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ACC AM 6/22/2018

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals in the 2nd Line of Fire in US-China Trade Dispute
Jun 22, 2018 | ICIS
By Nigel Davis

The talk has become serious and the implications dire. The US chemical industry has a great deal to lose from escalating trade tensions with China.
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Specialty Chemical Markets Continue to Gain in Q2, ACC Says
Jun 21, 2018 | Chemical Engineering Online
By Scott Jenkins

The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) reported that U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes continued to gain during the second quarter, increasing 0.5 percent in May, after an upwardly revised 1.0 percent gain in April and a 0.4 percent gain in March.
(ACC Mentioned) Pilot Study Takes on Curbside Recycling of Flexible Plastics Packaging
Jun 21, 2018 | Plastics Today

Materials Recovery for the Future(MRFF), an industry collaborative a research program of brand owners, retailers, plastic providers and associations whose members include Procter & Gamble, Target Stores and more, announced on June 20 a new partnership ...
(ACC Mentioned) Pilot Study Tackles Curbside Recycling of Flexible Plastic Packaging
Jun 22, 2018 | Packaging Gateway

US solid waste and recycling services provider JP Mascaro & Sons has partnered with the Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF) research programme to pilot single-stream curbside recycling of flexible plastic packaging (FPP).
(ACC Mentioned) US Chemical Industry Set to Run Higher: 5 Stocks to Scoop Up
Jun 22, 2018 | Zacks (In Nasdaq)
By Anindya Barman

The American chemical industry is set to ride high this year on an upswing in the world economy, healthy demand across automotive and housing markets, an upturn in U.S. manufacturing, improving export markets and favorable shale gas economics, per a recent report from American Chemistry Council ("ACC").

LCSA News

EPA Shifts Gears as Chemical Law Hits Two-Year Milestone
Jun 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

Chemical manufacturers will get guidance from the EPA June 22 on ways they can name their chemicals while protecting confidential business information.
EPA Takes Gradual Approach to Replacing Chemical Tests on Animals
Jun 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ayanna Alexander and Steven Gibb

The EPA will take a cautious approach to moving away from testing chemicals on animals so that both new and old chemicals are addressed when new methods are adopted.
Companies That Make or Add Mercury to Products Must Report Use
Jun 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

Battery, pharmaceutical, industrial switch, and other manufacturers are among the companies required to report their use of mercury to the EPA under a final rule the agency released June 22.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Nonstick Chemicals Can Really Stick Around – in Your Body
Jun 22, 2018 | Pew Charitable Trusts
By Rebecca Beitsch

For decades, American consumers have been buying water-resistant packaging and clothing, stain-resistant carpets and Teflon cookware.
U.S. Report Proposes Lower Safe Level for Perfluorochemical Exposure
Jun 21, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue

A federal report once suppressed by the military and EPA proposes safe daily levels of consumption for two perfluorochemicals that are one-tenth those of EPA.
FDA-Approved PFAS and Drinking Water – Q&A on Textile Mills and Environmental Permits
Jun 21, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner

In May 2018, we released a blog highlighting paper mills as a potentially significant source of drinking water contamination from 14 Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved poly- and per-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) used to greaseproof paper.
New Jersey to Set Fluorochemical Levels in Drinking Water This Year
Jun 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas

New Jersey expects to issues safe levels for three common toxic chemicals in drinking water by the end of the year, putting the state—and its water utilities—ahead of the federal government in setting strict standards for the chemicals.
Trump Readies Lead Strategy But Faces Doubts Ahead Of New CDC Limits
Jun 21, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds

The Trump administration is preparing to release as soon as next week its long-awaited strategy for reducing children's exposures to lead, but officials are facing competing calls from environmental and industry groups for how aggressive EPA and other agencies should be...
‘Costly’ Testing Reduced for Composite Wood in Kid Products
Jun 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Martina Barash

Particleboard and similar wood-based materials in toys or other children’s products don’t have to be tested for lead and certain other chemicals under a final Consumer Product Safety Commission rule.
Echa's MSC Agrees That D4, D5 and D6 Are SVHCs
Jun 22, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies

Echa's Member State Committee has agreed that the siloxanes D4, D5 and D6 are all REACH substances of very high concern (SVHCs), based on persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) properties. Industry has voiced strong criticism of the decision.

Energy News

Lags in Updating Pipeline Safety Rules Costs Companies Millions
Jun 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan

The sluggish pace for updating federal pipeline safety requirements are costing oil and gas companies millions, advocates for the industry told a House panel June 21.
The Natural Gas Industry Has a Leak Problem
Jun 22, 2018 | New York Times
By John Schwartz and Brad Plumer

The American oil and gas industry is leaking more methane than the government thinks — much more, a new study says. Since methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, that is bad news for climate change.
Major Methane Study Complicates Plans of Oil and Gas Industry
Jun 21, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum

U.S. oil and gas operations are releasing far more methane into the atmosphere than the federal government estimates, causing much more harm to the environment and undermining the case for cleaner-burning natural gas as a bridge fuel to a carbon-free future...
Methane Leaks Offset Much of the Climate Change Benefits of Natural Gas, Study Says
Jun 21, 2018 | Washington Post
By Steve Mufson

The U.S. oil and gas industry emits 13 million metric tons of methane from its operations each year — nearly 60 percent more than current estimates and enough to offset much of the climate benefits of burning natural gas instead of coal...
Oil and Gas Wastewater Is a Cheap Fix for Road Dust but Comes at a Toxic Cost
Jun 21, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Deidre Lockwood

Wastewater from oil and gas wells that is spread on unpaved roads to control dust contains high levels of the carcinogenic element radium, inorganic salts, and oil and gas hydrocarbons.

Chemical Security News

(ACC Mentioned) Coast Guard Delays Deployment of TWIC Card Readers at Some Chemical Facilities
Jun 21, 2018 | Transport Topics
By Eric Miller

In an apparent reaction to pressure from a number of associations representing chemical, petroleum, manufacturing and business trade groups, the U.S. Coast Guard on June 21 announced plans to delay for three years a requirement that hundreds of bulk cargo facilities deploy Transportation Worker Identification Credential...
Chemical Safety Board Changing Hands Won’t Affect Investigations (1)
Jun 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson

leadership shift at a federal agency that probes chemical industrial accidents and explosions won’t change how U.S. companies are investigated, according to a top agency official.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Would Denial of Line 3 Project Mean More Oil Trains?
Jun 21, 2018 | Minnesota Public Radio
By Elizabeth Dunbar ·

Enbridge Energy says its customers want more oil, and if a new pipeline doesn't bring it to them, it will get there on trains instead.

Environment News

Conservative Group Will Push for Carbon Tax, a Contrast to GOP Resistance
Jun 19, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Bradley Olson and Timothy Puko

A group of veteran conservative political leaders are launching a political-action committee to push for a U.S. carbon tax, a move potentially funded by several large corporations that could test Republican appetite to act on climate legislation.
Amid Renewed Carbon Tax Push, WRI Offers Emissions Certainty Options
Jun 21, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan

Amid a renewed political push to overcome long-standing GOP opposition to a carbon tax due to fears of economic harm, the World Resources Institute (WRI) is outlining options to assuage competing concerns from environmentalists...
Republicans Say EPA Being 'Unfair' with Ozone Rule Compliance
Jun 22, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly

EPA is failing to fully account for pollution from Mexico and other countries in making compliance decisions for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard, Republican lawmakers charged at a hearing yesterday.
Trump Is Out of Touch and Control in Climate Fight, Canada Says
Jun 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ewa Krukowska and Jonathan Stearns

Canada has an environmental message for Donald Trump: You can’t stop the global campaign against climate change, and you will hurt the U.S. by abandoning the battle.
Border Air Pollution May Drive a Texas City Out of Compliance (1)
Jun 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid

San Antonio is in a bind...The Texas city doesn’t know whether it is meeting the nation’s ozone standards and doesn’t know what it can to do avoid a nonattainment label, which local officials said comes from smog-forming pollutants across the border.
Thirty Years On, How Well Do Global Warming Predictions Stand Up?
Jun 21, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Pat Michaels and Ryan Maue

James E. Hansen wiped sweat from his brow. Outside it was a record-high 98 degrees on June 23, 1988, as the NASA scientist testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources during a prolonged heat wave, which he decided to cast as a climate event of cosmic significance.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals in the 2nd Line of Fire in US-China Trade Dispute

Jun 22, 2018 | ICIS

By Nigel Davis

The talk has become serious and the implications dire. The US chemical industry has a great deal to lose from escalating trade tensions with China. The Trump administration on 15 June released a second list of proposed tariffs on China that included chemicals, plastics and lubes valued at $2.2bn.
The first set of tariffs will be imposed on around $34bn in imported goods from China starting on 6 July. Then on 18 June, US President Donald Trump asked the US Trade Representative to find $200bn worth of Chinese imports on which the US could impose 10% tariffs.
Chemicals are in the second tranche of tariffs, to be imposed at a later unspecified date.
“The administration has now pit US chemical manufacturing directly against China at the front lines of this conflict,” said the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
“We appreciate, and will vigorously utilise, the opportunity to share our comments and concerns with the Office of the US Trade Representative and others in the coming weeks to prevent this situation from escalating further,” the ACC added.
China is unlikely to give much ground in this threatening dispute as it drives hard to strengthen domestic manufacturing and its domestic economy, with eyes firmly fixed on long-term strategic goals.
Trump is looking to act on election pledges and generate support ahead of mid-term elections in November.
Chemicals sit in the middle of this dispute, targeted by both sides for their importance in manufacturing value chains and in forward-looking investment.
“Chemistry touches 96% of all manufactured goods and is the foundation for the entire North American supply chain,” the ACC said. “What gives chemistry a competitive advantage – lower US feedstock and chemical production facility costs – ultimately helps reduce costs for American businesses and consumers and has turned the US business of chemistry into one of America’s top exporting industries, accounting for 14% of all US exports.”
Of course, that proportion has been likely to rise given massive investment in shale-based chemicals. But the current dispute threatens investment and ultimately the smooth running of supply chains.
The ACC calculates that as much as half the $194bn of planned chemical industry investment in the US is at risk of delay or abandonment. As many as 24,000 jobs in chemicals and downstream industries are under threat from China’s retaliation in the escalating dispute.
China is one of the US chemical industry’s main trading partners. China already imports 11% of US plastics, worth $3.2bn. The new capacity coming on stream in the US this year and next could face a severe uphill battle to enter China markets should 25% tariffs be imposed. China is rapidly becoming self-sufficient in the major petrochemicals and increasingly so in polymers.
Tariffs of 25% on low-to-medium density polyethylenes would be keenly felt and it is not as if China has no sources of polymer other than the US.
In the ACC’s words: “Enabling a retaliatory trade war will only advantage China’s growing industry at the expense of American production”.
China moved swiftly to counter the US tariff threat, announcing it would impose a 25% tariff on $50bn of US imports – $34bn of imports from the US as soon as 6 July. And like the two-tiered US list, chemicals and related products are included in a second list on which a decision would be made separately. This includes polyethylenes, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polycarbonate, acrylonitrile and polyamide alongside propane, LPG and hydrocarbon gases, naphtha, crude benzene, toluene and xylenes, and crude oil.
Likely China will wait before the US imposes tariffs on its second tier (which includes chemicals) before implementing its own chemical-laden second tier. Trade brinksmanship between the US and China will be in play, with global chemical markets in the waiting.
Additional commentary by Joseph Chang
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/06/21/10233933/chemicals-in-the-2nd-line-of-fire-in-us-china-trade-dispute/

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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Specialty Chemical Markets Continue to Gain in Q2, ACC Says

Jun 21, 2018 | Chemical Engineering Online

By Scott Jenkins

The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) reported that U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes continued to gain during the second quarter, increasing 0.5 percent in May, after an upwardly revised 1.0 percent gain in April and a 0.4 percent gain in March. All changes in the data are reported on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis. Of the twenty-eight specialty chemical segments monitored by ACC, fifteen expanded in May, ten markets experienced decline and three featured no change. During May, large market volume gains (1.0 percent and over) occurred in oilfield chemicals and plastics compounding
The overall specialty chemicals volume index was up 5.1 percent on a year-over-year (Y/Y) 3MMA basis. The index stood at 112.9 percent of its average 2012 levels. This is equivalent to 7.78 billion pounds (3.53 million metric tons). On a Y/Y basis, there were gains among twenty-three market and functional specialty chemical segments. Compared to last year, volumes were down in four segments
Specialty chemicals are materials manufactured on the basis of the unique performance or function and provide a wide variety of effects on which many other sectors and end-use products rely. They can be individual molecules or mixtures of molecules, known as formulations. The physical and chemical characteristics of the single molecule or mixtures along with the composition of the mixtures influence the performance end product. Individual market sectors that rely on such products include automobile, aerospace, agriculture, cosmetics and food, among others.
Specialty chemicals differ from commodity chemicals. They may only have one or two uses, while commodities may have multiple or different applications for each chemical. Commodity chemicals make up most of the production volume in the global marketplace, while specialty chemicals make up most of the diversity in commerce at any given time, and are relatively high value with greater market growth rates.
http://www.chemengonline.com/u-s-specialty-chemical-market-continue-to-gain-in-q2-acc-says/?printmode=1

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(ACC Mentioned) Pilot Study Takes on Curbside Recycling of Flexible Plastics Packaging

