Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 18/06/18
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(ACC Mentioned) Pupil Used Water Pistol to Squirt North Wales Classmates with Acid
Jun 18, 2018 | Daily Post North Wales
By Tony Bonnici
A child’s face was doused with acid squirted from a water pistol in what is thought to have been a prank at a North Wales secondary school, it has emerged. -
(ACC Mentioned) ACC Urges Trump and Congress to Halt ‘Destructive Trade War’
Jun 18, 2018 | Plastics Today
By Norbert Sparrow
“Trade wars are good, and easy to win,” blithely tweeted President Trump in March of this year. -
Trump's Energy And Environmental Policies Are Clouded By Pruitt's Ethics Allegations
Jun 18, 2018 | Forbes
By Ken SIlverstein
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s ethical dilemmas have pushed watchdog agencies to investigate his actions while members of his own party have called for his removal. -
Ewire: Pruitt Uses Climate Skepticism, Trade to Earn Trump's Favor
Jun 18, 2018 | Inside EPA
As the ethics and management scandals surrounding EPA chief Scott Pruitt have reached critical mass, many observers have wondered why President Donald Trump continues to support him even as high-profile conservatives, Republicans and even White House officials are calling for Pruitt's ouster. -
Pruitt Science Plan May Block Use of Major Harvard Study
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Corbin Hiar
Harvard University is working on an international survey that researchers believe could revolutionize the world's understanding of how buildings affect public health. -
Inside The Grants Review: 'This Is Not Going to Be Funded'
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus and Sean Reilly
Recently disclosed records shed more light on EPA's review of agency grants, which number in the billions of dollars. -
(ACC Mentioned) Tidal Wave of Toxics Deadlines Awaits EPA, Industries in 2019
Jun 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA faces a deluge of tight deadlines over the next 24 months as it must make decisions that will affect dozens of chemicals that companies make and use every day. -
(ACC Mentioned) The EPA Announces It Will Stop Monitoring and Removing Asbestos
Jun 18, 2018 | Care2.com
By Llowell Williams
The Trump-appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, has gotten his share of heat from the media thanks to a never-ending stream of scandals. -
Sherwin-Williams to Phase Out Deadly Paint Strippers
Jun 18, 2018 | Cleveland Plain Dealer (In E&E Greenwire)
By Marcia Pledger
Sherwin-Williams Co. will phase out methylene chloride from its paint strippers following a campaign by public health groups and environmentalists. -
EU Commission Issues Report on Socio-Economic Analysis of PBTs
Jun 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has published a final report, describing its approach to evaluating the socio-economic impacts of bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) substances, subject to authorisation and restriction procedures under REACH. -
EU Publishes Revised Directive on Waste
Jun 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Union has published its revised Directive on waste, which includes a requirement for suppliers to notify Echa of the presence of substances of very high concern (SVHCs) in articles. -
Echa's Risk Assessment Committee Adopts CLH Opinions
Jun 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa's Risk Assessment Committee (Rac) has adopted Opinions on harmonised classification and labelling (CLH). -
Trump Picks Economic Winners, Guided by Nostalgia
Jun 18, 2018 | The New York Times
By Brad Plumer and Jim Tankersley
As President Trump tries to tilt global trade in the United States’ favor, he is increasingly putting his finger on the scale to help once-iconic industries that are declining as a share of the American economy, at the expense of some of the country’s fastest-growing sectors. -
Tariff Spat Puts Oil, Gas and Coal in the Crosshairs
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
President Trump appears to be vexing the very energy sector he vowed to revive, as China threatens retaliatory tariffs on everything from U.S. crude to coal and solar panels. -
National Grid Plans to Cut Carbon 80% by 2050
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
The Northeast utility National Grid on Friday released a blueprint to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the region 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050. -
D.C. Circuit Schedules Oral Arguments in CSAPR, 2017 RFS Suits
Jun 18, 2018 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has scheduled oral arguments for October in two high-profile Clean Air Act cases, one challenging the Obama-era “update” to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) utility emissions trading program and the other to the 2017 renewable fuel standard (RFS). -
Drilling Critics Appeal to Block Chaco-Area Development
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Critics of oil and gas development near New Mexico's Chaco Canyon are taking their case to a federal appeals court. -
FERC Upholds MVP Certificate in Split Decision as Commissioners Disagree on Pipeline Reviews
Jun 18, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
FERC in an order Friday upheld its decision approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), striking down rehearing requests from numerous environmental groups opposed to the 303-mile, 2 million Dth/d greenfield Appalachia-to-Southeast natural gas project. -
Cyber Security Rules Needed for Pipelines: FERC Commissioners
Jun 18, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Neil Chatterjee, Richard Glick
If you have turned on the news or picked up a paper lately, you have probably seen reports that foreign enemies are increasingly launching cyber-attacks on America's critical infrastructure, including energy facilities. -
CSB Names Kristen Kulinowski Interim Head
Jun 18, 2018 | Safety + Health Magazine
Kristen Kulinowski will serve as the “interim executive authority” of the Chemical Safety Board after Vanessa A. Sutherland’s resignation as chair, the agency has announced. -
White House Called Pruitt's Climate Plans 'Out of Control'
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Robin Bravender
Last summer, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was publicly talking up his plans to launch a debate aimed at poking holes in mainstream climate science. -
Nations Give Trump a Pass on Climate at G-20
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
Foreign energy ministers meeting in Bariloche, Argentina, last week largely let the United States off the hook for its plans to exit the Paris climate agreement.
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(ACC Mentioned) Pupil Used Water Pistol to Squirt North Wales Classmates with Acid
Jun 18, 2018 | Daily Post North Wales
By Tony Bonnici
A child’s face was doused with acid squirted from a water pistol in what is thought to have been a prank at a North Wales secondary school, it has emerged.
The corrosive liquid, hydrochloric acid, is reported to have narrowly missed the child’s eyes but left them with facial sores and in shock.
However the 15-year-old attacker, who is also a pupil at the same school which has not been named, was reprimanded with a community resolution order.
The orders, which are aimed at first time offenders where genuine remorse has been expressed, can only be given if the victim has agreed that they do not want police to take more formal action. They do not result in a criminal record.
The Sun newspaper said that the victim was also aged 15. No date was given for the attack.
A Freedom of Information report outlined the case: “Known offender has filled a water pistol with hydrochloric acid and fired it indiscriminately in a classroom and struck IP [Injured Party] just below the eye, no injury caused.”
According to the American Chemistry Council: “Hydrochloric acid is used in the production of batteries, photoflash bulbs and fireworks. It’s even used to process sugar and make gelatin.”
The acid itself is corrosive, and concentrated forms release acidic mists that are also dangerous. If the acid or mist come into contact with the skin, eyes, or internal organs, the damage can be irreversible or even fatal in severe cases.
On skin or inhaled symptoms can include itching, bleaching or darkening of skin, burning sensations, trouble breathing, coughing blood and/or tissue necrosis.
In May the Daily Post reported that although still rare the number of acid attacks across North Wales had been on the rise in the past year.
A Freedom of Information Request to North Wales Police revealed that in 2016 there were two attacks but last year the figure had jumped to 11.
Chief Supt Wayne Jones at North Wales Police said at the time the figures were released: “North Wales Police take a robust stance against any person carrying, threatening or using any form of acid or corrosive substance with intent to cause harm.”
North Wales Police said that they would not comment on the case.
Among the other attacks in North Wales was a rough sleeper who was attacked in 2016 while he slept. The 35-year-old awoke with his hands and face burning, no one has been caught for the attack.
In another case a known offender sprayed liquid nicotine from his vape into the faces of two men he was arguing with. Both men suffered minor injuries to their eyes but suffered no lasting damage.
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/pupil-used-water-pistol-squirt-14799579
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Urges Trump and Congress to Halt ‘Destructive Trade War’
Jun 18, 2018 | Plastics Today
By Norbert Sparrow
“Trade wars are good, and easy to win,” blithely tweeted President Trump in March of this year. Well, it looks like we are on course to find out if that is, in fact, true, which has the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, DC) deeply worried.
On June 15, the Trump administration revealed a number of Chinese products that would be subject to U.S. tariffs. The lists include a wide swathe of polymers as well as plastic products such as tubing and and film. This new round of tariffs, estimated to total $16 billion, is in addition to $34 billion in tariffs announced in April that include plastics processing equipment and molds. China has announced that it will retaliate with its own tariffs on $34 billion worth of U.S. products, including soybeans, whiskey and electric cars. Additional tariffs on more items, including chemical products and medical equipment, will be announced later.
“With the release today of a second list of 284 proposed tariff lines, which includes a large amount of plastics, lubricating oils and other chemicals valued at $2.2 billion, the administration has now pit U.S. chemical manufacturing directly against China at the front lines of this conflict,” wrote the ACC in a press release issued on June 15. “We appreciate, and will vigorously utilize, the opportunity to share our comments and concerns with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and others in the coming weeks to prevent this situation from escalating further.”Sponsored Content Brought to you by The Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology ExpoThe Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo is Here
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The core issue for the ACC is that the United States’ competitive edge in chemical products—lower costs for U.S. feedstock and chemical production facilities—may be compromised by a trade war. Chemistry is one of the United States’ top exporting industries, accounting for 14% of all U.S. exports. China, adds the ACC, is one of our most important trading partners in this sector, “importing 11%, or $3.2 billion, of all plastic resins in 2017.” Retaliation from China could result in the loss of as many as 24,000 U.S. jobs in the chemicals and downstream sectors because of a downturn in demand for these products, argues the ACC. It urges the administration and Congress to halt what it calls this “destructive trade war.”
By imposing these tariffs, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and the Trump administration hope to pressure China to enter into meaningful negotiations to reduce the trade deficit and stop theft of intellectual property.
However, investors expect the spat to come at the expense of U.S. oil firms, pulling down the share prices of ExxonMobil and Chevron by 1 to 2 percent since Friday, while U.S. crude oil prices fell by around 5 percent, reported Reuters yesterday. “The Chinese may just replace some of the American oil with Iranian crude,” John Driscoll, Director of consultancy JTD Energy Services, told Reuters.
