Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 7/23/2018
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Hearing on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Jul 24, 2018 | House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy
Location : 2322 Rayburn / 10:15 AM -
Hearing on Steel and Aluminum Tariffs
Jul 24, 2018 | House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade
Location: 1100 Longworth / 2:00 PM -
Markup of Chemicals Legislation
Jul 24, 2018 | House Science, Space and Technology Committee
Location: 2318 Rayburn / 2:00 PM -
Markup of Nominations
Jul 24, 2018 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Location: 366 Dirksen / 10:00 AM -
Hearing on Global Oil Prices
Jul 24, 2018 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Location: 366 Dirksen / 10:00 AM -
Hearing on Nominations
Jul 26, 2018 | Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
Location: 253 Russell / 10:00 AM -
Academies Pan EPA's Science Rule, Offer Advice
Jul 20, 2018 | Inside EPA
The presidents of the National Academies, the nation's top scientific institutions, are strongly criticizing EPA's proposed rule mandating use of publicly available research to justify its regulations, charging that while the agency is seeking to cite their advice to justify the measure... -
Lawmakers Will Vote to Decentralize EPA Testing Program
Jul 23, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee tomorrow will take a second shot at advancing legislation that would undermine EPA's program for assessing the risks posed by toxic chemicals. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals in Food May Harm Children, Pediatricians’ Group Says
Jul 23, 2018 | New York Times
By Roni Caryn Rabin
A major pediatricians’ group is urging families to limit the use of plastic food containers, cut down on processed meat during pregnancy and consume more whole fruits and vegetables rather than processed food. Such measures would lower children’s exposures to chemicals... -
US NGO Launches Online Resource for Hazard Data
Jul 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
US NGO the Healthy Building Network has published a free online resource, to identify chemicals of concern and find safer alternatives. -
Constitution Pipeline Denied FERC Rehearing
Jul 20, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By David Bradley
In still another setback for Constitution Pipeline Co. LLC, FERC has rejected the company's request for a rehearing of a decision earlier this year in which the Commission found that New York regulators did not waive their authority by failing to issue a water quality certification... -
Texas Environmental Group Gives Up Fight Over Pipeline
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Karn Dhingra
An environmental group is waiving the white flag in its effort to overturn the federal permit of a natural gas export facility on the Texas-Mexico border. -
Colo. Governor Wants Habitat Removed from Lease Sale
Jul 20, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Scott Streater
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) has asked the Bureau of Land Management to defer more than 108,000 acres of greater sage grouse habitat from a planned December oil and gas lease sale, amid ongoing efforts by the Trump administration to revise... -
What Trump Could Do With 660 Million Barrels of Oil
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Cunningham
Energy circles are abuzz with talk that President Donald Trump could tap the nation’s emergency oil stockpile to stabilize pump prices—and to please voters—in the run-up to November’s midterm elections. -
(ACC Mentioned) Will China's Appalachian Gas Investments Survive Trade Fight?
Jul 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
It fell to Brian Anderson, a West Virginia University professor, to break the bad news at a Pittsburgh conference celebrating a hoped-for economic renaissance based on a bonanza of Appalachian shale gas. -
The VLCC Race: US Midstream Companies Plan to Export More Oil Faster
Jul 23, 2018 | Platts
By Laura Huchzermeyer
Since the US crude market began to grow only a short time ago, there has been a race to see who can load the most crude in the quickest time into the largest vessels possible along the US Gulf Coast. -
(ACC Mentioned) DHS, Chemical Firms Hope for Minor Changes to Anti-Terror Program (1)
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Joyce
Department of Homeland Security officials are hoping for only minor technical changes in a bill that would reauthorize a program that safeguards U.S. chemical facilities from terrorism. -
Leading Change Through a Culture of Safety
Jul 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Peter K. Dorhout
I'd like to begin this Comment with a safety message: Many of you are aware that I am a hobbyist woodworker. With that hobby comes a certain risk for injury. -
Chemours to Dish Out Big Bucks for Indiana Chemical Plant Cleanup (1)
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam McQuillan
Chemours Co. will spend $26.6 million to clean up a former chemical manufacturing plant in an area of East Chicago, Ind., plagued by pollution. -
EPA Pact Backs Obama RMP Rule's Audit Mandate, Environmentalists Say
Jul 20, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
The settlement would require that MFA conduct third-party audits at 20 facilities and disclose future releases on a publicly-available website. -
Supporting Industry, White House Touts Security Benefits Of RMP Rollback
Jul 20, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
White House officials reviewing EPA's draft proposal gutting the Obama-era update to the agency's facility accident prevention program sought to bolster the basis for the agency's rollback, backing industry arguments that the update was unnecessary and that rolling it back... -
FRA: $318 Million CRISI Program
Jul 20, 2018 | Railway Age
By William C. Vantuono
The Federal Railroad Administration has issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program that includes more than $318 million in grant funding from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018. -
Wildfires, Dust Won’t Count as States Show Air Quality Progress (1)
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
States can continue to exclude air pollution spikes caused by wildfires, dust storms, and other so-called exceptional events to show they are meeting national air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter, a federal appeals court ruled. -
Court Rejects New Trump Attempt to Halt Kids' Climate Lawsuit
Jul 20, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By John Bowden
A federal appeals court blocked the Trump administration's second attempt to halt a lawsuit filed by a group of children over climate change. -
Exxon, Chevron Victory Helps Keep Climate-Change Info Private
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Che Odom
Success by ExxonMobil Corp., Chevron Corp., and ConocoPhilllips Co., in persuading a federal judge to dismiss New York City’s claims against them boosts their attempts to avert their possible responsibility for contributing to climate change. -
Baltimore Files New Climate Suit After New York Case Dismissed
Jul 20, 2018 | Inside EPA
Baltimore is filing a new common law claim against major fossil fuel companies, seeking monetary damages to recover growing costs to address rising sea levels and other climate change-related damages, but the suit comes just one day after a federal district judge... -
D.C. Circuit Upholds EPA's 'Exceptional Events' Air Emissions Waiver Rule
Jul 20, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld EPA's 2016 rule granting states Clean Air Act waivers for “exceptional events,” such as dust storms or wildfires, rejecting environmentalists' claims that the rule would allow exemptions... -
Capitalism Will Solve the Climate Problem
Jul 22, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Fred Krupp
Together, science and capitalism built the modern world. But across the political spectrum, both are under attack. If we are to solve our greatest challenges, including climate change, we have to deploy the power of these twin engines of civilization. -
Meet the Teenagers Leading a Climate Change Movement
Jul 21, 2018 | New York Times
By Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks
Some of them met on Instagram. Others coordinated during lunchtime phone conferences. Most of them haven’t even graduated from high school.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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Hearing on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Jul 24, 2018 | House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy
WITNESSESMr. Steven Winberg
Assistant Secretary of Fossil Energy, U.S. Department of EnergyMr. Kevin Book
Managing Director, ClearView Energy Partners, LLCMr. Daniel M. Evans
Project Manager, Fluor Federal Petroleum OperationsMr. Frank Rusco
Director, Natural Resources and Environment, Government Accountability Office -
Hearing on Steel and Aluminum Tariffs
Jul 24, 2018 | House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade
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Markup of Chemicals Legislation
Jul 24, 2018 | House Science, Space and Technology Committee
H.R.____, the Improving Science in Chemical Assessments Act
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Jul 24, 2018 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
The purpose of the business meeting is to consider the following nominations:
Ms. Teri L. Donaldson to be Inspector General of the Department of Energy;M
s. Karen S. Evans to be an Assistant Secretary of Energy (Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response);
Dr. Christopher Fall to be Director of the Office of Science, Department of Energy; and
Mr. Daniel Simmons to be an Assistant Secretary of Energy (Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy).
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Jul 24, 2018 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Opening Remarks
· Sen. Lisa Murkowski
Chairman
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
· Sen. Maria Cantwell
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Witness Panel 1
· Mr. John Auers
Executive Vice President
Turner, Mason & Company
· Mr. Jason Bordoff
Founding Director, Center on Global Energy Policy
Columbia University
· Mr. E. Russell “Rusty” Braziel
President and Chief Executive Officer
RBN Energy, LLC
· Mr. Robert McNally
Founder and President
Rapidan Energy Group
· Mr. Keisuke Sadamori
Energy Markets and Security Director
International Energy Agency
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Jul 26, 2018 | Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
Witnesses:
Mr. Rick A. Dearborn, of Oklahoma, to be a Director of the Amtrak Board of Directors
Mr. Martin J. Oberman, of Illinois, to be a Member of the Surface Transportation Board
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Academies Pan EPA's Science Rule, Offer Advice
Jul 20, 2018 | Inside EPA
The presidents of the National Academies, the nation's top scientific institutions, are strongly criticizing EPA's proposed rule mandating use of publicly available research to justify its regulations, charging that while the agency is seeking to cite their advice to justify the measure, it fails to adequately consider potential consequences.
“Although these earlier reports can serve as a valuable resource to help inform decisions about some elements of the proposed rule, they were not designed to address the full breadth of the issues raised by the proposed rule,” the presidents of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine write in their July 16 comments.
They also charge that EPA has failed to address a host of implementation concerns, such as exemptions to the policy and the risks of releasing data, and offers its help in advising the agency. “The potential impacts of the proposed rule … will depend on many aspects of the rule’s implementation that are not described in detail,” the comments state.
EPA's proposed rule calls for barring the use of science where the underlying data and models are not publicly available, while allowing the administrator latitude in determining what exceptions to the rule may be made.
The measure drew strong criticism earlier this week when environmentalists renewed their calls for the administration to withdraw the proposal and start over. But industry officials renewed their support even as they detailed a series of changes they hope the agency will make.
The academies' comments raise a series of concerns targeting the rule's criteria and the lack of processes to make objective and transparent decisions about which studies will be included in scientific analyses used to inform federal regulations; approaches for evaluating the data and models used to characterize the dose-response relationships underlying federal regulations; and approaches for protecting the confidentiality of certain kinds of data while balancing the need to make data publicly available.
The letter acknowledges EPA's references to several of its reports in the agency's Federal Register notice announcing the proposed rule's availability for public comment. But the Academies say that the proposed rule’s “scope, complexities, and potential serious implications for regulatory science and action clearly warrant additional thorough, independent, objective, and context-specific evaluation and analysis.”
Among its cited reports, the officials point to two 2017 studies produced on federal statistics, arguing that “[t]here are several differences in the confidential microdata collected from individuals and businesses by federal statistical agencies ... and results from the kinds of studies that are within the scope of the EPA proposed rule. … What works well in the federal statistical environment may not translate effectively to EPA, where stakeholders might be strongly motivated to discount study results that run counter to their regulatory preferences.”
“EPA’s proposed rule ignores the inherent risks involved in data disclosure, the everchanging risk landscape, and the efforts needed to mitigate those risks” including cybersecurity and the possibility of privacy breaches, the letter says.
It warns that the proposal's affects need “more careful examination,” and urges the agency “to seek objective, expert guidance on the complexities of this rule and how it would be implemented. As independent and trusted advisers to the nation, the National Academies would be pleased to assist you in this effort.”
