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ACC PM 19/06/18

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) La. Attorney General Urged Pruitt to Speak at Industry Event
Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) appealed to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to speak at an industry gathering last fall.
(ACC Mentioned) Europe Chems Stocks Slump on US-China Trade War Fears, Merkel Strife
Jun 19, 2018 | ICIS
By Tom Brown

European chemicals stocks slumped on Tuesday in line with declines on local and Asia bourses in response to fears of the impact of revived trade war measures between the US and China.
(ACC Mentioned) Volvo Just Made a Huge Recycled Plastic Promise
Jun 19, 2018 | Slash Gear
By Chris Davies

Volvo plans to dramatically increase the green credentials of its cars, promising to use at least 25-percent recycled plastics from 2025.
Rule-Busting Panel Got Internal Pushback — Emails
Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow

An EPA panel tasked with identifying regulations ripe for repeal — a Trump administration priority — encountered some pushback and tension within the agency last year, newly obtained emails show.

LCSA News

Chemical Safety Advocate Dies at 47
Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Corbin Hiar

The founder of a public health coalition that played a central role in strengthening U.S. chemical safety standards died Saturday.

Chemical Management News

Sherwin-Williams to Stop Selling Methylene Chloride Paint Removers
Jun 19, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin

US paint retailer, Sherwin-Williams, says it will stop selling paint removal products containing methylene chloride by the end of the year.
The Home Depot to be Third Major U.S. Retailer to Ban Deadly Paint Strippers
Jun 19, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families

The world’s largest home improvement retailer, The Home Depot, announced today that it will phase out the use of the toxic chemicals methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) in its paint removal products by the end of this year.
California Moving to Boost Lead Poisoning Prevention Programs for At-Risk Kids
Jun 19, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Susan Little

An estimated half to three-fourths of lower-income young children in California don’t get the lead poisoning tests required by state and federal law.
US NGO Backs Proposed New York Menstrual Products Disclosure Rule
Jun 19, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell

A US NGO is backing legislation requiring manufacturers to list the ingredients in menstrual products, after a study found that popular tampon brands contained undisclosed chemicals.
Man vs. Monsanto: First Trial Over Roundup Cancer Claims Set to Begin
Jun 19, 2018 | EcoWatch
By Carey Gillam

Dewayne "Lee" Johnson has led what many might call an unremarkable life.
UN Experts Draw Closer on Second Global Chemicals Outlook
Jun 19, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Nick Hazlewood

The UN's sound management of chemicals and hazardous waste process is set to become an essential part of the future science/policy interface, a workshop of experts from around the world has heard.

Energy News

U.S. Oil Production Grows, but China, India Will Drive Global Demand
Jun 19, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum

The United States may lead the world in combined oil and gas production, but the growth in energy demand is driven almost entirely by Asia, especially China and India.
U.S. Natural Gas Growth Said Enough to Replace Most Coal, Nuke Closures
Jun 19, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec

New domestic natural gas-fired generation, along with some renewables, will replace the power supply lost with the retirement of 35 GW of coal-fired and nuclear generation plants over the next five years, according to Moody's Investors Service.
OPEC Has a Second Shale Dilemma
Jun 19, 2018 | Bloomberg (In The Washington Post)
By Liam Denning

Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources Inc., has reportedly pulled out of giving a speech at OPEC’s get-together this week.
Oil Industry Tries to Take the Fracking Boom Global
Jun 19, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Sarah Kent

A BP PLC project deep in Oman’s desert shows how big oil companies are taking hydraulic-fracturing techniques perfected in Texas to the global stage, where they had long struggled.
New Tariffs from China Would Hit U.S. Exporters
Jun 19, 2018 | Reuters (In E&E Energywire)
By Henning Gloystein

China's promise to impose new duties on U.S. commodities could hurt American oil exporters.
Shell's Pennsylvania Cracker Said on Track, Major Equipment Arriving
Jun 19, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin

Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC continues to plow ahead on its multi-billion dollar ethane cracker in western Pennsylvania, with nearly all of the foundations completed for the 200 structures that will form the self-contained site and major equipment arriving regularly, an executive overseeing the project said Monday.
New York Legislature Passes Bill to Limit WTE Siting
Jun 19, 2018 | Waste Dive
By Cole Rosengren

The New York State Senate unanimously passed a bill on June 18, S8109, that would "exclude major electric generating facilities which generate electricity from the combustion or pyrolysis of solid waste or fuel derived from solid waste from an expedited power siting process.
Public Power CEO Hits FERC for 'Pushing' Jurisdiction
Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro

The head of the nation's public power lobby ramped up criticism yesterday of the chief federal energy regulator for "pushing its jurisdictional boundaries at the expense of state and local authorities."
Gas Industry Report Sounds Alarm on Project Costs
Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel

Pipeline spending nationwide will peak next year at about $100 billion before dropping off to roughly half that level for the following two decades, according to a study commissioned by the natural gas industry that reveals deep concern about rapidly escalating project development costs.

Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.

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

Environment News

Trump Admin Floats Changes to Environmental Review Standards
Jun 19, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama

The Trump administration is considering major changes to the regulations that government how federal agencies analyze the potential environmental impacts of their decisions.
Merkel Says Climate Change Is 'a Fact,' Laments US Stance
Jun 19, 2018 | AP (In The New York Times)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel took aim Tuesday at U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris accord, calling the move "very regrettable" at a time when the overwhelming majority of countries worldwide are trying to limit global warming.
D.C. Circuit Schedules Argument in SO2 NAAQS Designations Suit
Jun 19, 2018 | Inside EPA

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has scheduled oral argument for Sept. 11 in consolidated litigation challenging EPA's designations for which areas of the country are either attaining or in nonattainment with the agency's 2010 sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS).
EPA Sends 'Good Neighbor' Smog Proposal to White House
Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly

EPA, facing a tight court-ordered deadline, has sent a proposal to the White House budget office that appears geared to addressing the remaining "good neighbor" obligations for its 2008 ground-level ozone standard.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) La. Attorney General Urged Pruitt to Speak at Industry Event

Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Scott Waldman

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) appealed to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to speak at an industry gathering last fall.
Landry reached out in September to Pruitt's then-policy aide Samantha Dravis, hoping to prod the EPA boss to speak at a chemical group's annual meeting in New Orleans.
"Just following up on a conversation we had a month or so ago," he wrote. The "Louisiana Chemical Association is having their annual meeting Oct 26&27 in NOLA at the Loew's hotel. This is a meeting of the Managers that are responsible for operation [of] the chemical facilities in Louisiana. They would like Scott to address the group either day. Can you let me know if he is still available?"
The email was signed, "Jeff Landry Attorney General."
The two Republican politicians have known each other for years and even joined forces in some lawsuits against the Obama EPA. But it's not clear why the state attorney general would offer an invitation for a private industry event.
Asked to comment about the meeting invitation, Landry lauded Pruitt's efforts to roll back rules.
"Over 52% of the refining capacity in the United States is located on the Gulf Coast. The downstream energy sector is one of the largest middle class job building industries in the country," Landry said in a statement. "This sector has been tormented by useless job killing regulations. That is until President Trump came along and appointed people like Administrator Pruitt who work to scale back regulations contributing to historic economic growth."
Pruitt and Landry have a history of advocating on behalf of the chemical industry and fighting against regulations opposed by that sector. When they were at the Republican Attorneys General Association, they jointly opposed chemical industry regulations. One of Pruitt's first actions in office was to delay stronger safety rules on chemical plants and oil refineries. Landry was one of 11 attorneys general who requested the delay from EPA.
His September request was quickly met with approval from Pruitt's top aides, who wrote that they would try to get it on his schedule, according to emails obtained by the Sierra Club under a Freedom of Information Act request.
"I believe it would be a great opportunity," Landry wrote.
Within days, Hayley Ford, EPA's deputy White House liaison, confirmed the visit.
"I'm happy to let you know that the Administrator will be available to address this group," she wrote. "He appreciates the invitation and opportunity. Who should [we] communicate with regarding details and logistics? Specifically, exact timing and agenda for the event so we can build into his schedule? Thank you and we look forward to it!"
Pruitt later flew on a first-class flight for $2,265 to the conference, The Washington Post has reported. It has not been previously reported that Landry issued the invitation to the conference for Pruitt. In the emails, a Pruitt aide noted that the chemical association secured Pruitt a room.
Critics have accused both Pruitt and Landry of being too cozy with chemical companies. Some of Pruitt's political appointees at EPA have come directly from the American Chemistry Council, and Landry was endorsed in his attorney general bid by the Louisiana Chemical Association.
In the days before the conference, a representative for Landry invited Pruitt to have dinner with the attorney general while he was in New Orleans. Pruitt's aides declined that dinner but invited Landry to a breakfast with chemical industry representatives that EPA was organizing the next morning.
"We are organizing breakfast the morning of Fri, Oct 27 before the speaking engagement and we would be happy to have AG Landry attend if he would like," Ford wrote to one of Landry's aides. "It is more of an event, with several area CEOs and industry representatives. We don't yet have a firm location, but can share details with you as they develop this week."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1060085009/search?keyword=%22american+chemistry+council%22

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(ACC Mentioned) Europe Chems Stocks Slump on US-China Trade War Fears, Merkel Strife