Jun 21, 2018 | Plastics Today

Materials Recovery for the Future(MRFF), an industry collaborative a research program of brand owners, retailers, plastic providers and associations whose members include Procter & Gamble, Target Stores and more, announced on June 20 a new partnership with solid waste and recycling services provider J.P. Mascaro & Sons Inc. (Audubon, PA). The agreement is a pilot for single-stream curbside recycling of flexible plastic packaging (FPP) at its TotalRecycle materials recovery facility (MRF) in Berks County, PA. This will be the first pilot to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of recycling household FPP from municipal residential single-stream recycling programs.
“Our MRFF collaborative is excited to partner with J.P. Mascaro and demonstrate the recyclability of flexible plastic packaging,” said Steve Sikra (right in above photo, along with Michael Timpane of RRS at left and Larry Baner of Nestlé Purina), MRFF chairperson and associate director of global research and development for Procter & Gamble (Cincinnati). “We are all committed to the success of this program and look forward to adding recycled flexible packaging into the circular economy. As a side benefit, we expect to see the quality of J.P.’s other recycling streams improve as the flexible plastics are processed.”
FPP, which includes films, wraps, bags and pouches, is not widely recycled today. However, as these lightweight materials that also provide enhanced product performance and protection become a larger part of the packaging waste stream, the need for scalable recycling collection strategies is critical to their sustainability. The pilot is expected to generate data to help inform municipalities and the recycling industry on the most efficient and economical ways to recycle FPP. This will turn used FPP materials, typically destined for disposal, into a bale that can be sold to a variety of end markets.
According to Resource Recycling Systems (RRS), a recycling system consultancy which conducts the MRFF research program, 12 billion pounds of the material is introduced into the market for consumer use yearly, and it is the fastest-growing form of packaging. RRS estimates TotalRecycle will produce 3,100 tons/year of high-quality post-consumer FPP feedstock for various end market uses that are being tested.PLASTEC Minneapolis 2018 held October 31-November 1 is part of the Midwest’s largest advanced design and manufacturing event that also includes MinnPack brings you the latest in materials and additives, injection molding, rapid prototyping, coatings, automation, packaging and more. For details, visit PLASTEC Minneapolis.
Mascaro director of sustainability and TotalRecycle general manager, Joseph P. Mascaro, said, “Our company is thrilled to partner with the MRFF partners on this project.
e are confident that the pilot will be successful and will generate industry data to show FPP generators, municipalities and the recycling industry that FPP can be efficiently and economically recycled and marketed instead of being landfilled.”
Van Dyk Recycling Solutions (Stamford, CT) will add sophisticated sorting equipment to Mascaro’s TotalRecycle facility that will target FPP out of the single stream flow. The FPP will be identified and separated by advanced optical sorters, resulting in a new generation bale of FPP.
The pilot program will begin in late 2018 with the installation of the sorting equipment. After an internal testing period, TotalRecycle will begin accepting FPP for recycling from the municipal residents it serves. From equipment order to acceptance of FPP in curbside carts, the pilot program is expected to last two years time.
A PDF of comprehensive FAQs about the project can be found here.
MRFF members include The Procter & Gamble Company, Target, The Dow Chemical Company, PepsiCo, Nestlé USA, Nestlé Purina PetCare, Amcor, and the American Chemistry Council. Other members include the Flexible Packaging Association, LyondellBasell Industries, The Plastics Industry Association, Sealed Air, SC Johnson, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, and the Association of Plastic Recyclers. The research program announced Chevron Phillips Chemical Company as a new member.
https://www.plasticstoday.com/packaging/pilot-study-takes-on-curbside-recycling-flexible-plastics-packaging/107546297858974

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(ACC Mentioned) Pilot Study Tackles Curbside Recycling of Flexible Plastic Packaging

Jun 22, 2018 | Packaging Gateway

US solid waste and recycling services provider JP Mascaro & Sons has partnered with the Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF) research programme to pilot single-stream curbside recycling of flexible plastic packaging (FPP).
The partners will undertake the first pilot to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of recycling FPP from residential single-stream recycling programmes at Mascaro’s TotalRecycle material recovery facility (MRF) in Berks County, Pennsylvania.
MRFF, which is a research project of the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Foundation for Chemistry Research and Initiatives, comprises several members including The Procter & Gamble, Target, The Dow Chemical, PepsiCo, Nestlé USA, Nestlé Purina PetCare, Amcor, ACC, and Flexible Packaging Association.
Other members of the project include LyondellBasell Industries, The Plastics Industry Association, Sealed Air, SC Johnson, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association and the Association of Plastic Recyclers.
MRFF chairperson Steve Sikra said: “Our MRFF collaborative is excited to partner with JP Mascaro and demonstrates the recyclability of flexible plastic packaging.
“We are all committed to the success of this programme and look forward to adding recycled flexible packaging into the circular economy.”
FPP includes films, wraps, bags and pouches, and is growing as a widely used form of packaging, with a relatively low rate of recycling.
Resource Recycling Systems (RRS), which is designated to conduct the MRFF research programme, indicated that each year, 12 billion pounds of FPP enters the market for consumer use.
Due to the growing contribution of FPP to the packaging waste stream, the project recognises the need for scalable recycling collection strategies as critical to its sustainability.
According to RRS, TotalRecycle has the ability to produce 3,100t of postconsumer FPP feedstock per annum.
Data generated from the pilot will be used to enable transmission of information to municipalities and the recycling industry regarding efficient and economical ways for recycling the material, resulting in used FPP materials being converted into a bale that can be used by various end markets.
Mascaro sustainability director Joseph Mascaro said: “We are confident that the pilot will be successful and will generate industry data to show FPP generators, municipalities and the recycling industry that FPP can be efficiently and economically recycled and marketed instead of being landfilled.”
Set to commence later this year, the pilot programme is expected to last two years.
Optical sorters will be installed at the TotalRecycle facility to target FPP and direct the material out of the single-stream material flow.
https://www.packaging-gateway.com/news/pilot-study-tackles-curbside-recycling-flexible-plastic-packaging/

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(ACC Mentioned) US Chemical Industry Set to Run Higher: 5 Stocks to Scoop Up

Jun 22, 2018 | Zacks (In Nasdaq)

By Anindya Barman

The American chemical industry is set to ride high this year on an upswing in the world economy, healthy demand across automotive and housing markets, an upturn in U.S. manufacturing, improving export markets and favorable shale gas economics, per a recent report from American Chemistry Council ("ACC").

The Washington, DC-based chemical industry trade group sees strong gains in production in agricultural chemicals, consumer products, coatings and bulk petrochemicals and organics in 2018. Moreover, the ACC envisions output of plastic resins to rise at the fastest clip since 2012 on the back of new capacity and firming demand for both domestic and overseas customers. Improving industrial activities are also expected to contribute to the growth of the specialty chemicals segment.

U.S. Chemical Industry Poised for Solid Upside

The outlook for the American chemical industry paints an encouraging picture. The ACC envisions national chemical production (excluding pharmaceuticals) to rise 3.4% in 2018 and further gain steam with a 3.6% growth in 2019.

The trade group sees strong growth in several chemical sectors in including petrochemicals, fertilizers, crop protection, coatings and consumer products. It expects production to continue to expand across all regions of the United States this year, with the Gulf Coast region seeing the strongest gains.

The growth in output is expected to be spurred by an upswing in U.S. manufacturing, higher demand across light vehicles and housing markets, capital investments and strengthening export markets. While the automotive sector is expected to remain at high levels, steady recovery in housing is expected to continue in 2018.

Export Markets, Shale-linked Investments Drive U.S. Chemical

https://www.nasdaq.com/article/us-chemical-industry-set-to-run-higher-5-stocks-to-scoop-up-cm981937

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LCSA News

EPA Shifts Gears as Chemical Law Hits Two-Year Milestone

Jun 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

Chemical manufacturers will get guidance from the EPA June 22 on ways they can name their chemicals while protecting confidential business information.
The Environmental Protection Agency said its guidance will allow it to share more information with the public about new chemicals that will enter commerce and existing compounds while protecting the confidential details about a molecule’s specific identity.
The EPA’s guidance on structurally descriptive generic names, additional guidance and policies, and a final rule requiring a wide variety of companies to report their production or use of mercury reporting—all of which the agency is ready to release June 22—marked the second anniversary of the Congress overhauling the U.S.’ primary chemicals law.
“At this two-year milestone, I am proud to say that the agency is delivering results and meeting the statutory responsibilities and deadlines of the new law,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a statement. “These actions will increase transparency and increase public confidence in chemical safety.”
As the EPA enters its third year implementing the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act amendments, it also will shift its focus.
The agency spent a lot of time in the first two years following the TSCA amendments creating the policy and regulatory infrastructure to carry out the law.
In 2019, the EPA will focus on examining, evaluating the risks of, and proposing regulations for chemicals in commerce—a core reason Congress amended TSCA.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-shifts-gears-as-chemical-law-hits-two-year-milestone

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EPA Takes Gradual Approach to Replacing Chemical Tests on Animals

Jun 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ayanna Alexander and Steven Gibb

The EPA will take a cautious approach to moving away from testing chemicals on animals so that both new and old chemicals are addressed when new methods are adopted.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s strategic plan for nonanimal testing describes a “multi-year process with incremental steps for adoption and integration of new approach methodologies that are appropriate and fit-for-purpose for making Toxic Substances Control Act decisions,” according to a copy of its strategic plan obtained by Bloomberg Environment.
The June 22 strategy is mandated by the Toxic Substances Control Act amendments of 2016, which requires the EPA to develop a roadmap for reducing or replacing animal testing on chemicals.
The information from companies about chemicals on the market, versus the data it seeks for new compounds that chemical manufacturers want to sell, is far from uniform, requiring a gradual process to cover both, the strategy said.
Raising Numbers, Questions
The number of animal tests from the agency has increased from “a few dozen” using 7,000 animals in 2016 to more than 300 tests involving “75,000 rats, rabbits, and other vertebrates,” by 2017, advocates for nonanimal testing reported.
The agency released its draft strategy in March.
It also adopted an interim policy on skin tests in April, which allowed chemical and pesticide manufacturers that wanted to reduce their use of animals in product tests. Consultants familiar with the new policy are already raising questions about the accuracy and regulatory implications of the skin sensitization test on offer, however.
The plan considers three major phases to reducing or replacing animal testing: identifying, developing, and integrating new methods for TSCA decisions; building confidence that the new methods are scientifically reliable and relevant; and implementing the new methods for TSCA decisions.
The EPA said it’s forming a team to oversee and implement the plan.
—With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy (Bloomberg News)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-takes-gradual-approach-to-replacing-chemical-tests-on-animals

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Companies That Make or Add Mercury to Products Must Report Use

Jun 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

Battery, pharmaceutical, industrial switch, and other manufacturers are among the companies required to report their use of mercury to the EPA under a final rule the agency released June 22.
The rule (RIN:2070-AK22) requires any manufacturer or importer of mercury—along with companies that use the metal to make and sell products such as dental fillings, fluorescent lights, flame sensors, and vaccine preservatives—to report the application and the volume they use to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The agency will compile that information to create an inventory of mercury in commerce. The EPA also will evaluate the data to determine if further regulatory controls to reduce the use of mercury are warranted.
Risky Business
Methylmercury persists in the environment, builds up in the food chain, and can damage the brain and nervous system, among other health effects.
Congress required the EPA to develop the mercury inventory as part of the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act amendments.
The inventory also is one of the ways the U.S. is complying with obligations it agreed to when it joined the U.N.'s Minamata Convention on Mercury, which aims to reduce human activities that cause mercury to be released into the environment.
Companies must submit their mercury use reports to the EPA beginning July 1, 2019, and every three years thereafter, according to the final rule.
Exemptions
The regulation also described industrial sectors and companies that are exempt from reporting.
Waste management companies, for example, would not have to report the amount of mercury-containing waste they handle unless they recover or store it for later use.
Professionals who use mercury, such as dentists, would be exempted from the rule’s scope if they only use a filling for patients, the EPA explained in a clarification of the proposed rule.
Dentists or dental supply providers, however, would have to report their use of mercury if they imported dental filling supplies containing mercury, the agency said in its clarification.
In other respects, the final rule is largely consistent with the agency’s proposed rule.Pat RizzutoReporter
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/companies-that-make-or-add-mercury-to-products-must-report-use

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Nonstick Chemicals Can Really Stick Around – in Your Body

