consumers.”
Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said “For too long Congress has ceded important policymaking authority to the executive branch on a wide range of issues. It’s time for Congress to reclaim its constitutional authorities on tariffs to ensure we don’t undermine the significant economic progress we have made over the last 18 months.”
Lee has introduced his own bill to rein in the executive branch’s trade authority that is also backed by Toomey. Corker said Tuesday that he supported Lee’s efforts but believed his bill was more targeted and would be easier to pass.
“While our trade agreements do need reform, that reform should be accomplished with congressional approval, not through unilateral executive action that could harm the economy,” Lee said on Wednesday in support of Corker’s bill.
Major U.S. business groups swiftly announced their support. “The U.S. business and agriculture community is profoundly concerned about how newly imposed tariffs -- and the inevitable foreign retaliation arriving in the next few weeks -- will lead to lost American jobs,” Neil Bradley, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s executive vice president and chief policy officer, said in a statement.
“This emerging trade war endangers the remarkable economic progress we’ve seen in the past year. The constitutional authority of the Congress to ‘regulate foreign trade’ and its oversight of tariff policy is unambiguous. This modest proposal to clarify congressional prerogatives is welcome and long overdue,” Bradley added.
American Chemistry Council President and CEO Cal Dooley also applauded Corker’s bill, warning of the consequences of retaliation over the metal 232 tariffs as well as potential tariffs stemming from the 232 investigation into autos and auto parts.
“Levying tariffs and inciting retaliation from our most important trading partners is not the vision for prosperity that a majority of Americans and American businesses share,” Dooley said in a statement. “We encourage congress and the president to use this opportunity to work together to pursue a more constructive, multilateral approach to trade negotiations that representatives from all sides can support.”
National Retail Federation Senior Vice President for Government Relations David French said “It’s time for Congress to exert its authority and play a leading role in mitigating escalating trade tensions with our strongest allies.”
According to multiple press reports, President Trump called Corker on Wednesday morning urging him to abandon the effort.
“He feels that this takes away his negotiating ability,” Corker said, according to USA Today. “And this in no way takes away his negotiating ability.”
“I’m a United States senator and I have responsibilities and I’m going to continue to carry them out,” Corker added.
https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/corker-introduces-232-tariff-bill-bipartisan-business-backing

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(ACC Mentioned) Europe Says 232 Retaliation Coming in July; Mexico Unveils Its Tariff List

Jun 7, 2018 | Inside US Trade

By Anshu Siripurapu

The European Union plans to move forward with its full list of retaliatory tariffs in response to the U.S. Section 232 steel and aluminum duties, with the first phase of levies on roughly $3.3 billion of U.S. goods coming in July, the European Commission announced Wednesday.
The College of Commissioners on Wednesday gave its approval to impose the entire list of tariffs the EU submitted to the World Trade Organization and expects to conclude coordination procedures with EU member states by the end of June so the duties can begin in July, according to a Commission press release.
“This is a measured and proportionate response to the unilateral and illegal decision taken by the United States to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports,” said EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström. “What's more, the EU's reaction is fully in line with international trade law. We regret that the United States left us with no other option than to safeguard EU interests.”
The EU claims the WTO Safeguards Agreement allows Europe to impose about $7.5 billion in rebalancing measures on the U.S., corresponding to the level of EU exports affected by the U.S. tariffs. After the initial $3.3 billion in duties in July, the EU will impose the remaining $4.2 billion “in three years' time or after a positive finding in WTO dispute settlement if that should come sooner.”
Mexico, meanwhile, on Tuesday unveiled its own list of retaliatory tariffs in response to the U.S. 232 tariffs. Like the EU, Mexico also claims that the U.S. actions are safeguards despite the U.S.’ national security justification, which Mexico says violates both WTO rules and NAFTA’s Chapter Eight on Emergency Measures.
Mexico’s chief NAFTA negotiator, Kenneth Smith Ramos, said on Twitter on Tuesday that the Mexican response was “responsible and proportional, & always in accordance with our international trade commitments. Respecting the multilateral trading system is the recipe for success.”
The Mexican list targets steel products and a host of agricultural goods including pork, drawing an immediate reaction from the U.S. agriculture industry.
“These tariffs will exact immediate and painful consequences on many American farmers,” Farmers for Free Trade Deputy Director Angela Hofmann said in a statement Tuesday. “Hog, apple, potato and dairy farmers are among those suddenly facing a 10 or 20 percent tax hike on the exports they depend of for their livelihoods. Farmers need certainty and open markets to make ends meet. Right now they are getting chaos and protectionism.”
Hofmann said the Mexican market has been a “windfall” for American farmers, noting that exports to the U.S.’ southern neighbor have increased five-fold over the past 25 years.
“Escalating trade tensions that have resulted in today’s tariffs put that growth at risk,” she said. “These are self-inflicted wounds. Farmers deserve better.”
The National Pork Producers Council on Tuesday said the Mexican tariffs would be “devastating.”
Other industries have also warned of the effects of retaliation and higher input costs as a result of the 232 tariffs. The American Chemistry Council on Wednesday said $3.2 billion in U.S. chemical exports have been targeted for tariffs, including from Canada and the EU.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Monday maintained that the administration was looking to shield farmers from the consequences of its trade policy.
“The president has said that he wants to help protect farmers, and we're looking at a number of different ways to do that. And we're going to continue that throughout this process,” she said.
Republican senators, including Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS), have panned such a plan, and Roberts has said it would be both extremely costly and difficult to implement. Roberts said last week that senators told Trump “We don’t need aid, we want trade.”
Kevin Hassett, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, on Tuesday refused to say whether higher tariffs would depress the U.S. economy.
“We expect that this is going to work out well and that we're going to get fair trade deals,” Hassett said.
But Hassett also said the 232 tariffs were not just a negotiating tactic. “I reject the view that it's a negotiating tactic purely,” he said. “For example, that the steel tariffs were put in place as a national security concern. The president is the commander-in-chief. He's supposed to make those judgments in a time of where we need to be able to produce steel.”
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), who believes Trump is abusing his 232 authorities, is pushing legislation that would require congressional approval before duties can be imposed. He is eyeing the National Defense Authorization Act as a vehicle for his bill.
https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/europe-says-232-retaliation-coming-july-mexico-unveils-its-tariff-list

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(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals Makers Worry About Collateral Damage From Steel Tariffs (1)

Jun 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Adam Allington

U.S. plans for tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from the European Union, Mexico, and Canada are bad news for U.S. chemical and petrochemical companies, which are experiencing an unprecedented building boom.
According to the American Chemistry Council, eight major ethane refinery projects are under construction, a figure that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
Martha Moore, senior director for policy analysis and economics at the American Chemistry Council, said the 25 percent levy on imported steel and 10 percent for aluminum means costs for new refinery projects could now go way up.
“We’ve had more than $194 billion dollars of investment on new chemical industry projects in this country since 2010, with another $87 billion in the planning stages,” Moore said.
It takes roughly 18,500 tons of steel to build a new ethane cracker, according to ACC.
“Imagine taking an $87 billion project and just adding an extra 25 percent to the cost—that’s the risk behind these steel tariffs,” Moore said.
Ethane crackers are typically very large industrial plants that take ethane, a component of natural gas, and heat it so hot it “cracks” into ethylene. Ethylene is the chemical building block used in everything from plastic bottles to textiles and construction materials and cars.
Increased Costs for Chemical-Based Products
It’s not often that industries as disparate as oil and gas, household products, and beer face a common challenge, but nothing unites strange bedfellows as much as talk of a trade war.
In addition to higher prices for construction, chemical makers claim that retaliatory countermeasures from U.S. trading partners would lead to higher prices on a range of products and hurt industrial demand.
“We already know that the Canadian counter-tariffs released last week will target a range of consumer products including scented candles, room deodorizers, insect repellent, dishwasher detergents and finished aluminum products, which would include aerosol cans,” said Owen Caine, executive vice president of government relations at the Household and Commercial Products Association.
In a statement provided to Bloomberg Environment, Caine said the association is working with the Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association to safeguard pesticides and insect repellents, which are a first line of defense against vector-borne diseases such as Lyme disease and West Nile virus.
“We are also reviewing the restrictions released by Mexico today for additional impacts and will continue to work with the domestic and international business community to put an end to the start of this trade war.”
Mexico is slapping a duty on imports of U.S. farm products—including 25 percent on certain cheese products, steel, and bourbon, while imposing taxes of 20 percent on pork, apples, and potatoes.
Calls for Canada to Be Exempt
The inclusion of Canada on the list of countries being saddled import tariffs has prompted criticism even from those who generally support the tariffs.
The United Steelworkers union, which worked with the administration to develop its policy on steel trade, expressed disappointment that Canada is subject to the tariffs.
“Our history shows that there is no stronger ally and partner on national security than Canada,” the union said in a May 31 statement . “Today’s decision is wrongheaded and erodes the certainty companies need to conduct operations and invest in the future.”
The Canadian government published its “notice of intent” to retaliate against the U.S. on May 31. The goods identified in the notice will be subject to either a 10 percent or 25 percent tariff or some other trade-restrictive measure. These countermeasures will take effect on July 1, 2018, and will remain in place until the U.S. eliminates its trade-restrictive measures against Canada, the government said.
According to updated trade data provided to Bloomberg Environment from ACC, the total value of the U.S. exports covered in the list of proposed Canadian tariffs is approximately $12.8 billion, of which about 20 percent is related to U.S. exports of chemical and plastics products.
Specifically, 15 chemicals and plastics products were included and U.S. exports of those products to Canada in 2017 were valued at $2.5 billion. “U.S. exports of herbicides represent about 35 percent of the $2.5 billion total,” according to ACC.
“Canada is an important export market for the herbicides that will face tariff or other trade-restrictive barriers,” the Council said. “Approximately half of all U.S. exports to the world of these herbicides are sold to partners in Canada.”
Chemical Sector Still Strong, Despite Tariffs
While talk of trade wars looms, the domestic chemicals industry still has several major advantages that remain in place. Foremost among them is the unprecedented supply of cheap shale gas.
“That is the primary advantage, which allows all these companies access to the cheapest, most competitively priced chemical feedstocks in the world,” said Sandy Fielden, director of research for oil and refined products at Morningstar Inc., an investment research and management company.
Fielden told Bloomberg Environment that most of the refineries and chemical processing plants being planned are the kind of investments that aren’t expected to pay out quickly.
“Because of that, I can’t really see too many companies saying, ‘We’re going to cancel all these plants just because the costs of steel went up.’ These are long term investments,” he said.
Speaking on Fox News June 6, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said President Donald Trump might try to strike separate trade deals with Mexico and Canada, rather than continue trying to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“His preference now—and he asked me to convey this—is to actually negotiate with Mexico and Canada separately,” Kudlow said. “He prefers bilateral negotiations.”
(Updates with new trade data from ACC)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemicals-makers-worry-about-collateral-damage-from-steel-tariffs-1

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(ACC Mentioned) Many Factors Discourage New Styrene Plants in US, EU

Jun 6, 2018 | ICIS

By Al Greenwood

Several factors are discouraging companies from adding new styrene capacity in the US or in Europe, the CEO of Trinseo said.
Styrene margins for the industry have recovered, but so far, only INEOS Styrolution is considering a new styrene plant in North America or Europe. It will commission an engineering study for a world-scale styrene monomer (SM) plant on the US Gulf Coast.
The other styrene producers have not announced any plans. Trinseo itself has been emphatic. It has no plans to build any styrene capacity, either by itself or through its AmSty joint venture.
Trinseo CEO Chris Pappas gave several reasons on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
Although styrene margins have recovered, they are still not consistently high enough to support investing in new capacity, he said.
The major producers of styrene monomer have recently completed a long process of restructuring the industry and shutting down plants, he said.
In the US, the country is already a net exporter of styrene, so there is no local need for new capacity, he said. If any new capacity is added in the country, much of it would be exported.
Were a producer to build a plant in the US, it would still need to earn a large enough profit to justify the investment after paying for the expenses involved with exporting much of the plant's capacity and importing benzene, he said. Although the US is long on styrene, it is short on benzene and needs to import it.
On the demand side for styrene, Trinseo expects it to grow by 2.3% annually because the monomer's derivatives are used in a wide variety of markets.
These derivatives include solution styrene butadiene rubber (SSBR), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and styrene acrylonitrile as well as polystyrene (PS).
SSBR is helping companies produce better performing tyres, allowing automobiles to meet stricter fuel efficiency standards.
Likewise, ABS and other resins are making vehicles weigh less, which also makes them more fuel efficient.
Fuel efficiency is becoming more important as automobile producers plan to develop electric vehicles, said Tim Stedman, senior vice president. Batteries limit the range of these automobiles, so any weight savings will let them travel farther on a charge.
In medical applications, styrenics polymers can be used in polycarbonate (PC) and ABS blends that can withstand multiple sterilisation cycles, Stedman said.
Electronics are yet another end market.
The ACC Annual Meeting ends on Wednesday.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/06/06/10228648/many-factors-discourage-new-styrene-plants-in-us-eu/

