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AM ACC Clips Report - June 27, 2018
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(ACC Mentioned) ATA Among Groups Supporting Sen. Bob Corker’s Bill to Examine Tariffs
Jun 27, 2018 | Transport Topics
American Trucking Associations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers are among nearly five dozen transportation and business groups supporting a U.S. Senate bill that would require Congress to authorize the president’s tariffs based on national security concerns. -
EPA's TSCA Rule Rejects States' Call To Harmonize Mercury Reporting
Jun 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA's final Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rule governing an inventory of mercury supply, use and trade exempts data that has already been reported to an existing state-run database, rejecting calls from 13 states that had sought to either scrap the waiver or harmonize state and federal reporting to ensure a comprehensive national database. -
EPA Issues Guidance on Creating Generic Names for Confidential Chemical Substance Identity Reporting under TSCA
Jun 26, 2018 | The National Law Review
By Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.
On June 21, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued guidance intended to “assist companies in creating structurally descriptive chemical names for chemical substances whose specific chemical identities are claimed confidential, for purposes of protecting the specific chemical identities from disclosure while describing the chemical substances as specifically as practicable, and for listing substances on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory.” -
ACSH Explains: What's The Story On Methylene Chloride (DCM)?
Jun 26, 2018 | American Council on Science and Health
By Michael L. Dourson
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and was signed into law June 22, 2016. It created a mandatory requirement for EPA to evaluate existing chemicals with clear and enforceable deadlines, to do so in a transparent fashion, and to do so using risk-based chemical assessments rather than rely on simple epidemiological correlations. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Gets An Earful On Chemical Contamination
Jun 26, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
Andrea Amico agonized over where to send her children to daycare, but only after they had been attending the facility on a former Air Force base near here for years did she learn they had been drinking toxic water the whole time. -
IRIS Staff Weigh Dual Modeling Approaches For Chromium Cancer Risk
Jun 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA staff are considering presenting both a linear and a non-linear modeling approach for its upcoming revised assessment of the cancer risks of hexavalent chromium (Cr6), an approach that if adopted would mark a win for industry officials who have long sought to provide regulators with such a range of values rather than a single estimate generated by the conservative linear approach. -
States Press EPA to Do More on Fluorochemical Risks
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Aaron Nicodemus
The EPA should classify toxic fluorochemicals contaminating drinking water as hazardous wastes or use its authority under the nation’s chemicals law to demand more health information on the substances, states said. -
Children Not Mentioned in EPA Evaluation of Persistent Chemicals
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
Health groups are raising concerns that children and other vulnerable populations are being excluded from the EPA’s plans to regulate five of the most problematic chemicals in commerce. -
EPA Critic Praises Science Rule For Ending Strict Default Risk Approach
Jun 26, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A toxicology professor and longtime critic of EPA and other federal agencies' conservative default approach to assessing human health risks is praising the agency's science rule for seeking to end its default use of so-called linear dose-response modeling, which assumes no safe level of exposure. -
EPA Reiterates Call To Address PFAS As Chemical Class
Jun 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA Region I Administrator Alexandra Dunn is reiterating the agency's interest in treating perfluorinated chemicals found in drinking water systems across the country as a “class of compounds,” rather than individually, even as officials continue to address the substances individually. -
Lowe’s, Sherwin-Williams, Home Depot Do the Right Thing
Jun 26, 2018 | Natural Resources Defense Council
By Shelley Poticha
Three American companies have moved to protect people’s lives from a deadly chemical that the federal government has so far refused to ban from store shelves – a major victory in the fight to stop the dismantling of protections against toxic substances in our workplaces, homes and lives. -
Natural Gas Boom Is All About China and the U.S., IEA Says
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Shiryaevskaya and Mathew Carr
Prospects seem bright for natural gas as Chinese consumption soars, and the U.S. pumps record amounts of the world’s fastest-growing fossil fuel. -
China Trade Spat Puts Billions in U.S. Energy Projects in Doubt
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
China Energy Investment Corp. pledged almost $84 billion in shale gas and chemical manufacturing projects across West Virginia after President Donald Trump’s trade mission to Beijing in November. -
U.S. Seeks To Export Its 'Energy Miracle' Even As Trade Tensions Mount
Jun 27, 2018 | Reuters
By Ernest Scheyder and Scott DiSavino
The administration of President Donald Trump wants to help allies replicate the U.S. natural gas and oil production boom by exporting American know-how, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Tuesday, even as trade disputes intensified. -
Sempra Official Says LNG Review Delays Jeopardize Agreements (1)
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
Delays in the review of liquefied natural gas export applications at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission jeopardize international trading partner agreements, Dennis Arriola, Sempra Energy’s chief strategy officer, said June 26. -
Trump Power Plan Could Create ‘Uncertainty': BP Energy CEO
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
The Trump administration’s plan to “bail out” unprofitable coal and nuclear power plants is an example of “regulatory uncertainty,” BP Energy CEO Orlando A. Alvarez said June 26. -
Lawmakers Take Energy Victory Lap
Jun 27, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sam Mintz
Members of Congress cheered the country's increasingly prominent role in global energy markets yesterday, as across town thousands of government officials and gas industry executives from around the world gathered to recognize the same. -
Cybersecurity Nominee Gets Strong Support in Senate Energy Panel
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
Energy Department inspector general, cybersecurity and Office of Science nominees get warm Senate reception -
EPA, Industry Hijacked Court to Put Off Carbon Limits, Judges Say
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
A trio of federal appellate court judges has had enough: If the EPA wants to keep Obama-era power sector carbon limits on ice, it can do so using its own authority, not the court’s. -
Petroleum Sector Pushes EPA for Air Pollution Permitting Changes (1)
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The petroleum industry doesn’t want to be saddled with unnecessary, costly controls for pollution coming from refineries and oil and gas drilling in areas that meet national air quality standards, but that have little or no public access. -
Oil & Gas Climate Fund Piques U.S. Interest But Not Public Support
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The billion-dollar climate investment fund of 10 global oil and gas giants will enhance mitigation efforts by individual companies, the fund’s CEO said, but the initiative still lacks participation from U.S. companies. -
US Judge Throws Out Climate Change Lawsuits Against Big Oil
Jun 27, 2018 | AP
By Sudhin Thanawala
A U.S. judge who held a hearing about climate change that received widespread attention ruled Monday that Congress and the president were best suited to address the contribution of fossil fuels to global warming, throwing out lawsuits that sought to hold big oil companies liable for the Earth’s changing environment.
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(ACC Mentioned) ATA Among Groups Supporting Sen. Bob Corker’s Bill to Examine Tariffs
Jun 27, 2018 | Transport Topics
American Trucking Associations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers are among nearly five dozen transportation and business groups supporting a U.S. Senate bill that would require Congress to authorize the president’s tariffs based on national security concerns.
The legislation, introduced recently by Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker and backed by a dozen colleagues, is in response to President Donald Trump’s national security argument used to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum.
The lawmakers warn companies in their states may relocate their operations. This week, for instance, Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson indicated it would transfer certain production overseas because of cost increases stemming from retaliatory tariffs. Trump was quick to criticize the motorcycle company’s decision.
The transportation and business groups argue the new tariffs may hinder commerce long term, and they also are sounding the alarm over the administration’s indication it might impose tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts. The president has called on the Commerce Department to determine whether light trucks, as well as auto parts, classify as a national security threat under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act.
“Approximately $350 billion of imports would be affected, and retaliation on the same order would be expected,” the groups wrote to the Senate June 26. “The U.S. auto industry — the nation’s largest manufacturing sector — and many downstream industries would be profoundly harmed by this action, as would sectors such as agriculture and chemical manufacturing that would be targeted in retaliation.”
The Business Roundtable, the Plastics Industry Association, the American Chemistry Council, the American Petroleum Institute, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, Transportation Intermediaries Association, and a significant number of local chambers of commerce also signed the letter.
Corker continues to criticize the administration’s move. On CBS on June 24, Corker said, “It’s absolutely an abuse of [Trump’s] authority. It’s being used against our European allies, Canada, Mexico and many other countries.”
During a hearing of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee on June 20, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said he wished Trump “would stop invoking national security ’cause that’s not what this is about. This is about economic nationalism and an economic policy of managing trade.” Toomey is a sponsor of the Corker bill.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross defended the tariffs at the June 20 hearing. Asked about the concerns lawmakers raised, Ross told CNBC the following day, “I do think some of the things are a little bit exaggerated.”
Through executive orders, Trump directed the department to examine steel and aluminum imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. The department justified the national security argument resulting in Canada and the European Union being levied tariffs of 25% on imported steel and 10% on imported aluminum.
The EU retaliated by imposing its own tariffs. Canada intends to do likewise later this summer.
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EPA's TSCA Rule Rejects States' Call To Harmonize Mercury Reporting
Jun 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA's final Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rule governing an inventory of mercury supply, use and trade exempts data that has already been reported to an existing state-run database, rejecting calls from 13 states that had sought to either scrap the waiver or harmonize state and federal reporting to ensure a comprehensive national database.
EPA's June 22 final rule “Reporting Requirements for the TSCA Mercury Inventory,” says that even though there is a “non-alignment” of data in existing state and federal programs, the agency believes it can still create a “totality of available data” to adequately monitor mercury trends.
Once implemented, the rule, one of a series of actions required on the two-year anniversary of the 2016 law, will help create an inventory that will inform future agency actions to reduce use of mercury in commerce.
EPA plans to publish the rule in the Federal Register June 27, triggering a 60-day time frame for challenging the measure in federal appeals court. The rule will become effective 60 days from the rule's publication in the Register.
In January comments on a proposed version, states that run the Interstate Mercury Education and Reduction Clearinghouse (IMERC), a project of the Northeast Waste Management Officials Association (NEWMOA), argued that proposed exemptions for companies that already report to IMERC and under EPA's own Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule could lead to incomplete data given differences in state and federal reporting deadlines.
But in the final rule, EPA rejected IMERC's call to narrow the reporting exemptions, arguing that TSCA requires the agency to minimize duplicative reporting and to coordinate with the state-run inventory.
EPA says those coordination efforts should ensure that a future federal mercury inventory is based on sufficient data.