The officials touch on the concern about the administrator's exemption authority as well, arguing that “It is critical for EPA to define what 'reasonable effort' would be required to make data publicly available before an exemption is granted. Decisions about exemptions should be based on formal agency guidance and not according to criteria established by a single EPA employee.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/academies-pan-epas-science-rule-offer-advice
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Lawmakers Will Vote to Decentralize EPA Testing Program
Jul 23, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee tomorrow will take a second shot at advancing legislation that would undermine EPA's program for assessing the risks posed by toxic chemicals.
The committee attempted to vote on the "Improving Science in Chemical Assessments Act" (H.R. 6399) during a markup last week. But Science leaders were forced to pull the bill at the last minute after the Energy and Commerce Committee raised jurisdictional questions about it (Greenwire, July 18).
The legislation from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who heads the Subcommittee on Environment, seeks to shift the assessment process from chemical experts in EPA's Integrated Risk Information System to staffers in the various program offices.
It is co-sponsored by Science Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas and 15 other Republican lawmakers. Smith and Biggs are longtime critics of IRIS, which they have accused of sloppy work.
The chemical industry also opposes IRIS, largely because its health research can lead to tighter regulations on its toxic products.
"My bill ensures that future chemical assessments will be carried out only when necessary, will be subject to proper oversight, and will rely on the best available scientific methods," Biggs said in a statement.
Environmental groups are already gearing up to fight the IRIS-weakening legislation.
"We urge you to reconsider this misguided legislative effort that would effectively end the IRIS program as we know it and recommend that you oppose this bill," Andrew Rosenberg from the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in a letter to Smith and Texas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, the committee's top Democrat.
Schedule: The markup is Tuesday, July 24, at 2 p.m. in 2318 Rayburn.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/07/23/stories/1060090007
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals in Food May Harm Children, Pediatricians’ Group Says
Jul 23, 2018 | New York Times
By Roni Caryn Rabin
A major pediatricians’ group is urging families to limit the use of plastic food containers, cut down on processed meat during pregnancy and consume more whole fruits and vegetables rather than processed food. Such measures would lower children’s exposures to chemicals in food and food packaging that are tied to health problems such as obesity, the group says.
The American Academy of Pediatrics issued the guidelines in a statementand scientific technical report on Monday. The group joins other medical and advocacy groups that have expressed concern about the growing body of scientific evidence indicating that certain chemicals that enter foods may interfere with the body’s natural hormones in ways that may affect long-term growth and development.
The pediatricians’ group, which represents some 67,000 of the country’s children’s doctors, is also calling for more rigorous testing and regulation of thousands of chemicals used as food additives or indirectly added to foods when they are used in manufacturing or leach from packaging and plastics.
Among the chemicals that raised particular concern are nitrates and nitrites, which are used as preservatives, primarily in meat products; phthalates, which are used to make plastic packaging; and bisphenols, used in the lining of metal cans for canned food products. Also of concern to the pediatricians are perfluoroalkyl chemicals, or PFCs, used in grease-proof paper and packaging, and perchlorates, an antistatic agent used in plastic packaging.
“The good news is there are safe and simple steps people can take right now to limit exposures, and they don’t have to break the bank,” said Dr. Leonardo Trasande, the lead author of the statement and chief of the division of environmental pediatrics at New York University’s School of Medicine.
“Avoiding canned food is a great way to reduce your bisphenol exposure in general, and avoiding packaged and processed food is a good way to avoid phthalates exposures,” Dr. Trasande said. He also suggested wrapping foods in wax paper in lieu of plastic wrap.
Jonathan Corley, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, a trade association, said: “Chemicals are critical to protecting the quality and integrity of food, help in the safe transportation and storage of food.” He said that many of the chemicals referred to in the A.A.P. statement did not act as endocrine disrupters “in typical uses and at typical exposure levels,” but did not provide scientific references to support that contention.
In a separate development Monday, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, who used a novel method for scanning blood said they had found dozens of chemicals called environmental organic acids, or E.O.A.s, in pregnant women.
Among the other chemicals detected in the pregnant women were an estrogenic compound used in food-related plastic products, plastic pipes and water bottles, as well as a compound banned for use as a diet drug by the Food and Drug Administration decades ago, because of the risks but still used in cosmetics, pesticides and as a coloring agent in industrial processes, said Aolin Wang, one of the study’s authors.
Infants and children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of chemicals in food in part because they eat more food per pound of body weight than adults. Perhaps more significantly, children’s metabolic systems and key organ systems are still developing and maturing, so hormone disruptions can potentially cause lasting changes.
“Because hormones act at low concentrations in our blood, it is not surprising that even low-level exposures to endocrine disrupters can contribute to disease,” said Laura N. Vandenberg, an assistant professor in the department of environmental health sciences at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s School of Public Health, who spoke on behalf of the Endocrine Society.
Many of the chemicals described in the pediatrics report have been shown to interfere with normal hormone function “by mimicking or blocking the actions of hormones that are responsible for brain development, development of the sex organs and normal metabolic functions,” she said.
Child obesity in the United States has more than tripled since the 1970s, with nearly one in five children aged 6 to 19 now considered obese; the prevalence of developmental disorders in children increased from the 1990s to the mid-2000s; and rates of diagnoses of both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes among children and teenagers are also on the rise, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The A.A.P. statement was particularly critical of a regulatory process by which the F.D.A. designates food additives “generally recognized as safe,” citing a 2010 Government Accountability Office review of the program that determined “the F.D.A. is not able to ensure the safety of existing or new additives through this approval mechanism.”
An F.D.A. spokeswoman, Megan McSeveney, said the agency does not comment on specific statements or studies, but said that food safety “is at the core of the agency’s mission to protect and promote public health for our nation’s consumers.”
She said F.D.A. regulations define “safety” for substances in food to mean “there is reasonable scientific certainty that the substance is not harmful when used as intended,” and that applies to food additives, color additives and substances that are generally recognized as safe as well as substances that are used in producing, packing, preparing or processing food that “are expected to become components of food.”
“If new information (such as published studies and adverse event reports) suggests that a substance already in use may be unsafe (whether it is an additive or otherwise exempt), or if consumption levels have changed in ways that could affect safety, the F.D.A. can conduct further studies to review whether the use can still be considered safe,” Ms. McSeveney said in an email.
The pediatrics group suggests that doctors recommend families take the following steps in order to reduce chemical exposures to children:
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Prioritize the consumption of fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables whenever possible.· Avoid processed meats, especially during pregnancy.
· Avoid microwaving food or beverages — including infant formula and pumped breast milk — in plastic containers, and don’t put plastic food containers in the dishwasher.
· Use alternatives to plastic, like glass or stainless steel, whenever possible.
· Check the recycling code on the bottom of products and avoid plastics with recycling codes 3, 6 and 7, which may contain phthalates, styrene and bisphenols, unless they are labeled “biobased” or “greenware,” indicating they’re made from corn and do not contain bisphenols.
· Wash hands before handling food and drinks, and wash all fruits and vegetables that aren’t peeled.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/well/chemicals-food-children-health.html
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US NGO Launches Online Resource for Hazard Data
Jul 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
US NGO the Healthy Building Network has published a free online resource, to identify chemicals of concern and find safer alternatives.
The Chemical Hazard Data Commons aggregates hazard determinations for more than 85,000 substances from a wide range of US state, national and international governmental scientific bodies.
HBN policy director Tom Lent told Chemical Watch the platform and tools should "make it easy to access authoritative hazard information; interpret it using a standardised assessment methodology (GreenScreen); link it to functional uses and other physical and environmental information; and collaborate with others to problem solve."
The resource is based on the HBN’s Pharos Chemical and Material Library (CML) database of scientific hazard listings, but is not limited to chemicals used in the building industry.
It also uses the GreenScreen list translator tool, created by the NGO Clean Production Action.
Chemists and material designers could use the tool to identify chemicals of concern in their formulations and avoid regrettable substitutions, Mr Lent said.
It would also be useful for academic researchers and toxicologists as a quick screening tool or for government policy makers and NGOs to identify members of chemical groups that share common health attributes and to understand where chemicals of concern are used.
For more information, visit Chemical Risk Manager
https://chemicalwatch.com/68830/us-ngo-launches-online-resource-for-hazard-data
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Constitution Pipeline Denied FERC Rehearing
Jul 20, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By David Bradley
In still another setback for Constitution Pipeline Co. LLC, FERC has rejected the company's request for a rehearing of a decision earlier this year in which the Commission found that New York regulators did not waive their authority by failing to issue a water quality certification (WQC) within a reasonable period of time.
The 125-mile pipeline would carry Marcellus Shale gas from Susquehanna County, PA, interconnecting with the Iroquois Gas Transmission and Tennessee Gas Pipeline systems in Schoharie County, NY.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found in January that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) did not fail to act within the one-year timeframe required under the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) to issue a section 401 WQC [CP18-5]. Constitution had argued that the DEC took too long to issue the permit.
Constitution received a FERC certificate in December 2014 for its natural gas project. It initially filed for a WQC in August 2013, but withdrew and resubmitted its application twice, which DEC argued reset the one-year deadline it had to make a decision each time. Following about three years of review, the DEC ultimately denied the pipeline’s WQC.
In an order issued Thursday, commissioners turned away Constitution's argument that FERC "erred by adopting a one-year-rule" and is obligated by the CWA to make case-by-case determinations of the "reasonable period of time" in which certifying agencies must act on applications for a WQC.
FERC found that Constitution had given DEC new deadlines "by withdrawing its applications before a year had passed and by presenting New York DEC with new applications."
Last month, Constitution said New York's denial of a water permit had killed any chance of the pipeline project meeting it's scheduled Dec. 2, 2018 construction deadline, and it asked for a two-year extension.
Constitution filed at FERC five years ago, and received a certificate authorizing the project in 2014. Besides Williams, the project is backed by Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., Piedmont Natural Gas Co. Inc. and WGL Holdings Inc.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition filed by Constitution to challenge New York's regulatory authority and let stand an appeals court ruling that upheld the state's decision to deny the project a WQC.
The DEC denial was mainly related to a disagreement over trenchless crossings and the agency's contention that it didn't have enough information to determine the project’s environmental impact.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/115137-constitution-pipeline-denied-ferc-rehearing
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Texas Environmental Group Gives Up Fight Over Pipeline
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Karn Dhingra
An environmental group is waiving the white flag in its effort to overturn the federal permit of a natural gas export facility on the Texas-Mexico border.
The Big Bend Conservation Alliance, a non-profit volunteer group, said July 20 it wouldn’t appeal the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decision that found the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission appropriately limited its jurisdiction when it conducted an environmental review of a facility set up to export natural gas from West Texas to Mexico.
The facility is connected to the 148-mile Trans-Pecos Pipeline, which has been subject to lawsuits and opposition from environmental groups. Trans-Pecos Pipeline LLC, which is owned by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, had intervened on behalf of FERC before the court. The court, in its July 17 ruling in Big Bend Conservation Alliance v. FERC, found the pipeline is subject to regulations from the state of Texas rather than the federal government.
The environmental group argued the Trans-Pecos Pipeline and the export facility should have been considered interstate because they connected to pipelines and facilities in Texas that were connected to facilities in other states. The group said it was trying to get this designation because pipelines that cross state lines are subject to stricter federal regulations.
The D.C. Circuit accepted Trans-Pecos’ counterargument that the export facility was taking gas from pipelines located only in Texas. The court also said the environmental group hadn’t presented this argument to FERC before if filed its suit. The court declined to address the group’s argument and said it was a new argument on appeal to the court, which appellate proceedings forbid.
In a statement, Trey Gerfers, a spokesman for the Big Bend Conservation Alliance, said further legal proceedings were not worthwhile in the current regulatory environment.
“In simple terms it was ‘business as usual’ with the court deferring to the agency and favoring the interests of industry,” Gerfers said. “Due to the virtually nonexistent avenues for further appeal, combined with the status of the Trans-Pecos Pipeline, the BBCA can find no fruitful road forward for continued appeal.”
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/texas-environmental-group-gives-up-fight-over-pipeline
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Colo. Governor Wants Habitat Removed from Lease Sale
Jul 20, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Scott Streater
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) has asked the Bureau of Land Management to defer more than 108,000 acres of greater sage grouse habitat from a planned December oil and gas lease sale, amid ongoing efforts by the Trump administration to revise grouse management plans and increase leasing on public lands.
Hickenlooper also expressed concerns in a letter sent this week to acting BLM Colorado Director Gregory Shoop about recent revisions to agency oil and gas leasing policies that he said have "created significant barriers for us to efficiently review the parcels under consideration for sale."
The Dec. 6 lease sale proposes to offer 227 parcels covering 236,000 acres for oil and gas leasing. Hickenlooper is most concerned about potential impacts to sage grouse habitat, noting that 143 of the 227 parcels cover 108,600 acres identified by BLM as priority and general habitat for sage grouse.
"That equates to 62 percent of total parcels and 46 percent of total acreage in the sale," he wrote.
Hickenlooper's letter also notes that BLM has proposed potentially significant changes to Obama-era sage grouse conservation plans that cover tens of millions of acres of federal lands in Colorado and nine other Western states.
BLM in May released six draft environmental impact statements that would amend the federal plans finalized in 2015 through various resource management plan (RMP) amendments.
The proposed RMP amendments appear designed to give states, as well as the oil and gas and mining industries, more "flexibility" to petition for waivers and exemptions on some restrictions, under the premise that the terrain and other characteristics of grouse habitat in each state are different and could allow for activities in grouse habitat that won't harm the bird.
In Colorado, where BLM manages 1.7 million acres of grouse habitat, the current ban on oil and gas leasing within a mile of an active grouse breeding ground, called a lek, would be lifted, allowing such areas to be open to leasing subject to no-surface-occupancy requirements.
Colorado, Hickenlooper wrote, "supports a targeted plan amendment that maintains a commitment to the overall conservation goals for [sage grouse] and remedies lingering concerns" from the Obama-era plans.
"A significant effort is currently underway by the BLM, the State, local governments, and interested parties to achieve this goal" through the RMP amendment process, he added.
"Given the amount of [sage grouse] habitat potentially impacted" by the December lease sale, "and the plan amendment process currently underway, we request that any parcels in [grouse] habitat be removed from this sale" until the amendments to the Obama-era grouse blueprint are finalized.
It's not clear whether BLM will do so. The agency is currently conducting an environmental assessment of the parcels for the December lease sale.
Jayson Barangan, a BLM spokesman in Denver, issued an emailed statement that the agency and state "enjoy a productive relationship on management of public lands and the public's energy resources here in Colorado."
He added, "We appreciate the input from the governor and are in the process of evaluating and considering the State of Colorado's recommendations."
Internal revisions
But Hickenlooper's concerns with greater sage grouse go hand in hand with recent BLM revisions designed to streamline federal management of oil and gas development on public lands.
Those changes, outlined in an instruction memorandum (IM) issued to BLM field offices in late January, included shortening public review and protest periods for proposed lease parcels, and said the agency will no longer "routinely defer" parcels from leasing while RMP amendment revisions are completed (E&E News PM, Feb. 1).
"Colorado Department of Natural Resources Executive Director Bob Randall wrote to you in April to express concerns" about the January IM, Hickenlooper wrote in the letter to Shoop. "I reaffirm those concerns now as we see the impacts of the IM first-hand during this sale."
He wrote that while the IM "states that the BLM will not routinely defer leasing when waiting for a plan amendment or revision to be signed, it does not remove your discretion to recommend deferral to the Washington Office."
"If you are unable to remove these parcels from the sale, despite our strong recommendation," Hickenlooper wrote, then the state requests that 19 parcels that it says "fall within 1 mile of a lek" should be removed.
He also expressed concerns about the impact the lease sale could have on big game winter range and wildlife migration corridors. And he raised concerns about eight proposed parcels covering 7,903 acres in the North Fork Valley in southwest Colorado that have conservation groups concerned about impacts to water quality and sensitive wildlife habitat.
Overall, the IM shortening the public review period makes evaluating the parcels in a lease sale the size of the one in December very challenging, he wrote.
"With 227 parcels representing 236,010 acres spread across the state, I must stress to you the great burden this expanded sale and condensed review schedule puts on State staff to adequately review parcels," he wrote.
Conservation leaders praised Hickenlooper's letter.
"The BLM is moving at a breakneck pace to hand our public lands over to the oil and gas industry, over the growing objections of rural communities, wildlife agencies and local governments," said Nada Culver, senior counsel and director of the Wilderness Society's BLM Action Center in Denver.
"Gov. Hickenlooper is asking the BLM to take a step back and ensure leasing decisions are good for Colorado, which is unfortunately not something the current administration is prioritizing," she added.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/07/20/stories/1060089977
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What Trump Could Do With 660 Million Barrels of Oil
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Cunningham
Energy circles are abuzz with talk that President Donald Trump could tap the nation’s emergency oil stockpile to stabilize pump prices—and to please voters—in the run-up to November’s midterm elections.
The tool at his disposal is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, set up in the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s as a backup in case of subsequent supply shocks. It’s the world’s largest supply of emergency crude, stored in deep and heavily guarded underground salt caverns along the U.S. Gulf Coast. At present, the reserve totals 660 million barrels.
Have presidents tapped the reserve before?
Yes. In 2011, President Barack Obama released 30 million barrels as part of a joint effort with other nations to counter supply disruptions from Libya. In 2005, President George W. Bush released 11 million barrels in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. And in 1991, under President George H.W. Bush, 17 million barrels were released during the first Gulf War. Test releases take place from time to time, as well as limited releases in the form of swaps. Last year, for instance, the Energy Department authorized the release of 5 million barrels to Gulf Coast refineries when Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on the region. Such arrangements are designed to address short-term emergency needs, and the crude is repaid, in kind, at a future date.
In what circumstances can presidents release stockpiled oil?
That is pretty much the president’s prerogative. But the 1975 law that established the reserve said a president can order a full drawdown in the event of a “severe energy supply interruption” that threatens national security or the economy. A limited drawdown (up to 30 million barrels) can be ordered in the event of “a domestic or international energy supply shortage of significant scope or duration.“
Why is this issue coming up now?
The price of crude oil and of gasoline at the pump have been rising, pushed up by forces including the collapse of Venezuela’s oil industry and disruptions in Libya. Trump’s decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran could send prices skyrocketing right as American voters start to focus on what party to support in congressional elections in November. Though Trump is pressuring the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to ramp up production, analysts are skeptical his calls will have the intended result.
What does a release entail?
The maximum drawdown capability is 4.4 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Department’s website, and it takes 13 days for Strategic Petroleum Reserve oil to reach the market after a presidential decision. In reality, recent pipeline reconfigurations and maintenance mean the maximum rate at which it can be drawn down is likely to be less than that, according to analysts. But the mere announcement that the reserve is being deployed could have an immediate, if short-lived, effect on oil prices. Longer term, much depends on how many Iranian barrels are lost due to sanctions, what OPEC’s response is, and so on. And any impact may only be to stop oil from reaching even loftier heights. “You could be avoiding an increase as opposed to bringing prices down,” said Guy Caruso, a former head of the Energy Information Administration.
Is there any way to make a bigger splash?
A drawdown of the U.S. stockpile in tandem with other members of the International Energy Agency would arguably lend any move more legitimacy. “A collective release would have a bigger impact in terms of market perception,” said Antoine Halff, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy in New York. “It’s also much easier to justify politically.”
What’s the outlook for the U.S. stockpile?
The domestic shale boom has allowed the U.S. to join the ranks of the world’s biggest oil producers, lending weight to arguments that the emergency reserve is past its sell-by date. It has been tapped in recent years to help pay government bills ranging from roads to deficit reduction and drugs and current plans are for the stockpile to be cut almost in half over several years. Speculation that Trump could tap the reserve rebuts the case for doing away with it. “It certainly undermines the argument that we live in an age of abundance where emergency stocks are superfluous,” said Halff.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/what-trump-could-do-with-660-million-barrels-of-oil
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(ACC Mentioned) Will China's Appalachian Gas Investments Survive Trade Fight?
Jul 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
It fell to Brian Anderson, a West Virginia University professor, to break the bad news at a Pittsburgh conference celebrating a hoped-for economic renaissance based on a bonanza of Appalachian shale gas.
Anderson, director of the West Virginia University Energy Institute, has been a point man in negotiations with China Energy Investment Corp. (CEIC), a huge, state-controlled energy conglomerate. CEIC has proposed investments of up to $84 billion over a decade or more to help develop a gas extraction and petrochemical manufacturing complex along both sides of the Ohio River.
The Chinese and their money were not coming, at least for now, Anderson announced at the Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction Conference in Pittsburgh last month — collateral damage from President Trump's trade offensive against China's "economic aggression," as the administration describes it.
"It was pretty interesting to hear they'd canceled right before the conference because of the trade war going on," said Taylor Robinson, president PLG Consulting, whose firm has studied the potential of the Appalachian shale resource and was in the audience in Pittsburgh.
"Was I surprised? Not really," Robinson said. "We're attacking their government, and they're part of the government," he said of CEIC. "When you poke a bear ..."
The enormous offer last November, made in a memorandum of understanding from CEIC, was a crown jewel of the economic pledges made by China during Trump's pilgrimage to Beijing at the end of last year.
It lit up West Virginia's hopes of capitalizing on the wealth of natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations underlying its borders and brightened the state's chances of catching up to two neighbors to the north that have been bigger winners in the decade of shale gas development.
The surge in fracking operations in the Marcellus area has propelled Pennsylvania into the top ranks of gas-producing states in the United States. In April, the state produced 16,367 million cubic feet of gas per day, behind only Texas in volume. Pennsylvania's April total was nearly 10 percent higher than the year before, the Energy Information Administration reported.
West Virginia wells delivered 4,596 million cubic feet a day in April, a 13 percent gain over the year before. But Ohio's total, 6,111 million cubic feet a day, was higher and jumped 40 percent from April 2017.
Moreover, the energy infrastructure boom that followed the opening of the Marcellus and Utica plays has favored Pennsylvania and Ohio. A massive industrial plant to "crack" ethane gas into ethylene, a prime petrochemical feedstock, is under construction in western Pennsylvania, and Ohio officials are confident of landing the region's second cracking plant.
The China card
China looked like a difference-maker.
"CEIC has a systematic and logical strategy to implement significant projects over the next 20 years, including power generation, chemical manufacturing and underground storage of natural gas liquids," according to Steven Hedrick, CEO of the Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research & Innovation Center (MATRIC) in South Charleston, W.Va.
Then came Trump's trade levies on $34 billion of Chinese goods, followed by additional levies and threats of retaliation and counter-retaliation by both sides. As the Pittsburgh meeting approached, CEIC officials aborted a scheduled trip to the U.S. to discuss the first round of projects they would support.
"I think it's a temporary setback," Anderson said in an interview. "It's a hurdle.
"Some of this is posturing and politics," he added. "But that doesn't change the overall economics for a new entry in the petrochemical industry in the United States," and the Appalachian basin in particular, Anderson said.
Temporary or longer is just one of the question marks spreading over the U.S. economy and China's as the trade conflict proceeds.
On Friday, Trump turned up the heat again, telling a CNBC interviewer he was "ready to go to 500," a reference to the $500 billion-plus in Chinese goods that filled up U.S. stores and showrooms last year. "I'm not doing this for politics, I'm doing this to do the right thing for our country," the president said. "We have been ripped off by China for a long time."
It wouldn't be the right thing for West Virginia, where Trump carried every county in the 2016 presidential election, taking nearly 69 percent of the state's votes.
Enter DOE
But the Trump administration has another card to play in determining West Virginia's gas future, this one coming from the Department of Energy.
In January, DOE invited West Virginia energy developers to seek a $1.9 billion federal loan guarantee for a proposed Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub, a complex of underground storage caverns where ethane and propane from Marcellus and Utica wells would be kept to help ensure a smooth flow of supply to the cracking plants that the region's developers hope for.
"We're laying out a plan," Energy Secretary Rick Perry told a House committee in March (Energywire, March 16).
Perry said that creating a second U.S. petrochemical hub away from the hurricane-threatened Gulf Coast "is a national security issue."
"To develop that in another region of this country, the Appalachian, makes sense because you're sitting on top of Marcellus and Utica, which are prolific gas fields, and helping transition the workers who are either out of work or not working in jobs that are satisfactory from their perspective into higher-paying refining- and petrochemical-type jobs," Perry said. "That is something we're working on actively today at DOE."
An American Chemistry Council scenario projects that underground storage sites in several locations south of the Ohio River in West Virginia would be warranted to support up to seven ethane cracking plants and other petrochemical facilities, with a capacity of 75 million to 100 million barrels of ethane, propane and byproducts.
By 2025, if the complex was complete, the region could be producing more than $23 billion of chemical and plastic materials, the council projected (Energywire, July 20).
In addition to his duties with the MATRIC research group, Hedrick is president of the Appalachia Development Group LLC, the West Virginia consortium that is sponsoring the storage hub project seeking the loan guarantee.
"It will not be easy. It will not be inexpensive," Hedrick told an energy conference recently. The DOE invitation is just the first step of an exhaustive process of demonstrating the gas storage hub can succeed economically, justifying the taxpayer risk in the federal backing.
"We feel confident in our ability to secure the $1.9 billion loan guarantee," Hedrick said. His group is also progressing on a campaign to raise $1.4 billion in outside support, he said. "To say we're engaged with heavy hitters is a mild understatement."
But the gas storage piece must follow more investment in gas extraction, pipeline connections and petrochemical processing, experts say.
Mountaineer NGL Storage LLC, for example, is building a storage hub in Monroe County, Ohio, opposite one of the potential West Virginia sites. Its president, David Hooker, was quoted telling an Appalachian gas conference last month, "You don't have a storage hub until you have the production to drive a storage hub."
That's why the potential CEIC investment has loomed so large for West Virginia.
Anderson said the list of potential CEIC projects in the region "is a mixture of short-, medium- and long-term investments."
"The effort is still ongoing. It's by no means halted" despite the trade dispute, he said. "The efforts of advanced development teams working on projects is going on right now, on a daily basis," Anderson said.
"There are at least two near-term projects that could potentially be announced this year," he added, declining to give more detail.
Melanie Hart, a senior fellow and director of China policy at the Center for American Progress, is skeptical of CEIC's long-term commitment to the Appalachian petrochemical build-out. Its $84 billion offer was part of a package of investment promises that China's President Xi Jinping had assembled to offer to Trump when the president visited China last November — an opening move to head off the trade conflict that has arrived.
Arm-twisting?
"We know there was a lot of arm-twisting going on" to assemble China's investment offer, Hart said. "It's hard to see what the market case is on the Chinese side to make such massive investments, unless they are state-backed to buy calmer trade relations."
Then the question is whether the Trump administration would be willing to back off its trade complaints against China in return for investments in energy infrastructure and more Chinese purchases of U.S. goods. Such a deal "does not address the major risks in our trade and investment relationship with China," Hart said. "That would be selling out cheap."
Darryl Rogers, vice president for midstream oil and natural gas liquids markets for IHS Markit, a consulting firm that sees great promise in the Appalachian petrochemical development, cautions that the big-picture success the region's leaders hope for will require many investment decisions on many projects over many years. They would outlast a one- or even two-term Trump administration.
"The resource is available here," and the Chinese may come for all the reasons people invest in the U.S., Rogers said.
"But there is a bit of a challenge here," he added. Chinese enterprises have the choice of buying Appalachian ethane gas production, shipping it to home and turning it into plastics there, or investing in the entire production chain in the U.S. in order to export the finished plastic resins. The options will change in value as world prices for oil and gas and shipping costs move up and down over the years.
"It's complicated. You may choose to build that manufacturing in China or elsewhere in Asia" rather than Appalachia. It will be a business decision, Rogers said. "Low cost wins."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/07/23/stories/1060090027
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The VLCC Race: US Midstream Companies Plan to Export More Oil Faster
Jul 23, 2018 | Platts
By Laura Huchzermeyer
Since the US crude market began to grow only a short time ago, there has been a race to see who can load the most crude in the quickest time into the largest vessels possible along the US Gulf Coast.
The stakes are high. Major Asian buyers are looking to load as much oil on to one vessel in order to maximize the economics of their US purchases.
But the ports along the Gulf Coast were not built to accommodate the super tankers–Very Large Crude Carriers–which can carry around 2 million barrels of crude.
That’s double the amount of the next sizes down Suezmax (1 million barrels) and Aframax (750,000 barrels), both of which can navigate the shallower waters of US ports and can be fully loaded at many facilities.
Giant VLCCs are just too big to be fully loaded inside US ports because the water is too shallow to allow a fully-loaded VLCC to pass.
For example, the Texas City loading dock along the Houston Ship Channel is 45 feet deep, but a depth of 75 feet is required to accommodate a fully-laden VLCC.
As a result, ship-to-ship transfers must be used to complete the loading in deeper water offshore. And that is a costly, time-consuming process that takes on average 10 days to complete.
Reducing or eliminating the need for reverse lightering depends on several factors, including the API gravity of the crude grade being transported.
The going rate for an Aframax for reverse lightering in the USGC is $240,000-$250,000 per tanker, according to market sources.
So, the ability to skip reverse lightering saves between $700,000 to $1 million, sources have said.
In an effort to improve upon the process, and at the same time try to get a leg up on competition, several US midstream compHere’s a rundown of some of the VLCC-loading milestones along the US Gulf Coast so far and what may be on the horizon:
LOUISIANA OFFSHORE OIL PORT (LOOP)
The LOOP deepwater port has been rapidly breaking its own records when it comes to the VLCC loadings.
It’s most recent export was loaded onto the VLCC Anne in a total of four days–two days faster than its previous best, which sailed only two weeks earlier.
The LOOP port was originally set up as an import point for VLCCs offloading heavy, sour crude from foreign countries.
LOOP comprises three single-point mooring buoys and a marine terminal 18 miles offshore the coast of Louisiana in 110 feet of water. A 56-inch-diameter line (100,000 barrels/hour) connects the marine terminal to an onshore pumping facility, which moves the oil 25 miles inland to a terminal
with above-ground and underground storage, also known as Clovelly Hub.LOOP began exporting US crude earlier this year, and a total of four VLCCs have been loaded so far. Loading times for each of the four cargoes have gotten shorter. It’s most recent cargo loaded in four days, compared to the 10 days it took to load the first VLCC export.
LOOP anticipates cutting loading times further. During the first few exports the terminal was intentionally moving slowly to make sure it was getting operations in order since it was a new process. As the terminal fine-tunes the process, loading times will shorten.
OXY INGLESIDE ENERGY CENTER TERMINAL/CORPUS CHRISTI
Occidental Petroleum’s Corpus Christi facility started export operations in late 2016 and is working vigorously to improve loading capabilities.
Oxy made history in May 2017 when it brought the Anne into Corpus Christi Bay for a trial run. It was the first time a super tanker had docked inside a US port.
But Anne was empty and left the port unladen. It was just a trial to prove it could be done.
Now, Oxy aims to begin partially loading VLCCs at its docks by the first quarter of 2019. The Port of Corpus Christi also is planning to develop a VLCC-loading facility at its Harbour Island, for which design studies and regulatory process is underway.
It also plans to dredge the inner harbor to 52 feet initially and later to 75 feet for full loading of VLCCs.
A contract for the work will be awarded later this month, but the Channel Improvement Project carries a price tag of $327 million–and must receive federal funding in order to get completed.
ENTERPRISE PRODUCT PARTNERS
Also in the VLCC mix is Enterprise Products Partners, which has partially loaded two VLCCs at its Texas City facility this year. Last week, Enterprise announced plans to build an offshore crude oil export terminal off the Texas Gulf Coast. No time line has been released on the project but front-end engineering and design work are underway.
Based on initial designs, the project would include roughly 80 miles of a 42-inch diameter pipeline to an offshore terminal capable of loading crude onto the super tankers at 85,000 barrels/hour.
The planned facility, which will likely be somewhere off the Texas coast, is compared with the 35,000 barrels/hour now being offered by Enterprise.
JUPITER OFFSHORE LOADING TERMINAL
Another less-talked about project is in the works farther south in Brownsville, Texas. Private company Jupiter has started the engineering, permitting and design of its Jupiter Offshore Loading Terminal. The project is will accommodate offshore VLCC loading six miles off the coast of Texas.
http://blogs.platts.com/2018/07/23/vlcc-midstream-us-crude-oil-export/
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(ACC Mentioned) DHS, Chemical Firms Hope for Minor Changes to Anti-Terror Program (1)
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Joyce
Department of Homeland Security officials are hoping for only minor technical changes in a bill that would reauthorize a program that safeguards U.S. chemical facilities from terrorism.
While House and Senate committees held hearings in June on the Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards, legislation to reauthorize the program has yet to be introduced. The risk-assessment program is aimed at identifying chemical facilities that pose a high risk for acts of terrorism or exploitation.
It began in 2007 and was extended annually until a 2014 statute authorized it for four years. It expires Jan. 19.
Homeland Security suggested some minor technical changes but is “wholly supportive of something similar to the 2014 bill,” Robert Kolasky, Department of Homeland Security acting assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, told Bloomberg Environment July 19 at an agency conference in Chicago.
Companies agree. Reauthorization is also supported by the American Chemistry Council, whose members include Dow Chemical Co. and Shell Chemical LP. Other backers include the National Association of Chemical Distributors.
‘Tremendously Better’Government actions to rid the program of some growing pains, notably initial delays incurred by companies getting approval for their security plans to comply with the program, have largely succeeded, Jim Blow, risk manager at Kansas City, Kan.-based Harcros Chemicals Inc., told Bloomberg Environment at the Chicago conference.
“The process is tremendously better,” he said.
Blow’s company has 29 facilities around the country that have submitted security plans in accordance with the DHS program.
But some companies haven’t complied. About 70 disciplinary cases have been brought against companies to date, with penalties imposed on three, David Wulf, the department’s infrastructure security compliance division director, told Bloomberg Environment. No fine exceeded $50,000, he said. Identities of companies required to participate in the program aren’t publicly revealed by DHS.
DHS has determined about 3,400 U.S. facilities possessing chemicals are high risk facilities and have been assigned one of four risk tiers, with Tier 1 being the riskiest, under the program, Wulf said.
Statutory Changes?Enactment of the 2014 law (Public Law 113-254) and its longer-term authorization period provided certainty that allowed companies to make strategic business and investment decisions, Wulf said. Reauthorizing the program for at least four years would probably have the same effect, he said.
Ben Voelkel, a spokesman for Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), declined to comment on when the reauthorization bill would move.
In 2016, a new methodology to categorize facilities’ risk was introduced to further speed up the the site security plan application process. The new methodology also added features that help users complete applications, Amy Graydon, the department’s infrastructure security compliance division acting director, told the conference.
Changes included a new risk methodology, new online tools for the regulated community, and a corporate approach that allows companies with dozens of facilities to reduce duplicative effort.
Blow said the corporate approach has particularly benefited his company.
In addition to complying with the program’s obligations, employers should have internal programs in place to detect unusual employee behavior, Christopher Young, an FBI intelligence analyst, told the conference.
Those programs should provide an employee with a way to disclose atypical developments, such as a bankruptcy or sudden large financial gains, to company officials who are not the employee’s manager, he said.
“When you see something weird, we want to hear about it,” he said.
—With assistance from Dean Scott.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/dhs-chemical-firms-hope-for-minor-changes-to-anti-terror-program-1
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Leading Change Through a Culture of Safety
Jul 22, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Peter K. Dorhout
I'd like to begin this Comment with a safety message: Many of you are aware that I am a hobbyist woodworker. With that hobby comes a certain risk for injury. Even with all the safeguards in place and proper use of techniques for ripping boards, a guide block slipped on a board I was cutting on my table saw, and two fingers on my left hand suffered minor cuts. If you were at the 2018 Northeast Nanomaterials Meeting in June, you probably remember seeing me wearing bandages.
I talked about my injury with woodworking colleagues and assessed how we could conceive of better, safer methods for making these types of cuts in the future. We also discussed how we should all have first-aid equipment available in our woodworking shops to improve the response to an accident should one occur. We applied RAMP to the situation and are turning a negative outcome around and making our work safer. (RAMP is an acronym for the four elements of the chemical safety process: Recognize the hazard, assess the risk, minimize and manage risk, and prepare for emergencies.)
This culture of safety doesn’t apply to just what we do in our vocation but how we think and act everywhere. At the fall ACS national meeting in Boston, I’ll be cosponsoring a presidential symposium with the Division of Chemical Health & Safety (CHAS), “Moving the Safety Values of the ACS Forward.” This symposium will focus on how members have been working together on the recommendations of the ACS Safety Summit that we held in February.
In a July 9 Comment in C&EN, Ralph Stuart, chair of the ACS Committee on Chemical Safety (CCS), described many of the other activities that ACS members have been engaging in to lead the safety culture landscape for ACS. Ralph highlighted how CCS and CHAS have been partnering with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine and the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU) to advance a culture of safety in academic research.
As a leader within APLU’s Council on Research, I have been advocating for methods by which the council’s members, primarily university vice presidents and vice chancellors for research, can be change agents for improving the culture of safety in response to the 2016 APLU publication “A Guide to Implementing a Safety Culture in Our Universities.”
To recognize best practices and institutional leaders who are advancing a culture of safety, APLU partnered with the Campus Safety, Health & Environmental Management Association (CSHEMA) and on July 10 announced the CSHEMA Research Safety Awards. I hope you will take a few minutes to read more about these awards and consider the best practices being highlighted.
While many of the projects recognized by CSHEMA are broadly applicable across disciplines at colleges and universities, there were a few awards specific to chemistry departments, and I would like to call attention to just a few:
In the Innovation Award for Safety Culture category, Washington University in St. Louis received an Award of Honor for the chemistry department’s multipronged approach to improving research safety culture. The department has become a model for other departments at the university.
In the same category, the department of chemistry and biochemistry at Northern Illinois University received an Award of Merit for forming a Student Advisory Safety Committee (SASC), led by graduate students, to create and enhance cultural changes around safety. Student-led safety programs are not new, but the implementation at NIU contains some very creative approaches to improving safety culture.
The joint safety team concept, similar to a SASC, is one that has been promoted by CCS and CHAS through workshops led by graduate students. If you or your students are interested in learning more about how to develop a joint safety team, you may participate in the three-hour workshop offered at the ACS national meeting in Boston on Sunday, Aug. 19. Registration for limited spaces is available at www.dchas.org/2018/04/13/jst-workshop.
In the Innovation Award for Process Improvements category, Carleton College received an Award of Merit for developing a Custodial Training Guide for the custodial department staff who work in chemical laboratories but who have not typically benefited from the same training and communications as students and faculty. The program was adapted from a similar program at the University of Iowa and is an example of sharing safety information, which is promoted by the CCS Communications Subcommittee and recommended by the ACS Safety Summit.
These are just a few examples of the ways that chemistry departments are leading change.
Nothing can have a greater impact on the public trust of chemistry than demonstrating to the world that we care about our students, our colleagues, and our communities by promoting a culture of safety. If you have ideas or suggestions, please feel free to reach out to me at p.dorhout@acs.org.
https://cen.acs.org/acs-news/comment/Leading-change-through-culture-safety/96/i30
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Chemours to Dish Out Big Bucks for Indiana Chemical Plant Cleanup (1)
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam McQuillan
Chemours Co. will spend $26.6 million to clean up a former chemical manufacturing plant in an area of East Chicago, Ind., plagued by pollution.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced July 20 its plan to cleanse the contaminated site, once home to a DuPont facility.
“Chemours recently sold the property to East Chicago Gateway Partners (ECGP) for redevelopment,” a spokesperson for Chemours told Bloomberg Environment in an email. “The clean up work will be conducted by Chemours and ECGP under supervision of the U.S. EPA, Indiana Department of Environmental Quality, and the city of East Chicago.”
The EPA ordered DuPont to investigate the harmful environmental impacts of the site in 1997 after studies showed the facility had high levels of arsenic, lead, zinc, and cadmium. The $26 million will pay to treat the metal infested soil, move contaminated material off-site, and supplement the EPA for procedural safety costs.
“What was floated by Chemours at one of the public meetings I was at was that they were thinking about [repurposing] the site for some kind of a logistics facility,” Debbie Chizewer, environmental advocate at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law’s Environmental Advocacy Clinic, told Bloomberg Environment. “I don’t know if they’re sticking with that, or if the plan was modified in part to remove the excavated contaminated material instead of the site.”
The cleanup is being handled under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which gives the EPA authority to issued permits for hazardous waste disposal.
Contamination Everywhere
About 172 acres of the site have already been cleaned up by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, which owns a section of the site. The separate project launched in 2014, but didn’t restore the contaminated site fully, according to local community activist Thomas Frank. Instead, it turned the site into a buffer area between several other contaminated lands, he said.
The former DuPont property is south of the USS Lead Superfund site in East Chicago, which EPA former Administrator Scott Pruitt visited in 2017. The site is on acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s list of cleanup projects that need the agency’s “immediate, intense action.”
South of the DuPont property is the Grand Calumet River, an Area of Concern that underwent its own cleanup process in 2012 as part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
“Some of the cleanup that’s going to happen at DuPont will be an attempt to prevent further contamination of the Calumet [River],” Frank told Bloomberg Environment.
Nearby is also the Gary Chicago International Airport, which was charged with cleaning up contaminated soil uncovered by its runway expansion in 2013.
(Updates throughout with additional reporting beginning in third paragraph.)
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/chemours-to-dish-out-big-bucks-for-indiana-chemical-plant-cleanup-1
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EPA Pact Backs Obama RMP Rule's Audit Mandate, Environmentalists Say
Jul 20, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
A proposed EPA settlement requiring a Missouri-based agricultural products company to perform third-party audits to prevent facility accidents undermines the Trump administration's roll back of equivalent Obama-era policies in the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) rule, environmentalists say.
“What this really highlights is how reasonable those requirements are in the first place,” an environmentalist says of EPA and the Justice Department's (DOJ) July 2 proposed settlement with MFA Incorporated of Columbia, MO. “The federal government admits that these impositions on these MFA facilities will help prevent chemical disasters.”
The settlement would require that MFA conduct third-party audits at 20 facilities and disclose future releases on a publicly-available website.
The requirements mirror those of the Obama EPA's January 2017 final rule updating the agency's RMP program, and its Next Generation enforcement policy, both of which are being scaled back.
EPA was not immediately available for comment but an industry source says the proposed deal backs administration claims the agency will seek to boost safety through targeted enforcement.
And the industry source adds that MFA's record, including a rare criminal conviction in 2007, makes the company an outlier, and that imposing certain safety requirements through enforcement on a case-by-case basis, rather than a rule affecting numerous facilities is consistent with Trump administration statements on rolling back Obama-era policies.
For example, in an April 3 memo, EPA enforcement chief Susan Bodine said the agency would no longer require consideration of Next Generation (NextGen) enforcement tools, such as advanced monitoring or online disclosures, third-party verification, and disclosures of facility data in all civil settlements, but would continue to consider them on a case-by-case basis.
And in a May 17 proposed rule rescinding most requirements of the RMP update rule, including requirements for third-party audits, EPA backed industry calls to require additional safety measures through enforcement rather than broad mandates as consistent with the agency's new focus on minimizing regulatory burdens.
“What this case represents is under the right set of facts EPA and DOJ are willing to impose remedies that go beyond compliance and look like some of the Obama-era policies,” the industry source says. “But that does not mean that in all enforcement cases the agency should feel a rigid audit requirement would fit.”
The deal's third-party audit requirement comes despite the White House Office and Management Budget (OMB) downplaying the benefits of those audits in discussions this spring during an inter-agency review of a EPA's draft rule scaling back the Obama-era RMP update.
The inter-agency review strongly backed industry comments that third-party audits bring little added benefit over long-standing RMP requirements. “Based on substantial comments, the agency does not know [whether] third party audits are superior or inferior to company based audits from the original rule,” documents from the review say
The enforcement action against MFA comes as EPA is seeking comment through July 30 on the proposed rule rolling back most requirements of EPA's Obama-era final rule updating RMP, including provisions requiring certain facilities to conduct third-party audits, safer technologies analysis and for streamlined disclosure of facility data.
RMP Update
EPA's RMP update sought to implement President Barack Obama's August 2013 executive order on improving facility safety, issued in response to an explosion in April of that year that killed 15 people, including first responders.
The Trump administration has significantly delayed and proposed scaling back the RMP rule in response to industry petitions arguing that the existing RMP has successfully reduced accidents. Industry also says federal investigators' finding that arson caused the fire at West undermines use of the incident to support new accident prevention mandates.
But the proposed settlement would impose a host of safety requirements in response to MFA's alleged RMP violations related to improper handling of anhydrous ammonia at nine facilities. The violations discovered in 2012 follow MFA's 2007 criminal conviction for a misdemeanor violation of Clean Air Act accident prevention requirements.
In addition to third-party auditing and public disclosure of accidents and releases online, the consent decree would require that MFA install emergency electronic shutoff systems at 53 facilities.
Federal agencies are seeking comment for 30 days on the proposed deal, which must be approved by a federal court. “This settlement will protect the communities surrounding MFA facilities by helping to prevent releases of harmful chemicals,” Jeffrey Wood, DOJ's acting assistant attorney general for DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a statement. “By bringing MFA facilities into compliance with the Clean Air Act, this agreement will also substantially improve the maintenance and emergency systems that keep MFA workers safe.”
The environmentalist argues that federal officials' touting of the settlement requiring third-party audits and data disclosure backs the Obama-era rule and provides further evidence that the proposed RMP rollback is politically-motivated.
The source argues that documents from the OMB review faulting third-party audits show federal officials seeking to fulfill the Trump administration's narrative that the rule is unnecessary. “The enforcement action is where you see what EPA actually believes,” the source says.
“The agency and DOJ clearly agree [third-party audits are] an important tool that has benefits … They say in the press release that this will help prevent chemical disasters.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-pact-backs-obama-rmp-rules-audit-mandate-environmentalists-say
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Supporting Industry, White House Touts Security Benefits Of RMP Rollback
Jul 20, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
White House officials reviewing EPA's draft proposal gutting the Obama-era update to the agency's facility accident prevention program sought to bolster the basis for the agency's rollback, backing industry arguments that the update was unnecessary and that rolling it back would provide added benefits by improving facility safety.
“Is there a reason that EPA are not including [that] 'the current proposed Reconsideration rule produces benefits by way of increased facility security relative to the 2017 RMP Amendments rule'” federal reviewers said in April correspondence with EPA on its draft proposal to gut an Obama-era update to the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) program.
EPA is currently seeking comment on a May 17 proposed rule rescinding most requirements of the Obama EPA's update to the agency's RMP facility accident-prevention program, including requirements for facilities to conduct third-party audits, analyze safer alternatives, and streamline data disclosure to first responders and the public.
Environmentalists are opposing the Trump administration's delay and revision of the Obama-era rule, charging it will undermine facility safety. In April, groups including Earthjustice argued that more than two dozen industrial accidents that had occurred since the Trump administration delayed the Obama-era final rule.
But documents recently posted to the rulemaking docket show the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) backing industry arguments that the Obama-era rule is unnecessary, and sought to bolster the basis for EPA's rollback, arguing that the pre-Obama RMP program is adequate and called for further review of the rule's costs and benefits under President Donald Trump's deregulatory orders.
“The agency acknowledges that the continual decrease in accidental releases under the original RMP rule is evidence that the original rule was working and that additional costs may not justify the additional requirements,” OMB said in an April 4 “Summary of Interagency Working Comments on Draft Language” of the proposed revision rule.
“EPA will carefully examine the individual provisions of the RMP Amendments for their respective costs and benefits in implementing the statutory provisions,” reviewers say in recommended edits forwarded to EPA.
EPA's January 2017 final rule, issued in the waning days of the Obama administration, responded to the former president's 2013 executive order on improving facility safety and security after a fertilizer facility explosion in West, TX, killed 15 people, including first responders.
Former Administrator Scott Pruitt delayed the rule for nearly two years, until March 2019, to reconsider it, which resulted in the May 17 proposed rule that would scrap many of the Obama-era rule's updates.
The reconsideration responds to separate petitions from chemical sector and other industry groups, and from 11 Republican-led states.
The documents supporting the OMB's inter-agency review, conducted in March and April, show administration officials echoing industry criticism of the Obama-era rule and seeking to bolster language backing the revision.
Reviewers urged EPA to better emphasize its contention that core provisions of the Obama rule, requiring that certain facilities conduct third-party audits (TPA) and analyze safer alternatives (STAA) are unnecessary.
“Recommend EPA providing language regarding the benefits of STAA, TPA or root cause from the literature listed in the final rule docket,” the review documents say. “We believe that the literature does not provide significant evidenced that any of these requirements yield significant benefits over the original RMP rule, since we think the original RMP rule has apparently been quite effective at reducing accidents.”
Safer Alternatives Analysis
Reviewers also backed long-standing industry assertions that safer alternatives analysis are better for designing new facilities rather than retrofitting existing ones, and urge EPA to clarify that facilities' existing reviews are adequate.
“Regarding 'low and declining accident rate', recommend including a few sentences on the effectiveness of the existing rule’s process hazard assessment that is conducted every five years and the fact that safer alternatives are likely included in that existing process without the need to conduct and pay for a wholly separate STAA.”
Additionally, the documents back industry criticism that the Obama-era rule would cause regulatory uncertainty by conflicting or overlapping with existing federal rules, because the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has yet to update its Process Safety Management (PSM) program, long viewed as a companion to RMP.
OSHA had been weighing revising PSM under the Obama's 2013 executive order, but that agency takes longer than EPA to issue rules, and OSHA's process of updating PSM has been shelved under the Trump administration.
“EPA believes that we should not retain and put into effect changes to the prevention aspects of the Risk Management Program until we have a better understanding of OSHA’s plans for the PSM standard changes so that we may move forward in a more coordinated fashion with regulatory changes that improve process safety performance and reduce accidents without causing undue burden and regulatory conflicts,” reviewers say in recommended edits.
Reviewers also suggest imposing additional requirements on facilities through enforcement rather than broad federal mandates, as chemical sector groups have argued is more appropriate.
“An enforcement approach allows the agency additional discretion to make a determination of the utility of a root cause analysis or a third party audit,” the review documents say. Third-party audits “are often used in enforcement settlements.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/supporting-industry-white-house-touts-security-benefits-rmp-rollback
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FRA: $318 Million CRISI Program
Jul 20, 2018 | Railway Age
By William C. Vantuono
The Federal Railroad Administration has issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program that includes more than $318 million in grant funding from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018.
“These CRISI grants will help make rail systems safer and more efficient for local communities throughout the country,” said FRA Administrator Ronald L. Batory. “This NOFO will assist in funding projects that improve intercity passenger and freight rail transportation safety, efficiency, and reliability.”
Funding of $250 million for Positive Train Control (PTC) systems deployment was provided under a separate NOFO published in May 2018.
“The CRISI grant program directs much needed critical investment to rural America,” FRA noted. “By directing at least 25% of available funds towards rural communities, the USDOT is able to safely connect and upgrade rural America’s rail infrastructure.”
FRA said selection preference will be given to projects with a 50% non-federal funding match from any combination of private, state, or local funds. The USDOT “will also consider how well the project aligns with key Departmental objectives, including supporting economic vitality; leveraging federal funding; preparing for life-cycle costs; using innovative approaches to improve safety and expedite project delivery; and holding grant recipients accountable for achieving specific, measurable outcomes.”
The FRA will host webinars on August 8, 2018, to aid eligible entities seeking funding. Those interested in participating can register at https://www.fra.dot.gov/Page/P1117, and FRA encourages participants to submit questions in advance.
Applications for capital projects funding under this solicitation are due no later than 5:00 p.m. EDT, up to 60 days after the date of publication in the Federal Register. To view the NOFO, visit https://www.fra.dot.gov/Page/P1120. Following the publication of the NOFO in the Federal Register, FRA plans to provide web-based training and technical assistance to applicants to address questions.
https://www.railwayage.com/regulatory/fra-318-million-crisi-program/?RAchannel=regulatory
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Wildfires, Dust Won’t Count as States Show Air Quality Progress (1)
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
States can continue to exclude air pollution spikes caused by wildfires, dust storms, and other so-called exceptional events to show they are meeting national air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter, a federal appeals court ruled.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit July 20 upheld a 2016 Environmental Protection Agency regulation that exempts pollution increases caused by uncontrollable events in combination with regulated industrial emissions.
At issue is the basis the EPA uses to “determine whether an event caused by recurring activity is ‘natural,’ and thus ‘exceptional,’ or ‘caused by human activity,’ and thus not.”
States can exclude uncontrollable pollution spikes from exceptional events from consideration of whether an area meets national standards for ozone, particulate matter, and other pollutants.
But the states can only get the exemption if they can demonstrate through monitoring that the events led to their inability to meet the standards. Compliance with national air quality ambient standards is important because areas that violate national air quality standards are required to take steps to curb pollution such as installs additional emissions controls at factories and other industrial facilities.
Environmentalists Sought ReviewThe Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club asked the D.C. Circuit to review EPA’s basis for exempting “exceptional events.”
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Environment is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.
The groups claimed the EPA rule leaves room for air pollution from human-made sources such as factories to be written off as natural events if the emissions were picked up by strong winds.
Judges Thomas Griffith, Gregory Katsas, and Harry Edwards disagreed, saying, “We think the agency’s rule is permitted by the Clean Air Act.”
The American Petroleum Institute and Midwestern livestock producers supported the EPA’s stance in arguing that environmentalists’ attacks on the rule misinterpreted the agency’s definition of “natural events” to include primarily human-caused pollution, such as emissions from refineries and power plants.
The API wasn’t prepared, however, to comment on the substance of the federal court ruling to Bloomberg Environment, claiming “we are reviewing the decision.”
Likewise, the Natural Resources Defense Council also chose not to comment.
Wildfires Cause ProblemsThe inability of states to meet national air quality standards owing to wildfires has been an issue mostly in the West, but in 2016, it became one for Northeastern states, according to Paul Miller, chief scientist and deputy director for the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. The nonprofit provides scientific, technical, and policy advice to air directors for six New England States as well as New Jersey and New York.
That is when pollution from wildfires in Alberta, Canada, blew to the east, causing high ozone days in the Northeast. As a result, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island ended up submitting air quality monitoring data to gain the exceptional events exemption.
Their data showed that pollution from the wildfires was related to their inability to meet the 2015 ozone standards of 70 parts per billion, and in some instances with the two preceding standards set in 2008 and 1997.
The EPA concurred with all states except Maryland that the 2016 wildfires were driving them out of compliance. In Maryland’s case, the EPA partially concurred with the state’s demonstration.“For Connecticut, it caused high enough ozone concentrations that it was keeping the state from showing that it had attained the older 1997 ozone standard of 85 parts per billion across an eight-hour average,” said Miller, adding that the state was able to submit monitoring data from this episode to gain an exception under this rule.
The case is Nat. Res. Def. Council v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1413, 7/20/18.
(Updated with reaction from Northeastern states, American Petroleum Institute)
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/wildfires-dust-wont-count-as-states-show-air-quality-progress-1
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Court Rejects New Trump Attempt to Halt Kids' Climate Lawsuit
Jul 20, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By John Bowden
A federal appeals court blocked the Trump administration's second attempt to halt a lawsuit filed by a group of children over climate change.
The California-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously on Friday that the lawsuit can go forward.
The suit argues that the Trump administration "violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources" through their climate policies.
“We denied the government’s first mandamus petition, concluding that it had not met the high bar for relief at that stage of the litigation. ... No new circumstances justify this second petition, and we again decline to grant mandamus relief,” read a court order.
Today's ruling was not on the merits of the case, but rather clears the way for an Oct. 29 hearing.
The Trump administration has twice sought to either halt the case or have it thrown out entirely.
The same court ruled against the Trump administration earlier this year after attorneys for the Justice Department argued that the burden for the process of discovery would be overbearing.
“The defendants’ argument fails because the district court has not issued a single discovery order, nor have the plaintiffs filed a single motion seeking to compel discovery. Rather, the parties have employed the usual meet-and-confer process of resolving discovery disputes,” the three-judge panel wrote in March.
The lawsuit was originally filed under the Obama administration in 2015 in a federal court in Oregon by 21 children and an environmental group, and it targeted numerous federal agencies.
The plaintiffs argue the federal government's knowledge of the consequences of climate change gives them a constitutional duty to take strong actions to protect children.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/398101-court-rejects-second-trump-administration-quest-to-halt-climate
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Exxon, Chevron Victory Helps Keep Climate-Change Info Private
Jul 20, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Che Odom
Success by ExxonMobil Corp., Chevron Corp., and ConocoPhilllips Co., in persuading a federal judge to dismiss New York City’s claims against them boosts their attempts to avert their possible responsibility for contributing to climate change.
It also helps prevent disclosure of internal corporate communications on the topic.
Federal Judge John Keenan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled July 19 that the city’s federal common-law claims were preempted by the Clean Air Act and that Congress has the obligation of addressing global warming.
The city and some activist investors want emitters of carbon, such as oil and gas companies, to disclose more of what they know about their role in damaging the environment. The city, which wanted the companies to pay for a sea wall and other climate-change impacts, said the companies weren’t forthright with what they knew about the impact of carbon emissions.
SEC Cools on Climate Disclosures
The recent trend may not be toward increased disclosure.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has ceased prodding companies on climate issues. The SEC last issued a climate-change-related public comment letter in September 2016, when it asked Chevron Corp. to expand disclosures of its risk factors related to California’s greenhouse gas emission regulations.
In addition, attorneys at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz of New York said in a July 10 memo to corporate clients that public companies should scrutinize their statements and public disclosures relating to the effect “climate change may have on their operations.” State attorneys general use “allegedly inadequate disclosures” as a basis to begin investigations, the memo said.
A warning from the firm, which represents many major corporations, could have a significant impact on disclosures going forward, curbing some of the gains made over the last decade by investors and sustainability advocates to get more reporting out of companies.
The firm represented ConocoPhillips in the suit brought by New York City.
Financial Implications
As a result of pollution, companies must account for regulatory, litigation, and reputational risk, as well as competitive risks from producers of alternative energy sources, Julie Gorte, senior vice president for sustainable investing for Impax Asset Management LLC, told Bloomberg Tax.
Daniel Wiseman, a lawyer with the U.K.-based ClientEarth, said climate-related issues have clear financial implications for companies and their investors, making disclosure imperative. Auditors, which review corporate financial statements and other required disclosures, must make sure companies provide necessary information properly. Increasing legal risk exists if they don’t, he said.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/exxon-chevron-victory-helps-keep-climate-change-info-private
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Baltimore Files New Climate Suit After New York Case Dismissed
Jul 20, 2018 | Inside EPA
Baltimore is filing a new common law claim against major fossil fuel companies, seeking monetary damages to recover growing costs to address rising sea levels and other climate change-related damages, but the suit comes just one day after a federal district judge tossed a similar claim by New York City.
However, unlike the suit pursued by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), the July 20 suit by Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh (D) was filed in state court, where plaintiffs are considered to have comparatively better odds.
As such, oil companies routinely seek to have the climate nuisance cases heard in federal court. In two decisions -- the New York suit as well as another case filed by San Francisco and Oakland -- federal district judges have thrown out the claims, finding them to be preempted by the Clean Air Act and best addressed by other branches of government.
The oil companies are likely to seek to have the Baltimore suit, Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. BP, et al., removed to federal court and dismissed, according to a statement by the Manufacturers Accountability Project (MAP) -- a group formed by the National Association of Manufacturers to oppose the tort claims.
“It's time for politicians and trial lawyers to put an end to this frivolous litigation,” MAP says in a statement in response to the Baltimore filing. “Taxpayer resources should not be sued for baseless lawsuits that are designed to enrich trial lawyers and grab headlines for politicians. This abuse of our legal system does nothing to advance meaningful solutions, which manufacturers are focused on every day.”
But Pugh says in a statement that the city is “now on the front lines of climate change because melting ice caps, more frequent heat waves, extreme storms, and other climate consequences caused by fossil fuel companies are threatening our city and imposing real costs on our taxpayers.”
The city's solicitor Andre Davis adds that city residents, workers and businesses should not “have to pay for damages knowingly caused by these companies.”
The city officials say their suit is the 13th such common law case filed to take on fossil companies, and it specifically names 26 oil and gas companies. Most suits have been filed by municipalities, though Rhode Island recently became the first state to bring a climate nuisance claim.
However, one industry source calls the Charm City's filing “bad timing,” given that it occurred just one day after a judge dismissed the New York City case.
There, Judge John Kennan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York agreed with the industry defendants and dismissed the case while recognizing that climate change will cause real damages. But he said the solution must be found by either the legislative or executive branches of government.
Last month, a federal district court judge in California dismissed a similar suit brought by San Francisco and Oakland, making many of the same points as Kennan.
In response to the dismissal of New York City's claim, Ken Kimmel, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that “these same defendants and their trade groups have fought successfully against even modest laws and regulations to cut the carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels that cause[] global warming. My grandmother would have called this 'chutzpah.'”
He added that the tort suits are not intended to “solve” global warming but to recoup compensation for damages that have already occurred. Baltimore has experienced two 1,000-year storms that brought torrential rain and flooding just in the past two years. The storms caused tens of millions of dollars in damages and two people died.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/baltimore-files-new-climate-suit-after-new-york-case-dismissed
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D.C. Circuit Upholds EPA's 'Exceptional Events' Air Emissions Waiver Rule
Jul 20, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld EPA's 2016 rule granting states Clean Air Act waivers for “exceptional events,” such as dust storms or wildfires, rejecting environmentalists' claims that the rule would allow exemptions for routine human activities.
In its July 20 ruling in Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), et al. v. EPA, et al., the court accepts EPA's broad definition of the term “natural event,” which allows states to seek air law exemptions for air pollution resulting from both natural phenomena and man-made sources. For example, EPA considers man-made dust on roads as qualifying for the regulatory exemption if it is whipped up by a windstorm, so long as local regulators have made reasonable efforts to ensure the dust is controlled.
EPA's exceptional events rule is vital to Western states' efforts to meet national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for particulate matter and ozone, because such events are more common in that region than elsewhere. The rule, as updated in 2016 to enable easier implementation, allows states to discount air quality data gathered during an exceptional event when determining their NAAQS compliance. Although the rule allows exemptions for natural phenomena, the policy is explicitly not restricted to natural events.
NRDC and other environmental groups' lawsuit, however, targeted provisions pertaining to “natural events,” claiming they could allow industrial emissions to qualify for an exemption.
EPA's rule says a “natural event means an event and its resulting emissions, which may recur at the same location, in which human activity plays little or no direct causal role. For purposes of the definition of a natural event, anthropogenic sources that are reasonably controlled shall be considered to not play a direct role in causing emissions.”
D.C. Circuit judges at March 22 oral argument appeared skeptical of environmentalists' case. Judges Thomas Griffith, Gregory Katsas and Harry Edwards appeared likely to uphold the rule, perhaps subject to a clarifying opinion that would preclude industrial emissions from being covered by an exemption.
In his unanimous opinion for the court, Griffith sides with the agency, and finds a clarifying opinion unnecessary for now.
“We think the 2016 Rule preserves the Act’s distinct treatment of natural events. Although we recognize the possibility raised, but not demonstrated, by the environmental groups that extreme and unforeseen applications of the rule might have problematic results, the 2016 Rule still passes muster” under the Chevron legal doctrine, Griffith writes.
Under Chevron, where a court finds a statute silent or ambiguous on a subject, it defers to a federal agency's “reasonable” interpretation of the statute.
“If EPA applies the rule in a way that the Act would not permit, an injured party can petition us to review the agency’s action at that time,” the ruling says. “For now, we uphold the definition of natural event against the environmental group’s facial challenge to the 2016 Rule.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/dc-circuit-upholds-epas-exceptional-events-air-emissions-waiver-rule
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Capitalism Will Solve the Climate Problem
Jul 22, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Fred Krupp
Together, science and capitalism built the modern world. But across the political spectrum, both are under attack. If we are to solve our greatest challenges, including climate change, we have to deploy the power of these twin engines of civilization.
The best available research confirms the existence of human-driven climate change, including the rapid pace of global warming. Leading scientists’ predictions of temperature rise have been largely accurate. In the three decades since NASA climate scientist James Hansen first warned Congress that global warming had begun, the U.S. and other nations have poured billions of tons of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, and the planet has continued to warm.
Most climate models predicted warming above the mid-20th-century average of about 1 degree Celsius by 2016. They were right. Atmospheric scientists predicted increased frequency of extreme-heat events, and they were right, too. Scientists also predicted warming would be most apparent in East Asia and the Arctic, and it is.
These results aren’t surprising, given that they are based on many independent data sets. Measurements are collected by towers, buoys, aircraft, satellites and more, and are assessed by thousands of scientists world-wide.
Together, science and capitalism built the modern world. But across the political spectrum, both are under attack. If we are to solve our greatest challenges, including climate change, we have to deploy the power of these twin engines of civilization.
It’s a sign of the reliability of this research that the insurance industry, with trillions in liability at stake, uses it to determine financial models. Most businesses can’t afford to have “political” opinions about climate change. For companies facing potential impacts from climate trends, to deny warming would be like Macy’s pretending online shopping isn’t disrupting retail.
Unfortunately, skeptics have fostered doubt about climate change by misrepresenting the research. Some have claimed that Mr. Hansen’s models failed to predict temperatures accurately, but these evaluations use measurements based on major calibration errors. Researchers critical of mainstream climate science also have expressed doubt about the growing intensity of extreme-weather events, which in fact are more intense than they were 30 years ago, due to warmer oceans and other climate-related factors. And many have suggested that the rise of global temperature has paused or plateaued recently, though reliable records show this isn’t the case. Onetime climate skeptic Jerry Taylor, a former vice president of the Cato Institute, changed his views when he reread Mr. Hansen’s testimony and realized its predictions were “spot on.”
Arguments about climate science may be useful for politicians looking to whip up voters, but misinformation doesn’t help us plan to protect future economic growth. Citigroupestimates the cost of unchecked climate change will be in the tens of trillions. The president of the Reinsurance Association of America says global warming could bankrupt his industry. Even fossil-fuel companies like Exxon Mobil and Shell have expressed the urgent need to manage the risks of climate change.
This brings us back to capitalism. Climate change is a byproduct of the prosperity created by the market economy, but the market similarly can be an engine to generate cost-effective solutions. Clean-energy technologies such as wind and solar power already have developed immensely in the past two decades. Public policy that puts a price on carbon emissions would speed the adoption of clean energy by exposing the market to the costs this pollution puts on society. This will accelerate adoption of and private investment in clean-energy technologies.
Though climate change presents American industries a daunting challenge, market-based policies can unleash innovation from investors, inventors and entrepreneurs, who will work to build a more prosperous and safer future. Working with accurate scientific facts and the right incentives, the market will find winning solutions.
So let’s follow the data and get this done.
—Mr. Krupp is president of the Environmental Defense Fund.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/capitalism-will-solve-the-climate-problem-1532289823?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2
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Meet the Teenagers Leading a Climate Change Movement
Jul 21, 2018 | New York Times
By Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks
Some of them met on Instagram. Others coordinated during lunchtime phone conferences. Most of them haven’t even graduated from high school.
The teenagers behind Zero Hour — an environmentally focused, creatively minded and technologically savvy nationwide coalition — are trying to build a youth-led movement to sound the alarm and call for action on climate change and environmental justice.
For the last year, a tight-knit group spanning both coasts has been organizing on social media. The teenagers kicked off their campaign with a protest on Saturday at the National Mall in Washington, along with sister marches across the country.
As sea levels rise, ice caps melt and erratic weather affects communities across the globe, they say time is running out to address climate change. The core organizing group of about 20 met with almost 40 federal lawmakers about their platforms on Thursday, and hope to inspire other teenagers to step up and demand change.
“The march is a launch. It isn’t, ‘That’s it, we’re done,’” said Jamie Margolin, the founder of Zero Hour. “It means it doesn’t give them an excuse to be like, ‘I don’t know what the kids want.’ It’s like, ‘Yes, you do.’”
They are trying to prove the adults wrong, to show that people their age are taking heed of what they see as the greatest crisis threatening their generation.
“In our generation when we talk about climate change, they’re like: ‘Ha ha, that’s so funny. It’s not something we’ll have to deal with,’” said Nadia Nazar, Zero Hour’s art director. “‘Oh, yeah, the polar bears will just die, the seas will just rise.’ They don’t understand the actual caliber of the destruction.”
The group is building off the momentum of other recent youth-led movements, such as the nationwide March for Our Lives rallies against gun violence.
“No one gives you an organizing guide of how to raise thousands of dollars, how to get people on board, how to mobilize,” Ms. Margolin said. “There was no help. It was just me floundering around with Dory-like determination, like, ‘Just keep swimming,’” she said, referring to the Disney movie “Finding Nemo.”
At the Sierra Club’s Washington headquarters on Wednesday, as Zero Hour members continued to make preparations, six of the coalition’s leaders and founding members discussed how they became involved with the group, and why they think it’s one of young people’s best shots at creating a healthy, sustainable environment.‘We are on the verge of something amazing’
Jamie Margolin, 16, Seattle
“I’ve always planned my future in ifs,” Ms. Margolin said. If climate change hasn’t destroyed this, if the environment hasn’t become that.
So for the last few years, Ms. Margolin has worked to raise awareness about climate justice issues. A passionate writer, she went through an “op-ed phase,” submitting essays to publications, like one titled “An Open Letter to Climate Change Deniers” published in the monthly magazine Teen Ink.
Still, Ms. Margolin thought that she and other young people could — and should — be doing more.
“I had had this idea building up since January, since the Women’s March” last year, Ms. Margolin said. “The kind of idea that was nagging me and you try to ignore, but it’s an idea poking you.”
At a Princeton University summer program last year, she met other teenagers interested in taking action on climate change and created Zero Hour. They began to plan a huge protest in the nation’s capital. On social media, Ms. Margolin espoused factoids and reached out to other young activists.
A professed climate justice advocate, Ms. Margolin has kept the movement inclusive, putting the stories and concerns of those most directly affected by environmental issues at the heart of Zero Hour’s mission. Youths from in and around the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation spoke on Saturday, and others repeatedly called attention to those killed during Hurricane Maria and threatened by rising sea levels in the Marshall Islands.
Since starting Zero Hour, Ms. Margolin said she had been overwhelmed by the response from people of all ages. Dozens of environmental advocacy groups and nonprofits have approached the coalition, looking to donate to or sponsor it.
“We flipped the scenario as the underdog. We’ve proven ourselves,” she said. “We are on the verge of something amazing. We’re going to change history.”Showing a movement’s artistic side
Kallan Benson, 14, Crownsville, Md.
When Ms. Benson was planning a trip to the Peoples Climate March last year with her family, she knew she wanted to make a statement.
Ms. Benson doesn’t consider herself an artist. But a 24-foot-wide play parachute that she covered in a gigantic monarch butterfly design and hundreds of signatures from children in her community became a canvas for her to display the dire future she and coming generations may face, and express optimism that they will overcome it.
A chance encounter with the son of the founder of the nonprofit Mother Earth Project led Ms. Benson to encourage children around the world to create parachutes of their own made of recycled bedsheets (to be “environmentally conscious,” of course).
Inspired by the AIDS Memorial Quilt that has been unfurled on the National Mall in years past, some of those parachutes, sent from every continent except Antarctica, were laid out on the grass during Saturday’s march.
“The original idea was, ‘We got to get them on the National Mall,’ but then we thought that, ‘Well that shouldn’t be our first exhibit; it’s a little ambitious,’” Ms. Benson said.
“Then we talked to Zero Hour and they were like, ‘Hey, why don’t you bring them out?’” she continued. “I never imagined it would get this far.”Where business and the environment meet
Madelaine Tew, 15, Teaneck, N.J.
As Zero Hour’s director of finance, Ms. Tew has had to get creative about securing funds and grants.
On the day of a deadline for a major grant — $16,000 from the Common Sense Fund — Ms. Tew’s school was hosting an event where seniors gave presentations about their internships. But she knew the grant would be a huge boost for Zero Hour.
“So I went to the nurse and was like: ‘Oh, I have cramps. Can I lie down with my computer?’” she said. “Then I just went in and wrote the whole grant.”
Her stunt paid off. Zero Hour secured the grant, and now Ms. Tew’s finance team, made up of students just like her, has raised about $70,000 for the coalition.
Ms. Tew, who attends a magnet high school where she takes classes in business and finance, has been involved in clubs to get the school and local businesses to adopt more renewable practices. But before meeting Ms. Margolin at the Princeton summer program last year, she thought those local efforts were “as far as you can go” for someone her age.
“It shifted from youth being a limitation to ‘it doesn’t matter,’” Ms. Tew said.
Though the practices of big corporations can sometimes anger environmentalists, for Ms. Tew, combining “my love for business and my care, my concern for climate” just makes sense.
“In many cases you can see how the environmental movement can be rooted in the way we do business,” she said.
That could take the form of encouraging companies to divest from fossil fuel industries or having local communities build their own solar or wind grids.
“We’re not just talking about building more cooperative farms,” Ms. Tew said, but also figuring out how to integrate ethical and sustainable environmental policies into business so “we can continue the American economy’s future.”‘Repping the younger generation’
Iris Fen Gillingham, 18, Livingston Manor, N.Y.
When three floods in the mid- to late 2000s swept through the vegetable farm Iris Fen Gillingham’s family owned in the Catskill Mountains, the topsoil was washed away and their equipment was submerged, eliminating their main source of income.
The floods devastated Ms. Gillingham’s family, which has always lived “very consciously with the land and with nature,” she said. Even her name, Iris Fen, like the flower and marshy wetland behind her house, alludes to that attachment.
“I have a pair of mittens that are made out of one of our Icelandic sheep, Rosalie,” Ms. Gillingham said. “My brother named her, I remember her being born and I’ve seen her grow up and my mom sheering her and spinning the wool.”
So when landsmen came to explore the possibility of hydraulic fracturing — a technique of oil and gas extraction also known as fracking — in their neighborhood when she was about 10, Ms. Gillingham joined her father, an environmental activist, in speaking out at local meetings, often as the youngest in the room.
“It was always myself repping the younger generation,” Ms. Gillingham said. “Part of that was my brother and I saying, ‘We don’t want to play on contaminated soil,’” (The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that fracking can contaminate drinking water in some circumstances.)
But part of it was also knowing firsthand how essential a sustainable lifestyle — growing food at home, conscious spending, building greener homes — will be for her generation.
“We’re setting aside our differences and we are building a family and a community using our skills and our creativity,” Ms. Gillingham said of the movement. “We’re having fun, we’re laughing with each other, but we’re also talking about some pretty serious issues and injustices happening in this country.”Linking animal rights and environmentalism
Nadia Nazar, 16, Baltimore
Before joining Zero Hour, Nadia Nazar considered herself mostly an animal-rights activist. When she was 12, she saw a PETA video on slaughterhouses and immediately became a vegetarian.
“I had just gotten a cat,” Ms. Nazar said. “What if my cat was that cow?”
She got her start as an activist by trying to persuade people in her neighborhood not to go to SeaWorld, which has been criticized over its treatment of animals. (“I was slightly successful in that.”)
Then she dug deeper into the root causes of animal suffering and death.
“I found out how so many species are endangered by climate change, and how many are dying and going towards extinction that we caused ourselves,” Ms. Nazar said.
During a class, she stumbled upon Ms. Margolin’s Teen Ink essay and followed her on Instagram. And a little over a year ago, when Ms. Nazar saw a post by Ms. Margolin calling for action, she knew it was her chance to put her artistic skills to use. As art director, she helped organize a smaller art festival on Friday, and created the majority of the graphic elements for the coalition.
“Her story said: ‘I’m going to do it. Who wants to join me?” Ms. Nazar said. She immediately messaged Ms. Margolin. She was in.Working together toward a bigger goal
Zanagee Artis, 18, Clinton, Conn.
Zanagee Artis’s journey as an environmentalist began in the same place many other budding activists get their start — in a high school club.
During his junior year, he had big ambitions for his school: the building facilities department would finally start recycling white paper, students would start composting their food waste and the lunchroom would be free of plastic foam trays.
“I’m going to accomplish all these things and I’m going to go to the administration and tell them, ‘Stuff needs to change,’” Mr. Artis said.
But, he said, “nothing ever happened.” Mr. Artis said the problem was clear: Without engaging other students who might be interested, change was unlikely to happen.
So he started a sustainability committee within the school’s National Honor Society, and the results spoke for themselves. The group was able to buy the school an aquaponic system — a tank-based farming system that combines hydroponics (water-based planting) and aquaculture (fish cultivation) — and raise $700 to install water bottle refilling stations.
“So we accomplished all these things because we worked together as a community, and that’s how I feel about the climate movement,” he said.
Still, Mr. Artis said he “really didn’t think I could do much” beyond his local community until he met Ms. Margolin and Ms. Tew last summer at Princeton. Inspired by Ms. Margolin’s enthusiasm to do “a big, big thing,” Mr. Artis became Zero Hour’s logistics director, in charge of submitting permits for Saturday’s march, estimating attendance numbers, checking for counterprotests and helping sister marches with logistical issues.
“I was like, ‘Yes!’” he said with a satisfying clap. “‘Let’s do it.’”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/us/politics/zero-hour-climate-march.html
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