Jun 19, 2018 | ICIS

By Tom Brown

European chemicals stocks slumped on Tuesday in line with declines on local and Asia bourses in response to fears of the impact of revived trade war measures between the US and China.
The prospect of retaliatory measures by China against a potential $200bn-worth of new tariffs levied by the US against the country on over 1,100 products, including numerous chemicals and petrochemicals, sent share prices for European chemicals players slumping in early trading.
The prospect of retaliatory trade tariffs between the two global superpowers first hit markets in April, with China announcing $48bn-worth of tariffs against a mooted $50bn of tariffs from the US.
Tensions eased late in the following month when it seemed that a cautious detente had been agreed when the two countries issued a joint statement pledging to work together on a more balanced trading relationship and intensified scrutiny on intellectual property violations in China.
US President Donald Trump announced late last week that the country would move forward with tariffs against China, citing unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft.
Whereas the US’ initial list of tariffed products earlier this year featured few chemical or petrochemical materials, the revised list includes lubricating oils, polyethylene, polypropylene, styrenes, vinyl chlorides, polycarbonates and a raft of other materials.
The new list puts the US chemicals sector “at the front line” of the accelerating conflict between the two countries, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
The Dow Jones Euro Stoxx chemicals index fell by over 1% in the early hours of trading on Tuesday, with the most significant slumps in individual share performance felt by the companies with the greatest international exposure, particularly in China.
Germany’s BASF and Covestro saw stock price erosion of over 1.5% compared to Monday’s close, while Bayer, Air Liquide, LANXESS and Bayer all posted substantial declines.
The UK’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX, and France’s CAC 40 indices were all trading down as of 11:45 London time.
Global trade fears were compounded by almost unprecedented friction at the recent G7 summit, which saw Trump decline to sign a joint communique and leave early, after fulminating about trade imbalances between the US and its partner countries in the political alliance.
Markets were also hit by growing tensions in Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing a rebellion from factions of the country’s coalition government over immigration.
Horst Seehofer, the head of coalition party the Christian Social Union, has demanded concessions on migration where agreements are reached with other EU countries to return migrants to the country they were first registered in the 28-country union, or to begin turning refugees away from the German border.
Merkel has promised clarity by July, but the issue is likely to be a protracted one for the embattled Chancellor, according to analysts at Germany’s Deutsche Bank.
“Setting up of such controls by Seehofer would leave Merkel with only two options, either she would go along with Seehofer’s more restrictive policy approach – a loss of face she might not survive for very long – or she would have to sack him, which would almost certainly cause the CSU to leave the coalition and ultimately result in a collapse of the [coalition government],” said London-based Jim Reid, head of global fundamental credit strategy at the bank.
“Our colleagues [in Germany] consider the latter option very unlikely and see a further muddling through with no clear winner but a substantially damaged Merkel as the most likely outcome. Therefore, they expect this conflict to linger around up until the Bavarian elections on 14 October,” he added.
The row also weakens Merkel domestically and on the European stage, Reid added, pointing to a further fraying of the western liberal order.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/06/19/10232788/europe-chems-stocks-slump-on-us-china-trade-war-fears-merkel-strife/

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(ACC Mentioned) Volvo Just Made a Huge Recycled Plastic Promise

Jun 19, 2018 | Slash Gear

By Chris Davies

Volvo plans to dramatically increase the green credentials of its cars, promising to use at least 25-percent recycled plastics from 2025. The push will see the Swedish automaker offset its use of new plastic – both in the cabin and elsewhere in the construction of its vehicles – by introducing a greater percentage of reused materials.
It’s not a small goal, either. The typical car uses approximately 332 pounds of plastics, in fact, according to the American Chemistry Council. While the proportion of plastics to overall weight will of course vary depending on automaker and the type of vehicle itself, that’s a big chunk of petrochemical-based material in every car.
Volvo’s ambition is to have “at least” a quarter of the plastics it uses in every newly-launched car to be made from recycled materials in some way. It won’t be able to do that alone, mind. Instead, it’ll need to bring its suppliers onboard with the idea, so that its supply-chain of fabric, trim, and other components meet those minimum standards.
To show just how it could be done, Volvo has wheeled out a specially-created version of the XC60 SUV that swaps what would typically be virgin plastic for recycled alternatives. In the cabin, for example, the seats use PET fibers from plastic bottles. The carpet uses more of those fibers, along with a recycled cotton mix that Volvo sourced from offcuts supplied by clothing manufacturers.
The tunnel console, meanwhile, uses fibers and plastics from old fishing nets and maritime ropes. Even old Volvo parts have been given a new purpose. The XC60 uses car seats from its older vehicles to make sound-absorbing insulation for under the hood.
The resulting SUV, Volvo points out, is indistinguishable from its regular production counterpart, despite being a lot more environmentally-friendly. “Environmental care is one of Volvo’s core values and we will continue to find new ways to bring this into our business,” Håkan Samuelsson, President and CEO of Volvo Cars, said of the experiment. “This car and our recycled plastics ambition are further examples of that commitment.”
It comes on the heels of Volvo’s announcement last month that it would end the use of single-use plastics across all of its premises and events by the end of next year. As for powertrains, every new Volvo will be electrified in some way from 2019. Volvo is predicting fully electric cars to comprise half of its global sales by 2025.
Though it’s certainly the most aggressive commitment to recycled materials in automotive production, it’s not the first time we’ve seen such efforts. Back in 2012, Ford announced it would use recycled plastic bottles for components in the Focus Electric, having already experimented with using dandelion roots to make rubber for interior trim.
https://www.slashgear.com/volvo-recycled-plastics-2025-car-production-19534695/

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Rule-Busting Panel Got Internal Pushback — Emails

Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

By Maxine Joselow

An EPA panel tasked with identifying regulations ripe for repeal — a Trump administration priority — encountered some pushback and tension within the agency last year, newly obtained emails show.
The agency's regulatory reform task force was responsible last spring for submitting a report to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on actions that could be repealed, revised or rescinded.
The report was due on May 25, 2017, pursuant to President Trump's Executive Order 13777, "Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda."
But in the weeks leading up to the deadline, tensions flared inside the four-member panel and across the agency, and the task force ended up submitting the report a day late, according to documents obtained Sunday by the Southern Environmental Law Center following Freedom of Information Act litigation.
On April 18, Sarah Rees, former director of the Office of Regulatory Policy and Management, notified the task force that she was "getting push back" from some program offices about its work.
"I think we will need an intervention by you/Samantha," Rees wrote to task force members including Samantha Dravis, Pruitt's former policy chief and the panel's leader.
"I hate to put more on your overloaded plates, and we will reach out again to try to get these issues addressed," Rees added.
Dravis replied, "What does such an intervention look like exactly."
Rees clarified that an intervention could take the form of a phone call or an email to the relevant program office heads.
Dravis wrote back, "If you draft an email I can send it.. I would rather start with that than play phone tag right now."
Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate with Public Citizen, said he suspected that career staff at EPA objected to the political appointees on the panel gutting environmental and public health protections.
The proposed rollbacks were "likely resulting in tension with staffers at the agency who understand that these deregulatory actions would run afoul of not only the agency's mission of protecting the environment and public health, but also run into legal trouble," Narang said.
Kym Hunter, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, concurred.
"It wouldn't be surprising if there was pushback, given that the ax has been taken sort of indiscriminately to regulations at the behest of industry," she said.
Small government conservatives and administration backers will also not be surprised by the emails. They have long seen many career bureaucrats as being against the president's agenda, which they say is contributing to economic growth.'It is becoming an issue'
The emails also show internal tensions within the four-person panel, whose other members included three former staffers for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.): Ryan Jackson, Byron Brown and Brittany Bolen.
On the evening of May 16, Dravis expressed frustration that emails about regulatory reform efforts were going to Bolen but not her.
"Guys: Please have your staff send these to me. It's fine if Brittany is included, but everything is going straight to her and I'm not copied on it and it is becoming an issue," Dravis wrote.
"Sending something at 2pm for review by COB is also kind of an unreasonable turnaround," she added.
Dravis left the agency in April, and it remains unclear who will replace her as the panel's leader, though an EPA employee previously told E&E News that responsibility could fall to Bolen (Greenwire, April 6).
EPA's press shop didn't respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
On May 22, Dravis sent colleagues some "initial edits" and said, "Candidly, this needs a lot of work in the next few days."
Task force members were still making final changes to the document on May 26, the day after it was due.
Robin Kime, chief of staff in the Office of Policy, said that morning she still needed to make some formatting changes before a "hard copy" of the report could be delivered to Pruitt.
The text of the document wasn't included in the released emails and has not been made available to the public.
E&E News has submitted a FOIA request for the report. It's pending amid Pruitt's controversial "first-in, first-out" public records request policy (Greenwire, June 11).
After winning its FOIA lawsuit against EPA, the Southern Environmental Law Center has an agreement to receive a new batch of documents each month.
"The documents have been so heavily redacted," Hunter said. "Once we get all of our productions, we're going to be litigating over whether the redactions were appropriate or not."'Under the radar'
The regulatory reform task force has largely flown "under the radar," as the multiple ethics scandals dogging Pruitt continue to dominate headlines, said Narang of Public Citizen.
"Clearly, the many, many ethics issues and lapses that have occurred under Pruitt have overshadowed just how intense and aggressive the deregulatory agenda has been at EPA," he said.
Pruitt faces a growing list of ethics allegations, including that he reportedly tasked his 24/7 security detail to run errands for him, including picking up his dry cleaning and searching for his favorite moisturizing lotion.
Other controversies are tied to Pruitt asking staff to book personal trips for him, search for apartments and try to secure an "old mattress" from the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C. News reports continue to focus on the probability of Pruitt stepping down or being fired.
But while the rule-busting panel has grabbed far fewer headlines, its work stands to have a profound effect on the way the agency selects Obama-era rules to challenge or revise.
Trump's Executive Order 13771 directs agencies to rescind two rules for every new one issued, with the goal of incurring no new net costs.
The rule-busting panel plays a key role in deciding which actions should be axed under the "one in, two out" directive. And EPA has already put several major rules on the chopping block, most notably the Clean Power Plan and the Clean Water Rule.
Last August, top House Democrats sent a letter to the White House expressing "alarm concerning the lack of transparency, accountability and independence" of the panels at different agencies (Greenwire, Aug. 7, 2017).
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who signed the missive, said in a statement to E&E News today, "The Trump administration and EPA administrator Pruitt continue to operate in a veil of secrecy that fails the American public. Congress has a responsibility to demand transparency and oversight of agency actions."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/06/19/stories/1060085075