“Because EPA is able to obtain comparable data via EPA's CDR program or in coordination with IMERC, the Agency finds not requiring the reporting of overlapping reporting to the mercury inventory to be a feasible approach,” the agency says in the rule.
“[W]hile recognizing that there is a non-alignment of CDR and IMERC reporting years, the Agency believes supplementing data reported through this rule with data from CDR and IMERC creates a totality of available data that will provide an adequate basis to observe long-term trends in mercury, supply, use, and trade,” the rule adds.
In rejecting the states' request to harmonize reporting deadlines, EPA notes that TSCA requires that EPA publish the mercury inventory on a cycle that falls on IMERC's deadline for submitting data.
EPA's rule under TSCA section 8(b)(10)(D) requires reporting from manufacturers of mercury or mercury-added products to support an inventory of mercury supply, use and trade in the United States. While EPA says that the inventory will inform regulation to further reduce mercury use, the rule does not propose any such steps now.
The rule is also intended to help the United States comply with its international obligations to regulate mercury under the United Nations' Minamata Convention on Mercury, signed by the Obama administration. The treaty took effect last August.
States' Petition
The inventory and reporting requirements were included in the TSCA reform law after EPA in 2015 rejected a petition from environmentalists and some states urging the agency to collect information about uses of mercury produced, imported, or used in the United States.
Petitioners included NEWMOA, which manages IMERC, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
In comments on the Oct. 26 proposed rule, the 13 states that operate IMERC opposed exempting data already reported to states from the EPA rule, arguing that differences in the agency's and IMERC's reporting cycles would prevent collection of adequate data to support an accurate national mercury database.
States suggested several alternatives, including removing the exemption for companies that already report to IMERC, changing IMERC's reporting schedule, or changing EPA's schedule.
But in the final rule EPA clarifies that data submitted to IMERC or under EPA's own CDR are exempt under the new rule, and declines to alter reporting dates. “EPA understands the interest in aligning with IMERC's submission deadline,” the agency says. “However, the statutorily mandated publication date for the mercury inventory was April 1, 2017 and every three years thereafter, which falls on IMERC's data submission date,” the rule says.
“EPA has a legal responsibility to publish on or before the date set forth in TSCA section 8(b)(10)(B), which means that EPA must publish the inventory on or before the day IMERC reporters must submit data to IMERC.”
EPA also rejected an IMERC request not to exempt from reporting manufacturers and importers of mercury-added products where the only source of mercury is a component within a larger product. IMERC said the exemption conflicts with laws in several states that require reporting for all mercury-added products and components.
“The Agency views the inclusion of a mercury-added product that is a component within an assembled product differently for the act of intentionally inserting mercury (i.e. chemical substance) into the component itself,” EPA says in the final rule. “As a result, the Agency is not requiring information to be reported on the manufacture (including import) of assembled products that include a component that is a mercury-added product.”
IMERC's members are Connecticut, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epas-tsca-rule-rejects-states-call-harmonize-mercury-reporting
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Jun 26, 2018 | The National Law Review
By Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.
On June 21, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued guidance intended to “assist companies in creating structurally descriptive chemical names for chemical substances whose specific chemical identities are claimed confidential, for purposes of protecting the specific chemical identities from disclosure while describing the chemical substances as specifically as practicable, and for listing substances on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory.”
EPA states that the guidance, entitled Guidance for Creating Generic Names for Confidential Chemical Substance Identity Reporting under the Toxic Substances Control Act, was developed in response to the requirement under new TSCA Section 14(c)(4) that EPA “develop guidance regarding – (A) the determination of structurally descriptive generic names, in the case of claims for the protection from disclosure of specific chemical identity…” and the requirement under new TSCA Section 14(c)(1)(C) that submitters who assert a confidentiality claim for a specific chemical identity must include a structurally descriptive generic name developed consistent with EPA guidance. The guidance updates and replaces the 1985 guidance published in the TSCA Inventory, 1985 Edition (Appendix B: “Generic names for Confidential Chemical Substance Identities”). EPA states that, also consistent with 14(c)(4) and 14(c)(1)(C), EPA will be reviewing generic names upon receipt in TSCA filings where chemical identity is claimed as confidential for consistency with the guidance. EPA encourages companies to consult the Agency’s Office of Pollution, Prevention, and Toxics (OPPT) if they feel that it will be necessary to mask more than one structural element of a specific chemical name to mask a confidential chemical identity.
In contrast to the 1985 guidance, which distinguished only between constructing generic names for class I and class II chemical substances, the new guidance specifically distinguishes between inorganic chemical substances, class I organic chemical substances, and class II organic chemical substances. Suggestions and examples for masking elements of inorganic substances are detailed in a separate section from the guidance for class I and class II organic chemical substances. The new guidance also specifically refers to Unknown or Variable composition, Complex reaction products and Biological materials (UVCB) substances when addressing class II organic chemicals, unlike the 1985 guidance. In addition, the new guidance lists an additional structural element of a class I organic chemical substance that can be masked when creating a generic name: stereochemical or isomeric identifiers. Other, minor, additions include more detail on the generic descriptors that can be used to mask a parent structure describing a specific chemical class or an attached chemical group for a class I organic chemical substance, more examples of generic names for a class I organic chemical substance, and many more examples of generic names for a class II organic chemical substance. Commentary
The requirement under Section 14 of new TSCA that generic names be structurally descriptive does not constitute a substantive shift away from previous EPA guidance on generic names. The 1985 guidance illustrates generic names as being crafted by masking a single structural feature of the specific substance name. Masking multiple structural features, which may cause a chemical name to no longer be structurally descriptive, is permitted only if the submitter justifies the need in writing for the additional masking.
Similarly, the new guidance focuses on generic names that mask a single structural feature only and encourages companies to consult OPPT if they wish to do multiple masking of a generic name. The major difference between the two appears to be not the type of generic name that EPA advises submitters provide, but the strictness with which EPA determines what constitutes an acceptable generic name. The many new examples provided for class II organic chemical substances, in particular UVCBs, and inorganic substances, suggest that these chemical classes in particular are ones for which EPA will be expecting more specific generic names than those submitted according to the 1985 guidance. Additionally, EPA’s specific identification of stereochemical or isomeric identifiers as a structural feature that can be masked suggests that, while EPA may previously have allowed the masking of stereochemistry along with the masking of an additional structural feature without requiring additional justification (i.e., without considering it to be multiple masking), this will no longer be the case going forward.
EPA’s new approach is perhaps best summed up by the guidance that submitters should begin with the substance’s specific name and mask only the elements that are confidential rather than starting with a very generic name and adding structural information. If more than one level of masking is necessary, written justification will be required.
Submitters should expect significant scrutiny of generic names and may find premanufacture notifications (PMN) being rejected as invalid if the generic names are too generic.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-issues-guidance-creating-generic-names-confidential-chemical-substance-identity
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ACSH Explains: What's The Story On Methylene Chloride (DCM)?
Jun 26, 2018 | American Council on Science and Health
By Michael L. Dourson
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and was signed into law June 22, 2016. It created a mandatory requirement for EPA to evaluate existing chemicals with clear and enforceable deadlines, to do so in a transparent fashion, and to do so using risk-based chemical assessments rather than rely on simple epidemiological correlations.
EPA selected the first 10 chemicals to undergo risk evaluation under the amended TSCA and to make those understandable for the public, the American Council on Science and Health is producing risk-based evaluations of each, which will then be compiled into a free downloadable book for consumers.
What is Dichloromethane (DCM)?
Methylene chloride, also known as dichloromethane (DCM), is a colorless liquid with a mild, sweet odor which evaporates easily but does not readily burn. It is widely used as an industrial solvent and as a paint stripper and can be found in certain aerosol and pesticide products and may also be found in some spray paints, automotive cleaners, and other household products. Methylene chloride is also used in the manufacture of photographic film. It is made from methane gas or wood alcohol, it does not occur naturally in the environment.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/06/26/acsh-explains-whats-story-methylene-chloride-dcm-13122
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Gets An Earful On Chemical Contamination
Jun 26, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
EXETER, N.H. — Andrea Amico agonized over where to send her children to daycare, but only after they had been attending the facility on a former Air Force base near here for years did she learn they had been drinking toxic water the whole time.
Amico was one of roughly 50 residents who urged EPA officials this week to do more to crack down on the chemicals that have leeched into groundwater from industrial facilities, Superfund sites and military installations like the former Pease Air Force Base, where the perfluorinated chemical contamination that affected Amico’s children was discovered in 2014. Hundreds of people in the audience for EPA’s first community meeting on the subject were brimming with frustration and impatience with the federal government’s plodding response to the water contamination crisis as the meeting’s first day extended an hour past its scheduled 10 p.m. cutoff Monday.
"I live with guilt every single day," Amico told federal regulators at the public meeting, recalling when she learned the water at her children’s daycare at one point contained 35 times as much of the chemicals as EPA says is safe.
The two-day meeting in a high school auditorium, 15 miles from the former base, was EPA’s first major effort to build trust with communities affected by widespread contamination from nonstick chemicals called PFAS, which Administrator Scott Pruitt has named a top priority. Already frustrated by the government’s slow response, many residents’ trust was shattered after POLITICO reported that the Trump administration sought to block a key health study on the chemicals and EPA blocked all but one community activist from attending leadership summit in Washington last month.
An advocacy group Amico helped launch convinced state regulators to test the blood of thousands of people who spend their days at the industrial park built where Pease once stood, tests that have shown elevated levels of the chemicals in both children and adults. Amico said her pediatrician can’t tell her much about what those results will mean to her children’s future, but every time her 5- or 7-year-old get sick, she wonders: Was it because of the toxic water they drank? She says she has no idea how she will someday tell them about their poisoning.
“I am asking tonight that EPA not give these chemicals the benefit of the doubt; instead, please give public health the benefit of the doubt,” Amico pleaded to the federal officials here.
The Trump administration’s delayed release of the HHS study increasing warnings about the chemicals demonstrated the “lack of transparency from government agencies” that made residents distrustful of them, Amico said. “It doesn’t foster a good feeling to community members when it feels like our government is holding things back from us, especially critical information that could impact public health and impact a huge issue that we’re all facing,” she said. “Transparency is huge.”
Pruitt’s emissary to this week’s meeting, New England Regional Administrator Alex Dunn, emphasized that agency officials had arrived with open ears.
“We are here to listen,” Dunn said opening the meeting Monday evening. “Your voices will not only be heard at the EPA New England regional level, but at the national level."
Pruitt has vowed to act on the chemicals, including deciding whether they warrant regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Superfund law. But so far, the administrator’s handling of chemicals has largely trended away from strict regulation. After Pruitt tapped a former top industry official to lead EPA’s chemical safety office, the agency has taken controversial, industry-backed interpretations of a major new toxic chemicals law that could be key in dealing with PFAS. And just last week EPA opted not to issue a new spill prevention rule that the agency began work on in the wake of a massive chemical spill in West Virginia in 2014.
Many activists are skeptical that Pruitt will follow through on his promises given what they see as efforts to undermine key environmental laws and roll back major regulations.
“You can’t regulate based on something whose foundations are being actively dismantled,” said Kristen Mello, a community activist from Westfield, Mass., where the chemicals have entered the water supply from a nearby National Guard base.
The public meeting drew residents from New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine who repeatedly expressed frustration with the sparse and conflicting information about the dangers of the chemicals, concerns about the costs of treating contaminated drinking water and who will pay for it — and, above all, a call for swift and aggressive action to limits the chemicals’ use and clean up water supplies.
"The trend line seems clear to me: every new report lowers the level," said David Bond, a resident of Bennington, Vt., and professor at Bennington College who has led local work on the chemicals. "This is unacceptable. If the trend line is clear, let's just cut through the nonsense," he said to applause from the crowd.
And while many residents say Pruitt has laid out the right first steps, there are already signals that they may be disappointed in the end.
Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the agency must first decide whether a contaminant is widespread and dangerous enough to warrant regulation — a decision that’s not a foregone conclusion, even with the two most well-understood chemicals the agency is considering, PFOA and PFOS. If the answer is yes, then EPA must set a regulation based not just on health protection, but also on the costs and feasibility of requiring drinking water utilities to filter their water to that level.
State officials say there’s a good chance that once the burden on utilities is considered, the legal limit would be set higher than EPA’s health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion. Leading community groups like Amico’s, meanwhile, are calling for a 1 part per trillion limit. The HHS study, which the Trump administration finally released last week, said exposure at levels above 12 parts per trillion in drinking water could pose health risks to vulnerable populations.
Moreover, a large swath of New England residents wouldn’t even be covered by a Safe Drinking Water Act limit, since the 1974 law doesn’t apply to private drinking wells. In Maine, more than half of the state’s population is on private wells, the state’s deputy environment protection commissioner said.
Another major point that residents and state officials emphasized was that the chemicals should be handled as a family, rather than one by one. While scientists and regulators know the most about the dangers of PFOA and PFOS, those are just two of thousands of PFAS chemicals, many of which are still in active use and about which little is known.
“If we continue to think about this PFAS compound by PFAS compound, we’ll never get there; we will spend thousands of years trying to figure this out,” said Peter Walke, deputy secretary of Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources. “We’ve got to figure out a way to think about this as a class.”
But that’s a move not likely to go over well with the chemicals industry. The American Chemistry Council has supported Pruitt’s plans to evaluate PFOA and PFOS, which are no longer manufactured in the U.S., but has argued that the substances companies replaced those chemicals with are safe, even though they are members of the same chemical family.
Peter Grevatt, the head of EPA’s groundwater and drinking water office who is spearheading the agency’s PFAS work, said EPA is considering the chemicals as a class for research purposes. But, he said, it is too soon to know whether that will translate into regulations.
“I would say it’s a stepwise process. We want to make sure that we understand the properties of these compounds before we launch into a regulatory process, at least in terms of looking at a class,” he told POLITICO ahead of the meeting. “Those are complex questions; we want to make sure we understand them well rather than just jumping into something.”
Although residents and state officials know that the federal process will take years, they argued that it is vital for EPA to take the lead, rather than leave action to the states. The different approaches taken by states just in New England have already caused consternation, as Vermont has set a drinking water standard for PFOA and PFOS that is less than a third of EPA’s recommended limit, which other states in the region are largely following.
And different approaches by the states in the past helped cause some of the region’s problems in the first place.
For years, residents of Bennington, Vt., complained about air pollution coming from the Chemical Fabrics Corp. facility, where Teflon-coated fiberglass fabrics used on sports facility domes were made. In the early 2000s, the state began probing the company for more information about its emissions. Soon thereafter, the company was purchased by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics and moved its headquarters across the border to Merrimack, N.H. That community is now also grappling with high levels of PFAS contamination.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/06/epa-gets-an-earful-on-chemical-contamination-653122
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IRIS Staff Weigh Dual Modeling Approaches For Chromium Cancer Risk
Jun 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA staff are considering presenting both a linear and a non-linear modeling approach for its upcoming revised assessment of the cancer risks of hexavalent chromium (Cr6), an approach that if adopted would mark a win for industry officials who have long sought to provide regulators with such a range of values rather than a single estimate generated by the conservative linear approach.
“We haven't yet determined if the oral cancer assessment will assume linearity or non-linearity at low doses for the final [Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)] value. This is something that we're still determining,” one of the assessment's chemical managers, Alan Sasso, said during a presentation to North Carolina's Science Advisory Board (SAB) at a June 18 meeting in Raleigh, NC.
“Regardless of what the final IRIS values are, we still may present both approaches in our assessment, that's linear and non-linear, just to provide insights into the uncertainties related to model choices. We haven't decided yet, but we may present both,” Sasso added.
Presenting a non-linear cancer risk model, even if alongside a linear model, would be a big win for industry and other regulated entities. They have long urged the agency to adopt such an approach, hoping to present regulators with a range of options and to underscore scientific uncertainty.
The question of how Cr6's cancer risk should be assessed was at the heart of EPA's decision to table its 2010 draft IRIS assessment of the chemical’s risks to human health.
EPA started re-assessing its 1998 Cr6 report following a landmark 2008 study from the National Toxicology Program (NTP) indicating for the first time that Cr6 could cause cancer when ingested in drinking water.
Previously, Cr6 had been recognized as a carcinogen only when inhaled.
In its previous draft, EPA used the default linear cancer modeling approach -- a strict method which assumes that there is no safe level of exposure -- to assess Cr6's cancer potency. The agency's 2005 cancer risk assessment guidelines direct risk assessors to use this linear default when it is unknown how, biologically, an environmental contaminant causes cancer, or if it does so through a mutagenic mode of action (MOA).
The strict assessment led industry groups to fund an extensive study into Cr6's MOA, and how the NTP study could have produced the results that it did.
The consultants eventually published a risk analysis based on the research program arguing that Cr6 had a non-mutagenic MOA and urging the agency to use non-linear modeling, producing a more lenient risk level than EPA's drinking water standard for total chromium, which includes both Cr6 and other forms of the compound.
EPA's draft assessment stalled because some members of the peer review panel that reviewed the draft urged the agency to delay its completion until industry's MOA research program completed its work.
Environmentalists decried their calls, arguing that several members of the panel had industry affiliations that should have removed them -- calls that eventually resulted in EPA updating its peer review handbook.
Different Approaches
EPA's consideration of both linear and non-linear approaches comes as some state officials are detailing different approaches for any assessment of CR6.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), for example, used the consultants' research to finalize its assessment of Cr6 in 2016.
The author of its assessment, Joseph Haney, reiterated to NCSAB June 18 his position that Cr6 is not mutagenic and should not be assessed using a strict linear approach.
“Without consideration of nonlinear [toxicokinetics] it appears at least to me that the simple application of a [slope factor] progressively overestimates target tissue dose and risk at progressively lower and more environmentally relevant doses,” Haney said. “The bottom line is that our detailed review of the available data indicates to us that a nonmutageinc MOA is best supported by the scientific evidence.”
But Alan Stern, a risk assessor with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), made the case for using a mutagenic MOA.
NJDEP has not adopted Stern' published risk estimate, but is instead waiting for EPA to publish its final number, though that could change, Stern said.
Stern followed EPA's approach in its 2010 draft assessment, concluding that Cr6 is mutagenic and using linear extrapolation for the cancer risk modeling.
Stern presented several arguments to back his view that Cr6 is mutagenic and thus linear modeling should be used, including “strong evidence” of mutagenicity in two studies as well as noting that in the NTP rat bioassay, the tumors in the rats' mouths “occurred without any obvious tissue damage, consistent with a mutagenic MOA.”
After EPA delayed the Cr6 assessment in 2011, leaders decided to update the assessment of Cr6's inhalation risks as well as the oral risks. Now, though, the assessment's other chemical manager, Catherine Gibbons, said the program has decided to focus its review of inhaled Cr6's effects to quantifying those risks after deciding that the chemical's general cancer risks are settled.
“What I can tell you . . . the assessment will include an evaluation of the evidence for cancer, as well as non-cancer effects for respiratory, gastrointestinal, hepatic, hematological, immunological, reproductive, developmental systems for oral and inhalation routes of exposure,” she said.
“We are also not planning to qualitatively re-evaluate whether [Cr6] is a carcinogen or nasal irritant when inhaled. It was decided that these are very well-understood effects of inhaled [Cr6]. So instead we will focus our energy on identifying data that may improve our quantitative dose-response analysis for cancer and nasal irritation when inhaled. We will also develop cancer and non-cancer values for the oral route of exposure.”
IRIS Changes
The decision is not surprising considering changes that the new leaders of the IRIS program are making. Tina Bahadori and Kris Thayer, who took the helm of IRIS in the waning days of the Obama EPA, are seeking to make the program more productive and responsive to agency partners by compartmentalizing chemical assessments that answer pressing questions rather than the broad reviews of all pathways and effects that have historically characterized the program's products.
They have also worked to fully deploy systematic review approaches in the program, with the goal of strengthening the assessments and making the decision-making behind them more transparent. Bahadori and Thayer gave a presentation at the June 1 meeting of EPA's SAB announcing they would release new systematic review protocol documents for the Cr6 and arsenic assessments -- both already years in the making -- in the final quarter of fiscal year 2018, which ends Sept. 30.
Gibbons told the North Carolina SAB she expects the protocol document will be released “for public comment this summer, in July or August, to be consistent with our current approach. … Because the protocol is a methods document, it will not discuss our interpretation of the literature. That won't be available until the draft itself released in fiscal year 2020.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/iris-staff-weigh-dual-modeling-approaches-chromium-cancer-risk
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States Press EPA to Do More on Fluorochemical Risks
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Aaron Nicodemus
States urge EPA to classify fluorochemicals as hazardous waste
EPA unveiled long-term national fluorochemical plan in May
The EPA should classify toxic fluorochemicals contaminating drinking water as hazardous wastes or use its authority under the nation’s chemicals law to demand more health information on the substances, states said.
Several states have already gone beyond the Environmental Protection Agency in setting drinking water standards for two common fluorochemicals—perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)—but they asked for more federal direction for cleaning up the chemicals.
Officials from six states peppered EPA officials with questions and recommendations during a June 26 community summit on the chemicals in Exeter, N.H.
“As soon as we start looking for them, we find them,” said Peter Walke, deputy secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, said about fluorochemicals. “We need to work on this at the national level. It’s everywhere, and we need to be ready for that. We need a comprehensive approach.”
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in May announced plans to label PFOA and PFOS hazardous substances, which would require the agency to begin the process of setting enforceable drinking water standards. The chemicals—made by Chemours and St. Gobain, and formerly by 3M—are used to create heat-, stick-, and water-resistant products.
Exposure to the compounds is linked to a range of health effects from low birth weights to elevated cholesterol levels.
EPA Action OverdueGeorge Heitzman, from the New York State Division of Environmental Conservation, urged the EPA to go further and classify fluorochemicals as hazardous waste to communicate the seriousness of the contamination.
Nick Noons, project manager for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, echoed that advice and pressed the EPA to consider applying the Superfund cleanup law to sites contaminated by fluorochemicals.
Other states suggested the EPA use its authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act to order companies to provide more health data on the thousands of chemicals in this group.
So far the EPA has issued nonbinding drinking water advisory levels for PFOA and PFOS of 70 parts per trillion. Those advisories are not firm limits, and some states have set their own enforceable standards.
Vermont recently set a standard of 20 parts per trillion for PFOA in drinking water and New Jersey and New York plan to set their own standards later this year.
Alexandra Dunn, administrator for the EPA’s New England region, said she heard “loud and clear” that states want the EPA to take a leadership role in addressing and cleaning up PFOA and PFOS.
“They still need EPA to be with them on this journey. The EPA’s work is relevant to them, and its research is important.”
Vermont used the same scientific evidence as the EPA to arrive at its lower drinking water standard, Walke said.
“We just made different assumptions about the risk to the most vulnerable population,” he said. Vermont set its standard to protect the health of pregnant and nursing mothers.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/states-press-epa-to-do-more-on-fluorochemical-risks
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Children Not Mentioned in EPA Evaluation of Persistent Chemicals
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
Advocates say EPA ignoring impacts on children must be addressed
Cumulative risks mean removing ‘PBTs’ from marketplace entirely
Health groups are raising concerns that children and other vulnerable populations are being excluded from the EPA’s plans to regulate five of the most problematic chemicals in commerce.
The comments came during a June 25 meeting among those selected to serve as peer reviewers for EPA’s hazard summary for the five persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals.
The laws gives the EPA until June 19, 2019, to propose rules to reduce risks and exposures from the five chemicals to the extent practicable. Among the chemical products used in commerce are flame-retardant textiles, wiring insulation, gasoline additives, and heat-transfer fluid.
“In the exposure, use, and hazard document, there is no specific sections where EPA lists potentially exposed sub-populations, like children, or pregnant mothers,” said Veena Singla, associate director, science and policy at the University of California’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment.
In addition to children, Singla told Bloomberg Environment, fence-line communities next to plants where these chemicals are manufactured or recycled also face increased risks.
“Not calling out those populations is not consistent with best science practices” she said. “The evidence we have clearly shows these groups are more susceptible to health complications.”
Lack of Exposure DataAccording to the statements at the June 25 meeting, hazard data were compiled from existing hazard assessments and databases. The information is now given to a letter peer review committee—made up of academic and private sector scientists—to create a technical support document to provide rationales for EPA’s regulatory activities.
A letter review is typically considered to be a more informal peer review process, since reviewers don’t actually meet together, but receive documents and write up their answers separately.
As part of the preliminary analysis, the EPA conducted a scientific literature review to identify instances where PBT exposure is likely but stopped short of a full scientific study.
“We were not able to do a hazard assessment, it is a hazard summary, because we were working with qualitative exposure data,” said Karen Eisenreich a toxicologist with the EPA’s risk assessment division.
Additional requests for comment to the agency asking for clarification on the decision to not focus specifically on vulnerable subpopulations, such as children, weren’t returned.
Advocates Say Mandate is ClearEnvironmental groups are claiming that at this point, the move toward regulations should be cut and dried. As long as the science shows there is exposure and that it meets PBT criteria, then EPA is required to reduce that exposure to the greatest “extent practicable.”
But concerns remain that under the current business-friendly administration, EPA is not likely to take decisive regulatory action, despite what the environmentalists feel is a clear mandate under section 6(h) of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
“They are trying to pick apart every use, or exposure pathway, to separate everything out to a minute level until you miss the larger impacts of the chemical” Patrick MacRoy, deputy director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, a nonprofit public advocacy group based in Portland, Maine.
Someone living near a plant might be exposed to one of these chemicals through the air they breathe or the water they drink, as well as on the job, MacRoy told Bloomberg Environment. “So the cumulative exposure adds up, but if they look at individually, they may not consider the whole picture.”
MacRoy said his hope is that the peer review committee also will agree that cumulative weight of the toxicology data for the five PBT’s is so large that the EPA will have little choice but to take strong regulatory action.
“I think the direction of the statute is clear—to eliminate exposure to the greatest extent practicable, that means removing them from commerce completely.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/children-not-mentioned-in-epa-evaluation-of-persistent-chemicals
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EPA Critic Praises Science Rule For Ending Strict Default Risk Approach
Jun 26, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A toxicology professor and longtime critic of EPA and other federal agencies' conservative default approach to assessing human health risks is praising the agency's science rule for seeking to end its default use of so-called linear dose-response modeling, which assumes no safe level of exposure.
In recent comments, Ed Calabrese, a toxicology professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst praises EPA's proposal on science transparency for seeking to eliminate EPA's use of the linear no-threshold (LNT) model for assessing cancer risk, where risk assessors assume that any exposure presents some level of risk.
Industry groups and Republican lawmakers have long criticized the default approach -- which forms the basis for EPA's 2005 guidelines for how the agency assesses cancer risks -- charging it is overly conservative and results in stricter standards than are necessary to protect human health.
Calabrese and his co-authors characterizes EPA's proposed rule as a proposal “to no longer use the LNT as the default model in cancer risk assessment,” which they applaud as “correct and long overdue.”
The proposed rule, signed in April by Administrator Scott Pruitt, generally seeks to require that the science underlying any major EPA regulatory decision is publicly available -- down to the raw data and models supporting it -- though it does provide the administrator with discretion to waive the requirement on a case-by-case basis.
The rule also seeks to establish a “clear policy for the transparency of the scientific information used for significant regulations: specifically, the dose response data and models that underlie what we are calling 'pivotal regulatory science'.”
The proposal defines “pivotal regulatory science” to mean "the studies, models, and analyses that drive the magnitude of the benefit-cost calculation, the level of a standard, or point-of-departure from which a reference value is calculated. In other words, they are critical to the calculation of a final regulatory standard of level, or to the quantified costs, benefits and other impact on which a final regulation is based."
Traditionally, EPA's dose-response default approach to performing cancer risk analyses has been based on LNT. The agency's 2005 cancer risk assessment guidelines direct EPA to use this approach when an environmental chemical is mutagenic, or when it is unknown, biologically, how it causes cancer.
EPA's proposal does not appear to mention the guidelines, though it would alter them.
EPA's cancer guidelines present an approach that industry and Calabrese have long protested. Linear assessments often produce stringent estimates of risk, which can lead to strict regulations. Industry often argues that chemicals have threshold dose-responses that must be exceeded before exposures can cause harm -- a theory that would result in less stringent regulations.
Pending Assessment
There may already be signs that the agency is considering moving away from the linear default. Officials told the North Carolina Science Advisory Board earlier this month that they are considering presenting both linear and non-linear approaches in an upcoming rewrite of the agency's assessment of hexavalent chromium.
Calabrese, a proponent of the biphasic hormetic dose-response model, which proposes that exposure to extremely low doses of chemicals can over time lead to biological resistance, has long argued that linear dose-response is an inaccurate scientific theory put forward in the 1930s and '40s by geneticists who sought personal success by advancing their theory.
In an early sign that the proposed rule was seeking to reverse LNT, EPA's statement announcing release of the proposed rule quoted Calabrese, who said it represents “a major scientific step forward by recognizing the widespread occurrence of non-linear dose responses in toxicology and epidemiology for chemicals and radiation and the need to incorporate such data in the risk assessment process."
His comments to the proposed rule's docket acknowledge his “longtime support” from the U.S. Air Force and ExxonMobil Foundation.
“Given the present EPA proposal, its major challenge is whether a cancer risk assessment default model is needed, and, if so, what should it be? A default model in cancer risk assessment gets around the practical impossibility of testing agents for cancer risk over a large number of doses and with very large numbers of animals.”
Calabrese argues that the best way for EPA to emerge from the “regulatory quagmire of using the historically corrupt and scientifically flawed LNT model” is through “the use of dose response model uncertainty, that is, using the leading dose response models and determining where they optimally converge to yield the so-called regulatory sweet spot … where health benefits are optimized and risks are minimized.”
Calabrese and his colleagues propose developing “a practical and scientific means to integrate the threshold, LNT, and hormetic dose response models, the three models with the most toxicological gravitas based on the peer-reviewed published literature.” They acknowledge that while they “strongly favor the hormesis model and feel it is far superior to the threshold model and even more so to the LNT model,” each model has its “strengths and limits.”
The authors explain they advocate for this approach “because it has the potential to integrate the best scientific features of the three models while limiting/minimizing the possibility of error.”
Calabrese and colleagues describe agreement among the models as an “attractive feature” of their integrated approach, stating that “the nadir of the hormetic dose response, based on a large number of studies in the hormetic data base (Calabrese and Blain, 2011), and the 'safe' exposure estimate using the threshold dose response model with a standard 100-fold uncertainty factor yield essentially the same value. Thus, these two models provide an agreement, even though they offer a different toxicological interpretation (i.e. no effect/safe threshold interpretation versus beneficial hormetic interpretation).”
Further, Calabrese argues that even the LNT model is not completely left out in this approach. “At this same dose, the LNT model was found to yield a cancer risk approximately 10^-4 (or 1 per 10,000 people over an 80-year lifespan). This value represents a low risk within society, which is not detectable via epidemiological evaluation under the best of research conditions. It is also about 500-fold lower than the cancer risk from background (i.e. spontaneous tumors).”
Such a cancer risk, however, can be a cut-point for EPA action.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-critic-praises-science-rule-ending-strict-default-risk-approach
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EPA Reiterates Call To Address PFAS As Chemical Class
Jun 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA Region I Administrator Alexandra Dunn is reiterating the agency's interest in treating perfluorinated chemicals found in drinking water systems across the country as a “class of compounds,” rather than individually, even as officials continue to address the substances individually.
Dunn June 25 told the Seacoast Media Group's editorial board that if EPA were to address each of the more than 3,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) individually, “we could put ourselves on a treadmill of never really catching up with the science,” according to Fosters.com, a service of seacoastonline.com.
“This is where the conversation may come around to regulating these chemicals as a class of compounds,” the article says. But she told the media group there still could be “different degrees of toxicity for each chemical,” the article says.
She also referenced Massachusetts' recent approach, the article says. The state environment department's Office of Research and Standards earlier this month made final recommendations to expand the application of EPA's drinking water health advisory levels, which were developed for two PFAS. The state now plans to apply the levels to five PFAS, combined.
Her comments on the possibility of regulating PFAS as a class echo remarks made by Peter Grevatt, the agency's top policy official on PFAS, when he spoke May 22 at a national PFAS summit sponsored by EPA in Washington, D.C.
As Inside EPA's Suzanne Yohannan recently reported, Grevatt acknowledged that given the thousands of chemicals in the class, they will eventually have to be considered in groups rather than individually, an approach that the agency has previously struggled to advance. The progress made on individual compounds "doesn't really even begin to tell us the whole story that we need to understand," he said.
In his May 22 remarks, Grevatt referenced much of the work being done on development of toxicity data. But he said "at least as important" is a focus "to begin to look at these compounds in groups, and understand that when you're dealing with thousands of them, there's no way to handle one at a time."
The remarks from EPA officials appear to respond to citizen groups' demands that regulators address the entire PFAS class of compounds, rather than its current approach of responding to individual substances.
Dunn's June 25 remarks came in the midst of the agency's first PFAS community engagement meeting -- in this case hosted by Region 1 in Exeter, NH -- where EPA sought communities' comments on how to address PFAS contamination that is affecting a multitude of drinking water systems across the country.
“It is critical EPA hears directly from the public as we work to manage the issue of PFAS in communities,” Dunn told the meeting June 25, according to an EPA press release. She said the feedback from communities will aid EPA in developing a PFAS management plan, to be released later this year.
The New England meeting included presentations from citizen groups concerned about PFAS contamination, along with a panel of state regulators speaking about their regulatory efforts, and panels on lessons learned about identifying PFAS in a community and identifying solutions, and on communicating about PFAS.
In addition, the acting director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's (ATSDR) toxicology division, William Cibulas, Jr., also made remarks, distinguishing his agency's recent release of minimum risk levels as differing from regulatory action levels, according to Politico.
The remarks echo documents released last week when ATSDR issued its draft toxicological profile for PFAS, including MRLs more conservative than EPA's. The agency cautioned the public not to read its levels as cleanup or health effects standards.
In his remarks, Cibulas said of the MRLs, “These are not regulatory actions. They're not necessarily thresholds,” according to Politico.
Instead, he added, communities with contamination above the report’s minimum should get a closer look to see what other contaminants they may be exposed to and what industries are nearby.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-reiterates-call-address-pfas-chemical-class
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Lowe’s, Sherwin-Williams, Home Depot Do the Right Thing
Jun 26, 2018 | Natural Resources Defense Council
By Shelley Poticha
Three American companies have moved to protect people’s lives from a deadly chemical that the federal government has so far refused to ban from store shelves – a major victory in the fight to stop the dismantling of protections against toxic substances in our workplaces, homes and lives.
We hope this bold action against the sale of methylene chloride in response to public pressure will inspire the federal government to do what’s right and follow suit.
Without an outright ban there’s still a chance for another tragic story like that of young entrepreneur Drew Wynne, who was fatally overcome by toxic fumes from methylene chloride, commonly found in paint strippers.
Less than a year ago, Wynne’s business partner found him dead after Wynne, 31, attempted to resurface the floor of a walk-in refrigerator at his cold brew coffee company in Charleston, S.C., with a paint stripper containing methylene chloride that he bought at Lowe’s. Wynne was wearing a respirator and gloves.
His devastated family discovered that dozens of other people have died from exposure to the chemical over that last several decades – even though it is readily available over the counter to consumers.Deadly Legacy
Methylene chloride has been linked to more than 60 deaths nationwide since 1980 and is also linked to lung and liver cancer, neurotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity. Another dangerous paint stripper, N-methylpyrrolidone, or NMP, which will also be removed, has been found to hinder fetal development and can cause miscarriage and stillbirth. According to the EPA, more than 60,000 U.S. workers and 2 million consumers are exposed to methylene chloride and NMP annually.
Lowe’s announced in late May that it will no longer sell products containing methylene chloride and NMP -- some 19 products in all, under brand names such as Goof Off, Jasco and Klean Strip.
Two weeks after the Lowe’s announcement, Sherwin-Williams, too, said publicly it will pull these toxic products off the shelves. Then, June 19, Home Depot followed suit, meaning the three major retailers selling these chemicals will remove them from their stores by the end of the year.
We hope that the Environmental Protection Agency will follow the logic that we and our close partner Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, as well as other coalition members laid out for the retailers and put the United States in the company of the other countries that have declared a ban.Story Behind the Story
Lowe’s decision came after more than 200,000 consumers nationwide, including tens of thousands of NRDC online activists, signed petitions urging the company to act. In early May, advocates held a week of action in more than a dozen states following a letter by our coalition that generated more than 40,000 public comments to the company and more than three million views of an NRDC Instagram video calling for Lowe’s to lead the industry in a ban.
NRDC also purchased a stock share in Lowe’s in order to attend its June shareholder meeting to make our case directly to the Board and CEO, and we planned a press conference prior to the meeting. After learning of our plans, Lowe’s acted before the press conference and meeting, garnering positive headlines about its action and avoiding negative ones about its lack thereof.Pruitt’s Stubborn EPA
In January 2017, the EPA proposed banning paint strippers containing these chemicals under the newly strengthened Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), citing the products’ unreasonable risks to human health. However, deferring to the wishes of the chemical industry, the agency later shelved the proposed ban soon after Scott Pruitt was confirmed as EPA Administrator, and Pruitt has failed to finalize the ban over the past 18 months.
In May of this year, two days after Pruitt met with families who have lost loved ones due to methylene chloride exposure in the past 18 months, the EPA announced that it would finalize a methylene chloride rule. However, the agency has revealed few details on its planned regulatory action, offered no timeline, and has taken no final action.
The public fight with EPA over methylene chloride and NMP in paint-strippers is one important piece of a larger battle with the industry-friendly interests now in charge, including efforts to compel bans, testing requirements and other actions on other toxic solvents, “Teflon-like” PFAS chemicals, and organophosphate pesticides like chlorpyrifos.People Can Act
It also signals an effective tactic in our efforts against toxics: When the federal government won’t do the right thing, taking the case to the American people will keep the pressure on to get dangerous chemicals that damage our and our children’s health off the market.
The vigorous and brave actions of the families of those hurt and killed by these toxics was key in educating millions of Americans and inspiring thousands to speak out.
As a result, this victory signals that the chemical industry, with its vast financial resources, consultants, lobbyists and a friendly EPA trying to dismantle science programs, right-to-know programs and toxics programs, won’t always get its way.
We will continue to work on multiple fronts, choose our battles and fight at the federal and state levels, and in the marketplace with concerned Americans, to take on the industry on behalf of human health and well-being.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/shelley-poticha/lowes-sherwin-williams-home-depot-do-right-thing
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Natural Gas Boom Is All About China and the U.S., IEA Says
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Shiryaevskaya and Mathew Carr
China to boost consumption, U.S. exports, IEA says in report
Industry to overtake power plants as biggest growth driver
Prospects seem bright for natural gas as Chinese consumption soars, and the U.S. pumps record amounts of the world’s fastest-growing fossil fuel.
Natural gas demand will rise 1.6 percent a year over the next five years, according to the International Energy Agency. Increased use of renewables and competition from coal mean power generation is set to lose its position as the biggest driver of growth, with industrial users taking over that role, the Paris-based agency said in its Gas 2018 report.
Consumption is set to pass 4 trillion cubic meters (141 trillion cubic feet) by 2022, slightly earlier than the Paris-based agency forecast last year, when growth was also seen at 1.6 percent a year. China’s move to limit air pollution will turn it into the world’s biggest importer by next year, and the nation will account for more than a third of global growth through 2023.
“Last year, 2017, was a golden year for natural gas,” as demand increased 3 percent, the most since 2010, Jean-Baptiste Dubreuil, the IEA’s senior gas analyst, said on a call. “The picture is quite bright,” despite risks including the boom of renewables and whether infrastructure such as pipelines and storage sites can be built quickly enough.
More than 40 percent of the global demand increase will come from the industrial sector, underpinned by expanding emerging-market economies, especially China. Competition from renewables and coal will see the use of gas in power generation, the main driver of demand in the past decade, expand by 1.1 percent annually. That compares with growth of 2.8 percent for the industrial segment and 2.6 percent in transport, where stricter environmental rules favor the use of gas as a marine fuel.
On the supply side, the shale-gas boom in the U.S. will dominate growth, with the nation adding 160 billion cubic meters per year, equal to almost all of Latin America’s current annual output. China, which along with Russia, Norway and Australia boosted natural gas output to a record last year, will continue to expand and become the world’s fourth-largest gas producer by 2023.
“Associated gas from light tight oil production will provide a significant contribution to U.S. natural gas production growth over the next five years,” Dubreuil said by email. “Shale gas will also contribute to production increases in Argentina and China. In most other regions conventional (dry and associated) production provides the bulk of supply increment.”
European production is set to resume its slump after a halt last year thanks to Norwegian output and new fields in the U.K., dropping 12 percent in the five-year period. All other regions will increase output.
LNG BattleGlobal LNG trade will rise to 500 billion cubic meters and will be marked by a battle for top spot between the U.S., Australia and Qatar, which together account for 60 percent of supply by 2023. The U.S. will overtake Australia as the second-largest LNG exporter by 2023, with 101 billion cubic meters, and can even overtake Qatar if new American projects get the green light in the next two years.
With LNG being the “driving force” in global gas trade, according to Dubreuil, China will expand imports of the super-chilled fuel by 80 percent in the period, which will account for about a quarter of the nation’s total demand in 2023.
“Most of the growth will come from emerging Asian markets,” Dubreuil said. “China is the main engine for that.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/natural-gas-boom-is-all-about-china-and-the-us-iea-says
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China Trade Spat Puts Billions in U.S. Energy Projects in Doubt
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Escalating trade tensions mean announced deals could be off
‘Everything is in jeopardy’ for energy plans across the U.S.
China Energy Investment Corp. pledged almost $84 billion in shale gas and chemical manufacturing projects across West Virginia after President Donald Trump’s trade mission to Beijing in November.
But when it came time to discuss details, company officials were a no-show.
The chief executive and other officers of the world’s largest power company canceled a visit to a petrochemical conference in Pittsburgh, where the projects were to be discussed, casting doubt on their fate amid an escalating trade war between the U.S. and China.
“In light of the ongoing dispute between the U.S. and China on trade, the China Energy team decided right now is not the right time for them to come and visit,” said Brian Anderson, director of the West Virginia University Energy Institute, an arm of the school that recently signed an memorandum of understanding to work collaboratively with China energy on research and training programs.
The U.S. is due to impose tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese imports July 6, and Trump has threatened to impose levies on another $200 billion of Chinese goods. That has put in jeopardy some of the $250 billion in trade deals between U.S. companies and their Chinese counterparts announced in November when relations with the country were warmer, including many non-binding spending agreements on energy projects.
Among them was a joint agreement by China Petrochemical Corp., known as Sinopec Group, with Alaska Gasline Development Corp. to advance a $43 billion liquefied natural gas project. Another involved industrial gases company Air Products & Chemicals Inc.’s plan to form a joint venture with state-owned Yankuang Group Co. to operate an air separation, gasification, and syngas clean-up system for a $3.5 billion coal-to-syngas production facility.
“Everything is in jeopardy,” said Barry Worthington, executive director of the U.S. Energy Association, a group of organizations, corporations, and government agencies working on energy issues. “We have a shadow now over both investment and trade relations with China and that shadow doesn’t do anybody any good.”
No Sign of AbatingThe trade issues with China show no sign of abating. Bloomberg reported June 24 that the Treasury Department is planning to heighten scrutiny of Chinese investments in sensitive U.S. industries—including new-energy vehicles, robotics and aerospace—under an emergency law usually reserved for economic and national security threats. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin denied in a tweet the measure would be aimed at China, while White House trade adviser Peter Navarro later indicated that the restrictions won’t be as damaging to growth as markets anticipate.
“These trade deals are moving targets and there are negotiations ongoing all the time,” Energy Secretary Rick Perry told reporters June 25. “When you push over here, you may bulge out a little over here. We are a long way to getting trade deals finalized.”
Perry called Trump “a very hard trader” who is “not apt to blink.”
Spokesmen for China Energy and Sinopec didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Even before trade tensions worsened, many of the deals were considered tentative. The non-binding MOU between China and West Virginia for instance, proposed an investment larger than the state’s gross domestic product over a 20 year period, but few details have been released. Plans include power generation, chemical manufacturing and underground storage of natural gas liquids derivatives, according to a statement from the state’s Department of Commerce.
Not All at RiskAnd not all of the projects are at risk. A MOU signed between Cheniere Energy Inc., the only exporter of U.S. natural gas from shale fields, and China National Petroleum Corp. resulted in a 25-year contract in February. In 2017 alone, demand for the fuel in China jumped 46 percent, according to Energy Aspects Ltd.
For other projects, funding could still come from other sources if China’s investment falls through. “I would say the funding from China is up in the air,” said Kevin DiGregorio, executive director of the Chemical Alliance Zone, a West Virginia non-profit that promotes investment in the state’s chemical and natural gas industries.
The agreement between Sinopec and Alaska Gasline, while non-binding, was seen as a boost to a project sought for decades to construct an 800-mile pipeline to send gas from Alaska’s North Slope to a proposed export facility in Nikiski, on the state’s southern coast. The state of Alaska, China Investment Corp., and the Bank of China Ltd. also signed the agreement, though it didn’t include any financial commitments or gas purchasing agreements for the project known as Alaska LNG.
But the future of the project, which is designed to produce 20 million metric tons a year of LNG, “is very much linked to U.S.-China diplomatic relations amid escalating trade and investment tensions,” Hugo Brennan, senior Asia analyst at global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, said in an email.
“Sinopec was following Beijing’s directives when it inked the non-binding agreement, a decision driven by political dynamics more than commercial strategy,” Brennan said. “The Alaska LNG and the China Energy deals were both signed during a high point in Trump-Xi relations. By the same token, the projects now risk becoming victims of the deteriorating bilateral ties.”
Jesse Carlstrom, a spokesman for Alaska Gasline, said in an email that the company is “paying close attention to the escalating trade dispute with China” but that it’s “confident support in the project will continue from both American and Chinese parties because Alaska LNG provides a unique win-win opportunity for both nations.”
“China is currently the third largest LNG consumer on the planet and, as a result of environmental goals the demand for LNG in China continues to grow,” Carlstrom said.
A spokesman for Air Products said it “continues to make good progress” on the project.
In West Virginia, optimism remains that Appalachia will one day rival Texas as a chemical refining hub.
“The economics of making investments in the Appalachian region is still there,” said the Chemical Alliance Zone’s DiGregorio. “Whatever is going on might slow things down a bit but wouldn’t necessarily halt them.”
“This is a marathon,” he said. “So despite blips and in the stock market and trade wars, the cheapest ethane in the world is in Appalachia.”
—With assistance from Aibing Guo.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/china-trade-spat-puts-billions-in-us-energy-projects-in-doubt
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U.S. Seeks To Export Its 'Energy Miracle' Even As Trade Tensions Mount
Jun 27, 2018 | Reuters
By Ernest Scheyder and Scott DiSavino
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The administration of President Donald Trump wants to help allies replicate the U.S. natural gas and oil production boom by exporting American know-how, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Tuesday, even as trade disputes intensified.
Perry said the surge in U.S. fossil fuels production over the past several years, made possible by advanced hydraulic fracturing drilling technology, had helped the country to reduce its dependence on foreign oil and improved its economy.
“We are bearing witness to this astonishing energy miracle,” Perry said at the opening ceremony of the triennial World Gas Conference. “But this is not just about exporting our energy bounty, it is about exporting the technology, the know-how, that unleashed our bounty in the first place,” he said.
He added that he believed replicating the U.S. production boom overseas could help the world’s poor to access affordable electricity, and that boosting the share of natural gas in the mix could help limit greenhouse gas emissions.
The Trump administration has repeatedly said it is eager to expand fossil fuel supplies to allies through supply agreements and technology sharing. But the task could become more complicated as it imposes steep tariffs on steel, aluminum and other imports and deals with retaliatory measures against U.S. crops, motorcycles and other products including petroleum.
Beijing this month proposed 25 percent retaliatory tariffs on U.S. petroleum imports, which are expected to dent sales to the U.S. shale industry’s largest customer and further pressure American firms that produce gas as a byproduct of oil drilling.
LNG imports have so far been spared, but the industry is concerned that the supercooled gas could be next if China’s talks with Washington sour.
That would be particularly bad for the United States, which has become the world’s biggest natural gas producer, one of the top crude oil producers, and a growing exporter of both since last year.
The administration has said it hopes exporting energy and related technology will help create alternatives to geopolitical rival energy producers like Russia, while also forging bonds with big consumers like China.AMBITION AND CHALLENGES
The leaders of two of the world’s largest energy companies said they were worried trade tensions could destabilize the global economy, hurting hurt overall demand for energy.
“The risk of trade wars starts to weigh on people’s perception of economic growth in the future,” Chevron (CVX.N) Chief Executive Mike Wirth said at the conference. “These things run the risk of becoming a bit of drag on growth.”
Darren Woods, Exxon Mobil’s (XOM.N) CEO, said his company is trying to keep a “level headed voice” around tariffs, but that protectionism can dent investment.
“The world has been very well served with low tariffs and free trade,” Woods said. “With tariffs, you run the risk of making some projects less attractive.”
The global natural gas industry is currently forecasting rapid growth driven by low-cost production from the U.S. fracking boom and rising demand from Asia. But to capitalize, the gas industry needs to invest billions of dollars in new LNG infrastructure.
The International Energy Agency expects global gas demand to grow an average of 1.6 percent per year over the next five years, with Chinese consumption leading the way, according to the latest forecast released Tuesday.
Longer-term, the IEA said the global gas market also faces the challenge of cost competitiveness in emerging markets, and said the industry must tamp down on leaks of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.
Gas is widely viewed as one of the cleanest fossil fuels because it burns more efficiently than oil or coal, but gas can be lost in production and transport.
The conference has drawn executives from global energy giants like Exxon, BP Plc (BP.L), and Total, along with senior officials from the U.S. State Department’s energy bureau, and ministers from energy producers and consumers.
It follows last week’s OPEC meetings in Vienna, where the partner countries agreed on a modest increase in oil production from next month, following calls from major consumers to curb rising fuel costs.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gas-conference/u-s-seeks-to-export-its-energy-miracle-even-as-trade-tensions-mount-idUSKBN1JM1UP
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Sempra Official Says LNG Review Delays Jeopardize Agreements (1)
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
Sempra Energy says it’s taking longer for FERC to review liquefied natural gas export facilities
These review delays are affecting the international partnerships
Delays in the review of liquefied natural gas export applications at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission jeopardize international trading partner agreements, Dennis Arriola, Sempra Energy’s chief strategy officer, said June 26.
The FERC delays are due to resource constraints at the agency, Arriola said at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. The San Diego-based energy company is facing greater delays in LNG export applications in recent months, putting its international partnerships at risk.
“We’re concerned because the window of opportunity as we talk to customers out there, they don’t see things happening as quickly as they would like from the United States,” Arriola told Bloomberg Environment after the hearing.
“So they’re somewhat reluctant to sign contracts if they don’t see that the facilities are going to be approved on a timely basis,” he said.
FERC, the regulator that approves LNG export facilities, took about 550 days to approve Sempra’s Cameron Parish LNG export facility in Louisiana during 2014, Arriola said during the hearing. The company estimates it will take more than 1,000 days to review its Port Arthur LNG export facility in Texas.
Sempra submitted its pre-filing application to FERC in March 2015 and it expects FERC and Energy Department approval in mid-2018.
He said these days are largely due to the greater number of LNG export applications under review at FERC.
FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre said recently there are 14 LNG applications under review at the agency, the most ever.
Third-Party ContractorsIn the past month, the agency has taken on third-party contractors to handle nonproprietary work—such as carrying out inspections during the construction stage. It also is looking to reallocate resources as well as hire more staff, McIntyre said recently.
FERC Commissioner Neil Chatterjee told Bloomberg Environment that the applications are highly complicated and that he is working with Congress for additional resources, and finding ways to streamline the coordination between FERC and the Energy Department.
“We’ve got a great opportunity here geopolitically, economically, on the job front,” Chatterjee said in a phone interview. “We’ve got to make sure we that we get it right and don’t miss out on the wave of opportunity and appetite for U.S. LNG.”
Arriola also said that FERC needs more resources to complete these reviews faster
LNG suppliers Russia, Australia, Qatar, and Mozambique are “doing everything possible to enhance their competitive position,” he said during the hearing.
“If these and other nations provide better certainty of regulatory process than the U.S. does and enable their native companies to get to the market sooner, then they will dominate the market, and the U.S. will lose out,” Arriola said during the hearing.
Arriola testified to the House committee as the World Gas Conference was taking place elsewhere in Washington.
(Updated to include comment from FERC Commissioner Neil Chatterjee. )
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/sempra-official-says-lng-review-delays-jeopardize-agreements-1
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Trump Power Plan Could Create ‘Uncertainty': BP Energy CEO
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
The Trump administration’s plan to “bail out” unprofitable coal and nuclear power plants is an example of “regulatory uncertainty,” BP Energy CEO Orlando A. Alvarez said June 26.
“We don’t want something that is going to just benefit one of the fuels; it needs to be a competitive market that works,” Alvarez said during a panel discussion at the World Gas Conference in Washington.
BP Energy is the natural gas and power marketing and trading affiliate of parent company BP.
President Donald Trump ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry June 1 to take immediate action to stem further coal and nuclear plant closures in the name of national security. The administration argues that the loss of coal and nuclear plants is harming the dependability of the U.S. power grid and its ability to recover from storms or cyber attacks.
Since 2010, nearly 40 percent of the capacity of the nation’s fleet of coal-fired power plants has either been shut down or designated for closure, according to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a trade-group that represents coal-fired utilities and mining companies such as Peabody Energy Corp., and Murray Energy Corp.
More than a quarter of U.S. nuclear power plants don’t make enough money to cover their operating costs, raising the threat of early retirements, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/trump-power-plan-could-create-uncertainty-bp-energy-ceo
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Lawmakers Take Energy Victory Lap
Jun 27, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sam Mintz
Members of Congress cheered the country's increasingly prominent role in global energy markets yesterday, as across town thousands of government officials and gas industry executives from around the world gathered to recognize the same.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on energy geopolitics the same day as the World Gas Conference kicked off at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, a triennial event that is taking place in the U.S. for the first time in 30 years.
"By almost every measure, we're more energy secure today than ever before," said House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.).
The biggest contributor to the U.S.'s changing role was the shale revolution starting 10 years ago, with technological advances in drilling leading to a significant increase in production and helping the U.S. become a top exporter of oil and gas.
But lawmakers also patted their own backs yesterday, pointing to Congress's repeal of a 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports, which was signed by President Obama in 2015.
The outlook for domestic and international natural gas has "never been better," with exports looking likely to increase, Dennis Arriola, chief strategy officer for gas company Sempra Energy, told the committee.
A few hours earlier, Energy Secretary Rick Perry had taken center stage at the gas conference to proclaim the importance of U.S. oil and gas to the global energy industry.
"The U.S. is the leading combined producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We're on a path to become the world's largest crude oil producer, as well," he said.
Perry said that fossil fuels will make up 75 percent of global energy consumption by 2040.
But the merriment shared today by Republican lawmakers and the administration is not universal.
Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the committee, accused Republicans of "cheerleading for fossil fuels."
"Republican oil-above-all policies have always centered on one thing: putting the profits of oil tycoons and industry donors first, and the current rerun of this cliched show should have been canceled long ago," he said.
And Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) warned that an overdependence on oil and gas is dangerous.
"We need political compromise," he said. "If one side or the other dominates, I think we're going to go down a path that's unsustainable."
Continental Resources Inc. CEO Harold Hamm, an ally of President Trump, was one of the hearing's marquee witnesses.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/06/27/stories/1060086555
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Cybersecurity Nominee Gets Strong Support in Senate Energy Panel
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
Energy Department inspector general, cybersecurity and Office of Science nominees get warm Senate reception
Daniel Simmons, nominee for renewable energy office, questioned about past views on renewables
The nominee to head the Energy Department’s new Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response received support at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confirmation hearing June 26.
Karen Evans, who has experience in cybersecurity and information technology, if confirmed, would head the newly created Energy Department office devoted to preparing for and responding to natural and human-caused threats to the U.S. electric grid.
“Everyone here recognizes the energy sector is a high-value target for cyberattacks, and our committee has spent many hours examining these threats,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the committee, said at the hearing.
The committee also questioned nominees for the department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of the Inspector General, and Office of Science. Murkowski said at the hearing she plans to move the four nominees as quickly as possible.
Evans was urged by Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) to encourage the Trump administration to think about how to coordinate cybersecurity.
“Cyber is a crucial challenge facing us,” King said. He urged Evans to set up a structure so there is one point of authority on the issues of cyber in the U.S. government.
Evans has been the director since 2010 of the U.S. Cyber Challenge, a program supported by the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate and the Center for Internet Security, a nonprofit group. Its mission is to increase the cybersecurity workforce through recruitment and training.
She previously worked in the Office of Management and Budget and in the Energy Department in information technology roles.
Simmons’ Past Views QuestionedDaniel Simmons, nominated to head the Energy Department’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office, faced criticism from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee’s ranking member, on his past views on renewables.
Simmons previously worked at a conservative nonprofit group, the Institute for Energy Research, which called for eliminating the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in 2015. Simmons has been a political appointee leading that office since December 2017.
Cantwell said the Energy Department, under Simmons’ leadership, has been slow-walking energy efficiency standards, which she called “wrong-headed.”
Simmons responded, “I will not slow-walk any of those regulations.” His office is in charge of issuing energy efficiency standards for home appliances and to date has missed statutory deadlines for more than eight standards that are required to be reviewed every six years.
The department also is facing a lawsuit in California about delays on finalizing four Obama-era efficiency standards.
Office of Science, Inspector General NomineesMembers of the committee spoke favorably about the nomination of Christopher Fall, now head of the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, who was tapped to be the director of the Office of Science.
Fall, who earned a doctorate in neuroscience, previously served for six years at the Office of Naval Research, including roles as chief scientist and lead for the research division. He also served for three years at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as assistant director for defense programs and then as acting lead for the national security and international affairs division.
The committee also considered the nomination of Teri Donaldson to be inspector general. Donaldson, currently the general counsel for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, formerly was a partner in the Houston office of DLA Piper. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the environment committee, spoke highly of Donaldson’s work.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/cybersecurity-nominee-gets-strong-support-in-senate-energy-panel
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EPA, Industry Hijacked Court to Put Off Carbon Limits, Judges Say
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Three judges say EPA using legal process to keep Obama-era power plant carbon limits paused
Agency proposed last year to kill Obama rule, expected to soon release replacement plans
A trio of federal appellate court judges has had enough: If the EPA wants to keep Obama-era power sector carbon limits on ice, it can do so using its own authority, not the court’s.
The EPA and several states, utilities, and fossil fuel companies are using the legal process to their own advantage to refrain from implementing the Obama administration’s carbon limits on existing power plants while the EPA rewrites the regulation, three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said June 26.
The court since last year has kept litigation over the power plant limits, known as the Clean Power Plan, paused while the Environmental Protection Agency determines how it will proceed. The D.C. Circuit, sitting with all its judges, ordered the case paused for another 60 days on June 26, but three of them said it would be the last pause.
Clean Power Plan opponents and the EPA “have hijacked the Court’s equitable power for their own purposes,” Judge Robert L. Wilkins, appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote, joined by Judge Patricia A. Millett, another Obama appointee.
“If EPA or the Petitioners wish to delay further the operation of the Clean Power Plan while the agency engages in rulemaking, then they should avail themselves of whatever authority Congress gave them to do so, rather than availing themselves of the Court’s authority under the guise of preserving jurisdiction over moribund petitions,” Wilkins added.
Judge David S. Tatel, appointed by President Bill Clinton, wrote separately, also joined by Millett. Nine judges issued the order, meaning the three couldn’t block an additional pause without further sign-ons.
The EPA has continued to ask for a pause and said it is still reviewing the Obama-era regulation. The agency proposed in October 2017 to kill the Clean Power Plan and has taken public input on whether and how it should replace the regulation.
Pending Replacement PlansIt is expected the agency will soon move forward with a long-awaited proposal to replace the Obama-era limits.
Many utilities and fossil fuel companies have urged the EPA to issue narrower carbon controls for the power sector, based on what emissions reductions companies can achieve at a power facility. The Obama EPA’s rule also included actions beyond an individual plant, such as transitioning to natural gas or to renewable energy.
The Clean Power Plan has never been implemented because the Supreme Court, in an unusual move in 2016, placed the rule on hold until legal challenges over the merits of the regulation were resolved.
But several of the D.C. Circuit judges say the Supreme Court stay has extended long beyond its original purpose.
Keeping the Clean Power Plan litigation on hold now allows the EPA to continue to circumvent its legal obligation to regulate greenhouse gases from the power sector, Tatel wrote.
The Supreme Court should now decide whether it is prudent to keep the Clean Power Plan on pause, particularly since the EPA hasn’t yet provided an alternative regulation, Tatel added.
Perhaps the high court would determine—given the agency’s own finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and the Supreme Court’s recognition that EPA must regulate them—"that the need for expeditious agency action does not permit the luxury of continued delay,” he wrote.
The case is West Virginia v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1363, 6/26/18.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-industry-hijacked-court-to-put-off-carbon-limits-judges-say?context=landing-heroes
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Petroleum Sector Pushes EPA for Air Pollution Permitting Changes (1)
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
EPA to try redoing new source review permits program
One change is monitoring ambient air outside of facilities
The petroleum industry doesn’t want to be saddled with unnecessary, costly controls for pollution coming from refineries and oil and gas drilling in areas that meet national air quality standards, but that have little or no public access.
The oil and gas sector is urging the EPA to reconsider how it requires monitoring as part of a Clean Air Act permitting program for newly constructed or modified facilities in areas.
Under the law, refineries, papers mills, and other factories are required to monitor ambient air, or the air we breathe, at the fenceline of their properties to ensure that the area’s air quality standards are maintained. The industry wants the provision on ambient air revised because its facilities would be required to install controls if monitors show a violation of national air quality standards.
But if the public has no access within that facility to a railroad passing through or just beyond the property line, then there is no point in installing monitors to make sure that air pollution is meeting the required standards, Howard Feldman, senior director for American Petroleum Institute’s regulatory and scientific affairs, explained June 26 to Bloomberg Environment following a panel discussion on federal environmental priorities. The discussion was one of many taking place under the aegis of the Air & Waste Management Association’s annual conference in Hartford, Conn., which runs June 25-28.
“Public access is where ambient air should be defined, and areas where the public really has no access that is not really ambient air,” Feldman said.
Feldman’s remarks came a day after William Wehrum, EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation, outlined the agency’s plans to revisit the definition of ambient air in the context of reforming the new source review program.
Under the new source review program, refineries, manufacturing plants, paper mills, and power plants are required to seek controls for emissions increases that result from making any changes to their plants or operations.
Wehrum, who delivered the keynote address at the annual conference, has made reforming the new source review program a priority of his, but emphasized that he would pursue targeted changes to various provisions instead of pursuing comprehensive rulemaking as he did during his last stint at the EPA air office.
Wehrum stopped short, however, of spelling out how the agency would define “ambient air.” He did say the agency would offer guidance late this summer with “real world examples.”
Public Access, Physical BarriersIn a subsequent panel discussion on new source review program, another EPA air official detailed the agency’s plans.
The EPA will look at key terms that are used to interpret the 1980 policy, such as “public access” and “physical barriers,” such as railroads, rivers, or highways, said Raj Rao, EPA new source review group leader in the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards.
With all the technology advances in place, Rao asked whether a need exists to consider a “physical barrier” such as a fence.
“There are all these sites next to plants where you would not expect a reasonable person to stand, such as the middle of a river or an interstate,” said Gale Hoffnagle, senior vice president and technical director for the Lowell, Mass.-based TRC Environmental Corp., told Bloomberg Environment.
Treated as AdjacentAside from defining ambient air through guidance, the EPA also will use guidance this fall to build on its 2016 rule that defined how oil and gas operations that share equipment and are a quarter mile apart are treated as adjacent for permitting purposes, Rao said.
The EPA also has decided to reconsider the 2009 rule that allows a facility to aggregate or clump emissons increases from two separate, yet related projects for permitting purposes. This proposed rule will be heading to the White House Office of Managment and Budget in the next couple of weeks, Rao said.
Another guidance that the investor-owned power utility sector is expecting is one that exempts replacement and routine maintenance projects seen across the entire fleet from permitting requirements, said John Kinsman, senior director for environment at the Edison Electric Institute, a trade associaton that represents investor-owned utilities.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/petroleum-sector-pushes-epa-for-air-pollution-permitting-changes-1
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Oil & Gas Climate Fund Piques U.S. Interest But Not Public Support
Jun 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
U.S. companies attended fund’s first venture day in Washington
BP, Shell, Total, Equinor among 10 companies that founded billion-dollar initiative
The billion-dollar climate investment fund of 10 global oil and gas giants will enhance mitigation efforts by individual companies, the fund’s CEO said, but the initiative still lacks participation from U.S. companies.
Pratima Rangarajan, CEO of Oil and Gas Climate Initiative Climate Investments, said participation adds to what the individual companies—which include BP PLC, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Total SA, and Equinor ASA—are already doing to reduce emissions from their own operations. She is optimistic U.S. oil and gas companies will join the fund, established in November 2016 to invest in technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from that sector.
Several U.S. companies attended the Climate Investments’ first venture day, June 25, in Washington, Rangarajan said at a June 26 event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Chevron’s venture capital arm announced June 20 a $100 million future energy fund to invest in low-carbon technologies, she added.
Chevron didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg Environment about the new fund and whether it plans to join the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative. Exxon Mobil Corp. also didn’t respond immediately to a query about whether it participated in the venture day.
Methane Venture DayThe global oil and gas companies participating in the fund are readying a $20 million investment in technologies to reduce emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas emitted during natural gas extraction that is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The venture day featured 10 companies presenting a range of technologies focused on methane measurement, monitoring, and mitigation, and the fund will ultimately select one or a few projects in September to receive the investment, Rangarajan said.
“Gas has a very important role to play in the energy transition, but we need to manage methane emissions if we are to reap the environmental benefits and comply with the Paris Agreement,” BP CEO Bob Dudley said at the June 25 venture day, according to a recap of the event. BP didn’t respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg Environment.
Shell and Total also didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
Rangarajan, who previously worked on wind energy and energy storage at General Electric Co., said the investment fund aims to fill gaps in technology needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector by spending capital to bring innovative projects to commercial deployment.
Before the venture day, the investment team met with teams from the member companies and visited extraction sites and refineries to identify areas where technologies are needed, Rangarajan told reporters on the sidelines of the June 26 event. And by targeting investment to fill those gaps, it allows individual companies to begin thinking about how they can deploy the new technologies in their operations, she added.
In addition to methane mitigation, the fund also focuses on carbon capture, utilization, and storage; energy efficiency; and technologies to reduce transportation sector emissions.
Policy BackdropRangarajan said the oil and gas fund won’t advocate broadly for a specific climate policy, but she acknowledged that the right regulatory framework can provide a supportive backdrop for the investments they make.
“We actually like regulations because it gives you a framework to operate in,” she said. Policy mechanisms such as recently extended U.S. tax credits for carbon capture technologies can provide a boost to commercializing projects, she added.
In addition, she backed a policy approach that broadly supports all low-carbon technologies, as opposed to favoring renewables.
“Picking and choosing between technologies is not a luxury we have anymore,” Rangarajan said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/oil-gas-climate-fund-piques-us-interest-but-not-public-support
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US Judge Throws Out Climate Change Lawsuits Against Big Oil
Jun 27, 2018 | AP
By Sudhin Thanawala
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A U.S. judge who held a hearing about climate change that received widespread attention ruled Monday that Congress and the president were best suited to address the contribution of fossil fuels to global warming, throwing out lawsuits that sought to hold big oil companies liable for the Earth’s changing environment.
Noting that the world has also benefited significantly from oil and other fossil fuel, Judge William Alsup said questions about how to balance the “worldwide positives of the energy” against its role in global warming “demand the expertise of our environmental agencies, our diplomats, our Executive, and at least the Senate.”
“The problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case,” he said.
Alsup’s ruling came in lawsuits brought by San Francisco and neighboring Oakland that accused Chevron, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, BP and Royal Dutch Shell of long knowing that fossil fuels posed serious risks to the environment, but still promoting them as environmentally responsible.
The lawsuits said the companies created a public nuisance and should pay for sea walls and other infrastructure to protect against the effects of climate change — construction that could cost billions of dollars.
The Oakland city attorney’s offices did not immediately have comment. John Cote, a spokesman for the San Francisco city attorney’s office, said the office was reviewing the ruling and would decide its next steps “shortly,” but the lawsuit had “forced a public court proceeding on climate science.”
“We’re pleased that the court recognized that the science of global warming is no longer in dispute,” he said.
New York City, several California counties and at least one other California city filed similar suits.
The companies said federal law controlled fossil fuel production, and Congress encouraged oil and gas development. The harm the cities claimed was “speculative” and part of a complex chain of events that included billions of oil and gas users and “environmental phenomena occurring worldwide over many decades,” they said in court documents.
National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons applauded the ruling in a statement. “From the moment these baseless lawsuits were filed, we have argued that the courtroom was not the proper venue to address this global challenge,” said Timmons.
Alsup brought in the world’s leading experts on climate change at an unusual hearing in March that he said was intended to educate him about the science behind the Earth’s warming.
The nearly five-hour hearing covered topics including the history of climate change research, carbon dioxide’s role as a greenhouse gas, melting ice caps, rising sea levels and extreme weather.
In Monday’s ruling, the judge said he accepted the “vast scientific consensus” that the combustion of fossil fuels has contributed to global warming and rising sea levels. But he questioned whether it would be fair to “ignore our own responsibility in the use of fossil fuels and place the blame for global warming on those who supplied what we demanded.”
https://apnews.com/365152873b564c178b99bb7f3eeff32b
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