Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 7/30/2018
-
Markup of Nominees
Aug 1, 2018 | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Location: 406 Dirksen / 9:45 AM -
Examining EPA’s Agenda: Protecting the Environment and Allowing America’s Economy to Grow
Aug 1, 2018 | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Location: 406 Dirksen / 10:30 AM -
Hearing on Nominations
Aug 1, 2018 | Senate Judiciary Committee
Location: 226 Dirksen / 10:00 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) China Tariff Plan Slammed by Chemical Industry
Jul 28, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jean-François Tremblay
To test the U.S. market for a new type of fluoropolymer, the U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese firm Daikin has been importing the material from its facility in China. -
(ACC Mentioned) China Truce in Doubt, Small American Firms Brace for Tariff Barrel Bomb
Jul 27, 2018 | Asia Times
By Christopher Scott
There was an air of desperation about panelists testifying before American trade officials this week, ahead of the imposition of tariffs on another hastily selected list of Chinese goods. -
(ACC Mentioned) The Capacity's Not There Yet (And Probably Never Will Be)
Jul 27, 2018 | Financial Times
By Brendan Greeley
It is perhaps churlish to pick on poor Jeb Bush, a man who is not president. But of the many wrong ways to look at Friday's 4.1 per cent real GDP growth print, his is among the wrongest. -
(ACC Mentioned) Republican Rep. Roskam's Congressional Re-Election Bid Against Democrat Casten Starts to Heat Up
Jul 27, 2018 | Chicago Tribune
By Patrick M. O'Connell
Moments after Republican U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam and Democratic challenger Sean Casten shook hands and chatted briefly at the posh Union League Club on Thursday, their first televised debate began with a question about a person who may ultimately shape the race: President Donald Trump. -
(ACC Mentioned) Global Chemicals Production Expands During June
Jul 27, 2018 | Powder Bulk Solids
Data collected and tabulated by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) show that the global chemical industry ended the second quarter on a good note. -
C&EN’s Global Top 50 Chemical Companies
Jul 30, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
Chemical executives should remember 2017 fondly. According to C&EN's annual survey of the Global Top 50 chemical companies, sales rose strongly for the group, and profits did even better. -
House Democrats Seek Investigation Into EPA Chief’s Meetings
Jul 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
House Democrats are asking the Office of Government Ethics to investigate EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s meeting with former lobbying clients. -
(ACC Mentioned) Wheeler Orders Broad Review of IRIS' Agenda, Role, Heightening Concerns
Jul 30, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler has launched a broad review of the agency's premiere chemical risk analysis program, a move that critics say could allow the new chief and other political appointees to kill or delay pending Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)... -
(ACC Mentioned) Pending EPA Formaldehyde Analysis Poses Significant Liability for Industry
Jul 30, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's stalled draft assessment of the human health risks of formaldehyde, reported to reiterate conclusions that exposure to the ubiquitous substance can cause leukemia, poses significant liability for industry in stricter regulatory standards and legal settlements... -
Chemical Monitoring Has Room for Improvement, EPA Report Says
Jul 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam McQuillan
The EPA’s quality checks on chemical data submitted by manufacturers lack clear written procedures that would provide consistency and continuity for future audits, the agency’s watchdog said in a report. -
EPA Crafting Procedures for Querying CDR Data
Jul 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is crafting procedures for querying the data companies submit under the chemical data reporting (CDR) rule to better inform agency assessments after an Office of Inspector General (IG) report found that while EPA monitors compliance with the CDR rule... -
Fluorinated Chemicals Found in Michigan City’s Drinking Water
Jul 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
Residents of Parchment, Mich., should immediately stop drinking their water, state and local officials warned, following high amounts of dangerous fluorinated chemicals detected in the city’s water supply. -
BHI U.S. Rig Count Steady as Permian, Marcellus Activity Rises
Jul 27, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
Having enjoyed consistent growth since 2016, the U.S. rig count has leveled off in recent weeks, a trend that continued for the week ended Friday as Baker Hughes Inc.’s (BHI) domestic tally increased by two units overall, including gains in the Marcellus Shale and Permian Basin. -
In Evolving World of Oil and Gas Law, 'This Ain't Texas'
Jul 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A Pennsylvania court made oil and gas lawyers sweat in April when it ruled that drillers could be trespassing when hydraulic fracturing sends cracks through the ground next door. -
Trump's Claim of Finding 'Massive Buyer' in Dispute
Jul 30, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President Trump touted last week's meeting with his counterpart in the European Union as a breakthrough for trans-Atlantic trade of liquefied natural gas. But experts say it might amount to nothing. -
Port of Corpus Christi Raises $216 Million for Energy Export Projects
Jul 27, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
The Port of Corpus Christi sold more than $216 million in bonds this week to fund energy export projects. -
Spectra Gas’ $1 Billion Pipeline Project Wins in Court
Jul 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Spectra Energy Partners L.P. has the green light to build a $972 million natural gas pipeline project in the Northeast after a court upheld approval of the project’s permit. -
Court Orders More Review of Mountain Valley Pipeline’s Impacts (1)
Jul 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
A federal appeals court vacated Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service decisions that paved the way for construction of a proposed natural gas pipeline from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia. -
DuPont Brushes Back ‘Cancer Alley’ Neoprene Plant Suit
Jul 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
DuPont won’t face suit as the former operator of the only neoprene plant in the U.S. to stop toxic releases from the site. -
Agency Hurries on Climate Rules in Case Trump's a One-Termer
Jul 30, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman
EPA is entering crunch time...A push is underway at the agency to get regulations out the door before the calendar flips to 2019, giving the administration two years to defend its environmental policies in court before the end of President Trump's first term. -
Supreme Court Urged to Overturn Kavanaugh's HFC Ruling
Jul 27, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
Eighteen state attorneys general and several major air conditioning companies this week asked the Supreme Court to revive an Obama-era program to phase out refrigerants that are potent greenhouse gases.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
-
Aug 1, 2018 | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
PN 1766, William Charles McIntosh, of Michigan, to be Assistant Administrator, Office of International and Tribal Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency;
PN 1681, Peter C. Wright, of Michigan, to be Assistant Administrator, Office of Land and Emergency Management, Environmental Protection Agency;
PN 2136, Mary Bridget Neumayr, of Virginia, to be a Member of the Council on Environmental Quality;
PN 2171, John C. Fleming, of Louisiana, to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development;6 General Services Administration resolutions
-
Examining EPA’s Agenda: Protecting the Environment and Allowing America’s Economy to Grow
Aug 1, 2018 | Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
-
Aug 1, 2018 | Senate Judiciary Committee
-
(ACC Mentioned) China Tariff Plan Slammed by Chemical Industry
Jul 28, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jean-François Tremblay
To test the U.S. market for a new type of fluoropolymer, the U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese firm Daikin has been importing the material from its facility in China. If U.S. customers warm up to the resin, Daikin plans to proceed with a $200 million expansion at a plant it operates in Decatur, Ala.
But a 25% import tariff that the U.S. is preparing to impose on fluoropolymers and other products from China threatens Daikin’s plan. “Without the ability to validate the market potential for our product, the confidence to make this investment will be severely affected, directly impacting future production and employment at our Alabama plant,” the firm said.
The proposed tariffs would also depress business at a Daikin facility in Massachusetts that compounds fluoroelastomers the company imports from China, the company added.
Daikin was one of many chemical importers, exporters, producers, and industry associations to express near-unanimous opposition to import tariffs on Chinese chemicals and other goods during a public consultation held by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) on Wednesday, July 25. The USTR office develops and coordinates international trade policy.
While a few of those who attended or submitted statements for the meeting cheered tariff protection against alleged unfair competition from China, most hammered on the importance of China as a supplier, major market, or source of investment dollars.
“Uninterrupted access to global supply chains and foreign customer markets is vital to the American chemical industry’s ability to maintain its competitive position,” the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade association, said in a statement filed for the hearing. “Tariffs increase the cost of doing business in the United States and invite damaging retaliatory actions by U.S. trading partners.”
The consultation gave concerned parties a chance to express their views as the U.S. government considers a 25% tariff on goods imported from China worth $16 billion last year. The move would follow the introduction in early July of a 25% tariff on $34 billion worth of Chinese merchandise. In a few weeks, USTR will hold another hearing on a proposed 10% tariff on other Chinese merchandise worth $200 billion.
The actions are aimed at inducing China’s government to curb industrial and trade practices that the U.S. finds unfair. Although few chemicals were on the list of tariffs implemented in early July, about $2.2 billion worth of the goods discussed at the recent USTR hearing are chemicals, including some high-volume materials such as polyurethane ingredients.
Trade groups, companies, and individuals—many from the chemical industry—made close to 700 submissions to USTR. For some, the topmost concern was that retaliatory tariffs by China would cause American producers to be uncompetitive in that market.
In 2017, China imported 11%—$3.2 billion worth—of the plastic resins made in the U.S., ACC noted. The Chinese government has announced a 25% retaliatory tariff on resins and other products that would become effective if the $16 billion in U.S. tariffs goes ahead. This would be devastating to U.S. producers, some of which get a third of their foreign sales from China, ACC said.
Other trade groups representing segments of the chemical industry also expressed concerns about U.S. exports. The American Coatings Association noted that China is the third-largest export market for its members after Canada and Mexico. Similarly, the Fluoropolymer Trade Alliance warned that the U.S. has a trade surplus with China in polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) resins that retaliatory tariffs would likely turn into a deficit.
And even if U.S. fluoropolymer exports to China fall, escalating tariffs could nevertheless harm domestic users, the fluoropolymer alliance said. “There is currently a critical supply shortage of PTFE and other fluoropolymers worldwide,” the group noted. “China is an important source of PTFE resin and other fluoropolymers products because it has more than half of the global capacity.”
The group noted that the materials are used by U.S. producers of medical devices, cookware, seals, batteries, semiconductor processing equipment, and other products. Those companies employ tens of thousands of people, it stated.
Proposed U.S. tariffs on polyurethanes and specialty isocyanates generated several opinions. “Working with hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) imported from China reduced the costs of our customers by approximately 20%,” noted Tim Fetters in his submission to USTR. Dowd & Guild, the company where Fetters is a partner, is a California-based distributor of materials used in the coatings, sealants, and adhesives industries. Many chemicals in these categories are produced by merely one or a few suppliers; the only HDI producer in the U.S. is Covestro, Fetters noted. “Increasing tariffs in a highly oligopolistic market is punishing U.S. industrial users,” he wrote.
PPG Industries uses Chinese-made HDI as an industrial paint ingredient. The firm alleged that its interests and those of its customers would be “significantly harmed” by the proposed tariff on HDI. It said the action would decrease competition among suppliers and increase the price of paint.
The U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese polyurethane chemicals firm Wanhua Chemical, the likely source of PPG’s HDI, separately objected to a proposed tariff on polyether polyols, which are reacted with isocyanates to produce polyurethane foams.
The company claimed that while U.S. isocyanate producers force their customers to buy isocyanates and polyols together as a bundle, Wanhua makes no such demand. Limiting access to Chinese polyols would raise cost for U.S. companies that use the materials to make insulation for home appliances, Wanhua alleged.
Wanhua further noted that it is considering spending $1.2 billion to build a plant producing methylene diphenyl diisocyanate—a key isocyanate for insulation and other applications—in Louisiana. Tariffs on polyurethane chemicals would impede the company’s efforts to develop a customer base in the U.S. ahead of building the plant, threatening the investment’s viability as well as 1,000 planned jobs.
A handful of U.S. chemical makers proclaimed themselves pleased with the proposed tariffs. Galata Chemicals, formerly part of the chemical maker Chemtura, contended in its submission to USTR that its organotin stabilizer business has been hurt by unfair Chinese industrial policies. The stabilizers are added to polyvinyl chloride before it’s formed into pipe, window siding, and other construction components.
The company claimed that the Chinese government subsidizes its manufacturers while curtailing exports of tin, a necessary raw material. China has the world’s largest reserves of tin and is the world’s top producer, Galata said.
“Galata has lost significant business and market share in recent years as a direct result of unfairly priced Chinese competition,” the firm noted. While tin stabilizers are on the list of goods for which the U.S. has threatened a 10% tariff, Galata urged USTR to move them to the 25% list. “Increasing tariffs on tin stabilizers would help eliminate China’s protectionist acts, policies, and practices,” it said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an association claiming to speak for 3 million businesses, expressed support for U.S. efforts to change Chinese industrial policies, particularly with regard to forced technology transfer, violations of intellectual property rights, and arbitrary government interventions. But rather than tariffs, it advocated for other measures, such as limiting the ability of Chinese companies to invest in the U.S. and more negotiations to convince China to change its ways.
ACC called the tariffs a “blunt instrument” that will fail to “obtain the elimination of China’s acts, policies, and practices.” The U.S. chemical industry is far better off without tariffs that will harm business and discourage investment, ACC said. “Tariff costs will diminish the competitiveness of our industry and potentially threaten the viability of $194 billion in announced chemical industry projects.”
https://cen.acs.org/policy/trade/China-tariff-plan-slammed-chemical/96/i32
-
(ACC Mentioned) China Truce in Doubt, Small American Firms Brace for Tariff Barrel Bomb
Jul 27, 2018 | Asia Times
By Christopher Scott
There was an air of desperation about panelists testifying before American trade officials this week, ahead of the imposition of tariffs on another hastily selected list of Chinese goods. The future of a diverse group of businesses, including family-owned companies that have been built from the ground up over generations, was hanging in the balance.
Over two days, representatives from around eighty businesses and trade groups spoke about the dire consequences should the Trump administration impose import taxes on a list of goods that was characterized as indiscriminate. The tactics would not be effective in getting China to change its practices but would hurt American companies, testimony after testimony agreed.
Beyond the stories of individual firms, tariffs on certain Chinese products could threaten the competitiveness of entire industries in the US, some contended.
“Due to shale gas and the lower cost to produce and export chemicals, US chemical manufacturers are competitively advantaged – IF there are no US tariffs, and China does not retaliate,” said Ed Bryztwa, Director of International Trade at the American Chemistry Council.
“These duties, if applied, would cause disproportionate economic harm to US interests, including small and medium-sized enterprises and consumers,” Bryztwa added, cautioning that an escalation to further impose tariffs on US$200 billion in Chinese goods would be catastrophic for the industry.