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LCSA News

Chemical Safety Advocate Dies at 47

Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

By Corbin Hiar

The founder of a public health coalition that played a central role in strengthening U.S. chemical safety standards died Saturday.
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Family founder Fernando Matthew Igrejas, who went by Andy, died in Washington after a year-and-a-half-long battle with brain cancer. He was surrounded by his partner, Susan, and other friends and family members.
Igrejas, 47, was executive director of Safer Chemicals until he had to step down from that role due to health reasons. It is currently led on an acting basis by Liz Hitchcock.
Andy Igrejas Safer Chemicals
Earlier this year, Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone, who represents Igrejas' home state of New Jersey, honored the former Safer Chemicals leader for his help in pushing through the first overhaul of the nation's chemical safety law in 40 years.
"The work to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act began in earnest in 2009, when the major stakeholders published principles for reform," said Pallone, who is the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee. "It was that year that Andy organized the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition to create a unified voice for health, environmental and labor organizations interested in advancing chemical policy reform."
On the House floor, Pallone thanked "Andy for his bold thinking, tireless efforts and strategic counsel to me and my staff, without which many of the public health and environmental improvements in the [TSCA] reform law would not have been possible."
Igrejas also worked outside of the legislative process to improve chemical safety. The Mind the Store campaign, for instance, pressures the nation's largest retailers to remove toxic chemicals from their shelves and supply chains.
As a result of that effort launched by Igrejas, Home Depot today will announce that it plans to phase out sales of paint strippers containing methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone, which have been linked to deaths and cancer. It is the third major home improvement retailer to make such a pledge (Greenwire, June 18).
Before launching Safer Chemicals, Igrejas worked at the Pew Charitable Trusts after it merged with the National Environmental Trust, where he spent eight years as director of its environmental health program.
Igrejas, who earned his bachelor's in history at Rutgers University, began his career at the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group and later the California PIRG, according to his LinkedIn profile.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/06/19/stories/1060085083

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Chemical Management News

Sherwin-Williams to Stop Selling Methylene Chloride Paint Removers

Jun 19, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Kelly Franklin

US paint retailer, Sherwin-Williams, says it will stop selling paint removal products containing methylene chloride by the end of the year.
The commitment came just hours after the NGOs Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and the Natural Resources Defense Council called for the company to halt the sale of the products, and two weeks after retail giant Lowe's made a similar pledge.
The US EPA last year signalled plans to ban methylene chloride-containing paint strippers, after finding the products pose an unreasonable risk to human health. But the proposed rule – which would also ban or restrict products containing the replacement solvent N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) – appears to have stalled under the current administration.
Meanwhile, consumer advocacy groups have been applying pressure on retailers to discontinue sale of the products, whose use has caused a number of deaths in recent years.
Mike Conway, a company spokesperson, told Chemical Watch the move is intended to "better care for our customers".
"We have several effective alternatives available to continue serving their needs," he added.
In a letter published by the campaigning NGOs, Sherwin-Williams said it would discontinue the sale of two paint stripping products containing methylene chloride at its 4,600 company-owned stores by the year's end. It does not sell any products containing NMP.
Mr Conway said the company will continue to offer consumers three "effective alternative strippers". Methylene chloride paint removers represent a "very tiny portion of sales", he added.EPA inaction continues
After campaigners met with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt last month, the agency indicated it would act on its proposed rule for methylene chloride. But it has not indicated a timeline for this, nor has it confirmed whether it will restrict NMP.
"We can't wait for Scott Pruitt's chemical-friendly EPA to act," said Sujatha Bergen, a policy analyst with NRDC. "Sherwin-Williams just did the right thing by announcing it will ban these deadly paint strippers."
Mike Schade, director of the SCHF Mind the Store campaign, applauded the company's move. He said the action would "help encourage the development of safer solutions".
The NRDC and SCHF are calling on other retailers to join Sherwin-Williams and Lowe's in removing the products from shelves.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67826/sherwin-williams-to-stop-selling-methylene-chloride-paint-removers

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The Home Depot to be Third Major U.S. Retailer to Ban Deadly Paint Strippers

Jun 19, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families

The world’s largest home improvement retailer, The Home Depot, announced today that it will phase out the use of the toxic chemicals methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) in its paint removal products by the end of this year. The company, which operates more than 2,200 stores in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, is the third major retailer this month to commit to pulling the products from store shelves. Methylene chloride and NMP have been found to pose unacceptable health risks to the public, including cancer, harm to the nervous system and to childhood development, and death.
“The Home Depot’s action is the latest nail in the coffin for methylene chloride and NMP paint strippers,” said Mike Schade, Mind the Store campaign director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. “We applaud The Home Depot for taking this important step that will go a long way in safeguarding its customers from these unnecessary toxic chemicals and promote safer alternatives. The time for hazardous paint strippers is over, and we urge the remaining retailers stocking these products to put their customers first and remove them from store shelves swiftly. Walmart, Menards, and Ace Hardware should phase out the sale of all paint strippers containing methylene chloride and NMP by the end of 2018.”
“We’re glad that the private sector is finally starting to take action on these dangerous chemicals, but the EPA must stop dragging their feet and ban these toxic hazards once and for all so that no other family has to suffer,” said Sujatha Bergen, a policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
“First Lowe’s, then Sherwin-Williams and now The Home Depot, all these retailers have agreed there are safer alternatives to methylene chloride and are pulling it from their shelves to protect their customers,” said Brian Wynne, brother of Drew Wynne who died from methylene chloride exposure from a paint stripper purchased at Lowe’s in 2017. “Sadly their actions are too late for my brother and the many others who have been harmed or killed by these toxic products. The EPA must act on their intention to finalize the ban on methylene chloride now!”
“The Home Depot realizes they’re on the frontline of consumer discontent with product safety,” said Mike Belliveau, executive director of Environmental Health Strategy Center and senior advisor to Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. “When the government says a chemical threatens human health, market leaders like The Home Depot rightly respond. And when the market begins an early exit, it’s time for EPA to finalize a toxic chemical ban to sweep up the laggards.”
In 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a ban on paint removers that contain methylene chloride and NMP, citing the products’ unreasonable risks to human health. Deferring to the wishes of the chemical industry, the EPA shelved its proposed ban soon after Scott Pruitt was confirmed as EPA Administrator and the agency has taken no action in 18 months. Last month, two days after Administrator Pruitt met with families who have recently lost loved ones due to methylene chloride exposure, the EPA announced that it would finalize a methylene chloride rule. However, the agency has revealed few details on its planned regulatory action, offered no timeline, and has taken no action on NMP.
Following the EPA’s proposed ban, last year Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families sent The Home Depot and Lowe’s letters warning the companies about the dangers of these chemicals and requested they stop selling paint strippers containing toxic chemicals. Over the past year, more than 65,000 people signed petitions to The Home Depot and over 200,000 to Lowe’s on this topic. NRDC recently sent letters to both The Home Depot and Lowe’s and launched a video on Instagram that generated more than three million views. In early May, advocates held a national “week of action” outside of Lowe’s stores in over a dozen states. As a result, last month Lowe’s became the first major U.S. retailer to commit to banning methylene chloride and NMP globally. On Friday, Sherwin-Williams, the nation’s largest specialty retailer of paint and paint supplies, announced it was also phasing out the sale of methylene chloride paint strippers by the end of 2018 and that it will continue to keep NMP paint strippers off its shelves.
Methylene chloride has been linked to more than 60 deaths nationwide since 1980 and is linked to lung and liver cancer, neurotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity. Since EPA proposed a ban, at least four people in the U.S. have died from working with methylene chloride-based paint strippers. In turn, NMP, which can be substituted for methylene chloride in paint removers, impacts fetal development and can cause miscarriage and stillbirth. According to the EPA, more than 60,000 U.S. workers and 2 million consumers are exposed to methylene chloride and NMP annually.
https://saferchemicals.org/newsroom/the-home-depot-to-be-third-major-u-s-retailer-to-ban-deadly-paint-strippers/

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California Moving to Boost Lead Poisoning Prevention Programs for At-Risk Kids

Jun 19, 2018 | Environmental Working Group

By Susan Little

An estimated half to three-fourths of lower-income young children in California don’t get the lead poisoning tests required by state and federal law. In response, state lawmakers are taking steps to strengthen the state’s childhood lead poisoning prevention efforts.
While all children can be exposed to lead in drinking water and old paint, and through other sources, kids from lower-income families are considered most at risk. This summer, legislators are considering bills to ensure that all 1- and 2-year olds on Medi-Cal, the state-run low-income health insurance program, are tested for lead levels in their blood. The bills would increase the accountability and transparency of lead poisoning prevention programs and make sure that useful information on lead exposure and sources of lead contamination is readily available to the public and decision-makers.
In January, an EWG analysis of state data found that between 2012 and 2016, almost three-fourths of California toddlers enrolled in Medi-Cal were not tested for lead in their blood. Our estimate was later reinforced by the state Department of Health Care Services, or DHCS, which reported that on average, each year 28 percent of the state’s toddlers are tested.
Now, DHCS and the California Department of Public Health, or DPH, have released an analysis combining and matching the two agencies’ test data. The combined analysis found that in 2015, about 49 percent of 1- to 2-year-olds on Medi-Cal were tested, and about 41 percent of 2- to 3-year-olds were tested.
The discrepancy in the two agencies’ data is because DHCS and DPH collect blood testing data from different sources and in different ways. DHCS’ numbers come from Medi-Cal records of blood tests that are actually billed to the insurance program. DPH’s numbers come from the labs and doctor’s offices that conducted the tests, and that data may not even say if the child tested is on Medi-Cal.
But that’s just one of the serious shortcomings in California’s state and local lead prevention programs that EWG’s investigation uncovered. The state does not compile data on the causes of childhood lead poisoning cases, interventions provided to lead-poisoned children, and efforts to abate sources of lead exposure. County lead poisoning prevention programs submit extensive information on local cases of lead-exposed children to the Department of Public Health, but the department does not use or aggregate this local data and does not make it available to the public.
These are not merely bureaucratic details. There is no safe level of exposure to lead. To truly prevent childhood lead exposure, state and local health officials must work together in coordinated fashion to identify all children at risk and all sources of potential exposure, and determine what intervention strategies are most effective. Only then can they act to protect kids from lifetime harm to the brain and nervous system.
EWG-sponsored childhood lead bills include:AB 2122, by Assembly Member Eloise Reyes. The bill requires DHCS, Medi-Cal managed health care contracts, and the contracts’ providers, to ensure that children enrolled in the insurance program receive required blood lead tests. It also requires the department to notify a child’s parent or guardian, as well as the child’s health care provider, if a child misses a required blood lead test. Finally, the bill requires the department to ensure that providers are educated about lead-testing requirements and the risks of childhood lead exposure.SB 1041, by Sen. Connie Levya. This bill sets a state childhood blood lead testing goal and directs the Department of Public Health to achieve the goal and report on its progress meeting it. The bill also requires the department to notify health care providers about state and federal child lead-testing requirements, and for the providers to notify parents. SB 1097, by Sen. Ben Hueso. This bill requires the Department of Public Health to provide the public with more information about county-level childhood lead testing, exposure rates, the sources of lead directly related to particular childhood lead poisoning cases, and if those sources have been removed or abated.
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/06/california-moving-boost-lead-poisoning-prevention-programs-risk-kids#.WykuYdUza6I