“China isn’t intimidated by the threat of U.S. sanctions. They haven’t been in the past. So in this diplomatic spat they might just replace U.S. crude with Iranian oil. That would obviously infuriate Trump,” said Driscoll.
https://www.plasticstoday.com/business/acc-urges-trump-and-congress-halt-destructive-trade-war/64508205358941
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Trump's Energy And Environmental Policies Are Clouded By Pruitt's Ethics Allegations
Jun 18, 2018 | Forbes
By Ken SIlverstein
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s ethical dilemmas have pushed watchdog agencies to investigate his actions while members of his own party have called for his removal. But while Pruitt may have moral shortcomings, the central question is whether such workplace mores are established by the U.S. president.
Donald Trump has always touted his private sector dealings as evidence of why he would be a good national steward. But successful organizations have always stood by their stakeholders — and their communities in particular. That moral compass is set by applying codes of conduct and then working to ensure that proper standards are maintained within a given entity and beyond its borders.
“The American public needs to have confidence that ethics violations, as well as the appearance of ethics of ethics violations, are investigated and properly addressed,” David Apol, acting directing and general counsel for the U.S. Office on Government Ethics wrote to EPA’s inspector general. “The efficacy of, and the public trust in, our government depends on it.”
The allegations against Pruitt are adding up: A D.C. condo-rental from someone lobbying his agency; using government employees to run personal errands and to find family members jobs; leveraging his position to get sporting tickets and, flying first class all over the world. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office concluded that Pruitt’s installation of a soundproof phone booth in his office violated the Antideficiency Act. The list goes on.
The context here, of course, is that previous cabinet members have been forced to resign for fewer indiscretions. But the more fundamental picture is whether the president’s own behavior has given implicit permission to embark on such self-dealing: The Trump Foundation, for example, is now alleged to have misdirected monies donated to it to resolve the president’s own legal entanglements, as well as to help finance his presidential campaign. Then there was the $25 million settlement to those who were duped by Trump University. That list also goes on.
“I think Trump has shown he doesn’t mind flouting conventions or standards or principles,” crisis expert and ethicist Peter Sandman told this writer. “And he has shown he doesn’t mind when his subordinates do the same, even (maybe especially) if it enrages his critics and keeps even allies off balance.”
Effective Leadership
Beyond running government like a business, Trump was also going to “drain the swamp.” It appears, however, that “the end game” is more important than the appearance. Or, in Pruitt’s cases, his efforts to rollback EPA rules supersede the cronyism. Letting it slide is sending a clear message: ethics don’t matter.
Much of the public and the press are incredulous. Corporations that flout excess are penalized. Witness Tyco and its former chief executive, Dennis Kozlowski. Ditto for government employees. The actions of one can bleed over, causing the general public to believe that all of them cut corners to boost their bottom lines or to improve their own futures.
If a company or government agency is hit with such a scandal, protocol requires that they get out front and report all known facts. Consider Tylenol’s once-tainted tablets, resulting in the deaths of customers: Its parent, Johnson & Johnson, then fully acknowledged the problem and responded by withdrawing all of its products from store shelves. Its chairman took to the podium to keep the public fully informed. In the end, Tylenol and its reputation were saved.
Those who bob-and-weave are made to suffer: Enron, for instance, preached ethical values but did little to practice them. With huge bonuses at stake for managers, the primary incentive was to increase profits at all costs. Ultimately, though, it went down as one of the biggest bankruptcies ever while some of its key executives went to prison.
And that case is universally taught to business students — that effective leadership can move organizations in the right direction, or off the cliff.
To avoid that, public and private organizations must have a culture of openness and accessibility, and they need to plan for the "unthinkable." Core values are always applied -- even if there is a short-term cost of doing so. And if “value statements” are undercut, it can lead to a breakdown of checks and balances.
“His seemingly endless stream of personal peccadilloes reveals horrible judgement,” ethicist Sandman says of Pruitt. “Some seem so obviously unwise, unethical, and against government policy and maybe law that it’s hard to believe he wasn’t warned not to do them.”
Pruitt’s moral lapses have even pushed those in his party to cut ties. Republicans who have called for his removal include Senator James Inhofe, R-OK, and talk show host Laura Ingraham.
Values Matter
Invariably, leaders wrestle with whether to limit their legal liabilities or to respond to the public interest. Working to ensure the safety and well-being of the public is always the correct response. That is true whether it is a government agency or a corporate board.
Conversely, if the public feels as if its concerns are being shunned to support “the end game” or for nefarious purposes, it rebels and the divide deepens. The goal of any person or entity in the hot seat is to generate goodwill — to assure stakeholders that they have all known facts and that their leaders care about them.
DuPont and Chemours Co. agreed to pay in 2017 $671 million in a case involving drinking water contamination that allegedly led to certain cancers. The allegations were that DuPont — now DowDuPont — intentionally dumped for years its excesses into local waterways to the detriment of communities.
But the same forces that can push leaders to evade common sense and empathy can also be positively channeled. It's about creating a team environment in which the participants see their roles as facilitating the greater good and not in feathering their own nests.
Companies such as WalMart, Caesars Entertaintment and Kellogg Company listen to their customers and invest in clean energy technologies. They are addressing climate concerns and they are using their size and leverage to get others along the value chain to do the same.
Circling back to Pruitt, his role at EPA has been to essentially reverse the Obama-era rules and regulations and to encourage the unfettered exploration of this country’s natural resources. That mission — for better or worse — has been undercut and obfuscated, says Sandman.
“He has displayed some combination of arrogance and bad judgment, which would surely disqualify him from winning over critics of his policies,” the ethicist adds.
Values matter. And if they are not properly defined and enforced they will get shunted aside to promote short term gains and goals. The Trump administration’s energy and environmental policies are not the issue here. What is at stake is the country’s moral compass and what direction it is headed. The American landscape is littered with examples of entities that have maintained their missions and those that have forsaken them. Just ask Enron.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2018/06/18/trumps-energy-and-environmental-policies-are-clouded-by-pruitts-ethics-allegations/#46ee47a87578
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Ewire: Pruitt Uses Climate Skepticism, Trade to Earn Trump's Favor
Jun 18, 2018 | Inside EPA
As the ethics and management scandals surrounding EPA chief Scott Pruitt have reached critical mass, many observers have wondered why President Donald Trump continues to support him even as high-profile conservatives, Republicans and even White House officials are calling for Pruitt's ouster.
The Washington Post took an in-depth look at this dynamic over the weekend, chronicling Pruitt's extensive efforts to ingratiate himself with his boss.
Of note, Pruitt “shares Trump’s skepticism of mainstream science and has offered a reality-TV-style way to make their case: a televised show in which Pruitt would debate a climate scientist,” the article says, underscoring Pruitt's advocacy to leave the Paris climate agreement.
And the Post reports that the nation's top environmental regulator is trying to play a role in an issue near and dear to Trump's heart, trade.
Pruitt has offered to take a lead role in renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – an offer that trade officials declined – and has even devised a novel regulatory effort to punish foreign-made cars to boost domestic manufacturing.
Under that plan, which White House lawyers have called illegal, foreign automakers would face stricter fuel economy standards – based in part on “lifecycle” greenhouse gas analysis that factors in shipping-related emissions. The story says the idea has been “shelved.”
But as Pruitt continues his efforts to keep his boss happy, events continue to threaten his job security. On June 15, the federal government's top ethics official urged EPA's inspector general (IG) to quickly complete his ongoing investigation into a range of ethics and management allegations regarding Pruitt, so that he can determine whether to begin a “corrective action” proceeding.
In addition, David Apol, the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), urged the IG to launch a new inquiry into a range of issues that have recently surfaced in news reports, including allegations that Pruitt directed agency staff to perform various personal tasks, including helping to find employment for his wife.
“We ask you to complete your report, as soon as possible, so that we can decide whether to begin a formal corrective action proceeding in order to make a formal recommendation to the President,” Apol writes in a letter to EPA's IG Arthur Elkins.
Such recommendations are nonbinding, Trump could opt to retain him and limit any penalty.
But an OGE spokesperson told Politico that the office is “unaware of the agency ever before initiating a formal corrective action proceeding against any federal official, let alone a Cabinet member.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-pruitt-uses-climate-skepticism-trade-earn-trumps-favor
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Pruitt Science Plan May Block Use of Major Harvard Study
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Corbin Hiar
Harvard University is working on an international survey that researchers believe could revolutionize the world's understanding of how buildings affect public health.
There's just one problem: Because of a change to scientific standards proposed by Administrator Scott Pruitt, EPA regulators likely won't be able to use the study's findings to better protect Americans who live or work in buildings.
"This speaks to the central issue with that regulation," Harvard's Joseph Allen, the principal investigator of the global buildings study said of EPA's regulatory science transparency proposal.
"All of our work, of course, is peer reviewed in top academic journals and has gone through that process that we've all used for many decades now," said Allen, who is also co-director of Harvard's new Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment, or C-CHANGE. "But it has the same limitations as all of our research in this domain."
The three-year-long global buildings study — like almost all public health research — is based on sensitive personal data that Allen's team has promised will remain confidential.
Harvard and SUNY Upstate Medical University, which is also working on the project, have begun collecting information on the health and cognitive function of a group of people that will eventually include thousands of workers in 100 buildings across the globe.
But EPA's transparency proposal, which mirrors a plan from a former tobacco industry lawyer who served on the agency's transition team, would make it very difficult for EPA staffers to take into account the global buildings study and other public health research when crafting major regulations.
That's because "the proposed regulation provides that, for the science pivotal to its significant regulatory actions, EPA will ensure that the data and models underlying the science is publicly available in a manner sufficient for validation and analysis," the draft rule says.
Significant regulatory actions are ones that the regulators determine could have an annual effect on the economy of at least $100 million, could materially affect certain states or economic sectors, or raise legal or federal budgetary issues. New building ventilation standards, for instance, would likely be considered significant.
EPA says "nothing in the proposed rule compels the disclosure of any confidential or private information in a manner that violates applicable legal and ethical protections."
But Andrew Rosenberg, a former federal scientist who is now at the Union of Concerned Scientists advocacy group, believes it would be virtually impossible to anonymize all of the personal information Allen and his team are collecting. Even if the names of participants were redacted, he argued, their identities could be deduced based on the building they work in.
"There's absolutely no reason that anyone needs to see the raw data to decide whether the science is credible and legitimate," said Rosenberg, who was deputy director of the NOAA Fisheries during the Clinton administration.
"I review many, many papers for top-tier journals every year," he said. "I don't review the raw data. I look at the methodology and the summary statistics and the results and so on. That's the general process that all reviewers follow."Big tobacco ties
Using data requirements to exclude important public health research from EPA consideration may very well be the point of Pruitt's transparency proposal, according to Rosenberg, Allen and other critics in the scientific community (Climatewire, April 25).
"This administration long ago signaled its intent to dismantle important environmental protections at the expense of our collective health, and they are acting on that promise," the Harvard researcher said.
Christopher Horner, who helped shape EPA in the early days of the Trump administration, urged the tobacco industry in 1996 to push for similar "sound science" criteria in the federal rulemaking process.
At the time, Horner was a lawyer at the firm Bracewell & Patterson LLP, and his client, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., was worried about growing scientific evidence of the dangers posed by secondhand tobacco smoke. To prevent agencies from using health studies to support curbs on smoking, Horner suggested "addressing process as opposed to scientific substance."
Specifically, he wrote that one of the criteria for "sound science" should be "can the answer be reproduced from the record?"
The laborious requirement would help provide "a new mechanism to control EPA and other regulatory bodies," he wrote. The end goal is to avoid "to the extent possible specific scientific issues, contaminants, or industries."
The memo, first reported by The Intercept, was produced during litigation between state attorneys general and the tobacco industry and collected by the University of San Francisco.
Horner, who is now at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank, and EPA didn't respond to requests for comment on the Harvard study and the science proposal.
Angela Logomasini, a senior fellow at CEI, wrote an op-ed in The Hill earlier this year, soon after EPA floated the science plan.
"Sound scientific research should be designed so that data can be made available — with the approval of the subjects — without releasing individual identities," she wrote. "But today, many researchers apparently would rather not release data, making it difficult for others to challenge their results."
Rosenberg sees a direct connection between Horner's "secret science" plan for the tobacco industry and the science transparency proposal pushed by Pruitt, whose political career has been bankrolled by fossil fuel companies concerned about climate science.
"They use the same tactics" to prevent the adoption of cutting-edge public health research, he said. "All it does is delay. It has no function. It doesn't improve the scientific evidence, it doesn't make people healthier, it doesn't do anything."
The transparency proposal is also prompting confusion within EPA. The top career official responsible for safeguarding the nation's drinking water supply last month couldn't say how the rule would affect its efforts to protect the public from toxic nonstick chemicals (Greenwire, May 24).
Nevertheless, Allen is hopeful that — even in the absence of EPA action — the results of his study can still help improve the lives of Americans, nearly all of whom either live or work in buildings.
"By working with good companies, on a market-based approach, using sound science, we can continue to advance both the planet and the economy," he said, pointing to a collaboration between C-CHANGE and Google to reduce the use of dangerous chemicals in home and office furnishings (Greenwire, May 31).
"So everyone wins in our vision of public health," Allen said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/06/18/stories/1060084931
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Inside The Grants Review: 'This Is Not Going to Be Funded'
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus and Sean Reilly
Recently disclosed records shed more light on EPA's review of agency grants, which number in the billions of dollars.
Internal EPA emails, released to the Natural Resources Defense Council under the Freedom of Information Act, offer more details on agency grants reviews managed by John Konkus, a deputy public affairs chief and one of President Trump's political appointees. The documents show the reviews involved several appointees at times and often flagged EPA funds that were flowing to the Obama administration's allies and priorities, like combating climate change.
Career officials at EPA also pushed back on decisions to pull funding from certain organizations. They also tried to make the case that agency money could be worked into the agenda of President Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Steven Fine, acting chief information officer at EPA, even used one of Pruitt's buzzwords — "cooperative federalism" — when defending one grant that happened to mention the Clean Power Plan, the Obama-era rule to curb power plants' carbon emissions that Pruitt has sought to roll back.
"The proposed work connects multiple types of information that are not related to CPP but are relevant to the interest of EPA and states," Fine said in one email.
"The work unrelated to CPP is the vast majority of the proposed work and would support Agency and Administration goals related to clean air, clean water reliable energy production, and Cooperative Federalism," Fine added.
John Konkus. @john_konkus_epa/Twitter
Konkus was not convinced by Fine's argument.
"This is not going to be funded and we would kindly ask you to alert the organization in the morning that the award will not be granted," he replied.
But Konkus was later informed that the grant recipient in question had sent in a revised cover letter to better address its work. That sparked a softer response from him.
"FYI this is how most grant discussions end up, the program and grantee work on a solution together to make the grant work better reflect the priorities of the Administration," he said in an email.
The grants review attracted scrutiny after E&E News reported last August that Konkus, a political appointee, was overseeing the process, which had been typically managed by career officials (Greenwire, Aug. 17, 2017). An EPA spokesman told E&E News that the Trump administration wanted to be "good stewards" of taxpayer money.
"EPA awards about $4 billion in grants annually, and the Trump EPA is committed to being good stewards of the taxpayers' huge investment in our agency by reviewing every grant award and solicitation," said the spokesman.
EPA issued a memo on Aug. 8 last year directing its Office of Public Affairs to review and approve all grant solicitations.
EPA's grants process, however, has changed again.
The agency shared with E&E News an email sent last month, which rescinded the Aug. 8 memo. Instead, regional administrators and assistant administrators at EPA now have to approve "solicitation issuance" for grants.
"Now that all of our Regional Administrators and most of our program AAs are in place, we have shifted the responsibility to these leaders to review and manage the grants that flow through their respective offices," said the EPA spokesman.
Konkus' grants review may have begun even before the memo was issued last August. In an email to EPA Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson, the public affairs aide described marking a grant from earlier in the year.
"This response is from July when I first flagged this grant," Konkus said.
Several of the EPA emails show Konkus inquiring for more information about grants. In one, he asked if the agency had "a position on human testing."
"See this proposed grant," Konkus said.
In other messages, he prodded EPA to release funds to those who needed it most.
"There are a lot of Puerto Rico grants in these files. I would love to get that money out to them!" Konkus said in one email sent last September after Hurricane Maria had devastated the U.S. island territory.
Other Trump political appointees were asked to help with the grants review at EPA. Jackson said in an email, "I could use your help with grant solicitations," with several appointees copied on the message.
"These need to be reviewed by OPA (John Konkus) before they go live," Jackson said.
In replying to Jackson, Konkus noted that EPA program offices were using guidance that included "a reliance on the 2014-2018 strategic plan which was implemented by the past administration."
Konkus sought other appointees' advice, as well.
"These seem fine to me," Nancy Beck, the deputy assistant administrator in EPA's chemicals office, said in an email to Konkus, who also asked her to review a pesticide cooperative agreement.
"No concerns from my end," said Mandy Gunasekara, a senior EPA adviser on air issues, when asked about certain grants in another email to Konkus.
Konkus flagged several grants that included climate change in their descriptions or linked to environmental organizations. He even recommended some to be pulled back.
In one list, he noted a grant obligated to NRDC to perform energy efficiency work, saying he and Gunasekara would "need a briefing on this one." The green group has been a staunch critic of the Trump administration.
Konkus also said, "No to this please," on a grant for climate change research.
Other grants for an integrated assessment of greenhouse gases as well as a study on air pollution meteorology and particulate matter also received a "No to this one please" message from Konkus.
It's not clear from the email if their EPA funding was withdrawn in the end. At least one group has confirmed that its agency grant was rescinded.
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private partnership launched in 2010 by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, aims to reduce indoor air pollution. Its EPA grant would have been spent on a project intended in part to develop "an integrated and robust communications and outreach program," accompanied by biogas promotion activities, according to an EPA summary.
"This grant should NOT move forward. Thank you," Konkus said in one email about the project.
The actual amount of the rescinded grant is not clear. Kip Patrick, an Alliance spokesman, referred questions this morning to a statement issued last August by the organization expressing surprise at EPA's decision to rescind the money.
"EPA's previous support of clean cooking has provided a model of how the U.S. can lead on innovative solutions to global issues in ways that have bipartisan support, that benefit Americans directly, and that help drive increased investment from the private sector and other partners," the statement said.
In recent years, the Alliance, hosted by the U.N. Foundation, had received a total of $1.4 million in EPA money, along with more than $70 million in funding from other governments and the private sector, according to the statement.
Winrock International, based in Little Rock, Ark., takes its name from the late Winthrop Rockefeller, a Republican who served as Arkansas' governor from 1967 to 1971. The nonprofit group's EPA grant was also geared to reducing indoor air pollution, according to the agency.
"This grant should not move forward," Konkus said in an email about the funds.
A Winrock spokesman did not immediately reply to emailed queries this morning to confirm the actual dollar amount of the grant and whether the funding was in fact withdrawn.
When EPA funding was pulled from a group's grant, Konkus recommended that "a courtesy email or call" be made to them.
"It does not have to be complicated, just a courtesy so that they hear from us first," he said in an email.
Konkus did not respond this morning to a message left on his cellphone by E&E News seeking more information on his reasons for flagging the grants.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/06/18/stories/1060084979
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(ACC Mentioned) Tidal Wave of Toxics Deadlines Awaits EPA, Industries in 2019
Jun 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA faces a deluge of tight deadlines over the next 24 months as it must make decisions that will affect dozens of chemicals that companies make and use every day.
Chemical manufacturers such as Olin Corp., BASF Corp., and the Chemours Co., along with producers of greases, glues, and sealants that keep delivery trucks on the road, cargo trains moving, and machines working, are the types of companies that could be caught in the backwash by the magnitude and pace of information the agency will need to make those decisions.
June 22 marks two years since Congress overhauled the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), but the Environmental Protection Agency won’t take a celebratory break. Instead, the agency must release a final rule and additional guidance by that date and keep working.
Its staff must jump from evaluating 15 chemicals in commerce this year to screening and evaluating 50 chemicals, and proposing restrictions on five in 2019 to meet deadlines set by the TSCA amendments of 2016.
The EPA’s workload means chemical and other manufacturers will need to provide a volume of information about chemical exposures to the agency at a pace companies may not fully appreciate, Martha Marrapese, a chemicals and consumer products partner in Wiley Rein LLP’s Washington office, told Bloomberg Environment.
“There’s a big tidal wave approaching and people have to figure out how to get in front of it,” Stephen A. Owens, a partner specializing in chemical regulatory issues in the Phoenix office of Squire Patton Boggs, told Bloomberg Environment.
Crossroads
The EPA is at a crossroads in 2019.
The agency may demonstrate that it can effectively review the potential ways chemicals could harm people and the environment, and take action if they do—a core reason Congress overhauled the chemicals law in 2016, attorneys and consultants told Bloomberg Environment in recent interviews.