While headlines have often focused on large multinational corporations, in many cases small businesses have fewer options for adapting to a disruption in supply chains, as equities strategists at Barclays wrote earlier this month. With thin earnings margins and a higher import to sales ratio, smaller companies rely significantly on foreign inputs, especially from China.
During the hearing, trade officials spent much of their time probing the witnesses on whether they could import needed goods from sources outside of China, to which there was a resounding answer.
All of the panelists asked said either that there were no alternatives to Chinese goods, or it would put firms at a significant disadvantage versus foreign competitors, including those in China.
In the case of shipping containers, which are purchased for a wide range of uses in the domestic US market, including storage, transportation, and military use, 97% are manufactured by China.
Christopher Miner, general counsel for portable storage firm Mobile Mini, echoed remarks of another panelist, recounting that “In my 20 years [working in the industry], I have never seen a container hit US shores that was made anywhere besides China.”
Importantly, the panelists stressed, America has never been a source of this product and there are no current or potential competitors for Chinese producers.
While sending shockwaves through a wide swath of American businesses, tariffs on many of the Chinese products listed will do nothing to change China’s trade practices, much of the testimony concluded.
It is unclear whether the Trump administration will heed the advice of the businesses specifying reasons why certain products should be removed from the list of US$16 billion in Chinese products. If the duties are imposed, as is widely expected, it will bring the total value of imports being taxed in the recent trade war escalation to US$50 billion.
The hearing underscored the degree to which, as more and more types of goods are subject to the trade sanctions, fewer businesses will be able to survive unscathed. While the White House has unveiled an aid package for American farmers who were the main target of retaliatory tariffs from China, every escalation will envelope more sectors, disproportionately affecting small businesses that will have no recourse.
After the hearing adjourned, news of a possible breakthrough in trade talks between the Trump administration and the European Union, somewhat ironically, led to more anxiety about tariffs – for those who are focused on trade talks with China. While the threat of auto tariffs subsided, some saw the news as a sign that the White House will place more focus on pressuring China.
“We are worried about the bigger picture,” Bryztwa said of businesses that rely on imports of plastics and chemicals. “They’re telling us they are deeply concerned about the impact of [these first rounds of tariffs], and they are even more concerned about what’s coming down the road.”
http://www.atimes.com/article/no-china-truce-in-sight-small-american-firms-brace-for-tariff-barrel-bomb/
-
(ACC Mentioned) The Capacity's Not There Yet (And Probably Never Will Be)
Jul 27, 2018 | Financial Times
By Brendan Greeley
It is perhaps churlish to pick on poor Jeb Bush, a man who is not president. But of the many wrong ways to look at Friday's 4.1 per cent real GDP growth print, his is among the wrongest. As Politico documented on Friday, Mr Bush launched his campaign with a long-term economic growth projection of 4 percent. This was and remains pathologically more optimistic than estimates from professional forecasters. But Mr Trump got there, for a quarter. And so Mr Bush, as he had done once during a primary debate, offered the President a firm low five:
We are not that concerned about the likely one-time surge in exports that nudged growth up above 4 per cent in the second quarter. Freakish quarters happen, in economic growth. And even if you subtract all the contribution that all exports of goods and services made to growth last quarter, you still end up at almost exactly 3 per cent. That's a perfectly decent print.
We are, however, concerned by the Jeb Doctrine: 4 per cent growth is “achievable through policies that unleash the power of the market”.
It is not.
There's a difference between predicting growth, and predicting long-term potential growth. Take the Survey of Professional Forecasters. Every quarter the Philadelphia Fed pulls together a set of consensus forecasts from about 50 academic, market and industry economists. In May, they predicted that 2nd-quarter real GDP growth in the US would come in at 3 per cent. They were low by a full percentage point. Predictions are hard! But they also made some longer-term estimates: by 2020, the economy would be at 2 per cent growth. Remember, these aren't just tweedy academics. They come from Goldman Sachs, the American Chemistry Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
And the Philadelphia Fed's survey is in line with every other institutional forecast we can find. The International Monetary Fund predicted in July that the US would see growth this year of 2.9 per cent. By 2020, that growth drops to 2 per cent. In June the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Markets Committee projected 2018 growth of 2.8 per cent; in 2020, yup, 2 per cent. We'll stop throwing numbers at you, but know this: we were unable to identify anyone whose job it is to estimate long-term growth who agrees with Jeb!.
Grossly simplified, growth is limited by people and capital. Every country has a finite number of working-age residents, and a limited number of plants and businesses for them to work in. This is a country's “capacity.” A recession can take a country well below its capacity, leaving plants and workers idle. When a country pops above its capacity, it runs the risk of inflation. So to increase growth over the long term — to stay at 4 per cent — you need more capacity. You can do this in three ways:
-
Jul 27, 2018 | Chicago Tribune
By Patrick M. O'Connell
Moments after Republican U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam and Democratic challenger Sean Casten shook hands and chatted briefly at the posh Union League Club on Thursday, their first televised debate began with a question about a person who may ultimately shape the race: President Donald Trump.
Roskam and Casten disagree on a checklist of hot-button issues such as taxes, abortion, health care and guns, giving voters in the northwest and west suburban 6th Congressional District some clear options. But the man who resides in the White House 750 miles away from the sprawling suburban district also could help determine whether Roskam returns to Washington for a sixth term as Trump’s daily actions and controversies tend to dominate politics and the news.
Faced with a question about Trump from the get-go of Thursday’s debate, Roskam tread carefully, saying the president has been “good on the economy” but “jumbling” on other issues. He later said he was “troubled” by the president’s answers after his recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Roskam said he spoke personally with Trump following the Helsinki summit, emphasizing to him Russia’s history of human rights abuses. The congressman also said he supports special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
“I strongly support the Mueller investigation,” Roskam said. “Mueller is doing a good job. There’s no indication that there’s any need to step in.”
Casten, when pressed by Fox-32’s Mike Flannery, the debate’s moderator, didn’t mince words.
“I think President Trump is the worst president of our generation,” Casten said. “Every day he is in office is a risk to our country.”
Despite the Trump factor, both candidates said they believe the race is bigger than a referendum on the president and will be decided on issues important to suburban Chicago voters. Both parties have an eye on the race as one that will determine whether Democrats can win enough seats to take control of the House. To try to suggest Roskam is vulnerable, Democrats like to point out that Hillary Clinton won the district over Trump in 2016.
Roskam, of Wheaton, is a veteran of state and national politics seeking a sixth term in Congress. Casten is a clean-energy entrepreneur from Downers Grove and political newcomer who emerged from a crowded Democratic primary field in March.
Underscoring the already heated nature of the contest even on a lazy summer evening, a few hundred demonstrators backing both candidates chanted and toted signs Thursday evening across the Jackson Boulevard entrance to the debate venue. Many Casten supporters held “Hands off our health care” signs and chanted, “Hey hey, ho, ho, Peter Roskam’s got to go!” Roskam supporters countered with “If you want a leader, vote for Peter!”
Roskam, 56, is no stranger to an expensive, closely watched race with national implications. Twelve years ago he narrowly defeated now-U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, bucking that year’s midterm trend of GOP losses as Democrats took back control of the U.S. House. Duckworth at the time had the backing of party heavyweights such as U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and now-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and her story of her Black Hawk helicopter being shot down in Iraq was fresh in voters’ minds.
“Anyone who discounts Peter Roskam as a campaigner will wake up and realize that he is not to be underestimated,” said Kirk Dillard, the Regional Transportation Authority chairman and a veteran of DuPage County politics. And not to be discounted is Roskam’s ground game, Dillard said. The campaign has a robust apparatus full of volunteers willing to knock on doors and make phone calls.
Roskam relies on a base of evangelical Christians and “plain old conservatives,” Dillard said, but he’s also trying to thread the needle to appeal to suburban independents who may be irritated with Trump.
“There is no doubt that Peter Roskam appeals to the tried-and-true conservative,” Dillard said. “But he’s taken on Russia, especially as it relates to Trump. He’s been one of the few Republicans in Congress who has stood up to Donald Trump on Russia and on tariffs.”
Casten, meanwhile, could be bolstered by the national Democratic tailwinds that may accompany the midterm elections. As a businessman, he could appeal to more conservative Democrats, and he has tried to play up his inexperience in politics as a benefit at a time when people are generally distrusting of politicians.
And while campaign fundraising can be more difficult for challengers than sitting congressmen, Casten has been able to use his personal wealth to help pay for his campaign so far. Records show he’s put $630,000 into his bid before the primary but hasn’t given his campaign money since February. He raised about $790,000 in the second quarter of the year compared to $932,000 for Roskam. The incumbent had $2.3 million in the bank at the end of June, while Casten has $647,000.
National money could flow into the district as the race goes on, as the American Chemistry Council has already aired TV ads in support of Roskam.
Casten has criticized Roskam for not going far enough to rebuke the president, a line of attack he renewed at Thursday’s debate. Roskam, though, had his own Trump-related attack. He blasted Casten’s social media postings as misleading and mean, echoing a common criticism of the president.
The candidates clashed on nearly every issue, including the Affordable Care Act, guns, taxes and abortion. Demonstrators could be heard from the sixth-floor ballroom where the candidates debated in front of an audience of about 200, some sipping Miller Lite at white-tablecloth-covered tables.
Roskam said he's “not going to be defensive about being pro-life” and criticized Casten for favoring expanding the availability of taxpayer-funded abortions. Casten said abortion should be a choice between a woman and her doctor, not “Peter and anyone else in Washington.”
“I view abortion as a medical procedure like a gall bladder surgery,” Casten said. “I don't want anybody to have to have one. I can't imagine the pain that someone would go through to do that."
“Abortion is not gall bladder surgery,” Roskam later replied.
Roskam has held office since 2007 and is a member of the House Ways and Means committee. He has begun going after Casten on taxes, saying his challenger is intent on raising tax rates on income, Social Security, gas and carbon.
“Sean Casten views the 6th Congressional District basically as an ATM machine,” Roskam said.
On health care, Roskam said President Barack Obama “over-promised and under-delivered” on the Affordable Care Act. Casten said the country should move toward universal health care.
And on guns, Casten said people don't need military-style assault rifles. Roskam said he favors universal background checks and banning so-called bump stocks, but that people have a constitutional right to bear arms.
The sprawling 6th Congressional District stretches from the far northwest suburbs and sweeps southward through DuPage County. It looks on a map a bit like a hungry video game alien, its jagged jaws opening wide as if preparing to chomp on O’Hare airport.
Asked if he feels pressure to win a race with national implications, Casten said, “I’m in this race because there are major issues in this race that need to be addressed.”
The pressure, he said, tapping his chest, “comes from in here.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-roskam-casten-6th-district-campaign-overview-20180727-story.html
-
(ACC Mentioned) Global Chemicals Production Expands During June
Jul 27, 2018 | Powder Bulk Solids
Data collected and tabulated by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) show that the global chemical industry ended the second quarter on a good note. ACC’s Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) shows that global chemicals production rose 0.4% in June, following a 0.9% gain in May and drops in the first quarter. Note that all data are measured on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis. During June, production gains were again across the board among regions with Latin America stable. After softness earlier in the year, the Global CPRI was up only 0.7% year-over-year (Y/Y) on a 3MMA basis and stood at 115.4% of its average 2012 levels in June.
During June, capacity utilization in the global chemical industry gained 0.1% points to 84.5%. This is down from 86.2% last June and below the long-term (1987-2017) average of 86.5%.
ACC’s Global CPRI measures the production volume of the chemical industry for 33 key nations, sub-regions, and regions, all aggregated to the world total. The index is comparable to the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) production indices and features a similar base year where 2012=100.
This index is developed from government industrial production indices for chemicals from over 65 nations accounting for about 98 percent of the total global chemical industry. This data is the only timely source of market trends for the global chemical industry and are comparable to the US CPRI data, a timely source of U.S. regional chemical production.
https://www.powderbulksolids.com/news/Global-Chemicals-Production-Expands-During-June-07-27-2018
-
C&EN’s Global Top 50 Chemical Companies
Jul 30, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
Chemical executives should remember 2017 fondly. According to C&EN's annual survey of the Global Top 50 chemical companies, sales rose strongly for the group, and profits did even better.
The 50 companies combined for $851.0 billion in chemical sales for 2017, the fiscal year on which the survey is based, a 12.2% increase from the year before. Only nine of the firms saw sales decline. This is a turnaround from recent surveys, as the Global Top 50 had seen sales decline in 2015 and 2016. A strong economy and rising oil prices led to the revenue increase.
Profitability swelled for the 48 of the 50 large chemical firms that publicly report profit figures. The companies combined for $108.6 billion in chemical earnings last year, a 14.4% increase from the year-ago period. No company lost money, and merely 13 reported a decline in profits.
The world economy continues to perform well this year, and the chemical industry should benefit from that once again. However, one storm cloud on the horizon is trade. Should the U.S. and China go through with a trade war and mark $200 billion in products for tariffs, the chemical industry—particularly U.S. petrochemical makers—could see an adverse impact.
This is the era of the chemical merger, and that trend has led to the debut of DowDuPont on the list at number 2. Linde's purchase of Praxair and a potential LyondellBasell Industries acquisition of Braskem could affect future rankings.
But on the whole, C&EN's Global Top 50 looks much as it did a year ago. Only two companies that appeared in the last survey—British catalyst firm Johnson Matthey and U.S. specialty chemical maker Lubrizol—didn't have the sales to make the cut this year. They were replaced by Chinese polyurethane juggernaut Wanhua Chemical and U.S. petrochemical maker Westlake Chemical.
1BASF
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $69.2 BILLIONDespite the merger between Dow Chemical and DuPont, BASF maintains the top spot in C&EN's Global Top 50. DowDuPont launched in August and didn't have the full-year results to overtake the German chemical giant. BASF is hardly sitting still itself. The company is mulling its largest-ever investment: a $10 billion integrated chemical complex in Guangdong, China, that would start coming on-line in 2026. BASF also has been making acquisitions. It is spending $9 billion on seed and agricultural chemical businesses from Bayer, which needed to dispose of them to get its acquisition of Monsanto past regulators. The purchase will give BASF about $10 billion in total ag sales and mark its entry into the seed business. BASF is also buying Solvay's nylon business for $1.9 billion. Marking an exit from the energy sector, BASF plans to merge its Wintershall oil and gas businesses with German rival DEA. BASF also made a change at the top. In May, Kurt Bock, BASF's leader throughout most of the 2010s, passed the baton to Martin Brudermüller, a Ph.D. chemist who continues to serve as BASF's chief technology officer.