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US NGO Backs Proposed New York Menstrual Products Disclosure Rule

Jun 19, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Tammy Lovell

A US NGO is backing legislation requiring manufacturers to list the ingredients in menstrual products, after a study found that popular tampon brands contained undisclosed chemicals.
Women Voices for the Earth is supporting a bill introduced by New York Assembly member Linda B Rosenthal (D/WF–Manhattan), which would require disclosure of ingredients in tampons, pads, menstrual cups and period underwear.
Independent testing, carried out by WVE on six tampon brands, detected the reproductive toxin carbon disulfide (CS2) in four brands containing rayon. Also, some contained other undisclosed volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
WVE says the manufacturers - which include Kimberly Clark, Dollar Store and Procter & Gamble- only listed the basic components of tampons such as ‘rayon’ or ‘cotton’.
Menstrual products are classified as medical devices under federal law. This means that unlike other feminine hygiene products, which are regulated as personal care products, there is no requirement for ingredients disclosure.
"Whether the chemicals we detected are a result of contamination from rayon manufacturing, from added fragrance ingredients, or other unknown additives, we need to know to be able to avoid these chemicals of concern," said Alexandra Scranton, WVE’s director of science and research.New York disclosure bill
Last week, the bill (A521A) passed the Consumer Affairs and Protection Committee and was referred to the Codes Committee.
WVE has also backed the Menstrual Products Right to Know Act (HR 2416), which was reintroduced in Congress last year by Grace Meng (D–New York) and Carolyn Maloney (D–New York). HR 2416 is currently in the Subcommittee on Health and there is no hearing scheduled.
Jamie McConnell, WVE director of programmes and policy, said it is currently focusing its resources on passing state legislation, "because that’s where a bill is more likely to move".
Although some manufacturers voluntarily disclose ingredient information, Ms McConnell said stronger laws are needed "to ensure standardisation and consistency in how every period product manufacturer is disclosing the information and what they are required to disclose".‘Inappropriate exaggeration’
But trade association, the Center for Baby and Adult Hygiene Products (BAHP), released a statement calling the study "unsubstantiated and based on misinformation".
The statement from BAHP executive director, Jane Wishneff, says that WVE’s testing method for VOCs "inappropriately exaggerates very small and safe levels of substances".
"In fact, testing shows that products of all compositions – rayon, cotton and organic cotton – all contain low amounts of background substances that have no meaningful impact on the product’s safety," she says.
BAHP members voluntarily list ingredients used in their feminine hygiene products on their websites, according to the statement.
A spokesperson for Procter & Gamble which makes Tampax, one of the tested brands, said the company wanted to "reassure women" that its products are safe.
"For more perspective, the CS2 amount reported by WVE is a thousand times below safety limits set by regulatory agencies," they said.
Chemical Watch also contacted the makers of the other tampons mentioned in the WVE report, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67658/us-ngo-backs-proposed-new-york-menstrual-products-disclosure-rule

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Man vs. Monsanto: First Trial Over Roundup Cancer Claims Set to Begin

Jun 19, 2018 | EcoWatch

By Carey Gillam

Dewayne "Lee" Johnson has led what many might call an unremarkable life. The 46-year-old father and husband spent several years working as a school groundskeeper and spending free time teaching his two young sons to play football. But this week he takes center stage in a global debate over the safety of one of the world's most widely used pesticides as he takes Monsanto to court on claims that repeated exposure to the company's popular Roundup herbicide left him with terminal cancer.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos was assigned Monday to oversee the trial, and jury selection is tentatively expected to begin Thursday, June 21, with opening statements possible by June 27. The courtroom showdown could last three to four weeks, lawyers involved estimate, and will shine a spotlight on decades of scientific research and internal Monsanto documents that relate to the testing and marketing of Monsanto's flagship herbicide and the active ingredient, a chemical called glyphosate.
Though Johnson is the lone plaintiff in the lawsuit, his case is considered a bellwether for roughly 4,000 other plaintiffs also suing Monsanto over allegations that exposure to Roundup caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Another case is scheduled to go to trial in October in St. Louis, Missouri.
The lawsuits, which have been piling up in court dockets around the U.S., not only challenge Monsanto's position that its widely used herbicides are proven safe, but they also assert that the company has intentionally suppressed evidence of the risks of its weed killing products, misleading both regulators and consumers in a dangerous deception.
The litigation, proceeding both in federal and state courts, began after the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate—the active ingredient in Roundup—as a probable human carcinogen in March 2015. The IARC classification was based on years of published, peer-reviewed scientific studies analyzing glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides.
Monsanto and allies in the agrochemical industry have blasted the litigation and the IARC classification as lacking in validity, countering that decades of safety studies prove that glyphosate does not cause cancer when used as designed. Monsanto has cited findings by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other regulatory authorities as backing its defense. The company can also point to an EPA draft risk assessment of glyphosate on its side, which concluded that glyphosate is not likely carcinogenic.
"Glyphosate-based herbicides are supported by one of the most extensive worldwide human health and environmental effects databases ever compiled for a pesticide product," Monsanto states on its website. "Comprehensive toxicological and environmental fate studies conducted over the last 40 years have time and again demonstrated the strong safety profile of this widely used herbicide."
Glyphosate represents billions of dollars in annual revenues for Monsanto, which became a subsidiary of German-based Bayer AG on June 8, and several other companies selling glyphosate-based herbicides. Monsanto brought the pesticide to market in 1974 and the weed killer has been used prominently for decades by farmers in food production and by municipalities to eradicate weeds in public parks and playgrounds, and by homeowners on residential lawns.
Monsanto had sought to delay the Johnson case, just as it has sought to delay and/or dismiss the others brought against it. But the trial was expedited because he is not expected to live much longer after being diagnosed in 2014 with a form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma called mycosis fungoides.
A Death Sentence
According to court records, Johnson worked as a groundskeeper for the Benicia Unified School District for many years and applied multiple treatments of Monsanto's herbicides to the San Francisco-area school properties from 2012 until at least late 2015, including after he was diagnosed with cancer in August 2014. His job entailed mixing and spraying hundreds of gallons of glyphosate-based herbicides around school properties. He used various Roundup products, but mostly Roundup PRO, a highly concentrated version of the weed killer. After developing a skin rash in the summer of 2014 he reported to doctors that it seemed to worsen after he sprayed the herbicide. In August of that year he was diagnosed with a type of lymphoma but continued his work until 2015 when he underwent several rounds of chemotherapy only to learn in September 2015 that he likely had but 18 months to live.
In a deposition taken in January of this year, Johnson's treating physician testified that more than 80 percent of his body was covered by lesions and his diagnosis continued to be terminal. Still, Johnson has improved since starting a new drug treatment and plans to attend some of the trial if possible, his attorneys said.
Lee Johnson
Johnson has not led an unblemished life; Monsanto uncovered an aggravated assault charge against him from the early 1990s, along with a misdemeanor weapons charge and a domestic abuse complaint against the mother of his oldest child. The company elicited deposition testimony from Johnson that he failed tests for pesticide applicators three times, and sprayed the pesticide without a certified applicator license. Johnson wore proper protective gear over his clothing but was accidentally drenched in the pesticide at least once when mixing it.
Lesions on Lee Johnson's hand.Lee Johnson
Monsanto's lawyers will argue other factors could be to blame for Johnson's cancer, and that its weed killer played no role.
Johnson's attorneys have shrugged off any issues regarding Johnson's personal behavior or other potential causes for his disease, and say in court filings they will offer evidence at trial that Monsanto "for decades, engaged in a shocking degree of scientific fraud and manipulation of the scientific literature with respect to Roundup" to cover up the evidence that it does cause cancer.
The trial evidence will include information that Monsanto ghostwrote articles relied on by the EPA, IARC and California's environmental regulators; rewarded employees for ghostwriting; and actively suppressed the publication of information that revealed the harm associated with glyphosate and Roundup. Johnson's attorneys say internal Monsanto documents show extensive "manipulation" of the scientific record, and clearly improper and fraudulent interactions with regulators.
Johnson's attorneys intend to call 10 current and former Monsanto employees to the stand.
"We're going to get them here. We have the goods," said Brent Wisner, who is one of three attorneys representing Johnson at trial. "If the evidence we have is allowed in, Monsanto is in trouble."
Lead Lawyer Out
Wisner was only brought in to help try to case within the last few weeks after lead attorney Mike Miller suffered a near-fatal accident while kite surfing and remains too severely injured to try the case. Wisner's role is key as he is set to deliver both the opening and closing statements for Johnson's case in Miller's absence.
Monsanto filed a motion on June 18 seeking to exclude Wisner from trying the case, however, claiming he has been acting as a "PR man," and lobbyist against glyphosate, particularly in Europe, where glyphosate has been under intense regulatory scrutiny. Monsanto also cited Wisner's release in August 2017 of hundreds of pages of internal Monsanto documents turned over in discovery that the company had wanted to keep sealed, a tactic that earned Wisner a rebuke from the judge in the federal multidistrict litigation pending against Monsanto. Monsanto's lawyers argue that the internal corporate communications have been intentionally presented out of context by Wisner and other plaintiff's attorneys to make it appear as though the company engaged in deceptive practices when it did not.
Wisner's activities put him in violation of a California "advocate-witness" rule, Monsanto contended in its filing.
In addition to trying to exclude the lawyer, Monsanto is seeking to exclude reams of evidence, including internal emails written by its scientists, arguments that it deceived the EPA, evidence of fraud committed by laboratories, and testimony from Johnson's expert witnesses.
Judge Bolanos will hear arguments on Wednesday regarding that motion and more than a dozen others regarding what evidence will and will not be allowed at trial.
Both sides say the case and the outcome are important in a larger sense. If the jury finds in favor of Johnson it could encourage additional litigation and damage claims some of the lawyers involved estimate could run into hundreds of millions of dollars. If the jury sides with Monsanto, other cases could be in jeopardy. Additionally, a victory for Monsanto in this first case could ease regulatory questions dogging the company.
Araceli Johnson, Lee Johnson's wife, and their two sons.Lee Johnson
As for Johnson, he will try to attend some of the trial, and will testify, but will not likely be there for it all, said Wisner. Johnson's wife, Araceli Johnson, will be called to testify, as will two of his co-workers and his doctors.
"Right now he's on borrowed time. He's not going to come to most of the trial," said Wisner. "The guy is going to die and there is nothing he can do about it. It's unbelievably horrible."
Carey Gillam is a journalist and author, and a public interest researcher for US Right to Know, a not-for-profit food industry research group.
https://www.ecowatch.com/johnson-monsanto-trial-2579431928.html

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UN Experts Draw Closer on Second Global Chemicals Outlook

Jun 19, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Nick Hazlewood

The UN's sound management of chemicals and hazardous waste process is set to become an essential part of the future science/policy interface, a workshop of experts from around the world has heard.
Speaking at the event in Bonn, Gertrud Sahler, president of the International Conference on Chemicals Management 5 (ICCM5), said the implementation of the UN Environment Programme's (Unep) Global Chemical Outlook II process is crucial to any future chemicals framework.
"The process offers us the unique opportunity to think about its use as a model for a long-term science/policy interface," she said.Opportunity
The workshop was called to gather input into the imminent GCO II report, and it comes as the issue reaches a "critical window of opportunity", Achim Halpaap, head of Unep’s chemicals and waste branch, told Chemical Watch.
It is a "crucial milestone" along the road to developing the final report – due by the end of the year – and the first time the GCO II has called on other experts to get involved, that is, beyond its authors and steering committee.
'Creating a community is very important, because in the end if we publish a 300-page document and nobody reads it and nobody champions it, that's not helping anyone,' Achim Halpaap, Unep
"We want to see if the initial work we have done with all the report's lead authors is going in the right direction. We want to know if there is any knowledge missing," Mr Halpaap said.
And, he added, it was equally about gaining support for the work: "Engaging experts in the process is as important as having a document in place. Creating a community is very important, because in the end if we publish a 300-page document and nobody reads it and nobody champions it, that's not helping anyone."Magnitude
During the workshop’s opening session, Anne-Sofie Andersson, executive director of NGO ChemSec, said the problems caused by hazardous chemicals are of the same magnitude as climate change in terms of threat to humans and the environment. But, she added, "it hasn’t got that attention yet, and it is for all of us here to get it that attention among decision makers and the media."
"We have to solve this together," she said. "So let’s do something great!"
And Rafael Cayuela, corporate chief economist at Dow Chemical, told the meeting he believes the chemical industry is on the brink of a fourth industrial revolution more far reaching than that described last year by the World Economic Forum. It will have three legs, he said: revolutions of sustainability, digitalisation and societal.
"The industry has been very, very busy coping with a significant amount of growth all over the world and significant amount of complexity ... We find a situation in which we are doing our day to day work, but the reality is that something really big is happening."The GCO process
The GCO II report is the second of its kind, building on the original released five years ago. Two mandates – from Unep’s governing council in 2013 and the 2016 UN Environmental Assembly – have requested that among other things, the process addresses:progress towards the 2020 goal on the sound management of chemicals;linkages between chemicals and waste;environmental policy issues, identified by the International Conference on Chemicals Management;issues where there is emerging evidence of a risk to human health and the environment; andoptions for implementing actions to reach relevant sustainable development goals and targets up to, and beyond, 2020.
A 'zero' version of the report will go into review in September, with the final version due to be presented at next February’s meeting of the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG), a month before it will be taken up at the UN Environment Assembly (Unea2) in Nairobi. From there, it will inform the International Conference on Chemicals Management in 2020.
"There’s a lot of momentum now," said Mr Halpaap. "But ultimately our evaluation benchmark – the measure of our success – is that the knowledge generated and the conclusions reached in one way or another affect global policy."
The workshop continues until 20 June.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67865/un-experts-draw-closer-on-second-global-chemicals-outlook

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Energy News

U.S. Oil Production Grows, but China, India Will Drive Global Demand

Jun 19, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By Jordan Blum

The United States may lead the world in combined oil and gas production, but the growth in energy demand is driven almost entirely by Asia, especially China and India.
A new report from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy emphasizes the U.S. will play second fiddle to the developing Asian continent when it comes to energy consumption through 2040 and possibly beyond.
While renewable energy sources like wind and solar will continue to rise as rapid rates, the growth will continue to require large volumes of crude oil, natural gas and even coal.
This all means the U.S. should not retreat from multilateral and bilateral free trade policies or wage wide-reaching trade wars because the U.S. could weaken its position as a global energy exporter and, in effect, decrease the demand for U.S. oil and gas, argued Baker Institute academics Anna Mikulska and Michael Maher.Recommended Video:
Now Playing: Russia and China back new UN sanctions on North Korea
China and Russia have joined a unanimous UN security council vote to impose new sanctions on North Korea after its sixth and largest nuclear test. The latest sanctions were agreed on Monday after the US removed some of its tougher proposals such as a complete oil embargo, however America is still talking of further action if there is no change. “We are not looking for war,” said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. “The North Korean regime has not yet passed the point of no return. If it agrees to stop its nuclear program, it can reclaim its future. If it proves it can live in peace, the world will live in peace with it. On the other hand, if North Korea continues its dangerous path, we would continue with further pressure.” Despite years of diplomacy and sanctions Pyonyang has continued to develop its nuclear programme and now claims to have developed a hydrogen bomb. Far from being restrained by the threat of more drastic measures Kim Jong-un appears to have been celebrating the allegedly successful latest test a week ago. Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un “shakes his booty” with leading atomic scientists, during raucous celebration of latest United States defeat. pic.twitter.com/2mahXFLntM— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) September 11, 2017 US President Donald Trump had previously warned that the US could cut off trade with countries if they do business with North Korea. However the new sanctions fall short of what Mr.Trump would have liked – an oil import ban or international asset freeze on the government and leader Kim Jong-un. The resolution does ban North Korea from importing all natural gas liquids, but it only caps Pyongyang’s imports of crude oil at the level of the last 12 months, and it limits the import of refined petroleum products to 2 million barrels a year. It also bans all textile exports and prohibits all countries from authorising new work permits for North Korean workers — two key sources of hard currency.Media: Euronews_News
Already, China is threatening to place tariffs on U.S. oil and more as President Donald Trump pushed $50 billion of new tariffs on select Chinese goods starting July 6 in retaliation to alleged intellectual property theft by China. Trump is warning he may escalate that to $200 billion in additional tariffs. China has not yet proposed placing tariffs though on U.S. liquefied natural gas.
RELATED: Houston transforms the U.S. into an energy exporting hub
Port hubs along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana are leading most of the growth to export more oil and LNG worldwide. A number of LNG export complexes are currently under construction, including in Freeport and Corpus Christi, while the Houston Ship Channel and Port of Corpus Christi are expanding to ship out much more crude oil produced from West Texas' booming Permian Basin. There's currently a race to build out several pipelines across Texas to transport the oil to the Houston and Corpus hubs.
China and India will account for between 65 percent and 75 percent of the growth in global energy demand through 2040, the report notes. Much of the remaining growth will come from smaller Southeast Asian nations. The region will need more than 400 million metric tons of of additional oil equivalent demand through 2040, which is about half of China's total current demand.
The Rice report drew information from the U.S. Energy Department, the International Energy Agency and British energy major BP's annual energy outlook.
The report also warned that energy must be produced as sustainably as possible with fewer emissions and more reliance on renewable sources in order to meet global goals to combat climate change while still feeding the growth of the developing world.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/U-S-oil-production-grows-but-China-India-will-13007069.php

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U.S. Natural Gas Growth Said Enough to Replace Most Coal, Nuke Closures

Jun 19, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Richard Nemec

New domestic natural gas-fired generation, along with some renewables, will replace the power supply lost with the retirement of 35 GW of coal-fired and nuclear generation plants over the next five years, according to Moody's Investors Service.
The impact of the planned retirements should be offset by what Moody's analysts estimated as about 32 GW of new power generation, mostly gas-fired plants, they said in a report issued last Friday. "Furthermore, approximately 72 GW of renewables are in advanced development or under construction with the majority slated for 2020," a spokesperson said.
From the credit ratings perspective, continuing excess generation capacity will be a "negative credit driver" and particularly for operators in deregulated markets, such as PJM in the Northeast. PJM has 5,400 MW of nuclear power and 8,000 MW of coal-fired plants set to retire from now through 2021.
Lurking in the background is an unfinished U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) proposal to keep some of the scheduled nuclear and coal-fired plants operating. Its prospects could upset the analysis if the White House asserts national security reasons for keeping some of the old plants open.
"Given the uncertainty surrounding the actual plan and the timing of the implementation, we assume that the planned coal-fired and nuclear power plants will be retired as scheduled in this report," Moody's noted in regard to the DOE proposal.
Moody's analysis projected a continuing decline in the net carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The coal-fired plants retiring should cut CO2 emission by 5%, but 2% of CO2 would be gained through the nuclear plant retirements. Overall, there should be a "modest reduction" of about 3% in CO2 from the net effect of the closures.
There should be no material effect on U.S. power capacity, with 32 GW of generation capacity under construction over the next five years, and 72 GW of renewables either in advanced development or under construction, according to Moody’s.
Currently, natural gas accounts for 42% of U.S. power generation, while coal sits at about 24% with renewables at 12%. Nuclear and hydro power each account for 9%. In terms of CO2 emissions, coal accounts for 69% while natural gas is responsible for 29%.
Aside from the fuel mix changes, the electricity market is expected to be negatively impacted by declining power usage, according to Moody's, which cited PJM as experiencing declining demand for the last several years.
"Efficiency programs and conservation efforts have gained momentum, reducing electricity usage," the report noted. PJM's summer peak loads have declined 1.2% for the past two years and should decline by more than 2% per year during the next five years.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114767-us-natural-gas-growth-said-enough-to-replace-most-coal-nuke-closures

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OPEC Has a Second Shale Dilemma

Jun 19, 2018 | Bloomberg (In The Washington Post)

By Liam Denning

Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources Inc., has reportedly pulled out of giving a speech at OPEC’s get-together this week. Hamm has an interesting relationship with OPEC; dismissive of it one moment and calling on it to boost oil prices the next. Plus, President Donald Trump, for whom Hamm has acted as an advisor, appears somewhat displeased with those chaps in Vienna.
Whatever the reason, he could plausibly just say he’s busy. While the oil market right now has one eye on OPEC’s intrigues and the other on the Permian basin’s blockages, production in North Dakota is quietly booming.
Continental is one of the largest operators in the Bakken basin, which stretches beneath North Dakota and Montana, and up into Canada. There was a time when the Bakken generated a buzz in oil circles like the Permian does today. The oil crash changed all that. Yet even as attention, and investment, shifted south to Texas, the Bakken has been coming back:
The Energy Information Administration’s Drilling Productivity Report, published on Monday, shows Bakken oil production has surged by more than 300,000 barrels a day, or 32 percent, since bottoming out in late 2016 (which is when OPEC and associates decided to cut supply to support prices.) At 1.27 million barrels of oil a day, June’s output is expected to surpass the basin’s prior peak in December 2014.
The Bakken’s recovery partly reflects producers working off a backlog of drilled but uncompleted wells (or DUCs, as they’re called). Exploration and production firms can choose not to frack a well that’s already drilled when oil prices are low, in order to save money. In the depths of the crash, Bakken producers’ backlog of uncompleted wells blew out to almost two years’ worth. That has plunged to under seven months:
The Bakken has some of the most competitive barrels in the U.S. While breakeven prices range from around $45 a barrel up to $80 within the basin, averages are at the lower end of the cost-curve, according to estimates from Bloomberg New Energy Finance:
Being closer to Canada than Mexico means Bakken producers also suffer from the bottlenecks currently afflicting many of their counterparts in the Permian basin. The regional pricing benchmark at Clearbrook, Minnesota, trades $6 below Louisiana Light Sweet at the Gulf Coast. Even so, that’s still around $69 a barrel, making much of the Bakken economic for frackers. The opening of the Dakota Access pipeline last summer eased the region’s own major bottleneck – putting pressure on Nymex WTI oil prices in the process – and there is also lots of spare rail capacity to send barrels to refineries on the East and West Coasts too.
Yet there is a hurdle in the form of natural gas. Production of this has surged along with oil; and, as you might imagine, the local market is pretty limited. About 15 percent of North Dakota’s natural gas production was burned off (or “flared”) in April, the latest official data available. That’s already at the limit of what regulators allow, and the cap drops to 12 percent in November (and 9 percent by late 2020.) Meanwhile, production keeps going up as long as oil prices encourage more fracking:
Even so, this is North Dakota we’re talking about, not California. Companies such as Oneok Inc. are building new processing capacity to take higher volumes of natural gas. More importantly, state regulators voted in late April to effectively loosen the regulations via several tweaks – without changing the overall cap levels - such as extending the exemption period on flaring rules from two weeks to two months. Score one for the oil lobby there. The upshot is that the recovery in oil output will likely keep going, absent a big drop in prices.
This isn’t the Permian, of course. Remarkably, though, this region produces more than one million barrels a day, has been growing at 15 to 20 percent, year over year, and yet is largely considered old news. It now produces more oil at less than $70 a barrel than it did when triple-digit prices prevailed. That’s something for OPEC to ponder this week, even if Hamm isn’t there to talk them through it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/opec-has-a-second-shale-dilemma/2018/06/19/eda119f4-73c3-11e8-bda1-18e53a448a14_story.html?utm_term=.9fbae01bb4af

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Oil Industry Tries to Take the Fracking Boom Global

Jun 19, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal

By Sarah Kent

A BP PLC project deep in Oman’s desert shows how big oil companies are taking hydraulic-fracturing techniques perfected in Texas to the global stage, where they had long struggled.
BP’s $12 billion Khazzan project launched last year on a complex roughly the size of London, surrounded by sand dunes and little else. One of the biggest fracking projects ever completed outside the U.S., Khazzan produces natural gas from rock so dense and deep beneath the desert that it was long thought too difficult and expensive to exploit.
It’s a breakthrough for a technology that revolutionized the oil-and-gas industry in the U.S. but had failed to gain ground elsewhere, with early setbacks in China, Europe and Russia. Now, big oil companies are drawing on expertise gained from their U.S. operations and making investments around the world again.
However, those efforts will depend in part on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies like Russia whose meeting this week in Vienna could have implications for crude prices. Rising oil prices—which breached $80 a barrel this year—have provided support for fracking projects, though executives say government policy and technological advances can also help make projects work at lower prices.
“It’s going to happen in other places,” BP Deputy Chief Executive Lamar McKay said.
Fracking isn’t new to the industry, but it’s become a key technology to help unlock resources trapped in tight rocks, like Khazzan. Gas production from such “unconventional” resources—so-called because they require special techniques to produce—has more than doubled over the past eight years outside of North America, reaching 6.6 billion cubic feet a day in 2018, according to Norway-based energy consultancy Rystad Energy.American DominanceThe U.S. maintains the top position forfracking gas, though other countries now saythey can tap their reserves.Estimated economic unconventional gasresources, in quadrillions of cubic feetSource: Rystad Energy
U.S.ArgentinaCanadaBrazilChinaMexicoAustraliaSaudi ArabiaIndiaRussiaAlgeriaOman00.511.52
In general, big oil companies are pushing ahead with so-called “short-cycle” projects, where production can be turned on and off depending on the oil price. Traditional projects have long life cycles and produce no matter how low prices go.
In Argentina, oil giants including Exxon MobilCorp , Chevron Corp. , Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP have moved to frack the country’s massive shale reserves, though high costs have slowed progress. According to the International Energy Agency, oil production from fracking in the country will more than triple over the next five years to 110,000 barrels a day.
In Russia, PAO Gazprom Neft is now leading experiments with fracking the Bazhenov shale formation, the largest in the world. Wood Mackenzie forecasts production of shale gas in China will almost double by 2020, driven by investments from the country’s state-backed oil companies. Even Saudi Arabia has begun efforts to tap its most-difficult to pump natural gas by fracking.
These projects are “unconventional today but won’t be unconventional in time,” said Thierry Bros, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
Until recently, oil companies had made slow, costly progress in applying fracking to unconventional resources in the rest of the world. Regulatory hurdles and environmental concerns upended efforts in Europe.
Huge gas deposits in China have proved difficult to tap. International production remains a fraction of output in the U.S.
Even in the U.S., it took BP and other big oil companies years to get to grips with fracking. The shale revolution was initially dominated by smaller, more nimble players.High-Speed ChaseThe U.S. is still by far the dominant producer,but natural gas output by fracking is rising inother parts of the world, too.Unconventional natural-gas production,2010–18Source: Rystad Energy.billion cubic feet a day
Outside the U.S.U.S.010203040506070
Now, Khazzan counts among BP’s most valuable assets, according to Wood Mackenzie, the Scottish energy consultancy, and it stands out as an important milestone in BP’s efforts to rebuild production after years of retrenchment following its Gulf of Mexico disaster in 2010.
Oman is an unlikely place to lead the race to globalize fracking. Its unconventional reserves are dwarfed by those found in China and Argentina, which have so far driven production growth outside North America. Khazzan’s geology isn’t easy to drill, and Oman initially lacked infrastructure, expertise and drilling data.
Even before the oil price crash in 2014, the potential in Oman was seen as relatively marginal. As BP pressed forward at the start of the decade, a similar nearby project fell through.
“Khazzan was quite a big risk,” said Liam Yates, a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie.
Fracking in Oman’s desert was also a completely new venture for BP. The technique works by using water, sand and chemicals to fracture underground rocks and hold the cracks open, allowing oil and gas trapped in the rocks to flow. That process needs to be repeated and repeated across the field. For BP, that meant any miscalculations or mistakes in its development plan would be magnified across hundreds of wells.
To make fracking in the desert work, BP used a supercomputer in Houston to interpret one of its biggest-ever seismic surveys and ran hundreds of simulations to figure out the best parts of the gas field to exploit. It called on teams of engineers with experience fracking in the U.S.
“We threw everything and the kitchen sink at that project,” said Ahmed Hashmi, BP’s head of technology for exploration and production.
Oman, though, enjoyed natural advantages that some seemingly more promising prospects lacked—chief among them a government anxious to incentivize development.RELATEDOil Giants Try Again to Master Fracking (Aug. 16, 2016)Non-U.S. Shales Prove Difficult to Crack(March 18, 2015)Russia Bets on Shale Oil (Dec. 29, 2017)Big Oil Gets In Early on Argentina Shale (May 4, 2017)
When early well tests were disappointing, BP spent years negotiating a secret gas price that would make the project profitable. The company also has maintained a close relationship with the government, which holds a 40% stake in the field. Elsewhere, domestic politics have often stymied efforts to take fracking global.
Now, the project is pumping 1 billion cubic feet of gas a day—more than enough to meet the average daily demand of Connecticut. Another 500 million cubic feet a day will come online in the next phase of the project. In an industry renowned for cost overruns, it came in $4 billion under budget.
The output comes after BP managers spent four years building sprawling production facilities in the remote Omani desert. Because the sand in Oman wasn’t the right shape or strength, the company has to fly in supplies from Brazil. The whole project is managed from a futuristic central control room in Khazzan dubbed “the Starship Enterprise” by BP’s Oman head of operations Dave Campbell.
“We brought the technology from U.S. operations to Oman,” said Yousuf Al Ojaili, BP’s president for Oman. “We’ve built up the expertise.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/taking-the-fracking-boom-global-1529409963?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3