But the EPA’s already-stretched staff may be unable to meet the law’s deadlines, said Rena I. Steinzor, an administrative and environmental law professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Law.
Or the agency could meet the deadlines by doing “sloppy stuff” that ignores real health and environmental risks, she said.
Either way, federal courts are likely to weigh in on rules the EPA issued in 2017 describing how it would carry out its new responsibilities under the revised chemicals law. Court losses could send the EPA back to the drawing board or wins may endorse its choices.
Court Rulings in the Mix
The agency already is being sued in three federal circuit courts for its interpretations of TSCA, and future decisions are likely to spur more lawsuits, Owens said.
Court decisions in these cases may come by the end of this year and in 2019, attorneys said.
“I don’t think any of these lawsuits will have an effect on implementation,” said Karyn Schmidt, a senior director and attorney at the American Chemistry Council, said. “EPA took a legally sound and policy smart approach to implementing the law.”
But, Owens said, “It’s entirely possible the agency could lose one or more arguments in the lawsuits.”
Depending on the courts, the agency could have to start all over again and rethink how it is supposed to analyze chemicals generally and redo analyses of specific compounds it already has worked on, Owens said.
New, Uncertain Requirements
Regardless of the court decisions, the agency will be “challenged” to meet its coming workload, according to the attorneys, consultants, and other individuals Bloomberg Environment spoke with.
“I confess to being worried,” Lorenz R. Rhomberg, a risk assessor with Gradient, a consulting firm, told Bloomberg Environment.
The agency’s staff is carrying out many TSCA-mandated tasks for the first time, said Rhomberg, who joined Gradient’s Cambridge, Mass., office after working as a biostatistician at the agency for 10 years.
Staff will face a lot of questions about how to interpret general mandates in carrying out their daily tasks, he said.
For example, the law requires the agency to use systematic procedures to identify, select, assess, and summarize the best available science, Rhomberg said. It’s unlikely to be clear how to apply those criteria to specific studies, he said.
The EPA’s staff is essentially being told to “hurry up and do this thing that I can’t exactly tell you what it is yet,” he said.
Upcoming Deadlines
Imminent deadlines the EPA is expected to meet by June 22 include issuing a final rule requiring companies to report their intentional production or use of mercury and releasing a plan to reduce, refine, or replace vertebrate animal testing.
Deadlines the EPA faces over the next two years include: Issuing in early 2019 a list of chemicals active in commerce, Selecting 40 chemicals early next year it will screen to decide if they are high or low priorities for risk evaluation, Proposing by June 22, 2019, a rule to reduce exposures to five toxic chemicals that also persist in the environment and build up in the food chain, Finishing by late 2019 risk evaluations of 10 chemicals, and Developing plans in early 2020 to assess the risks of 20 “high-priority” chemicals that it must identify by the end of 2019.
The agency also has said it will issue a final rule restricting some paint and coating stripper uses of a solvent called methylene chloride, and, at the request of one or more manufacturers, it may begin to evaluate the risks posed by two fragrance chemicals.
‘Torn Constantly’
The EPA also must stay on top of other TSCA requirements while it analyzes many questions involving dozens of chemicals used by companies and consumers. These other tasks include reviewing hundreds of new chemicals to decide whether they can enter commerce—a top priority of the chemical industry.
The agency also must craft a final rule by 2020 describing how it will review thousands of chemicals that have specific identities it keeps secret. It must decide whether those chemical identities must be kept out of the public’s eye to protect companies’ proprietary information.
The EPA needs more staff and money to manage its oversight of both existing and new chemicals, said Lynn Bergeson, a managing partner of Bergeson & Campbell, PC in Washington.
The agency’s chemicals office “will be torn constantly” over the next two years as to where to deploy its resources, she said.
The 40 new staff members the EPA has said it will hire this year—combined with a planned reorganization of the chemicals office—may help, Bergeson said.
“We have been very successful thus far in meeting our deadlines and are committed to continuing to build on that success,” the EPA told Bloomberg Environment.
“We have every expectation that it will continue to meet its deadlines,” said Michael P. Walls, vice president of regulatory and technical affairs at the American Chemistry Council. “We’ve seen EPA’s effort really focus on implementation and doing a good job,” he said.
The deadlines the EPA faces and that chemical manufacturers will seek to help it meet will “really create confidence” in the law, he added.
Learning While Doing
All sorts of manufacturers—not just chemical producers—have a critical role to play in helping the EPA achieve the chemical law’s mandates, other attorneys said.
Ideally companies already would have provided the agency information for the chemicals it already is evaluating, said Mark Duvall, who heads Beveridge & Diamond, PC’s Toxic and Harmful Substances/Toxic Substances Control Act practice.
If they have not, “now is the time” to provide the EPA with exposure research and other information, he and others said.
Nearly everyone Bloomberg Environment interviewed stressed that the agency’s coming mountain of work isn’t the beginning of a never-ending struggle.
As the agency gains experience, the work will get easier, said Richard E. Engler, director of chemistry with Bergeson & Campbell, and Rhomberg, both of whom worked at the EPA.
https://www.bna.com/tidal-wave-toxics-n73014476569/
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(ACC Mentioned) The EPA Announces It Will Stop Monitoring and Removing Asbestos
Jun 18, 2018 | Care2.com
By Llowell Williams
The Trump-appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, has gotten his share of heat from the media thanks to a never-ending stream of scandals. However, what is getting almost no attention is Pruitt’s decision to no longer have the EPA monitor and (when deemed necessary) remove asbestos from American homes and buildings.
Asbestos, like smoking on airplanes and televisions with physical knobs, might sound like a throw back to a bygone era. However, asbestos is still present in thousands of structures in the United States today and in fact is still being actively used in some ways – and this is set to expand thanks to Pruitt’s decision.
We will never know the true number of deaths attributed to asbestos-related chemical poisoning over the decades. This is in part because some of the diseases that arise from poisoning may take years to manifest, making it difficult to draw a connection. Moreover, data simply wasn’t kept on such things before 1999, well after asbestos was largely phased out of mainstream use. Even still, in just the period between 1999 and 2013, when data is available, roughly 200,000 Americans died due to asbestos exposure. That equates to between 12,000 and 15,000 deaths annually.Be an informed activist.
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Though the science on asbestos poisoning was settled decades ago, not everyone is convinced of the health hazards, including President Trump. Believe it or not, Trump has openly expressed this skepticism, going so far as to state that the science is bunk, and in truth the result of a mob-created conspiracy. Why? “Because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal,” wrote Trump in his 1997 book “The Art of the Comeback”. Asbestos is actually “100 percent safe, once applied” Trump claims, contrary to the scientific consensus.
Of course, the EPA’s course change isn’t entirely rooted in crack pot conspiracy theories. As it turns out, the American Chemistry Council – a major lobbying group representing the interests of corporations like Dow Chemical and Monsanto – has been pushing the EPA since 2016 to ease up on asbestos. Meetings between the lobby group and the EPA have intensified under Pruitt’s tenure and, no doubt, played a crucial role in the recent policy change.
Though the EPA says it will continue its process of approving and monitoring the use of asbestos in new cases, existing asbestos will not be evaluated for health risks. And, given that thousands of Americans’ lives are still cut short every year, this is deeply concerning. Right now, many Americans are unaware of whether or not they are being exposed to asbestos – in fact, the government has no idea how many public buildings still have the substance. But, by many indications, asbestos is still rather common in some cities’ public schools.Take Action!
If the EPA fails to continue to monitor and, as needed, remove existing asbestos installations, hundreds if not thousands of Americans will die. Many of them will be children, students who were unwittingly inhaling toxic particulates during their developmental years. If there were at least 12,000 yearly deaths in the U.S. thanks to asbestos while there was EPA oversight, just imagine how much that number will grow now.
Tell EPA head Scott Pruitt that his chief responsibility is to protect the environment and the health of all Americans – and that this policy change is a failure of this responsibility. Make your voice heard by adding your name to our petition so that together we can make a change!
https://www.care2.com/causes/epa-announces-it-will-stop-monitoring-and-removing-asbestos.html
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Sherwin-Williams to Phase Out Deadly Paint Strippers
Jun 18, 2018 | Cleveland Plain Dealer (In E&E Greenwire)
By Marcia Pledger
Sherwin-Williams Co. will phase out methylene chloride from its paint strippers following a campaign by public health groups and environmentalists.
The painting and coating company made the announcement Friday and also confirmed that it does not make paint strippers containing another substance, N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP).
"Our customers are our #1 priority at Sherwin-Williams, so we are eliminating methylene chloride paint strippers from our stores," the company said in a tweet. "We have several effective alternatives available to serve your project needs."
Advocacy groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, had penned a letter to Sherwin-Williams CEO John Morikis calling on the company to ban paint strippers containing methylene chloride and NMP from its retail locations.
Hardware retail giant Lowe's Cos. Inc. also previously announced it would ban both chemicals from its stores by the end of this year (Greenwire, May 29).
The chemicals have been linked to dozens of deaths, and NMP can affect fetal development.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/06/18/stories/1060084839
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EU Commission Issues Report on Socio-Economic Analysis of PBTs
Jun 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has published a final report, describing its approach to evaluating the socio-economic impacts of bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) substances, subject to authorisation and restriction procedures under REACH.
The report has the following objectives:to develop a ready-for-use approach for analysis of the socio-economic impacts of PBT/vPvB substances, taking into account the work done so far. This should allow for grouping, where the impact potential of different substances is expected to be similar, and ranking, to facilitate the read-across or comparative assessment of (socio-economic) impacts;to estimate impacts, taking into account intrinsic properties, emission scenarios and their distribution in the different environmental compartments;to provide a sensible approximation of the damage potential, including a quantification and monetisation of possible impacts for human health and the environment; andto develop a benchmark approach, which allows drawing conclusions on the proportionality of risk management measures, or to conclude whether the socio-economic benefits outweigh the risks (that is, expected damages) from using the substance. Grouping the substances might lead to the development of different benchmarks for different groups.
It suggests that an evaluation of the PBT/vPvB substances should be based on a ‘stock pollution’ approach. Stock pollutants are those that accumulate in the environment over time.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67748/eu-commission-issues-report-on-socio-economic-analysis-of-pbts
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EU Publishes Revised Directive on Waste
Jun 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Union has published its revised Directive on waste, which includes a requirement for suppliers to notify Echa of the presence of substances of very high concern (SVHCs) in articles.