2DOWDUPONT
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $62.5 BILLIONDowDuPont was born last August, a full 20 months after Dow Chemical and DuPont signed their merger agreement. Because the company's sales figure reflects results from Dow for a full year but from DuPont only since September, it hasn't knocked BASF out of the top spot. A full year of results for 2018 might change that when C&EN's next Global Top 50 survey drops a year from now. If all goes according to management's plan, 2018 should be the only year we know DowDuPont as a company. It is scheduled to break into three companies, all of which should comfortably make the ranking, in 2019. One will be a materials science company with about $44 billion in annual sales. It will bear the Dow name and be led by longtime Dow executive Jim Fitterling. Except for some packaging plastics businesses from the old DuPont, this company will be made up mostly of former Dow businesses. A new DuPont, constructed with former DuPont businesses plus electronic and other assorted specialty materials operations from Dow, will have $21 billion in sales. Agricultural chemicals and seeds from both companies will be the nucleus of a new firm with $14 billion in revenues, Corteva Agriscience.
3SINOPEC
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $55.3 BILLIONThe past few months have been tough for China's largest chemical producer. In May, an explosion in a benzene tank at the Secco Petrochemical facility in Shanghai killed six contract workers who were performing repairs. Sinopec had taken over the facility from partner BP for $1.7 billion just last year. Meanwhile, the Chinese push to improve air quality by switching from coal to natural gas heating led to a temporary natural gas shortage last winter, snarling chemical production in the country. However, 2017 was a good year for the company. It saw a 32% increase in sales. In a positive development for the firm, its Nanjing-based joint venture with BASF plans to double capacity for neopentyl glycol.
4SABIC
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $37.6 BILLIONSABIC aspires to go deeper into specialty chemicals as a way to move beyond making bulk petrochemicals in its oil- and gas-rich home base of Saudi Arabia. This was the justification for its purchase of engineering polymer maker GE Plastics a decade ago. It was also the impetus behind SABIC's purchase of a 25% stakein the Swiss specialty chemical maker Clariant, 50th on this list, earlier this year for $2.4 billion. The two firms were already partners in the chemical process firm Scientific Design. SABIC's petrochemical business is diversifying geographically. It signed an agreement with ExxonMobil to build a massive petrochemical complex near Corpus Christi, Texas. And with Saudi national oil company Saudi Aramco, SABIC plans a crude-oil-to-chemicals plant that would have 9 million metric tons per year of output. Ties between the two Saudi firms may deepen: Saudi Aramco recently said it wants to buy a stake in SABIC.
5INEOS
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $34.6 BILLIONIneos and its founder, the energetic billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, are helping resuscitate the European petrochemical industry, which was rendered nearly irrelevant by the cheap shale-derived feedstocks available to U.S. petrochemical makers. Ineos's solution was to haul U.S. ethane to Europe on purpose-built ships. Those raw materials have been feeding Ineos's ethylene crackers in Scotland and Norway. Now Ineos plans to expand those plants and spend an additional $3 billion on a new European propane dehydrogenation plant and the first ethylene cracker the continent has seen in a generation. The British company is also building a vinyl acetate plant in Europe. Ineos is investing in the U.S. too. It plans an ethylene oxide and derivatives complex and an α-olefins plant, both on the Gulf Coast.
6FORMOSA PLASTICS
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $32.1 BILLIONFormosa Plastics, an affiliate of Formosa Petrochemical, appears to be moving forward on a $9.4 billion ethylene cracker complex, dubbed the Sunshine Project, in Louisiana. The Taiwanese company has purchased a 1,000-hectare tract along the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, La. Construction may begin next year and peak at 8,000 construction workers engaged at site. At its Taiwan home base, Formosa continues to battle environmental activists and farmers who live near its facilities. The company is mulling building a water desalination plant at its giant Mailiao complex to assuage concerns that it is using too much freshwater from the area.
7EXXONMOBIL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $28.7 BILLION ADVERTISEMENTExxonMobil is always working on at least one major petrochemical project. Soon the company could be juggling two. ExxonMobil has just put the final touches on a new ethylene cracker in Baytown, Texas. Now it is advancing a $10 billion complex a bit farther down the coast in San Patricio County, Texas, near Corpus Christi. It has signed a joint-venture agreement with SABIC for the project, and construction will commence once the environmental permits are in. It is also evaluating a project in Guangdong, China, that would feature an ethylene cracker and downstream derivatives.
8LYONDELLBASELL INDUSTRIES
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $28.3 BILLIONBasell's expensive purchase of Lyondell Chemical on the eve of the financial crisis in 2007 forced the newly minted LyondellBasell Industries into bankruptcy a year later. The company has been fiscally conservative ever since it emerged from Chapter 11 in 2010. Instead of building multi-billion-dollar U.S. crackers as its rivals did, it has opted for cheaper, incremental expansions. This frugality has garnered it much admiration in the financial community. But under Bob Patel, who took over as CEO in 2015, the company has been investing more assertively. It is spending $2.4 billion to build the world's largest propylene oxide and tert-butyl alcohol facility, in Channelview, Texas. And LyondellBasell is back on the acquisition path with the purchase of plastics compounder A. Schulman for $2.25 billion. That deal may prove to be small potatoes compared to what the company is considering next. In an acquisition that would be its largest since bankruptcy, LyondellBasell is negotiating to buy a majority stake in the Brazilian petrochemical maker Braskem, number 19 in this ranking. The purchase price could exceed $10 billion.
9MITSUBISHI CHEMICAL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $26.4 BILLIONMitsubishi Chemical's industrial gas arm, Taiyo Nippon Sanso, has been the firm's most active division. The gas company is poised to enter the European market through the purchase of Praxair's European gas business for $6 billion. The Praxair business, with annual sales of $1.5 billion, is part of a package of several divestitures being made so Linde can win European Commission approval for its purchase of Praxair. This isn't the first time Taiyo Nippon Sanso made such a purchase. In 2016, its U.S. affiliate Matheson Tri-Gas bought air-separation and other plants in the U.S. that regulators forced Air Liquide to divest during its takeover of Airgas.
10LG CHEM
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $23.2 BILLIONAs its electronic and battery materials business segment grows, LG Chem is planning a massive R&D expansion. By the turn of the next decade, it wants to boost its R&D headcount by 800, to 6,300 people. It is also launching an innovation contest promising grants of up to $150,000 to scientists working in materials, biotechnology, and other fields. On the capital spending front, LG and China's Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt are investing $450 million to set up a pair of Chinese joint ventures making cathode materials for electric vehicle batteries.
11AIR LIQUIDE
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $22.6 BILLIONAir Liquide is about to be knocked off its perch as the world's largest industrial gas maker. Rival Linde is buying U.S. leader Praxair, and combined they should edge out the French firm. Air Liquide continues to grow even without major acquisitions. Earlier this year, the company started up biomethane plants in the U.S., France, and the U.K., doubling capacity for the fuel, which it extracts from landfills and other sources of waste. It has also invested more than $10 million in the Chinese start-up STNE, which operates a fleet of 500 hydrogen-powered delivery trucks.
12RELIANCE INDUSTRIES
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $17.6 BILLIONThe Indian conglomerate is probably best known for operating the world's largest refinery in Jamnagar, India; being India's largest petrochemical maker; and even for running telecommunications operations and supermarkets. In a first for the region, the company has begun importing ethane from the U.S. in six new ships and is using this ethane to feed three Indian ethylene crackers. And through its recent purchase of Kemrock Industries, the company is now eyeing another world to conquer: carbon fiber composites.
13DUPONT
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $17.3 BILLIONDuPont merged with Dow Chemical to become DowDuPont last August, but it had enough sales all by itself for eight months to make C&EN's ranking one last time. Eventually, the name DuPont will emblazon a new Wilmington, Del.-based chemical company made up mostly of old DuPont businesses, such as food ingredients and construction materials. It will also have a few gems from Dow, such as electronic materials and construction products. In May, DowDuPont CEO Ed Breen, speaking in front of an audience in New York City, gave some clues about how this new company will be run. It will shun "moon shot" R&D projects, deeply encoded in the DNA of the old DuPont, in favor of smaller-scale programs. It will trim 5–10% of its portfolio. Foreshadowing a potential future breakup, he reminded the audience that the new DuPont will consist of four businesses that could stand alone as separate companies.
14LINDE
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $16.9 BILLION
Germany's Linde is close to becoming the largest industrial gas maker in the world with its purchase of Praxair. Combined, the firms generated about $28.4 billion in sales for 2017, nearly $6 billion more than the current leader, Air Liquide. But the German and French gas giants may end up a bit closer in size than that. Regulators want Linde to slough off some assets for competition reasons. Linde has inked an agreement to sell Praxair's European business, which had $1.5 billion in annual sales, to Taiyo Nippon Sanso. Linde also signed a deal under which the private equity firm CVC Capital Partners and the German industrial gas maker Messer will buy Linde's U.S. gas business and some of its South American assets for $3.3 billion.
15TORAY INDUSTRIES
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $16.9 BILLIONToray Industries continues to invest big in its core carbon fiber composites business. It is paying $1.15 billion for TenCate Advanced Composites, which specializes in carbon fiber prepreg—carbon fiber impregnated with resin—for the production of small and medium aircraft. However, the Japanese firm has recently been hit by scandal. Late last year, the company fessed up to faking quality-control measurements on out-of-spec industrial fiber. Toray claims that it missed quality specifications by an insignificant amount.
16AKZONOBEL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $16.5 BILLIONAfter rejecting a $28 billion takeover offer from paint rival PPG Industries, AkzoNobel management promised to spin off its specialty chemical unit, which analysts said would raise between $8 billion and $12 billion. Akzo exceeded these expectations, inking an agreement in March to sell the business to the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, for $12.5 billion. The specialty chemical business generated $5.6 billion in sales in 2017, which wouldn't have been enough to make C&EN's ranking on its own. Akzo also did what many observers expected it to: It attempted to negotiate the purchase of Axalta Coating Systems, DuPont's former paint business. Axalta abandoned those talks to focus on overtures from Nippon Paint, which likewise yielded no deal.
17EVONIK INDUSTRIES
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $16.3 BILLIONAs part of a restructuring, Evonik Industries is cutting 1,000 jobs—mostly in administration and sales and much of them in its home country of Germany. The company aims to save $230 million annually. Evonik is also exploring the sale of its methacrylates unit, which isn't growing at the pace of other businesses, such as animal nutrition and specialty additives. The company has been spending generously on expansion. It will spend nearly $500 million on a plant in Marl, Germany, for nylon 12 and precursors by 2021. It is also laying out $120 million to build a precipitated silica plant in Charleston, S.C., and $50 million to expand fumed silica capacity in Antwerp, Belgium. The company completed the $3.8 billion purchase of Air Products' specialty chemical business, its largest deal ever, in 2017.
18COVESTRO
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $16.0 BILLIONCovestro's last tie to its former parent, Bayer, is nearly severed: Bayer's ownership stake in Covestro is down to 6.8%. Covestro also has a new CEO. Former chief commercial officer Markus Steilemann took the helm last month from Patrick Thomas, who is soon to be nonexecutive chair of Johnson Matthey. Otherwise, Covestro has been rolling out modest investments. The company is spending about $235 million to expand methylene diphenyl diisocyanate capacity and build a new chlorine plant in Tarragona, Spain. For that new plant, the German company is installing an oxygen-depolarized cathode that will allow it to make chlorine and caustic soda without coproduct hydrogen, saving energy.
19BRASKEM
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $15.4 BILLIONBrazil's petrochemical giant may soon cease to exist as an independent company. LyondellBasell Industries is negotiating a purchase of a majority stake in the firm from Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht. A report in Brazil suggests that the parties may come to terms on a deal in October and that the transaction may include Braskem's minority shareholder, state oil company Petrobras. Braskem was founded in 2002 following a government auction of a plant in Camaçari, Brazil. It went on to consolidate almost the entire Brazilian petrochemical industry over the following decade. It also expanded overseas, building a cracker complex in Mexico and buying out polypropylene businesses from Dow Chemical and Sunoco. However, a massive corruption scandal ensnared the company and its owners, who are now seeking a sale to raise money.
20PPG INDUSTRIES
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $14.8 BILLIONPPG Industries' $28 billion offer last year to acquire AkzoNobel was rejected, and a hostile takeover was impossible given the peculiarities of Akzo's corporate structure. To date, PPG hasn't mounted another offensive against its Dutch rival, falling back instead to the peacetime duties of running its businesses and distributing cash to shareholders. In a high-tech development, it is partnering with the start-up SiNode Systems to manufacture high-energy anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. The silicon-graphene materials make for higher-capacity, faster-charging batteries, the partners say.
21SUMITOMO CHEMICAL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $14.6 BILLIONThe past year has seen Sumitomo Chemical rack up many small acquisitions. It purchased a 20% stake in the Japanese biotech firm Bonac, which is developing nucleic acid drug candidates. In agriculture, it bought Kyowa Hakko Bio's plant growth regulator business. Sumitomo also acquired control of Botanical Resources Australia, a Tasmanian firm that extracts pyrethrins, used as organic insecticides, from Dalmatian chrysanthemum. In an organic growth initiative of its own, Sumitomo is spending $150 million to establish a semiconductor materials facility in Changzhou, China.
22LOTTE CHEMICAL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $14.1 BILLIONThe chemical arm of the South Korean conglomerate Lotte has nearly completed the most ambitious U.S. project ever undertaken by a Korean chemical firm. The company's $3 billion ethylene joint venture with Westlake Chemical in Lake Charles, La., is scheduled to start up during the first half of next year. The timing of the facility is just as the companies predicted when they broke ground in June 2016. Lotte is also constructing its own ethylene glycol plant in Lake Charles.
23SHIN-ETSU CHEMICAL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $12.9 BILLIONShin-Etsu Chemical, like many Japanese chemical firms, had an exceptional year in 2017. Its profits shot up by more than 40%, and sales rose 17%. Shin-Etsu credited strong performance in polyvinyl chloride and electronic materials. Looking for more growth, Shin-Etsu is investing $175 million to expand cellulose derivatives in Japan and Germany. It will also lay out $1.5 billion to boost vinyls in Plaquemine, La. (see story page 15).