Jun 22, 2018 | Pew Charitable Trusts

By Rebecca Beitsch

For decades, American consumers have been buying water-resistant packaging and clothing, stain-resistant carpets and Teflon cookware. Now there is growing alarm that the chemical components that give those products their appeal are ending up in the water supply.
Drinking water in 33 states from New Jersey to California has been tainted by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly referred to as PFAS. Now they are also showing up in human blood: A 2015 study found PFAS in 97 percent of blood samples tested.
A newly released draft of a report by the Environmental Protection Agency says the substances that have made their way into drinking water are more dangerous to human health than previously thought. Its release was delayed for months after a Trump administration aide said it would create a “public relations nightmare.”
The substances are uncommonly difficult to break down. PFAS, of course, are water-resistant, but they are also used in firefighting foam and cookware for their ability to stand up against high temperatures.
Despite that resistance, microscopic particles break off and end up in the food chain, causing health problems from high cholesterol to cancer.
“It’s like the terrible comedian standing in front of a brick wall saying, ‘If Teflon doesn’t stick to anything, how do they get it to stick to the pan?’” said Mark Benvenuto, an industrial chemistry professor at the University of Detroit Mercy who has written about PFAS in a textbook. “Well, it didn’t. It would slide right off. They had to add things to it to make it less pure.”
Amid growing health concerns, policymakers in multiple states want to ban PFAS from food packaging and limit the substances in drinking water. New York is suing six companies that use PFAS in foams used to put out fires, hoping to recoup $39 million.
One study found the chemicals in one-third of fast-food packaging. Another found PFAS were at or above the EPA’s recommended level in water systems in 33 states, serving more than 16 million people.
The Environmental Working Group thinks the number of people affected could be closer to 110 million. The advocacy group has a map of sites it says are contaminated.
The sites are spread across the country, though some places have higher contamination levels than others. The water-systems study found areas close to military sites and airports where firefighting foam is used had more PFAS in their water.
Last year, DuPont paid $670 million to settle a lawsuit filed by 3,500 residents near Washington, West Virginia, home to a DuPont plant that made Teflon.
The company took female workers off the Teflon production line in 1981 after spotting birth defects in rats exposed to the products, but it wasn’t until 2005 that a medical study of 30,000 residents in the surrounding area was conducted.
In New Jersey, the Department of Environmental Protection last year pushed for a drinking water standard after PFAS showed up in 11 public water systems near a polymer plant close to the Delaware River.
Xindi Hu, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard who coauthored the water-systems study, said scientists are still discovering how PFAS get into the environment. Scientists also are still examining how, and at what levels, PFAS affect humans.
So far, studies have found ties between PFAS and high cholesterol, cancer and weakened human immune systems.
Even as researchers continue to investigate, some policymakers argue the science is clear enough to take preventive measures.
Lawmakers this year in Washington state enacted a ban on some firefighting foams with PFAS. Another new law requires businesses such as fast-food restaurants and others selling packaged foods to stop using products with PFAS once the state settles on a suitable alternative.
A bill in California would require companies to disclose the presence of PFAS in packaging, and a bill in New York would ban them outright.
“People now realize it doesn’t just matter what you put in your mouth but what that food product is wrapped in,” said Washington state Rep. Joan McBride, the Democrat who sponsored the packaged-foods legislation. “These chemicals are called persistent chemicals. They stay with you, they’re insidious.”
In testimony on her bill, scientists warned of the dangers of PFAS while companies insisted they are safe. McBride said waiting for the state to determine a safer alternative gives companies time to work through stockpiles and even help develop a suitable replacement.
California Assemblyman Phil Ting, a Democrat, sponsored a bill to put a warning on products with PFAS “so consumers and restaurants can make that educated decision” about using them. “Because I’m not sure even restaurants understand the decision they are making.”
Manufacturers insist PFAS are safe.
“Fluorinated chemistries (PFAS) provide oil and grease repellent properties that help protect the quality and integrity of food, extend shelf life and help in the safe transport and storage of food. These attributes may help ensure our food is safer for consumption by protecting it from contamination,” the American Chemistry Council wrote in a statement to Stateline in response to an interview request. “Banning packaging containing PFAS is unnecessary.”
In New Jersey, efforts have focused squarely on water. The EPA recommends water contain no more than 70 parts per trillion of PFAS. New Jersey has suggested 13 and 14 parts per trillion for two different types of PFAS.
The guidelines are in the comment phase of rule-making. If approved, New Jersey would become the first state to set a maximum contamination level for PFAS. The goal of the new standard is to help utilities monitor sources and keep it out of drinking water.
Local water utilities have three main options to deal with PFAS: They can stop using certain wells that have high levels of PFAS, dilute the chemical by adding more water, or add a carbon-based treatment that removes the substance but can cost up to $1 million for large utilities to install.
“It can be treated, but it requires treatment that is above and beyond what a lot of these systems have in place,” said Lawrence Hajna, a spokesman for New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection. “Seeing this persistent chemical show up in water supplies is kind of opening up new questions of what kind of treatment systems can be put in place, what their effectiveness is going to be, and how costly is it going to be.
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/06/22/nonstick-chemicals-can-really-stick-around-in-your-body

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U.S. Report Proposes Lower Safe Level for Perfluorochemical Exposure

Jun 21, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Cheryl Hogue

A federal report once suppressed by the military and EPA proposes safe daily levels of consumption for two perfluorochemicals that are one-tenth those of EPA.
The draft toxicity analysis, released June 20 by the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR), would set a minimal risk level of 3 × 10–6 mg of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) per kilogram of body weight per day and of 2 × 10–6 mg/kg/day for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). Formerly widely used but no longer manufactured domestically, these chemicals taint drinking water sources at scores of sites across the U.S. and, increasingly, in other countries.
ATSDR’s minimal risk levels are estimates of daily human exposure to a substance that is likely to be without appreciable risk of health effects other than cancer. The agency uses these levels to identify contaminants and potential health effects at hazardous waste sites—but not for regulatory purposes, the draft report cautions.
ATSDR’s draft levels contrast with EPA’s safe daily dose levels of 2 × 10–5 mg/kg/day each for PFOA and PFOS, set in 2016. Such EPA reference doses are maximum acceptable oral human exposure levels that are likely to be without appreciable health risks during a lifetime. EPA often uses these numbers to derive regulatory and cleanup levels for pollutants.
EPA currently is evaluating the need to set a legally enforceable limit for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water.
ATSDR’s numbers would translate into drinking water levels of 11 parts per trillion for PFOA and 7 ppt for PFOS, says Laurel Schaider, a researcher at the Silent Spring Institute, which studies the links between chemical exposure and women’s health. In comparison, EPA’s 2016 advisory levels for these two chemicals in drinking water are 70 ppt either individually or combined.
Meanwhile, some states are forging ahead to limit public exposure to these substances. For instance, Vermont last year set a limit of 20 ppt for PFOS and PFOA in drinking water, and a New Jersey science advisory panel earlier this month recommended a 13 ppt maximum allowable level for PFOS.
ATSDR’s draft report also sets minimal risk levels for two other perfluoroalkyl compounds for which EPA has not estimated a safe dose: 2 × 10–5mg/kg/day for perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS)and 3 × 10–6 mg/kg/day for perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA). ATSDR also examined 10 other perfluoroalkyls found in the environment—five carboxylic acids, two sulfonic acids, two acetic acids, and a sulfonamide—but determined there isn’t enough toxicity data available to derive safe levels for them.
Not addressed in the draft report are fluoroethers related to Chemours’s PFOA alternative, GenX, which pollute drinking water near its plant in Fayetteville, N.C.
ATSDR planned to issue the draft report earlier this year, but EPA and the Defense Department held it back, calling the document “a potential public relations nightmare” in emails.
ATSDR will accept public comments on the 852-page document before eventually finalizing it.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/US-report-proposes-lower-safe/96/i26

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FDA-Approved PFAS and Drinking Water – Q&A on Textile Mills and Environmental Permits

Jun 21, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund

By Tom Neltner

In May 2018, we released a blog highlighting paper mills as a potentially significant source of drinking water contamination from 14 Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved poly- and per-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) used to greaseproof paper. We showed that wastewater discharge could result in PFAS concentrations in rivers in excess of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s 70 parts per trillion (ppt) health advisory level for drinking water contamination for PFOA and PFOS, the most studied of the PFASs. We identified 269 paper mills with discharge permits that warrant investigation. Readers of the blog have asked some important questions highlighted below. As with most issues involving PFAS, there are many gaps in what we know. Based on the information provided in response to EDF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to FDA, we hope to fill in some of the gaps and highlight key information needed to better understand the risks of PFASs.
Question 1: Could textile mills also be a source of PFASs in drinking water?
The answer is “probably.” The FDA-approved PFASs can be used in coating paper that contacts food to repel oil, grease, and water. The same or similar FDA-approved PFASs may be used for non-food uses such as coating textiles to resist stains and repel water.
The processes used to coat paper and textiles differ in some aspects that could affect a mill’s environmental releases. For paper, the PFASs are typically added to the wet wood fibers to be made into paper. In contrast, we understand that PFASs are applied to textiles after the water is removed. Therefore, we would suspect that the amount of PFASs, whether as polymers or impurities, released with the wastewater of a textile mill would be lower compared to that of a typical paper mill. However, there is very little data available to assess the potential environmental release of PFASs from textile mills. Unlike with FDA approvals, there is no environmental review of a chemical’s use in non-food consumer products.[1] So, it would be worthwhile to investigate textile mills for use of PFASs in addition to looking at paper mills.
Using an EPA database[2], we identified 66 textile mills (PDF and EXCEL) in the US, two thirds of which are located in North and South Carolina. Based on wastewater flow, the two largest mills are both operated by Milliken. Its largest facility is in Greenville, South Carolina with a water discharge of 72 million gallons per day (MGD). The second largest is in Bacon, Georgia with a water discharge of 15 MGD. DuPont’s Old Hickory facility, near Nashville, Tennessee, had the third greatest flow at 10 MGD. We do not know whether any of the facilities use and discharge FDA-approved PFASs.
Question 2: Would an environmental permit writer be alerted to the presence of FDA-approved PFAS in wastewater discharge?
The answer is “no.” EPA has not added any PFAS to either the CWA’s Section 311 Hazardous Substance List or Section 307 Toxic Pollutant List, which would trigger required reporting or chemical testing. Since PFASs are not on either of these lists, a facility discharging wastewater to surface water does not need to notify the permit writer of the presence of PFASs when applying for or renewing its Clean Water Act (CWA) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. These permits must be renewed every five years.
To renew an NPDES permit, the facility must submit a Form 2C. A new facility must submit Form 2D. These forms provide the basis of the regulators review and approval of a permit. Absent any reporting or testing alerts, a permit reviewer would be unlikely to evaluate the potential environmental and public health impacts of the discharge and set appropriate limits.
In addition, chemicals on the CWA’s hazardous substance list are subject to significant release reporting and liability for cleanup costs. If a company notifies the state in its permit application that the chemical on the hazardous substance list may be present in the discharge, they can get an exemption from these release reporting and liability risks (also known as a permit shield).
This gap is not unique to NPDES permits. A manufacturer discharging wastewater to a municipal sewage treatment plant (STP) would not be obligated to notify the STP operator (as they would with some other chemicals) because no PFAS is on the CWA lists. Similarly, air pollution permits would not cover PFASs, because the chemicals are not on lists of criteria pollutants and hazardous air pollutants.
Question 3: Are there other benefits to adding PFAS to the CWA Hazardous Substance list?
The answer is “yes.” If PFASs were added to either of the CWA lists, they would be automatically added to the CERLA/Superfund Section 102 Hazardous Substance list[3] and, therefore, covered by the more expansive cleanup and reporting requirements under that law. Therefore, adding the chemicals to the CWA Hazardous Substance List would deliver all the benefits of CERCLA as well as the Clean Water Act.
At EPA’s PFAS National Leadership Summit in May 2018, the agency indicated it “is beginning the necessary steps to propose designating PFOA and PFOS as ‘hazardous substances’ through one of the available statutory mechanisms, including potentially CERCLA Section 102.”
We encourage EPA to add the chemicals to the CWA Section 311 Hazardous Substance List instead of the CERCLA Section 102 list because it would:
· Result in the chemicals being added to both lists; and
· Facilities would be required to notify the state as part of their NPDES permit new or renewal applications.

In addition, EPA should list PFAS as a class and not just list PFOA and PFOS to ensure that states are notified of chemicals with similar structures and potentially similar hazards. While most chemicals on the lists are individual substances, the class approach has been used before for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in CWA Section 311 hazardous substance list.
Question 4: Is there another way to find out if a facility near my home uses PFASs?
The answer is “probably, but it is complicated.” Under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), a facility is required to report any hazardous chemical to a state emergency response commission and a local emergency planning committee if there is more than 10,000 pounds of a chemical on site at any time, and it is required to have a safety data sheet for the chemical under the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard. PFASs meet the definition of a hazardous chemical under the OSHA standard.
However, EPCRA exempts food additives regulated by FDA from reporting. Therefore, a facility is under no obligation to report FDA-approved PFASs if they are used pursuant to the notice to FDA. Only the portion used for non-food uses would be covered by EPCRA. A facility may voluntarily report this information.
However, because the reporting requirements are complicated, we suggest concerned residents contact the state. EPA provides a useful webpage listing the contacts in each state.
Summary and recommendations
As with most issues involving PFASs, there are many knowledge gaps. We only know about the potential magnitude of the releases because the information obtained through our FOIA provides important but narrow insights into the estimated environmental releases of PFASs that were developed in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. A wastewater discharge permit for a paper or textile mill is unlikely to have limits for PFASs, because the regulator would not be notified that the chemicals are present in the discharge. The state’s community right-to-know coordinator may have information on use of PFASs at a facility—like a paper or textile mill—but there are no requirements for reporting if the PFASs being used are dedicated solely to FDA-approved uses.
EPA needs to enable states to assess the environmental and public health impacts of PFASs and determine whether wastewater discharge permit limits are needed. We recommend that, at a minimum, EPA add PFASs as a class of chemicals to the Clean Water Act Section 311 Hazardous Substance List.