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New Tariffs from China Would Hit U.S. Exporters

Jun 19, 2018 | Reuters (In E&E Energywire)

By Henning Gloystein

China's promise to impose new duties on U.S. commodities could hurt American oil exporters.
The new duties — coming in retaliation for President Trump's own announcement of tariffs last week — would make U.S. exports more expensive, benefiting OPEC and Russian producers.
It could also give a lift to Iran, which is facing new U.S. sanctions on its production.
"The Chinese may just replace some of the American oil with Iranian crude," said John Driscoll, director at JTD Energy Services.
"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," he said.
One official at a Chinese oil major said the inclusion of U.S. crude oil on the list of commodities had come as a "surprise."
"We were actually preparing to raise imports according to an earlier government line," he said, in reference to China's agreement to reduce the United States' trade deficit.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/19/stories/1060085001

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Shell's Pennsylvania Cracker Said on Track, Major Equipment Arriving

Jun 19, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Jamison Cocklin

Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC continues to plow ahead on its multi-billion dollar ethane cracker in western Pennsylvania, with nearly all of the foundations completed for the 200 structures that will form the self-contained site and major equipment arriving regularly, an executive overseeing the project said Monday.
Shell and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) again shut down the Vanport Bridge in Beaver County near the 386-acre site to deliver the facility’s massive quench tower. At about 300 feet, the structure is roughly the size of a football field. It was shipped last month via barge up the Ohio River to the site’s recently constructed dock. The bridge, which carries Interstate 376 over the river into Vanport Township, was closed as a precaution given the tower’s size.
“It is huge...Our entire docking system at the plant was designed to accommodate this piece of equipment,” said Shell’s Hilary Mercer, vice president of the Pennsylvania Chemicals unit during a presentation at the Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction conference in Pittsburgh.
“For anybody who was inconvenienced, I’m really, really sorry,” she said of the closure. “But it did end up closing for 60 minutes. We managed because of the pre-planning, because of the 3-D visualization we had done; we managed to get that down to 60 minutes to move underneath the bridge and then do all of the post-movement analysis of the bridge by PennDOT and then re-open the bridge to the public.”
The quenching tower is a key component and is used early in the process to make the pellets to be sold for plastics conversion. After ethane is fed into a furnace to be cracked into ethylene, it is then fed to the water-based quench tower where other reactions are stopped to prevent undesirable byproducts. Mercer said the tower would be lifted into place with a crane said to be the world’s third largest.
Mercer, who last oversaw Royal Dutch Shell plc’s Prelude project in Australia, an offshore floating liquefied natural gas facility, described the massive project in Pennsylvania as a data-driven endeavor. A drone flies over the site each week to take “thousands upon thousands of photographs” to help monitor progress and make preparations for the next stages.
The facility, which is expected to enter service in the early 2020s, is designed to consume a little more than 100,000 b/d of ethane to produce 1.5 million metric tons/year (mmty) of ethylene and 1.6 mmty of polyethylene. It would be largely self-contained, with a gas-fired power plant, water treatment facility and emergency response team.
Late last year, Shell transitioned from site remediation and early works, such as sewage, electricity and foundations, to the primary construction phase during which the actual plant is to be built.
“We’ve transitioned a heavily contaminated heavy metals smelter site,” Mercer said. “This site is nothing like it was three years ago, let alone five years ago, and we have concluded a huge Act 2 remediation effort,” referring to a state land recycling program to revitalize brownfield sites. The location, which straddles the Ohio River in Potter and Center townships about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, was once home to a zinc smelting plant.
The company has also revived the Shell Polymers brand, which it had dropped after exiting most of its plastics businesses. The Pennsylvania ethane cracker plans to operate under the new name in a nod to the work Shell is doing to reestablish the company in the space.
Shell is now hiring for its first 40 operator positions to begin training personnel ahead of start-up, Mercer said. The facility is ultimately expected to employ 600 people once it enters service.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114768-shells-pennsylvania-cracker-said-on-track-major-equipment-arriving

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New York Legislature Passes Bill to Limit WTE Siting

Jun 19, 2018 | Waste Dive

By Cole Rosengren

Dive Brief:The New York State Senate unanimously passed a bill on June 18, S8109, that would "exclude major electric generating facilities which generate electricity from the combustion or pyrolysis of solid waste or fuel derived from solid waste from an expedited power siting process."This bill is directed at a specific proposal from Circular enerG to build a waste-to-energy (WTE) combustion facility in the town of Romulus. The company plans to go through the expedited Article 10 process of the state's Public Service Law rather than obtain local zoning approvals.Seneca Lake Guardian, an environmental group, recently sent a letter to state leaders co-signed by nearly 500 businesses in support of the bill. A matching bill, A11214, would now require approval from the state Assembly for this to move forward.WASTE DIVEWant news like this in your inbox?
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Public opposition has grown since Circular enerG first announced this project last year. The proposed $365 million facility would have capacity for up to 2,640 tons of waste per day and generate an estimated 50 MW of energy. It was originally envisioned to open by the end of 2021, though that timeline is now less certain.
More than two dozen local and county governments have come out against the project so far, along with Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in a mounting show of solidarity. With the Finger Lakes area currently home to two large landfills — Waste Management's High Acres and Waste Connections' Seneca Meadows — public opinion is already skewed against the notion of any new waste infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Circular enerG is eyeing approval through the state's Public Service Commission siting process despite this lack of local support. The company also recently filed a lawsuit against the Romulus Zoning Board of Appeals.
While the legislation in question is targeted at this project — it's titled "The Finger Lakes Community Act of 2018" — the language could also end up affecting future WTE proposals throughout New York. Not only would it block the expedited Article 10 option for such projects, it would essentially take a stance against the technology entirely.
"Fundamentally, trash incinerators are not effective mechanisms for electricity generation, often producing less electricity than is expended to [burn] waste materials, and at a higher cost. They also produce toxic ash from burning a range of solid wastes which can vary widely in chemical output, making compliance with emissions and toxic waste limits difficult. These facilities are effectively solid waste landfills which contravene New York's goals to increase recycling rates..." reads ones section.
Whether or not this bill ends up passing before legislators end their 2018 session later this week, it represents a relatively rare case of waste-related issues escalating to merit statewide attention.
https://www.wastedive.com/news/new-york-legislature-passes-bill-limit-wte-siting/526030/

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Public Power CEO Hits FERC for 'Pushing' Jurisdiction

Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Rod Kuckro

The head of the nation's public power lobby ramped up criticism yesterday of the chief federal energy regulator for "pushing its jurisdictional boundaries at the expense of state and local authorities."
Sue Kelly, president of the American Public Power Association, in an interview said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is "making it harder and harder" for APPA member electric utilities to manage efficiency and storage activities within their footprints.
Earlier yesterday, she spoke to roughly 1,300 attendees at APPA's annual meeting in New Orleans.
Sue Kelly. American Public Power Association
The organization represents more than 2,000 not-for-profit, community-owned utilities that serve 49 million customers.
"Recently, FERC said in one order that it has exclusive jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act to regulate energy efficiency resources in wholesale electric markets. And in a second order, it ruled that retail customers can sell their storage services directly into the wholesale market," Kelly said.
APPA, along with a number of other energy trade groups, asked FERC to rehear both of those orders.
"We cannot stand by while FERC continues to erode state and local authority over what are clearly retail activities," Kelly told the APPA attendees.
Later, she elaborated on the continued blurring of lines between state and federal jurisdiction that has in recent years put APPA at odds with both FERC and various regional grid operators, such as PJM Interconnection.
"The situation is complex. We're increasingly concerned as we see these [FERC] decisions impinge more and more on retail activity," Kelly said, referring to the local sale of electricity that has been historically managed by municipal utilities.
But now, FERC decisions are sanctioning "things that are not only behind our city gates; there are things that are behind our [own utility] meters," she said.
"What goes on our systems is retail activity. We have our own services and programs. We do our best to enhance and support those activities, and then we participate in the wholesale market.
"But when our customers go over our heads to do that, we lose economies of scale, and those customers who aren't participating are the worse off for it. We would like to be able to aggregate those activities for the benefit of everyone on our system. The FERC is making it harder and harder to do that if everyone is freelancing," Kelly said.Wait and see on DOE support for plants
APPA is closely watching the development of a Trump administration proposal to buy electricity from unidentified U.S. coal and nuclear power plants to prevent their "premature" retirement, Kelly said.
"We are not entirely unsympathetic, especially in the case of nuclear plants. Because that's technology we need to try and keep going in the United States," she said.
The Department of Energy is reportedly looking at using the Defense Production Act, the Federal Power Act or both to craft a way to financially subsidize certain nuclear and coal plants.
"It's a precedent I'd want to think really hard about," Kelly said. "And it's clear that DOE is not done thinking about it either. I'm not sure that's where they'll end up.
"We want to wait to see what happens and work with our government partners to try and make sure we come out to the best possible place with the soundest legal reasoning behind it," she said.
So far, no APPA official has met with Bruce Walker, DOE's assistant secretary for electricity, on the possible options for plant support, she said.
As to how APPA and its members would react should a proposal emerge that is objectionable, she said, "It is hard to say. It depends on how strong the jurisdictional authority" is that DOE relies on.
"If they come up with a legal, jurisdictional rationale that is strong, it would to be difficult for us to say, 'No, we're going to assert our local authority and federal authority can't override it.'
"It's going to depend on the strength of the authorities and whether or not we agree with the direction the federal government wants to go. It's all TBD," Kelly said.
She reminded her members yesterday that "neither the [regional transmission organizations] nor [the North American Electric Reliability Corp.] nor FERC have said there is a supply emergency that calls for such direct federal intervention."
So Kelly may find partners in grid operators such as PJM as well as FERC, with whom APPA is clashing on jurisdiction matters.
"I take my allies where I find them," Kelly said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/19/stories/1060085015