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(ACC Mentioned) Clariant’s Deepak Parikh to Join American Chemistry Council Board of Directors

Jun 6, 2018 | APN News

Clariant, a world leader in specialty chemicals, today announced that Deepak Parikh, Clariant’s Region President of North America, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Parikh was approved to serve on the Board of Directors during the ACC Annual Meeting in Colorado Springs (CO), for a term from January 1, 2019 until December 31, 2021.
“I am proud to join the ACC’s Board of Directors and appreciate this opportunity to align further with our industry colleagues in the United States,” said Deepak Parikh, Clariant’s Region President of North America. “I look forward to working with the ACC leadership to ensure the chemical industry continues building its reputation and achieving sustainable success in the U.S.”
The American Chemistry Council represents the diverse set of companies that make up the $768 billion enterprise that is the chemistry business in North America. The council is committed to working on solving some of the biggest challenges facing our nation and our world by advocating for public policies that support the creation of groundbreaking products to improve lives, protect our environment and enhance the economic vitality of communities.
With more than 50 sites, over 2,400 employees and a turnover of around $1.25 billion across the US and Canada, Clariant has already established itself as a significant specialty chemicals player in North America. By 2021, the company expects that North America will be its second-largest global market due to a cross-business growth strategy that includes advancing its R&D competencies, investments to further increase both its manufacturing footprint and technical capabilities, and the leveraging of shale gas opportunities. Clariant’s three R&D and six technical innovation centers based from California to North Carolina and from Texas to Illinois – along with its leading university partnerships – are the backbones of this growth strategy.
Parikh joined Clariant’s North American region as Region President and chief executive officer of both Clariant Corporation and Clariant Canada Inc. in July 2017. Parikh, a U.S. citizen, most recently served as Clariant’s Region President for India, Midde East Africa as well as vice chairman and managing director of Clariant Chemicals (India) Limited. During the previous two decades, he worked with Dow Chemical and DuPont in the USA and Asia where he held various global and regional leadership roles in research and development, commercial and business development functions.
https://www.apnnews.com/clariants-deepak-parikh-to-join-american-chemistry-council-board-of-directors/

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(ACC Mentioned) Trade Groups in Turmoil in the Trump Era

Jun 7, 2018 |

By Kate Ackley

When Pamela Bailey, who heads the Grocery Manufacturers Association, announced in February that she will leave her $3 million-a-year gig, it came as no shock. After all, the lobbying group had in the past year lost some of its biggest members, including candy-maker Mars Inc. and Tyson Foods, the world’s second-largest producer of chicken, beef and pork.
The organization is undergoing a “reinvention,” in the words of its spokesman Roger Lowe, and this week tapped Geoff Freeman, who runs the American Gaming Association, as its next CEO. The group will move from its downtown Washington headquarters into a smaller space across the river in the Rosslyn section of Arlington.
The turmoil at GMA, though unique in its magnitude, is hardly an isolated event as trade associations, traditionally the backbone of K Street’s lobbying corridor, find themselves in the throes of disruption.
These multimillion-dollar organizations are clamoring for ways to boost membership, and sometimes even keep their doors open, as they work to stay relevant amid the political and policy uncertainty of Washington during the era of President Donald Trump.
“There are some organizations struggling with advocacy with this new administration,” said JP Moery, the founder and president of The Moery Company, which offers management advice to some of the nation’s best-known trade associations. “The old playbook may need to be updated for this administration and moving forward.”
Associations and member organizations offer companies and professionals a platform to push policy proposals under one voice, and give their dues-paying members access to networking, continuing education and even, in some cases, involvement in a political action committee.
But with overlap among multiple groups, some companies are applying a critical eye as they evaluate the benefit of their dues, which can top $1 million a year for big companies at a major trade group like America’s Health Insurance Plans or the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA.
“Members have choice,” said K Street recruiter Leslie Hortum, who manages the Washington office of global search firm Spencer Stuart and did the GMA search. “There’s hardly an association search I’ve done in the last few years where the conversation didn’t lead to ‘Can’t we consolidate?’ ‘Can’t we merge?’ ‘Why are there four associations in this same space?’”
“I do feel that the pressure on association leaders to consistently and, in a compelling way, create a value proposition that really gets those members to say, ‘I can’t afford not to be there,’ is just hard,” she added.
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The current political environment, mired in unpredictability since Trump took office and even more so in an election year, has helped spur big changes at some of the country’s most iconic associations, including those representing food manufacturers, big banks, oil companies, health insurers, wine and spirits, and nonalcoholic beverages.Help wanted
A number of high-profile, highly paid association chiefs have left or are on their way out, while some groups have lost significant members or are folding into other organizations — a sign that associations feel the dual storm of political turmoil and increasing pressure from their membership.
“Some of it is driven by the change in the political environment,” said Juanita Duggan, CEO of the NFIB, an association of small businesses, who has spent most of the past three decades at the helm of various trade groups including the American Apparel & Footwear Association.
“Running a trade association is a lot harder than it looks on the outside,” she added. “You’ve got a lot of competing interests. ... There’s always a lot of internal struggle, it’s just a question of how you bridge those divides, and remain highly relevant to the debate.”
NFIB went through a leadership change when it tapped Duggan in 2016. By contrast, some of Washington’s best-paying trade association leadership jobs are up for grabs right now.
Bailey is leaving the Grocery Manufacturers Association, while Freeman’s arrival at GMA opens a vacancy at the gaming group. Former Rep. Cal Dooley is retiring from the American Chemistry Council. Craig Wolf is exiting the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America to run for office in Maryland.
Susan Neely is leaving the American Beverage Association for the American Council of Life Insurers, where Dirk Kempthorne, a former U.S. senator, Idaho governor and Cabinet secretary, is departing after eight years at the helm. AHIP has tapped Matt Eyles to take over for Marilyn Tavenner, a former Obama administration official who’s leaving this month.
And the American Petroleum Institute, the chief lobbying arm of the oil and gas industry, recently tapped Mike Sommers, once an aide to ex-Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, to be its chief executive. Sommers will succeed Jack Gerard, who steered the powerful trade group for the past decade as the price of oil went up and down.
The list goes on.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it, where all these jobs have come open,” said lobbyist Sam Geduldig, a partner in the CGCN Group, which lobbies on behalf of companies and industry groups, including the Financial Services Roundtable.
“There’s this sense I get from talking to clients that Washington is so unpredictable and all the money in the world doesn’t make it more predictable. That said, these companies are really reluctant to vacate the playing field,” he adds. “Companies are looking at what’s the right amount of being invested in Washington? What’s the right amount of engagement?”loak of anonymity
Trade associations, like all big businesses, have the overhead of a bureaucracy and the challenge of getting members to agree on policy priorities. They also play a crucial role that has taken on new importance with Trump in the White House: They can push for or against specific proposals while giving their membership some anonymity — like a cloak of safety-in-numbers at a time when the president has routinely called out specific companies on Twitter or in public remarks.
The president’s focus against some corporations offers a tangible sign that the modern Republican Party, historically aligned with business interests, is no longer the old Chamber of Commerce GOP. And getting what an industry wants out of Washington is not as simple as writing a check.
Some groups are looking to update their ranks for the new order.
“The world of association management is changing, and associations have become big business,” said Ivan Adler, a K Street headhunter. “And those that lead them have to have a different skill set than they did in the past. Recruiting and retaining members is of critical import.”
Top association management jobs in the past have often gone to former lawmakers like Dooley and Kempthorne, who are valued for who they know on Capitol Hill or in the administration and their ability to navigate Washington.
Julian Ha, a lobbyist recruiter at Heidrick & Struggles, said that may happen less today. People who have already managed an association may make for more appealing job candidates, he adds, as was the case with Freeman as well as with Neely, whom he helped place at his client ACLI after she spent more than a decade with the beverage association.
“There is the continued professionalization of association management,” Ha said. “The former member, and the recent member is not the immediate go-to, as they may have been once.”
Some of the job openings at associations are the result of longtime chiefs reaching retirement age, which can have a domino effect as search committees look for experienced association professionals to fill vacancies.
But as companies consolidate, membership in an association can shrink, and that can put revenue in jeopardy with a trade group. Some corporate chiefs have leaned on their lobbying groups to consolidate.
“They’re asking, ‘Hey, is the juice worth the squeeze at all these different groups that may be working on the same things?’” said Moery, whose 8-year-old firm’s business was sufficiently strong that it sponsored an Indy 500 race car this year.
In some cases, the answer is no.
Mars, whose brands include M&M’s, Snickers and Uncle Ben’s, and Tyson Foods are among the 10 member companies that departed the Grocery Manufacturers Association in the past year.
The lobbying group reported total revenue of $35.7 million in 2016, according to IRS forms, down from the prior year’s $ 38.3 million.
The remaining member companies, such as Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo, want a strong lobbying voice on Capitol Hill and inside the executive branch as well as a platform for industry players to meet and discuss their common concerns, spokesman Lowe said. Membership dues provide the biggest part of the group’s annual revenue.
“We believe and hope that once we’ve got the clear direction and path forward for the evolved and reinvented GMA, that some of the companies that did not renew their dues for 2018 will come back,” Lowe adds.
It may be a tough sell.
Brad Figel, the top in-house lobbyist at Mars, said departing GMA was not an easy decision after more than four decades in the association. But disputes over food labeling, climate change and other policies made membership not worth the dues — or the time, he said.
Instead, Mars has stepped up its involvement in niche groups, such as the National Confectioners Association and USA Rice, and focuses on aligning with like-minded companies to push specific policy proposals.
“Instead of getting locked in to a trade association for years and years,” the companies can move on separately or to another issue, Figel said. “I just think it’s much more effective. It allows you to be much more efficient and nimble in your advocacy.”
Dooley, a centrist Democrat who has been at the helm of the American Chemistry Council since 2008, said building coalitions is a role that existing groups should not cede to impromptu affiliations.
“Associations are recognizing that we have to do a better job of building broad-based coalitions that can demonstrate the breadth and scope of the constituencies that would benefit from a particular policy that Congress could act upon,” said Dooley, who will depart at year’s end.
The council, which reported total revenue of $121.5 million in 2016 tax forms, counts Dow Chemical, BASF Corp. and Honeywell among its members. The trade association recently reduced its dues by nearly 44 percent by focusing on lobbying and cutting programs that Dooley said “weren’t showing a return of advancing our core mission of advocacy.”
During his 10 years running the council, Dooley helped the industry through an update of a 1970s regulatory law for chemicals and other substances. With support from the industry group and environmental organizations, the Senate passed the measure by unanimous consent back in 2016.
While that landmark legislative effort happened before Trump took office, Dooley acknowledges that such a bipartisan accomplishment “would be very difficult” in today’s polarized politics.
In short, the work is getting harder, not easier.
Banding together
The Financial Services Roundtable — whose membership includes American Express, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — offers an example of association consolidation.
Tim Pawlenty announced earlier this year that he was walking away from his $2.7 million annual salary as the roundtable’s CEO to run again for governor of Minnesota, the job he held from January 2003 to January 2011. K Street expected the financial services group to put out a “help wanted” sign.
Instead, the membership pushed for something more common in corporate boardrooms: consolidation.
The roundtable will band together with another financial services industry group, the Clearing House Association, and the combined group will take on a new name, said Clearing House Association spokesman Sean Oblack. Greg Baer, who runs the Clearing House group, is expected to lead the new entity.
Despite the challenges — internal and external — for trade associations, veterans of this slice of the influence world see their business thriving.
“Associations are just a vital part of democracy,” said Neely, who recently chaired the American Society of Association Executives, a lobbying group for associations. “They will always be an important way to have impact on government decision-making, so I don’t see us going away at all.”
But, she said, “You just have to raise your game.”
https://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/trade-groups-turmoil-trump-era

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Republicans Losing Patience with Scandal-Scarred Pruitt

Jun 6, 2018 | PoliticoPro

By Anthony Adragna and Emily Holden

Republicans on Capitol Hill are growing frustrated with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt — and many are now publicly questioning whether he can hang on to his job amid the unending stream of scandals.
Several GOP lawmakers said their patience was running thin after this week's news that Pruitt sought to buy to buy a used mattress from the Trump Hotel and inquired about securing a Chick-fil-A franchise for his wife. And Pruitt's circle of confidantes inside the agency appeared to be shrinking as well, with two of his closest aides set to depart in the coming days.
“The constant drip needs to stop so the agency can get its footing and focus back,” House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) told reporters. “They’re doing some really good work in the environmental front, but this needs to stop.”
“Sometimes people get tripped up on other things besides the core mission, and I think that’s what you’re seeing,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told reporters.
Pruitt’s scheduler, Millan Hupp, is resigning following her interview by the House Oversight Committee during which she disclosed that she helped he boss find housing and inquired about purchasing a used mattress for him from the Trump International Hotel.
And his top legal counsel, Sarah Greenwalt, will also depart, according to sources. Both women had worked for Pruitt in the Oklahoma attorney general's office and both were among the staff that received raises that had been rejected by the White House.
"I think it's extremely fair to say her and Millan both are tired of the daily grind here," one EPA official said. "Everybody is painfully aware of that."
While acknowledging that President Donald Trump would ultimately make any decision about Pruitt's job, several Republicans indicated Pruitt’s support was waning in their conference.
“I’m not going to come down here, just because he happens to be a nominee of a president I support or a nominee from my party, and try to defend the indefensible,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “I thought that Mr. Pruitt would have learned his lesson.”
Kennedy added: “I said the same thing about Tom Price,” referring to Trump’s former HHS secretary who resigned after spending lavishly on military and private jets.
Trump reaffirmed his support for Pruitt on Wednesday when they participated in a briefing on the 2018 hurricane season with several Cabinet officials.
"EPA is doing really, really well," Trump said. "You know, somebody has to say that about you a little bit. You know that, Scott."
But even staunch Pruitt allies like Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said the mounting scandals had them rethinking their support.
“Some are true, some are not true. Whether he can weather the storm, I’m not sure,” Inhofe said. “The accusations are all troubling. They are.”
A few Republicans stood by Pruitt, arguing he’s been targeted by an environmental community and press corps eager to take him down.
“I like him,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said. “He is a target because he’s keeping the president’s campaign promises.”
But a more common view among GOP lawmakers was the collective stream of scandals were taking their toll and making Pruitt’s position untenable.
"Take a thousand cuts and [there's] not much energy left,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) told reporters.
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who leads the Energy and Commerce subcommittee overseeing EPA, joked he “can’t keep up” with the flood of allegations and said he’s concerned they haven’t stopped.
“These unforced errors are unforced errors,” he said. “I don’t like being asked all the time about this.”
But he raised a possible reason why Republicans weren’t abandoning Pruitt: getting a replacement confirmed by the Senate would be nearly impossible.
“Are you going to promise me we could even get an administrator?” he said. “I think that’s another concern.”
In a video posted by a Nexstar Wednesday, Pruitt defended his attempts to set his wife up with a Chick-fil-A franchise Wednesday, while the president reaffirmed his support in the administrator.
Pruitt said that his wife is "an entrepreneur herself" and that the pair loved the fast-food franchise. As he has in the past, Pruitt dismissed criticism of his behavior as being driven by opposition to the Trump administration's deregulatory policies.
"With great change comes, I think, opposition," he said in a clip the reporter posted to Twitter.
Pruitt did not directly address whether he had asked an EPA aide to reach out to Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy to inquire about his wife opening up her own restaurant, as the Washington Post first reported Tuesday.
"Chick-fil-A is a franchise of faith and it's one of the best in the country, so that was something we were very excited about," he told the Nextstar reporter Wednesday. "We need more of them in Tulsa, [Okla.]. We need more of them across the country."
Kelsey Tamborrino contributed to this report.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/06/republicans-losing-patience-with-scandal-scarred-pruitt-599048

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Two of Scott Pruitt’s Closest Aides, Also Facing Scrutiny, Are Leaving EPA

Jun 6, 2018 | Washington Post

By Brady Dennis, Josh Dawsey and Juliet Eilperin

Two of Scott Pruitt’s most trusted aides have given notice that they are leaving the Environmental Protection Agency as its embattled administrator faces growing scrutiny over his spending and management decisions, according to current and former agency officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel moves.
The departures of Sarah Greenwalt, Pruitt’s senior counsel, and Millan Hupp, his director for scheduling and advance — both of whom had worked with Pruitt since his days as Oklahoma attorney general — leave the EPA chief increasingly isolated as he faces a dozen federal spending and ethics probes.
The departures are the latest and possibly most significant in a growing list of political appointees who have left the agency. Top public affairs official Liz Bowman left last month to handle communications for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who this week criticized Pruitt as “about as swampy as you get.” Her departure followed that of top policy adviser Samantha Dravis, who worked alongside Pruitt when he headed the Republican Attorneys General Association and was one of the first aides he hired at EPA.
Pruitt’s longtime friend and former aide, Albert “Kell” Kelly, hired by Pruitt to revitalize the agency’s cleanup of toxic waste sites, resigned in early May. That same day, the head of Pruitt’s personal security detail, Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, also announced his retirement. Perrotta had faced questions from a congressional oversight committee about his role in Pruitt’s security arrangements, which have been more extensive than those of previous EPA administrators. He initially had planned to step down this summer but accelerated his retirement, officials said at the time.
Trump praised Pruitt at a FEMA event today and said the EPA is “doing very, very well.”
Greenwalt, who also worked as Pruitt’s general counsel in Oklahoma, advised the EPA chief on a wide range of issues and traveled widely with him domestically and nationally as he met with industry officials and promoted the Trump administration’s goal of reversing many Obama-era environmental regulations. She found herself in the spotlight earlier this year after she briefly received 52 percent raise, before Pruitt reversed the decision amid public outcry.
Hupp, Pruitt’s top scheduling and advance official, also worked with Pruitt in Oklahoma, helping with fundraising under his political action committees. Her departure was reported Wednesday by The Atlantic.
At EPA, Hupp served as a gatekeeper, travel planner and confidante of the administrator. In thousands of pages of emails released in recent weeks under the Freedom of Information Act, it is clear that Hupp — always upbeat, unfailingly polite — played a key role in lining up where Pruitt traveled, who he met with and what speeches he gave around the country.
Hupp also initially received a large raise earlier this year of nearly 33 percent, which Pruitt reversed. Her work for Pruitt on personal tasks recently drew the attention of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The tasks included helping with his D.C. housing hunt, booking his personal travel and even contacting the Trump hotel in search of a mattress on his behalf.
The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Greenwalt’s departure Wednesday. In an emailed statement, Pruitt called Hupp “a valued member of the EPA team from day one, serving an integral role in our efforts to take the President’s message of environmental stewardship across the country.”
“I’ve had the opportunity to know Millan for the last several years as a colleague, friend and trusted partner,” he added. “She has done outstanding work in all of her endeavors here and will be sorely missed. I wish her all the best.”
The latest departures come a day after the Post reported that Pruitt had used his official position and an EPA staffer — Millan Hupp’s sister, Sydney Hupp — to try to line up a meeting with a Chick-fil-A executive to discuss a possible franchise for Pruitt’s wife.
In response to a question about the incident by a reporter from Nexstar Media, Pruitt initially dismissed the criticism, saying, “With great change comes opposition.”
“I love, we love, she loves [Chick-fil-A],” he added, calling it “a franchise of faith and it’s one of the best in the country. That’s something we were very excited about.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/06/06/two-of-scott-pruitts-closest-aides-also-facing-scrutiny-are-leaving-epa/?utm_term=.ce9dd8d2e1d7

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LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) Industry Calls for Tiered Fees for TSCA Risk Evaluation

Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Kelly Franklin

Industry groups have called on the US EPA to modify its "relatively simplistic" proposed fees for conducting TSCA risk evaluations. The fees, they say, should more accurately reflect the costs of the assessments.
Issued in February, the proposed fees rule would charge manufacturers $1.35m for EPA-initiated risk evaluations, and either $1.3m or $2.6m for manufacturer-requested risk evaluations, depending on whether the requested substance is a Work Plan chemical or not.
But in response, industry groups say fees should reflect the wide variability of the costs associated with a risk evaluation. These factors include:
·        how many uses will be evaluated;
·        how long the chemical has been active in commerce;
·        the extent to which workers or consumers are exposed; and
·        the volume of data that already exists.
The current approach is "unfair to data-rich and uncontroversial chemicals," the National Association of Manufacturers said in its comments on the proposed fees.
And the Ad Hoc Downstream Users Coalition – which comprises paper, motor equipment, toy and tyre manufacturing trade groups – said a 'one-size-fits-all' approach may "lead to unintended consequences like product discontinuation or supply disruption".
The US Chamber of Commerce added that substances produced only by one or two manufacturers could disappear from the marketplace if those producers "opt out of production instead of paying an enormous fee".
In its comments the American Chemistry Council suggested the agency tie its risk evaluation fees to the actual cost it incurs. The ACC proposed setting this price tag at approximately 35% of EPA's actual costs.
Linking the fee to actual costs would "encourage manufacturers to provide as much information as possible to reduce the agency's costs," it added.
Industry groups also roundly objected to the EPA’s proposal to require payment of the full risk evaluation fees within 60 days of the agency publishing its final scope of the assessment.
"Requiring upfront payment for a multi-year project is unfair to industry, unnecessary, and contrary to common commercial practices that stagger such payments," wrote B&C Consortia Management (BCCM).
The ACC suggested the agency charge a down payment at the scoping phase, and a final closing payment at the risk evaluation's conclusion.
Consortia challenges
In its proposal, the EPA had said it thought a 60-day timeframe would be "sufficient" for manufacturers to form a consortium and decide on the partial fee payments each member would be responsible for.
But the BCCM said consortia management is "difficult, time consuming, and seldom successful absent extraordinary effort without EPA engagement."
REACH has demonstrated that forming a consortium within a 60-day window is "next to impossible", added the US Chamber.
Speciality chemicals group Socma recommended that the EPA help manufacturers in the formation of consortia and "offer logistical support when challenges arise".
And several groups asked that the agency publish a list of companies it knows to be engaged in the manufacture of substances, to assist in identifying consortia participants and ensure that all manufacturers of a substance contribute to its associated fees.
But Socma was among those who warned that relying solely on existing reporting schemes like the chemical data reporting (CDR) rule to identify manufacturers of a substance would lead to an "incomplete list of users".
Instead it proposed a "formal notification system for high priority chemicals [that would] discourage free-rider scenarios and ensure that EPA captures the full universe of manufacturers that have engaged (or will engage) in the manufacture of a risk evaluation chemical."
The ACC also argued that the EPA should consider setting up a mechanism by which late market entrants – or free-riders – could be "held accountable for their fair share of fees, perhaps by establishing reimbursement rules."

https://chemicalwatch.com/67492/industry-calls-for-tiered-fees-for-tsca-risk-evaluation

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(ACC Mentioned) Donald Trump Called Asbestos Poisoning a Mob-Led Conspiracy, Now His EPA Won’t Evaluate Asbestos Already in Homes

Jun 7, 2018 | Newsweek

By Nicole Goodkind

The Environmental Protection Agency will not consider the health risks and impacts of asbestos already in the environment when evaluating the dangers associated with the chemical compound, Scott Pruitt quietly announced last week. That means asbestos used in tiles, piping and adhesives throughout homes and businesses in the United States will remain largely unchecked and unaccounted for. Nearly 15,000 Americans die each year from asbestos-related diseases, but President Donald Trump has called the substance "100 percent safe, once applied."
In his 1997 book, The Art of the Comeback, Trump argued that the association of the chemical with health risks was part of a mob-created conspiracy. “I believe that the movement against asbestos was led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal. Great pressure was put on politicians, and as usual, the politicians relented,” he wrote.
The Trump EPA's decision came in response to new amendments made to the Toxic Substances Control Act in 2016. The additions to the bill mandate that the EPA perform safety reviews of certain chemicals, require testing and public notice of safety info for said chemicals and allow the EPA to ban certain uses of asbestos (previously, the EPA did not have the authority to do so).
The EPA announced last Friday that it would evaluate and require approval for for new uses of asbestos but would not evaluate the health risks of asbestos already in the environment. “The end result will be a seriously inadequate risk evaluation that fails to address major contributors to the heavy and growing toll of asbestos mortality and disease in the United States,” said Linda Reinstein, president of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization in a statement.
Reinstein, whose husband developed Mesothelioma and passed away in 2006, told Newsweek that she met with Nancy Beck, deputy assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, on two occasions along with representatives from the AFL-CIO and the International Association of Fire Fighters. The group explained the hazards of legacy asbestos and presented over 100 studies confirming that low-dose asbestos exposure caused disease, but were shut down by Beck, she said. Beck was previously a senior director at the American Chemistry Council, a lobbyist group that represents Dow Chemical, DuPont, Monsanto and ExxonMobil Chemical.
In August of 2016, the American Chemistry Council sent a letter to the EPA urging the agency to carefully consider its decision regarding asbestos evaluation as the chemical is essential to the chlor-alkali industry, which creates chlorine and sodium hydroxide for industrial use. They asked the EPA to“take this into consideration as it determines whether to select asbestos among the initial 10 chemicals for risk evaluation” under the changes to the Toxic Substances Control Act. Chemical lobbyist agencies including American Chemical Council held at least four meetings with the EPA last year regarding asbestos policy.
“If you don’t evaluate the dangerous legacy of asbestos you don’t know how much contamination still exists in the United States,” Reinstein told Newsweek. “We know it’s in our homes, schools, workplace and environment but the average American can’t identify and evaluate the risk. We have taken risk evaluation off the table.”
The bipartisan updates made to the Toxic Substances Control Act by Congress were intended to give the EPA the ability to ban the use of these substances, some Senators say. The environmental agency attempted to ban the use in 1989, but a Federal court ruled that it lacked the authority to do so.
“In a bipartisan compromise, Congress moved to patch up the holes in our chemical review system when it updated the Toxic Substances Control Act. But Scott Pruitt and the Trump administration are presiding over an attack on not just the spirit, but also the actual content of the reform law,” said Senator Edward J. Markey, a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, in a statement. “Thousands of people die from asbestos-related cancers every year. Asbestos and other toxic substances will continue to contaminate our environment because Trump administration policies are contaminating the EPA.”
There's a lack of basic information in the United States about the extent to which public and private structures are contaminated by the chemical. A recent report found that the government has no record of how many schools contain asbestos materials.
“EPA’s refusal to address longstanding concerns around the use and disposal of asbestos is further proof that Administrator Pruitt will bend over backwards to help industry, but won’t lift a finger to protect public health,” said Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
The EPA did say that it would take unprecedented action on asbestos by requiring new manufacturers and importers of asbestos to receive EPA approval before importing or processing the chemical. Reinstein, however, said that this is not a ban and that the largest users of asbestos will continue to use it.
Fifty-five countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Israel and Japan have completely banned asbestos use. The White House referred Newsweek to the EPA and the EPA did not respond to request for comment.
http://www.newsweek.com/pruitt-trump-asbestos-chemicals-trump-962703