[1] An environmental review is triggered by a federal approval. Outside of a one-time Pre-Manufacturing Notice (PMN) required under the Toxic Substances Control Act, no approval is needed.
[2] Based on our analysis of a search on EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) database.
[3] EPA provides a consolidated list of lists that is useful to keep track of the chemicals.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/06/21/pfas-textile-mills-and-environmental-permits/#more-7922

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New Jersey to Set Fluorochemical Levels in Drinking Water This Year

Jun 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Leslie A. Pappas

New Jersey expects to issues safe levels for three common toxic chemicals in drinking water by the end of the year, putting the state—and its water utilities—ahead of the federal government in setting strict standards for the chemicals.
“No other state is doing what we’re doing,” Lawrence Hajna, spokesman for New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, told Bloomberg Environment.
Once widely used in nonstick cookware, fire-retardant upholstery coatings, and other consumer products, the chemical compounds—known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—don’t break down easily in the environment and can remain in the body for a long time. Studies show long-term exposure may affect liver and immune system function, increase blood cholesterol levels, cause developmental delays, and increase cancer risk.
Conventional water treatments are largely ineffective at removing the compounds, but studies show more advanced techniques can remove up to 90 percent of the chemicals from drinking water. A formal statewide standard would require water companies and utilities to monitor water more closely and take corrective actions when the level of the compounds is too high.
Water companies and utilities say they are ready.
Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority, which provides drinking water to about 100,000 customers in and around Ocean City, N.J., said it already meets the proposed recommendations and is in the midst of a 20-year plan to lower the chemical levels even further.
The authority is preparing to install a new granulated activated carbon filtration system—it’s “like a big Brita filter"—by the end of the year, authority spokesman Joe Simonetta, told Bloomberg Environment. The utility had already planned for the new technology even before the state began issuing new proposed standards, Simonetta said.
Once the new technology is installed, filtration will be “state of the art.”
Questions Raised, Standards Proposed
New Jersey is aiming to adopt formal standards for three of the more commonly-found substances: perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), once used in firefighting foams and fabric coatings; perfluorooctanic acid (PFOA), found in nonstick surfaces; and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), used for plastic production.
It would be the first state in the nation to set formal maximum contaminant levels for the compounds, requiring drinking water systems statewide to comply.
The push for stringent standards in the Garden State comes as lawmakers in the nation’s capital call for more study on the chemicals’ health impacts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new analysis raising questions about health guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency.
In 2016, the EPA set a non-enforceable health advisory for PFOA and PFOS levels in drinking water at a combined 70 parts per trillion. New Jersey’s Drinking Water Quality Institute, an advisory panel comprised of academics, community representatives, water companies, and government agencies, proposed 13 parts per trillion for safe levels of PFOS in drinking water on June 8.
The panel has already recommended PFNA limits be set at 13 parts per trillion, and PFOA be limited to 14 parts per trilllion. The institute’s recommendations on drinking water quality go to the department, which uses the proposed standards to form regulations.
A rulemaking for PFNA began in August 2017, Hajna told Bloomberg Environment.
New Treatment Systems
Cleaning up contaminated water sources wouldn’t fall under the new regulations, which only apply to levels of perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water, Hajna said. Remediation activities would fall under the state’s existing groundwater regulations.
“By making it formal, all larger systems will have to test for it,” Hajna said.
That could mean installing new treatment systems, taking heavily-contaminated wells out of service, or blending water from different wells to achieve acceptable levels in the drinking water.
New Jersey American Water, the state’s largest investor-owned water utility, serving 2.7 million people in 18 New Jersey counties, has been working with the state to formulate recommendations.
Anthony Matarazzo, the utility’s director of water quality, served on the Drinking Water Quality Institute.
The company has already installed new filtration systems and is actively treating the water for PFAS in Logan, Penns Grove, and Union Townships, the company said.
The company’s Military Services Group, which operates the water system serving the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in the state’s northwest, has also installed a granular activated carbon system and recent test results show the water is now clear of PFOA and PFOS, company spokeswoman Denise Venuti Free told Bloomberg Environment June 20.
American Water’s Technology and Innovation Division is also conducting studies to evaluate new monitoring and treatment technologies for PFOS and PFOA, she said
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/new-jersey-to-set-fluorochemical-levels-in-drinking-water-this-year

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Trump Readies Lead Strategy But Faces Doubts Ahead Of New CDC Limits

Jun 21, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Dave Reynolds

The Trump administration is preparing to release as soon as next week its long-awaited strategy for reducing children's exposures to lead, but officials are facing competing calls from environmental and industry groups for how aggressive EPA and other agencies should be, even as federal health officials prepare to lower their recommended action level to protect children.
Environmentalists say that any strategy should account for an upcoming decision from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to lower its recommended reference level, the level at which public health actions should be initiated to protect children from harmful exposures, from 5 micrograms per deciliter (ug/dl) of blood to 3.5 ug/dl.
For example, Tom Neltner of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), who advises EPA on children's health issues, says EPA needs to strengthen its cleanup standards for lead in soil. “They need to upgrade the soil standards based on the CDC numbers,” he says.
Neltner said that environmentalists will be watching to see that the new strategy offers new goals rather than simply taking inventory of efforts already underway. He noted that federal government published an inventory of its existing activities in December 2016, which will serve as a benchmark for comparison to see what in the strategy is new.
But industry officials are cautioning against an aggressive regulatory strategy, saying that officials need to improve their data on lead exposures and account for potential regulatory costs.
An official with knowledge of the mining industry said that existing EPA models will allow the agency to account for the expected change in CDC's blood lead level, but cautioned that federal officials should carefully weigh how far it will tighten cleanup goals, which would lead to reopening of past cleanup decisions and drive costly new assessments.
While reducing children's exposures to lead is an understandable goal, given the substance's risks to fetal and childhood development, the source says the agency should consider costs to responsible parties and the public when reopening waste sites, and be wary of calls to eliminate exposures to lead.
We may “need to reexamine the risk parameters to determine what is a [realistic and safe] level of exposure, because getting down to zero is going to be exceedingly difficult,” the source says, noting the prevalence of lead from multiple sources. “If that's going to be the goal, I think it's going to be unattainable.”
In a similar vein, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) told federal officials last year that they lack adequate data to make good decisions. “While data continue to be collected on elevated blood lead levels, it is challenging to fully understand the implications of that data if environmental data is not simultaneously collected,” NAHB said.
Pruitt and other administration officials have promised a “war on lead,” a metal that many say has no safe level of exposure. In February, Pruitt co-chaired a cabinet-level meeting on collaborating on the federal strategy to lower childhood lead exposures.
The administration's strategy continues the work of a presidential task force formed under the Clinton administration on tackling environmental health and safety risks to children, and will update a national strategy to address childhood lead exposure issued in 2000 that focused on limiting exposures to lead paint hazards.
But the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) last year suggested that officials are planning a broader strategy that will address calls for federal agencies to tackle a wide range of exposures. “Addressing lead exposures in the United States. . . requires consideration of sources of lead exposure in addition to lead paint, including, among others, soil, food, drinking water, and consumer products,” HUD said in an Oct. 24 Federal Registernotice.
Federal officials have provided few specifics on the new inter-agency strategy, which is expected to be released at the National Environmental Health Association and HUD's Healthy Homes Conference June 25-28 in Anaheim, CA.
EPA Plans
But earlier this spring, EPA and other officials were still wrestling with key policy goals for the strategy, including a planned schedule for eliminating exposures, whether the strategy will complement pending EPA rules and if EPA will account for the upcoming CDC decision.
Still, EPA officials have previewed some of the steps they plan to take, telling a Science Advisory Board (SAB) meeting in Washington, DC, earlier this month that they are seeking to reduce children's exposures to lead in soil through cleanup at contaminated sites and that soil remediation efforts have successfully reduced children's blood lead levels.
Stiven Foster of EPA's Office of Land and Emergency Management told SAB that under the federal lead strategy, EPA is updating approaches for modeling exposures from lead in contaminated soil and other environmental media, according to a presentation at the SAB meeting.
He also said that EPA is working with states to support their efforts to reduce lead in soil.
Foster and Valerie Zartarian, of EPA's Office of Research and Development, told the meeting that EPA is investigating how Superfund cleanups affect children's blood lead levels, and that a case study on the efficacy of soil remediation on reducing children's blood lead levels has shown positive results.
EPA also plans to update its Superfund Lead-Contaminated Residential Sites Handbook to include current scientific consensus and public health recommendations about lead exposure, Foster said.
But given Trump administration efforts to roll back regulations and limit EPA funds, environmentalists are skeptical that EPA will take aggressive regulatory steps and are pushing hard for the agency to strengthen soil cleanups, tighten enforcement of lead paint rules and quickly advance a long-running effort to rewrite drinking water rules.
“The last administration talked about updating the standards for soil and never did. Are they really going to use the latest science on the cleanup side, or [keep] looking at the high levels they have in the past?” says EDF's Neltner. “If you're going to do an intervention, you want to get that soil [level] down as far as you can, based on the latest science.”
Underscoring such skepticism is Pruitt's proposed rule requiring that regulatory decisions be based only on publicly available data. Two law professors, Wendy Wagner at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and Rena Steinzor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, warned recently that the proposal could limit the use of foundational studies on lead as well as subsequent studies that rely on them.
The proposed rule could be read to “require EPA to revisit research that was used to support important public health rules if it does not meet EPA's amorphous standards for data transparency."
They cite as an example landmark research from the 1970s, conducted by Dr. Herbert Needleman, that quantified the adverse impact of low-level lead exposure on children's IQ but the records on which it was based were destroyed. As a result, they say, EPA could preclude from its regulations current research that builds on the earlier data “if the older studies do not meet the proposal's requirement for data transparency,” they write in a recent article in Regulatory Review.
Such foundational studies are relevant “any time a standard for toxic exposure is updated,” they write, noting that “the update of the EPA's lead in drinking water standard is long overdue.”
Neltner also said that while EPA faces a court order to take steps to reduce exposures from lead in dust and remains committed to revising its lead in drinking water rule, the strategy should also detail how the agency will reduce exposures from lead in soil.
Neltner and Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), say that the federal strategy should also provide a road map for enforcement of EPA's 2008 lead renovation, repair and painting rule (LRRP), which seeks to limit exposures when working on houses and child-care facilities with lead-based paint.
“What is their strategy on enforcement?” Neltner said, noting that any plan to boost enforcement should consider how EPA can help states. “Until we get compliance with the [LRRP] rule up, we're going to have limited impact.”
Drinking Water
Ruch argued that the strategy should also address how EPA will update and bolster its lead and copper drinking water rule (LCR), which the agency has postponed updating three times. He also said EPA has ignored calls from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the agency's Inspector General (IG) to take steps to better inform its efforts under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), including through the LCR.
He said PEER is weighing a petition for rulemaking to compel EPA to comply with GAO's advice in an October 2017 report to require states to report data on lead pipes in order to bolster the LCR, but he doubts that Pruitt will comply, charging his focus on cooperative federalism is marked by a reluctance to impose any new requirement on states.
Additionally, Ruch said PEER believes EPA has yet to comply with recommendations from its own IG in an Oct. 2016 report that called for its enforcement office to update 1991 guidance on when it would consider emergency action under SDWA, and to train staff on the use of that authority.
“It's hard to think of an instance where Pruitt has been environmentally proactive, but that is the thrust of what he is proposing on lead,” Ruch said. “We haven't seen anything that resembles a coherent strategy, so maybe we'll see something. All we have heard [about the] war on lead is empty rhetoric.”
https://insideepa.com/weekly-focus/trump-readies-lead-strategy-faces-doubts-ahead-new-cdc-limits

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‘Costly’ Testing Reduced for Composite Wood in Kid Products

Jun 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Martina Barash

Particleboard and similar wood-based materials in toys or other children’s products don’t have to be tested for lead and certain other chemicals under a final Consumer Product Safety Commission rule.
Research shows the materials don’t contain lead, certain heavy metals, or phthalates in greater concentrations than the law allows, the CPSC said in a forthcoming Federal Register notice.
Reducing costs of testing children’s products has been a priority for business groups and some members of the commission.
The commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the rule.
The exemption applies to untreated, unfinished particleboard, most hardwood plywood, and medium-density fiberboard, made from virgin wood or pre-consumer waste wood.
The CPSC determined that some hardwood plywood is made with an adhesive, polyvinyl acetate, that can contain phthalates above the legal limit, so that type isn’t exempt.
Post-consumer recycled wood may contain contaminants and isn’t exempt from the independent-testing requirements either, the agency said.
The CPSC in December 2015 exempted unfinished and untreated wood “from the trunks of trees” from heavy-metal testing requirements.
The CPSC proposed the burden-reduction measure for “engineered” wood products such as particleboard in October 2017.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/costly-testing-reduced-for-composite-wood-in-kid-products

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Echa's MSC Agrees That D4, D5 and D6 Are SVHCs

Jun 22, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Emma Davies

Echa's Member State Committee has agreed that the siloxanes D4, D5 and D6 are all REACH substances of very high concern (SVHCs), based on persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) properties. Industry has voiced strong criticism of the decision.
Based on intrinsic properties, D4 is both PBT and "very persistent, very bioaccumulative" (vPvB), while D5 and D6 are only considered vPvB. The use of D4 and D5 is already restricted in wash off personal care products - at a concentration equal to or greater than 0.1% by weight - to reduce emissions to the aquatic environment.
The MSC agreed that D5 and D6 can be considered PBT and vPvB because of D4 impurities, when present at "relevant concentrations" above or equal to 0.1% by weight.
"If D5 and D6 get into the environment, the impurity D4 will have its own fate and behaviour," said Watze de Wolf, MSC chair. D5 and D6 products without D4 impurities would not be considered PBT, he added.
Germany compiled the SVHC reports for D4 and D5, while Echa prepared D6's Annex XV report, at the European Commission's request. In its reports, Germany recommends not immediately including the substances on the authorisation list (Annex XIV). Once included, they would no longer be subject to targeted restrictions, it says.
However, Pierre Germain, secretary general of trade organisation CES-Silicones Europe, said: "The silicones industry strongly believes that the Member State Committee has not taken full account of the whole body of scientific evidence."
"It should have recognised that measured levels in the real environment are extremely low; taken into account already applicable or ongoing regulatory activities; and that it will cause considerable uncertainty for customers on a global level," he added.
A recent US industry-funded study suggested that D4 poses a "negligible risk to the environment", based on data collected under an Environmental Protection Agency enforceable consent order.
On 2 April, the Global Silicones Council, US, together with European silicones producers, launched legal action against the European Commission. They argue that criteria in Annex XIII of REACH should not have been used to decide on the persistence and bioaccumulation of D4 and D5. The applicants describe concerns over hazard assessment, risk assessment and the use of weight of evidence.
https://chemicalwatch.com/67912/echas-msc-agrees-that-d4-d5-and-d6-are-svhcs

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Energy News

Lags in Updating Pipeline Safety Rules Costs Companies Millions

Jun 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Sylvia Carignan

The sluggish pace for updating federal pipeline safety requirements are costing oil and gas companies millions, advocates for the industry told a House panel June 21.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has yet to incorporate into pipeline safety regulations congressional mandates and recommendations from transportation watchdogs that date back to 2004. Pipelines are still a safe means for transporting oil and gas, industry officials said, but those delayed updates result in unnecessary costs.
Outdated federal rules for natural gas pipelines, some nearly 50 years old, mean operators must replace “perfectly good” segments of pipe, costing them $200 million to $300 million each year, Chad Zamarin, representative for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, told members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s pipeline subcommittee.
Members of the association include Dominion Energy Transmission Inc., Kinder Morgan Inc., and National Grid.
Deep Six
The pipeline agency has yet to complete six mandates from the Protecting Our Infrastructure of Pipelines Enhancing Safety, or PIPES, Act of 2016 and eight mandates from the PIPES Act of 2011, according to the subcommittee’s analysis. The laws direct the regulatory agency to update its rules on emergency orders, ecologically sensitive coastal areas, hazardous liquid pipeline safety, gas transmission pipelines, and methods for detecting ruptured pipes, among others.
The agency is simultaneously working to address three open pipeline safety recommendations from the Government Accountability Office and more than 40 National Transportation Safety Board recommendations dating back to 2004.
Skip Elliott, the agency’s administrator, told the subcommittee he’s unsure of what’s causing the delays, but said efforts are underway to consolidate the regulatory process.
“We are doing everything that we can within PHMSA to expedite, streamline the process,” he said at the hearing.
But in some cases, the pipeline industry isn’t waiting for the federal agency to finish its regulations. The American Petroleum Institute develops its own safety standards and best practices for the pipeline industry.
“Absent certainty in the regulatory process, the industry is not standing idly by,” Robin Rorick, of the American Petroleum Institute, said in the statement to the committee. The institute’s members include Bechtel Corp., ExxonMobil Pipeline Co., and Hess Corp.
Safety Record
Pipeline industry groups said the outdated regulations don’t necessarily mean pipelines are unsafe.
“Pipelines are an exceedingly safe way to deliver the energy America needs,” said Andy Black, president and chief executive officer of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, whose members include Enbridge Energy Partners LP, Shell Pipeline Company LP, and LyondellBasell Industries.
Safety has improved over the past five years, Black said. The number of liquid-carrying pipeline incidents affecting people or the environment have declined by 19 percent since 2013, according to data from the pipeline agency.
But, on average, more than 20 significant pipeline failures have occurred every month since the PIPES Act of 2016 was signed into law, Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit that advocates for pipeline safety, said at the hearing.
Significant pipeline failures, according to the agency, involve those resulting in injuries, fatalities, fires, and explosions.
“While everyone testifying today supports the goal of zero incidents, we still have a long way to go to reach that goal,” Weimer said in the statement to the committee.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/lags-in-updating-pipeline-safety-rules-costs-companies-millions

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The Natural Gas Industry Has a Leak Problem

Jun 22, 2018 | New York Times

By John Schwartz and Brad Plumer

The American oil and gas industry is leaking more methane than the government thinks — much more, a new study says. Since methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, that is bad news for climate change.
The new study, published Thursday in the journal Science, puts the rate of methane emissions from domestic oil and gas operations at 2.3 percent of total production per year, which is 60 percent higher than the current estimate from the Environmental Protection Agency. That might seem like a small fraction of the total, but it represents an estimated 13 million metric tons lost each year, or enough natural gas to fuel 10 million homes.
Thanks to a boom in hydraulic fracturing in states like Texas and Pennsylvania, natural gas has quickly replaced coal as the leading fuel used by America’s power plants. It has also helped, to some extent, in the fight against climate change: When burned for electricity, natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide that coal does. The shift from coal to gas has helped lower CO₂ emissions from America’s power plants by 27 percent since 2005.
But methane, the main component of natural gas, can warm the planet more than 80 times as much as the same amount of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period if it escapes into the atmosphere before being burned. A recent study found that natural gas power plants could actually be worse for climate change than coal plants if their leakage rate rose above 4 percent.
Neither the E.P.A.’s estimates of leakage rates nor the higher estimates in the new study suggest that gas has crossed that threshold. Still, experts said that curbing methane emissions from oil and gas operations could prove an important climate policy.
If there is good news in the report, it is that much of the leakage is fixable at relatively low cost. The lost methane is worth an estimated $2 billion a year.
“Those emissions are avoidable, not inherent,” said Steven Hamburg, chief scientist of the Environmental Defense Fund and an author of the paper. He cited estimates from the International Energy Agency that industry could reduce its methane emissions by 75 percent and that two-thirds of those reductions would pay for themselves because of the value of the saved gas.
Some oil and gas firms already use infrared cameras to detect methane leaks and are exploring the use of drones and satellites for the task as well. Exxon Mobil, the nation’s biggest gas producer, recently announced a plan to replace older, leaky equipment and reduce its methane emissions 15 percent by 2020.
Environmental groups have argued that voluntary measures are not always sufficient, and they have urged federal regulators to step in and mandate more sweeping reductions. Former President Barack Obama proposed regulations to limit leaks, but over the past year, the Trump administration has moved to rescind most Obama-era methane policies. Some of these rollbacks are now tied up in court.
The new study is the culmination of five years of research to determine the extent of methane leakage and its effect on climate. Led by the Environmental Defense Fund, the scientific papers produced in that time involved the work of more than 140 researchers from more than 40 institutions, with cooperation and funding from the industry to support the research.
The main reason that total methane leakage is so much higher than the E.P.A. estimate, the report says, is the degree to which large leaks — so-called super-emitters — contribute to the problem.
A representative of the gas industry argued that the new estimate, in trying to add the outlier leaks, missed the mark. Richard Meyer, managing director of energy analysis for the American Gas Association, called the new estimates “speculation” and said, “I have questions about their method and worry that some alternative hypotheses were too readily dismissed.”
Dr. Hamburg said he expected the new estimate to be questioned. “The industry is going to say it’s too high and other people will say it’s too low,” he said. “You can cherry-pick either way.”
An E.P.A. spokeswoman said the agency was “looking forward to reviewing this study.”
Leaks can occur at many places along the natural gas supply chain, including poorly maintained pipes, seals and storage tanks, and even some equipment that emits gas by design, including outmoded pneumatic devices.
Industry accounts for about a third of domestic methane emissions. The gas is also produced in large amounts by sources like belching livestock, algae-choked lakes fed by fertilizer runoff, rice paddies, landfills and defrosting tundra, said Amy Townsend-Small, director of the environmental studies program at the University of Cincinnati and one of the researchers involved with the latest paper.
Shutting down leaks from oil and gas operations is important, Dr. Townsend-Small said, because industry is such a large source of methane emissions. But “it’s one of many,” so there is more work to be done, she added.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/climate/methane-leaks.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience

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Major Methane Study Complicates Plans of Oil and Gas Industry

Jun 21, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By Jordan Blum

U.S. oil and gas operations are releasing far more methane into the atmosphere than the federal government estimates, causing much more harm to the environment and undermining the case for cleaner-burning natural gas as a bridge fuel to a carbon-free future, according to a comprehensive study published Thursday in the prestigious journal Science.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas that traps considerably more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, helping to accelerate climate change. The six-year study on methane found that annual emission rates from energy companies are about 60 percent more than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports.
The projected 13 million metric tons of methane emitted each year is the equivalent of about $2 billion in lost natural gas — enough to fuel about 10 million homes. The study, led by the national advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund and involving 140 researchers from 40 institutions, is considered the most comprehensive of its kind.
These emissions significantly erode the potential climate benefits of natural gas use, the study concluded. Most of the previously unreported emissions come from infrequent malfunctions at oil and gas wells that release large amounts of methane into the air without detection for prolonged periods of time.
That means the emissions can be reduced or eliminated if companies invest more in methane sensing and capture technologies at oil and gas wells to prevent these leaks or, at least, quickly detect and fix them. The study argued that more stringent state and federal regulations are needed to require these extra measures.
“There’s far more climate impact from the production and use of natural gas than we thought,” said Mark Brownstein, senior vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund. “But what we’ve also learned is we don’t have to live with that and these emissions are correctable.”
Natural gas produces far less carbon dioxide than coal and oil and is considered a bridge fuel that the world can rely on until renewable energy sources like wind and solar power become more widespread and affordable. Much of the reduction in U.S. carbon emissions in recent years is attributed to the shift from coal-fired power plants to those burning natural gas.
But methane emissions — from gas wells to pipeline leaks — have long been considered Achilles’ heel of natural gas. Methane has 80 times the global warming effects of carbon dioxide.
The oil and gas sector is the largest source of U.S. methane emissions, according to the Energy Department. Surging gas production from shale drilling and hydraulic fracturing, called fracking, has increased methane emissions through much of the past 10 to 15 years.
Eliminating most methane emissions is considered critical to the energy industry which is investing billions of dollars in natural gas production and liquefied natural gas processing as it faces tighter climate change regulations around the world. Booming U.S. natural gas production is expected to surge by another 60 percent during the next 20 years, according the research firm IHS Markit.
U.S. natural gas output has soared to 81 billion cubic feet a day, from about 50 billion cubic feet of gas a day before the shale drilling boom got underway about a decade ago. A 60 percent spike from 2017 levels would translate to almost 120 billion cubic feet a day by the end of 2037.
Calling shale gas production anything but a revolution would be a huge understatement, said Dan Yergin, IHS Markit vice chairman and the report’s co-author. The shale boom, led largely by Houston companies, has reshaped the nation’s electric grid, fueled a petrochemical boom along the Gulf Coast and created a burgeoning industry in liquefied natural gas exports.
Natural gas is responsible for about one-third of all U.S. electricity generation now. That should grow to about 50 percent by 2040, IHS Markit projects.
The shale revolution “dramatically changed both markets and long-term thinking about energy,” Yergin said. “The profound and ongoing impacts on the industry, energy markets, the wider economy and the U.S. position in the world continue to unfold.”
That’s why the study in Science argues in favor of solving the methane emission problems, rather then curbing or stopping natural gas production. Big improvements would come just by using better valves at gas wells and capturing the gas released from wells.
As such, the study actually affirms the need for more cheap and abundant natural gas, said Steve Everly, spokesman for the industry group Texans for Natural Gas.
“We live in a world where we have to make energy choices,” he said, “and the choice to use natural gas is based on both its environmental and economic benefits. This study doesn’t change that.”
Already, some of the nation’s biggest oil and gas companies are moving to curb methane emissions. Last fall, for instance, Exxon Mobil, the nation’s largest natural gas producer, said it would stem its methane emissions from its U.S. onshore activities. In May, it pledged a broader effort to reduce methane emissions by 15 percent worldwide by 2020.
With the release of this study, the Environmental Defense Fund is calling for a 45 percent reduction in global oil and gas methane emissions by 2025 — a goal that would have the same short-term climate benefit as closing one-third of the world’s coal plants.
The study is considered the most comprehensive on the topic, involving researchers from a long list of universities, including Harvard, Stanford , the University of Texas, Texas A&M and the University of Houston. The research involved both on-the-ground measurements at production sites and gas facilities and aircraft observations. The study tracked methane emissions from the drilling process through the multistate pipelines that carry the gas.
“Natural gas has the potential to be a much cleaner source of energy,” said Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund and a co-author of the paper. “But that hasn’t always been the case because of the preventable emissions.”
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Major-methane-study-complicates-plans-of-oil-and-13014516.php?t=a4ed4b9a6d

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Methane Leaks Offset Much of the Climate Change Benefits of Natural Gas, Study Says

Jun 21, 2018 | Washington Post

By Steve Mufson

The U.S. oil and gas industry emits 13 million metric tons of methane from its operations each year — nearly 60 percent more than current estimates and enough to offset much of the climate benefits of burning natural gas instead of coal, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.
The higher volumes of natural gas leaking from across the industry’s supply chain would be enough to fuel 10 million homes and would be worth an estimated $2 billion, the researchers said.
The study, led by Environmental Defense Fund researchers and including 19 co-authors from 15 institutions, estimated that the leak rate from U.S. oil and gas operations is 2.3 percent, significantly higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s estimate of 1.4 percent.
While the percentages seem small, methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and the additional emissions would erase the climate advantages of burning natural gas instead of coal during the period when methane’s effects on the climate are most pronounced.
Though half of methane vanishes in 8.3 years, the Environmental Defense Fund says it is still 84 times as powerful as carbon dioxide over 20 years. The EPA uses a broader time frame and says methane’s global warming effect is 28 to 36 times that of carbon dioxide over the course of a century.
“Natural gas losses are a waste of a limited natural resource, increase global levels of surface ozone pollution, and significantly erode the potential climate benefits of natural gas use,” the study’s authors wrote.
They added that the climate effects of emitting 13 million metric tons of methane over 20 years “roughly equals” the carbon dioxide emissions from all U.S. coal-fired power plants operating in 2015. It would equal about 31 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. coal plants over a 100-year time horizon.
“In the short term, the climate impacts of burning coal in a modern plant vs natural gas in a modern plant are similar as a result of the supply chain methane emissions,” Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said in an email. But, he added, “over the long term the climate impacts of using gas to generate electricity will be significantly less than those of using coal even with high methane emissions.”
Moreover, he added, “if methane emissions were reduced, which they can be easily, it could deliver significant short term climate benefits as well.”
The study, which relied largely on companies willing to cooperate, cautioned that its estimates could be too low. It said that the worst actors were most likely to opt out of taking part in the study. In addition, the study has not updated measurements of local distribution systems, which could be emitting substantial volumes as well.
The Science study said one possible explanation for the gap between its estimates and the EPA’s is that the EPA did not adequately count emissions in abnormal conditions. The Science study used an extensive aerial infrared camera survey of about 8,000 production sites in seven U.S. oil and natural gas basins and found that about 4 percent of surveyed sites had one or more observable plumes, with two to seven times the methane emissions from average sites.
The study said the industry could take steps to lower the level of methane emissions. It recommended that companies install less failure-prone systems, carry out on-site leak surveys, re-engineer individual components and processes and deploy sensors at individual facilities and on towers, aircraft or satellites.
“Scientists have uncovered a huge problem, but also an enormous opportunity,” Defense Fund chief scientist Steven Hamburg, a co-author of the study, said in a statement. “Reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is the fastest, most cost-effective way we have to slow the rate of warming today, even as the larger transition to lower-carbon energy continues.”
The study takes an important step in measuring methane leaks, especially from natural operations. In October, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said “methane is a potent greenhouse gas and the uncertainty over the level of methane emitted to the atmosphere raises questions about the extent of the climate benefits that gas can bring.”
It said, “One critical question is the extent to which methane emissions along the gas value chain negate the climate advantages of gas.”
But the IEA also estimated that 40 to 50 percent of current methane emissions could be avoided at no net cost.
“The environmental case for gas does not depend on beating the emissions performance of the most carbon-intensive fuel,” the IEA said, “but in ensuring that its emission intensity is as low as practicable.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/methane-leaks-offset-much-of-the-benefits-of-natural-gas-new-study-says/2018/06/21/e381654a-7590-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html?utm_term=.837caf858e7a