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Gas Industry Report Sounds Alarm on Project Costs

Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Jenny Mandel

Pipeline spending nationwide will peak next year at about $100 billion before dropping off to roughly half that level for the following two decades, according to a study commissioned by the natural gas industry that reveals deep concern about rapidly escalating project development costs.
Between now and 2035, the U.S. is likely to see the construction of about 180,000 miles of pipeline and 17 million horsepower of compression and pumping to carry oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids out of new and growing supply regions, according to a projection by the consulting firm ICF International Inc. that was published yesterday by the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America.
Just over half of those miles will be dedicated to moving natural gas, the report suggests, while oil will account for 40 percent and the remainder will carry natural gas liquids used in manufacturing and industrial processes.
The cost of that infrastructure represents a huge unknown for the industry, though, according to the study.
At the low end, it could cost $685 billion between 2018 and 2035, or about $38 billion per year, while the high-end estimate is 31 percent higher at about $900 billion, or $50 billion per year.
Pipeline construction costs have skyrocketed in recent years, industry data show. In 2016, an INGAA study projected that 2017 pipeline construction costs would be $158,000 per inch-mile in 2016 dollars; in fact, 2017 costs were $230,000 per inch-mile.
INGAA President and CEO Don Santa said yesterday that increasing costs of raw materials and labor are major drivers of the escalating project costs, along with the clustering of projects that contributes to local shortages. Other factors include developers' troubles securing needed permits and related delays.
The analysis does not take into account the steel and other tariffs that President Trump has put in place with effects on some pipeline companies. Santa said the tariffs and quotas "could have a negative impact on the industry and [its] ability to expand" and add to the uncertainty that pipeline developers face in planning their projects.
The new analysis does not model how demand for pipelines could respond to the range of future costs. But it predicts that the needed pipelines will contributes about $1.3 trillion to the U.S. and Canadian economies over the 18 years considered, or an average of about $70 billion per year, and lead to 242,000 direct jobs and indirectly to employment for some 500,000 more each year.Projects as political campaigns
Many of the delays that Santa said are driving escalating pipeline costs relate to the increasing pushback that developers face from both local communities concerned about safety issues and broad-based activist groups that oppose fossil fuel projects.
Santa said the pipeline industry has stepped up to the challenge of addressing negative public perception.
"There's not a single pipeline developer now that does not treat doing a project like a political campaign," Santa said. "The opponents are very determined, are very innovative, in terms of their utilization of litigation and other things in order to throw a monkey wrench into the gears of pipeline development."
Santa said the industry needs to do better at bringing on pipelines' customers and organized labor to voice support for projects and show they have broader appeal, and to take advantage of their employees' standing within the communities where they work to communicate more authentically about projects.
Responding to questions about pressure for the pipeline industry to more systematically address cybersecurity issues, Santa suggested that some of those pressing for change were doing so "for their own ends," despite natural gas's track record as "remarkably reliable and resilient."
The Energy Department has recently pointed to cybersecurity risks to gas-fired power supply as a reason to provide financial support to struggling coal and nuclear plants (Energywire, June 8).
Santa said he has not seen a very in-depth assessment of natural gas pipeline cyber risk, and that the energy being put to questioning whether to revamp the current voluntary framework for pipeline cybersecurity would be better used in strengthening it. "To the extent that it is perceived that there are problems or things that could be improved with [the Transportation Security Administration's] exercise of its jurisdiction, let's focus on improving that," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/06/19/stories/1060085019

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Environment News

Trump Admin Floats Changes to Environmental Review Standards

Jun 19, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Timothy Cama

The Trump administration is considering major changes to the regulations that government how federal agencies analyze the potential environmental impacts of their decisions.
The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the White House agency responsible for coordinating compliance with the National Environmental Quality Act (NEPA), put out a notice Tuesday soliciting input on the matter from the public.
“Over the past four decades, CEQ has issued numerous guidance documents but has amended its regulations substantively only once,” the agency said in the notice, due to be published in the Federal Register Wednesday.
It said it wants comments “on potential revisions to update the regulations and ensure a more efficient, timely, and effective NEPA process consistent with the national environmental policy stated in NEPA.”
The solicitation stems from an August 2017 executive order President Trump signed that aimed to ease the permitting process for highways, bridges and other infrastructure projects. That was part of a major effort Trump is undertaking to get more infrastructure built.
CEQ asks in its notice a series of specific questions it wants public comment on. They include whether current regulations are obsolete, how environmental reviews can be made more efficient, whether CEQ should limit the number of pages in environmental review documents and whether it should redefine key terms for the purposes of the regulations.
Environmentalists and Democrats have long been critical of the Trump administration’s efforts to streamline environmental reviews, arguing that officials are trying to reduce the protections that are meant to minimize the impacts of projects and silence objectors.
Once the notice is published in the Federal Register Wednesday, the public will have 30 days to weigh in.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/393009-trump-admin-floats-changes-to-environmental-review-standards

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Merkel Says Climate Change Is 'a Fact,' Laments US Stance

Jun 19, 2018 | AP (In The New York Times)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel took aim Tuesday at U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris accord, calling the move "very regrettable" at a time when the overwhelming majority of countries worldwide are trying to limit global warming.
"We know climate change isn't a matter of faith," she told an international climate meeting in Berlin. "It's a fact."
Trump announced last year that the U.S. will pull out of the accord negotiated by his predecessor unless he can "get a better deal."
Merkel said Germany remains committed to the Paris climate accord fighting global warming but acknowledged that the country still needs to do more to curb emissions, particularly in the transport sector, if it wants to meet its own goals.
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The long-time German leader urged the 178 countries that have ratified the 2015 Paris accord to agree by the end of the year on a rulebook for its implementation.
"The German government stands fully behind the Paris climate accord, because ambitious climate policies don't just help limit the worst consequences of climate change , they also offer chances for innovation and therefore growth and prosperity worldwide," she said.
Germany, the strongest economy in the 28-nation European Union, was once a leader in the fight against climate change but has fallen behind in recent years. Officials predict that Germany will miss its goal of cutting emissions by 2020 by a wide margin.
"We in Germany have to admit that we need to get better," said Merkel, adding that the biggest worry was the country's transport sector, which has seen emissions rise slightly compared to 1990.
The talks in Berlin, attended by ministers from some 30 countries, are part of a series of meetings preparing for December's global climate summit in Poland.
Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland's prime minister, told ministers that the summit's host city of Katowice, a former center of heavy industry and coal mining, would be a showcase for the economic shift that is needed to prevent climate change.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/06/19/world/europe/ap-eu-germany-us-climate.html

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D.C. Circuit Schedules Argument in SO2 NAAQS Designations Suit

Jun 19, 2018 | Inside EPA

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has scheduled oral argument for Sept. 11 in consolidated litigation challenging EPA's designations for which areas of the country are either attaining or in nonattainment with the agency's 2010 sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS).
The court announced the argument date in a June 15 order for the case Samuel Masias, et al. v. EPA, et al., in which several petitioners are challenging the SO2 NAAQS of 75 parts per billion (ppb) over a novel one-hour averaging time. Designations are a crucial part of the NAAQS implementation process, because they help states determine how stringent they need to make their emissions reduction strategies known as state implementation plans (SIPs).
States generally try to avoid nonattainment status because it requires stricter SIPs that can impose costly pollution controls on industrial sources of SO2 emissions. Various industry groups and Republicans have argued nonattainment status can therefore drive businesses away in favor of operating in attainment areas.
In the SO2 case, environmentalists are urging the D.C. Circuit to force EPA to designate parts of Colorado and Ohio as “nonattainment,” rather than the “unclassifiable” status the agency issued. Unclassifiable areas are treated the same as attainment areas, meaning they avoid the need for states to craft strict SIPs.
For example, Sierra Club has said in briefing in the case that a “simple mathematical fix” to a flaw in Ohio's calculations with respect to Gallia County, OH, “demonstrates nonattainment.”
Separately, Colorado residents have argued that EPA unlawfully designated Colorado Springs as unclassifiable, when emissions from a coal-fired power plant in the state push the area into nonattainment.
But the power industry is intervening in the case to defend EPA's designations, with the Utility Air Regulatory Group and others arguing in briefing to support the Ohio and Colorado findings.
In addition, EPA is battling with the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities over whether it has legal standing for its bid to overturn the designation of Wyandotte County, KS, as unclassifiable and change it to unclassifiable/attainment.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/dc-circuit-schedules-argument-so2-naaqs-designations-suit

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EPA Sends 'Good Neighbor' Smog Proposal to White House

Jun 19, 2018 | E&E Greenwire

By Sean Reilly

EPA, facing a tight court-ordered deadline, has sent a proposal to the White House budget office that appears geared to addressing the remaining "good neighbor" obligations for its 2008 ground-level ozone standard.
The agency forwarded the proposed rule yesterday to the Office of Management and Budget for a standard review, according to the Reginfo.gov site. That step came less than a week after a federal judge ruled in favor of New York and Connecticut in their lawsuit charging that the agency was illegally overdue in imposing federal plans to curb upwind emissions that are allegedly making it harder for the New York City metro area to meet the 2008 ozone standard of 75 parts per billion (E&E News PM, June 13).
In the order, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl of the Southern District of New York gave EPA until June 29 to sign off on a proposal for addressing those upwind emissions from Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. The final version is due by Dec. 6, under Koeltl's order.
EPA press staffers did not respond to requests for confirmation this morning that the proposal sent yesterday to OMB — titled "Determination Regarding Good Neighbor Obligations for the 2008 Ozone [National Ambient Air Quality Standards]" — corresponds to what is required by Koeltl's order.
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is produced by the reaction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in sunlight. In their lawsuit, filed early this year, New York and Connecticut charged that pollution wafting downwind from the five other states was undermining efforts to bring the sprawling New York City metro area into compliance with the 75 ppb threshold. That area, which includes part of Connecticut, is listed as in "moderate" nonattainment for the standard. In the ensuing legal proceedings, EPA officials did not dispute that the federal cleanup plans were statutorily supposed to have been in place by last August.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/06/19/stories/1060085085

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