The Directive was endorsed in April and adopted in May.
It enters into force on the twentieth day, after its publication in the Official Journal of the European Unionon 14 June.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67811/eu-publishes-revised-directive-on-waste
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Echa's Risk Assessment Committee Adopts CLH Opinions
Jun 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa's Risk Assessment Committee (Rac) has adopted Opinions on harmonised classification and labelling (CLH).
They are for:dimethyl disulphide, an intermediate with no current entry in Annex VI of the CLP Regulation;2,2-bis(bromomethyl)propane-1,3-diol, an industrial chemical used in polymers, with no current entry. It agreed with Norway's proposal to classify it as a carcinogen category 1B and mutagen 1B; bis(a,a-dimethylbenzyl)peroxide. Contrary to Norway's proposal, it backed classification of the substance as suspected of damaging the unborn child (reprotoxic 1B) and to keep the classifications for skin and eye irritation;n-(hydroxymethyl)acrylamide (NMA). The Rac agreed with France's proposal to classify as carcinogen category 1B, mutagen 1B; and specific target organ toxicity-repeated exposure (Stot Re);glyoxylic acid. The Rac supported Germany's proposal to classify as eye damage 1 and skin sensitiser 1B; trimethoxyvinylsilane. The Rac agreed with Sweden's proposal to classify as skin sensitiser 1B; tris(2-methoxyethoxy)vinylsilane. It backed Austria's proposal to classify as reprotoxic 1B; tetraglyme, an industrial chemical used mainly as a solvent in paints and coatings. The committee agreed with Austria's proposal of reprotoxic 1B; andnitric acid. The Rac supported Germany's proposal to classify as: in concentrations above 70% – fatal if inhaled – (acute toxicity 1); at or below concentrations of 70 % – toxic if inhaled – (acute toxiocity 3) with an ATE for inhalation of 2.65mg/L (dust and mist), and additional labelling with EUH071 (corrosive to the respiratory tract).Lead shot
The agency's Socio-economic Analysis Committee (Seac) also adopted its final Opinion in support of Echa's proposal to restrict lead and its compounds in gunshot for shooting with a shotgun within a wetland, or where spent gunshot would land within such.
The committee concluded that further action on a European-wide level is required to address the risks. Furthermore, it decided that the effective implementation of the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) requires a consistent minimum level of protection of waterbirds across the EU, which the proposed restriction would achieve.
In additon, Rac agreed a note on the carcinogenicity dose-response relationship for high temperature coal tar pitch (CTPHT).
The Rac also agreed on five draft Opinions and Seac on seven draft Opinions on four and six applications for authorisation respectively on uses of chromium (VI) substances, DBP and diglyme.
And for the first time since the inception of the REACH Regulation, the committees agreed on four draft opinions on the two review reports. Both of these are about uses of DEHP-containing PVC recyclate.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67814/echas-risk-assessment-committee-adopts-clh-opinions
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Trump Picks Economic Winners, Guided by Nostalgia
Jun 18, 2018 | The New York Times
By Brad Plumer and Jim Tankersley
As President Trump tries to tilt global trade in the United States’ favor, he is increasingly putting his finger on the scale to help once-iconic industries that are declining as a share of the American economy, at the expense of some of the country’s fastest-growing sectors.
The president’s attempts to boost domestic steel manufacturing and coal mining have come largely through policies that limit foreign competition, like tariffs, and proposals to prevent coal-fired power plants from closing. Those efforts have produced only modest job gains so far in two blue-collar sectors that Mr. Trump championed in his run to the White House. But they have injected uncertainty into a host of other growing industries — such as advanced manufacturing, natural gas production and renewable energy generation — that have helped drive American job creation since the Great Recession.
On Friday, the Trump administration escalated its trade conflict with China, announcing $50 billion in tariffs on goods from Chinese industries that the Beijing government has targeted for its next wave of economic development. The administration has not articulated a strategy similar to China’s, and experts have warned that the tariffs — and the retaliatory tariffs China has threatened to impose — will end up hurting America’s own growth industries.
By crafting an industrial policy that largely looks to the past, Mr. Trump differs from his predecessors, who often attempted to hasten the emergence of new industries and position the United States to lead the way.
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On energy, both the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations enacted tax breaks and federal loan guarantees for emerging technologies like wind power or electric cars that were not initially competitive but, they believed, would eventually become widespread as the world shifted toward cleaner energy.
Mr. Obama convened a task force on advanced manufacturing and steered federal money toward research hubs, which supported the development of robotics and biofabrication, among other technologies.
Mr. Trump’s approach, by contrast, has largely focused on saving legacy sectors whose workforces have been hurt by globalization, automation and innovation.
The president has long been enamored with coal, steel and other blue-collar industries, promising to revitalize them on the campaign trail and, once in office, using them as a proxy for the working-class voters who powered his election. “The people that like me best are those people, the workers,” he told a rally in Missouri last year. “They’re the people I understand the best. Those are the people I grew up with. Those are the people I worked on construction sites with.”EDITORS’ PICKSShe Found Comfort in a Brooklyn Diner, Then Lost EverythingYour Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe NotFacebook Gave Phone Makers Vast Access to Users’ DataImageA wind farm outside Lincoln, Kan. Both the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations enacted tax breaks and federal loan guarantees for emerging technologies like wind power and electric cars that they believed would become widespread as the world shifted toward cleaner energy.CreditChristopher Smith for The New York Times
But while the approach has helped Mr. Trump remain popular with many working-class white voters, it has done little to help those populations prepare for changes that could further decimate their professions.
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“Coal is not coming back,” said Joshua D. Rhodes, a research fellow at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. “Further subsidies right now will only prevent workers from being retrained or building careers elsewhere — which will make things even more painful when the bottom finally does drop out.”
In the latest such move, Mr. Trump asked Energy Secretary Rick Perry on June 1 to “prepare immediate steps” to halt the closing of unprofitable coal and nuclear plants. While administration officials are still debating how they might do so, any plan to rescue these power plants would probably entail dramatic government intervention in America’s energy markets and come at the expense of newer, cheaper power sources like natural gas or wind.
A decade ago, coal provided nearly half of America’s electricity. That share has since plummeted to less than one-third, as coal has been driven out of the market by stricter pollution regulations and a glut of cheap natural gas from hydraulic fracturing. Wind and solar power, while starting from a small base, have grown at double-digit rates each year as the technology improves and costs drop.
The jobs have followed: The number of American coal miners has fallenfrom more than 80,000 in 2008 to about 53,000 today. The solar industry alone now employs twice as many people as the coal industry does. Solar installers, wind technicians and oil and gas drill operators are all expected to be among the fastest-growing occupations over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Ten years ago, the joke among industry players was that renewables were the energy source of the future and always would be,” said Andy Karsner, a former assistant secretary of energy in the George W. Bush administration. “Problem is, that future has arrived, and coal is now the energy source of the past and always will be.”
Manufacturing jobs have fared better under Mr. Trump but remain at a historic low as a share of the economy. Fewer than 9 percent of American jobs today are in factories. While primary metals manufacturers in the United States — including steel and aluminum mills — have added 11,000 jobs since Mr. Trump took office, according to the Labor Department, total employment in the industry remains under 400,000 jobs nationwide, down from nearly 700,000 jobs 15 years ago.
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Mr. Trump’s approach to saving manufacturing has been to levy tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from places like China, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Europe. The tariffs, he says, will stop cheap foreign metals from coming into the country and make American manufacturers more competitive. Those tariffs have helped domestic steel mills but hurt other manufacturers that depend on steel inputs, such as door frame manufactures and automakers. They also favor certain companies depending on where they get their foreign steel.
Some of Mr. Trump’s tariffs have also set off retaliation from trading partners, who are hitting American goods with tariffs of their own on food, steel and other products that domestic manufacturers export overseas. And Mr. Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on $350 billion worth of foreign autos and auto parts could wind up hurting the domestic auto industry, which gets its parts from abroad. It could also result in higher car prices for American consumers.ImageMr. Trump has asked Energy Secretary Rick Perry to “prepare immediate steps” to halt the closing of unprofitable coal and nuclear plants.CreditTom Brenner/The New York Times
Mr. Trump’s economic advisers insist that Mr. Trump’s bold trade stance is boosting growth in the United States, alongside a more broad-based economic agenda that includes cutting taxes and reducing federal regulation of business.
“We’re pushing through 3 percent” growth, Larry Kudlow, the chairman of the National Economic Council, said in a recent briefing with reporters. “Some said it couldn’t be done. It is being done, and we’re proud of it. And I think President Trump’s policies of lower taxes and major regulatory rollback are a key part of this issue.”
But many economists who favor industrial policy efforts and have long argued for more aggressive trade policies to protect American workers say Mr. Trump’s unpredictable approach has hurt the blue-collar workers he is trying to protect.
“The trade policies have been so erratic and inconsistently messaged that they are not a part of a broader strategic plan for the economy,” said Thea Lee, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute and a trade specialist. “Even to the extent that there is some playing favorites, singling out workers in different sectors, that’s problematic, because it’s dividing. What workers need are policies that will be empowering, that will lift them up across sectors and not divide them.”
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Free-market conservatives, who frequently criticized President Obama’s efforts to “pick winners and losers” and favor emerging technologies like wind and solar, have found even less to like in Mr. Trump’s efforts to rescue aging power plants in danger of going under.
“From an economic standpoint, this is one of the worst things you can do,” Nicolas Loris, a research fellow in energy and environmental policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said, referring to Mr. Trump’s proposal to help ailing coal plants. “It would keep a whole bunch of uncompetitive resources in place and choke off alternative investment strategies because those resources aren’t allowed to die off.”
To date, Mr. Trump has struggled to fulfill his promise of reviving the coal industry. While he has relaxed pollution rules on power plants and has overseen a small uptick of about 3,000 new coal-mining jobs, the long-term trend for the industry remains bleak: At least 40 more coal plants have announced they will close or reduce capacity by 2025, and others may soon follow.
Now, the administration is considering more drastic action: In one proposal discussed in a leaked internal memo, the Department of Energy would order grid operators to buy power from a designated list of coal and nuclear plants, using emergency powers normally reserved for short-term crises like hurricanes.
To make its case, the administration has contended that these ailing plants are necessary for the stability of the nation’s electric grid, although both outside experts and grid operators themselves sharply disagree that there is a grid emergency.
The oil and gas industry, which has normally cheered the administration’s efforts to expand drilling, has joined forces with the wind and solar industries to oppose Mr. Trump’s grid proposal, calling it “unprecedented and misguided.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/us/politics/trump-economy-coal.html
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Tariff Spat Puts Oil, Gas and Coal in the Crosshairs
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
President Trump appears to be vexing the very energy sector he vowed to revive, as China threatens retaliatory tariffs on everything from U.S. crude to coal and solar panels.
China is poised to tack a 25 percent tariff on a host of U.S. products — including energy and agriculture — triggering a sharp warning from the American Petroleum Institute, the nation's largest oil and gas lobby, and complaints that the White House failed to consult the group.
"The lack of transparency in the process, as well as the absence of consultation with the U.S. natural gas and oil industry to determine the potential impact on U.S. investments, jobs, and consumers, is especially troubling," said API's President and CEO Jack Gerard.
The standoff ramped up last week after the White House announced $50 billion worth of tariffs on a variety of Chinese imports, including nuclear reactors, lithium-ion battery components, vehicles and agriculture equipment, as well as solar cells and panels from China (E&E News PM, June 15).
The administration is imposing the tariffs in two tranches, starting first with goods, totaling $34 billion, the White House said.
China shot back by threatening to impose tariffs in a similar fashion, laying out a list of 545 products — or $34 billion worth of U.S. exports — that will be subject to an additional 25 percent tariff starting July 6.
An industry source confirmed oil products, gasoline and coal appear to be included in a second tranche from China, but no date has been set.
The industry source also said the oil and gas sector will face rising costs from China's punitive measures as well as tariffs the U.S. imposes on Chinese goods because American companies import compressors, gas turbines, cranes and lifting machinery, parts for offshore platforms, gaskets, motors, pumps, valves, machines for welding, navigation instruments and flow meters, among other things.
Also on high alert is the nation's coal and mining sector, which has been eager to capitalize on exports, especially amid uncertain domestic demand.
"This is a dynamic situation," said Conor Bernstein, a spokesman for the National Mining Association. "Exports have been a bright spot for the industry, and anything that could potentially chip away at that would be of concern. Like a lot of folks, we're in wait-and-see mode."
Exports have become a focal point for American coal companies after a banner year in 2017. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a 61 percent annual increase in shipments overseas last year, totaling 97 million tons of coal.
Thermal coal — the variety predominantly burned for electricity — drove the 2017 spike. Steelmaking metallurgical coal — still the majority of exports — also enjoyed a price bump that increased shipments abroad.
Asia was the biggest area of growth for American producers, with shipments more than doubling to 32.8 million tons (Greenwire, Dec. 21, 2017).
"We're just going to wait and see," said Bill Stanhouse, a spokesman for Alabama-based Warrior Met Coal Inc., regarding the tariffs. "That's about all we can do."
Analysts, however, don't see exports as a panacea for the industry because prices must remain high for it to make economic sense for U.S. coal to reach markets like Asia.
What happens next is unclear, said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners. The soonest the Trump administration could proceed with a second wave of tariffs is 60 days from last Friday, or Aug. 14, he said. If China were to repeat its playbook, the country could issue new counter-tariffs that same day.
"It looks like more escalation before the summer ends," said Book.
Coal interests have also expressed concern about retaliation from Canada, which is also facing Trump tariffs. A significant portion of U.S. coal to Asia goes through that country's ports.
Reporter Dylan Brown contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/06/18/stories/1060084973
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National Grid Plans to Cut Carbon 80% by 2050
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
The Northeast utility National Grid on Friday released a blueprint to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the region 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050.
The "Northeast 80x50 Pathway" syncs with similar goals of the states where the electric and natural gas utility operates — New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island — said Rudolph Wynter, president and COO for transmission, generation and energy procurement at National Grid.
The utility delivers electricity to 3.3 million customers and natural gas to 3.4 million customers.
Wynter said in an interview that the company analyzed the various pathways to achieving greenhouse gas emission reductions. He said cutting into heat-trapping carbon emissions will mean meaningful reductions by the power sector and the transportation sector but also a shift in how a large part of the population heat their homes.
"It absolutely means we're going to import more hydro from Canada," Wynter said, as well as invest further in renewables.
By 2030, he said, 67 percent of the electricity supply will need to be zero-carbon generation. Half of the portion will be renewable energy.
Currently, renewables account for 45 percent of National Grid's electricity supply. By 2050, the goal is to have a zero-carbon electricity system.
National Grid's plan is unrelated to a new movement among other investor-owned electric utilities to burnish their green bona fides, Wynter said.
Recently, the Edison Electric Institute unveiled a template to help its investors better understand what their member companies are doing with regard to their sustainability-related activities and efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (Energywire, May 21).
The plan does not envision closing National Grid's natural gas plants. Instead, the utility says it will burn natural gas as cleanly as possible, Wynter said.
"Our view is [natural gas plants] are going to have to coexist with renewables just to firm up the level of renewables we're talking about here," he said.
National Grid is investing in an emerging set of technologies that hold promise that the natural gas network "can be decarbonized," Wynter said.
"Renewable natural gas" — low-carbon gas options for power generation and home heating — include capturing fugitive natural gas burned off from wastewater treatment facilities and harvested from farming waste streams, he said.
Energy efficiency will be emphasized even more during National Grid's transition, Wynter said, especially if "we're going to make a big dent in the heating sector," which in parts of New England still rely on fuel oil, propane and kerosene.
The aim is to increasingly electrify residential heating to a level of 28 percent by 2030, up from 2 percent today and continue converting fuel oil users to natural gas.
But changes in the transportation sector offer the biggest prize in getting to a zero carbon future, Wynter said. "By and large we can't get there if we don't move the transportation sector. We can't do it on the back of the power sector alone."
That will mean achieving electric vehicle penetration of 50 percent by 2030 from less than 2 percent today. "Customer range anxiety issues continue to drag on," he said, requiring a proactive effort to address affordability, access and awareness to reach that goal.
For National Grid, that will mean a push to expand EV charging infrastructure, which "hasn't kept pace with EV adoption," he said.
Funding for more charging infrastructure could come from an expansion in the Northeast of a carbon-pricing mechanism similar to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that places a price on carbon emissions from the power sector, Wynter said.
Efforts are underway in New York and the New England states to create a program similar to RGGI that would price carbon in the transportation sector, he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/18/stories/1060084833
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D.C. Circuit Schedules Oral Arguments in CSAPR, 2017 RFS Suits
Jun 18, 2018 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has scheduled oral arguments for October in two high-profile Clean Air Act cases, one challenging the Obama-era “update” to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) utility emissions trading program and the other to the 2017 renewable fuel standard (RFS).
The court set the argument dates in a pair of orders issued June 15, slating the CSAPR litigation State of Wisconsin, et al. v. EPA, et al. for Oct. 3, and the RFS case for Oct. 5.
In the CSAPR case, a coalition of “upwind” states is seeking to scrap EPA's 2016 update to CSAPR. The update tightened state emissions caps for nitrogen oxides (NOx) in order to adapt the trading program to help states attain the 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), set at 75 parts per billion (ppb). The original CSAPR was intended to meet the weaker 1997 ozone standard expressed as 84 ppb.
Midwestern and Southern states sued over the rule, claiming EPA exaggerated their “significant contribution” to problems attaining the ozone NAAQS in the “downwind” Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
The upwind states, backed by industry groups, say EPA should not have required them to cap emissions in order to help the East Coast states comply with NAAQS.
Environmentalists and East Coast states, meanwhile, are fighting to preserve the power plant emissions trading rule in the suit, arguing that if anything the rule should have been tougher in order to fully address interstate NOx emissions contributing to their high ozone levels.
In the RFS case, Coffeyville Resources Refining, et al. v. EPA, et al., the court will hear consolidated challenges to the agency's 2017 RFS, including conflicting claims of refiners and biofuels groups over the rule. The RFS set annual biofuel volumes refiners are required to blend into the fuel supply in 2017, and also required volumes of biodiesel for 2018.
Oil sector groups in the rule claim that EPA set biofuel volumes too high, while biofuels groups claim the reverse, with respect to advanced and cellulosic biofuels, and also biodiesel, three classes of biofuel that must attain greater greenhouse gas reductions than conventional corn-based ethanol.
Some refiners in the suit are also pressing EPA to move the RFS “point of obligation” from refiners and importers of fuel to other entities such as fuel blenders. The change would benefit “merchant” refiners than lack their own blending capacity and are forced to buy RFS compliance credits from others -- but not large, integrated oil companies that blend their own biofuels.
The suit therefore pits merchant refiners and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers trade association against the American Petroleum Institute, which represents large oil companies.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/dc-circuit-schedules-oral-arguments-csapr-2017-rfs-suits
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Drilling Critics Appeal to Block Chaco-Area Development
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Critics of oil and gas development near New Mexico's Chaco Canyon are taking their case to a federal appeals court.
A coalition of environmental groups on Friday asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court's recent decision allowing drilling plans to move forward on public lands in a sensitive area of northwest New Mexico.
At issue in the case is whether the Bureau of Land Management adequately considered potential impacts from new oil and gas wells near Chaco Culture National Historical Park, which holds to ancient tribal artifacts. The broader Chaco area is home to members of the Navajo Nation.
Since 2015, the groups have argued that BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act when it relied on a 2003 resource management plan to support its approval of more recent development plans in the area. But the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico disagreed and dismissed their claims two months ago.
The decision came as a shock to environmentalists, as the judge handling the case had previously issued a preliminary order siding with them on some issues (Energywire, April 25).
"We're confounded and obviously hugely disappointed," Jeremy Nichols, director of the climate and energy program at WildEarth Guardians, said at the time. "What changed? The judge says he reviewed additional materials, but he's been reviewing this case for three years."
The groups are now asking the 10th Circuit to review the judge's ruling. The appellate court previously upheld an earlier district court decision that allowed development plans to proceed in the area.
The environmental coalition includes Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, the San Juan Citizens Alliance, WildEarth Guardians and the Natural Resources Defense Council. They are represented in part by the Western Environmental Law Center.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/18/stories/1060084765
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FERC Upholds MVP Certificate in Split Decision as Commissioners Disagree on Pipeline Reviews
Jun 18, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
FERC in an order Friday upheld its decision approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), striking down rehearing requests from numerous environmental groups opposed to the 303-mile, 2 million Dth/d greenfield Appalachia-to-Southeast natural gas project.
But dissenting opinions filed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s two Democratic commissioners showed agency leadership split on key issues as it prepares to revisit its natural gas infrastructure review process.
FERC denied rehearing requests challenging MVP and the related 600,000 Dth/d Equitrans Expansion Project, with the majority explaining its rationale over the course of more than 150 pages, including in-depth discussion defending, among other things, its analysis of climate change impacts and its reliance on precedent agreements to determine need for gas pipeline projects.
FERC’s approach to climate change analysis recently came under scrutiny in the courts when challengers were successful in upending the Commission’s certificate order approving a trio of Southeast pipelines focused on delivering gas into the Florida market.
The majority in Friday’s order maintained that FERC went beyond its scope to evaluate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from approving MVP and that the social cost of carbon methodology suggested by project opponents was not appropriate for the Commission’s purposes.
FERC said it “does not deny the link between GHG emissions and environmental impacts and climate change. However, linking particular GHG emissions to particular climate and environmental impacts in a way that results in analysis that is useful to the Commission for purposes of fulfilling its obligations under” the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Natural Gas Act “is a different matter.”
Meanwhile, Commissioners Cheryl LaFleur and Richard Glick issued separate dissenting opinions, both urging a more robust approach to assessing climate change impacts in FERC’s NEPA reviews. LaFleur said she disagrees with the majority’s assessment of the usefulness of the social cost of carbon methodology.
“Much of the majority’s criticism simply reflects the fact that consideration of climate change in our pipeline reviews is difficult,” LaFleur wrote. “I agree that consideration of climate change is difficult. However, I do not believe that the difficulty of considering climate change relieves us of the obligation to consider climate change impacts as part of our environmental review.”
Glick similarly opined that “the Commission has the tools needed to evaluate the projects’ impacts on climate change. It simply refuses to use them.”
Both Glick and LaFleur questioned whether FERC erred in determining that constructing MVP is in the public interest.
LaFleur, who also dissented when FERC issued a certificate order approving MVP last year, reiterated her concerns about the similarities between MVP and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline -- another greenfield Appalachia-to-Southeast project that simultaneously secured FERC’s blessing last October.
“The projects, when considered collectively, pose significant environmental impacts. Both pipelines cross hundreds of miles of karst terrain, thousands of waterbodies, and many agricultural, residential, and commercial areas,” LaFleur wrote. “I believe we should have given more consideration to a merged system/one-pipe alternative option that could result in less environmental disturbance and fewer landowner impacts.
“...In circumstances of multiple projects proposed in the same region, with similar timing, I believe we should, in the future, consider a regional review for the development of natural gas infrastructure to assess both the need for pipeline capacity in the region, and the environmental impacts of multiple proposed pipelines on the region.”
Glick questioned FERC’s reliance on pipeline precedent agreements to determine whether a project is needed, especially if those agreements are among affiliates.
“Although precedent agreements can be useful in assessing whether a pipeline is needed, they may not be, in and of themselves, sufficient to make that demonstration and certainly are not when the precedent agreements involve affiliated entities,” Glick wrote. “...The developer of a potential pipeline, especially of a pipeline that is not clearly needed, still has a powerful incentive to secure precedent agreements with one of its affiliates. The Commission consistently relies on those agreements, by themselves, to conclude that a proposed pipeline is needed.
“This incentive to secure precedent agreements in order to make this showing is, at least potentially, sufficient for a pipeline developer’s corporate parent to cause one of its affiliates to enter into a precedent agreement with the developer,” he continued. “The Commission’s disregard of this incentive means that its exclusive reliance on precedent agreements cannot be the product of reasoned decision-making.”
The latest sparring over review methodology comes just months after FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre said the Commission would be reviewing its decades-old policy governing how it evaluates gas pipeline proposals.
McIntyre told a Senate panel last week that he is personally committed to seeing the Commission accelerate its permitting of interstate natural gas pipelines, while also hiring more staff to address a backlog of permitting for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export infrastructure.
"I am, of course, but one of five voices on this Commission, and my colleagues are very thoughtful regulators in their own right," McIntyre said. "I anticipate the thoughtful input from each of them that I've come to expect.
"I will say for my own part, though, that I have no interest in initiating a review of our gas certificate policy area for the purpose of slowing anything down. My interest is in streamlining and making more efficient the processes that we have. I agree with the suggestion...that we need to be efficient in this area. For my own part, I endeavor to do exactly that."
MVP is under construction, with a targeted in-service date of later this year. The pipeline is routed from West Virginia to Virginia, where it would connect with Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line to move Marcellus and Utica shale volumes to the Southeast. The project also recently launched an open season to extend the system into North Carolina.
Last month, a federal court rejected FERC’s motion to suspend a petition for review of its certificate order for MVP until after it had ruled on the rehearing requests, allowing the challenge, brought by a number of environmental groups, to move forward.
Also last month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended MVP’s Nationwide Permit 12 verifications until it could determine whether there were violations of the water quality certification in West Virginia.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114750-ferc-upholds-mvp-certificate-in-split-decision-as-commissioners-disagree-on-pipeline-reviews
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Cyber Security Rules Needed for Pipelines: FERC Commissioners
Jun 18, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Neil Chatterjee, Richard Glick
If you have turned on the news or picked up a paper lately, you have probably seen reports that foreign enemies are increasingly launching cyber-attacks on America's critical infrastructure, including energy facilities. To address these threats, electric grid operators must comply with mandatory standards overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that protect against cyber and other attacks that threaten the reliability of our electric service.
Natural gas pipelines are not subject to similar standards. But given the increasing threats we face, the time has come to establish them for natural gas pipelines.
Abundant and affordable natural gas has facilitated a major shift in the United States' electric generation mix. The emergence of natural gas as a significant part of the fuel mix has greatly raised the stakes for pipeline cyber security.
Although FERC has the authority to issue certificates for new interstate gas pipelines and set their rates, the Commission does not have responsibility for pipeline security. That charge falls to the Transportation Security Administration, the same agency that is responsible for overseeing the security of 851 million aviation passengers per year, 138,000 miles of railroad track, and 4 million miles of highway.Recommended Video:
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While the world is focused on the nuclear threat from North Korea, Pyongyang is already striking at the US in a different way: targeting its power grid, trying to infiltrate US electric companies and potentially cause havoc, NBC News has learned. Kim Jong Un has targeted the US power grid with cyber attacks against multiple electric companies trying to break in with emails containing malware, according to a private report by the cyber security firm FireEye obtained exclusively by the news channel. There is no evidence that the hacking attempts were successful, but FireEye assessed that the targeting of electric utilities could be related to increasing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. FireEye has also documented cyber-attacks against South Korea’s military, its power plants, even aviation — all of them appearing to come from North Korea. North Korea already attacked Sony three years ago in retaliation for “The Interview,” a Hollywood movie mocking Kim Jong Un. Now experts warn they are developing the same techniques to attack broad sectors of the US economy. “One of the things that worries us a great deal is the ability of the North Koreans to strike here in the heartland, particularly at the financial sector,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm. Intelligence officials told NBC News it was North Korea that pulled off a brazen cyber heist of the Central Bank of Bangladesh, netting Kim Jong-un 81 million dollars (about 68 million euros). The regime has embedded 6,000 cyber warriors in China, South Korea and other neighboring countries, according to a North Korean defector who spoke to the TV station. “They (the North Koreans) want very much to have the capability to shut down our power grids, our utility systems, our banking, our air traffic control,” said Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence. The US industry says North Korea has not penetrated the energy grid but they are on alert for a growing North Korea threat. With Andrea Mitchell, NBC NewsMedia: Euronews_News
In May 2017, TSA confirmed that it had just six full-time employees to oversee the security of the more than 2.7 million miles of natural gas, oil, and other hazardous liquid pipelines that traverse the country. In addition, although it has the authority to enforce mandatory standards to protect gas pipeline infrastructure from cyber-attacks, TSA has chosen to rely, instead, on voluntary standards.
Natural gas pipelines have a long history of providing reliable service. But given our growing dependence on natural gas in conjunction with the escalating potential for cyber-attacks, we cannot simply hope for the best.
In our view, Congress should vest the responsibility for pipeline security with an agency that fully comprehends the nation's energy sector and has sufficient resources to address the growing cyber security threat to gas pipelines. As the Sector-Specific Agency for energy security, the Department of Energy could be an appropriate choice. Such a move would be particularly timely given the Energy Department's recent announcement that it will be forming an office specifically focused on cybersecurity.
Regardless of where Congress vests this responsibility, the regulator must have the statutory authority, resources, and commitment to implement mandatory cybersecurity standards for gas pipelines. We will be the first to admit that mandatory standards are not a panacea.
The Commission has overseen the implementation of mandatory cyber security standards for the electric grid for over a decade, and there have been many challenges and lessons learned along the way. Mandatory standards for gas pipelines need not be identical to those used by the electric sector and should instead reflect the unique operational risks facing gas pipelines.
Nor are mandatory standards sufficient to ensure the cybersecurity of natural gas pipelines. But they can form an important foundation that individual utilities can build upon through voluntary initiatives such as promoting best practices and sharing threat intelligence.
There are few issues on which individuals from both sides of the aisle can find common ground. But the safety and security of our electric grid is an area that should rise above partisan politics. We will continue evaluating energy security in a thoughtful and bipartisan manner, and we encourage our colleagues in Congress and other agencies to do the same.
America's energy consumers depend upon it.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Cyber-security-rules-needed-for-pipelines-FERC-13002008.php
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CSB Names Kristen Kulinowski Interim Head
Jun 18, 2018 | Safety + Health Magazine
Kristen Kulinowski will serve as the “interim executive authority” of the Chemical Safety Board after Vanessa A. Sutherland’s resignation as chair, the agency has announced.
Kulinowski, who has served on the board since August 2015, has expertise in chemical and materials sciences, occupational health and safety issues, risk policy, nanotechnology, and research administration, according to a June 12 CSB press release.
“I am honored to serve in this new capacity,” Kulinowski said in the release. “I look forward to working with my fellow board members in continuing our shared commitment to the board’s important mission. I am committed to ensuring that the CSB’s current investigations are completed in a timely and efficient manner and that the lessons learned are available to industry, workers and members of the public.”
Before joining CSB, Kulinowski was a research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Science and Technology Policy Institute and a senior faculty fellow in chemistry at Rice University for 13 years.
Sutherland stepped down in June for undisclosed reasons and with more than two years remaining on her five-year team. She took over as CSB chair in August 2015 after Rafael Moure-Eraso’s resignation amid congressional allegations of mismanagement.
http://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/17150-csb-names-kristen-kulinowski-interim-head
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White House Called Pruitt's Climate Plans 'Out of Control'
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Robin Bravender
Last summer, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was publicly talking up his plans to launch a debate aimed at poking holes in mainstream climate science.
His policy chief, Samantha Dravis, got an email from President Trump's energy adviser Mike Catanzaro asking for an urgent meeting to talk about Pruitt's "red team" climate science review.
"There are a lot of reports about EPA's planning on this," Catanzaro wrote July 25. "None of it is being run by us. This seems to be getting out of control."
That exchange is included in a batch of EPA emails released last week to E&E News and other organizations under the Freedom of Information Act. The emails offer new details about how EPA planned to scrutinize climate science using a national climate report and about how the White House intervened to shut it down.
Pruitt's planned debate remains in limbo, and the scientist recruited by EPA to lead the exercise has abandoned hope that the Trump team will follow through (Climatewire, June 13).
Despite the early pushback from White House aides, EPA was ready to launch the review in November, and top aides circulated a draft press release titled "Administrator Pruitt calls for red team exercise on climate science special report."
The plan was to critique the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated science report issued every four years.
"This report presents an opportunity to evaluate the science around climate change with an open, public 'Red Team/Blue Team' exercise," Pruitt said in the draft release. "It is essential that certainties and uncertainties in the science are accurately presented to the public and to decision makers."
EPA would assemble a red team to review the report. The "blue team" defending the study would consist of the authors and supporting scientists.
The news release was slated to come out days after an update to the National Climate Assessment — the "Climate Science Special Report" — was issued by federal agencies, including EPA. The assessment concluded, "Based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century."
Pruitt has publicly disagreed.
"I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it's a primary contributor to the global warming that we see," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box" in March 2017.
EPA officials did not respond to a request for comment for this story.'Push and pull'
With the red-team approach, Pruitt's intention "was to really attack the science behind the endangerment finding," a former administration official told E&E News last week.
The endangerment finding on greenhouse gases is a scientific determination that underpins EPA's climate regulations, and many conservatives hope a red-team exercise will be used to unravel that finding. "Pruitt really believed that a red-team, blue-team exercise would go to the heart of challenging the science behind all this," the former official said.
First he'd have to get past the White House.
There was a constant "push and pull" between EPA and the White House last year over the red team, the former official said. The White House was "just trying to stall it."
After Pruitt's aides circulated the draft release on Nov. 4 last year, Pruitt's chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, sent it in the body of an email saying, "I think we are set. Good?"
But the next day, Jackson received an email from sooners7@epa.gov — an address reportedly used by Pruitt. "Let's discuss. Needs revision," the email said.
The New York Times reported that Trump's chief of staff, John Kelly, learned about the planned news release and demanded that the red-team debate be delayed until top officials could discuss the issue.
"White House officials saw the draft press release from EPA and shut it down," someone familiar with the red-team process told E&E News last week.
In early December, EPA officials were still discussing the red-team effort behind the scenes. "We have two ways ahead to announce this and get this underway," Jackson wrote to several agency officials, including EPA air chief Bill Wehrum, on Dec. 5. President Trump had privately told Pruitt he supported the approach (Climatewire, Dec. 11, 2017).
It appears as though there was a plan for Wehrum to announce the effort in December.
Mandy Gunasekara, principal deputy assistant administrator in the air office, circulated a "draft charge statement for RTBT" — an apparent reference to red team, blue team — on Dec. 8.
"Ideally we will get [Pruitt's] final edits and okay on this before he leaves for Morocco so Bill can make the official RTBT announcement on Tuesday," she wrote.
But the next week, Wehrum and other EPA aides were summoned to the White House, where they were told by Catanzaro, deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn and others that the red team was "on hold" (Climatewire, Dec. 15, 2017). Catanzaro and Dearborn have since left the administration.'We're stuck'
The emails also show how EPA staffers were working to publicize the red-team effort and control some of the negative press that came with it.
Jackson asked Steven Koonin — a former Obama administration official who was helping to organize the exercise — and Princeton University physicist William Happer to add supportive quotes to their press release.
"What is most helpful are a couple of quotes or a joint quote from you both about the importance of doing red team blue team," Jackson wrote.
Happer, who argues that more carbon dioxide is good for the planet, said in an interview last week that Koonin asked him to put together the red team for the review. He said he had assembled candidates for a "blue-ribbon team," although he declined to share his roster.
Over half of them were members of the National Academy of Sciences, he said, and some were foreign members who knew a lot about climate.
Last October, EPA officials were flustered by reports that a convicted sex offender had been included in a list of potential red-team members submitted by a conservative think tank.
HuffPost reporter Alexander Kaufman asked the agency whether officials were aware that Oliver Manuel, one of the names proposed for the team by the conservative Heartland Institute, had been convicted for abusing his daughter. (After Kaufman's story ran, Heartland disputed that it was recommending Manuel for the red team and said he was just included on a mailing list.)
After receiving Kaufman's request, EPA communications official Liz Bowman emailed her colleagues, saying of Manuel, "This guy CANNOT be on our red team or even IN THIS BUILDING."
Jackson replied, "Good grief."
Both Koonin and Happer said they haven't heard much from EPA lately about progress on the red team.
In April, Happer was invited to EPA headquarters to hear Pruitt announce his plans to restrict which science the agency can use in regulations.
"I sat and I listened," Happer said, "and when it was over, I shook his hand and said, 'Thanks for your help on this; I'm sorry it didn't go.' And he said, 'Yeah, so am I."
Pruitt "did say, 'I'd like it to happen, but we're stuck right now,' something like that," Happer said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/06/18/stories/1060084735
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Nations Give Trump a Pass on Climate at G-20
Jun 18, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
Foreign energy ministers meeting in Bariloche, Argentina, last week largely let the United States off the hook for its plans to exit the Paris climate agreement.
Energy chiefs from members of the Group of 20, which includes major developed and developing countries, reiterated the group's goal of fostering a transition to lower-emitting energy technologies and the 2015 climate deal. At the same time, they affirmed that fossil fuels will continue to play a "major" role in providing energy for some countries. Their closing communiqué only mentioned the Paris deal once.
"We acknowledge the importance of energy transitions to achieve emissions reductions and for those countries that are determined to implement the Paris Agreement; and we note the linkage between country-driven energy transitions that provide affordable and reliable energy and the important role of energy markets and innovation in providing energy security, economic growth, and a cleaner environment," it stated.
The statement does less to isolate the United States on Paris and fossil fuels use than did last year's G-20 leader-level communiqué, negotiated in Hamburg, Germany, a month after President Trump angered the world by announcing that the United States would pull out of the climate deal.
That communiqué appeared to show the emergence of a G-19, made up of all members except the United States. It reaffirmed the climate deal as only the United States dissented on Paris and offered to help "partners" access affordable fossil fuels.
The statement last week has a softer tone. It refers to differences within the G-20 over the climate deal and future fossil fuel use without singling out the United States or other nations. It marks a diplomatic victory for the U.S. team, which included Energy Secretary Rick Perry and White House energy adviser Wells Griffith, who handled the negotiations. Griffith borrowed heavily from language his predecessor, George David Banks, helped insert into last year's leader-level text, which described advanced fossil fuels as part of the solution to climate change.
"For those G20 countries that opt to continue utilising fossil fuels will endeavor to spur innovation through the use of advanced and cleaner technologies which will contribute to reduce emissions and encourage investment and financing in advanced and cleaner fossil fuels technology options (including Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage)," stated last-week's communiqué.
German energy chief Thorsten Herdan said at a briefing after the meeting that his team pushed hard for the statement, noting that some countries were "determined" to implement the Paris Agreement. Another flashpoint, he said, was the inclusion of language on "energy transitions."
Still, he acknowledged that "we have to admit that the language may be not as clear as everybody would like to have it."
The Group of Seven, a developed countries' club, agreed to language earlier this month that did more to draw attention to the United States' lonely rejection of the Paris deal. Trump agreed to the final communiqué from that summit, held in Quebec, before abandoning it via Twitter after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau angered him by reaffirming plans to match U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs.
Some greens hoped the G-7 experience would convince the Argentine presidency of the G-20 talks to defer less to the United States in those negotiations, because Trump might pull out of a negotiated text afterward.
"Clearly, like everyone's going to be really worried about an outcome like the G-7, where you go through all this trouble to get a consensus document and then Trump pulls a rug out from under it within minutes of it coming out, which is unprecedented," said Andrew Light, a former State Department climate negotiator now at the World Resources Institute.
Catherine Abreu, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, decried last week's statement as a weak reference to the Paris Agreement.
"This is a very disappointing outcome that speaks to the hold fossil fuel companies have on energy ministries," she said.
But Abreu held out hope for a stronger outcome from November's leader-level G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, which Trump might attend himself.
"Leaders are going to have to do a whole lot better than sacrificing important content for a country who will walk away from exhaustingly fought 'consensus' with a tweet," she said.
The United States has more allies on energy and climate issues in the G-20, compared to the wealthier Group of Seven.
"It's a different dynamic," said Alden Meyer, strategic director of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
While the smaller club is stocked with backers of climate action, the G-20 includes major developing emitters that, like the United States, plan to power their economies with fossil fuels well into the future. China, India, Saudi Arabia and Russia are all members, and might have reason to side with the United States against Canada and Europe on some of these issues. Argentina, for example, is on track to become the world's second-largest producer of shale gas and has ambitions to sell the product abroad.
The Argentine presidency has said it would like to reach consensus on a G-20 statement in November, but Trump has let it be known he does not want the United States isolated in its own paragraphs on issues like climate change, as it was in last year's communiqué.
That leaves Argentina with some options. It could opt for a G-19 statement that includes only countries willing to come together on issues like climate and trade. Or it could abandon a consensus document for a softer chair statement that need not have buy-in from all parties, though that would be widely considered a weaker outcome.
Still, the talks in November seem unlikely to break down over climate change. Last week's conflict with Canada shows that trade is one of most pivotal issue in these forums.
"Some of this stuff may have been worked out by then, or we may be in a full-blown trade war with China, with Europe, with Canada and some others," noted Meyer. "That's a big unknown."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/06/18/stories/1060084837
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