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EPA 'Narrowing' Scope of First Ten TSCA Risk Evaluations

Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Julie Miller

The US EPA has made it clear it does not intend to evaluate exposure routes it considers adequately regulated under other laws. This narrows the scope of the assessments of the first ten substances subject to risk evaluation under the amended TSCA.
Problem formulation documents, released on 1 June, identify the 'conditions of use' the agency plans to evaluate and serve as an interim step toward final risk evaluations, which must be completed by December 2019.
As was the case in the preliminary 'scoping documents', published last June, the EPA plans to exclude 'legacy' uses of chemicals from its risk evaluations. It has since identified additional uses that are no longer ongoing, which also will be set aside.
Which 'conditions of use' the agency considers in its risk evaluations remains heavily disputed. A coalition of NGOs is suing to challenge the Trump administration's interpretation that it has the discretion not to evaluate all of a substance's conditions of use.
Previously addressed
In its final framework rules, the EPA said it may "exclude a condition of use that has been adequately assessed by another regulatory agency, particularly where the other agency has effectively managed the risks".
The problem formulation documents indicate the agency is interpreting this to cover chemical exposures the EPA itself regulates. For example, the evaluations will not consider the ozone depletion potential of carbon tetrachloride, methylene chloride and 1-bromopropane because these risks are "adequately assessed and effectively managed under the Clean Air Act (CAA)".
Of the ten chemicals being evaluated, only the dye Pigment Violet 29 is not affected by any such exclusions.
More uses trimmed
The problem formulations also reflect several 'conditions of use' that had been included in last year's scoping documents, but have since been removed after the EPA concluded they are no longer active in commerce.
These include consumer uses of several chemicals that the agency determined are no longer an issue or appear only in incidental amounts. Examples of such exclusions include:
·        consumer exposures to 1,4-dioxane that were considered "minimal";
·        carbon tetrachloride in cleaners and degreasers intended for consumer use; and
·        consumer exposures of 1-BP in degreasers for engine care.
'As narrow as they could be'
The approach reflected in the problem formulations makes the TSCA risk evaluations "about as narrow as they could be," Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney for the Environmental Working Group (EWG), told Chemical Watch.
And she questioned some of the decisions regarding consumer products. For example, 1,4 dioxane does appear as an unintentional contaminant, she said, and the EPA was given that information in comments though the problem formulations say otherwise.
"We are very concerned about taking away these really significant sources of exposure" from evaluations, she added.
By not evaluating uses that are otherwise regulated, the "EPA will effectively assume that such exposures to known toxic chemicals pose no risk," Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), said in a blog post.
This amounts to delegating chemical regulation piecemeal to various EPA offices "with no obligation for those other EPA offices to act," he said.
Comments on the problem formulation documents will be accepted for 45 days following their publication in the Federal Register.

https://chemicalwatch.com/67409/epa-narrowing-scope-of-first-ten-tsca-risk-evaluations

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Snur Would Ban New Use of Asbestos in the US

Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Julie Miller

The US EPA has announced it will propose a significant new use rule (Snur) to prevent industry from freely initiating new uses of asbestos, or resuming applications abandoned after the substance's connection to mesothelioma and lung cancer was established.
The agency's move comes even as it holds on to its plan to exclude 'legacy' materials from the risk evaluation of asbestos.
The Snur, released on 2 June in pre-publication form, would apply to building materials other than cement. Other applications include sealants, adhesives, electrical paper, reinforced plastics, and separators in fuel cells, as well as novel uses.
If adopted, it would require industry to notify the EPA of new uses, which it could then regulate or deny.
The proposal is apparently the initiative that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt referred to in recent appearances on Capitol Hill, where he said legacy asbestos is a "meaningful concern" that was under "active consideration".
Meanwhile, the EPA's 'problem formulation' documents confirm it will consider only ongoing uses in risk evaluation. That plan was set out in June last year in a framework rule and in preliminary scoping documents for each of the first ten chemicals to be evaluated.
The main ongoing use of asbestos is in the chlor-alkali industry. The EPA will also look at:
·        sheet gaskets for titanium dioxide production;
·        brake blocks used in oil drilling;
·        aftermarket automotive products;
·        cements; and
·        imported textiles.
NGOs unimpressed
The exclusion of abandoned uses means the evaluation will not consider risks posed by old asbestos building materials or their disposal. While not new, this exclusion of 'legacy' asbestos has drawn much of the fire aimed by NGOs at the problem formulations. And they were not impressed by the Snur.
"With these exclusions, it is clear that the EPA will fail to evaluate the full risk of asbestos," an outcome that "represents an irresponsible and unjust rollback" of TSCA reform, said Linda Reinstein, President of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.
"Scott Pruitt's blatant attempt to bamboozle Americas by stating he's taking 'important, unprecedented action on asbestos', while avoiding a ban, is reprehensible," she added.
A Snur would prevent companies from deciding to use asbestos once again, which they could now do without notice, Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney at the Environmental Working Group, told Chemical Watch.
"In that sense, it’s better than the status quo," she said. "But if these uses have been abandoned and we know asbestos is dangerous and not needed for these applications, why not ban it?"
And Liz Hitchcock, acting director at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, told Chemical Watch that a Snur is a "useful stopgap measure", but is not a substitute for regulation.
The direction taken in the problem formulations is troubling, she said. "Asbestos is the poster child [for] a narrowing of scope that will not be protective of public health," she said.
The EPA tried to ban asbestos in 1989, but a federal court threw out the regulation, underlining the weakness of the old TSCA.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67434/snur-would-ban-new-use-of-asbestos-in-the-us

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Chemical Management News

IRIS Poised to Restart Stalled Studies on Arsenic, Cr6 Under New Schedule

| Inside EPA

By Maria Hegstad

EPA's influential Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program is slated to release new protocols for its long-running assessments of the human health risks of arsenic and hexavalent chromium (Cr6) -- two ubiquitous and potent contaminants -- in the fall, part of a revamped schedule of priorities for the controversial program.
Slides that IRIS leaders presented June 1 to the chartered Science Advisory Board (SAB) outline their updated slate of assessments in progress, which is due to be released shortly in full form, they said.
The new schedule is slated for release weeks after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) launched a new, self-initiated review of the IRIS program, as well as EPA's toxics program, which could renew the office's focus on EPA's slow pace in completing assessments.
For the arsenic and Cr6 assessments, both already years in the making, the program is slated to release new protocol documents in the final quarter of fiscal year 2018, which ends Sept. 30.
The documents represent IRIS staff's efforts to adapt the ongoing assessments to the new systematic review approach being advanced by IRIS' new leaders, Tina Bahadori and Kris Thayer.
The IRIS program started its re-analysis of arsenic more than a decade ago, but its conservative draft cancer risk estimate led to criticism within the agency, and among other federal agencies, states, industry and Republicans, stalling the assessment's completion for years.
Earlier drafts of the assessment have been through two peer review panels in that time, but the assessment will now be reformulated using systematic review, an approach adopted from medical research that seeks to provide a structured and documented process for transparent literature review and evaluation of the body of information.
The National Academy of Sciences recommended IRIS adopt the approach to strengthen its transparency and its science in its critical 2011 review of a draft IRIS assessment of formaldehyde.
Similarly, the Cr6 assessment has also been years in the making, and it has been through peer review, though the assessment's completion was stalled by some of the peer reviewer's calls for EPA to delay the assessment for the completion of a suite of industry-funded studies on how, biologically, Cr6 could cause cancer when ingested.
The documents IRIS is now slated to release are protocol documents, the second step of systematic review, which provides a blueprint for how an assessment will be conducted, such as which exposure pathways will be considered and some discussion of the literature review. Once the protocol is released, IRIS holds a webinar for public discussion.
Thayer told SAB that the protocol meeting for Cr6 will “hopefully” be held in August.
Acknowledging that the Cr6 and arsenic documents are “very mature,” Thayer explained there are two reasons for re-formulating them through the systematic review process she brought to the IRIS program last year: first, staff worked to ensure that the assessment is still a priority to the requesting program office; second, to create a document trail like those of newer assessments that started using the systematic review techniques.
Thayer, who Bahadori recruited from the National Toxicology Program for her systematic review expertise shortly after being selected as the director of the National Center for Environmental Assessment, says that the content of protocols for new assessments and mature ones like arsenic and Cr6 “would be different. When we talk about a mature assessment like arsenic, that protocol is going to be much more developed than a new start.”
'Too Important An Assessment'
Bahadori told SAB members that when they took over IRIS, there were “a lot of business decisions that had to be made, things that were very strong assessments and were very close to release, they were not pulled back” and were allowed to continue through the existing process.
But others, for example arsenic, that was “very far along,” were deemed too important by senior managers to “divorce” from the systematic review process. She said they believed that the arsenic assessment wouldn't “survive external peer review” if it weren't adapted with a systematic review.
Bahadori and Thayer explained that they reviewed the schedule of assessments produced in late 2015 by their predecessors, Ken Olden and Vincent Cogliano, and culled it significantly after further discussions with EPA program offices that had requested various assessments.
Bahadori said that “there is no amount of resources that could” achieve all the assessments included in the 2015 multi-year agenda in IRIS' traditional comprehensive fashion. “There is no way we could fulfill the demands and need for the assessments. So we go back to our customers and understand what is needed, how can we target for the value of the assessments.”
IRIS' limited production has long been a source of concern, including from EPA science advisors and from GAO.
According to Thayer, GAO in March started a new review of EPA's efforts to assess toxic chemicals, a self-initiated project following up previous reports regarding EPA's ability to assess chemical risks. Like some earlier reports, the latest review will consider both the IRIS program and EPA's toxics program.
The new GAO report is expected to be released in early 2019, Thayer said. The report will “look at demonstrated progress in assessing chemicals in IRIS and how recent changes for the program are addressing unmarked challenges. They will also be looking to TSCA to see progress implementing TSCA,” Thayer said. “This is kind of an audit. How do we identify priorities, communicate time lines, priorities and resources. We're excited.”
As an example of the challenges IRIS' traditional assessment approach presented, Bahadori pointed to the pending draft arsenic assessment, which she said is more than 1,000 pages and has yet to be released publicly. As a result, it is not informing any public health decisions, because its risk values are unavailable, she said.
Bahadori touted the “portfolio” approach they have introduced, where IRIS assessments are targeted at particular exposure routes or toxicity questions EPA's program offices need to address rather than broad assessments of all the human health hazards by all pathways chemicals can pose.
“That's why we're working very, very closely with our partners as we do 2015 multi-year IRIS plan. “There are not enough epidemiologists in the entire country to hire to do all this. So we had to be pragmatic. We don’t have enough epidemiologists, enough pharmacokinetic modelers.”
Bahadori said that the approach has “really started to unclog the system,” even as she acknowledged some challenges in moving away from the traditional IRIS approach of entirely separating risk analysis from risk management. But that separation made the IRIS assessments “academic and didn't allow us to remain grounded with the issues,” Bahadori said. “We're trying to do this careful kabuki dance to keep the science separate but really informed by the reality of the practicality of what we're trying to do.”
Science Transparency Rule
Bahadori and Thayer also noted that Administrator Scott Pruitt's recently announced proposal to bar the agency from utilizing any non-public science from decision-making could have an effect on IRIS.
“It would make our assessments smaller. We're watching. It would have a profound effect on our assessments,” Thayer said in response to a query from an SAB panelist.
Bahadori replied that “the beauty” of IRIS' location within EPA's research office is that the proposed rule wouldn't affect an assessment until it “becomes an instrument of a critical regulatory decision ... then we will have to ... see how we can pulverize the assessment to produce the focus the administrator is asking for. We're well equipped to do that.”
She added, “But we're not going to deploy that to the extent possible, in the development of a scientific product that is based on the totality of the science that informs it. We just have now added a step that in the event a product is picked up in a decision that is of import to the administrator, we will work with the decision body to address that.”
The program's new schedule will “soon be released on IRIS' website,” Thayer said, along with a memo explaining the decisions. She noted that for some of the assessments, they were determined “not a burning agency need” at this time, and she gave the example of the assessment of phthalates. For this and others in this category, Thayer said IRIS staff “invested quite a bit in those assessments, and we didn't want to lose the science.”
The drafts will be “disseminated in manuscripts” and staff moved on to other assessments of higher priority, Thayer said. If one of the unfinished assessments becomes a priority again in future, staff can pick up from the manuscript, she said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/iris-poised-restart-stalled-studies-arsenic-cr6-under-new-schedule