24SOLVAY
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $12.3 BILLIONIn recent years, Solvay has divested some of its traditional chemical businesses, like vinyls and cellulose acetate, in favor of specialty chemicals. In the latest such move, the Belgian company inked an agreement to sell its nylon 6,6 business to BASF for $1.9 billion. The European Commission is investigating that deal because of fears over BASF's resulting large market share in engineering polymers. The transition to specialties also spurred a reorganization of R&D. The company is cutting about 600 jobs, though it won't say how many are scientists. It is also transferring some 500 employees from Paris and Aubervilliers, France, to Lyon, France, and Brussels.
25MITSUI CHEMICALS
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $11.9 BILLIONMitsui Chemicals' dental materials business bit back earlier this year. Because of disappointing sales, Mitsui wrote off $130 million from the value of the unit, which it bought from the German firm Heraeus in 2013 for $576 million. Undeterred, Mitsui bought a 30% stake in B9Creations, which makes three-dimensional printers used in the jewelry industry. Mitsui wants to repurpose the machines for dental materials. Separately, the Japanese company is building a new line in Ohio for an olefinic thermoplastic elastomer. It also licensed the rights to quinofumelin—a fungicide used on fruit, vegetables, oilseeds, and rice—to Bayer.
26PRAXAIR
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $11.4 BILLIONWith Linde's purchase of Praxair nearing approval, this is likely to be Praxair's final appearance in the C&EN ranking. The industrial gas company was a part of a bigger firm once before. It was a division of Union Carbide, then a chemical conglomerate, before being spun off in 1992. Shareholders will remember the independent Praxair for delivering strong returns year in and year out. And its 2017 operating profit margin, among the largest in the Global Top 50, shows that Praxair is going out at the peak of its game.
27YARA
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $11.3 BILLIONThe Norwegian fertilizer giant has been growing like gangbusters in recent years and is still in expansion mode. It opened a joint-venture ammonia plant with BASF in Freeport, Texas, in April. A month later, it completed the purchase, for $255 million, of a nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers complex in Cubatão, Brazil. It isn't all about big fertilizer plants for Yara. Last year, it purchased Agronomic Technology, which sells digital farming software developed at Cornell University.
28LANXESS
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $10.9 BILLIONLanxess's board must like the job its CEO Matthias Zachert has been doing for the past four years because it re-upped his contract until April 1, 2024. The company is absorbing brominated flame retardants maker Chemtura, which it purchased last year for $2.5 billion. Lanxess now aims to save $120 million annually at Chemtura by reducing costs. In a small acquisition meant to augment what it acquired with Chemtura, Lanxess bought Solvay's U.S. business in phosphorus chemicals for agrochemicals and flame retardants. The company is also nibbling at the booming market for lithium, used in batteries. Standard Lithium is paying $3 million for access to lithium in the Arkansas brine from which Lanxess extracts bromine.
29BAYER
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $10.8 BILLIONBayer closed its $66 billion purchase of Monsanto last month, nearly two years after it was originally unveiled. After a long review, antitrust regulators finally approved the acquisition—provided that Bayer sell $9 billion in seed and crop protection chemical operations to BASF. Bayer's first major decision after the acquisition was getting rid of the Monsanto name, much demonized among activists who are down on genetically modified organisms. To help pay for Monsanto, Bayer continues to reduce its stake in Covestro, its former materials science business. Bayer has raised more than $10.6 billion in sales of Covestro stock so far.
30DSM
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $9.8 BILLIONIt seems that every year brings heavy investment from DSM in nutrition. Late last year, the Dutch company agreed to buy an Amyris plant in Brazil that makes the biobased chemical building block farnesene for $96 million. The two firms had collaborated since earlier in 2017 with the goal of developing a fermentation route to vitamin A. DSM also invested $50 million in Amyris. More recently, DSM acquired a 50% stake in Mixfit, a start-up that analyzes a person's diet and lifestyle to create personalized beverages containing vitamins and minerals.
31ASAHI KASEI
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $9.7 BILLIONAsahi Kasei has been investing heavily in lithium-ion batteries and high-end materials. Earlier this year, the Japanese firm decided to spend about $70 million to expand its battery separator plants in Shiga, Japan, and North Carolina. Separately, Asahi Kasei is doubling production of synthetic suede in Japan, and it just announced a $1 billion deal to acquire Sage Automotive Interiors, a large suede customer. And with ChemChina subsidiary China National Bluestar, it is building a 30,000-metric-ton-per-year plant for the engineering polymer polyphenylene ether in Nantong, China.
32EASTMAN CHEMICAL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $9.5 BILLIONEastman Chemical has long had a core made of polyester. And while the company no longer makes polyethylene terephthalate, the company still invests in specialty polyesters. In May, Eastman wrapped up an expansion at its flagship complex in Kingsport, Tenn., for its Tritan copolyester. The product has been taking off in recent years as a bisphenol A-free substitute for polycarbonate. Eastman is also expanding capacity for its Eastar, Spectar, and Aspira copolyesters at the site by 25% and boosting output for its copolyester raw material cyclohexanedimethanol.
33ARKEMA
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $9.4 BILLIONAll eyes were on an Arkema plant in Crosby, Texas, in August after Tropical Storm Harvey stalled over the Houston area, dumping more than 50 cm of rain. A warehouse loaded with Arkema organic peroxides lost power and backup power. The reactive organic peroxides must be kept refrigerated. The canisters started to burst into flames, fortunately resulting in only minor injuries. It hasn't all been bad news for Arkema. The company is spending $30 million to build a nylon 12 plant in Changshu, China. It's also expanding a polyvinylidene fluoride plant in Calvert City, Ky.
34SYNGENTA
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $9.2 BILLIONChemChina completed its purchase of Syngenta in mid-2017 with a promise to let it operate independently. One subsequent loose end was the sale, for $490 million, to Australia's Nufarm of a portfolio of 50 off-patent pesticides and other products from Syngenta and Adama, ChemChina's existing crop protection business. The European Commission required the divestitures before it allowed the deal to go through. Keeping with the trend of agrochemical companies plunging into digital farming, Syngenta acquired FarmShots, a start-up that allows farmers to use satellite images to assess plant health.
35CHEVRON PHILLIPS CHEMICAL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $9.1 BILLIONBack in 2011, Chevron Phillips Chemical was the first company in more than a decade to announce a new ethylene cracker complex on the U.S. Gulf Coast, part of a $6 billion investment that also included two polyethylene plants. More than a dozen companies eventually followed with U.S. ethylene projects of their own. Chevron Phillips's polyethylene plants came onstream last year, and the company fired up its cracker in March. While the firm was an early shale-gas bull, its new CEO, Mark Lashier, is cautious. He is considering another project but is worried about rising construction costs in the U.S. due to all the activity.
36BOREALIS
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $8.5 BILLIONBorealis, a Vienna, Austria-based petrochemical maker controlled by the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment, is experiencing a growth spurt. With Abu Dhabi National Oil, it is planning a new ethylene cracker and derivatives units at the two firms' existing Borouge joint venture in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi. The site's petrochemical output will triple to 14.4 million metric tons by 2025. Borouge already has annual sales of nearly $4 billion. Borealis is also mulling an ethylene cracker and polyethylene complex in Kazakhstan with local partners and is moving forward with a Texas ethylene project with sister company Nova Chemicals and French oil company Total.
37INDORAMA
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $8.4 BILLIONOver the past decade, Indorama has grown from an obscure Thai polyester producer to one of the Global Top 50 through acquisition, expansion, and creative combinations of those two. Its most recent deal illustrates this. The company bought a 50% interest in an idle polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plant in Egypt. It is restarting the plant, using raw material purified terephthalic acid from a plant that it bought last year in Portugal. Earlier this year, Indorama and competitors Far Eastern New Century and Alpek teamed up to buy a PET plant under construction in Corpus Christi, Texas, from the bankrupt M&G Chemicals for $1.1 billion. And last fall it inked a deal to purchase DuPont Teijin Films, which makes specialty PET and polyethylene naphthalate films.
38SK INNOVATION
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $8.3 BILLIONSK Innovation has a knack for buying businesses from Dow Chemical. Late last year, the Korean petrochemical maker, through its SK Global Chemical subsidiary, agreed to buy the Saran polyvinylidene chloride business, a longtime Dow brand. SK had previously inked an agreement to purchase Dow's ethylene acrylic acid polymer unit to ease regulatory approval of Dow's merger with DuPont.
39HUNTSMAN CORP.
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $8.2 BILLIONHuntsman Corp. lost its founder earlier this year with the death of Jon M. Huntsman Sr. at age 80. He established Huntsman Corp. in 1982 and made its first major purchase, a Shell polystyrene plant in Belpre, Ohio, in 1983. He would go on to build one of the world's largest chemical companies through similar purchases of businesses from large firms looking to trim their portfolios. Huntsman's most important buys were Texaco Chemical and ICI's polyurethane, titanium dioxide, and petrochemical businesses. A mutiny of large Clariant shareholders prevented another milestone Huntsman deal. Last fall, Huntsman and Clariant had to cancel their merger of equals, which would have created a $14.7 billion specialty chemical powerhouse.
40AIR PRODUCTS & CHEMICALS
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $8.2 BILLIONWhile industrial gas competitors such as Linde and Air Liquide have been inking big-ticket mergers, Air Products' strategy has been to crack the Chinese market. It attempted a $1.5 billion takeover of Yingde Gases, one of China's leading players, in December 2016 but lost out to the Hong Kong-based private equity firm PAG. After that, Air Products invested $500 million in a coal-to-chemicals joint venture with Lu'An Mining in Shanxi, the heart of China's coal country. It has a 60% stake in the partnership and will be responsible for the production of synthesis gas for making chemicals and fuels. Air Products made an even bigger Chinese commitment last November, signing with Yankuang Group to build a $3.5 billion coal gasification plant in Yulin, China.
41ECOLAB
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $8.1 BILLIONThe strong hurricane season last year, which included Houston-pummeling Harvey, hampered Ecolab's energy, paper, and water treatment chemical business. Despite this, the company was able to score a 6% improvement in sales in 2017. Ecolab is looking to grow in chemicals. Last October, it agreed to acquire Georgia-Pacific's paper chemicals unit, which has annual sales of more than $40 million.
42WESTLAKE CHEMICAL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $8.0 BILLIONHouston-based Westlake Chemical rocketed into the Global Top 50 with its $3.8 billion purchase of rival Axiall in 2016. The deal created the second-largest polyvinyl chloride maker and the third-largest chlor-alkali player in North America. Investing in the shale gas boom, Westlake and South Korea's Lotte are building an ethylene cracker in Lake Charles, La. Westlake has also been expanding vinyl capacity in the U.S. and Europe.
43WANHUA CHEMICAL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $7.9 BILLIONAnyone looking for an example of the vibrancy of the Chinese economy can cite Wanhua Chemical. The company's small methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) plant in Yantai, China, wasn't producing at full capacity until 1995. Now Wanhua is the largest producer of the polyurethane raw material in the world, ahead of Western competitors such as BASF, Covestro, Dow Chemical, and Huntsman. The company has branched into other isocyanates as well as polyols, another polyurethane raw material. With a plan to spend $1.1 billion to establish an MDI plant in Louisiana, Wanhua may bring its vibrancy to the U.S.
44SASOL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $7.7 BILLIONEarly on, Sasol had headaches and delays at its massive Lake Charles, La., petrochemical project. But for the past year or more, construction has been going smoothly. As of the end of 2017, it was 81% complete, and the company had spent $8.8 billion of the $11.1 billion project budget. Sasol hopes to have the first feedstock trickling through the facility later this year. By 2022, it should be earning the company $1.3 billion a year in pre-tax profits. Separately, Gemini, a high-density polyethylene joint venture in La Porte, Texas, between Sasol and Ineos, made its first sales late last year.
45MOSAIC
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $7.4 BILLIONMosaic is seeing its fortunes start to turn around in the slumping fertilizer industry. After a 20% drop in sales in 2016, Mosaic's turnover increased 3% last year, and profits jumped 7%. Earlier this year, the company completed the purchase of the fertilizer business of the Brazilian mining firm Vale for $2.5 billion. To get easier access to the Brazilian operations as well as its extensive Florida phosphate mine, the company is now moving its corporate headquarters from Plymouth, Minn., to Hillsborough County, Fla.
46PTT GLOBAL CHEMICAL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $7.4 BILLIONPTT's project to build an ethylene cracker complex in Belmont, Ohio, gained some momentum in January when South Korea's Daelim signed on as the Thai petrochemical maker's partner. The companies are already acquiring land. They envision a 1.5 million-metric-ton-per-year cracker, which is 500,000 metric tons more than PTT originally planned when it unveiled the project in 2015. Separately, with Japan's Kuraray and Sumitomo Corp., PTT is building plants to make styrenic block copolymers and nylon 9T in Thailand.
47TOSOH
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $7.3 BILLIONTosoh shattered company records last year with a 11% increase in sales and a 17% improvement in profits. In a letter to shareholders, President Toshinori Yamamoto credited reduced debt levels, improvement in its commodity chemicals business, and strong performance in Asian markets. Tosoh, Asia's largest integrated chlor-alkali maker, is also investing heavily in specialties. In connection with this, it is renovating three of its eight laboratories to better foster innovation.
48DIC
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $7.0 BILLIONDIC is keeping up with the trend of food companies shunning artificial ingredients, including color. Looking to further develop a business in natural food coloring, it invested close to $6 million in Fermentalg, a French specialist in algae for nutrition and health markets. In another biobased chemical development, DIC is partnering with the natural building block start-up Checkerspot on new polyols for coatings, inks, and other markets.
49HANWHA CHEMICAL
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $6.9 BILLIONHanwha's petrochemical and refining joint venture with French oil giant Total, Hanwha Total Petrochemical, will spend $300 million to expand polyethylene capacity in Daesan, South Korea, by 50%. The joint venture also has a project to get the site ready for importation of cheap propane feedstock from abroad.