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Oil and Gas Wastewater Is a Cheap Fix for Road Dust but Comes at a Toxic Cost

Jun 21, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Deidre Lockwood

Wastewater from oil and gas wells that is spread on unpaved roads to control dust contains high levels of the carcinogenic element radium, inorganic salts, and oil and gas hydrocarbons. A new study shows that these harmful components are likely leaching off roads into surrounding soils and water (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2018, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b00716).
At least a dozen U.S. states allow the spreading of wastewater produced from rock formations during the recovery of oil and gas to reduce the dust kicked up on unpaved surfaces, or for other purposes such as deicing. Unchecked, such dust can promote respiratory and cardiovascular disease. The high levels of calcium salts in the wastewater bind clays to the road, suppressing dust. Since oil and gas companies freely provide the waste to municipalities, it’s a much cheaper solution than other dust suppressants, such as chloride salts.
William D. Burgos of Pennsylvania State University and his colleagues wanted to investigate the environmental impacts of spreading such wastewater on roads after learning that this was an approved option in Pennsylvania for disposing of wastewater from conventional oil and gas development. “It’s not what you’d expect as a practice for wastewater treatment,” Burgos says. (Pennsylvania and four other states have banned road spreading of wastewater from hydraulically fractured wells.)
To get a handle on the environmental and health impacts of spreading the waste on roads, Burgos’s team started by sampling 14 tanks in which oil and gas companies deposit wastewater for use by road managers in the state and then chemically characterizing these fluids. Radium in the samples produced a median radioactivity of 1,230 picocuries per liter, much higher than the 5 pCi/L federal drinking water standard and the 60 pCi/L limit for discharge from treatment plants processing industrial wastewater. Total dissolved solids, which include inorganic salts and organic matter, also far exceeded the 500 mg/L standard for drinking water with a median concentration of 293,000 mg/L. Hydrocarbons derived from oil and gas, including diesel-range and lighter gas-range organics, were also abundant in the samples.
The researchers also simulated the effect of rainfall on wastewater-treated roads by treating the road aggregate first with the wastewater, then drying it and treating it with artificial rainwater. Afterwards, they analyzed how much of the wastewater components leached off. About half of the radium leached off, along with a quarter of the diesel-range organics and most of the inorganic salts. The researchers also carried out repeated tests to judge the effect of roads being treated multiple times per season; they found that after four repetitions of the leaching experiment, the road aggregate became saturated with radium and nearly all of it leached out.
In Pennsylvania, records show that more than 130 million liters of oil and gas wastewater on average were spread on roads each year from 2008 to 2014. Based on the findings of the current study, the researchers estimate that in the state, this application released four times as much radium to the environment as treatment facilities that process oil and gas wastewater, and 200 times as much radium as spills of the wastewater.
Brian W. Stewart, a geochemist at the University of Pittsburgh, says the study is important in identifying that road spreading is a potentially bigger problem than some other issues environmental scientists have been concerned about, like spills. “This is effectively large-scale spilling on purpose,” he says.
Stewart says that the study shows there is clearly potential for environmental contamination from this road spreading—“maybe enough to consider halting the practice.” Burgos says wastewater should at least be pretreated to reduce levels of radium and hydrocarbons to those required for treatment plants, and ideally, managers should pursue a more environmentally friendly solution. However, municipalities using wastewater for this purpose often can’t afford alternative brine solutions, he says.
As of May, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has halted road spreading of oil and gas wastewater in the state while it clarifies procedures for road application, in response to a lawsuit by a state resident.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/Oil-gas-wastewater-cheap-fix/96/web/2018/06

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Chemical Security News

(ACC Mentioned) Coast Guard Delays Deployment of TWIC Card Readers at Some Chemical Facilities

Jun 21, 2018 | Transport Topics

By Eric Miller

In an apparent reaction to pressure from a number of associations representing chemical, petroleum, manufacturing and business trade groups, the U.S. Coast Guard on June 21 announced plans to delay for three years a requirement that hundreds of bulk cargo facilities deploy Transportation Worker Identification Credential biometric card readers by Aug. 23.
A pre-publication version of a notice of proposed rulemaking said the delay will include some facilities that handle certain dangerous cargoes in bulk — such as chemicals and gasoline — but does not include a delay for facilities that receive large passenger vessels and facilities that handle bulk shipments of certain dangerous cargoes and transfer them to or from a vessel. Those facilities would still need to meet the Aug. 23 deployment date, according to the proposed rule.
Scott Jensen, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, called the proposal a “partial victory” for the 11 trade groups that have for months been seeking the delay.
“It looks like a partial delay,” Jensen told Transport Topics. “It looks like it will not impact all of the facilities.”
Jamie Conrad, a Washington attorney representing three of the affected facilities in a federal lawsuit over the requirement, estimated the proposal would include about three-fourths of the potentially affected facilities, leaving hundreds still bound by the Aug. 23 deployment date.
“What we asked for is for them to extend the effective date for all Risk Group A covered facilities,” Conrad told TT. “A partial delay like this raises the prospect that some people have to comply partly now and partly later. It would be more efficient if people had to do it all at once.”
“There is some confusion about whether they have to comply now to some extent and have to put readers at the docks, and then three years from now have to have readers at truck gates,” Conrad added.
In a letter sent earlier this month to leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives, the 11 groups asked legislators involved in homeland security to pass the Transportation Worker Identification Credential Accountability Act of 2018, (H.R. 5729), which would require the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to first complete an assessment of the effectiveness of the current TWIC reader program before requiring the reader deployments. The group complained that the agency has unfairly expanded the requirement for up to 2,000 chemical and gasoline facilities that federal authorities say handle “certain dangerous cargo in bulk.”
The American Chemistry Council, American Petroleum Institute, National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Agricultural Retailers Association were among the letter signers.
A Senate version of the House bill (S. 3094) was introduced on June 20, but neither bill has made it to a floor vote.
In a federal lawsuit filed in April, three of the groups alleged that the U.S. Coast Guard, which oversees TWIC enforcement in port and other cargo facilities, issued a final rule that was “a surprise to the regulated community” since it differed from an earlier NPRM, according to Jensen. The lawsuit’s plaintiffs were the American Chemistry Council, the International Liquid Terminals Association and the Fertilizer Institute.
The groups said expanding the number of facilities covered in a final rule without following the proper regulatory steps was a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and are seeking to delay the effective date of the rule. A federal judge has scheduled a July 24 hearing on the trade associations’ motion to stay the effective date of the Coast Guard’s TWIC reader rule.
The TWIC is a tamper- and counterfeit-resistant biometric smart card credential used mostly by transportation workers that allows them access to port facilities without an escort.
Homeland security officials identified three possible scenarios in their “risk analysis methodology” that TWIC card readers could help stop. They were a truck bomb, a terrorist assault team and an explosive attack carried out by a passenger or passerby.
In May of 2013, the Government Accountability Office issued a report questioning the TWIC reader program’s effectiveness in enhancing security, calling on Congress to halt the promulgation of a final rule until the completion of a security assessment. In response, Congress passed legislation in December 2016 requiring DHS to conduct an assessment of the TWIC program. So far that hasn’t happened, but the Coast Guard has instead been moving to require more readers be installed at more facilities. Installing those TWIC readers could collectively cost the facilities a total of $26 million, or more, according to the lawsuit.
A statement issued earlier this year by the National Association of Manufacturers said the TWIC reader requirement “runs counter to manufacturers’ efforts to efficiently and effectively protect their facilities,” and that the 2016 final rule “not only lacks regulatory certainty, but also creates significant logistical challenges for the regulated community.”
http://www.ttnews.com/articles/coast-guard-delays-deployment-twic-card-readers-some-chemical-facilities

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Chemical Safety Board Changing Hands Won’t Affect Investigations (1)

Jun 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Sam Pearson

leadership shift at a federal agency that probes chemical industrial accidents and explosions won’t change how U.S. companies are investigated, according to a top agency official.
Chemical Safety Board Chairperson Vanessa Sutherland will resign from the agency June 22. The remaining board members voted to designate Kristen Kulinowski, a board member since 2015, as the board’s interim leader.
“There isn’t very much change that I’m hearing from the industry that they’re seeking right now,” Kulinowski told reporters June 20, though she plans to engage with companies and organizations to hear their thoughts and inform them of the board’s work.
The independent federal agency, like the National Transportation Safety Board, seeks to determine the root cause of what happened and issue safety recommendations but doesn’t issue regulations or fines. Sutherland’s replacement will have to be nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate.
Sutherland’s departure introduces new uncertainty for the board’s future at a time when it lacks the support of the White House, which has twice proposed to eliminate its funding, only to have Congress restore the cuts. The uncertainty could impact companies in the chemical and refining industries, which are more frequently the subject of board investigations when they experience explosions, fires, or chemical releases that harm workers and communities.
New Questions
Sutherland, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in 2015, told reporters June 20 that after correcting governance problems which plagued previous board leadership, it was appropriate to move on.
Comparing her role at the board as that of a contractor performing “a massive renovation or rehab on a home,” Sutherland said she was confident her management changes will outlast her tenure. She previously served as chief counsel of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration from 2011 to 2015.
Sutherland indicated she has taken a position in the private sector but declined to name her new employer prior to her departure from the safety board. After conducting 81 outreach events per year in her current role, Sutherland said the new job will allow her to see her family more.
“My goal was to build infrastructure that could outlast me, and that was not about me,” Sutherland said.
At the same time, the budget challenges continue to present a threat to the agency, Sutherland and Kulinowski said. The Trump administration’s threats have impacted staff hiring and retention, as well as long-term planning, Sutherland said, but having the support of Congress mitigates the impact.
With the departure of some staff members, the 40-person agency is down to 32 employees, Kulinowski said, something a pending analysis of the board’s hiring needs will address.
Sutherland is not subject to the Trump administration’s ethics pledge because it only covers appointments made during his term, Dan Auble, a senior researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, said in an email to Bloomberg Environment June 21.
As an Obama administration nominee, Sutherland likely signed the former administration’s ethics pledge, Auble said, which would bar her from contacting the safety board for two years.
However, enough time has passed for Sutherland to lobby her former employer, PHMSA, but not on specific matters she worked on while chief counsel.
Future Challenges
Sutherland is the first of four board members confirmed between 2014 and 2015 to leave. Without more nominations, board members Rick Engler, Manuel Ehrlich and Kulinowski will all leave the the agency by August 2020, leaving no one to run the agency.
To prevent such an outcome, the White House should nominate two new members, one of whom could be chairperson, Mark Farley, a partner at the law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP in Houston, who has represented companies under board investigation, told Bloomberg Environment.
Such an action would benefit industry by letting the new members steer the agency in accordance with White House priorities, Farley said, but he doubts the administration will do so.
(Updates with reporting on lobbying restrictions.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemical-safety-board-changing-hands-wont-affect-investigations-1

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

Would Denial of Line 3 Project Mean More Oil Trains?

Jun 21, 2018 | Minnesota Public Radio

By Elizabeth Dunbar ·

Enbridge Energy says its customers want more oil, and if a new pipeline doesn't bring it to them, it will get there on trains instead.
"You're not stopping any oil from coming out of the ground. They're putting it on the rails and driving it right next to your elementary schools, right next to your nursing homes, right through small towns all across the state," Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, said during a speech last month.
To many, that's a scary thought.
But project opponents, including environmentalists, are skeptical.
"There's no evidence to suggest that we would see more trains," said Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis, who opposes the Line 3 project.
A few years ago, he and other lawmakers were concerned about the large number of trains carrying North Dakota's Bakken oil through Minnesota.
But oil-by-rail has dropped off significantly since then, and most of what is being produced is moving by pipeline.
Hornstein said some Canadian oil crosses Minnesota, but he said a new pipeline wouldn't necessarily stop that traffic. He says both pipelines and oil trains come with risks to safety and the environment — they're just different.
"What we really should be doing is ensuring that both modes are safe and that we're using a lot less oil that we have to transport through Minnesota communities," he said.
So would the denial of the Line 3 pipeline lead to more oil trains? Analysts who monitor Canadian oil production and transportation agree with Enbridge that it would, but it's complicated.
Kevin Birn of IHS Markit said he's already seeing an uptick in rail movement as Canadian oil producers just keep producing oil.
"You have to think of these more like baseload power plants. To throttle them back actually causes their costs to go up," he said.
Oil that's ready to ship might sit in a tank for a while until it can get on a pipeline or train. How much more oil would move on trains is unclear, but analysts say currently less than 10 percent of the oil coming out of the oil sands moves by rail.
• Related: Regulators focus on need for new pipeline as decision looms
And if more oil moves by rail, that doesn't necessarily mean it will travel through Minnesota. Birn says most of it goes to places outside of the Midwest.
"Most of those crude-by-rail movements out of Canada are heading toward the Gulf Coast. Some movements go to the East Coast and West Coast, some of it goes into the Midwest as well, but smaller volumes," he said.
The price of oil — and the price of moving it — also come into play. Mike Walls, a crude oil analyst with Genscape, said it's a lot more expensive to ship oil on trains.
"If you're moving it from Hardesty, Alberta, to the Chicago refining complex, on rail you're looking at somewhere around $10, on pipe you're looking at $5 to $6 per barrel," he said.
Environmental groups oppose pipelines because they want less oil to be burned. And since the U.S. started allowing oil exports in 2015, John Lipscomb of Riverkeeper, a group that monitors environmental threats to the Hudson River in New York, said those concerned about the burning of fossil fuels know it's not enough for Americans to switch to electric cars.
"If we reduce the price of moving the oil to the coast, where it can be shipped abroad, we are in a sense supporting industry's desire to export oil. And the market now is potentially enormous," he said.
Minnesota's Public Utilities Commission will weigh in with their decision on the Line 3 oil pipeline next week.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/06/21/would-denial-of-line-3-project-mean-more-oil-trains

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Environment News

Conservative Group Will Push for Carbon Tax, a Contrast to GOP Resistance

Jun 19, 2018 | Wall Street Journal

By Bradley Olson and Timothy Puko

A group of veteran conservative political leaders are launching a political-action committee to push for a U.S. carbon tax, a move potentially funded by several large corporations that could test Republican appetite to act on climate legislation.
The effort would put financial, advertising and lobbying muscle behind a policy proposed last year that called for taxing carbon emissions and returning the revenue as a dividend to Americans. Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, who both chaired the Federal Reserve, are among a number of individual and corporate supporters of the plan.
The new group, called Americans for Carbon Dividends and co-chaired by former U.S. senators Trent Lott and John Breaux, hopes to build momentum for legislation that Congress could pass after the 2020 presidential race.
Exelon Corp. , a utility, plans to provide $1 million in funding for the campaign. A number of major corporations that have already come out in support of the policy are weighing financial commitments to the political group, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, according to people familiar with ongoing funding talks. The proposed legislation would protect fossil fuel companies from future climate-related lawsuits.
“The tide is turning on the realization that something needs to be done in this area,” said Mr. Lott, a former Republican majority leader in the U.S. Senate. “And the dividend changes everything. The money goes back to the people instead of into the dark, deep hole of the federal government.”
An Exxon spokesman declined to comment. A Shell spokesman said the company has long supported a carbon price as an important tool to address climate change.
The campaign will face an uphill battle. For years, Republican leaders in Washington have been hostile to a carbon tax. President Donald Trump has at times denied climate change is happening, and his administration has started a rollback of policies designed to address it.
“There is no appetite for a carbon tax,” said Thomas Pyle, the head of the American Energy Alliance who led Mr. Trump’s energy transition team.
A number of previous efforts to address the issue have failed, including a Democrat-backed national emissions trading-based program in 2010. More recently, Washington state voters in 2016 rejected a ballot initiative to institute a tax on carbon emissions.
There are signs that some in the Republican Party may be warming to some sort of climate legislation. A Climate Solutions Caucus in the House has drawn 39 Republican members since its creation two years ago. An array of U.S. corporations, many of which give to Republicans through affiliated PACs, urged President Trump not to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, which he did last year.
“We’re trying to reduce emissions so that we can reach the carbon goals we have for our country and our planet,” said Kathleen Barron, vice president for regulatory affairs and policy for Exelon. “We need a market signal to make that happen, and this provides one.”
What’s more, younger Republicans are supportive of addressing climate change, according to the Pew Research Center.
“Young Republicans want action on climate change, and the party has to bring solutions to the table,” said Kiera O’Brien, 20, president of Harvard University’s Republican club, one of a number of right-leaning university groups that have come out in favor of the “carbon dividends” plan.
The idea of a carbon tax plus dividend policy was first proposed by former Secretary of State James Baker III and former Secretary of State George Shultz last year. A number of large corporations have already publicly supported the plan, including Exxon and a number of non-energy companies such as General Motors Co.and Johnson & Johnson . It is also backed by billionaires Ray Dalio, Rob Walton and Laurene Powell Jobs.
It is not yet clear how many of these companies and individuals will also back the new political committee to push for legislation.
The federal carbon dividends push represents a major test for moderate Republicans such as Mr. Baker at a time when members of Congress in both parties have grown more polarized.
Mr. Trump, an opponent of emissions regulations launched by his predecessor, has sought executive actions that could buoy the coal industry. Coal-fired power plants rival the use of oil-based transportation fuels as the country’s top producer of greenhouse gas emissions.
The policy, as proposed by Mr. Baker, would tax emissions at refineries, mines, wells or ports at a steadily increasing rate. The funds collected would be paid to all Americans as dividends. An average family of four would receive $2,000 in the first year, although some of this benefit would be offset by paying more to fill up their gasoline tanks and power their homes.
The proposed legislation includes a sweetener for companies such as Exxon. It would include a provision to shield fossil fuel companies from lawsuits alleging legal liability for impacts from the changing climate.
Americans for Carbon Dividends is expected to have a first-year budget of $10 million, made up of multimillion-dollar donations from individuals and companies. The carbon payouts would be administered by the Social Security Administration.
The policy solution would also replace the Clean Power Plan, which the Trump administration and Republicans have partially repealed and continue to target. Senior advisers in the campaign also include Mark McKinnon and Joe Lockhart, experienced political operatives from Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. Hill+Knowlton Strategies will manage the public relations for the campaign.
“Providing a pollution rebate to consumers is a lightning bolt idea to unite conservatives around a solution to climate change,” said Mr. McKinnon.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-conservative-political-group-to-push-for-u-s-carbon-tax-1529444820

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Amid Renewed Carbon Tax Push, WRI Offers Emissions Certainty Options

Jun 21, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Lee Logan

Amid a renewed political push to overcome long-standing GOP opposition to a carbon tax due to fears of economic harm, the World Resources Institute (WRI) is outlining options to assuage competing concerns from environmentalists that such a policy would fail to cut enough greenhouse gases to address climate change.
The group released a June 21 report that outlines a suite of options to craft an “emissions target mechanism” in any carbon tax policy, though it acknowledges that some of the proposals could repel industry and Republicans and thus make it more difficult to enact a tax.
“Designing a policy that earns support from both [industry and environmental groups] will be a major political challenge,” the paper says, advocating for a “strong carbon tax with a simple emissions target mechanism and a targeted portfolio of complementary policies.”
The group's proposal highlights an inherent tension between industry and environmentalists that makes it difficult to secure a carbon tax compromise -- even though some groups on either side of the divide endorse the concept of a carbon tax as a cost-effective way to reduce emissions.
For Republicans and industry, a key feature of a carbon tax is that it is a relatively simple, non-regulatory policy that would reduce administrative headaches for regulated entities, while providing a market-based signal to cut GHGs in order to address climate change.
But environmentalists and Democrats have long been skeptical that a carbon tax that could pass Congress would be so weak that it would do little to reduce emissions.
The paper comes amid the creation of a new bipartisan political action committee, known as Americans for Carbon Dividends, that will lobby on behalf of a carbon tax plan developed by a group of former top GOP administration officials known as the Climate Leadership Council (CLC).
That plan would impose a carbon tax starting at $40 per ton and increasing annually, with proceeds returned to Americans in a dividend that starts at roughly $2,000 per year for a family of four. That would help offset higher gasoline and electricity costs.
Importantly, the plan would also give energy companies liability protection from a growing number of lawsuits seeking damages for their role in causing climate change. It would also preempt “many” Obama-era climate rules, including EPA's Clean Power Plan utility greenhouse gas rule that the Trump EPA is trying to rescind.
The CLC plan earlier garnered the backing of several oil and gas majors, though some free-market and conservative groups have strongly opposed the proposal.
Co-chairing the new political group are former Sens. Trent Lott (R-MS) and John Breaux (D-LA). It has also earned the backing of two former Federal Reserve chairs, Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke.
Nuclear-heavy utility Exelon, which has long called for a federal carbon price, has pledged $1 million for the effort, and the Wall Street Journal reports that oil companies ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell are “weighing financial commitments.”
Despite the Republican Party's long-standing resistance to carbon controls, Lott told the New York Times that the “tide is turning” in the party, citing the recent enactment of federal tax breaks for carbon capture and storage technology, as well as a poll the group commissioned showing wide support for a carbon tax policy that includes dividends.
Emissions 'Benchmark'
Although observers focus significant attention on finding GOP support for a carbon tax -- or any climate mitigation policy -- WRI's report underscores that Democrats might hesitate to embrace a deal if they believe it is too soft on industry emitters and does not guarantee a sufficient level of GHG reductions.
Responding to the new political group, David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council in a June 20 statement says the move is “very encouraging,” but that any carbon tax “must be accompanied by strong limits on carbon emissions, including those under existing authority granted by the Clean Air Act and all other existing legal tools.”
To ease such concerns, WRI outlines an emission target mechanism in a carbon tax that would first evaluate if the national GHG emissions trajectory is above a predetermined “benchmark.”
If emissions are too high, the carbon tax would then trigger some type of “policy change” to help reduce emissions beyond what is being achieved by the initial tax levels.
WRI offers four options: automatic increases to the tax rates, increased government spending on GHG-reduction efforts, a regulatory “back stop,” and a “streamlined process” for increasing the tax rate based on “new information” about climate science, the cost of the policy or international action.
Among those options, WRI suggests that automatic adjustments in the tax rates could be most politically palatable for industry, given that it would offer a relatively predictable path for emitters.
“Under this approach, regulated entities would need to plan for multiple possible future tax levels, but they would still benefit from a predictable regulatory pathway,” the paper says.
While “extra” tax revenue from higher-than-expected emissions could be used on a variety of climate projects such as in the agriculture sector or methane capture efforts, WRI notes that it can be difficult to monitor and verify emission cuts from such efforts, and the additional tax revenue might be insufficient to reduce emissions to “desired levels.”
Regarding “back stop” regulatory policy, WRI argues that existing statutory authority such as EPA's Clean Air Act power to regulate GHGs likely would not achieve “emissions reductions that are as large and as certain as a strong carbon tax.”
While carbon tax legislation could include new policies that could act as a backstop -- such as a national cap-and-trade program or “far more stringent versions of federal climate regulations” -- those would “significantly increase the political hurdles of passing legislation.”
Lastly, WRI highlights an option floated by Harvard University professor Joseph Aldy in which carbon tax legislation could give the president the authority to propose changes to the tax rates that would receive an expedited “up-or-down” vote in Congress -- similar to trade promotion authority.
“This approach provides flexibility to respond to changing circumstances, but also relies on future governments to act in good faith in developing and using new information to improve the policy,” the paper says.
'Complementary' Policies
WRI's paper also wades into the thorny issue of whether and how much carbon tax legislation should preempt existing regulatory authority, which many critics of EPA's rules say is a precondition for supporting a tax.
The group advocates for retaining “complementary” policies regarding low-carbon technology innovation, energy efficiency and reducing emissions that are not “covered” by a carbon tax.
As an example of the latter category, it cites EPA's rules limiting methane from oil and gas equipment, arguing that the “administrative burdens” of covering this and other categories with a carbon tax “may be sufficiently large that alternative policies are preferred.”
Policies outside of those categories “may be duplicative” if they address the same emissions sources as a carbon tax and do not target a “separate market barrier” addressed by the tax.
WRI adds that the preemption discussion will hinge in large part on the stringency of the tax, noting that a relatively low tax would make it more likely that an emissions target mechanism would be triggered. “Alternatively, stronger complementary policies may be needed because the carbon tax alone is not 'pulling its weight.'”
The group cites modeling that a range of carbon taxes between $25 and $50 per ton would enable the country to meet the Obama administration's Paris Agreement goal of reducing GHGs 26-28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.
Similarly, a June 20 analysis of the CLC plan by think tank Resources for the Future (RFF) finds that the plan could significantly cut emissions, compared with a scenario in which energy sector emissions remain largely flat through 2035 in the absence of carbon pricing or other regulations.
The analysis by RFF fellow Marc Hafstead finds that a $43-per-ton tax in 2021 could reduce energy sector GHGs by 19 percent relative to the business-as-usual scenario. Afterward, emissions cuts would vary depending on how fast the tax rate grows over time.
By 2025 -- the end year in Obama's Paris pledge -- the CLC tax could result in energy sector emissions that are 34-36 percent below 2005 levels. Using “conservative” estimates of non-energy sector emissions, Hafstead finds that reduction would be more than enough to meet the Obama target.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/amid-renewed-carbon-tax-push-wri-offers-emissions-certainty-options

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Republicans Say EPA Being 'Unfair' with Ozone Rule Compliance

Jun 22, 2018 | E&E Daily

By Sean Reilly

EPA is failing to fully account for pollution from Mexico and other countries in making compliance decisions for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard, Republican lawmakers charged at a hearing yesterday.
"Simply slapping a 'nonattainment designation' on areas where ozone emissions are not even originating is both unfair and devastating to business in the state," Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Environment, said in his opening statement.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the full committee's chairman, voiced hope that a recently announced overhaul of EPA's process for settling air quality standards might furnish states a fairer shake. "Geographic areas should not be held accountable for emissions they cannot control," he said.
Both lawmakers had home-state witnesses on hand to buttress that case; their arguments harkened back to those made three years ago as EPA was preparing set the 70-parts-per-billion standard. Agency critics contended that in some areas, high levels of "background ozone" stemming from foreign countries and other sources would make compliance effectively impossible (E&E Daily, March 18, 2015).
Committee Democrats again dismissed those arguments yesterday. EPA has determined that background ozone contributes "only fractionally" to concentrations above the 70 ppb standard, said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), the subcommittee's ranking member. Any calculation of the economic impact of the tighter standard should also factor in health benefits valued as billions of dollars, added Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, the full committee's top Democrat.
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is spawned by the reaction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in sunshine. It is linked to asthma attacks in children and worsened breathing problems in people with cystic fibrosis and other chronic respiratory diseases. In lowering the standard from 75 to 70 ppb, EPA cited the Clean Air Act's mandate to protect the public in light of mounting research on ozone's health effects.
Yesterday's hearing came as the agency is almost done with the initial round of attainment designations. Under a court-ordered timetable, the only area awaiting a decision is the eight-county region in and around San Antonio. That area includes Smith's district. State and local leaders have been tussling with EPA in hopes of fending off a nonattainment designation.
The area, among the fastest growing in the U.S., nonetheless reduced its ozone level by 20 percent from 2004 to 2016, said Diane Rath, executive director of the Alamo Area Council of Governments. More than one-third of the remainder is now attributable to international sources, Rath said. She urged EPA to take advantage of flexibility in the Clean Air Act to consider the impact of "all foreign transport on a region."
A final decision is due July 17. "We're praying," Rath said in an interview after the hearing, adding that she's hopeful EPA will settle on an "unclassifiable" designation.
But Elena Craft, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, said that most parts of the country, including San Antonio, are expected to be in attainment by 2025 because of Obama-era pollution regulations on cars and power plants. Despite some compliance challenges for isolated areas in the West, Craft said, "we should be more concerned with the current administration's egregious attack on policies that will deliver tens of thousands of tons of emission reductions."
Under the Clean Air Act, EPA already has the ability to cut states some slack for problems caused by foreign emissions or wildfires and other "exceptional events" outside regulators' control.
But for Yuma County, Ariz., recently deemed in nonattainment for the 70 ppb standard, the only option for relief is a "demonstration" showing the impact of international emissions, said Timothy Franquist, the state's air quality chief. But that can't be undertaken for three more years, Franquist said, while the latest EPA model shows that more than 80 percent of the ozone over southern Arizona is attributable to sources from abroad.
Yuma County, a largely rural area in the state's southwestern corner, "will remain in perpetual nonattainment until international emissions" fall to the point that the area can meet the 70 ppb threshold, Franquist said. While Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) last month introduced S. 2825, geared in part to speed up EPA's handling of compliance issues related to foreign emissions, the bill has little chance of passing in the final six months of the 115th Congress.
Also last month, however, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt laid out five "back-to-basics" principles to guide future reviews of the air quality standards for particulate matter, ozone and four other common pollutants (Greenwire, May 10). One factor that EPA and an advisory panel can examine is the impact of "international transport" on states' ability to meet a particular standard, according to Pruitt's memo.
Pruitt also set a target of completing the next review of the national ozone standard by 2020. Yesterday, Smith said he was hopeful the result will be that "all relevant data is considered in implementation, including natural and international ozone."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/06/22/stories/1060086071

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Trump Is Out of Touch and Control in Climate Fight, Canada Says

Jun 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ewa Krukowska and Jonathan Stearns

Canada has an environmental message for Donald Trump: You can’t stop the global campaign against climate change, and you will hurt the U.S. by abandoning the battle.
Canadian Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna said countries around the world are forging ahead with measures to reduce greenhouse gases, unfazed by Trump’s planned withdrawal from a landmark United Nations deal to counter global warming. Canada, the European Union and China are leading the charge, which will bring businesses big rewards, she said.
“I hate to say this, but I don’t want to overestimate the importance of the U.S.,” McKenna said in an interview June 21 in Brussels, where she attended a gathering with her EU and Chinese counterparts. “The world is moving forward because we need to do that for our kids and there’s a huge economic opportunity.”
The U.S. turn inward under Trump and his upending of American foreign policies ranging from trade to security have left the rest of the world rushing to fill a void and create new alliances.
A central part of this effort aims to preserve the landmark UN agreement reached in Paris in 2015 on limiting gases blamed for more frequent heat waves, storms and floods. The premise, rejected by the Trump administration, is that the accord is good for both the earth and the economy.
“We’re just going to continue marching on,” McKenna said. “There are other voices that want to say ’forget it, if the U.S. pulls out it’s all going to fall apart,’ and I think we demonstrated quite clearly that’s not the case.”
In their climate leadership pact, Canada, the EU and China are focused on ensuring that envoys from more than 190 countries reach an agreement on detailed rules to enact the Paris accord. The next key meeting will be held in Poland in December.
“Every country is now stepping up and saying what they’re going to do, but you need the engine of the Paris Agreement,” McKenna said. “It’s extremely important and business needs to see that.”
China, the EU and Canada together accounted for 40 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, in 2017, according to the latest BP Plc statistical review. China, the top polluter, had a 28 percent share of worldwide discharges, followed by the U.S. with 15 percent.
While Trump is depriving the U.S. of a climate leadership role at the federal level, other American actors are helping to ensure the country doesn’t miss out altogether on the worldwide shift to cleaner energy, according to McKenna.
“When the president said he was pulling out of the Paris Agreement, you saw U.S. business leaders step up, U.S. governors, cities step up. And citizens,” she said. “Is it sad and unfortunate that the U.S. is not there? Sure, but we can still do it. No one country can stop progress.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/trump-is-out-of-touch-and-control-in-climate-fight-canada-says

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Border Air Pollution May Drive a Texas City Out of Compliance (1)

Jun 22, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Amena H. Saiyid

San Antonio is in a bind.
The Texas city doesn’t know whether it is meeting the nation’s ozone standards and doesn’t know what it can to do avoid a nonattainment label, which local officials said comes from smog-forming pollutants across the border.
Diane Rath—executive director for the Alamo Area Council of Governments, which includes San Antonio—told the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Environment June 21 that she is worried about how the Environmental Protection Agency will designate the region, which remains unclassified for meeting the national standard. Non-compliance means that additional pollution controls must be placed on cars and factories.
Instead of enforcing what he termed “unreasonable mandates,” Subcommittee Chairman Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said, the states and EPA should instead work together to determine the amount of human-caused emissions versus natural and international emissions in any given area.
“It makes absolutely no sense to force an area within the U.S. to try to compensate for emissions caused by other countries,” he said.
Biggs refused to comment when asked whether he would consider a legislative fix. But a committee aide told Bloomberg Environment that Biggs and Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) are considering options based on the issues raised during the hearing.
Ground-Level Ozone
The hearing examined the extent to which background levels of ozone—which include natural sources such as wildfires and cross-border pollution from Mexico and even Asia—are driving localities in Texas and Arizona out of compliance.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in a May 9 memo directed the agency to consider the contribution of natural and anthropogenic sources in contributing to violations of the ozone standard, saying prior assessments have always not been as clear in how background ozone levels from natural sources might affect the ability of localities to meet national air quality standards.
Ground-level ozone forms when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds—both air pollutants formed when fossil fuels are burned either in stationary or mobile engines or power plants—react in the presence of sunlight. Even at low levels, ozone can cause respiratory problems, especially in children, people with asthma, and older adults.
Rath said the city’s modeling data show that that 79.5 percent of ozone on moderate or bad days was caused by smog-forming emissions from both domestic and international sources transported to the San Antonio region from elsewhere, while the rest—or 12.86 parts per billion—is due to local city sources.
Rath added that about 38.4 percent—or just over 24 ppb—is coming from international sources. Texas cities account for 16.1 percent, while 25 percent is arising from Northern Mexico, Southern Canada, and other U.S. states.
This worries Rath, because the Environmental Protection Agency has told Texas it won’t decide till July 17 whether the eight counties surrounding San Antonio are meeting the 2015 ozone standard of 70 parts per billion.
“The regulatory burden and economic consequences of a nonattainment designation can be devastating to a region when the region is not able to impact the ozone level by its own actions,” Rath said.
New Controls, No New Business
For the San Antonio region—which is experiencing high growth—one concern is the potential for delayed transportation projects that use federal funds, Rath said.
“We already are struggling with traffic and we can’t afford to have any more delays,” she said. While EPA can hold up highway funding for air standard noncompliance, it is considered an extreme option and to date the agency has yet to hold up highway funds for any area.
On May 1, EPA designated 51 areas—including several cities in Texas, Houston among them—to be in nonattainment with the 2015 standard. Such a designation means local air agencies need to control pollution from sources including coal-fired power plants, factories, and vehicles. They need to find ways to offset emissions from large industrial sources to meet the standards.
State officials say this drives away prospective businesses by increasing compliance costs.
Rath said the city currently is in compliance with the 2008 national ozone standard of 75 parts per billion, but marginally below the current standard, and expects to be in compliance with the 2015 standard by 2020 despite of the fact that it is receiving more than a third of its smog-forming pollution from international sources of pollution.
However, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), the committee’s ranking Democrat, pointed out that Texas gets plenty of cross-border pollution not just from Mexico, but also from Louisiana and other states, but “we probably send a little air pollution to the East as well.”
Driving Away Business
Like Rath, Timothy Franquist—air quality director for the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality—also warned the congressional panel that rural cities like Yuma, which calls itself the winter lettuce capital of the world, could face hardships because of nonattainment status. He said Arizona’s modeling showed international emissions coming not just from Mexico but from as far away as Asia.
He added that the city is not a heavy industrial or urban area and therefore, does not generate the requisite emissions offsets, which “ultimately will drive businesses away.” That assertion did not sit well with Biggs, who termed it both “both unfair and devastating to business in the state.”
Scientists testifying before the panel, however, said the proportion of domestic versus international smog-forming pollutants is not well understood.
Because of controls placed across the country, domestic sources of ozone are trending down with an ever-increasing contribution from outside sources that can’t be controlled, Gregory Stella, a senior scientist with Alpine Geophysics LLC in Burnsville, N.C., told the committee.
“Whether these are from international anthropogenic sources or natural sources, it is not known,” he added, underscoring the need for further study to determine the relative contributions of ozone.
(Updated with additional background on EPA policy, congressional testimony, and science on tracking cross-border pollutants.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/border-air-pollution-may-drive-a-texas-city-out-of-compliance-1

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Thirty Years On, How Well Do Global Warming Predictions Stand Up?

Jun 21, 2018 | Wall Street Journal

By Pat Michaels and Ryan Maue

James E. Hansen wiped sweat from his brow. Outside it was a record-high 98 degrees on June 23, 1988, as the NASA scientist testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources during a prolonged heat wave, which he decided to cast as a climate event of cosmic significance. He expressed to the senators his “high degree of confidence” in “a cause-and-effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming.”
With that testimony and an accompanying paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Mr. Hansen lit the bonfire of the greenhouse vanities, igniting a world-wide debate that continues today about the energy structure of the entire planet. President Obama’s environmental policies were predicated on similar models of rapid, high-cost warming. But the 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen’s predictions affords an opportunity to see how well his forecasts have done—and to reconsider environmental policy accordingly.
Mr. Hansen’s testimony described three possible scenarios for the future of carbon dioxide emissions. He called Scenario A “business as usual,” as it maintained the accelerating emissions growth typical of the 1970s and ’80s. This scenario predicted the earth would warm 1 degree Celsius by 2018. Scenario B set emissions lower, rising at the same rate today as in 1988. Mr. Hansen called this outcome the “most plausible,” and predicted it would lead to about 0.7 degree of warming by this year. He added a final projection, Scenario C, which he deemed highly unlikely: constant emissions beginning in 2000. In that forecast, temperatures would rise a few tenths of a degree before flatlining after 2000.
Thirty years of data have been collected since Mr. Hansen outlined his scenarios—enough to determine which was closest to reality. And the winner is Scenario C. Global surface temperature has not increased significantly since 2000, discounting the larger-than-usual El Niño of 2015-16. Assessed by Mr. Hansen’s model, surface temperatures are behaving as if we had capped 18 years ago the carbon-dioxide emissions responsible for the enhanced greenhouse effect. But we didn’t. And it isn’t just Mr. Hansen who got it wrong. Models devised by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have, on average, predicted about twice as much warming as has been observed since global satellite temperature monitoring began 40 years ago.
What about Mr. Hansen’s other claims? Outside the warming models, his only explicit claim in the testimony was that the late ’80s and ’90s would see “greater than average warming in the southeast U.S. and the Midwest.” No such spike has been measured in these regions.
As observed temperatures diverged over the years from his predictions, Mr. Hansen doubled down. In a 2007 case on auto emissions, he stated in his deposition that most of Greenland’s ice would soon melt, raising sea levels 23 feet over the course of 100 years. Subsequent research published in Nature magazine on the history of Greenland’s ice cap demonstrated this to be impossible. Much of Greenland’s surface melts every summer, meaning rapid melting might reasonably be expected to occur in a dramatically warming world. But not in the one we live in. The Nature study found only modest ice loss after 6,000 years of much warmer temperatures than human activity could ever sustain.
Several more of Mr. Hansen’s predictions can now be judged by history. Have hurricanes gotten stronger, as Mr. Hansen predicted in a 2016 study? No. Satellite data from 1970 onward shows no evidence of this in relation to global surface temperature. Have storms caused increasing amounts of damage in the U.S.? Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show no such increase in damage, measured as a percentage of gross domestic product. How about stronger tornadoes? The opposite may be true, as NOAA data offers some evidence of a decline. The list of what didn’t happen is long and tedious.
The problem with Mr. Hansen’s models—and the U.N.’s—is that they don’t consider more-precise measures of how aerosol emissions counter warming caused by greenhouse gases. Several newer climate models account for this trend and routinely project about half the warming predicted by U.N. models, placing their numbers much closer to observed temperatures. The most recent of these was published in April by Nic Lewis and Judith Curry in the Journal of Climate, a reliably mainstream journal.
These corrected climate predictions raise a crucial question: Why should people world-wide pay drastic costs to cut emissions when the global temperature is acting as if those cuts have already been made?
On the 30th anniversary of Mr. Hansen’s galvanizing testimony, it’s time to acknowledge that the rapid warming he predicted isn’t happening. Climate researchers and policy makers should adopt the more modest forecasts that are consistent with observed temperatures.
That would be a lukewarm policy, consistent with a lukewarming planet.
Mr. Michaels is director and Mr. Maue an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute’s Center for the Study of Science.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/thirty-years-on-how-well-do-global-warming-predictions-stand-up-1529623442?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

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