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Senate to Vote on Victims Registry Bill for Foam Contaminant

Jun 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By David Schultz

The Senate is poised to vote on an annual defense authorization bill that would, among other measures, create a registry of people exposed to perfluorinated chemicals on military bases.
The bill, S. 2987, also would provide at least $10 million in funding to study the effects of these chemicals—per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances also known as PFAS—and to help communities clean up contaminated drinking water sources. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the bill last month on a 25-2 vote and it could get a vote on the chamber’s floor as early as this week.
PFAS chemicals were manufactured for years by companies such as 3M Co., DowDuPont Inc., and others and were primarily used in firefighting foam. Because they persist in the environment for so long, they have seeped into groundwater in many areas, especially on or near Air Force bases, where foam was frequently used on runways.
Scientific studies have been trickling in on the potentially toxic effects of PFAS chemicals and the widening geographic scope of their contamination. David Andrews, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group in Washington, said this is a nationwide problem.
“It is encouraging that the Pentagon is starting to get serious on understanding the magnitude of this contamination,” Andrews told Bloomberg Environment in an email, “but much more needs to be done to clean up this mess.”
The House already passed its own version of this legislation last month (H.R. 5515). It doesn’t include the provision in the Senate bill that would create the PFAS victims registry.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/senate-to-vote-on-victims-registry-bill-for-foam-contaminant

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At Industry’s Behest, EPA Caves on Banning ‘A Civil Action’ Carcinogen, Lays Ground to Downplay Potential Birth Defects

Jun 7, 2018 | Environmental Working Group

By Melanie Benesh

After intense lobbying by the chemical industry, last week the Environmental Protection Agency signaled plans to delay or scrap proposed bans on some uses of the drinking water contaminant made notorious by the book and film “A Civil Action.”
Trichloroethylene, or TCE, is an industrial solvent the EPA says is “carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure.” Drinking TCE-contaminated water has also been linked to leukemia, and liver and kidney damage. It has also been linked to birth defects, but EPA documents hint that the agency will downplay important evidence that TCE exposure causes heart defects in the developing fetus.
TCE also poisoned the drinking water at Camp Lejeune, the sprawling Marine Corps base in North Carolina, for decades, causing various kinds of cancer and Parkinson’s disease in service members and their families. Last year, the Department of Veterans Affairs began paying an estimated $2.2 billion in disability claims to veterans harmed by the contamination.
According to EWG’s Tap Water Database, TCE contaminates drinking water for 14 million Americans in 37 states. People whose water contains TCE can be exposed not just by drinking it, but also by inhaling it while bathing, washing dishes and doing other household activities.
In December 2016, the EPA proposed banning uses of TCE as an aerosol degreaser and a spot cleaner. It was the first ban proposed in more than 25 years under the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, the nation’s primary chemical law. A month later, the EPA also proposed banning TCE in vapor degreasing.
But in “problem formulations” released last week for TCE and nine other chemicals the EPA must evaluate under the recently overhauled TSCA, the agency quietly announced it would not move forward with the proposed bans, planning instead to reevaluate those uses. This means that it could be years before the EPA prohibits these uses. The agency could also scrap the bans altogether, if Administrator Scott Pruitt gets his way.
The TCE problem formulation also laid the groundwork to discredit an essential study showing that exposure causes heart defects in the developing fetus. That study, one of many the EPA relied on in proposing the bans, has long drawn the chemical industry’s ire. Ignoring evidence of potential birth defects would be an alarming departure from the agency’s responsibility to protect vulnerable populations like children, infants and pregnant women from toxic chemical exposures.
Pruitt’s actions to delay or scrap the bans come after aggressive lobbying from the chemical industry. The Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance, or HSIA, a trade association representing TCE manufacturers, repeatedly requested that the EPA delay the proposed bans by extending the public comment periods, which it did twice.
The HSIA sought to slow down the process so that it could generate “significant new scientific information” in an attempt to discredit a key 2003 study associating TCE exposure with fetal heart defects. In its earlier assessment of TCE, the EPA repeatedlydefended the validity of this and similar studies. There is also evidence of birth defects and other adverse birth outcomes in communities where there have been TCE spills.
Nonetheless, this ploy of last-minute requests to generate new data is a common industry tactic to try to undermine or weaken unfavorable impending regulations. The HSIA also met with the EPA twice in July 2017 about the proposed bans. In 2017, the HSIA also spent $30,000 lobbying the House of Representatives on “proposed rules affecting chlorinated solvents.”
The chemical industry’s efforts paid off.
In July 2017, the House Appropriations Committee urged the EPA to scrap or delay the rules. In December 2017, the agency first hinted that it would reevaluate these uses of TCE and delay the proposed bans when it moved them to “long-term actions” on the agency’s unified regulatory agenda. When asked about this move by The Intercept, the head of the HSIA said the delay was “exactly what we asked for, yes.” The documents released last week offer even more solid evidence that the EPA plans to delay or scrap these bans.
What’s more, the documents hint that the agency might ignore the fetal heart defect study so hated by the HSIA and other industry groups. The study is curiously absent from the included references in the TCE problem formulation. However, buried deep in the document is an acknowledgment that the EPA’s prior assessments “included an assessment of fetal cardiac malformations” and an announcement that the EPA “will use the systematic review approach to re-evaluate key studies in this assessment as well as more recent information on this endpoint.”
The “systematic review approach” refers to another newly released document, detailing the kinds of science the EPA will use in its chemical safety assessment. It’s unclear if the “more recent information” the agency plans to consider refers to the last-minute studies that the HSIA was preparing last year. However, the language strongly implies the agency is laying the groundwork to ignore the potential fetal cardiac risks from TCE. And if the agency is planning to ignore key evidence of risk, that doesn’t bode well for the proposed bans.
This is just the latest of the Trump administration’s many actions to make life more toxic for Americans. Scott Pruitt has proved himself to be nothing more than a shill for polluters, and his plan to allow this dangerous chemical to remain in commerce is further evidence that he will abandon public health at the directive of the chemical industry.
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/06/industry-s-behest-epa-caves-banning-civil-action-carcinogen-lays-ground#.Wxj4k0iFPIU

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What’s in Your Product? N.Y. to Require Chemical Disclosure

Jun 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Gerald B. Silverman

S.C. Johnson & Son Inc., Unilever, Procter & Gamble Co., and other manufacturers of household cleaners will have just over a year before they must disclose the chemical ingredients and other information about their products in New York state.
Under the program that the Department of Environmental Conservation announced June 6, manufacturers will have to disclose online the chemical ingredients, all byproducts, and substances of concern that appear in trace quantities.
The New York requirements, which take effect July 1, 2019, coupled with those in California, will affect two of the largest markets for the $30 billion industry.
California passed a law last year requiring any hazardous chemicals found in cleaning products to be clearly disclosed on labels and online. Manufacturers have to post the ingredients online in 2020 and on product labels by 2021.
Procter & Gamble said it’s well positioned to comply with both state requirements. A company spokeswoman said last October that it plans to share fragrance ingredients in concentrations down to 0.01 percent for the company’s entire product portfolio in the U.S. and Canada by the end of 2019.
New Websites Needed: Trade Group
Cleaning product companies will have to create new websites to comply with the New York requirements, according to the American Cleaning Institute, which said more information already is available online than ever before.
The institute represents more than 150 makers of household, industrial, and institutional cleaning products as well as manufacturers of ingredients and packaging, chemical producers, and chemical distributors.
“This action by DEC is unnecessary and burdensome to manufacturers who will be forced, by July 1, 2019, to create new websites in order to sell their products to the citizens of New York,” the institute said in a statement. “Consumers should understand that cleaning product manufacturers already provide detailed information online about the ingredients in the products they use safety and effectively every day.”
The state requirements are years in the making. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) first proposed them in his 2017 State of the State message and then said earlier this year that he would propose legislation to establish similar disclosures for personal-care products.
Environmental groups, who sued the state several years ago to compel action, applauded the new requirements.
“Coupled with a recent law in California, it creates a strong national model and will benefit not only New Yorkers, but all Americans,” Kathleen Curtis, executive director of Clean and Healthy New York, said in a statement. The organization lobbies for policy and market changes that promote safer chemicals.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/whats-in-your-product-ny-to-require-chemical-disclosure

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Cosmetics Giant L'oréal Commits to Disclosing Fragrance Ingredients

Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Tammy Lovell

French personal care brand L'Oréal has announced plans to disclose some of the fragrance ingredients in its products.
A company spokesperson told Chemical Watch: "We would like to take this opportunity to state our future goal of communicating to a larger extent the composition of our perfumes in all our products, in a way that meets the expectations of our consumers and ensures their safety while at the same time fully respecting the know-how of our perfume creators and protecting us from the major risks of fine fragrance counterfeiting."
But she said she could not reveal when the initiative would be launched, because this was "confidential".‘Lagging behind’
The NGO US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) has been running an ongoing campaign for L'Oréal to disclose fragrance ingredients and eliminate toxic chemicals from its products.
Dev Gowda, director of the Make It Toxic-Free programme for US PIRG, told Chemical Watch that L'Oréal was "lagging behind the curve" by failing to disclose the fragrance ingredients in its products.
"Certain fragrance chemicals have been linked to cancer and hormone disruption, and consumers have a right to know which chemicals are in the products they use. L'Oréal should step up and disclose fragrance ingredients, because we're worth it" he said.
Last year, representatives from US PIRG and the NGOs Safer Chemicals Healthy Families and the Campaign for Safer Cosmetics, delivered a petition to L'Oréal headquarters with 150,000 signatures calling for the company to disclose fragrance ingredients and eliminate hazardous chemicals from its products.
The L'Oréal spokesperson said the company communicates "the relevant perfume ingredients that are part of the 26 fragrance allergens listed in the EU" on its products. Products also include ingredients listed on the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients (INCI) database.
The INCI database of cosmetic ingredient names is maintained by the US trade association, the Personal Care Products Council. Companies can apply for their ingredient to be given a INCI label name and have it added to the database. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) panel assesses the ingredient before it is added to the database.
The spokesperson also said that L'Oréal has a website which communicates how the company evaluates the human and environmental safety of its products, and provides answers to specific questions consumers may have about its products and ingredients’ safety.Disclosure trend
There is a growing trend for consumer goods companies to disclose fragrance ingredients, following increasing demand from the public to know what is in the products they buy.
Unilever US disclosed fragrance ingredient information for almost 100 of its products online and through its SmartLabel app last year and expanded the initiative to include the UK and France this year.
Last year, US consumer goods giant, Procter & Gamble, announced it will reveal the fragrance ingredients, down to 0.01% of content, for all products sold in the US and Canada by the end of 2019.
Cleaning products giant SC Johnson began disclosing fragrance ingredients in 2015 and launched a Glade product range with 100% ingredient disclosure the following year.

https://chemicalwatch.com/67504/cosmetics-giant-loreal-commits-to-disclosing-fragrance-ingredients

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US EPA Received 17 Pre-Manufacture Notices in February

Jun 6, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The US EPA received 17 new pre-manufacture notices (PMNs) in February, and recorded ten amendments to existing PMNs.
During January, it also received a new significant new use notice (Snun) and an amendment to an existing Snun.
The agency reported 32 new notices of commencement (NOCs), and received test data on 12 substances.
The EPA reported updates to its February new substance programme in a Federal Register notice on 5 June. This is two weeks after separate notices for January, November and December.
Notices for these months mark a new reporting policy. This offers more detail on PMN submissions and testing data received in connection with consent orders.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67493/us-epa-received-17-pre-manufacture-notices-in-february

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REACH Registered Substances Total ‘Worse Than Expected’ – Ueapme

Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Luke Buxton

The number of substances registered under all three REACH deadlines is "worse than expected", according to European SMEs trade body Ueapme.
On 1 June – the day after the third and final deadline – Echa confirmed that 21,551 substances have been registered.
This number is short of the estimated total from a 2001 European Commission White Paper of 30,000 substances. Meanwhile, Echa had later predicted that 25,000 new chemicals would be registered for the 1 to 100 tonne deadline alone. The final number was 6,824
Ueapme advisor Marko Sušnik says the gap between the White Paper estimate and the final registered number is considerable and "it is hard to believe that the market has changed so drastically in the last ten to 15 years".
The number of 21,551 substances cannot be "easily compared" to the White Paper’s estimation, he says. "First, one needs to deduct most non-phase-in substances and all on-side isolated intermediates. Based on this, it is highly probable that we do not even have 15,000 relevant substances registered." This would mean, he said, that not even half of the 30,000 estimate would be covered by registrations.
In a bid to quell concerns prior to the final registration deadline, Echa and Cefic told companies there was no need to panic over ‘missing’ substances because the estimate was made over 15 years ago and reflected the market at the time.
But Mr Sušnik, who has long raised concerns over ‘missing’ registered REACH chemicals, says a really valuable exercise would be for someone to analyse the numbers.
The lower-than-expected number of chemicals registered under REACH should be considered alongside those on other European inventories to get an idea of what is on the market, he says.
The classification and labelling inventory (C&L), which has been in place since 2011, contains about 135,000 individual substances. And this total is similar to the sum of the substances contained in:
·        the European Inventory of Existing Commercial Chemical Substances (Einecs) that were deemed to be on the European market between 1971 and 1981;
·        the European List of Notified Chemical Substances (Elincs); and
·        the no-longer polymers (NLP) list.
From these, Mr Sušnik says "you get a taste of what is on the EU’s market right now and this is not so different from a decade (and more) ago, at least in numbers".
‘Problem’ for SMEs
According to Echa figures, SMEs made up about 18% of registrants submitting dossiers for all REACH three tonnage bands. For the 2018 deadline for 1 to 100 tonnes, they made up 17%.
However, it was widely expected that SMEs would comprise the largest number of registrants for the final lower volume deadline, Mr Sušnik says. The result is "an indication we have a problem".
It means, he says, "companies that should have registered, have not registered and it becomes worrisome. Now we have a certain instability and no one really understands what is happening.
"Either there is something going on there or we have completely wrong estimations." The latter, he says, would be a "best case" scenario. "If you find out in half a year that the estimation is wrong then fine – but so far there is no convincing argument why it should be wrong because all the other numbers are pretty accurate."
He refers to the fact that estimations of substances to be registered for the 2010 and 2013 were close to the final numbers. This is corroborated by Cefic’s REACH director Erwin Annys, who in February said "everyone was astonished" at how accurate the estimation was for both of these deadlines.
Mr Sušnik admits there have been "discrepancies" in the estimates, but "not huge ones. If you were talking about 100 or 200 substances you can say ‘forget it, we can handle this’, but we are talking about thousands."
Industry stance
Speaking on 1 June, Echa’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 August.
And 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."
https://chemicalwatch.com/67491/reach-registered-substances-total-worse-than-expected-ueapme

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Brexit Showing ‘Little Impact’ on 2018 REACH Registrations – Hansen

Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Luke Buxton

Registration figures under the 2018 REACH deadline show there is "no indication" that UK companies are not fulfilling their obligations under the Regulation, Echa head Bjorn Hansen said.
After Germany, registrations submitted by UK companies were the second highest with 4,515 dossiers covering 2,020 substances.
These figures, Mr Hansen said during a media briefing last week, are "fully within the range of what we had expected".
The UK voted to leave the EU in June 2016. With an expected withdrawal date of 29 March next year and with no guarantees of remaining within REACH and associated with Echa, UK industry had raised questions about whether or not to register.
One option for those companies to ensure continued access to the single market and ongoing validity of their registrations is to relocate or appoint only representatives in another EU country.
According to a Chemical Watch survey conducted early this year, a third of UK-based companies said they are actively organising or planning to move some of their operations out of the country because of the regulatory uncertainty around Brexit.
However, Mr Hansen said that Echa has not seen "any major effect of any companies moving location".
What the agency has seen, he said, is "significant" use of Echa’s Brexit webpage which contains advice and Q&As regarding post-Brexit implementation of REACH in the EU27.
"We’ve received a lot of questions via our help desks so I would say my feeling is UK companies are fully aware that something could happen and they are definitely informing themselves".
Supply chain
One of the main issues of the UK being outside of REACH, Mr Hansen said, lies with companies and their supply chains between the EU and Britain. Another is for UK companies "who have invested in their registration dossiers and are, of course, expecting to reap in the benefits of the internal market that comes from that investment".
He identified two areas that industry should consider. The first is to check if the registrants are in the UK. The second relates to mixtures being shipped between the EU and the UK. "Looking at the sizes of the different markets, there is clearly an issue for UK companies who want to maintain access to the European market through a registration," he said. "They will need to do some more work in tracking where their chemical is going within the UK and through the EU."
Asked whether it would be possible for the UK to have associate membership of Echa, Mr Hansen said "anything is possible, but it all depends on what our political masters representing the EU27 and those representing the UK agree".
He added that he is "very confident" that Echa will be able to implement whatever they agree. "Depending on the technicalities we might need a little more time, but principally we don’t see any big technical or scientific or administrative problems in implementing what our political masters decide is the right relationship with the UK."
Non-EU registrants
Twenty-nine percent of registrations for the 2018 deadline for chemicals of 1-100 tonnes by volume were made by only representatives on behalf of a non-EU companies. And 48% were made by importers – some of which may also be manufacturers. The rest of the registrations were submitted by EU/EEA producers.
Echa’s director of registration Christel Musset said that generally for the previous deadlines Echa had "virtually the same number" of registrations for chemicals produced in Europe and chemicals imported into Europe. "But for the last deadline it has been different. We had many more registrations from importers".
The top five importers of REACH registered chemicals for the 2018 deadline are:
·        USA 27%;
·        China 15%;
·        Japan 14%;
·        India 12%; and
·        Switzerland 6%.
The agency recently conducted a survey looking at the number of substances on the US market, which Echa said is similar to Europe in terms of size and structure. It found the number of substances on that market is "very similar". It was "comforting", Ms Musset said, that companies based there registered their substances with Echa in a timely fashion.

https://chemicalwatch.com/67494/brexit-showing-little-impact-on-2018-reach-registrations-hansen

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Survey Shows Decline in Consumers Reading On-Pack Information

Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Tammy Lovell

European soap and detergents trade body, Aise, is calling for cleaning product labels to be simplified, following its consumer behaviour survey which claims fewer people are reading information on packaging.
The survey of more than 4,600 people in 23 countries found that only half read the labels before buying a product and 60% before using it.
This figure has fallen since Aise's first consumer survey in 2008, which found 68% read the label before purchase and 75% before use.
Aise president, Arndt Scheidgen said that overlaps between the detergents Regulation, classification, labelling and packaging (CLP) and biocides Regulations have resulted in "crowded labels".
According to the CLP Regulation, the label of a product containing hazardous chemicals must include information on the supplier, the quantity of substances or mixtures and, where relevant, hazard pictograms, signal words, hazard and precautionary statements.
But Mr Scheidgen said "too much and redundant information is counterproductive to safe use".
In a press release, he calls for the upcoming detergents Regulation review to prioritise "simplification of labels to enable safe and correct use of products" and "the transparent provision of information via digital means". This is due to take place in 2019.Simplified labels
In 2016 and 2017, Aise carried out research into product labelling, as part of its Better Regulation and Safe Use project.
This concluded that consumers preferred simplified labels and found icons or precautionary pictograms easier to understand than text.
Aise communications director, Valérie Séjourné, told Chemical Watch the association was keen to explore simplified label designs with the Commission and other stakeholders.
"The idea is to be much more efficient, relevant with regards to consumer information, more impactful, and tap into the opportunity of leaving what really matters on the pack, to allow good information on good use, safe storage and allergy information," she said.
Aise has designed a pictogram to replace the written warning ‘Keep out of the reach of children’, which is under discussion with the UN. 'Unrealistic expectations'
But the European consumer organisation, Beuc, says that full ingredients information and dosage instructions should stay on packaging rather than move online.
Beuc’s safety expert, Pelle Moos, told Chemical Watch: "For safety reasons, it is essential that allergen messages stay on the label if we want to protect consumers from skin rashes and other irritations.
"Because consumers have busy lives, it is unrealistic to expect them to search for information on their phone while in the supermarket."
A Commission spokesperson confirmed that a support study was conducted into the detergents Regulation, which concluded in January.
The study will be made public together with a staff working document later this year.
They added that comments and suggestions made by Aise and other consulted stakeholders will be taken into account.

https://chemicalwatch.com/67464/eu-trade-body-calls-for-simplified-cleaning-products-labels

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EU Criteria for Identifying EDCs Under BPR Take Effect

Jun 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The European Union’s agreed criteria for identifying endocrine disruptors under the biocidal products Regulation (BPR) come into effect today.
And, as EU authorities declare themselves "prepared" for implementing them, Echa and the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) have released a joint guidance document.
The BPR is the first EU legal regime to apply the scientific criteria, which were adopted last year. Another paper, applying the same criteria to plant protection products (PPPs), was blocked by the European Parliament and Council. This was later amended and accepted in April. It will take effect on 10 November.
Eventually, the criteria are expected to apply across all sectors of EU law, such as cosmetics, toys and food contact materials.
Guidance
The guidance document, developed by the two agencies and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), was the subject of two extensive consultations. The second received more than 1,800 comments. Industry and NGOs have criticised the guidance.
From now on, the agency's Biocidal Products Committee (BPC) will have to assess biocidal active substances against the new criteria.
Echa will also host a webinar on 19 June to explain the practical implications and new guidance to companies and authorities with obligations under the BPR.
More details available on CW+BiocidesHub
https://chemicalwatch.com/67509/eu-criteria-for-identifying-edcs-under-bpr-take-effect

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Energy News

Republicans Seek to Blunt NEPA in Latest Push for More Drilling

Jun 7, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Bobby Magill

House Republicans continued efforts to weaken a major environmental law during a hearing June 6 on bills meant to streamline fossil fuel permits and development on federal land.
The draft bills are part of the Republicans’ efforts to roll back environmental regulations—the National Environmental Policy Act, specifically—and expedite oil and gas drilling across the West.
NEPA is a long-standing target of Republican deregulatory efforts because proposed oil, gas, and other development projects on public lands are often slowed to a creep—they complain—as federal officials analyze environmental conflicts, process protests from environmental groups, and consider other public feedback.
The measures would “streamline oil and gas permitting and leasing processes on federal lands and do so in an environmentally sound manner,” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) said during the House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing.
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) said at the hearing that the state’s backlog of federal drilling permit application approvals is costing it millions of dollars, even though many approved permits have never been used for oil and gas drilling.
“Cut the duplicative bureaucratic red tape,” Martinez said.
Democrats: Bills Would Silence Opposition

Democrats excoriated the bills, saying they would prevent the public from protesting proposed oil and gas permits and gut the law that forces federal officials to consider possible environmental damage from fossil fuel extraction on public lands.
“The common theme that runs through all of them and this administration’s approach to oil and gas on public lands: Let the industry do whatever it wants and keep the public in the dark,” Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) said during the hearing. “One of the foundational principles of NEPA is involving the public in government decisions. They should have a voice in the process.”
Dennis Willis, a former Bureau of Land Management employee based in Price, Utah, testified that weakening NEPA would prevent the agency from addressing environmental concerns with oil drilling on public lands.
“We rely on the NEPA process to make sure companies learn about potential conflicts,” Willis said.
The prospects for the bills’ passage in the House and Senate are unclear.
The bills are “common sense” and ensure a secure domestic energy supply, Gosar told Bloomberg Environment at the hearing.
The Bills
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/republicans-seek-to-blunt-nepa-in-latest-push-for-more-drilling

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Bottlenecks, Shmottlenecks, Permian Activity and Investments Still Strong

Jun 6, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Carolyn Davis

The Permian Basin may be facing oil and natural gas pipeline bottlenecks, as well as a dearth of supplies and labor, but that has not stopped activity levels and investments from increasing, particularly by private operators.
The most active oil and gas basin in the United States has faced increasing logistics challenges following the sharp uptick in activity last year, with the biggest issues centering around insufficient pipeline takeaway capacity for oil and gas. However, the need for more infrastructure is far from the only concern, according to analysts.
Fracture sand supply delays along with a shortage of in-basin logistics, labor and pressure pumping supplies, “should not be underestimated,” Rystad Energy analysts said.
Each bottleneck “raises concerns about the potential of Permian oil production in the short- and medium-term, along with the severity of associated costs escalation. These challenges come on top of pressure from the investor community for organic growth.”
For the week ended June 1, Baker Hughes Inc. recorded 477 Permian rigs in action, down one from the week before but up from 364 one year ago.
The sharp growth in Permian activity also is showing up in other metrics. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas on Monday noted that Texas accounted for 1,980 of U.S. mining jobs added in March. April data showed a further increase of nearly 4,490 jobs in the state, including 230 in extraction and 4,260 in support activities.
According to the Texas Workforce Commission, the state added 3,400 upstream oil and gas jobs in April, making it the 17th consecutive month of upstream job growth. Texas has recovered 33% of jobs lost between the high point in employment in December 2014 and the low point in September 2016. During that time, employment in the Texas upstream sector has grown by 38,400 jobs.
"Record production in the Permian Basin is driving sustained job growth in Texas," said Texas Oil & Gas Association President Todd Staples. "Investment and innovation in the oil and natural gas industry are not only creating good jobs for Texans but also securing our economy, our environment and our future."
Meanwhile, the horizontal rig count in the Permian has been growing gradually since the start of this year, rapidly outdistancing what had been de rigueur for decades in the Permian, vertical drilling.
“In fact, horizontal permitting activity, which is often viewed as a leading indicator of short-term activity, increased in an even more impressive way, renewing an all-time high level in 1Q2018,” Rystad’s team noted. “As many as 1,978 horizontal permits to drill were approved in the Permian Basin from January to March 2018, which corresponds to a 22% growth sequentially and a 37% growth on an annual basis.”
As of June 1, about 89% of the wells drilled in the Permian were horizontals, according to Energent Group. Of those, 81.4% were drilling for oil, the rest for natural gas. Most of the wells had laterals that were 10,000-15,000 feet long.
Many of the largest publicly traded exploration and production companies, including Big Oil operators, working the Permian have responded to investors’ calls to build organically and not overspend. Their contribution is showing up in total permitting activity, which for the large exploration and production (E&P) companies has declined in recent quarters.
However, permits requested by smaller public E&Ps, primarily the pure-plays, have not changed since 3Q2016, according to Rystad data.
“It is therefore mainly private operators that have been gaining this segment of the market share systematically since mid-2016,” the only group of E&Ps showing growth in the last four quarters.
Data also indicated that the privately held E&Ps reached an all-time high in 1Q2018 with 25% of the Permian permits approved, according to Rystad.
Another trend is a continuing gain by new entrants that are privately held and backed by private equity (PE) funds.
Between 2012 and 2014, 24-32 private E&Ps each year entered the Permian, Rystad said. As oil prices retreated, private capital dried up, falling to only 11 in 2015. Since costs have declined and oil prices have strengthened, the number of new private entrants recovered to 28-19 per year in 2016-2017.
In the first four months of this year, as many as nine privates receiving their first horizontal permit approval, Rystad noted. The interest has since continued by privately held E&Ps and midstream operators.
In April Ares Management LP and ARM Energy Holdings LLC formed Salt Creek Midstream LLC to develop multiple cryogenic processing facilities, natural gas and crude gathering lines and compression/treating facilities in the Delaware sub-basin.
On Tuesday, PE-backed DoublePoint Energy LLC, formed by Double Eagle Energy Holdings III LLC and FourPoint Energy said it would use its combined 70,000-plus acres in West Texas to build a powerhouse E&P focused on the Midland formation.
Rystad analysts said “there are reasons to expect that the annualized estimate of 27 new private entrants in 2018 will end up on the conservative side. Yet, even this conservative estimate will bring the level of interest back to pre-downturn levels.”
Data indicate a “strong” expansion recently by private E&Ps in an area it terms the Midland North, which would be in West Texas, where activity has moved into the development phase.
“The current state of the Permian Basin, seen from our perspective, therefore calls for a further consolidation,” said Rystad analysts. They are “convinced” of more deals ahead that are similar to Concho Resources Inc.’s $9.5 billion takeover in March of RSP Permian Inc., which created a Permian pure-play with close to 640,000 net acres.
The Concho deal is said to be the largest U.S. upstream merger since 2012 and the largest “purely Permian deal ever,” according to Wood Mackenzie.
More deals like Concho-RSP, said Rystad’s team, “are needed and are bound to happen in the future as operators start thinking about optimal long-term development and the competitiveness of the Permian Basin in the global context.”
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114623-bottlenecks-shmottlenecks-permian-activity-and-investments-still-strong

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Oil Lobby Looks to Drum up Support for Southeast Leasing

Jun 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Margaret Kriz Hobson

The American Petroleum Institute is formally launching a coalition of business and government leaders to drum up support for oil and gas leasing along the U.S. southeastern coast.
The group, Explore Offshore, was initiated in January but officially announced yesterday. API officials say the organization represents more than 100 government leaders and community organizations in the Southeast.
The mostly Republican lineup that spoke at API's inaugural teleconference included representatives from Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Explore Offshore is led by former Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb (D).
Nicholson said the group's aim is to clarify many of the public misconceptions about the safety and environmental impacts of offshore oil development. "We have to re-educate people that these conditions have changed due to great strides in technology," he said.
In the news conference, Explore Offshore members said they're urging the Trump administration to pave the way for oil and gas development along their shores through the Interior Department's upcoming five-year leasing program.
A draft version of the 2019-24 offshore leasing plan, announced in March, called for drilling in most of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic outer continental shelf region. The proposed version of the leasing plan is expected this fall, with a final schedule due out in early 2019.
Since the draft plan was released, the governors of nearly every state on the Pacific and Atlantic seaboards have asked Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to exclude their waters from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's five-year plan.
But former Fayetteville, N.C., Mayor Nat Robertson argued that energy development off the eastern coast would be an economic boon for North Carolina residents.
"I heard earlier that the average salary of oil and natural gas exploration and development [workers] is about $116,000 a year," Robertson said. "Well, that's substantially more than our state average of about $48,000 a household."
He dismissed concerns that offshore oil drilling might discourage tourists from coming to North Carolina coastal resort towns. "Most of the exploration is planned to be 12 to 42 miles offshore," Robertson noted. "So you will never be able to see or recognize that anything is going on offshore."
South Carolina African American Chamber of Commerce Chairman Stephen Gilchrist described oil development as "a game-changer for South Carolina."
"It helps to increase the quality of life that we believe is so critically important for families in our state," Gilchrist observed, while providing jobs to the state's historically disenfranchised population.
Webb said that although the Navy and NASA in the past have opposed drilling near Virginia's coastal military facilities, those concerns can be alleviated.
Noting that the government would negotiate future drilling plans with the military, Webb, who served a stint as secretary of the Navy, added that "I'm comfortable that we could reach the kind of accommodation where we could be seeing offshore drilling in a safe and responsible way."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/07/stories/1060083701

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Bill to Protect Legacy Oil, Natural Gas Producers Passes Pennsylvania House

Jun 7, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Jamison Cocklin

A Republican-sponsored bill introduced in the Pennsylvania House earlier this year to update the state’s Oil and Gas Act of 1984 to clarify language and address the current challenges facing conventional producers has passed and now moves to the Senate for consideration.
State Rep. Martin Causer introduced House Bill (HB) 2154 to ensure “fair regulation” for the legacy producers, and it passed the House this week 111-84. A companion bill introduced by state Sen. Scott Hutchinson is still in committee. Hutchinson has been pushing for such legislation since last year.
HB 2154 comes about two years after the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed a bill Hutchinson sponsored that scrapped what would have been new regulations for the conventional industry and required the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to rewrite the package.
Those rules were written at the same time as those for unconventional producers. Opponents of the conventional rules successfully argued that they were too burdensome and similar to those drafted for better-financed shale producers. While shale gas production has continued to increase in the state, the glut has kept prices down and hit the conventional industry hard.
Causer said his bill removes “the threat of unreasonable and unnecessary regulations from the backs of our conventional producers in favor of rules that are relevant and appropriate to these shallow well operations.”
The legislation was primarily developed by the Penn Grade Crude Advisory Council, which was created in 2016 to advise and assist the DEP in crafting regulations for the state’s 160-year old conventional industry. The council is also working on a plan to help increase the production of Pennsylvania grade crude oil in a way that could better supply regional refineries and help ensure the long-term viability of legacy producers.
Causer said the legislation to redraft the Oil and Gas Act includes several regulatory updates and clarification that would serve as the legislative framework for any future changes to rules that impact the conventional industry. The bill would also aid in the plugging of orphaned wells and give DEP the authority to issue permits allowing municipalities to use brine from wells for dust control and de-icing on roads.
Hutchinson and Causer both represent districts that include parts of northwest Pennsylvania, which has long been home to the state’s legacy producers and much of their operations.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114627-bill-to-protect-legacy-oil-natural-gas-producers-passes-pennsylvania-house

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Chemical Security News

Bill to Bolster Grid Defense Advances in House

Jun 7, 2018 | E&E Daily

By Blake Sobczak

The House Homeland Security Committee advanced legislation yesterday to bolster the Department of Homeland Security's role defending the power grid from hackers.
The "DHS Industrial Control Systems Capabilities Enhancement Act of 2018," introduced by Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) last month, would cement the agency's authority to find and verify flaws in critical infrastructure networks and send out teams of experts to quash major cyberattacks.
"Disruptions or damage to these systems have the potential to cause catastrophic and cascading consequences to our nation's national security, economic security, and our public health and safety," Bacon said. "We know we are vulnerable now to these cyberattacks on our energy grid, and the time is now to start building that resiliency."
H.R. 5733 largely codifies work that DHS has carried out since at least 2009, first with its Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), and now through the more generalist National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, which absorbed ICS-CERT in a bureaucratic shift earlier this year (Energywire, Jan. 17). The bill, which passed the committee unanimously, is co-sponsored by Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas).
Bacon said the bill is aimed at "ensuring that the private industry has a permanent place for assistance to address cybersecurity risks" at DHS. "This is so important for many parts of our critical infrastructure, including our energy grid."
The legislation also directs DHS to report to Congress on its control system capabilities once every six months for the next four years.
Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), co-chairman of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, introduced an amendment to the bill authorizing DHS's interactions with security researchers and vendors who come across digital vulnerabilities in critical devices.
He pointed to a case last year in which a cybersecurity doctoral candidate at the University of Alabama discovered a way to remotely disable key components of chemical and manufacturing facilities. The researcher reported the issue to the manufacturer and to DHS, which verified and eventually disclosed the flaw publicly.
"The researcher received credit for finding the bug, the manufacturer was given the opportunity to develop a fix, and critical infrastructure operators received timely information that they could use to secure their systems," Langevin said. "That's exactly how the system should work."
Langevin's amendment, agreed to yesterday, would effectively codify that process.
Marty Edwards, who served as the last director of ICS-CERT before it was folded into the NCCIC, praised the bill on Twitter, calling it "a long time coming."
"This is where some strong leadership from Congress or the White House is needed to provide direction on 'who does what,'" said Edwards, who now works as managing director of the Automation Federation.
The grid security advocacy group Protect Our Power also came out in favor of the legislation in a Tuesday letter addressed to McCaul and the Homeland Security Committee's ranking member, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).
"We hope that the Committee will continue to pursue additional legislative proposals that strengthen the Nation's grid against both physical and cyber threats," wrote Protect Our Power's executive director, Jim Cunningham, calling the bill a "positive step."
The Homeland Security Committee cleared eight other pieces of legislation to head to the House.
McCaul closed out the markup yesterday by urging his colleagues in the Senate to prioritize several homeland security bills, including a measure to rename DHS's top cyber office the "Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency" that passed the House last year.
With mics still on after he adjourned the meeting, McCaul vented some of his frustrations with the upper chamber during a brief exchange with Thompson.
"We've passed almost 100 bills out of this committee. The Senate's passed 10," McCaul said.
"Y'all are in charge!" Thompson replied, as both lawmakers began chuckling.
"Yeah, they're our worst enemy. I mean, they can't do jack over there."
This story also appears in Energywire.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/06/07/stories/1060083731

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White House Challenges FERC on Grid Security

Jun 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Peter Behr

The Department of Energy's national security policy proposal to guarantee business for money-losing coal and nuclear power plants directly challenges the authority of the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, responsible for safeguarding the nation's power supply, energy lawyers agree.
It would also end-run regional transmission operators (RTOs) that operate the grids serving two-thirds of the U.S. population under FERC oversight.
DOE's justification: FERC isn't acting quickly enough to keep up with insidious advances in cyber weapons developed by Russia and other adversaries.
"[T]oo little progress has been made while the risk of high-impact events, especially caused by intentional attacks, continues to grow," said the DOE draft plan that leaked Friday ahead of a National Security Council meeting.
DOE's reach for control of the U.S. power grid under Energy Secretary Rick Perry — a former Republican governor of Texas — is a whiplash reversal of how some GOP governors reacted to President Obama's Clean Power Plan, waving the states' rights banner to protest EPA's response to climate change, which they portrayed as an unauthorized Washington power grab.
Today, under Perry, DOE says it "must exercise its authority" to intervene in electricity markets because of the severity of the threats. DOE is citing authority under the Federal Power Act and the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law designed to enable swift emergency action in response to national security crises.
The reaction of the regional grid operators is implicit in page after page of the voluminous comments on extreme threats submitted to FERC this year in its grid resilience docket exploring the problem of securing the grid: Hands off, it's our job.
"Because each region is unique," ISO New England said, each region's grid operator is, and should be, responsible for determining the risks its systems face.
"Resilience must account for regional differences," said the California Independent System Operator. It and other grid organizations "must have flexibility" to determine what's needed, it said.
PJM Interconnection, the Eastern grid operator for 65 million Americans, whose comments to FERC were the most outspoken of the RTOs, said more and faster action on threats is vital. But the orders should come from FERC to the regional operators, said PJM, which manages the high-voltage grid in the Mid-Atlantic and eastern Great Lakes areas.
FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre appeared to signal that DOE's plan, if it becomes administration policy, would wind up at his agency. "In a sense, it would almost be bread and butter. We'd have to figure out how to get the dollars and cents right," he told an energy conference Tuesday.
Financial reach
But while there are many unanswered question in the DOE draft plan, its intent seems clear: to take the wheel.
Its two-year plan would order grid operators and integrated utilities to pay some DOE-selected coal and nuclear plants to remain in operation. DOE says that with their "on-site" fuels, coal and nuclear generators provide a crucial level of grid resilience that pipeline-dependent gas-fired generators and renewable power cannot. DOE's opponents say it's a conclusion with a transparent political motive of boosting the fortunes of the U.S. coal industry, where President Trump found crucial election support in 2016.
During the two-year window, DOE would determine which electricity systems and gas pipelines are critical for ensuring that military installations get the power they need and where power outages could cause the most damage.
The DOE plan said this review "has never previously been undertaken," which appeared to ignore a library of studies, analyses, surveys and "war games" directed at grid vulnerabilities, including gas-fired generators' dependence on natural gas pipeline deliveries.
In one revealing example, Gordon van Welie, chief executive of ISO New England, has identified exactly which coal-fired power plants must be kept operating as insurance against blackouts in a very extreme winter blast: namely, Exelon Corp.'s 1,400-megawatt gas-fired Mystic 8 and 9 generators in Everett, Mass.
Exelon has announced plans to close the units in 2022 unless it gets more revenue from their power sales. Van Welie has said that while his organization can offer additional revenue by designating the units essential for grid reliability, Exelon is free to say no.
"It is important to note that ISO New England has no mechanism or authority to invest in, or direct investment in, natural gas supply infrastructure or any fuel infrastructure," van Welie told a Senate committee in January.
What does ISO New England want: Van Welie didn't ask for the proposed two-year DOE study or a revenue boost for generators at DOE's discretion. Instead, he wants FERC's immediate approval for the Exelon units to receive higher revenues based on the units' operating costs.
That would allow time to create a new tariff governing electricity rates that specifically allows ISO New England to retain units like the Mystic turbines for fuel security regions, van Welie said.
Critical gaps
Other RTOs have spelled out critical gaps in moving from threats and problems to action.
The Southwest Power Pool, which stretches from the Dakotas to the Texas Panhandle, cited FERC's requirement that selected transmission owners evaluate risks of catastrophic events on the most critical substations, including the loss of a substation that could cause a cascading outage on the interconnected U.S. grid east of the Rocky Mountains.
But SPP also acknowledged that a power plant or transmission line owners could simply refuse to make investments that SPP determines are needed to protect against extreme disasters.
A statement by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) put a finger squarely on the threat-action gap in the case of low-probability, high-impact threats like a widespread cyberattack. The North American Electric Reliability Corp.'s reliability standard TPL-001 requires ERCOT and FERC-regulated transmission organizations to consider a range of extreme events in their operations planning.
"Consider" is all.
"Because these extreme scenarios are generally thought to be less likely to occur and would often require substantially greater cost to address, the NERC reliability standard does not mandate that planners address these issues through a corrective action plan," ERCOT's statement said.
PJM's comments to FERC in the resilience docket went the furthest in challenging the commission to act to meet the gravest threats.
It called on FERC to draw on classified government intelligence to define the extent of the extreme cyberthreats that grid operators, generators and utilities must defend against — a "design basis threat" modeled on Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards for U.S. reactor operators (Energywire, April 17).
PJM said the commission must demand that natural gas pipelines share confidential operating information if needed to help ensure reliability of gas-fired generation.
Currently, PJM has no authority to order generators to disconnect from the grid in the face of a dangerous cybersecurity threat or to pay generators to keep running in other emergencies. FERC can fix that, PJM said.
"Simply put, RTOs need to be expressly empowered [by NERC] to lead on resilience," PJM said. Beyond that, FERC must hold RTOs accountable for meeting resilience requirements.
"In order to give RTOs an affirmative role in planning for resilience, they must have clearly articulated authority to do so. This can easily be accomplished by the commission," PJM added.
In January, after FERC rejected Perry's initial policy move to protect coal and nuclear plants, asserting their critical role in grid resilience, McIntyre testified to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and was asked how fast FERC would move to address the threats confronting grid operations.
"How prompt will FERC be when it says it will act promptly?" asked committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). "We need to move beyond technical conferences and more white papers, and we actually need to see that action," she said (Energywire, Jan. 24).
"A very valid question," McIntyre said. "Our commitment is to prompt action."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/07/stories/1060083765

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

Politico Pro New York: SSchumer Pushes for Federal Standards as Oil by Rail Shipments Tick Upward

Jun 6, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Marie J. French

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer today called on the federal government to develop safety standards to reduce the volatility of crude oil shipped by rail through New York state.
Schumer said he wants the Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy to release a study and develop standards for stabilizing crude oil traveling across the country by rail. He said during a conference call with reporters that Bakken crude oil from North Dakota is more volatile and poses a risk to the New York communities it passes through.
“Oil tank cars go through our state with regular frequency and they pass through, because of the way the tracks were laid out, through some our major population hubs,” he said. “We need the feds to have a national standard."
Schumer cited the latest monthly data from the Energy Information Administration, which shows a small uptick in the amount of crude oil traveling to the East Coast, including New York, by rail. About 3.1 million barrels were shipped by rail to the East Coast region that stretches from Florida to Maine. The amount shipped remains well below the peak of the oil-by-rail boom in 2014 and 2015, when prices were higher.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard

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Environment News

D.C. Circuit Sets July 31 Deadline for EPA Ozone Designations Report

Jun 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Gerald B. Silverman

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has set a July 31 deadline for EPA to report on the progress of its designations of which parts of the country are attaining or in nonattainment with its 2015 federal ozone standard, as the agency tries to meet court-ordered deadlines to complete the delayed process.
In a June 5 per curiam order in American Lung Association, et al. v. EPA, et al., the court sets the deadline for the end of next month, and also defers consideration of environmentalists' and EPA's competing motions in the case pending further order of the court. The suit challenges EPA's June 2017 decision to defer for one year all ozone designations for the 2015 national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS).
EPA withdrew the decision in August, and argues in its motions to the court that the case is therefore moot and should be dismissed. But environmentalists and states insist that unless the court vacates the delay, EPA could reinstate it, and they have persisted with motions for summary vacatur or, in the alternative, a stay of the delay pending judicial review.
States and environmentalists are concerned by delays in implementation of the 2015 ozone NAAQS that will result from the late designation of areas as “nonattainment,” which will slow down the crafting of state implementation plans (SIPs) for ozone NAAQS attainment. SIPs detail the emissions reduction measures states will impose on sources of ozone-forming emissions in order to meet the standard.
However, EPA has now issued most of its designations under a schedule ordered in separate litigation in federal district court. Under that schedule, EPA must issue the final remaining designations, for the San Antonio metropolitan area, by July 17.
Nonetheless, environmentalists and states in American Lung Association continue to argue that the case is not moot, seeking to maintain pressure on EPA to complete the designations process. States are arguing that EPA's failure to publish all the designations in the Federal Register, and its decision to make the designations effective only 60 days after publication, again delays states' implementation efforts.
EPA issued most of its nonattainment designations April 30, and published them in the Register June 4, opening a 60-day window for potential litigants to sue over the nonattainment findings. But those designations do not become effective until Aug. 3.
In a June 5 supplemental status report, EPA says petitioners' arguments “are now largely irrelevant.” Further, “The main consideration in determining whether a case is moot is whether the Court can provide effective relief. The answer in this case is clearly 'No.' Neither the time required to submit the document to the Office of Federal Register nor the establishment of the effective date are related in any way to the withdrawn extension."
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/dc-circuit-sets-july-31-deadline-epa-ozone-designations-report

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California Votes With Wallet to Address Climate Change

Jun 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Joyce E. Cutler

California voters—especially in the San Francisco Bay Area—showed a willingness to dig into their wallets to support measures aiming to improve the region’s water and air quality and address future climate issues.
Bay Area voters on June 5 approved a $3 bridge toll increase for some transportation projects related to sea level rise, while residents in one bayside city approved a parcel tax increase for $90 million in bonds to raise levees.
Voters statewide approved, 56 percent to 44 percent, Proposition 68, a $4 billion bond funding plan that includes $443 million for climate preparedness and habitat resiliency. They also approved $175 million for ocean and coastal protection, $162 million for river and waterway improvements, and $550 million for flood protection.
Voters in the San Francisco region approved Regional Measure 3, which adds $3 to the $4 to $6 tolls charged on state-owned Bay Area bridges. The Golden Gate Bridge is a separate district. Eight of nine Bay Area counties voted for the measure.
The revenue would fund 30 regional projects, including $100 million toward studying how to protect Highway 37, which runs through four counties prone to flooding even without climate change.
“California voters have again strongly supported a broad range of environmental initiatives and continue to show a willingness to pay for both environmental restoration and protection projects,” Peter Gleick, president emeritus of the Pacific Institute and a climate specialist, told Bloomberg Environment. The Oakland, Calif.-based Pacific Institute conducts research and policy analysis on environmental and sustainable development issues.
“The support shown for these environmental initiatives is an additional repudiation of the anti-environment policies of the Trump administration,” Gleick said in a June 6 email.
Bay Rise Expected
According to current projections, climate change will cause San Francisco Bay to rise 16 inches by mid-century and 55 inches by the end of the century, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission said in a vulnerability report.
Fear of rising waters helped get a two-thirds majority to pass a $90 million bond measure, Measure P, in Foster City. Voters in the Silicon Valley city approved, 79.8 percent to 20.2 percent. It would add a parcel tax of $40 per $100,000 in value, with the $5,171,000 in annual receipts to fund bonds for rebuilding levees to maintain Federal Emergency Management Agency guidelines. The average increase is about $270.
“Unless the City upgrades the levee system to meet the required FEMA standards, Foster City will be designated in a special flood hazard area and homeowners and businesses with federally insured loans will be mandated to purchase flood insurance, while remaining at flood risk,” a City Council resolution that put Measure P on the ballot said.
“The Foster City measure is an indication that there’s growing awareness of the potential for massive new costs associated with climate change impacts. I don’t think society has come to grips with the magnitude of these costs or had a discussion about who should, or will, have to pay for them,” Gleick said.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote later this month on putting a $425 million bond measure on the November ballot to rebuild the aging seawall that runs along the bay.
The bond is seen as a down payment to protect $100 billion worth of assets and economic activity along the Embarcadero waterfront from flooding.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/california-votes-with-wallet-to-address-climate-change

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Hawaii Working With California Toward Carbon Neutrality Goal

Jun 7, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By David McAfee

Hawaii is in talks to join California’s carbon offset program, a move the Aloha State said will help achieve its goal to become carbon neutral by 2045.
Hawaii Governor David Ige (D) this week signed three bills aimed at combating climate change, including one that sets a statewide carbon neutrality goal for 2045. The others create a framework for a carbon offset program and require sea level rise analyses in environmental impact reports.
“We see tremendous potential for restoration, protection and management of forest areas in Hawaii to offer cost-efficient climate change mitigation,” Ige said while signing the bills June 4. “That’s why this framework for capturing carbon through reforestation and carbon farming is an important step forward.”
Hawaii is initially focusing on forestry programs to sequester carbon, Scott Glenn, director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control in Hawaii, told Bloomberg Environment June 5. That will help the state become a carbon neutral economy despite the fact that it will always be stuck with certain emissions from shipping and travel.
Few studies have been done to show Hawaii’s capacity for carbon sequestration or its costs, but officials have cited a baseline study by the U.S. Geological Survey. They also pointed to the state’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife, one of the agencies developing the carbon offset program, which estimated it can sequester 4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide on unforested land under its jurisdiction.
Building a Bridge to California
The first step will be adopting California’s mechanism for generating carbon dioxide emissions reduction credits for sequestration projects, Glenn said.
“There are different protocols around the world for sequestering carbon, verifying it, and then getting carbon credits that you can then sell in different markets around the world,” Glenn said. “We decided that, for now, it’s better for us to work with other jurisdictions’ protocols.”
Hawaii is looking to California’s exchange first because it “has one of the most highly respected carbon offset protocols around the world,” according to Glenn. However, Hawaii will need to adapt the system to its unique plant life.
“We have native, indigenous, and endangered species here that we would like to replant and get carbon credits for replanting them,” Glenn said. “What we’re looking at doing is getting our native trees qualified into California’s program so that they can earn carbon offsets through the California system.”
But Hawaii needs to do more to make itself truly sustainable, some environmental advocates said.
Henry Curtis, executive director of Life of the Land, an energy and environmental advocacy group, said the bill requiring sea level rise analyses doesn’t go far enough because adverse results won’t halt construction.
“The bill does not make sea level rise a trigger,” Curtis told Bloomberg Environment in a June 5 email. “The question is, does this change anything?”
He also criticized the sequestration efforts because Hawaii hasn’t conducted a carbon dioxide inventory, which details carbon emissions, for more than a decade, making it difficult to determine whether those efforts are working.
“Capturing carbon and sequestering it for hundreds of years is not simple,” Curtis said. “The risks of inaccurate assumptions, bad accounting, and accidental release are great. Not making the emissions in the first place is a far better approach.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/hawaii-working-with-california-toward-carbon-neutrality-goal

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