50CLARIANT
2017 CHEMICAL SALES: $6.5 BILLIONThis may be the era of the megamerger, but one proposed deal, Clariant's combination with Huntsman, was canceled last November. Clariant and Huntsman would have combined for $14.7 billion in sales. However, Clariant investor White Tale Holdings objected to the transaction. It argued that Clariant should become more of a specialty chemical maker rather than link up with Huntsman, which has a lot of commodity chemicals in its portfolio. Earlier this year, White Tale and another major shareholder, 40 North, sold out to Saudi Arabia's SABIC, which paid $2.4 billion for a 25% stake in Clariant.
https://cen.acs.org/business/finance/CENs-Global-Top-50-chemical/96/i31
-
House Democrats Seek Investigation Into EPA Chief’s Meetings
Jul 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
House Democrats are asking the Office of Government Ethics to investigate EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s meeting with former lobbying clients.
A letter signed by Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and three other Democrats cites reports that Wheeler met with at least three clients of Wheeler’s former lobbying firm this summer. The lawmakers asked the ethics office to determine whether the meetings were a violation of Wheeler’s Trump administration ethics pledge.
Wheeler served as registered lobbyist for Faegre Baker Daniels LLP until May 31, 2016.
Wheeler’s public calendar shows meetings with his former client Darling Ingredients on June 26, 2018, the South Coast Air Quality Management District on June 22, 2018, and Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. on May 24, 2018, the letter says.
“All of these companies have business interests which would be significantly affected by pending EPA regulations, and all paid Wheeler and his former lobbying firm Faegre Baker Daniels thousands of dollars for lobbying work,” the lawmakers wrote.
“We also ask that you clarify which clients, and which regulatory matters affecting them, merit further recusals by the Acting Administrator in order to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the ethics rules,” they added.
Also signing the letter were Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois.
Wheeler in a May 24 statement listed eight former clients that could pose potential conflicts: Murray Energy, Xcel Energy, Growth Energy, International Paper, Martin Farms, Sargento Food Inc., Underwriters Laboratories, and Energy Fuel Resources Inc.
The Environmental Protection Agency didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/house-democrats-seek-investigation-into-epa-chiefs-meetings
-
(ACC Mentioned) Wheeler Orders Broad Review of IRIS' Agenda, Role, Heightening Concerns
Jul 30, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler has launched a broad review of the agency's premiere chemical risk analysis program, a move that critics say could allow the new chief and other political appointees to kill or delay pending Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessments, including the controversial draft analysis of formaldehyde.
“What I have asked the IRIS program is that we need to make sure we have identified the customer for analysis,” Wheeler told reporters at July 25 event on the renewable fuel standard in Washington, D.C.
“And we need to know what the end result of the product will be, and what the regulatory process” is, “not just for formaldehyde but for all the IRIS assessments,” he said.
“I have asked them to come back to me with some information about how we are going to use the assessments for the regulatory program,” he added.
Wheeler said that Congress' 2016 reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) “is supposed to be the state of the art on risk assessments and I want to make sure that we understand how IRIS fits into that. . . . They are supposed to get back to me with a game plan for how we are going to implement that across the board.”
Asked if there is a time line for his request, Wheeler said there is none.
An agency source says Wheeler's comment on IRIS' role in relation to that of EPA's toxics office gives him an out “not to do anything with IRIS, or not have anything go out unless it's part of TSCA.”
Asked for comments on Wheeler's remarks, an EPA spokeswoman says only, “EPA continues to discuss the formaldehyde assessment with our Agency program partners, and are weighing this assessment with other Agency priorities.”
Wheeler's comments came as lawmakers on the House science committee approved legislation that would effectively eliminate the IRIS program and delegate its functions to EPA program offices -- though the legislation faces long odds.
Supporters said the legislation was needed in part because the IRIS program has been so inefficient in completing assessments in a timely fashion.
However, EPA's long-running effort to update its 1989 assessment of formaldehyde exposure's risks to human health has reportedly been completed for months, but not released for public comment or peer review -- the next steps in IRIS' process for developing assessments.
Congressional Democrats have been questioning EPA about its failure to release the draft assessment, at odds with Congress' direction in the agency's 2017 budget for officials to send the study to peer review. EPA later committed to doing so by Sept. 30, 2018, in its report to Congress on IRIS last January.
“We have seen a disturbing trend at EPA lately where science is being sidelined. I am extremely concerned by reports that the release of a study, which details cancer risks from formaldehyde, is being delayed and the results kept hidden from the public,” Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY), a member of the House science committee and energy and commerce committee, noted at a July 24 hearing.
And Senate Democrats in May sent former Administrator Scott Pruitt a letter demanding information on the assessment's status, citing information they said they had received indicating that the draft assessment has been completed for months -- but because it concludes that formaldehyde can cause leukemia, industry groups have questioned EPA's scientific analysis and urged Trump EPA appointees to block the draft's release.
'In A Pickle'
Agency sources tell Inside EPA that Wheeler's directives would likely be advanced by requiring IRIS to share a list of pending and planned assessments with Trump administration nominees and appointees leading the program and regional offices that generally request IRIS assessments.
One agency source says such a request will put appointees “in a pickle” over their responses on whether the formaldehyde assessment has customers and should proceed.
A decision to advance the assessment will win support from some stakeholders and opposition from others -- as would a decision to halt the assessment, the source said.
For example, Natural Resources Defense Council's Jennifer Sass told Inside EPA that “the IRIS program is perfectly clear about who its users (customers) are, and have said so repeatedly in public fora including at the recent National Academies review.”
But the American Chemistry Council (ACC), which has long raised concerns about the pending formaldehyde assessment, called IRIS assessments “one piece of information that could be used to inform future regulatory decisions, but they must be grounded in sound science,” a spokeswoman tells Inside EPA. “Unfortunately, when an IRIS assessment demonstrates that it has no plans to evaluate and integrate the best available science or seemingly circumvents robust internal review processes, the attention on the assessment is rightly increased.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/wheeler-orders-broad-review-iris-agenda-role-heightening-concerns
-
(ACC Mentioned) Pending EPA Formaldehyde Analysis Poses Significant Liability for Industry
Jul 30, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's stalled draft assessment of the human health risks of formaldehyde, reported to reiterate conclusions that exposure to the ubiquitous substance can cause leukemia, poses significant liability for industry in stricter regulatory standards and legal settlements, underscoring their efforts to influence any assessment's final conclusions.
Formaldehyde's ubiquity in the environment -- through a variety of media and from a plethora of sources, either intended, or as a byproduct, waste product or breakdown product -- adds to the number of stakeholders concerns with EPA's efforts to regulate the chemical.
Formaldehyde is “a substance for which there is very broad human exposure through multiple avenues. It's part of air pollution, volatiles, gasoline . . . ” an EPA source says.
Yet “despite broad exposure . . . we're still working off a potency value that has not been updated in 20 years, in spite of a huge volume of research that has taken place in that time,” the agency source says.
But industry groups say that EPA's pending Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment should proceed carefully given the potential liabilities.
“Formaldehyde plays an integral role in a wide variety of industrial applications across the automotive, aviation, textile, energy, and building and construction sectors and therefore it is critical that a formaldehyde IRIS assessment be based upon the best available science,” an American Chemistry Council (ACC) spokeswoman tells Inside EPA.
“Since its discovery in 1859, formaldehyde has been routinely used in hundreds of products. Formaldehyde provides greater utility for consumers in the form of extended use, consistent quality and improved performance and safety.”
EPA's website on formaldehyde details a host of agency authorities to address the substance, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act (CWA), Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
For example, section 261.33 of RCRA classifies “discarded commercial chemical products and other wastes that contain formaldehyde as hazardous."
And CWA section 311(b)(2)(A) “regulates discharges of hazardous substances, including formaldehyde.”
At Congress' direction, EPA's toxics office under former President Barack Obama completed several TSCA rules on various products that can emit formaldehyde including a host of pressed wood products, such as furniture and flooring -- rules the Trump EPA initially sought to delay.
EPA's existing IRIS assessment of formaldehyde dates from 1989, where it lists the chemical as a probable human carcinogen based on EPA's 1986 cancer risk assessment guidelines. EPA's IRIS program is also unique in that it develops potency values for various human health risks, the result of dose-response analyses that can form the basis of agency regulations and decision-making.
2010 Draft
EPA's draft 2010 formaldehyde assessment not only included the controversial conclusion that exposure could cause leukemia, it also calculated a strict potency estimate.
The draft, however, prompted significant criticism from a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel, which also criticized the broader IRIS program, leading to years of reforms and continuing efforts by critics to shutter it.
But agency officials have indicated publicly that they have completed work on a new draft and congressional Democrats have been questioning EPA about its failure to release it despite Congress' direction in the agency's 2017 budget for officials to send the study to peer review.
EPA later committed to doing so by Sept. 30, 2018, in its report to Congress on IRIS last January.
Democrats also say the draft reiterates the agency's earlier finding that the substance causes leukemia.
That echoes findings from the National Toxicology Program (NTP), which in 2011 and 2014 reports concluded that there is evidence that formaldehyde exposure can cause leukemia.
NTP's Report on Carcinogens also noted the ubiquity of formaldehyde: “Formaldehyde concentrations in the environment generally are reported in parts per billion, but exposure levels are much higher in the workplace, occurring in the range of parts per million,” NTP said.
It added that formaldehyde is “ubiquitous in the environment and has been detected in indoor and outdoor air, soil, food, treated and bottled drinking water, surface water, and groundwater,” adding that the general population can be exposed to formaldehyde primarily from breathing indoor or outdoor air, from tobacco smoke, from use of cosmetic products containing formaldehyde, and, to a more limited extent, from ingestion of food and water.
“For the general population, the major sources of airborne formaldehyde exposure include combustion sources, offgassing from numerous construction and home-furnishing products, and offgassing from consumer goods,” NTP says.
EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2016, the most recent available, indicates most formaldehyde releases -- 74 percent of those reported to TRI -- stem from the chemicals industry.
The remaining major industrial sectors releasing formaldehyde are the wood products and paper industries, non-metallic mineral products and hazardous waste, with a handful of other industries rounding out TRI-reporting formaldehyde emitters. Some 727 facilities reported emitting formaldehyde into the environment in 2016, located in 47 states, mostly east of the Missouri River.
Louisiana is the state with the largest number of TRI facilities reporting formaldehyde emissions.
“Review and oversight exists on all major volume uses of formaldehyde and risks are controlled,” the ACC spokeswoman says. “Formaldehyde industry stewardship in the U.S. has been and continues to be extensive.”
ACC and others have protested the leukemia finding in both EPA's draft and NTP's assessment, with the draft IRIS assessment's potency value garnering particular scrutiny. ACC argued that the potency value “would have you believe the amount of formaldehyde humans produce and exhale -- in every single breath -- is dangerous and could cause leukemia,” according to a statement ACC released July 6.
This is because formaldehyde is not only released as part of industrial processes, it also occurs naturally, including within the human body -- further complicating efforts to assess its health risks.
Sources say that stricter regulations are not the only concern industries face if EPA releases a stricter IRIS assessment. The agency source says that “the regulatory piece is only one piece and not the major piece. It's the general acknowledgment that [formaldehyde] is a general pollutant with broad exposure, and many sources.”
But industry has long challenged conclusions on the substance's leukemia risks. “Any draft assessment that attempts to associate formaldehyde exposure with leukemia is scientifically indefensible and threatens the many safe, longstanding, and beneficial uses of formaldehyde,” the ACC spokeswoman says.
Civil Suits
An environmentalist explains that beyond the many regulations that could be impacted by an updated IRIS assessment, there is also the issue of how formaldehyde exposure is treated in courts, in the lawsuits of former workers. “The key around why the industry fought [the draft assessment] and sent it to the [NAS] is around the leukemia [finding]” the environmentalist says. “Everyone believes that it causes nasal cancer, at the site of contact.”
The source explains that because of the nasal cancer associated with formaldehyde exposure, the chemical is classified as a group 1 carcinogen -- the International Agency for Research on Cancer's classification for the greatest level of evidence of carcinogenicity. “No one is arguing that,” the source says. “The less definitely linked are these leukemias -- everyone does it differently.”
Industry is fighting such a finding because it would “change the liability.” If formaldehyde exposure is definitively linked to leukemia, in courts these companies could be held responsible for leukemia too as well as nasal cancers, the source explains.
The environmentalist points to several cohorts of workers involved in industries where they were exposed to formaldehyde -- embalmers, textile workers, those making or working with engineered wood, and chemical workers -- who have been studied by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The institutes published studies on these cohorts in 2003 and 2004, several years ahead of the IRIS assessment, which included them in its review.
That draft assessment had also been delayed, by a 2004 request from Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who urged EPA to table the assessment for updated occupational studies. Former Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) further delayed EPA's efforts to complete the IRIS assessment by holding former EPA research chief Paul Anastas' nomination until EPA in 2010 agreed to submit the draft assessment to peer review by the NAS.
NIOSH has since updated its study of garment workers, publishing a followup in 2013 by Meyers et al in the American Journal Of Industrial Medicine. “We continue to see limited evidence of an association between formaldehyde and leukemia,” the study concludes. “However, the extended follow-up did not strengthen previously observed associations. In addition to continued epidemiologic research, we recommend further research to evaluate the biological plausibility of a causal relation between formaldehyde and leukemia.”
A NIOSH spokeswoman tell Inside EPA that no future updates to its garment workers study is planned.
The largest of the cohort studies was produced by NCI researchers, including a group of more than 25,000 workers, the Meyers paper notes. The NCI study also provided “the strongest epidemiologic evidence of an association of formaldehyde with leukemia and myeloid leukemia,” the study adds.
NCI published its update study in 2009 -- meaning that it is also discussed and included in the earlier IRIS draft. An NCI spokesman tells Inside EPA that “NCI is no longer following this cohort and has no future plans for this at this point.”
The environmentalist notes that industries' liability to workers sickened by formaldehyde exposure might not be limited to the U.S., an issue for multi-national companies when multiple countries' courts view formaldehyde exposure as compensatory. “If you have something with a group 1 disease, you only have to show [in court] that you worked there, that there was exposure. That's why the endpoints matter,” the source adds. , underscoring their efforts to influence any assessment's final conclusions.
Formaldehyde's ubiquity in the environment -- through a variety of media and from a plethora of sources, either intended, or as a byproduct, waste product or breakdown product -- adds to the number of stakeholders concerns with EPA's efforts to regulate the chemical.
Formaldehyde is “a substance for which there is very broad human exposure through multiple avenues. It's part of air pollution, volatiles, gasoline . . . ” an EPA source says.
Yet “despite broad exposure . . . we're still working off a potency value that has not been updated in 20 years, in spite of a huge volume of research that has taken place in that time,” the agency source says.
But industry groups say that EPA's pending Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment should proceed carefully given the potential liabilities.
“Formaldehyde plays an integral role in a wide variety of industrial applications across the automotive, aviation, textile, energy, and building and construction sectors and therefore it is critical that a formaldehyde IRIS assessment be based upon the best available science,” an American Chemistry Council (ACC) spokeswoman tells Inside EPA.
“Since its discovery in 1859, formaldehyde has been routinely used in hundreds of products. Formaldehyde provides greater utility for consumers in the form of extended use, consistent quality and improved performance and safety.”
EPA's website on formaldehyde details a host of agency authorities to address the substance, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act (CWA), Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
For example, section 261.33 of RCRA classifies “discarded commercial chemical products and other wastes that contain formaldehyde as hazardous."
And CWA section 311(b)(2)(A) “regulates discharges of hazardous substances, including formaldehyde.”
At Congress' direction, EPA's toxics office under former President Barack Obama completed several TSCA rules on various products that can emit formaldehyde including a host of pressed wood products, such as furniture and flooring -- rules the Trump EPA initially sought to delay.
EPA's existing IRIS assessment of formaldehyde dates from 1989, where it lists the chemical as a probable human carcinogen based on EPA's 1986 cancer risk assessment guidelines. EPA's IRIS program is also unique in that it develops potency values for various human health risks, the result of dose-response analyses that can form the basis of agency regulations and decision-making.
2010 Draft
EPA's draft 2010 formaldehyde assessment not only included the controversial conclusion that exposure could cause leukemia, it also calculated a strict potency estimate.
The draft, however, prompted significant criticism from a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel, which also criticized the broader IRIS program, leading to years of reforms and continuing efforts by critics to shutter it.
But agency officials have indicated publicly that they have completed work on a new draft and congressional Democrats have been questioning EPA about its failure to release it despite Congress' direction in the agency's 2017 budget for officials to send the study to peer review.
EPA later committed to doing so by Sept. 30, 2018, in its report to Congress on IRIS last January.
Democrats also say the draft reiterates the agency's earlier finding that the substance causes leukemia.
That echoes findings from the National Toxicology Program (NTP), which in 2011 and 2014 reports concluded that there is evidence that formaldehyde exposure can cause leukemia.
NTP's Report on Carcinogens also noted the ubiquity of formaldehyde: “Formaldehyde concentrations in the environment generally are reported in parts per billion, but exposure levels are much higher in the workplace, occurring in the range of parts per million,” NTP said.
It added that formaldehyde is “ubiquitous in the environment and has been detected in indoor and outdoor air, soil, food, treated and bottled drinking water, surface water, and groundwater,” adding that the general population can be exposed to formaldehyde primarily from breathing indoor or outdoor air, from tobacco smoke, from use of cosmetic products containing formaldehyde, and, to a more limited extent, from ingestion of food and water.
“For the general population, the major sources of airborne formaldehyde exposure include combustion sources, offgassing from numerous construction and home-furnishing products, and offgassing from consumer goods,” NTP says.
EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2016, the most recent available, indicates most formaldehyde releases -- 74 percent of those reported to TRI -- stem from the chemicals industry.
The remaining major industrial sectors releasing formaldehyde are the wood products and paper industries, non-metallic mineral products and hazardous waste, with a handful of other industries rounding out TRI-reporting formaldehyde emitters. Some 727 facilities reported emitting formaldehyde into the environment in 2016, located in 47 states, mostly east of the Missouri River.
Louisiana is the state with the largest number of TRI facilities reporting formaldehyde emissions.
“Review and oversight exists on all major volume uses of formaldehyde and risks are controlled,” the ACC spokeswoman says. “Formaldehyde industry stewardship in the U.S. has been and continues to be extensive.”
ACC and others have protested the leukemia finding in both EPA's draft and NTP's assessment, with the draft IRIS assessment's potency value garnering particular scrutiny. ACC argued that the potency value “would have you believe the amount of formaldehyde humans produce and exhale -- in every single breath -- is dangerous and could cause leukemia,” according to a statement ACC released July 6.
This is because formaldehyde is not only released as part of industrial processes, it also occurs naturally, including within the human body -- further complicating efforts to assess its health risks.
Sources say that stricter regulations are not the only concern industries face if EPA releases a stricter IRIS assessment. The agency source says that “the regulatory piece is only one piece and not the major piece. It's the general acknowledgment that [formaldehyde] is a general pollutant with broad exposure, and many sources.”
But industry has long challenged conclusions on the substance's leukemia risks. “Any draft assessment that attempts to associate formaldehyde exposure with leukemia is scientifically indefensible and threatens the many safe, longstanding, and beneficial uses of formaldehyde,” the ACC spokeswoman says.
Civil Suits
An environmentalist explains that beyond the many regulations that could be impacted by an updated IRIS assessment, there is also the issue of how formaldehyde exposure is treated in courts, in the lawsuits of former workers. “The key around why the industry fought [the draft assessment] and sent it to the [NAS] is around the leukemia [finding]” the environmentalist says. “Everyone believes that it causes nasal cancer, at the site of contact.”
The source explains that because of the nasal cancer associated with formaldehyde exposure, the chemical is classified as a group 1 carcinogen -- the International Agency for Research on Cancer's classification for the greatest level of evidence of carcinogenicity. “No one is arguing that,” the source says. “The less definitely linked are these leukemias -- everyone does it differently.”
Industry is fighting such a finding because it would “change the liability.” If formaldehyde exposure is definitively linked to leukemia, in courts these companies could be held responsible for leukemia too as well as nasal cancers, the source explains.
The environmentalist points to several cohorts of workers involved in industries where they were exposed to formaldehyde -- embalmers, textile workers, those making or working with engineered wood, and chemical workers -- who have been studied by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The institutes published studies on these cohorts in 2003 and 2004, several years ahead of the IRIS assessment, which included them in its review.
That draft assessment had also been delayed, by a 2004 request from Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who urged EPA to table the assessment for updated occupational studies. Former Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) further delayed EPA's efforts to complete the IRIS assessment by holding former EPA research chief Paul Anastas' nomination until EPA in 2010 agreed to submit the draft assessment to peer review by the NAS.
NIOSH has since updated its study of garment workers, publishing a followup in 2013 by Meyers et al in the American Journal Of Industrial Medicine. “We continue to see limited evidence of an association between formaldehyde and leukemia,” the study concludes. “However, the extended follow-up did not strengthen previously observed associations. In addition to continued epidemiologic research, we recommend further research to evaluate the biological plausibility of a causal relation between formaldehyde and leukemia.”
A NIOSH spokeswoman tell Inside EPA that no future updates to its garment workers study is planned.
The largest of the cohort studies was produced by NCI researchers, including a group of more than 25,000 workers, the Meyers paper notes. The NCI study also provided “the strongest epidemiologic evidence of an association of formaldehyde with leukemia and myeloid leukemia,” the study adds.
NCI published its update study in 2009 -- meaning that it is also discussed and included in the earlier IRIS draft. An NCI spokesman tells Inside EPA that “NCI is no longer following this cohort and has no future plans for this at this point.”
The environmentalist notes that industries' liability to workers sickened by formaldehyde exposure might not be limited to the U.S., an issue for multi-national companies when multiple countries' courts view formaldehyde exposure as compensatory. “If you have something with a group 1 disease, you only have to show [in court] that you worked there, that there was exposure. That's why the endpoints matter,” the source adds.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/pending-epa-formaldehyde-analysis-poses-significant-liability-industry
-
Chemical Monitoring Has Room for Improvement, EPA Report Says
Jul 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam McQuillan
The EPA’s quality checks on chemical data submitted by manufacturers lack clear written procedures that would provide consistency and continuity for future audits, the agency’s watchdog said in a report.
Companies are required to report every four years on the substances they produce and import under the Chemical Data Reporting rule. The EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, which is in charge of implementing the rule, uses the information submitted by the companies to assess potential risks to human health and the environment of chemicals in commerce.
The data also help the agency target its compliance and enforcement activities. For example, the agency’s enforcement office can use the data to identify manufacturers of certain chemicals that have contaminated nearby communities or water supplies.
But a lack of documented quality assurance and quality control policies “presents a risk that there may be a loss of institutional knowledge about how data quality checks should be conducted in cases of staff turnover or absence,” the July 27 report said.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the Inspector General concluded concrete guidelines and procedures would streamline quality checks of company data and prevent information from being mishandled or lost. The agency is already working to address concerns about the database where that information is stored.
Interviewed Staff, Checking ProceduresA team of reviewers within the Chemical Control Division determines what data areas the agency wants to examine—such as production volume or where each chemical is used—and the conditions for conducting these checks. The inspector general interviewed staff and found that chemical quality check procedures largely depend on who is on the review team during each four year interval, the report said.
For 2016, the most recent reporting cycle, summary documents provided guidance for checking data and could be used for future reference, the report said.
None of the documents, however, describe the overall data quality check process, such as how roles should be assigned based on division or staff position, how queries should be selected, or what processes should be followed when conducting a data quality check, the report said.
“While I believe that improved Agency [quality assurance/quality control] is not inappropriate, given the variable and cyclical nature of chemical production and use patterns it is difficult from a practical perspective to identify errors in [Chemical Data Reporting] submissions based solely on the data that are required to be submitted,” Tom Berger, an attorney with Keller and Heckman in Indianapolis, who works with companies on TSCA issues, told Bloomberg Environment in an email.
Database Improvements
While the reporting rule is being applied as intended, it would benefit from improvements to its database as well, the report said.
“According to EPA staff, the system is not user-friendly, and extracting data is a grueling process for anyone not familiar with the system,” the report says.
The agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention has already taken steps to address these concerns, and to further improve its database, the report said.
The agency aims to complete its plan by Oct. 25.
“OCSPP will develop a standard operating procedure document that describes roles and responsibilities and the process to ensure that quality Chemical Data Reporting information is received and used by the agency,” the agency said in its response to the recommendation.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/chemical-monitoring-has-room-for-improvement-epa-report-says
-
EPA Crafting Procedures for Querying CDR Data
Jul 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is crafting procedures for querying the data companies submit under the chemical data reporting (CDR) rule to better inform agency assessments after an Office of Inspector General (IG) report found that while EPA monitors compliance with the CDR rule it should bolster policies for reviewing the data and improve access to the information.
In a response to the July 27 report, “EPA’s Chemical Data Reporting Rule Largely Implemented as Intended, but Opportunities for Improvement Exist,” a top official in the agency's chemical safety office says EPA is following the IG's recommendations and will develop a new policy to guide the use of CDR data.
The agency “will develop a standard operating procedure document that describes roles and responsibilities and the process to ensure that quality Chemical Data Reporting information is received and used by the agency,” Charlotte Bertrand, acting principal deputy assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, writes in her July 3 response to a draft version of the report.
The IG found that that EPA is taking steps to ensure compliance with the CDR rule, and uses the reported data to inform chemical assessments as Congress intended, but also concluded that new policies would ensure consistent data management.
EPA “uses tools -- such as targeted inspections, enforcement actions, and data quality checks of company submitted data -- to determine whether companies comply with the CDR Rule,” the report says.
But it adds that the agency lacks comprehensive procedures for querying the data. “However, policies and/or procedures for data quality checks would help tailor information to meet the EPA’s needs and improve the usefulness of information reported.”
Specifically, the IG urges EPA to craft procedures for checking the quality of data companies submit under the CDR that specify how to assign responsibilities among agency staff, how to select queries, and what steps to follow when conducting a data quality check.
Additionally, the IG recommends that EPA improve its CDR database of publicly available information to improve access for stakeholders and agency staff.
Under the CDR rule, chemical manufacturers and importers submit basic exposure-related information to EPA every four years, including data on the types, quantities and uses of chemical substances produced, the IG report says. The agency uses the data to screen and prioritize chemicals for review.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-crafting-procedures-querying-cdr-data
-
Fluorinated Chemicals Found in Michigan City’s Drinking Water
Jul 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
Residents of Parchment, Mich., should immediately stop drinking their water, state and local officials warned, following high amounts of dangerous fluorinated chemicals detected in the city’s water supply.
State and local officials didn’t immediately return requests for comment about the level of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) detected or what possible sources of contamination are. Fluorinated chemicals have been linked to low infant birth weights, immune system effects, and cancer.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is monitoring the chemicals across the state. They are most frequently found near chemical plants and military bases that used the compounds to make nonstick, waterproof, and fire-retardant products.
Parchment’s water supply will be drained, and affected residents will be connected to the city of Kalamazoo’s water within 24 to 48 hours, Kalamazoo County said. Bottled water is being provided to the area’s roughly 2,000 residents after a July 26 alert.
The city of Kalamazoo will flush Parchment’s water system until test results show levels of two common fluorinated chemicals are lower than the Environmental Protection Agency’s lifetime health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion. The EPA’s level is nonbinding on communities.
“Our next step is to work as a team to address the source of this contamination and restore the municipal water system,” Gov. Rick Snyder (R) said in a July 26 statement.
Michigan has a checkered history with PFAS monitoring and litigation. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality came under fire for sitting on a scientific report six years ago that suggested fluorinated chemicals were a growing health threat for Michiganders. Lately the state has responded aggressively with a taskforce and statewide investigations.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/fluorinated-chemicals-found-in-michigan-citys-drinking-water
-
BHI U.S. Rig Count Steady as Permian, Marcellus Activity Rises
Jul 27, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
Having enjoyed consistent growth since 2016, the U.S. rig count has leveled off in recent weeks, a trend that continued for the week ended Friday as Baker Hughes Inc.’s (BHI) domestic tally increased by two units overall, including gains in the Marcellus Shale and Permian Basin.
The United States added three oil-directed rigs and dropped one natural gas-directed rig for the week to end at 1,048, up from 958 a year ago but only slightly above the 1,045 active domestic rigs reported for the week ended May 11. Since May 11, the share of total U.S. rigs drilling for oil has increased to 82.2% from 80.8%, while the share of gas-directed rigs has slipped from 19.0% to 17.7%, BHI data show.
For the week ended Friday, three U.S. directional units exited the patch, while five vertical units returned. Total land rigs increased by six, while three rigs departed inland waters, according to BHI. The Gulf of Mexico dropped two rigs to end the week at 15 active units, down from 23 a year ago.
Canada added 12 rigs -- all oil-directed -- to grow its tally to 223.
The combined North American rig count finished the week at 1,271, up from 1,178 at this time last year.
Among plays, the Permian led gainers for the week, adding four rigs to reach 480 in total, outpacing its year-ago tally by just above 100 rigs. Other gainers included the Marcellus, which added three rigs to reach 55 from 46 a year ago, and the Granite Wash, which saw two rigs return to end at 14, down one from a year ago. The Williston Basin added one rig for the week, while the Eagle Ford, Haynesville and Utica shales each saw one rig depart.
Among states, despite the uptick in Permian activity, Texas finished with a net gain of only one rig, while New Mexico also saw one rig return to action. Pennsylvania added two rigs for the week, while Alaska, Kansas, North Dakota and West Virginia added one each.
Louisiana posted the largest weekly decline among states, losing four rigs to end at 52 from 72 a year ago. Ohio and Oklahoma each dropped one rig.
As 2Q2018 earnings season rolls on, many in the industry are watching for any signs of Permian takeaway constraints impacting growth out of the U.S. onshore’s most active play. Exploration and production (E&P) companies that have worked in the Permian for months have been sending signals that pipelines are filling up, which could hinder growth plans, i.e. capital expenditures (capex).
Several oilfield service operators that serve the U.S. onshore already said they have concerns about the lack of takeaway potential. Still, E&Ps for now are supported by “macro tailwinds, leaving prices above budgeted levels offset by well documented infrastructure constraints in the Permian,” said Wells Fargo LLC senior analyst Gordon Douthat.
Chevron Corp. executives made clear on Friday that any Permian pipeline constraints would be resolved in short order, saying such limitations are unlikely to slow down activity as it moves to export more oil overseas and expand midstream operations to take care of natural gas and liquids.
The San Ramon, CA-based supermajor is running 19 rigs in the Permian today and so far has suffered no supply shortages, upstream chief Jay Johnson said during a conference call to discuss second quarter results.
“Chevron has secured firm transport capacity at competitive rates to move the equivalent of nearly all of our forecasted 2018 and 2019 operated and” joint venture “take-in-kind-oil production to multiple markets, including the U.S. Gulf Coast,” Johnson said. Because of the contracted arrangements, production “is not materially exposed to the Midland basis differential.” Pipeline takeaway capacity and production “don't always move in perfect lockstep. There will be periods of tightness and length.”
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/115225-bhi-us-rig-count-steady-as-permian-marcellus-activity-rises
-
In Evolving World of Oil and Gas Law, 'This Ain't Texas'
Jul 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A Pennsylvania court made oil and gas lawyers sweat in April when it ruled that drillers could be trespassing when hydraulic fracturing sends cracks through the ground next door.
The ruling could severely cramp the industry's style, leaving companies on the hook for the value of nearby natural gas that seeps across invisible property lines and rises up a production well.
The court was unpersuaded that fracking should fall under the "rule of capture," a long-standing legal doctrine famously portrayed in the movie "There Will Be Blood."
"I drink your milkshake," fictional oilman Daniel Plainview says, illustrating how he can drain oil beneath a holdout landowner after he's acquired neighboring property.
Under the rule of capture, drillers generally have the rights to whatever comes up through their straw, or well, even if it has drifted from someone else's turf.
The Pennsylvania court's ruling — which industry is seeking to overturn — means freely drinking a neighbor's milkshake may not fly for fracked wells in the Keystone State's gas-rich Marcellus Shale. Oil and gas lawyers in the region have called the decision misguided and unsettling.
It's a telling example of how the world of oil and gas law is evolving thanks to the past decade's shale drilling boom. With industry's updated technology and expanding reach, new legal questions are on the rise in court dockets across the country.
"The law moves more slowly than technology. The jurisprudence moves much more slowly," said Alex Ritchie, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, which focuses on energy and natural resources law.
"As a result," he said, "in a lot of respects because of the shale boom and the different technology that's now used to unlock unconventional resources, the law is having to be reinterpreted and remade to take existing concepts and to try to apply them to new technology."
Existing oil and gas law evolved around vertical wells and has had to grow and adapt to horizontal drilling and long laterals, said University of Oklahoma law professor Monika Ehrman.
Those tech advances have also taken development to places previously untouched by modern drilling, sometimes landing in the middle of populous areas. Perhaps more than the technology itself, the geographical expansion has created a new wave of case law, spurring decisions from jurisdictions handling oil and gas issues for the first time ever or the first time in decades.
Courts in the Midwest and Appalachia used to lean toward the precedents set by bigger oil and gas states like Texas and Oklahoma, said John Lowe, a Southern Methodist University law professor.
"Well, you look at the recent decisions out of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia," he said. "They're kind of saying, 'This ain't Texas.'"
'It is unbelievable how many cases are being issued right now'
The Pennsylvania court's recent decision is a perfect example of Marcellus Shale case law that shirks a Texas standard.
Judges in the Lone Star State dealt with how the rule of capture should apply to fracking a decade ago and reached the opposite result. The Texas Supreme Court found in Coastal Oil & Gas Corp. v. Garza Energy Trust that drillers are not trespassing when their wells suck up oil and gas that migrates through fracking-formed cracks that reach adjacent land.
In this year's Briggs v. Southwestern Energy Production Co., the Pennsylvania Superior Court rejected the Texas approach. A neighbor's shale oil and gas migrates only through man-made fractures created by drillers, the judges reasoned, so those drillers should be on the hook for trespass claims when their wells drain the hydrocarbons next door.
A federal judge in West Virginia was similarly skeptical of the Texas court's interpretation, writing in 2013 that it "gives oil and gas operators a blank check to steal from the small landowner." That order was later scrapped when the parties in the lawsuit moved toward settlement, and the issue could come up again in West Virginia.
Already, the Pennsylvania decision has caused alarm among drillers and industry advocates who say the approach could drive away new development. Southwestern Energy is asking the state Supreme Court to review it.
"This Court should review the Superior Court's significant (and unprincipled) departure from the clear and time-honored rule of capture, which sets Pennsylvania apart from other gas-producing states, threatens to disrupt this important industry, and has serious implications for other beneficial activities that occur below the surface of the land," company lawyers argued in a recent petition.
Regional and national industry groups including the Marcellus Shale Coalition and the American Petroleum Institute have filed briefs backing the company.
The University of Oklahoma's Owen Anderson warned that the deviation from the Texas standard could frustrate not just oil and gas development, but natural gas storage, wastewater injections and other underground activities.
"Pretty soon all kinds of legitimate uses of subsurface become problematic," he said.
Many industry lawyers have criticized the courts and accused them of establishing unworkable precedents based on misunderstandings of oil and gas technology and practices. Lowe, the Southern Methodist University professor, said it's simply the nature of common law to have legal standards evolve in varying ways across different jurisdictions.
"I think those judges in Pennsylvania and Ohio and West Virginia are doing just fine," he said. "I think they're not always right. I wouldn't always decide the cases the way they decide them. But they are logically analyzed and articulately explained, and they don't get it completely wrong any more than the Texas judges."
Anderson added that — with some exceptions, like the Briggs case — judges lacking oil and gas law experience tend to err on the side of caution, avoiding rulings that could cause overly disruptive or unintended consequences.
But it's not just newcomer states reinterpreting the law. Technical questions related to development are getting a fresh airing in traditional oil and gas states, too. Texas and Oklahoma courts, for example, have been swamped in recent years with nuisance claims, earthquake liability questions, and nonstop disputes between surface and mineral owners.
"It is unbelievable how many cases are being issued right now, and it's part of our responsibility to try to keep up with that," said Ritchie of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation.
'God, have they made a mess of that'
The shale boom also prompted a regulatory revolution in both new and old oil and gas states. With that came litigation over drilling standards, landowner rights and the role of local governments — the latter proving to be the most contentious.
Tension rose between landowners and industry as oil and gas development expanded to new areas and inched closer to homes and schools.
"Oil and gas operations in urban settings caused new externalities, which had not been previously encountered in rural areas with low population density," Ehrman said.
One result: Local governments across the country took action to halt or control drilling within their borders.
Texas and Oklahoma put a stop to local fracking bans early on. After the city of Denton, Texas, voted in 2014 to prohibit fracking within city limits, the state Legislature quickly passed a new law barring local bans. Oklahoma adopted a similar measure the next year.
In Pennsylvania and Colorado, state regulators and local governments are still debating jurisdiction.
City and county fracking bans in Colorado have been repeatedly thrown out by state courts. Now, some municipalities are pushing strict oil and gas rules that fall short of outright bans. The next wave of litigation there focuses on how far those local restrictions can go.
The issue is similarly contentious in Pennsylvania, where the state Supreme Court in 2013 upheld the right of local governments to use zoning powers to control where oil and gas drilling occurs.
But that didn't put a stop to litigation. Judges in the Keystone State are frequently refereeing disputes over whether local zoning restrictions are fairly drafted or are being enforced.
Last year, for example, a judge ruled that contested oil and gas plans in one town were not necessarily incompatible with the zoning rules there. In a separate case just two months ago, the state's highest court blocked development in a different township after finding it violated the local zoning plan.
"God, have they made a mess of that," Lowe said. "I can't understand what the law is in Pennsylvania, and I don't think very many Pennsylvania lawyers have got it, either."
A legal renaissance
To Ritchie, the legal institute director, there's never been a better time to track oil and gas issues.
"In a lot of ways, it's been a renaissance for oil and gas law," he said.
Earlier this month, more than 700 lawyers, academics and other professionals showed up for the annual institute put on by Ritchie's organization to get up to speed on all the rapid changes in oil and gas law, along with natural resources and public lands law.
Ben Nussdorf, who teaches oil and gas law at American University and George Washington University, said the shale revolution has made class more lively as he and his students work through legal issues that are now being considered in a new light.
"Sometimes it's unclear where they're going to land because there's not as much recent precedent, so it can be more fun," he said.
Lowe, who writes a frequently updated oil and gas law handbook, said the influx of important cases from new oil and gas states is too much to fit in the slim volume.
"Suddenly, we've got decisions dropping all over the place, from North Dakota, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, even New York," he said.
One thing is clear for the next edition, Lowe said: He's going to need more pages.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/07/30/stories/1060091449
-
Trump's Claim of Finding 'Massive Buyer' in Dispute
Jul 30, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President Trump touted last week's meeting with his counterpart in the European Union as a breakthrough for trans-Atlantic trade of liquefied natural gas. But experts say it might amount to nothing.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker doesn't appear to have offered anything new to Trump, and experts say Juncker is unable to increase gas imports from the United States.
"Broadly speaking, the commission doesn't have authority to buy LNG and can't do anything that directs companies to buy LNG," said Nikos Tsafos, senior fellow for energy and national security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Still, the two presidents improved their chilly dialogue on steel and aluminum tariffs, and they called energy cooperation a bright spot in the discussions.
"The European Union wants to import more liquefied natural gas — LNG — from the United States, and they're going to be a very, very big buyer," Trump said after the meeting last week. "We're going to make it much easier for them, but they're going to be a massive buyer of LNG, so they'll be able to diversify their energy supply, which they want very much to do. And we have plenty of it."
No outline of the agreement was made public. And while the European Union has blessed some new LNG terminals that could help increase the amount of U.S. gas coming into Europe, Juncker lacks the power to compel private companies to boost imports. It's also not clear how many projects will be built in Europe, given that existing LNG terminals are operating below capacity.
Juncker appears not to have offered anything new during his tête-à-tête with Trump, said Jonathan Gaventa, director of European energy policy at London-based E3G, except for the opportunity for Trump to claim a win.
"I think it was just one of the avenues that he could take to appear to be responding to demand from the Trump administration without actually doing anything differently from what the E.U. would otherwise do," Gaventa said.
Juncker's objective in the meeting was to persuade Trump to abandon his tariffs on imported aluminum and steel from the European Union and to avert new tariffs on cars. Trump pledged last week to "reassess" the steel and aluminum levies and to put the car tariffs on hold. The two agreed to the creation of a working group to continue negotiations, and both parties promised no new tariffs.
But when it came to LNG or a similar commitment by Europe to buy U.S. soybeans, there was nothing concrete. The European Commission called the joint statement "a declaration of intent," not an agreement.
"They didn't really agree, I think, to anything," said Matthew Bryza, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center. "Juncker basically stated that the E.U. would continue doing what it already planned to do."
The European Commission put forward "a list of projects of common interest" last year that endorses seven new LNG-related projects in countries like Ireland and Greece, though some seem to be located at the same sites. The list includes projects that "help the EU achieve its energy policy and climate objectives," and thus can benefit from expedited permitting and possibly some public financial assistance, but there's no guarantee they will be built. News reports after the Wednesday meeting referenced 14 new LNG terminals currently under consideration in Europe.
Historically, Europe has expressed interest in U.S. LNG to safeguard its energy security more than to displace cheaper pipeline gas from neighbors like Norway and Russia. In fact, Juncker's statement last week said the European Union was interested in boosting U.S. imports "to diversify its energy supply." It's unclear whether that objective will support large volumes of LNG entering Europe consistently.
"Right now, the barriers to that closer relationship are mostly market-driven rather than political," said Tsafos. "It's not clear that the governments of the two sides can do much to incentivize deeper collaboration on energy, at least on the gas side."
Not only can Juncker do little to boost LNG exports, but the European Union also lacks the ability to formalize a comprehensive new trade agreement without buy-in from its member countries and, in some cases, even subnational governments.
Gaventa said he was disappointed that Juncker apparently did not insist on including climate change in his agenda with Trump. He predicted that the issue would make its way into a final agreement.
"If the ongoing talks do result in some concrete proposal for a trade deal, I would expect considerable pushback from the European Parliament and a number of member states — particularly France — if it doesn't address climate and carbon leakage concerns," Gaventa said.
French President Emmanuel Macron last week demanded "clarification" from Juncker on any concessions he might have offered Trump.
Macron has said Europe must not accept any new trade agreements that don't address climate change, and the European Parliament recently passed a resolution asking the commission to integrate climate change into any future trade or investment agreements.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/07/30/stories/1060091571
-
Port of Corpus Christi Raises $216 Million for Energy Export Projects
Jul 27, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
The Port of Corpus Christi sold more than $216 million in bonds this week to fund energy export projects.
Port officials on Friday morning said the money will be used to deepen and widen the Corpus Christi Ship Channel and fund upcoming capital projects within the Port.
The channel improvement project isn't the only one that could receive the money. A new crude oil export terminal that would be able to take in the world's largest tankers, the 2 million barrel very large crude carriers or VLCCs, is being eyed by the port for Harbor Island, just two miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico.
That project and another one being proposed by the port on Harbor Island, a water desalination plant, has run into opposition in the town of Port Aransas, located just 1,000 feet across the channel from where the proposed terminal would be.
Some there are concerned that the project would pose a risk to the area's vital tourism industry and are concerned about the potential terminal's location, which took a direct hit from Hurricane Harvey in August 2017.
The channel deepening and widening project has been pushed for by the port for decades. The $327 million project is being conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with the port paying roughly $102 million of the cost.
The project, when completed, would allow the port to bring in and fully load larger crude oil tankers, further boosting the port's status as a leading crude oil exporter.
Some of the largest crude oil tankers — the 1 million barrel Suezmax and 2 million barrel very large crude carriers — are only able to partially load in the port. They then finish loading in the Gulf of Mexico.
When complete most of the channel will be 530 feet wide and 54 feet deep.
https://www.chron.com/business/eagle-ford-energy/article/Port-of-Corpus-Christi-raises-216-million-for-13110209.php
-
Spectra Gas’ $1 Billion Pipeline Project Wins in Court
Jul 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Spectra Energy Partners L.P. has the green light to build a $972 million natural gas pipeline project in the Northeast after a court upheld approval of the project’s permit.
The project will expand gas supply to New England, where it can help meet increasing demand and reduce gas market volatility. It will expand the existing Algonquin pipeline network in the region.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decision July 27 was a victory for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which had approved the project, and Spectra Energy, whose Algonquin Gas Transmission subsidiary will build the project.
The project had been challenged by the City of Boston Delegation on environmental and safety grounds.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/spectra-gas-1-billion-pipeline-project-wins-in-court
-
Court Orders More Review of Mountain Valley Pipeline’s Impacts (1)
Jul 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
A federal appeals court vacated Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service decisions that paved the way for construction of a proposed natural gas pipeline from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia.
The ruling, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, comes just days after the same court ruled in favor of the pipeline company, Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, dismissing complaints by 13 landowners protesting construction of the 303-mile pipeline on their properties.
“American citizens understandably place their trust in the Forest Service to protect and preserve this country’s forests, and they deserve more than silent acquiescence to a pipeline company’s justification for upending large swaths of national forestlands,” reads the July 27 opinion written by Judge Stephanie D. Thacker and joined by Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory and Judge William B. Traxler Jr.
The Forest Service’s decision to amend resource management plans for the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia to allow for the pipeline’s construction didn’t comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act, the judges said.
The judges also found that the Bureau of Land Management’s decision allowing the pipeline to be built through federal land didn’t meet the agency’s obligations under Mineral Leasing Act. The court sent both decisions back to the agencies for another look.
Mountain Valley Pipeline didn’t immediately respond to questions about how this ruling will affect the project and its business.
Win for EnvironmentalistsThe decision is a victory for environmental groups, which have been fighting construction of the natural gas pipeline.
“We have said all along that we can’t trust Mountain Valley Pipeline to protect Virginia’s water, so it’s refreshing to see the court refuse to take them at their word,” Nathan Matthews, a senior attorney for the Sierra Club, said in a statement. Several other local environmental groups joined the Sierra Club on the case, including the Wilderness Society, Wild Virginia, and Appalachian Voices.
The pipeline would be constructed and owned by Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, a joint venture of EQT Midstream Partners, NextEra US Gas Assets LLC, Con Edison Transmission Inc., WGL Midstream, and RGC Midstream LLC. EQT Midstream would operate the pipeline and owns a significant interest in the joint venture.
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 case is Sierra Club v. U.S. Forest Service, 4th Cir., No. 17-2399, 7/27/18.
—With assistance from David Schultz.
(Updates in the sixth paragraph with information on efforts to reach Mountain Valley. )
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/court-orders-more-review-of-mountain-valley-pipelines-impacts-1
-
DuPont Brushes Back ‘Cancer Alley’ Neoprene Plant Suit
Jul 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
DuPont won’t face suit as the former operator of the only neoprene plant in the U.S. to stop toxic releases from the site.
The suit, brought by residents living near the Pontchartrain Works facility in Louisiana can’t go forward against DuPont based on its ownership of the property on which the factory sits, the Eastern District of Louisiana said.
The claim against DuPont isn’t allowed under the theory that the company derives benefit from the continuing operations at the facility as the owner of the property, the court said.
An injunction enjoining DuPont from exceeding the emissions threshold suggested by the EPA would not prevent or deter the operator, Denka Performance Elastomer LLC, the court said.
The 13 plaintiffs live in what environmentalists and the media have dubbed “Cancer Alley,” the court said.
The residents seek to stop releases of chloroprene from the facility—a substance the Environmental Protection Agency has classified as a “likely human carcinogen.”
The court also dismissed the claims against Denka but granted the plaintiffs two weeks to amend their complaint to clarify their injuries.
The case is Taylor v. Denka Performance Elastomer LLC, 2018 BL 266097, E.D. La., Nos. 17-7668, 18-57391, 7/26/18.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/dupont-brushes-back-cancer-alley-neoprene-plant-suit
-
Agency Hurries on Climate Rules in Case Trump's a One-Termer
Jul 30, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman
EPA is entering crunch time.
A push is underway at the agency to get regulations out the door before the calendar flips to 2019, giving the administration two years to defend its environmental policies in court before the end of President Trump's first term.
Experts say the Trump team has only a little wiggle room. Industry groups and companies are privately pressing EPA to prioritize its efforts, anticipating that some regulatory rollbacks are bound to get snagged in drawn-out legal battles. Former Presidents Obama and George W. Bush left office before fulfilling top environmental priorities, leaving them vulnerable to attack by their successors.
At this rate, some of Trump's initiatives could face the same fate.
"One of the things that I learned from my time at EPA is how short a period of time four years is," said Janet McCabe, who led EPA's air office during Obama's second term.
A proposal to weaken car standards on fuel efficiency and greenhouse gases, expected this week, could unwind one of Obama's biggest efforts to address climate change. EPA is also planning to release a rewritten rule soon that dilutes the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions at power plants.
Also, EPA intends to loosen restrictions on mercury and air toxins in the power sector, and the agency might offer less demanding rules on methane emissions from oil and gas operations, and potentially tinker with the renewable fuel standard.
Former officials with EPA and the Justice Department say the administration needs at least two years to overcome legal obstacles related to controversial rules. Sometimes that isn't enough time.
The goal of finishing by year's end is "pretty ambitious," said Jeff Holmstead, a former EPA air chief under Bush. Failing to meet that mark could be significant; Holmstead knows that from experience.
Holmstead, now an attorney with Bracewell LLP, thought his EPA team was on "solid ground" when it finished two of the most important environmental rules under Bush — the Clean Air Interstate Rule and the Clean Air Mercury Rule. The former would have set new requirements for industrial facilities and power plants to curb sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution that crossed state boundaries. The latter capped mercury emissions at power plants.
But a federal court struck down the rules in the waning days of the Bush administration, and there was no time to appeal. The Obama administration decided not to pursue the Bush plan and developed its own rules instead.
"Had the Bush administration had time, we would have appealed those decisions to the Supreme Court," Holmstead said. "But we never will find out how that would have turned out."
The process for defending regulations under the Clean Air Act is fairly streamlined, which could help curb litigation time. That's because most of those cases begin in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rather than a federal district court. They get to skip a step.
Most of the circuit court's judges were appointed by Democratic presidents. A rejection of Trump EPA environmental rules could be appealed to what will likely be a majority-conservative Supreme Court. High court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has typically struck down expansive interpretations of executive authority, which could handcuff presidential ambition on climate rules.
That means timing plays a role. The clock could run out on Trump before his administration can appeal any unfavorable circuit court decisions.
"Even if they're not able to finalize something by the end of the year, I think they will almost certainly be able to defend it before the D.C. Circuit before the end of the first term," Holmstead said. "I think the question really has to do with the Supreme Court review. I think some of these would attract the attention of the Supreme Court."
That's why the Trump administration may benefit from focusing first on its big-ticket items, said Ron Tenpas, who was the Bush administration's top environmental prosecutor at the Justice Department when the twin air pollution rules were rejected by the courts.
Part of the problem is the natural tension between operating with speed and crafting airtight rules, said Tenpas, who was on the Trump DOJ transition team. Whether the agency has enough bandwidth to take on that many tasks at once is another factor.
"You certainly can be ambitious and take on one or a number of big rules, but at the end of the day, yes, there are some limits," said Tenpas, who is now a partner at law firm Morgan Lewis.
Trump's EPA already has run into those obstacles.
Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt endured walkbacks and rejections on a handful of moves that even White House officials said were hurried. EPA also has delayed its anticipated release of the fuel economy targets, which are issued jointly with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, to hammer out final details. That underscores the delicate and complex nature of federal rulemaking.
On top of that, Pruitt's tenure left EPA staff demoralized and shut out, said Bill Reilly, who ran the agency under President George H.W. Bush. Communication channels between senior career staff and political decisionmakers were severed. People with decades of experience left through attrition and retirements.
That said, acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler seems poised to boost the morale of career staffers who could help the Trump administration accomplish its goals, Reilly said. He added that EPA rank-and-file are "professionals" who will "help him design policies that they don't agree with," so long as relationships improve.
"Morale there is at rock bottom right now, the senior staff appears to have been very positive toward Wheeler's taking over," he said. "All of that is going to take time for Wheeler to overcome, but he's on track."
That "honeymoon" could be over quickly if Wheeler doesn't find an environmental issue to promote, Reilly said. That's what he plans to tell the acting chief when they meet this week. Reilly said EPA reached out to set up a meeting but that a date hasn't been finalized.
EPA did not respond to requests for comment.
Wheeler has said he will continue carrying out Pruitt's policies. Those actions sought to satisfy Trump's campaign promises and platform, which the GOP Congress and its supporters in industry largely view favorably. Trump reportedly was reluctant to push Pruitt out because the president's supporters in the oil, gas and coal sectors backed Pruitt's policy approach.
Pursuing those priorities have improved EPA's reputation among Republicans, according to a Pew Research Center poll released last week. Fifty-six percent of Republicans view the agency favorably, up from 50 percent when Trump took office. Democrats have gone the other way — 53 percent approve of the agency now compared with 77 percent during Obama's final days.
That industry and EPA under Trump have become so intertwined might actually save the agency time in wrapping up its rules and beating the clock in the event of a one-term presidency, Reilly said. That's because major rules EPA is targeting have been in industry crosshairs for years. As such, there's been alternative plans with fairly broad consensus from industry floating around for just as long.
"They should have in their pocket an alternative to the carbon rule, so that shouldn't be very hard," Reilly said. "The [mercury] rule — that's been targeted a long time by industry. I would imagine they have some idea of an alternative."
What that won't do, Reilly said, is deliver on any sort of environmental message.
"He's got a staff of people there who could furnish a plethora of ideas, and he ought to take some," he said. "It's not going to be credible at all if all we see is the continued rollback of regulations."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/07/30/stories/1060091569
-
Supreme Court Urged to Overturn Kavanaugh's HFC Ruling
Jul 27, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
Eighteen state attorneys general and several major air conditioning companies this week asked the Supreme Court to revive an Obama-era program to phase out refrigerants that are potent greenhouse gases.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, penned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decision last year that found EPA had exceeded its authority in issuing the 2015 rule.
The state officials and companies filed amicus briefs yesterday arguing that Kavanaugh's ruling inflicts "substantial" harm and contains legal errors.
"This holding guts EPA's effective regulatory program and exposes human health and the environment to grave risks," the Massachusetts-led coalition of attorneys general said.
At issue is a rule EPA issued under the Clean Air Act's Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program to replace hydrofluorocarbons, which don't deplete the atmosphere's ozone layer but are thousands of times more potent as heat-trapping gases than carbon dioxide.
The rule targeted HFC use in aerosols, air conditioning for new cars, retail food refrigeration and foam blowing.
Mexico-based Mexichem Fluor and France-based Arkema SA, both HFC manufacturers, sued EPA. They argued that the SNAP program — under which EPA has the authority to "replace" ozone-depleting substances — did not extend to phasing out non-ozone-depleting substances such as HFCs for climate change reasons.
Writing for the 2-1 majority, Kavanaugh agreed with the manufacturers.
His decision hinged largely on the interpretation of the word "replace." The word, he wrote, connotes a one-time action and EPA stretched the word "beyond its ordinary meaning" in a manner that "borders on the absurd."
"However much we might sympathize or agree with EPA's policy objectives, EPA may act only within the boundaries of its statutory authority. Here, EPA exceeded that authority," read Kavanaugh's opinion, one of a number of rulings the Supreme Court nominee has issued questioning the agency's authority (Greenwire, Aug. 8, 2017).
Judge Janice Rogers Brown, a Bush appointee who has since retired, joined the opinion. Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, dissented. The D.C. Circuit later declined to reconsider the ruling en banc, or in front of the full court.
Environmentalists and two chemical companies that manufacture HFC replacements last month petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the issue.
The companies, Honeywell International Inc. and Chemours Co., said the D.C. Circuit ruling allows entities to "forever" continue using substances, "no matter how harmful they are compared to safer substitutes that enter the market" (Greenwire, June 26).
In their brief this week, the 18 states said Kavanaugh's decision also "upended" a national regulatory structure upon which states depended.
"Given the global nature and complexity of the chemical industry, and the ubiquity of products containing ozone-depleting substances or substitutes, a strong federal regulatory floor is vital," the states said.
Joining Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D) were the top state lawyers from Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia.
Carrier Corp. and four other companies that together make up more than 75 percent of U.S. residential and commercial refrigeration manufacturing also filed a brief in support of the Obama rule.
The companies said they've invested "well over a billion dollars" in new refrigeration equipment that can operate with HFC substitutes.
"Our industry and the chemical producers that supply it have been on a well-established and reasonable path toward new, environmentally safer alternatives," their brief said, "but the decision below has torn up this path and created enormous uncertainty and associated costs for all of us."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/07/27/stories/1060091437
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested