Preview Newsletter

AM ACC Clips Report - August 6, 2018

Congressional Hearings - There are no hearings to report at this time.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Natural Gas Tariffs Could Jeopardize Companies’ Links to China
Aug 3, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington

Chinese tariffs on U.S. natural gas could jeopardize pipeline and export projects, creating new opportunities for Russia and others to do business with the world’s most populous nation.
(ACC Mentioned) US LNG Sellers, Developers View China-Imposed Tariffs as Threat, Unproductive
Aug 3, 2018 | ICIS
By Ruth Liao

US liquefied natural gas (LNG) companies and advocates said that the announcement by China’s finance ministry on its intent to impose a 25% tariff on US LNG is detrimental for the industry, although timing of imposing the tariffs are unclear.
(ACC Mentioned) Trade War Escalation Prompts Backlash Among Us Lawmakers, Trade Groups
Aug 4, 2018 | Asia Times

US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose 10% tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods had already struck fear in the heart of many domestic businesses, but in his mind the number was “weak.”
(ACC Mentioned) Tariffs Could Delay, Sink Louisiana Methanol Plant: Fluor
Aug 3, 2018 | Platts
By Kristen Hays

A $3.8 billion methanol project in Louisiana could be delayed or canceled if the US imposes a tariff on components for a critical piece of equipment, global engineering and construction firm Fluor has told US officials.
(ACC Mentioned) Louisiana's Third-Largest Export to China -- Chemicals -- Among $60 Billion in U.S. Goods Targeted for Retaliation
Aug 3, 2018 | The Advocate

Chemicals, Louisiana's third-largest export to China and a major industry in the state, and the growing LNG industry were targeted Friday in a $60 billion list of potential U.S. goods that China put in the crosshairs of a trade dispute with the Trump administration.
(ACC Mentioned) Trade War Helps Kill Sale of Eastman Plants in Longview
Aug 5, 2018 | Longview News-Journal

President Donald Trump’s trade war has helped derail Eastman Chemical Co’s efforts to sell some operations in Longview.
(ACC Mentioned) Berry's Salmon Remains Bullish for Plastics Packaging's Future
Aug 3, 2018 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson

Even with the seemingly growing trend of plastics opposition, the head of one of the largest plastic converters in the United States remains bullish about the future of the business.
China Plans Tariffs on $60 Billion of Imports to Counter Trump
Aug 3, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

China announced a list of $60 billion worth of U.S. imports it plans to apply tariffs on should the Trump administration follow through with its latest trade threats.

LCSA News

EPA OIG Finds Opportunities Exist to Improve CDR Rule
Aug 3, 2018 | National Law Review

On July 27, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report entitled EPA’s Chemical Data Reporting Rule Largely Implemented as Intended, but Opportunities for Improvement Exist.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) EPA Staff Aimed To Protect Pruitt From Toxic Chemical He Failed To Regulate
Aug 6, 2018 | Herdon Gazette

The Environmental Protection Agency head whose anti-regulation crusade couldn’t save his job from his repeated ethics scandals, picked out an ornate desk for an expensive office remodel last year that concerned his staff because it contained toxic formaldehyde.
EPA Grants More Time for Input on Napthalene Risk Review Plan
Aug 3, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA is extending from Aug. 6 to Sept. 5 the deadline for public comment on its plan for an Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) review of the human health risks of exposure to the napthalene, in response to requests from trade groups representing makers and users of the chemical that wanted more time to craft comments.
Environmental Toxins Are Seen as Posing Risks During Pregnancy
Aug 4, 2018 | The Washington Post

Leading up to and during pregnancy, women are told to avoid alcohol and cigarettes, to make sure they get enough folate and omega-3 fatty acids, and to get adequate sleep and exercise.
EWG News Roundup (8/3): Nonstick Chemicals Contaminate Drinking Water, Americans Urge EPA to Ban TCE and More
Aug 3, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Robert Coleman

This week, EWG updated our interactive mapof sites across the U.S. contaminated with toxic fluorinated compounds, known as PFAS chemicals, to include more communities.
I Need to Know What's Going On': Community Attends Meeting About Possible Cancer Cluster
Aug 6, 2018 | WFTV9
By Angela Jacobs

A packed house crammed into the Satellite Beach Civic Center Sunday afternoon as city and county officials updated residents on the results of area water testing.
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Holds Hearing On EPA’s Agenda For Environmental Protection And Economic Growth
Aug 3, 2018 | Lexology
By Jessie Nguyen and Lynn L. Bergeson

On August 1, 2018, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW Committee) held a hearing entitled “Examining EPA’s Agenda: Protecting the Environment and Allowing America’s Economy to Grow.”
Paint-Lead Hazard Standard – a Reconsideration
Aug 5, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner

After 20 years working on lead poisoning prevention, it has become almost second nature for me to object when someone suggests that children eating paint chips is a significant route of exposure.

Energy News

(ACC Mentioned) U.S. LNG Lands in Beijing's Tariff Crosshairs
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold

The trade spat between the United States and China is escalating, and more companies and industries are becoming embroiled in it.
Despite 'Trade War,' U.S. Natural Gas Exports Booming To Record Highs
Aug 5, 2018 | Forbes
By Jude Clemente

Some U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) news this past week was indeed bleak. Previously exempt from the trade spat, China announced plans to put a 25% tariff on imports of U.S. LNG.
Breathing Easy in Beijing May Get Pricey on U.S. Gas Targets
Aug 5, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Dan Murtaugh and Stephen Stapczynski

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trade policies are threatening to make his environmental goals more costly to meet.
Race Is on to Build Texas’ First Offshore Oil Export Terminal
Aug 6, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum

The race is on to build Texas’ first offshore oil-exporting terminal that could accommodate the world’s largest crude-carrying vessels.
As Congress Debates Russia Sanctions, Oil Companies Fret
Aug 4, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne

Oil and gas executives have watched wearily in recent years as the relationship between the United States and Russia deteriorated, steadily closing off their ability to drill the vast shale plays underlying Siberia and the deep-water oil fields off Russia’s Arctic coast.
Energy Security Is a Two-Way Street: Fuel for Thought
Aug 6, 2018 | Platts
By Paul Hickin

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s recent claim that energy independence is within reach overlooks a fundamental principle of interconnected global trade: Producing countries need security of demand as much as consuming countries need security of supply.

Chemical Security News

(ACC Mentioned) Arkema, CEO Indicted for ‘Reckless’ Chemical Release During Hurricane Harvey
Aug 3, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Keri Blakinger, Matt Dempsey, and David Hunn

A Harris County grand jury Friday indicted the French chemical company Arkema and two executives for the “reckless” release of toxic chemicals during Hurricane Harvey last August, a move that alarmed industry leaders and surprised environmental advocates.
Texas Grand Jury Indicts Chemical Company for Harvey Explosion
Aug 3, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Erin Ailworth

A grand jury in Texas has indicted a chemical company whose plant near Houston caught fire and exploded following Hurricane Harvey last year.
Arkema Indicted Over Chemical Explosions During Hurricane Harvey
Aug 3, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson and Karn Dhingra

Chemical company Arkema Inc. and two executives face up to $1 million in fines and as much as five years in prison over their actions managing reactive chemicals in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Bipartisanship Alive and Well, Protecting Critical Infrastructure
Aug 3, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Erik Olson

Despite increasingly partisan rhetoric on a range of national security issues, this week showed us that bipartisanship is still alive and well when it comes to protecting American rail and other critical infrastructure against underhanded practices by foreign nations with questionable motives.
How Railroads Shouldered a Risky Oil Rush — and Could Return
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak

Five years ago, an explosion tore through the night in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Another blast quickly followed, then another, and another.
Another Voice: Rail Inspections Needed to Protect Our Towns
Aug 4, 2018 | The Buffalo News
By John S. Szalasny

Paul A. Karas, the acting commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, claimed in a recent Another Voice article that the Town Board in Cheektowaga was off-target in its request to have New York State reinstate rail safety inspections.

Environment News

EPA Air Official Predicts Push For Strict PM NAAQS But Doubts Feasibility
Aug 3, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan

A top EPA air official is predicting some stakeholders will push for significantly ramping down the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) ambient air standard from the current limit of 12 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) to as low as 5 ug/m3 as part of EPA's ongoing review of the limit, but is suggesting such a standard might be technically impossible.
EPA Expects 'Flexible' Ozone SIPs By Oct. 1 Deadline, States Fear Sanctions
Aug 3, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan and Stuart Parker

EPA expects states to meet an Oct. 1 deadline for submitting plans to reduce interstate air pollution and predicts many will opt to use regulatory “flexibilities” that could reduce their obligations, but some sources say there is major concern about the potential sanctions the agency could impose on states that will miss the deadline.
Kavanaugh's Record on EPA Rules Worries Environmental Groups
Aug 6, 2018 | AP (In the New York Times)

Environmental groups were not going to be happy with anyone President Donald Trump picked for the Supreme Court. But the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh has them especially worried.
Inquiry Ends Into Exxon Mobil’s Accounting Tied to Climate Change
Aug 3, 2018 | The New York Times
By Claire Ballentine

The Securities and Exchange Commission has ended an investigation into Exxon Mobil’s policy of not writing down the value of its oil reserves to account for the risk that future climate change regulations might pose to the company.
Free-Market Energy Group Launches Anti-Carbon Tax Initiative
Aug 3, 2018 | Inside EPA

The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a free-market advocacy group, is launching an initiative to oppose a carbon tax bill recently unveiled by Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL).
To Kill Climate Rule, Agency Wants to Redefine Danger of Soot
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen

Whether it's in haze-shrouded cities, plumes of car exhaust or even clear skies, fine particle pollution can be found just about everywhere in the United States.
How Big a Deal Is Trump’s Fuel Economy Rollback? For the Climate, Maybe the Biggest Yet
Aug 3, 2018 | The New York Times
By Brad Plumer

President Trump’s proposal this week to weaken fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks could be his most consequential climate-policy rollback yet, increasing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by an amount greater than many midsize countries put out in a year.

Congressional Hearings - There are no hearings to report at this time.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Natural Gas Tariffs Could Jeopardize Companies’ Links to China

Aug 3, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Adam Allington

Chinese tariffs on U.S. natural gas could jeopardize pipeline and export projects, creating new opportunities for Russia and others to do business with the world’s most populous nation.
China announced plans Aug. 3 to slap tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods, including a 25 percent duty on imports of liquefied natural gas. China is currently the third largest importer of LNG and is poised to become the largest importer globally over the next four years as the country tries to reduce its dependence on smog-producing coal.
There are countries like “Qatar, Australia, and Russia who would gladly take that supply opportunity. The Chinese aren’t going to go without supply by doing this. They might incur slightly higher costs, but it won’t be to the tune of 25 percent,” Charlie Riedl, head of the Washington-based Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, told Bloomberg Environment.
Out of the 5,207 products targeted for tariffs, almost 20 percent are chemicals and plastic products, according to the American Chemistry Council. Natural gases are major feedstocks for industrial chemicals, meaning tariffs on either of these sectors are likely to have spillover impacts.
Construction Projects Imperiled
Chinese tariffs could throw cold water on a bevy of construction projects that rely on long-term gas and chemical export contracts to attract investment.
Cheniere Energy announced in February the first-ever long-term deal between a U.S. LNG exporter and a Chinese state-owned energy company. Cheniere and other companies have used the Chinese market as chip to justify building more port terminals to ship gas abroad.
“There are a number of refinery and port construction projects that are fully permitted, working toward final investment, and those facilities are not likely to not get built as long as these tariffs are hanging over them,” Riedl said.
Likewise, China had been expected to buy about 75 percent of its future LNG through a yet-to-be-built Alaskan pipeline, so any tariffs that result from trade disputes could cause problems, Alaska Gasline Development Corp. Vice President Lieza Wilcox said at a legislative hearing in Anchorage on July 11.
The $43 billion Alaska LNG Project was a central piece of a November 2017 meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
When asked for comment the AGDC suggested that the current trade tensions between the U.S. and China will be resolved well in advance of Alaska LNG exports to China.
“The Alaska LNG project represents a multi-generational project that matches China’s 100 years of natural gas demand with Alaska’s 100 years of supply on the North Slope. As a result, Alaska LNG will continue to present a win-win opportunity for both countries,” said Gene Therriault, AGDC’s government affairs and legislative liaison.
Chemicals Sector Impact ‘Complicated’
The Chinese tariffs also target U.S. chemical exports, in response to a June 15 move by the Trump administration to tax $16 billion worth of chemical, plastic, and industrial imports from China.
“Commodity plastics, a key market which has grown by one-third over the past couple years hasn’t shown up on the list,” said Jason Miner, a global chemical analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence.
Miner says the relationship between global chemical companies and China is complicated by the fact that there is a lot of partnership with companies across borders.
“Global chemical companies are really supra-national, and they have lots of assets in China,” Miner said.
Miner pointed to the recent agreement between German chemical giant BASF and China to build a $10 billion integrated chemical complex in Guangdong.
The trade group representing U.S. chemical interests however read the news as being more cut and dry.
“China’s tariffs will hit the U.S. chemicals industry, not once, but twice, since demand for chemicals by manufacturers that make products containing chemistry will drop,” according to a statement provided to Bloomberg Environment from the American Chemistry Council.
“Dozens of sectors that rely on chemical and plastic products, including the automotive, health care, building and construction, and consumer goods industries, could shoulder higher related costs. Ultimately, it is the consumer who pays the price,” the council said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/natural-gas-tariffs-could-jeopardize-companies-links-to-china-1

Return to headline | Return to top
(ACC Mentioned) US LNG Sellers, Developers View China-Imposed Tariffs as Threat, Unproductive

Aug 3, 2018 | ICIS

By Ruth Liao

US liquefied natural gas (LNG) companies and advocates said that the announcement by China’s finance ministry on its intent to impose a 25% tariff on US LNG is detrimental for the industry, although timing of imposing the tariffs are unclear.
The Chinese ministry’s said it was responding to the 10 July decision by the US government to impose tariffs of 10% on Chinese goods, as well as the further announcement this week by US trade representative Robert Lighthizer on an additional set of tariffs being considered.
The ministry said the US was violating the rules and obligations of the World Trade Organization and threatening China’s economic interests and security.
On 1 August, Lighthizer said that in addition to the tariffs announced in July, another level of tariffs between 10% and 25% could be considered. The 25% duty would be applied on the list of products previously announced in July.
The announcement on 3 August by China has now escalated tensions between the US and China, as US LNG exports are now ramping up to become a global supplier.
A Friday statement by the US-based trade association Center for LNG said that tariffs were bad for both consumers and producers and free trade can help expand LNG exports to China.
“The domestic benefits of LNG exports are muted when the market is distorted with tariffs, especially when imposed by a country that has imported more than 185bn cubic feet of US natural gas to date and is the third-largest buyer of US LNG,” said CLNG executive director Charlie Riedl.
The US currently allows for companies to sell LNG to China, but companies must receive regulatory approval from the Department of Energy (DOE) to sell to non-free trade agreement (non-FTA) nations, which include China, Japan and Europe.
Fred H Hutchison, president of the trade group LNG Allies, said the move by the Chinese to add LNG to the list of retaliatory tariffs was unwelcome but not a wholly unexpected development.
“It is imperative that the United States and China begin serious, high-level negotiations to resolve the complicated issues – which, by the way, are wholly unrelated to energy – that lie beneath the current tariff dispute,” he said in a statement.
China has been the third-biggest importer of US LNG so far this year, behind South Korea at about 2.8mtpa and Mexico importing 2.3mtpa, according to January-July figures from LNG Edge.
Given that the announcement by the Chinese government did not impose a timeline on when the tariffs could be imposed, it is unclear how soon the tariffs could affect the spot market, but the retaliatory tariffs likely adds another freeze on ongoing commercial discussions between US LNG developers looking to market long-term contracts with Chinese customers.
US LNG producer Cheniere operates the four-train, 18mtpa nameplate capacity Sabine Pass plant in Louisiana, and is constructing its second project in Corpus Christi in south Texas. Cheniere signed contracts with China National Petroleum Corporation, through its subsidiary PetroChina, earlier this year.
“While we are waiting on details of the recent announcement and do not view tariffs as productive, Cheniere continues to see China as an important growth market and LNG as a ‘win-win’ between the United States and China, as evidenced by the American jobs and investment created from the recent decision to build train three at our Corpus Christi facility, which was commercialized in part by a US LNG to China deal,” a spokesperson for Cheniere said.
LNG developer Tellurian, which is aspiring to develop two greenfield LNG projects in Louisiana, also questioned how the tariff would be implemented.
“American gas doesn’t come with a ‘Made in America’ label on the molecules. I’m not sure how a tariff on a commodity works but we are watching in fascination,” said Tellurian chairman Charif Souki. “This will not affect the trade but will simply make gas more expensive to Chinese consumers.”
Market sources in the US said the announcement by China was not a positive sign but hoped that the US would find an agreement to prevent a trade war.
“China’s retaliation will hit America’s energy industry particularly hard,” said American Petroleum Institute (API) Vice President for Regulatory and Economic Policy Kyle Isakower.
“American natural gas and oil companies already hit by US tariffs on industrial products and specialty steel essential to our industry will now be faced with Chinese tariffs on critical US exports, impacting American jobs that rely directly and indirectly on the energy industry.”
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) said on Friday that of the 5,207 products across the four Chinese tariff lists, 999 are chemical and plastics.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/08/03/10248050/us-lng-sellers-developers-view-china-imposed-tariffs-as-threat-unproductive/

Return to headline | Return to top
(ACC Mentioned) Trade War Escalation Prompts Backlash Among Us Lawmakers, Trade Groups

Aug 4, 2018 | Asia Times

US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose 10% tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods had already struck fear in the heart of many domestic businesses, but in his mind the number was “weak.” Following his decision this week to raise that rate to 25%, and in anticipation of China’s threat of retaliatory tariffs on US$60 billion worth of US goods, American industry groups and lawmakers voiced their discontent.
“Sir Isaac Newton may have been talking about physics when he said, ‘for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,’ but his law has taken on a whole new economic meaning as trade tensions between the US and China continue to escalate,” Casey Guernsey, spokesman for Americans for Farmers & Families, said in a statementon Wednesday.
Guernsey was right, and China promptly unveiled a list of US products worth US$60 billion that would face as much as a 25% tariff rate, including agricultural products.
But farmers aren’t the only casualties of the trade battle.
“Raising the tariff rate for List 3 to 25 percent would be devastating for US chemicals manufacturers. Approximately $16.4 billion of the imports targeted are chemicals and plastics products. Small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, are at risk of being put out of business by a cost-increase of that kind. These businesses deserve, and will vigorously utilize, the opportunity to tell their stories to policymakers firsthand,” Cal Dooley, President of the American Chemistry Council said in a statement.
Lawmakers from both parties continued to voice their opposition to Trump’s tariffs, urging the administration to get back to the negotiating table. They also stressed that the White House needs to be clear about what it actually wants from China.
“Let’s stop raising tariffs until we talk,” Senator Rob Portman told Inside US Trade. “And let’s be clear on our objectives. As I said on the floor, is it structural changes or is it increased exports? I think it needs to be both.”
Democratic Senator Brian Schatz slammed the trade tactics for lacking a comprehensive plan.
“I just don’t see any evidence that there’s a strategic vision behind any of this and in the hearing, you saw this in three dimensions because when [US Trade Representative Robert] Lighthizer was asked about the [Agriculture Department’s tariff retaliation aid plan] he was quoted as saying, ‘That’s not my side of the shop.’ And when I asked him about the national security tariffs he said, ‘Well, that was Commerce.’ So no one’s in charge,” he added.
“They have a plan and we just have a notion,” Schatz said. “We have a notion that we’re getting ripped off, but that’s like you know you have a notion you got ripped off at the bar so what you do is you walk into the bar and start punching people. So this is as reckless and dangerous of an economic approach as I’ve ever seen [in] any president.”
http://www.atimes.com/article/trade-war-escalation-prompts-backlash-among-us-lawmakers-trade-groups/

Return to headline | Return to top
(ACC Mentioned) Tariffs Could Delay, Sink Louisiana Methanol Plant: Fluor

Aug 3, 2018 | Platts

By Kristen Hays

A $3.8 billion methanol project in Louisiana could be delayed or canceled if the US imposes a tariff on components for a critical piece of equipment, global engineering and construction firm Fluor has told US officials.
Fluor is on tap to build the Lake Charles Methanol project in Louisiana, which will refine petroleum coke into domestic energy and chemical products, including methanol, hydrogen, sulfuric acid and industrial gases.
The company submitted one of nearly 700 public comments to the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer asking that components in a key piece of equipment for the plant manufactured only in China be removed from a list of $16 billion in potential tariffs the US may impose on Chinese products.
In Fluor's letter to Lighthizer, dated July 23, Kathalina Canaan, Fluor's global director of trade compliance, asked that a certain tariff on machinery for liquefying air or gas be removed from the list of products targeted for such duties. Otherwise, the project could be delayed or canceled "due to increased costs and uncertainty," the letter said.
The project's contract involves a made-to-order air separation unit to feed gaseous high-pressure oxygen to a gasifier unit, which will be the main processing unit in the plant. The ASU will also provide nitrogen and instrument air to the entire facility, the letter said.
While the ASU would be designed and supplied by a US company, certain components for it "are only available from China," the letter said.
"The ASU and its accompanying proprietary technology are critical to Fluor's ability to meet its contractual price and schedule obligations to LCM," the letter said. "This situation creates a serious risk that this project -- which would create 1,000 US construction jobs, 200 US permanent plant operations jobs and 300 US associated manufacturing jobs -- will not move forward."
It is "interesting that the tariffs are intertwined in all aspects of our business," a methanol market source said this week. Another source expected the plant to face delays, but eventually come online, calling the key equipment "just a matter of cost and time."
ACC FIGHTING TARIFFS ON CHEMICALS
The American Chemistry Council has strongly opposed any tariffs involving chemicals, particularly in light of $194 billion in announced investments in US chemical manufacturing.
The ACC has asked the Trump administration to remove all chemicals and plastics from the $16 billion list, which would be the second round of $50 billion in tariffs on top of those for steel and aluminum imposed in March.
The first round of $34 billion in tariffs was imposed July 6, and China responded with tariffs on US goods of the same value, largely agricultural crops and automobiles. The $16 billion round involves many chemicals and plastics made with them, and China disclosed a more chemical- and plastics-heavy list of retaliatory tariffs that would come in response.
The US is considering an additional $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, prompting China's Ministry of Commerce to respond on Friday that it would retaliate with another $60 billion in tariffs on US goods.
Bountiful cheap US ethane prompted chemical manufacturers to commit to building a slew of steam crackers and derivative plants along the US Gulf Coast, Pennsylvania and potentially Ohio, and the first wave began starting up in 2017. The US methanol industry has reaped similar benefits from the domestic natural gas boom and cheap feedstocks, fueling its transition into a net exporter to other countries. Methanol's uses include antifreeze, solvent, fuel and a denaturant for ethanol.
Currently the US has eight methanol plants that make a cumulative 7.5 million mt/year, including Natgasoline's 1.75 million mt/year plant in Beaumont, Texas, that started up in June.
Two more plants are slated to come online in 2019-2020: Liberty One in Charleston, West Virginia, and Methanex's third in Geismar, Louisiana.
Liberty One's 195,000 mt/year project was relocated in pieces from Brazil as the company looked to monetize access to cheap methane in the US.
Canada's Methanex, the world's largest methanol producer, had previously dismantled a plant in Chile to relocate it in Geismar. Compressor issues recently pushed the Liberty One plant's mid-2018 startup to late 2019, according to the company.
Methanex is moving ahead with its third US methanol plant, Geismar III in Louisiana, adjacent to its existing 1 million/mt Geismar I and II production facilities. Overall, the three facilities will have a combined capacity of 3.8 million mt/year.
LCM's project is slated to be backed by up to $2 billion in US Department of Energy loan guarantee program, which is intended to encourage clean energy projects. The technology involves gasifying petroleum coke into a synthetic gas, which is then converted to other products.
According to LCM, the process will emit less pollution than other petcoke uses and capture carbon dioxide that can be sold to energy producers to enhance oil and gas recovery.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/petrochemicals/080318-tariffs-could-delay-sink-louisiana-methanol-plant-fluor

Return to headline | Return to top
(ACC Mentioned) Louisiana's Third-Largest Export to China -- Chemicals -- Among $60 Billion in U.S. Goods Targeted for Retaliation

Aug 3, 2018 | The Advocate

Chemicals, Louisiana's third-largest export to China and a major industry in the state, and the growing LNG industry were targeted Friday in a $60 billion list of potential U.S. goods that China put in the crosshairs of a trade dispute with the Trump administration.
China's Finance Ministry accused the administration of damaging the global economy after the president earlier this week proposed increasing duties on $200 billion of Chinese goods in the second round of a dispute over technology.
Soybeans, Louisiana's top export to China at $5.6 billion and a crop that's farmed on 1 million acres in the state, already has been hit with heavy tariffs in retaliation to U.S. duties imposed on China earlier this year.
Chemical products represent another $814 million in exports to China, data from Louisiana Economic Development show.
In all, Louisiana exports $7.9 billion in products annually to China, either produced in the state or shipped through the state's port system.
Caitlin Cain, chief executive officer for the World Trade Center of New Orleans, said while it’s a concern any time the subject of new tariffs on Louisiana’s legacy products is raised, Friday’s announcement is part of a negotiating process between the U.S. and China.
“We don’t know what the ultimate impact is going to be,” she said. “This is still a longer-term play and there’s still a lot of wait-and-see.”
According to an initial analysis by the American Chemistry Council of the products on the list released Friday, 999 are chemicals and plastic products. That represents 19 percent of all items on the list. The industry organization said at first glance that inorganic and organic chemicals and plastic products would be hardest hit.
Various media outlets also were reporting Friday that liquefied natural gas is being targeted by China, putting a newly growing industry in Louisiana in the middle of the escalating trade war.
If the Chinese impose tariffs on LNG imports, “it’s gonna be a problem” for Louisiana, said economist Loren Scott. There are nine LNG plants on the front end of the engineering and design phase, representing $80 billion in capital expenditures and thousands of construction and eventually permanent jobs.
Construction of those plants have been hampered by the difficulty in financing a project that could cost more than $10 billion. Banks want to see that companies have long-term contracts for the LNG that will be produced before they agree to make billions in loans.
“Those companies are having trouble getting those contracts, and if China is out of the mix, it will be even more difficult,” Scott said.
The Chinese government is looking to shift to cleaner-burning fuels, such as natural gas, to reduce pollution.
“They really need this stuff,” Scott said. “One hopes that this is all part of a negotiating gambit on the president’s part to get China to behave more properly on international trade.”
"China is forced to take countermeasures," a ministry statement said Friday. It said the retaliatory duties of 25 percent, 20 percent, 10 percent or 5 percent on 5,207 products will be imposed "if the U.S. side persists in putting its tariff measures into effect."
Washington imposed 25 percent duties on $34 billion of Chinese goods on July 6 in response to complaints Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology. Beijing retaliated by imposing similar charges on the same amount of U.S. products and says it will retaliate for another $16 billion in planned U.S. tariffs and the additional $200 billion proposed.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders countered by telling reporters Friday that "instead of retaliating, China should address longstanding concerns about its unfair trading practices."
Earlier Friday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman called on Washington to "come to its senses" and settle the dispute.
Chinese leaders have offered to narrow their politically sensitive trade surplus with the United States by purchasing more American goods. But they have rejected changing technology development plans they see as a path to prosperity and global influence.
The escalating dispute, with no settlement in sight, has fueled fears it might chill global trade and economic growth.
Friday's threat targeting a smaller amount of U.S. goods reflects the fact that Beijing is running out of products for retaliation due to its lopsided trade balance with the United States.
China's imports from the United States last year totaled $153.9 billion. After the earlier action against $34 billion of U.S. goods, that left about $120 billion available for retaliation.
The highest penalties in Friday's list target farming and mining areas that supported President Donald Trump in the 2016 election.
Bloomberg News reported that the list includes an additional 25 percent duty on over 2,400 U.S. products, such as meat, wheat, wine and LNG; extra 20 percent on more than 1,000 items, including some chemicals, cookers and paper; another 10 percent on almost 1,000 products, including wigs and textiles; and 5 percent on about 600 products, including planes and computers.
Beijing's earlier round of tariffs appeared designed to minimize the impact on the Chinese economy by targeting soybeans, whiskey and other goods available from Brazil, Australia and other suppliers.
To soften the blow from those tariffs and smooth over a trade dispute with Europe, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last month said the European Union had agreed to buy more soybeans from the U.S. and increase imports of liquefied natural gas.
The announcement followed a meeting between Trump and Juncker, during which the two said they agreed to open talks to resolve a trade dispute over steel and to tear down trade barriers between the United States and the European Union.
Juncker also said the U.S. and EU had agreed to hold off on further tariffs that would potentially involve the lucrative automobile market.
Trump refocused this week on China. He earlier proposed 10 percent tariffs on an additional $200 billion of Chinese imports, but now is considering raising that from 10 percent to 25 percent.
Trump campaigned on a promise to bring down America's massive trade deficits by renegotiating trade agreements and getting tough on countries like China that sell the U.S. far more than they buy from it.
But the U.S. Commerce Department reported Friday that the American trade deficit climbed to $46.3 billion in June from $43.2 billion in May. The deficit in goods trade with China also rose. So far this year, the trade gap is up more than 7 percent, compared to January through June 2017.
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/business/article_e2dbbb38-973f-11e8-aa2a-d3ba5a029fd3.html

Return to headline | Return to top
(ACC Mentioned) Trade War Helps Kill Sale of Eastman Plants in Longview

Aug 5, 2018 | Longview News-Journal

President Donald Trump’s trade war has helped derail Eastman Chemical Co’s efforts to sell some operations in Longview.
After five years of talks with multiple parties to sell the ethylene plants that are part of Eastman’s operations south of the city, the company is putting the effort on hold, Chief Financial Officer Curt Espeland said in a recent call with analysts and reporters. One reason is that a wave of new plants has cut spot prices for ethylene, a gas that is the foundation for 40 percent of chemicals and an ingredient in most plastics.
The other reason is Trump’s escalating trade war.
China has responded to U.S. tariffs with its own — with more said to be on the way — targeting $5.4 billion of chemicals and plastics annually imported into the country, according to the American Chemistry Council, an industry group. Beijing is going after chemicals because shale fracking unleashed a torrent of inexpensive natural-gas feedstock that has made the U.S. the world’s low-cost producer, the council said.
“Current market conditions combined with the current geopolitical environment on trade has made it very difficult to move forward at this time” with a sale of the Texas plants, Espeland said on the call.
Eastman, meanwhile, is drastically reducing production of excess ethylene in Longview, where its nearly 1,500 employees make it the city’s largest industrial employer.
“We have taken steps to significantly reduce the excess ethylene we produce, for both this year and next,” CEO Mark Costa said on the conference call.
The Kingsport, Tennessee-based company also is changing raw materials to minimize ethylene output in favor of propylene, which is used for higher-value products. Plant upgrades will allow the company to use a wider variety of raw materials.
“That buys us time to see if market conditions improve and to see whether the sale option comes back to life,” Espeland said.
In 2019, Eastman will make a “modest investment” in its cracker flexibility to include propylene, “while dramatically reducing both our ethylene production, as well as our propane purchases, which minimizes Eastman’s exposure to spot ethylene sales,” Costa said.
When ethylene market conditions improve and pricing becomes more attractive, Eastman retains the flexibility to switch back to producing more ethylene, he said.
Eastman recently reported second-quarter profit that topped the average of analyst estimates. The company maintained its forecast for a 10 percent to 14 percent increase in full-year earnings.
It said it had earnings of $2.39 per diluted share for second quarter 2018 versus $2.00 per diluted share for second quarter 2017. Adjusted earnings were $2.22 per diluted share for second quarter 2018 versus $1.98 per diluted share for second quarter 2017.
“In second quarter, we delivered an 8 percent increase in revenue and strong earnings growth,” Costa said in a statement. “A significant contributor to the higher revenue was increased sales volume, with compelling 8 percent volume growth in the Additives & Functional Products and Advanced Materials segments driven by our innovation-led strategy.
“We remain confident that execution of our strategy will result in continued outstanding results going forward.”
Sales revenue moved higher in all four of Eastman’s operating segments. Revenue for the quarter topped $2.6 billion, compared with $2.4 billion in second quarter 2017.
Eastman said it generated $443 million in cash from operating activities during second quarter 2018, primarily due to strong net earnings partially offset by increased working capital. Share repurchases totaled $150 million for the quarter.
The company continues to expect to generate $1.1 billion of free cash flow (cash from operating activities less net capital expenditures).
Commenting on the outlook for full-year 2018, Costa said: “During the first half of the year, we delivered a 17 percent year-over-year increase in adjusted earnings per share. This performance was the result of strong volume growth in the specialty segments leveraging our innovation-driven growth model, as well as continued disciplined cost management, use of our robust free cash flow and a lower tax rate.
“Taking all of this together, we remain confident in our expectations for adjusted 2018 EPS growth to be between 10-14 percent.”
https://www.news-journal.com/news/business/local/trade-war-helps-kill-sale-of-eastman-plants-in-longview/article_705826f4-9736-11e8-86f4-47a0ecfa98f9.html

Return to headline | Return to top
(ACC Mentioned) Berry's Salmon Remains Bullish for Plastics Packaging's Future

Aug 3, 2018 | Plastics News

By Jim Johnson

Even with the seemingly growing trend of plastics opposition, the head of one of the largest plastic converters in the United States remains bullish about the future of the business.
Tom Salmon is CEO of Berry Global Group Inc. of Evansville, Ind., which sells more than $7 billion in plastic products each year. He's noticed the increased societal focus on the use of plastics, but believes the industry is doing a good job at getting its message out about their importance.
"We continue to believe that plastics as a raw material continues to make people's life better every day. I'm encouraged frankly by the efforts that have been put forth by Plastics Industry Association, [and] the ACC [American Chemistry Council], in terms of combating much of the negative sentiment that we see with really a fast-paced, data driven dialog," he said.
Salmon made his comments on a conference call to discuss the company's latest quarterly financial results.
"We're, frankly, taking share from other substrates as we speak. And people continue to see the advantages of our materials," he said.
"Inside our engineered materials apace, when you see higher freight costs as an example, people want to migrate to other substrates that are lighter weight and ultimately provide better protection for damage, breakage and loss," Salmon said. "So we're seeing improvement there in terms of share of substrate conversion."
The company also is seeing improvements in its consumer packaging business.
The Washington-based Plastics Industry Association recently launched a campaign called This is Plastics to promote the use of the material and show its benefits. Berry, independently, also rolled out a company effort to help its own employees engage others about the positive aspects of plastics industry.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180803/NEWS/180809952/berrys-salmon-remains-bullish-for-plastics-packagings-future

Return to headline | Return to top
China Plans Tariffs on $60 Billion of Imports to Counter Trump

Aug 3, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

China announced a list of $60 billion worth of U.S. imports it plans to apply tariffs on should the Trump administration follow through with its latest trade threats.
Duties ranging from 5 percent to 25 percent will be levied on 5,207 kinds of American imports if the U.S. delivers its proposed taxes on another $200 billion of Chinese goods, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement on its website late Aug. 3.
Beijing plans to impose an additional 5 percent in tariffs on about 600 kinds of products including planes and computers, another 10 percent on almost 1,000 products including wigs and textiles, an extra 20 percent on more than 1,000 items including some chemicals, cookers and paper, and an additional 25 percent on over 2,400 products such as meat, wheat, wine and liquefied natural gas, according to the statement.
“China’s differential tax rate countermeasures are rational and restrained,” the Ministry of Commerce said in a separate statement on its website. “The implementation date will be subject to the actions of the U.S., and China reserves the right to continue introducing other countermeasures.“
The retaliation stands to further inflame tensions between the world’s two biggest economies and echoes China’s response to the previous round of tariffs, which took effect last month.
Tit-for-Tat
President Donald Trump this week ordered officials to consider imposing a 25 percent tax on $200 billion worth of imported Chinese goods, up from an initial 10 percent rate. The move was intended to bring China back to the negotiating table for talks over U.S. demands for structural changes to the Chinese economy and a cut in the bilateral trade deficit.
The retaliation from China suggests that tactic hasn’t worked.
The Trump administration slapped duties on $34 billion of Chinese goods last month, a move that also prompted immediate retaliation from China. Another $16 billion in levies will likely follow in the coming days or weeks.
The U.S. tariffs now in place or threatened add up to almost half of the value of goods it imported from China last year. The Chinese side seem to be seeking to match that ratio with the new proposals.
Chinese authorities—bracing for economic fallout—have taken a range of measures in recent weeks to bolster the economy. On Aug. 3 officials also stepped into cushion the yuan, which has been battered by trade tensions and was approaching the key level of seven to the dollar.
The People’s Bank of China will impose a reserve requirement of 20 percent on some trading of foreign-exchange forward contracts, according to a statement on Friday evening. That will effectively make it more expensive to short the yuan, and is a tactic that the central bank used to stabilize the currency in the aftermath of its shock devaluation in 2015.
China is trying to seek an “equal” position in future talks with the U.S. with today’s retaliation announcement, said Gai Xinzhe, analyst at the Bank of China’s Institute of International Finance in Beijing. “Any talks in the future, should they happen, should be conducted on an equal and faithful basis.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/china-plans-tariffs-on-60-billion-of-imports-to-counter-trump

Return to headline | Return to top

LCSA News

EPA OIG Finds Opportunities Exist to Improve CDR Rule

Aug 3, 2018 | National Law Review

On July 27, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report entitled EPA’s Chemical Data Reporting Rule Largely Implemented as Intended, but Opportunities for Improvement Exist. OIG conducted an audit to determine how EPA is ensuring that companies are compliant with the Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) Rule requirements under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and whether EPA is using CDR data to prioritize chemicals for the purpose of identifying their potential risks to human health and the environment. OIG found that implementing policies for data quality checks will help tailor the information reported by manufacturers and importers to meet EPA’s needs and improve its usefulness.Background
Under the CDR Rule, EPA collects information about the types, quantities, and uses of chemical substances produced domestically and imported into the U.S. OIG states that EPA uses this information, which manufacturers and importers are required to submit every four years, to screen and prioritize chemicals for the purpose of identifying potential human health risks and environmental effects, per the methodology outlined in EPA’s TSCA Work Plan for Chemical Assessments (TSCA Work Plan).
In 2016, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Lautenberg Act) was enacted, amending TSCA. The Lautenberg Act requires EPA to identify high- and low-priority chemicals and to evaluate high-priority chemicals against a new risk-based safety standard. By December 2019, EPA must complete risk evaluations for the first ten high-priority chemicals, ramp up the risk evaluation process so that 20 high-priority chemicals are under evaluation at all times, and identify 20 low-priority chemicals that will not undergo further evaluation.
EPA’s chemical risk evaluation process for assessing the safety of existing chemicals consists of three states: prioritization; risk evaluation; and risk management. In 2016, EPA announced the first ten high-priority chemicals identified to undergo risk evaluation. OIG states that EPA continues to consider strategies for the future use of CDR data for pre-prioritization and risk assessment. On December 11, 2017, EPA held a public meeting to focus on possible approaches for identifying candidate chemicals to be prioritized for the risk assessment process under TSCA. EPA described and took comments regarding a number of possible approaches that could guide it in the identification process. More information on the December 11, 2017, meeting is available in our December 14, 2017, blog item, “EPA’s Approaches for Prioritization under TSCA Discussed at December 11, 2017, Public Meeting.”What OIG Found
According to OIG, as required by TSCA, EPA is using CDR data to help assess the risks of chemicals in U.S. commerce. OIG states that it determined that EPA is implementing the risk evaluation process as outlined in its TSCA Work Plan to assess chemicals for human health and environmental risks.
In addition, EPA uses tools such as on-site inspections to monitor companies’ compliance with the CDR Rule, and EPA then takes enforcement action when violations are identified. OIG notes that while EPA conducts data quality checks of the chemical information submitted by companies, it lacks documented policies and procedures that specify how to select and conduct these data quality checks. According to OIG, policies and procedures would help EPA implement future data quality checks that meet its information needs, as well as help prevent the possible loss of institutional knowledge during periods of staff turnover or absence.
OIG also notes that the public stakeholders and EPA employees it interviewed cited issues regarding accessing and extracting CDR information from EPA’s CDR database. OIG states that its attempt at accessing information from EPA’s database also proved difficult. During the course of OIG’s audit, EPA took steps to help users more easily navigate the data by providing Microsoft Excel files and a data dictionary, however. These improvements are intended to enhance the public’s ability to obtain information about chemicals in U.S. commerce.OIG Recommendation and Planned Corrective Action
OIG recommended that the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) develop and implement a policy and/or procedures for use by EPA staff in conducting data quality checks of CDR Rule data submitted by companies to EPA. According to OIG, OCSPP concurred with its recommendation and provided an acceptable corrective action with a milestone date of October 25, 2018. OIG states that the proposed corrective action, when completed, will meet the intent of its recommendation.Commentary
The OIG report produced few surprises, as it is well known that the CDR data have been difficult for stakeholders to access and extract. We took note of the steps, as discussed in the OIG report, that EPA implemented to improve access and we are hopeful that these measures prove successful. The OIG recommendation that EPA develop and implement an internal policy and procedures for staff in conducting quality assurance and quality control checks of CDR data submissions is useful and should help to improve the quality and fidelity of the CDR data when used by EPA and stakeholders.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-oig-finds-opportunities-exist-to-improve-cdr-rule

Return to headline | Return to top

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) EPA Staff Aimed To Protect Pruitt From Toxic Chemical He Failed To Regulate

Aug 6, 2018 | Herdon Gazette

The Environmental Protection Agency head whose anti-regulation crusade couldn’t save his job from his repeated ethics scandals, picked out an ornate desk for an expensive office remodel last year that concerned his staff because it contained toxic formaldehyde.
Prutt’s underlings sought to protect him from effects of the chemical in months before Pruitt delayed the release of an EPA report warning the public about the dangers of formaldehyde, Politico reported Thursday.
“The irony would be ,” Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, said in a statement.
Pruitt, whose time in President ’s Cabinet was notable for lavish spending of taxpayer money and aggressive rollback of environmental regulations, caused concern with his desk selection when a staffer noticed a California-required warning label that the furniture contained formaldehyde, a carcinogen found in pressed wood and many other products. It wasn’t clear whether Pruitt ultimately ordered the desk.
Reginald Allen, then EPA acting deputy chief of staff, ed Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, then head of the agency’s toxic chemicals office, to ask about the warning, according to obtained by nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight. She suggested the desk be aired out for days before setting it up in Pruitt’s office.
The “good news,” Cleland-Hamnett noted, is that California “regulates formaldehyde emissions” … so that “exposure from the desk is likely to be fine.”
At the time, an EPA regulation limiting formaldehyde emissions had been put on hold by the Trump administration, Politico noted. In addition, a draft EPA report on the risks of the chemical that was completed during the Obama administration .
Pruitt, who resigned this month , was asked about the formaldehyde report during a Senate hearing in January. “It’s my understanding that the EPA has finalized its conclusion that formaldehyde causes leukemia and other cancers,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) told Pruitt then.
The EPA chief responded: “You know, my understanding is similar to yours.”
The EPA has been lobbied hard by the chemical industry to delay the report. A key member of the American Chemistry Council — Kimberly Wise White — now sits on the EPA’s Science Advisory Panel while maintaining her role in the . A former member of the group, , is now a top deputy shaping the EPA’s .
Politico reported that Pruitt aides, including chief of staff Ryan Jackson, blocked the report from going through an internal review, and keeping it secret.
Markey and two other senators sent a expressing concern that “political appointees” were dragging their feet on releasing the assessment as the agency was being pressured by corporations with links to people inside the EPA.
EPA officials have denied suppressing the report and say they are with “our partners.”
Formaldehyde is one of the most commonly used chemicals in the U.S. It’s utilized in wood composites in furniture and cabinets, as well as in cleaning products and cosmetics, and is a component of oil refinery emissions.
and can be absorbed through the skin in liquid form, according to the National Cancer Institute. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says formaldehyde is “.”
https://herdongazette.com/epa-staff-aimed-to-protect-pruitt-from-toxic-chemical-he-failed-to-regulate/9561/

Return to headline | Return to top
EPA Grants More Time for Input on Napthalene Risk Review Plan

Aug 3, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA is extending from Aug. 6 to Sept. 5 the deadline for public comment on its plan for an Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) review of the human health risks of exposure to the napthalene, in response to requests from trade groups representing makers and users of the chemical that wanted more time to craft comments.
The agency announced the extension in an Aug. 3 Federal Register notice that says its “public science webinar [on the pending napthalene plan] will still be convened on August 23, 2018.”
Representatives of the American Petroleum Institute and the Napthalene Council, Inc. wrote EPA in early July, asking EPA to extend the comment deadline by 60 days, to Oct. 8. Both groups argued that the assessment plan is complex and that multiple changes have been made to the document and the IRIS process since they reviewed a similar document in 2014, requiring additional time to comment.
“This request is being made because the draft naphthalene assessment plan contains significant technical content that warrants thorough public review,” writes Anne LeHuray, the Naphthalene Council's executive director in a July 13 letter. “A 30-day comment period mitigates against the thoroughness of the review.”
Similarly, API's Scientific Advisor Jessica Ryman-Rasmussen argues in a July 10 letter that the extension is necessary because the napthalene assessment plan “differs substantially from the previous (July 2014) Seeping and Problem Formulation Materials [document] for naphthalene. It adds the incorporation of new improvements to the IRIS process since 2014 (such as Systematic Review) into the Assessment Plan. It discusses an October 2017 update to the literature search for naphthalene. . . . It is also of considerable technical complexity...”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-grants-more-time-input-napthalene-risk-review-plan

Return to headline | Return to top
Environmental Toxins Are Seen as Posing Risks During Pregnancy

Aug 4, 2018 | The Washington Post

Leading up to and during pregnancy, women are told to avoid alcohol and cigarettes, to make sure they get enough folate and omega-3 fatty acids, and to get adequate sleep and exercise. Most are told little or nothing about reducing their exposure to chemicals despite evidence suggesting that ingredients in plastics, vehicle exhaust and cosmetics additives can have profound impacts on babies’ health.
In recent years, the field of maternal-fetal medicine has started to respond. In 2013, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a committee opinion, reaffirmed this year, “calling for timely action to identify and reduce exposure to toxic environmental agents while addressing the consequences of such exposure.” The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics voiced a similar opinion in 2015, and the following year nearly 50 prominent U.S. doctors and scientists created Project TENDR: Targeting Environmental Neuro-Developmental Risks to call for reducing chemical exposures that can interfere with fetal and children’s brain development.
Yet, a recent survey suggests that most doctors don’t discuss exposure to pollutants with their pregnant patients.
“Fetal development is a critical window of human development, and so any toxic exposure during that time, during pregnancy, doesn’t only have a short-term effect at that moment, but really an effect that lasts the entire lifetime,” said Nathaniel DeNicola, who was on the committee that reaffirmed the ACOG opinion.
In 2011, University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) researcher Tracey Woodruff and colleagues reported finding traces of dozens of harmful chemicals in 99 percent or more of the 268 pregnant women whose urine they analyzed; among them were organochlorine pesticides, perchlorate, phthalates and cancer-causing compounds found in vehicle exhaust and smoke.
With so many chemicals in the environment — more than 80,000 are registered for use in the United States — it’s impossible to determine the health impact, if any, of each. But researchers have found a variety of links, including between some pesticides and impaired fetal growth and neurodevelopment; between phthalates (used in many plastics) and increased risk of premature birth and impaired neurodevelopment; and between fine-particle air pollution and altered expression of genes that influence neurodevelopment.
More research has been done on animals than on humans: Epidemiologic studies are slow, costly and often difficult to conduct, and interventional studies are virtually impossible because of ethical concerns about intentionally exposing people to chemicals suspected to be harmful. But based on the research to date, experts such as Woodruff recommend that patients avoid many chemicals to the extent that they can because avoiding them can’t hurt and may benefit health.
“When I am faced with counseling somebody, I can’t say, ‘I know for sure that if you avoid these things, you are going to avoid your child having abnormal neurodevelopment,’ ” said Marya Zlatnik, an obstetrics professor and maternal-fetal medicine specialist at UCSF. “But based on the science that’s there, it’s clearly very concerning that these chemicals are causing a variety of health problems, and to the best of our knowledge, the way to avoid that is to avoid these chemicals.”
DeNicola, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences, compares the issues of exposure levels to drinking alcohol during pregnancy. “We know there’s a certain dose of alcohol that is going to cause fetal alcohol syndrome and create problems. We don’t know what the safe dose would be, so the recommendation is just to avoid alcohol,” he said, though most doctors would not raise concerns over pregnant patients having an occasional glass of wine. Similarly, he said, “we know the heavy metals and phthalates are toxic at some level. Since we don’t know the safe amount, we try to just avoid it as much as possible.”
While scents in cosmetics are a source of phthalates, a woman who wears perfume on special occasions is not what DeNicola is worried about. “It’s more a guidance to avoid the routine daily exposures that over the long term add up to something that’s clinically relevant.”
Philip Landrigan, dean for global health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, said, “For years and years, we’ve talked about alcohol, tobacco and recreational drug use — limiting all those during pregnancy,” he said. “But in the last decade, ACOG has come to realize that lead and pesticides and PCBs and mercury that are found in certain fish — that all of those pose a harm to the fetus in the womb and that it makes an awful lot of sense for women to minimize their exposure to those chemicals.”
Zlatnik now includes a brochure about chemical exposures in the packet that she gives out at initial prenatal appointments. It won’t make a difference for every woman, she says, pointing out that patients who aren’t literate or who are struggling to make ends meet may have a harder time than others prioritizing chemicals as something to worry about. “Not that you can really buy your way out of the problem, but at least having financial resources does make it easier to avoid some of the toxins,” she says.
While chemicals are virtually impossible to avoid completely, people can reduce contact with some of the most harmful and common toxins. Project TENDR, for instance, suggests ways for preventing exposure to pesticides and chemicals in food, furniture and personal care and cleaning products.
UCSF’s “Toxic Matters” website also offers practical recommendations. And SafetyNest, a website that Woodruff is advising, will aim to provide doctors and pregnant women easy access to research on prenatal environmental health. Its founder, Alexandra Destler, expects the full site to launch in the fall.
DeNicola says efforts to get information on chemicals to pregnant women can’t happen soon enough. “The toxic burden on pregnant women is a clear and really immediate health-care concern,” he says. “It’s critically important that the doctors who take care of pregnant women and young children know about the health effects and can counsel patients about it.”Some tips
To lessen exposure to chemicals during pregnancy, consider this advice from Project TENDR, UCSF’S Toxic Matters series and individual experts:
●Remove shoes before going into the house to avoid tracking in dust and dirt that can contain contaminants.
●Wash hands frequently, especially before eating. “We are touching things all the time that likely have some [chemical] residue on them,” said George Washington University’s DeNicola.
●Dust and wet-mop regularly. “Chemicals love to hang out in dust,” said UCSF’s Woodruff.
●Don’t heat food in plastic, and reduce the amount of plastic that come into contact with food generally. “Don’t ever cook or reheat things in plastic, because the components of the plastic will come into the food or beverage. They will, guaranteed. Some more, some less — but you don’t need any of it,” said Bruce Blumberg, a professor of developmental and cell biology at the University of California at Irvine.
●Eat low on the food chain — i.e., emphasize plant-based foods, and choose smaller fish such as sardines because of the risk for mercury that can accumulate in larger fish, advises Woodruff.
●Look for organically grown food, which can reduce your exposure to pesticide residues.
●Be cautious about using nonstick cookware. This is more a recommendation about avoiding the unknown, Woodruff says. “Companies have stopped using Teflon and some of the similar [nonstick] chemicals in new cookware. But there is not very much science about the newer chemicals used in nonstick cookware. Avoiding their use will get you out of the guessing game of whether they will be identified as harmful or not.”
●For everyday use, choose cosmetics and cleaning products that are fragrance-free. That means avoiding perfumed products but also unscented ones, which DeNicola said often have scented phthalates to mask the scent of other ingredients. He advises patients to check for diethyl phthalate, or DEP, “since this is the most common phthalate in fragrances and might be included in something still labeled ‘unscented.’ ”
“The only thing that really counts as safe is fragrance-free, in terms of phthalates,” he said. He emphasizes that routine exposure is the concern, so an occasional scented lotion or monthly cleaning are not likely to present much risk.
●If you live in urban or densely populated suburban areas, avoid exercising outside when vehicle pollution levels are higher — i.e., during rush hour.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/environmental-toxins-are-seen-as-posing-risks-during-pregnancy/2018/08/03/770fab98-7643-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html?utm_term=.18406e20c1bb

Return to headline | Return to top
EWG News Roundup (8/3): Nonstick Chemicals Contaminate Drinking Water, Americans Urge EPA to Ban TCE and More

Aug 3, 2018 | Environmental Working Group

By Robert Coleman

This week, EWG updated our interactive mapof sites across the U.S. contaminated with toxic fluorinated compounds, known as PFAS chemicals, to include more communities. The tally of known polluted sites now sits at 172 locations in 40 states, including military bases, civilian airports, industrial plants and dumps, and fire training sites.
On Wednesday, Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., joined EWG, other public advocacy groups, and Americans impacted by the industrial solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE, to demand that the Environmental Protection Agency carry out proposed bans on high-risk uses of the carcinogenic compound.
The personal care product giant Johnson & Johnson announced this week that it would begin to provide additional details on fragrance chemicals used in its baby products. EWG applauded the company’s step in the direction of transparency, as it will set a precedent across the industry.
“We applaud Johnson & Johnson’s move to greater transparency in the personal care product market,” said EWG President Ken Cook. “The industry giant is raising the bar for other companies to disclose chemical ingredients on labels and online, especially for products marketed for babies and children.”
Summer is in full swing, and over on our Children’s Health site we provided some helpful tips for parents trying to pick the right sunscreen for their kids.
Additionally, EWG analyzed comments submitted to the Department of Agriculture that show a number of major food companies and trade groups support mandatory disclosure of genetically modified organisms in food.
We also sounded the alarm on a recent study by the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center that shows major utility companies are scheming for ways to raise the utility bills of their customers who have installed solar panels.
For coverage on these developments and more, here’s some news you can use going into the weekend.
PFAS Analysis with Map
Environmental Health News: Hidden studies from decades ago could have curbed PFAS problem: Scientist
Michigan isn't alone: In May, an analysis released by the Environmental Working Group reported that more than 1,500 drinking water systems, serving up to 110 million Americans, may be contaminated with PFAS compounds.
The Intercept: 3M Knew About the Dangers of PFOA and PFOS Decades Ago, Internal Documents Show
PFAS water contamination is now a national — and international — issue. Using data collected by the EPA, the Environmental Working Group calculated that more than 100 million Americans may be have some level of PFAS in their drinking water.
The Pacific Standard: State Agencies Turn Up High Levels of Harmful Chemicals in a Michigan County's Water
As ProPublica reported in July, new analyses of water data show that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense minimized the threat that the compounds pose to the public, and contamination is more extensive than the government has officially acknowledged; scientists at the Environmental Working Group estimate that more than 110 million people have been exposed to PFAS through drinking water.
MLive: DEQ tests Parchment paper mill landfill for PFAS contamination
A paper mill that made food contact products is a good place to start looking for sources of PFAS contamination, said Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit consumer watchdog group that has studied the PFAS family of chemicals for 20 years.
Vermont Public Radio: Search For PFAS Contamination Continues In Vt., As More Instances Detected Around US
The Environmental Working Group is national advocacy organization that’s been tracking the spread of known PFAS contamination across the country. About a year ago, the group said there were 52 known sites in 19 states; Their latest interactive map shows that there are now 172 sites spread out across 40 states.
The Fayetteville Observer: OPED – Time for feds to be serious, open about pollution
It’s too late for preemptive action on this issue — contamination is rampant nationwide, exacerbated by the lack of action by the EPA. Today, the U.S. Army says there are 146 military sites contaminated with PFAS and PFOA. Environmental Working Group released a study showing that up to 16 million Americans use drinking water with such contamination. Reprinted in The Charlotte Observer.
The Nashua Telegraph (N.H.): Senate bills demand EPA action on PFAS
“If President Trump is serious about providing ‘crystal clear, clean drinking water’ to all Americans, he should leap at the chance to sign this legislation,” said Scott Faber, Senior Vice President of the Environmental Working Group. “Congress can and must take action to reduce the public’s exposure and it can start by passing this legislation.”
TCE Press Event
COX-TV: WSOC (Charlotte, N.C.): High levels of cancer causing chemical found in Charlotte drinking water
Kari Rhinehart said her daughter died at the age of 13 from a rare brain tumor. She later discovered there were high levels of TCE in their water. In a new study, the Environmental Working Group found 14 million Americans were exposed through drinking water. “I don’t know how any chemical could possibly have the value that makes it worth a child's life,” said Rhinehart.
E&E News: Udall slams EPA for delaying ban on industrial solvent
EPA is now doing another evaluation of TCE, which Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney for the Environmental Working Group, says is not necessary for the federal agency to move forward with its ban.
Stars and Stripes: Veterans, families demand that EPA ban toxic chemical found in tap water at US military bases
Ensminger, flanked by other families impacted by the toxic water, made his plea Wednesday during a news conference on Capitol Hill to urge the EPA to ban high-risk uses of the carcinogenic compound known as trichloroethylene, or TCE, which is impacting an estimated 14 million Americans, according to the advocacy and research organization Environmental Working Group, which publicized the findings after studying EPA-mandated tests. Reprinted by American Military News.
Inside EPA: Wheeler Hedges On Senate Democrats' Calls For TSCA Ban On TCE Uses (subscription)
At the news conference, held by the Environmental Working Group, Udall and families who blamed TCE exposure for their children's cancers urged EPA to finalize the proposed bans on certain uses of TCE to prevent future exposures.
Chemical Watch: Senators press Wheeler on 'blatant disregard' of TSCA law
Groups like Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and the Environmental Working Group joined with families of individuals who have been harmed by TCE exposures at the press conference, in a campaign not dissimilar to one earlier this year on methylene chloride.
Citizen Truth: 14 Million Americans are Drinking Cancer-Causing Chemical TCE, EPA Doing Nothing
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is going after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for rescinding proposed bans on trichloroethylene (TCE) under the Trump administration. According to the EWG, the cancer-causing industrial chemical has contaminated tap water supplies serving more than 14 million Americans.
The Sun Current (Coon Rapids, Minn.): After environmental group issues report, city says declares its water supply safe
In its report, the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group stated that based on analysis of utility tests performed in 2015, 321 drinking water systems were found to contain Trichloroethylene, or TCE. In half of those systems, the group added, the contamination was found to be at levels above a guideline for safe drinking.
Johnson & Johnson Transparency Initiative
MindBodyGreen: Johnson & Johnson is hopping on the transparency train with its baby products.
The word "fragrance" appears on the label of many personal care products. Brands aren't required to disclose the ingredients that go into making up the "fragrance" because they're protected under trade secrets laws. J&J is going the extra mile by listing ingredients that compose a product's fragrance, as long as they make up at least 0.01 percent of the product. This change will take effect in the rebranding of its baby products, which officially started on August 1. (Environmental Working Group)
Targeted News Service: Johnson & Johnson: Will Give Consumers More Information About Fragrance Ingredients
The Environmental Working Group issued the following news release: Today Johnson & Johnson, one of the largest multinational manufacturers of consumer packaged goods, announced a new transparency initiative that will provide additional details on fragrance chemicals used in its Johnson's baby products.
The Farm Bill
Effingham Daily News (Effingham, Ill.): Debate continues over 2018 farm bill
“Despite the rhetoric of ‘preserving the family farm,’ the vast majority of farmers do not benefit from federal farm subsidy programs and most of the subsidies go to the largest and most financially secure farm operations,” the Environmental Working Group said in a statement.
Algae Blooms
News Deeply/Water Deeply: Hot Weather, Land Abuses Fueling Algal Blooms in Western Waters
“This is really a devilish problem,” said Craig Cox, a senior vice-president for agriculture and natural resources at the Environmental Working Group who is tracking the issue. “The more I look into it, the more stunning the state of play seems to me.” Reprinted byKQED.
Asbestos
Fast Company: Under Trump’s EPA, asbestos might be making a comeback
In June, the nonprofits Environmental Working Group (EWG) and Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) flagged a controversial image that surfaced on the official Facebook page of Ural Asbest—one of Russia’s biggest asbestos mining companies, reported to hold close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin—picturing pallets of the hazardous material wrapped and stamped with a red seal of Trump’s face along with the words, “Approved by Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States.”
Cleaners
The Cheat Sheet: The Toxic Household Products You Should Stop Buying
Scrubbing down shower tiles with lemony-fresh mildew remover could come with health consequences. The Environmental Working Group uses Tilex Mold and Mildew remover as an example. This product contains sodium hypochlorite, which could cause respiratory issues or eye and skin irritation if you don’t use it in a well-ventilated area. Since scrubbing your shower requires close proximity, Tilex is quite concerning.
Well+Good: DIY your own nontoxic laundry detergent using just 4 household ingredients
Mix 2/3 cup Super Washing Soda, 3 Tbsp baking soda, 1/2 cup liquid Castile soap, and 5 cups water—and take solace in knowing all ingredients are rated as the best of the best by the Environmental Working Group, according to Fey.
Big Green Purse: Do You Know These 5 Secrets to Non-Toxic Wood Floor Care?
Environmental Working Group (EWG.org) has evaluated many of the floor cleansers on the market for the toxicity of their ingredients. They look at the likelihood of the ingredients to trigger asthma or other respiratory difficulties or skin allergies and irritation.
Cosmetics
Shape: These Beauty Products Still Use Formaldehyde—Here's Why You Should Care
But if you'd rather be safe than sorry, finding clean beauty products, which are formaldehyde-free, is easier than ever. "The Environmental Working Group has a list of not only formaldehyde-containing products but also products that contain formaldehyde releasers," says Dr. Shamban.
Safe Makeup Project: How to Make the Switch to Nontoxic Nail Polish
“It’s mind-blowing that a carcinogenic ingredient like formaldehyde is still used in nail treatments,” Carla Burns, a research analyst for the Environmental Working Group(EWG), told me. She’s referring to products like nail strengthener from OPI that contain the carcinogen.
Yoga and Spa Magazine: What’s in Your Cosmetics?
An Environmental Working Group (EWG) survey found people use an average of nine different personal care products every day, with 25 percent of women and one percent of men using 15 or more. Altogether, these products contain some 126 unique ingredients, and we use some (such as lipstick) several times daily.
EWG VERIFIEDTM
Glossy: Day in the Life: Tara Foley, founder of clean-beauty retailer Follain
We have a meeting with the Environmental Working Group, which is also based in D.C. They come by to preview the new store and share their plans for their new EWG-verified product lines.
Farm Subsidies and Crop Insurance
The Washington Post: Soybean farmers are surviving Trump’s trade war — even without his $12 billion aid package
Existing government farm support programs also guarantee minimum revenue for farmers if commodity prices fall below national or county averages. Those provisions paid out well over $10 billion in 2016 and will also be triggered this year, said Craig Cox, senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that tracks farmer payments.
The Carolina Journal: Subsidies complicate farmers’ plight in growing trade war
By far the most important program is crop insurance subsidies, in which taxpayers foot more than half of the cost of insurance premiums for some farmers. This program alone has cost $83 billion since 1995, not including the payments to crop insurance companies, according to the Environmental Working Group.
Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in ProduceTM
Men’s Journal: The Dirty Truth About Your Salad Lunch
Listen up, salad eaters Opens a New Window. : Spinach has two times the pesticide residue Opens a New Window. of other crops, while at least four different pesticides can be found on a single tomato, according to new guidance from the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.
NorthJersey.com: Should I buy organic food for my children?
People can also check the Environmental Working Group’s annual “Dirty Dozen” list, which ranks fruits and vegetables based on pesticide contamination. In addition to the items Kim named, the list includes nectarines, grapes, cherries, pears, tomatoes, celery, potatoes and sweet bell peppers.
Fitness First Magazine: Go Organic
The Environmental Working Group has released its Dirty Dozen list for 2018. If you love these fruit and veg, buy organic or wash them thoroughly before eating, especially if you have them raw.
Sunscreens
ChemicalWatch: Groups push for changes to US sunscreen ingredient approvals
But both regulatory and consumer pressure on the substances continues to grow, with the Environmental Working Group (EWG) launching a campaign for oxybenzone to be phased out of sunscreens nationwide by 2020.
FitDay: Sunscreen Protects Your Skin, but Is It Hurting the Environment?
Sites Skin Deep, the Cosmetic Safety Database by Environmental Working Group, allow you to check the safety of your sunscreen by looking up either the brand name or active ingredients.
Forbes: New Skin Care Products To Use Right Now
For other sunscreens, check Environmental Working Group's (EWG) annual list. A good resource of sunscreen products that meet the group's safety criteria in addition to recommendations by your personal dermatologist.
Outside Magazine: You Should Only Buy Reef-Safe Sunscreen
ThinkSport’s zinc-oxide-based formula goes on easy and earned a perfect score from the Environmental Working Group. It’s SPF 50, and it’s even safe enough to put on your baby. Seriously.
Romper: The 6 Best Sunscreens For Pregnant Women
The Environmental Working Group keeps a running tab on the best sunscreens that are deemed safest for your skin and health, but it's worth noting that, while some studies on ingredients like oxybenzone and octinoxate show them to be hormone disruptors, results aren't entirely conclusive.
Better Business Bureau: Summer Skin Safety
Sonya Lunder, Senior Analyst at Environmental Working Group and co-author of The Sunscreen Guide, talks to us on The Bistro about how to truly to stay safe while we are having fun in the sun. You’ll be amazed to learn how your sunscreen may not be protecting you as much as you thought. Be a savvy consumer and find out which products are actually defending you.
Superbugs Report and Label Decoder
The Wall Street Journal: Have You Met This Cow? She’s Delicious.
The various certifications on food can become confusing. There are now at least 30 common claims and certifications for meat, eggs and dairy, according to the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based advocacy group focused on public health.
Consumer Affairs: Faced with rising threat of antibiotic overuse, FDA promises to ‘launch some new programs’
Advocacy groups call for greater action. Another report recently published by the Environmental Working group found an increase of antibiotic resistance in ground beef and pork chops.
1,4-Dioxane in Drinking Water
Chemical & Engineering News: Persistent pollutant broken down by sludge microbe
EPA considers dioxane a likely human carcinogen, and last August, the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization, detected dangerous levels of the compound in the drinking water of 27 U.S. states.
Water Filter Guide
New York Magazine: What Are the Best Shower Water Filters?
If you filter your drinking water to avoid potentially harmful chemicals, it’s not a huge leap to consider a shower water filter. According to Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., a senior science adviser at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), chlorine, a by-product of water disinfection, is commonly found in municipal water supplies, as well as hazardous volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including the carcinogenic trichloroethylene.
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/08/ewg-news-roundup-83-nonstick-chemicals-contaminate-drinking-water#.W2gvrVUzb0M

Return to headline | Return to top
I Need to Know What's Going On': Community Attends Meeting About Possible Cancer Cluster

Aug 6, 2018 | WFTV9

By Angela Jacobs

A packed house crammed into the Satellite Beach Civic Center Sunday afternoon as city and county officials updated residents on the results of area water testing.
Many in attendance are cancer survivors who fear contaminants found in the tests could be linked to a growing number of cancer cases.
"When anything like this happens, you have to pay attention," said Brevard County District 4 Commissioner Curt Smith.
Questions about the cancer cluster and water quality were brought back into the public eye by Dr. Julie Greenwalt, an oncologist and graduate of Satellite High School.
Greenwalt, a cancer survivor, spurred the testing with her research and has since verified more than 50 cases of rare cancers in Satellite Beach.
"I think the message right now is these chemicals are not safe," said Greenwalt at the meeting.
During the two-hour meeting, residents asked questions after learning some harmful chemicals detected in the city groundwater were determined to be present at safe levels.
"Are there any kind of statistics or (do you) any kind of measure or even consider what they would have been when I was 10 playing in this water?" asked one resident.
Brevard Public Schools said Friday that test results indicate that the drinking water at 13 of its schools is safe to drink.
The school district said it tested drinking water for 21 chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonate, also known as PFOS, which have been linked to some types of cancer and thyroid defects.
The chemicals were found in dangerous concentrations in well water at Patrick Air Force Base and are believed to be linked to firefighting foam, assistant superintendent Matt Reed said.
Traces of a less toxic chemical, perfluorobutyrate, also known as PFBA, was found at nine schools served by the city of Melbourne water utility, but the chemical is at levels well below recommended safety limits, Reed said. Its source is unknown.
"Out of caution, BPS has shared its results and sought a second opinion from the state Department of Health in Tallahassee," Reed said. "It also will retest one water sample and test two additional samples from Satellite High, which showed a slightly higher trace amount of PFBA than at other beachside schools, including neighboring DeLaura Middle and Holland Elementary."
The school district said traces of PFOA and PFOS were discovered in recent city tests of well water in Satellite Beach and Cocoa Beach.
"Schools use well water only to irrigate sports fields, usually at night," Reed said. "BPS has sought guidance from the Florida Department of Health on whether to change irrigation practices to protect student-athletes, coaches and spectators."
Brevard County School Board Vice Chairman Tina Descovich, who grew up in Satellite Beach, said she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2010.
"I woke up this morning (and came) into this meeting with a lot of anxiety, with real concerns," she said. "It's a relief for sure."
A Florida oncologist who grew up in the area said she and 19 other Satellite High School graduates have been diagnosed with cancer.
She and others have publicly questioned whether their illnesses amount to a cancer cluster and whether it might be linked to chemicals in the water.
The Florida Health Department hasn't determined if rates of cancer are significantly higher among beachside residents and if contaminants in water are connected, the school district said.
https://www.wftv.com/news/local/-i-need-to-know-what-s-going-on-residents-attend-meeting-about-cancer-cluster-in-satellite-beach/806844294

Return to headline | Return to top
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Holds Hearing On EPA’s Agenda For Environmental Protection And Economic Growth

Aug 3, 2018 | Lexology

By Jessie Nguyen and Lynn L. Bergeson

On August 1, 2018, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW Committee) held a hearing entitled “Examining EPA’s Agenda: Protecting the Environment and Allowing America’s Economy to Grow.” Testifying at the hearing was Andrew Wheeler, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Acting Administrator. Witness testimony and an archive of the hearing are available online. The hearing was intended to provide Wheeler with the opportunity to present himself for the first time in front of the EPW Committee as the Acting Administrator, and to update the EPW Committee on EPA’s agenda since the resignation of Scott Pruitt, EPA’s former Administrator. Wheeler’s testimony highlighted three main priorities for EPA moving forward: (1) regulatory certainty between EPA and state/local governments; (2) improvement of programs within EPA; and (3) increased transparency in risk communication.
During the questioning, Wheeler informed the EPW Committee that the clean-up of the Chesapeake Bay and the prevention of future lead contamination are high priorities for the Agency. When questioned by Senator John Boozman (R-AR) about EPA’s relationship with stakeholders, Wheeler stated that clear communication between EPA and its stakeholders is essential before implementing any regulatory action. EPA is also committed to working with other government agencies to enhance their regulatory process.
Next, the Trump Administration’s decision to roll back auto fuel efficiency and emissions standards, as well as the partial revocation of California’s ability to set its own emissions standards, was met with strong objection from Democratic Senators. Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) stated that the oil industry is “scared to death that $1 trillion will stay stranded in the pockets of consumers. That’s why the Trump Administration is moving to roll back these standards.” Wheeler stated his belief that the roll back in emissions standards has saved American consumers $500 billion dollars and 12,000 lives. Moving forward, Wheeler wants to come up with a “50-states solution” for emissions standards to address the issue of air pollutants and reduce cross-state pollution.
The topic of chemicals was brought up by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) as he is concerned that EPA’s failure to consider all sources of exposure for risk assessment will pose an unreasonable risk to human health -- especially to vulnerable populations such as children, pregnant women, and the elderly. Senator Booker urged EPA to ban trichloroethylene (TCE) on the applications for which proposed rules were issued and ban methylene chloride since they are known carcinogens with recognized health hazards. Wheeler said EPA is moving forward with the assessment of these chemicals, but he declined to promise on a definitive timeframe. Similarly, Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) urged EPA to release the toxicological report on perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and set a safety level for PFOS in soil and water.
In response to a question on clean energy by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Wheeler stated he will not give preferential treatment for one source of energy over another; EPA’s role is to regulate pollutants, not to identify a preferential fuel source. Other miscellaneous topics included Wheeler’s commitment to not abuse his hiring authority. He expressed a willingness to notify the EPW Committee on EPA’s hiring process. In response to Senator Tammy Duckworth’s (D-IL) request, EPA will also make a commitment to reduce lead exposure.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=5aa68dd1-3a58-462a-a35e-0073eeb160db

Return to headline | Return to top
Paint-Lead Hazard Standard – a Reconsideration

Aug 5, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund

By Tom Neltner

After 20 years working on lead poisoning prevention, it has become almost second nature for me to object when someone suggests that children eating paint chips is a significant route of exposure. All too often, the claim implies that the blame rests with parents who are not conscientious enough to clean or maintain their home or to properly care for their children. The implication is demeaning to the parents and distracts from the often – invisible lead dust hazards on floors that pose the greatest risk to children. So when I hear that idea, I quickly respond that dust is the key route of exposure.
However, a discussion with Hannah Chang at Earthjustice over my blog on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) July 2, 2018 proposed rule helped me realize that I was misguided with regards to defining the hazards of lead-based paints. She is the main attorney for the organizations that convinced a panel of judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to order the EPA to update its lead-based paint hazard standard.
Hannah Chang told me I missed the most compelling point when I pointed out in my previous blog that “EPA did not appear to have considered HUD’s 2007 American Healthy Housing Survey, which should provide a solid basis for identifying the relationship between lead in paint and lead in dust.” She was right; my logic was too focused on dust as the primary source of exposure. Here is my reasoning; it may be helpful to those planning to submit comments to EPA by the August 16 deadline on the proposed rule.
EPA’s 2001 lead-based paint hazards standard at 40 CFR 745.65establishes three types of lead hazards: paint, dust and soil. The agency was directed by the court to revise the definition of paint- and dust-lead hazards but proposed changing only the definition of dust-lead hazards. For paint, EPA reasoned that it lacks sufficient information “to establish a statistically valid causal relationship between concentrations of lead in paint (lower than the current definition) and dust-lead loadings which cause lead exposure.”[1] The agency said it “would need to further explore the availability and application of statistical modeling approaches that establish robust linkages between the concentration of lead in paint below the current definition and floor dust and [blood lead level] before EPA could develop a technically supportable proposal to revise the definition of [lead-based paint].”
Clearly, EPA fell into the same trap I did; the agency connected paint-lead hazards to dust and did not consider that the standard is primarily focused on the risk of children eating paint chips.
The rule defines a paint-lead hazard as one of four conditions. One condition is “Any chewable lead-based painted surface on which there is evidence of teeth marks.”[2] Therefore, EPA is claiming that it has insufficient evidence to show that paint with between 5,000 and 600 ppm of lead would harm a child who chewed (and presumably swallowed) the paint. If the child ate no more than one square centimeter – about the size of a fingernail – the child would ingest at least 1,000 micrograms of lead.[3] This is equivalent to a child wiping and eating all the dust from 100 square feet of flooring under the proposed standard of 10 micrograms per square foot. Remember, the risk assessment would only find a hazard for the paint that is on a chewable surface with evidence of chewing.
Another condition is when paint on an impact surface is damaged or otherwise deteriorated. The rule gives two examples: a door knob that knocks into a wall or a door that knocks against the door frame. It is not a leap of logic to imagine that a child might ingest the paint chip loosened by the impact.
Similarly, a third condition is when a risk assessor finds dust-lead hazards and must evaluate nearby paint above the floor to determine if it is subject to abrasion. I have seen this on the inside track of a window frame, a door rubbing against a door frame, or a chair rubbing on a painted floor. Under EPA’s reasoning, a risk assessor would only find the abraded paint to be a paint-lead hazard if it contains more than 5,000 ppm of lead. When a dust-lead hazard is already found in a child-care center, why would EPA not want the risk assessor to use a lower threshold to determine whether the center has paint needs to be removed?
The final condition is “Any other deteriorated lead-based paint in any residential building or child-occupied facility or on the exterior of any residential building or child-occupied facility.”[4] It would only apply to “paint or other coating that is that is peeling, chipping, chalking or cracking, or any paint or coating located on an interior or exterior surface or fixture that is otherwise damaged or separated from the substrate.”[5] As with the other examples, if paint is separated from the substrate, a child is likely to eat it.
The bottom line is that for purposes of defining a paint-lead hazard, EPA already has sufficient evidence to tighten the definition of lead-based paint. At the very least, the definition should be lowered to mirror the definition of lead-based paint that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) used when it banned lead-based paint in 1978—that is, paint containing at least 600 ppm of lead. Since the 2009 petition that prompted the court order, CPSC has lowered the level from to 90 ppm based on the risk posed by a child ingesting the paint. When defining paint-lead hazards, EPA should use at least 600 ppm and consider lowering it to 90 ppm to be consistent with CPSC.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/08/05/paint-lead-hazard-reconsideration/

Return to headline | Return to top

Energy News

(ACC Mentioned) U.S. LNG Lands in Beijing's Tariff Crosshairs

Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Nathanial Gronewold

The trade spat between the United States and China is escalating, and more companies and industries are becoming embroiled in it.
As the Trump administration mulls higher import levies on some $200 billion worth of imports from China, Beijing has responded with additional tariff threats of its own, adding liquefied natural gas (LNG) to its list of targets.
Yet, experts see Chinese tariffs on U.S. oil and LNG as having little to no impact on the still-surging shale oil and gas business in the short to near term. They could crimp future investments in the U.S. oil patch or in additional LNG export projects, but it may be some time before any noticeable impact materializes, said Alan Stevens, head of natural resources at the industry consultancy BDO USA LLP.
"It could be a number of years, or a decade, before we see whether or not it did have a detrimental impact" on U.S. LNG, said Stevens. "There are always going to be other users of the product. The question is will they use as much as China did."
Last week, authorities in China announced a list of $60 billion worth of U.S. products that will face stiff tariffs should the U.S. government follow through with its own. On that list is LNG, which may be levied a 25 percent import tariff. Beijing has already threatened levies on U.S. crude oil.
Industry trade groups are up in arms as a result and are yelling at the Trump administration to cease fire. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) sees China's newest tariff threat impacting its member companies particularly hard. The American Petroleum Institute (API) reacted sharply to the news on LNG tariffs last Friday, warning that the trade war will hit the U.S. the most so far as energy is concerned.
"China is the third largest importer of U.S. LNG, but U.S. LNG makes up only a modest but growing portion of China's supply portfolio, which suggests that this particular trade dispute will hurt America more than it hurts China," API Vice President Kyle Isakower said in a release.
Raising levies on energy imports is a curious step for Beijing to take given China's huge dependence on energy imports, but that is precisely what the Chinese government is proposing. In targeting U.S. energy, China may be hurting itself; any government measure that raises energy prices could be felt throughout the Chinese economy while doing little to slow down U.S. oil and gas, said Giles Farrer, LNG research director at Wood Mackenzie.
"In the short term, the tariff would likely raise LNG prices," Farrer said in an assessment. "Chinese buyers would bear the burden of the tariff because there is enough demand outside of China for U.S. LNG."
China's final end users may be spared the additional costs, he added. But existing U.S. LNG export projects wouldn't be hurt, either, and may even be helped should China's shunning of U.S. LNG simply cause LNG prices to rise everywhere.
"On stream and under construction U.S. LNG would not be adversely affected," Farrer said. "U.S. LNG, with a tariff, would become the marginal supply source into China. Chinese buyers could face a situation where non-U.S. suppliers, including portfolio players, could capture a larger margin if the Chinese buyer's alternative includes the tariff. This would have knock-on impacts to the rest of the market."
Cheniere Energy Inc., a U.S. LNG company with existing supply contracts with China, will be watching closely to determine how Chinese tariffs on U.S. LNG may impact it.
Eben Burnham-Snyder, a Cheniere representative, said the company is still scrutinizing the details of China's tariff threat.
"While we are waiting on details of the recent announcement and do not view tariffs as productive, Cheniere continues to see China as an important growth market and LNG as a 'win-win' between the United States and China, as evidenced by the American jobs and investment created from the recent decision to build train three at our Corpus Christi facility, which was commercialized in part by a U.S. LNG to China deal," he said in an email.
That Corpus Christi deal illustrates one point — losing the Chinese market may see investor interest in future U.S. LNG export proposals evaporate. Farrer acknowledges this concern but still thinks this effect will be short-lived.
"Long-term market consequences are likely to be felt on new supply developments as it would restrict the target market for developers of new U.S. LNG projects trying to find new long-term contracts," Farrer said. "However, as plenty of appetite exists from other buyers in Asia and Europe for second-wave U.S. LNG projects, this is unlikely to be terminal."
In other words, growth in U.S. LNG export capacity may slow beyond 2020, but it won't stop. In the meantime, under-construction projects like Corpus Christi in Texas, Cameron in Louisiana and Elba Island in Georgia will move forward, and their LNG cargoes will find customers once these export platforms are operational, with or without China.
"The first wave of U.S. LNG projects were successful despite not signing contracts with Chinese buyers," Farrer said.LNG on the move
Crude oil is arguably the world's most liquidly traded, fungible commodity. A barrel not sold in one jurisdiction will easily be sold somewhere else.
Global LNG trade is increasingly moving in the same direction, especially as cheaply sourced U.S. LNG exports have given large LNG consumers leverage in negotiating better prices and more flexible contract terms with global LNG exporters. If China shuns U.S. LNG shipments, it loses much of this leverage, while U.S. LNG would be sold to someone else anyway.
This math may be the reason why U.S. oil and gas companies themselves seem much less alarmed over the trade war, in contrast to the panic at API and ACC.
A trade war and potential Chinese tariffs on U.S. oil and LNG didn't come up during Exxon Mobil Corp.'s most recent call with analysts. Chevron Corp. executives didn't mention the trade dispute with China either, and analysts didn't bring it up in that company's call.
ConocoPhillips' vice president for drilling, Al Hirshberg, did fret about tariffs, but on steel. The cost-conscious oil and gas sector is noticing significant price inflation in steel as a result of the Trump administration's tariffs on steel imports. Oil companies are warning investors that those costs will likely impede business performance to some degree moving forward.
"We have been and are going to continue to see some inflation pressure, including the steel tariffs in the U.S., which is turning out to be a fairly significant item for us," said Hirshberg, adding that steel costs have risen 26 percent since the start of the year, "even though the input cost to the manufacturers of this steel haven't changed."
But even higher steel costs haven't been slowing down oil and gas so far.
In the U.S., oil and gas companies' capital expenditures were up 32 percent for 2017 compared with the year before, about $115 billion, said Herb Listen, an assurance practice leader at EY. The expanding capex spending trend is seen as continuing, though at a measured pace given the industry's push to drive value through efficiency and cost-control, not through mass hydrocarbons production.
That discipline has paid off as U.S. drillers are booking vast new proven reserves of natural gas and crude oil available for the taking. "The oil and gas companies in our study group have really focused on being efficient, being economical, cutting down costs per barrel and focused on expanding their portfolios, and it has shown in the growth of reserves," said Listen.
China has struggled to launch its own domestic shale gas industry. Meanwhile, industry in the U.S. expanded its domestic U.S. shale gas reserves by 19 percent last year, according to EY's research. Analysts there say U.S. natural gas producers have access to some 176 trillion cubic feet of reserves under current market conditions.
"Gas prices really haven't increased significantly year over year, so what this means is that the companies are booking or recording additional reserves based on new reserves, extensions of reserves and new discoveries of reserves, and they're economical," said Listen. "So we have a very significant global position as a U.S. producer."
U.S. crude oil reserves grew by 21 percent last year, he added, and U.S. oil production is predicted to continue expanding for several years. China's domestic oil output is flat or in decline, and its dependence on oil imports is rising.
China is the world's largest market for oil exporters and is poised to lead in gas demand growth. At the same time, the U.S. is seen as dominating gas and LNG supply growth, says the International Energy Agency. IEA sees price competition in LNG ahead as a surge of new export capacity comes online by 2020; "however this could be short lived with dynamic growth in Asian emerging markets."
Though China is by far the most promising LNG demand growth market, it is not the only one. A number of LNG receiving terminals are being built or are planned throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans (Energywire, Aug. 1).Global economic fears
Although Chinese tariffs on U.S. energy may fail to deal a major blow to U.S. energy companies, they could be a boon to other energy exporters. Russia and Saudi Arabia are increasing oil production, and lost competition in China from U.S. oil exporters would allow them to capture more market share there, even though the United States' market share there is already relatively low.
In a recent report, Graeme Bethune, CEO of EnergyQuest, sees a windfall for Australia's LNG exporters should China's government follow through on its most recent tariff threat. While U.S. LNG can and will find other buyers, China can easily find other sellers in turn, he said. But Australian LNG exporters shouldn't celebrate too soon.
"U.S. tariffs and China's retaliatory rhetoric have emerged as a big risk for commodity demand and prices in 2018, alongside a slowdown in the Chinese economy and geopolitical uncertainty," Bethune noted.
And therein lies the real risk, said Stevens at BDO: Oil companies are concerned about the escalating trade spat not because it threatens their business, but because it threatens to slow global economic growth, which could hit oil demand and thus oil prices in the process. East Asian market analysts are particularly worried about Trump's threats to levy tariffs on U.S. auto imports, which they say would be a major drag on global economic growth.
"The big impact to the industry would just be the continuation of the trade war and whether it has a detrimental effect to the world economy," Stevens said. "But it's too early to tell right now."
Stevens added another reason why the U.S. oil patch isn't too afraid of the trade war with China: The industry has already been through hell and back, and survived. That occurred during the oil price crash from mid-2014 to 2017.
Losing an export market that didn't exist just three or four years ago would be easily survivable by comparison, and not the fatal blow to U.S. oil and gas interests that some observers are warning about, he argued. "I have not heard my clients speak to that being a concern of theirs," Stevens said. "I don't know that anyone is losing sleep over it."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/08/06/stories/1060092777

Return to headline | Return to top
Despite 'Trade War,' U.S. Natural Gas Exports Booming To Record Highs

Aug 5, 2018 | Forbes

By Jude Clemente

Some U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) news this past week was indeed bleak. Previously exempt from the trade spat, China announced plans to put a 25% tariff on imports of U.S. LNG. China has accounted for about 13-15% of the exports from our flagship LNG terminal, Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass in Louisiana, since operations started in February 2016. China, of course, is the world's largest incremental gas market, now only using a third of what the U.S. consumes, despite having over four times the population. Last year, China surpassed South Korea to become the world's 2nd largest LNG importer and actually surpassed leader Japan for the month of May.
But, there was also great news for the industry during the week: U.S. LNG exports are soaring to record highs . EIA data notes that six LNG vessels with a combined capacity of 21.6 Bcf left the U.S, five from Sabine Pass and one from Dominion Energy's Cove Point in Maryland. For July, 30 LNG cargoes left the country, and we saw the highest exports in our history. EIA reports that 23 of the cargoes shipped out of Sabine Pass, with the rest leaving from Cove Point. Overall, we had a total export volume of nearly 105 Bcf. As a backdrop, we were one of 19 global LNG exporters in 2017 and accounted for 5% of the almost 40 Bcf/d global LNG market - up from nothing just a few years ago.
Yet, the future still shines even brighter. By the end of next year, the number of major operating U.S. LNG export terminals will at least triple to six . Importers seek the flexible contracts, transparent hub-based pricing, and spot sales that our industry deploys, not to mention craving access to the massive and ever-growing U.S. gas production complex that is 30% larger than 2nd place Russia.
And we are obviously looking East. In operation or under-construction, the U.S. has sold around 45% of its yearly LNG output to Asia, mostly to Japan and South Korea. But the reality is that both are mature energy demand markets and both have declining populations. To illustrate, Japan's nuclear restart and large renewable build could lower LNG imports by 20% or so over the next five years. South Korea might be a better option but is still slow-growing: "LNG consumption growth at 0.81% annually over the next 13 years, well below an annual average rate of 5.1% the past 13 years."
Turning to the other key LNG buying area, the recent meeting between U.S. President Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker could help ease the pain of a trade war but many countries there also have declining populations and new gas demand is limited. Last year, for instance, Europe's LNG import utilization was just 25-30%. Russia will remain tough competition: "Europe to pay 30% more for US LNG, Russia’s EU envoy warns."
Indeed, we already knew that hiccups would come as we continually splash into the rapidly expanding LNG global pool: "Six Threats For The U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas Business."
Although, there is a number of hugely populated new wave of LNG importers coming into the market (They Might Be Giants: Emerging LNG Importers Are Reshaping the Waterborne Gas Market), China and India will remain the most prized partners for our gas sellers. These two nations hold 37% of humanity and want to utilize more natural gas to lower their reliance on coal for the bulk of energy supply. For example, China will account for at least a third of all new LNG demand for the foreseeable future.
But our approval process still needs expedited, a nagging issue for us since the beginning that has long had bi-partisan support to change. More than 12 U.S. LNG export terminals are awaiting permit approval from FERC , an agency that is now unfortunately split 2-2 along party lines, likely slowing the process even more. Without more urgency, we risk losing out on the supply shortfall coming in the early-2020s. Indeed, global LNG demand is surging that fast. Now is the time: the entire permitting process takes five to six years before an LNG export facility gets built.
Yet make no mistake, if China imposes and sustains tariffs (I don't think it will), this would be a big problem for U.S. LNG export terminals that have not yet begun construction, as their target market could be blocked. Regardless though, our potential LNG export build-out is huge. And don't discount markets that we could possibly reach in South America, Africa, and even the resource-rich Middle East. These could be key seasonal markets: remember a drought in South America made it the biggest U.S. LNG buyer when our exports first started.
Ultimately, U.S. LNG exports could hit 8-9 Bcf/d by 2020 and 12-14 Bcf/d by 2025, or go higher. I've been curious about the only proposed facility on our West Coast, which is closer to prized Asia and will therefore have lower transport costs than the mushrooming plants along our Gulf Coast. After the project was denied in 2016, Pembina Pipeline has reapplied with FERC for the construction of its Jordan Cove LNG export project, with an expected decision in the second half of 2019. The goal is to have a 1.1 Bcf/d sendout capacity, and such projects in the West would be well advised to source huge gas reserves in Colorado - if the political divides can be bridged between the mix of conservative and liberal states in the region.
Other U.S. oil and gas export news:With U.S.pipeline exports to Mexico approaching a record 5 Bcf/d, newly elected President Obrador's decision to "ban fracking" will surely mean more U.S. gas.Global demand for LNG is expected to continue the annual average growth of 5-7% that it has had since 2000. China and the other importers will struggle mightily to reach shale oil and gas production, so imports will retain a growing role in the energy mix.The trade dispute has pushed China's Unipec, the trading arm of oil major Sinopec and the largest U.S. crude oil buyer, to suspend U.S. imports.Cheniere is the only U.S. gas export company so far that has a binding contract with a Chinese customer.International Energy Agency: while top exporters Qatar and Australia will remain formidable competitors, the U.S. could be the largest LNG exporter by 2025 if new projects achieve their final investment decision over the next two years.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2018/08/05/despite-trade-war-u-s-natural-gas-exports-booming-to-record-highs/#61329ea014ea

Return to headline | Return to top
Breathing Easy in Beijing May Get Pricey on U.S. Gas Targets

Aug 5, 2018 | Bloomberg

By Dan Murtaugh and Stephen Stapczynski

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s trade policies are threatening to make his environmental goals more costly to meet.
The world’s biggest gas importer included U.S. liquefied natural gas on a list of goods Friday that could be hit with a 25 percent duty. While no date has been set to implement the tariff, the announcement comes just a few months ahead of winter, when Chinese demand for the U.S. heating fuel is likely to peak.
That Chinese policy makers would now take aim at U.S. LNG, which had been missing from previously targeted goods, signals that Xi may be willing to suffer some pain in order not to back down from President Donald Trump’s escalating trade dispute. His government’s clean-air push has made China the world’s largest buyer of natural gas, and erecting barriers to U.S. supplies could force the country to pay a premium this winter.
To read about what the tariffs mean for U.S. LNG projects, click here.
“China imposing tariffs on LNG imports from the U.S. marks a shift in strategy, but this action is more likely to hurt Chinese buyers than U.S. exporters,” Katie Bays, an analyst with Height Securities LLC in Washington D.C., said in an emailed note. “Chinese buyers will pay a higher price for their imports.”
A fuel clash between the U.S. and China is a sharp turnaround from last year, when Trump’s visit to Beijing included pledges by state-run companies to support U.S. export projects. China National Petroleum Corp., the country’s largest gas supplier, in February signed a 25-year deal to buy U.S. LNG, with some of that supply expected to start this year.Logical Fit
The LNG synergies between the two countries seem perfect. Xi’s push to cut smog led to policies forcing homes and factories to scrap coal boilers and burn cleaner natural gas. Meanwhile, excess supply in the U.S. has some analysts predicting the country is on track to become the world’s largest LNG exporter.
The U.S. plays a relatively small role in China’s overall gas balance as the country gets most of its imports via pipeline from Central Asia or from LNG heavyweights like Qatar and Australia. But gas demand in China peaks in the winter, when home heating use spikes, and the nation relies on LNG imports for quick injections of supply.
That’s where the U.S. fit last year. Unlike most sellers, U.S. companies including Cheniere Energy Inc. don’t restrict where their cargoes can be delivered. That means traders like Royal Dutch Shell Plc can buy U.S. LNG and redirect it to where demand, and price, is strongest. China imported more than 900,000 tons of U.S. LNG in the last three months of 2017, more than in the first nine months combined.Redirecting Cargoes
“U.S. LNG volumes make up about a quarter of spot traded volumes today, meaning that they are a key mechanism for meeting seasonal demand,” Bays said.
Tariffs would make U.S. supplies uneconomical to China, so traders would shift cargoes around to send U.S. fuel to other buyers like Japan and South Korea while redirecting non-U.S. fuel to China, Trevor Sikorski, an analyst with Energy Aspects Ltd. in London, said by email. China would probably end up paying about 10 percent more for spot cargoes after the swaps, he said.
“Chinese buyers could face a situation where non-U.S. suppliers, including portfolio players, could capture a larger margin if the Chinese buyer’s alternative includes the tariff,” Giles Farrer, research director for global gas and LNG supply at Wood Mackenzie Ltd., said in an emailed note. “This would have knock-on impacts to the rest of the market.”Make a Deal?
If LNG is included in the trade war, it would threaten to slow the growth of the entire industry. Higher LNG import prices in China might make Xi reconsider the country’s pivot from coal to gas, Neil Beveridge, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in Hong Kong, said in an Aug. 6 research note.
On the other hand, the rhetoric could be setting up a larger trade deal between the two countries centered around natural gas. It would make sense for CNPC’s listed unit PetroChina Co. to buy into U.S. gas assets to hedge against its large gas import position, Beveridge said.
“The latest rhetoric smacks of a negotiation being played out in a very public way,” he said. “LNG is one of the most obvious ways to lower a trade deficit between the U.S. and China and if there is a trade deal to be done, LNG will be involved.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-05/breathing-easy-in-beijing-may-get-pricier-as-u-s-gas-targeted

Return to headline | Return to top
Race Is on to Build Texas’ First Offshore Oil Export Terminal

Aug 6, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By Jordan Blum

The race is on to build Texas’ first offshore oil-exporting terminal that could accommodate the world’s largest crude-carrying vessels.
The global commodities trading firm Trafigura Group will announce Monday that it plans to build the Texas Gulf Terminals Project in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast from Corpus Christi. An offshore terminal would avoid port traffic and float in waters deep enough to handle the largest ships. Trafigura is unveiling the project almost three weeks after the Houston energy company Enterprise Products Partners said it plans to build an even larger offshore oil exporting terminal south of Galveston.
Corpus Christi and the Houston Ship Channel have led the nation in oil exports ever since Congress lifted the nation’s decades-old crude export ban at the end of 2015. The timing coincided with a boom in U.S. oil production, especially in West Texas’ Permian Basin, pushing crude volumes to record highs this summer. More of that oil is exported because domestic consumption remains relatively flat.
Just as there’s a rush to build pipelines hundreds of miles from the Permian to port and refining hubs near Houston and Corpus Christi, there’s also competition to construct oil exporting terminals to ship out the crude. The Port of Corpus Christi is expanding to handle the flood of oil, and several companies along the Houston Ship Channel are expanding terminals.
But the ports still aren’t able to handle the largest oil tankers, known as very large crude carriers, or VLCCs. Despite ongoing dredging efforts, the channels at Texas ports aren’t deep enough for the giant ships to leave the ports filled to capacity. Very large crude carriers can only fill up partially at Texas ports, and then receive the remaining oil volumes from another ship in deeper waters. It’s a more time-consuming and expensive process.
“The Texas Gulf Terminals Project will give U.S. crude oil producers, particularly Texas operators, safer, cleaner and more efficient access to very large crude carriers, ensuring that the economic and employment benefits of increasing domestic crude production can be fully realized right here at home,” said Corey Prologo, director of Texas Gulf Terminals Inc. and Trafigura.
The Swiss commodities trading firm is no stranger to U.S. oil exports. In early 2016, Trafigura chartered the ship for the first U.S. crude export shipment to Europe in more than 40 years, and Trafigura has continued as a leading exporter of crude and petroleum products from the Gulf Coast. Trafigura has offices in downtown Houston at the 5 Houston Center building.
The United States exports nearly 2 million barrels of oil daily, and Trafigura projects those volumes to grow to almost 5 million barrels a day by 2022. Overall, the United States is producing almost 11 million barrels of oil a day.
Trafigura said its project would export about 400,000 barrels of crude a day. The competing Enterprise Products offshore terminal project could be almost five times the size of the Trafigura proposal. Enterprise envisions a terminal that could load 2 million barrels of crude a day.
Enterprise plans to build pipelines to run about 80 miles from its Houston-area network to the offshore terminal where the water is naturally deeper. The project could be years in the making. Enterprise expects the state and federal permitting processes alone to take roughly a year before it can commence construction.
Trafigura said it filed its first project permit in July with the U.S. Transportation Department’s Maritime Administration, but the oil trading firm isn’t providing projected costs or a timeline just yet. The company, however, estimated that the terminal would create about 700 temporary construction jobs and 50 permanent positions.
Trafigura previously invested close to $1 billion in Buckeye Partners’ Corpus Christi processing and exporting hub in Corpus Christi. But Buckeye, a Houston pipeline company, recently bought out Trafigura’s 20 percent stake. Now, Trafigura is moving forward with its own project.
Earlier this year, Trafigura also signed a contract with another Houston company, Plains All American Pipeline, to ship up to 300,000 barrels of crude a day on Plains’ pending Cactus II oil pipeline from the Permian to Corpus Christi. The pipeline is expected to be completed in about a year from now.
The only offshore terminal operating in the Gulf is the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, called LOOP. But the 37-year-old LOOP was built for imports and only now is conducting test runs with export shipments. LOOP tentatively plans to expand and focus on exports, representing another potential competitor to the proposed Texas projects.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Race-is-on-to-build-Texas-first-offshore-oil-13130937.php

Return to headline | Return to top
As Congress Debates Russia Sanctions, Oil Companies Fret

Aug 4, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By James Osborne

Oil and gas executives have watched wearily in recent years as the relationship between the United States and Russia deteriorated, steadily closing off their ability to drill the vast shale plays underlying Siberia and the deep-water oil fields off Russia’s Arctic coast.
Now, spurred by President Donald Trump’s controversial appearance with Russian President Vladmir Putin, Congress is considering a flurry of legislation that threatens to go even further, potentially forcing U.S. and European companies such as Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell to divest positions not only in Russia, but also around the world. Existing oil and gas operations in Russia that were largely exempted under previous U.S. sanctions instituted in 2014 and 2017 could be placed on the chopping block, along with projects in other countries where western oil companies have partnered with Russian firms.
“The risk profile is going up,” said David Goldwyn, chairman of the energy advisory group at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. “If you can’t do business with Lukoil or Rosneft or Gazprom, then if you’re in a joint venture with them in Russia, as many U.S. companies are, then the risk is you’re forced out, perhaps at fire sale prices.”
Expanding the sanctions would almost certainly have implications for the energy sector in Houston, where Exxon, Shell and other oil companies doing business in Russia have major operations. International energy services companies that employ thousands in Houston and Texas, such as Halliburton and Schlumberger, would also likely be affected by aggressive sanctions against Russia, the world’s biggest oil producer.
With the midterm election fast approaching, Congress is debating how to deter Russia from interfering in that and future U.S. elections. At the forefront is bipartisan legislation introduced more than 12 months ago by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. The bill would require the U.S. government to automatically impose sanctions on “major sectors of the Russian economy, including finance, energy, defense, and metals and mining” should the director of national intelligence determine that Russia was buying advertising or using social media to influence the outcome of an American election.
“The Russians interfered in our election. Not only that, but I believe they’ll do so again in the future,” Rubio said during an appearance last month on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I think they’ve learned from 2016 methods, and different tactics that I believe they’ll utilize again, whether it’s in ’18, ’20 or ’22, but they’ll do it again, and they’ll be better at it.”
The United States imposed sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2014. Those sanctions were largely limited to individual businessmen and officials considered to be close to Putin, allowing U.S. oil companies to do business with Russian firms such as Rosneft.
Now, multiple bills are under consideration in the House and Senate. Politicians of both parties, such as Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are calling for what Congress wanted to avoid in 2014 — disrupting Russian energy production and potentially driving up global oil prices.
The rush of anti-Russian sentiment in Congress is worrying oil and gas executives, who fear their companies could soon be barred from operating in Russia, which has some of the largest oil reserves in the world, and working with Russian firms through joint ventures, which are commonplace for oil and gas projects that can cost tens of billions of dollars.
“There’s a lot of U.S. investment in Russia, too. Does a Ford plant in Russia get seized by the Russian government as retaliation?” Theodore Kassinger, a Washington trade attorney, said recently at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council. “These are the questions we get asked by clients every day.”
As relations between Moscow and Washington deteriorated over the past decade, U.S. oil and gas companies have backed away from Russia. The Houston independent Conoco Phillips sold off the last of its operations there in 2015. Earlier this year, Exxon announced it had pulled out of a 2013 deal with Rosneft to explore for Russian oil and gas, citing U.S. sanctions.
But the U.S. oil industry still has a considerable presence within the country. Exxon Mobil, for example, counts almost $6 billion in assets in Russia, including a sprawling, almost decade old oil and gas operation on frigid Sakhalin Island, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this year. Exxon also holds a 25 percent stake in Tengizchevroil, a joint venture in Kazakstan’s Caspian Sea, in which a subsidiary of Lukoil is also partner.
Chevron, likewise, could be exposed to new Russia sanctions through its 50 percent stake in the same venture in the Caspian. The California oil company also holds a 15 percent interest in a pipeline running from the Caspian Sea to the Russian city of Novorossiysk, in which Lukoil and Rosneft, as well as the Russian pipeline firm Transneft, also have a stake.
So far, oil companies are staying quiet on the sanctions debate, caught between their own financial interests and U.S. national security. The industry’s chief lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute, declined to comment on the Russian sanctions legislation, as did Exxon and Chevron.
At the center of the debate in Washington is the construction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline, which would deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany underneath the Baltic Sea, securing the Russian energy supply line into Europe for decades to come.
Both the Trump and Obama administrations publicly opposed the project as likely to increase Russian influence in Europe. Last month, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., introduced a bill calling for sanctions on the Nordstream project while also urging the Energy Department to speed up approval of liquefied natural gas exports to Europe.
But such a move could have unintended consequences since European companies, including Shell, are partners with Rosneft in the 760-mile pipeline. While headquartered in The Netherlands, Shell has large operations across the United States, potentially forcing the U.S. government to pursue a legal case against a major domestic employer.
“We don’t really know what’s going to happen, but if you look at the balance of [Shell’s] interests, if the Justice Department put a gun to their head and said choose between Nordstream and access to the U.S. markets, I think they’d choose U.S. markets,” said Gabriel Collins, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute. “It’s easy to draft legislation, but the decision to impose [sanctions] potentially has incredible complications.”
Shell did not respond to a request for comment.
Congressional hearings on pursuing further Russian sanctions are expected to begin later this summer. But already lawyers and policy analysts close to the energy industry are making the case against doing anything to damage Russian’s oil sector.
The risk politicians face is that if the United States imposes sanctions that push U.S. and European companies out of Russia, they would be replaced by oil companies from China or other countries. At the same time, the geopolitical turbulence would probably drive up oil and gasoline prices, hurting American consumers while increasing profits for Russian oil firms.
As reports of Russian meddling ahead of the midterm elections pop up, the likelihood of congressional action against Russia increases, said Goldwyn, the Atlantic Council energy specialist.
“The more we see signs of Russian interference in the election,” he said, “the more that’s going to be a freight train that no member of Congress is going to want to stand in front of.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/As-Congress-debates-Russia-sanctions-oil-13128182.php

Return to headline | Return to top
Energy Security Is a Two-Way Street: Fuel for Thought

Aug 6, 2018 | Platts

By Paul Hickin

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s recent claim that energy independence is within reach overlooks a fundamental principle of interconnected global trade: Producing countries need security of demand as much as consuming countries need security of supply.
While the US Energy Information Administration projects the US will become a net energy exporter within the next few years, as it already is for natural gas, the country will still need to buy heavier and sourer crude to blend with its lighter sweet grades and will be reliant on the political and economic relations it fosters with other energy suppliers.
Dependence can be as much a strength as a weakness, helping to guarantee security of supply and security of demand for both parties.
“History tells us that energy independence does not necessarily equate with energy security; Winston Churchill’s wise advice on achieving energy security through ‘variety and variety alone’ is as valid today as it was a Century ago,” said Carole Nakhle, CEO of consultancy Crystol Energy.
Nakhle points to the Persian Gulf countries’ growing relationship with Asia, not only through bilateral oil trade but through direct energy investment as an example of the interdependency of long-term supplies.
“However, competitive market structures give consumers stronger bargaining power simply because they have more choice,” she added.GAS SUPPLY CONCERNS
With gas supply, the debate has centered around Russia and its hegemonic supply of gas through pipelines across Europe. With oil, it has focused around the US and Iran and key oil and shipping routes in the Middle East.
On the gas side, Gazprom tried to assuage the EU’s fears earlier this year by suggesting the rising Russian share of the European gas market should not be a concern as customers are merely choosing the cheapest option for their gas needs.
That hasn’t stopped the jitters. Especially with plans afoot to build Nord Stream 2 across the Baltic Sea along a similar route to its 55 Bcm/year Nord Stream pipeline that will allow Russia to send up to 110 Bcm/year to Europe through the Baltic Sea route.
Neither the threat of US sanctions nor legal efforts by the European Commission have succeeded so far in derailing the project.
While it is true that Gazprom’s share of the European gas market has risen from about 25% earlier in the decade to around 34% in 2017, it is also true that Europe has a diversified supply.
EU security rules have promoted more two-way gas links in Central and Eastern Europe, allowing more gas to flow from other directions if there is a problem with supplies.LOTS OF OPTIONS
LNG import terminals provide access to new gas sources, including the US, with more potential infrastructure being planned, though at present, three-quarters of Europe’s existing LNG import capacity lies idle with economics being the arbiter of the EU’s gas imports, not politics.
Then there is the Southern Gas Corridor, with a network of ventures designed to bring gas from the Caspian region to Europe.
Three gas pipeline projects will provide a continuous route through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Albania and Italy and is expected to provide 10 Bcm a year of gas to Europe starting in 2020.
Russia has never directly cut off gas to Europe.
In 2009, a dispute between Ukraine and Russia led to gas supplies to Europe being disrupted for 13 days and it is this fragile relation which is the biggest risk for the EU.
Even then, the standoff between Russian and its neighbor came down to money.
OIL PARALLELS
Despite the relative tightening of global oil supplies after OPEC and its allies slashed output to rebalance the market, fears of a supply shock at this stage are overhyped.
While Venezuela, Libya and Iran remain output risks, there appears plenty of oil in the strategic stocks in the big consuming nations US and China, while the IEA – a body set up to promote energy security and respond to disruptions – has released oil stocks three times in its 40-year history to handle emergencies.
Indeed, the concerns appear over two critical sea routes. The Strait of Hormuz sees 18.5 million b/d of crude pass through its Persian Gulf choke point and Bab al-Mandab sees 5 million b/d of crude travel through its “gate of tears” on the Red Sea.
Iran has threatened the supply of oil from fellow OPEC members should it lose market share as US sanctions from November 4 take their toll.
Analysts believe 1 million b/d could come off the market by the end of the year which could be replaced by Saudi Arabian, Russian and Gulf barrels. The US Navy stands by to protect key waterways and analysts doubt that any blockade could last for long.
Houthi rebels, meanwhile, have upped their attacks on key Saudi infrastructure, which saw the temporary closure of the Bab al-Mandab even if that only raised eyebrows rather than hackles.
http://blogs.platts.com/2018/08/06/energy-security-oil-gas/

Return to headline | Return to top

Chemical Security News

(ACC Mentioned) Arkema, CEO Indicted for ‘Reckless’ Chemical Release During Hurricane Harvey

Aug 3, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By Keri Blakinger, Matt Dempsey, and David Hunn

A Harris County grand jury Friday indicted the French chemical company Arkema and two executives for the “reckless” release of toxic chemicals during Hurricane Harvey last August, a move that alarmed industry leaders and surprised environmental advocates.
The company, CEO Richard Rowe and plant manager Leslie Comardelle put residents and first responders at risk when the Crosby plant caught fire as Harvey dumped record rainfall on the Houston area, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
“As the hurricane approached, Arkema was more concerned about production and profit than people,” said Alexander Forrest, chief of the district attorney’s environmental crimes division.
The last time a chemical company faced criminal charges for a major incident in Texas was 2005, when an explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery killed 15 workers and injured almost 200. BP paid $50 million in fines for the incident, but no one from the company served prison time.
Arkema called the criminal charges filed against it “astonishing” and pledged to fight them vigorously.
“There has never been an indictment like this in Texas or any other state,” Arkema attorney Rusty Hardin said. “It would set an ominous precedent if a company could be held criminally liable for impact suffered as a result of the historic flooding of Hurricane Harvey that no one, including Harris County itself, was prepared for.”
But federal documents showed Arkema wasn’t even prepared for a much smaller flood, despite being partially in a flood plain.
The company’s emergency plan provided little direction to employees on how to handle major floods, and as a result, it couldn’t keep combustible organic peroxides cool. Its main power transformers and backup generators were not high enough off the ground. Neither was its backup liquid nitrogen cooling system.
And Arkema’s last line of defense failed when water inundated the fuel tanks that power freezer trucks. Over the next week, nine trailers of organic peroxides erupted in flames, sending pillars of fire and thick plumes of black smoke into the air. More than six first-responders were sickened, according to civil suits filed against the company.
A federal Chemical Safety Board investigation said Arkema was warned of flood risks a year before Harvey hit by its insurer at the time.
Prosecutors say the disaster could have been prevented. The grand jury charged Arkema, Rowe and Comardelle with reckless emission of an air contaminant under the Texas Water Code. The charge carries a penalty of up to five years in prison for the individuals and a fine of up to $1 million for the corporation. Rowe and Comardelle are expected in court Monday.
Rowe became the CEO of Arkema’s North America division in 2015. He’s worked with the company for the last 16 years.
Comardelle has worked for Arkema more than 25 years. He was part of the ride-out crew that tried to prevent the release.
Comardelle’s lawyers, Paul Nugent and Heather Peterson, said their client acted heroically and committed no crime. Rowe’s attorney, Tim Johnson, called the charges “baseless.” Hardin, Arkema’s attorney, said it would be hard for any reasonable person to call the company’s actions criminal.
The American Chemistry Council called the charges alarming and unreasonable.
Criminal charges following chemical incidents are rare in Texas.
A 2013 explosion at an Air Liquide facility in La Porte killed one worker and severely burned another. The company was not fined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or by the Environmental Protection Agency. The Chemical Safety Board did not investigate the incident. No criminal charges were filed.
An explosion of improperly stored ammonium nitrate in 2013 at West Fertilizer Co. in West, Texas, killed 15 people. Officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives believed arson started the fire, but no criminal charges were filed.
When a 2014 leak of methyl mercaptan killed four workers at a DuPont plant in La Porte, again, no criminal charges were filed.
But on Friday, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said she’d go after companies who pollute. Environmental advocates applauded her actions.
“I hope these kinds of criminal charges will really get the attention of not just Arkema but the industry more broadly,” said Luke Metzger, executive director of the advocacy group Environment Texas. “They can’t play fast and loose with safety standards and the protection of the public.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Arkema-CEO-indicted-for-reckless-chemical-13131012.php

Return to headline | Return to top
Texas Grand Jury Indicts Chemical Company for Harvey Explosion

Aug 3, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal

By Erin Ailworth

A grand jury in Texas has indicted a chemical company whose plant near Houston caught fire and exploded following Hurricane Harvey last year.
The grand jury in Harris County, which includes Houston, on Friday indicted Arkema North America, a branch of French industrial chemical maker Arkema SA. It also indicted Arkema North America’s chief executive, Richard Rowe, and plant manager Leslie Comardelle.
According to a statement from Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg’s office, the grand jury concluded “they were responsible for the release of a toxic cloud” over Crosby, Texas, where the plant is located about 25 miles northeast of Houston. The accident and explosionunfolded over several days starting in late August 2017.
“Companies don’t make decisions, people do,” Ms. Ogg said. The charges carry up to five years in prison for the employees, and a fine up to $1 million for Arkema.
The company called the indictment “astonishing” and said its employees at the Crosby plant “performed heroically” as Harvey swept the region.
“It is hard to believe anyone would seek to criminalize the way in which one facility was impacted by such a crushing natural disaster,” said Arkema spokeswoman Janet Smith.
A U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board probe found earlier this year that safety plans at the plant fell short of industry standards, but that those standards were also likely too weak to have prevented the crisis anyway.
While the Arkema plant had a disaster plan in place, it didn’t anticipate the 6 feet of floodwater that hit the facility, the investigation concluded. That flooding led to the failure of the plant’s main power source, forcing workers to shut off emergency generators.
Without those generators, the organic peroxides made at the plant grew unstable and ultimately ignited, spreading noxious smoke for miles.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-grand-jury-indicts-chemical-company-for-harvey-explosion-1533327068

Return to headline | Return to top
Arkema Indicted Over Chemical Explosions During Hurricane Harvey

Aug 3, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Sam Pearson and Karn Dhingra

Chemical company Arkema Inc. and two executives face up to $1 million in fines and as much as five years in prison over their actions managing reactive chemicals in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
A grand jury in Harris County, Texas, Aug. 3 issued a criminal indictment against the company, its CEO Richard Rowe, and Leslie Comardelle, the plant manager at the Crosby, Texas, site.
“Companies don’t make decisions, people do,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement. “Responsibility for pursuing profit over the health of innocent people rests with the leadership of Arkema.”
The Crosby site produces a volatile class of substances known as reactive chemicals. When the facility lost electric power and backup generators failed during Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Arkema placed its inventory of organic peroxide in refrigerated trailers. But as floodwaters rose, the trailers eventually lost power, too.
Authorities evacuated 200 residents within a 1.5-mile radius of the plant, and the chemicals decomposed and ignited over several days.
Arkema: ‘Outrageous’ Charges
Arkema Inc., a subsidiary of France-based Arkema SA, said in a statement it strongly disagrees with the indictments.
“It is outrageous to assert that Arkema or any of its employees behaved criminally,” spokeswoman Janet Smith said. “No one needs a reminder that Hurricane Harvey devastated a wide region. It overcame the preparedness efforts of millions of individuals, and many, many companies and government agencies. It is hard to believe anyone would seek to criminalize the way in which one facility was impacted by such a crushing natural disaster.”
Harris County and Texas state regulators are also pursuing civil damages from Arkema.
“If the (Arkema) plant reopens, we’re seeking injunctive relief that would require the company to put in place corrective measures and safeguards to ensure against a similar situation like this happening again,” Harris County Attorney Rock Owens, told Bloomberg Environment.
Harris County is also seeking punitive fines from Arkema, Owens said, thought he declined to give Bloomberg Environment a number because the Harris County was still in negotiations with the company.
Arkema correctly followed its emergency plan during the hurricane, but wasn’t prepared for the more than 40 inches of rain it received during the storm, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board said in a May report.
The safety board noted that Arkema had multiple systems in place to protect the organic peroxide products from overheating. But the systems were all prone to a “common mode of failure” — extreme flooding.
Arkema’s actions were reasonable given the unforeseen strength of the storm, its attorney, Rusty Hardin, a partner and founder of Rusty Hardin & Associates LLP in Houston, said in a statement Aug. 3.
“Ultimately, in pursuing these charges against Arkema, Harris County will have the daunting task of trying to prove that Arkema anticipated the possibility of six feet of floodwater and then decided not to prepare for it,” Hardin said. “This will prove to be impossible, because it’s not what happened. “
(Updates with details on civil charges starting in eighth paragraph. An earlier version added additional details from the indictment and details from a CSB investigation.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/arkema-indicted-over-chemical-explosions-during-hurricane-harvey-2

Return to headline | Return to top

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Bipartisanship Alive and Well, Protecting Critical Infrastructure

Aug 3, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog

By Erik Olson

Despite increasingly partisan rhetoric on a range of national security issues, this week showed us that bipartisanship is still alive and well when it comes to protecting American rail and other critical infrastructure against underhanded practices by foreign nations with questionable motives.
This proved true recently as the Senate “minibus” spending bill, H.R. 6147, was passed with language prohibiting the use of federal dollars from subsidizing Chinese state-owned enterprises that are increasingly targeting American rail manufacturing. The measure, led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), disallows recipients of Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funds from using those dollars to contract out an array of bus and rail transit projects to Chinese government-owned or -controlled companies. The amendment received broad bipartisan support; co-sponsors ranged from Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), among others.
Senators with meaningfully different ideologies are rallying around efforts to fend off growing risks to America’s critical infrastructure, where foreign – and largely Chinese government -- investment and interference raises real questions about passenger safety and national security. In rail, which is one of seven sectors deemed to be part of the U.S. critical infrastructure, transit and freight trains run through every major city and military base in our country, carrying passengers, industrial cargo and military as well as nuclear materials. Imagine the danger of allowing the means of transportation of these trains to become controlled by the government of China.
And yet, in cities from Boston to Los Angeles, local authorities have already awarded contracts for new metropolitan rail transit systems to China’s national behemoth, CRRC, which has underbid competitors by as much as half to secure those deals. Now CRRC is angling for additional metro transit deals in cities like Atlanta and even Washington, D.C. The much-needed Cornyn/Baldwin language helps ensure against handing over future rail deals to China’s government, while protecting the integrity and security of our nation’s railcar manufacturing, steel, and associated supply industries. Moreover, the Cornyn/Baldwin provision bill is similar to a measure spearheaded by Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Kay Granger (R-Texas), and adopted by the House Appropriations Committee in recent weeks.
China’s CRRC is targeting the U.S. market as a means of advancing that Government’s ‘Made in China 2025’ initiative, which aims to explicitly overtake and destroy critical U.S. industries, railcar and rolling stock manufacturing among them. China has already carried out a similar strategy in Australia, where CRRC was able to overtake and destroy the entire passenger and freight railcar sector in less than a decade. Were this strategy allowed to play out in the United States, more than 65,000 U.S. jobs and $6.5 billion in GDP would be at stake, as noted by a recent Oxford Economics study. Without our domestic capability, we would be vulnerable and dependent on China for a critical piece of our nation's security infrastructure.
In the days ahead, House and Senate conferees will come together to finalize the Department of Transportation funding package. It is vital that a strong version of these measures, notably the language included in the House version, remains in the final bill that goes to the President. America’s rail manufacturing interests, and the security of the passenger, industrial, military and government stakeholders who rely on it, are counting on Congress to continue to push past partisan differences and stand up, together, for the security of critical infrastructure.
Erik Olson is vice president of the Rail Security Alliance, an alliance of companies, unions and individuals looking to ensure the security of America’s railroad system.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/400312-bipartisanship-alive-and-well-protecting-critical-infrastructure

Return to headline | Return to top
How Railroads Shouldered a Risky Oil Rush — and Could Return

Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Blake Sobczak

Five years ago, an explosion tore through the night in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Another blast quickly followed, then another, and another.
A 72-car train laden with crude oil had derailed and caught fire in the center of the small town near Canada's border with Maine.
By the time the flames subsided, downtown Lac-Mégantic was a tangle of twisted rails, flattened buildings and smoldering, jackknifed tank cars. Forty-seven people had died in one of the worst rail accidents in modern North American history.
The Lac-Mégantic disaster was the most tragic and visible consequence of a surge in crude-by-rail traffic that had gripped U.S. and Canadian energy markets by July 2013. The accident thrust a critical — but previously unremarked — facet of the shale drilling industry into the spotlight, forcing regulators, railroad executives and activists to reckon with the rise of "virtual pipelines" of rail tank cars.
The U.S. shale revolution brought drilling and production to places such as North Dakota's Bakken Shale that lacked the network of infrastructure to move the product away. Rail filled that void.
At its peak four years ago, crude-by-rail traffic topped 1.1 million barrels per day. If that all fit into a single train moving 50 mph, it would block traffic at rail crossings for nearly 30 minutes.
The swell has since subsided, due to a build-out of pipelines and changing market dynamics. From North Dakota to Virginia, a spate of derailments and fires grabbed headlines and forever changed how many communities came to view railroad tracks crossing through town. Terminals once used to load and unload crude into tank cars go unused, and tens of thousands of empty cars sit idle in the countryside. Crude-by-rail shipments stand at a quarter of their 2014 heyday.
In Albany, N.Y., once a flashpoint in the fight between the energy industry and groups opposed to any crude-by-rail build-out, oil from the Bakken Shale play hasn't passed through town in more than two years. Legal challenges against a local oil company have all been thrown out or withdrawn.
"We just figured: What's the point of fighting them over this thing that isn't even happening anymore?" said Chris Amato, an Earthjustice staff attorney who mounted a string of lawsuits against plans to boost crude traffic in Albany.
Nevertheless, he said he is not ready to claim victory and would keep an eye out for "the foreseeable future."
"Nobody is walking away from this issue," he said. "Everyone understands that market conditions have caused this major downturn in train traffic — but market conditions can change. We can see a resurgence."
Today, industry observers say the U.S. and Canada may be poised for another crude-by-rail bounce, nearly a decade after the idea to carry an oil boom by train took root in the Midwest.
The rush begins
The first round of crude oil trains rumbled out of North Dakota in 2010 as an offshoot of the burgeoning shale drilling industry.
Breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing and the use of horizontal drilling had set off a rush of oil exploration across the U.S.
In Texas, an established pipeline industry largely absorbed the sudden rise in crude oil and natural gas production.
But in North Dakota's Bakken Shale play, pipeline capacity was in short supply. Oil producers had to get creative to move their product to out-of-state refineries, while midstream companies hurried to build pipelines to catch up.
EOG Resources Inc., the successor to Enron Oil and Gas Co., filled up the first oil train at its Stanley, N.D., terminal on Dec. 31, 2009.
Other companies followed suit. Moving crude by rail was fast, flexible and economical given the high prices oil companies could fetch on the East Coast, where refiners were eager for alternatives to pricey foreign crude.
In New York, the state capital had quickly transformed into a hub for moving Bakken oil from rail cars onto barges for passage along the Hudson River.
Fuel logistics giant Global Partners LP was pursuing plans to expand its Albany operations to bring in heavier crude oil from Canada.
"Suddenly these massive oil trains started rolling through the streets of Albany, filled with Bakken crude," recalled Amato of Earthjustice, who filed a lawsuit in June 2014 to fight Global Partners' plans. "We became the attorneys not only for a public housing development, which sits right on the border of the [Global Partners] facility, but also a broad coalition of community and environmental groups vociferously opposed to any expansions."
Similar fights played out across the U.S. as developers rushed to build terminals to offload or transfer the glut of crude gushing out of the Bakken and onto U.S. railways.
While federal law pre-empted local groups' attempts to directly restrict crude oil train traffic, the need for offloading infrastructure provided a prime target for crude-by-rail opponents (Energywire, Jan. 13, 2014).
Activists racked up several victories: In Benicia, Calif., the City Council voted in 2016 to nix Valero Corp.'s plans to add a rail offloading terminal to a local refinery.
Grays Harbor Rail Terminal, a subsidiary of U.S. Development Group, withdrew from plans to build a crude-by-rail terminal in Grays Harbor County, Wash., after encountering pushback from environmental and tribal groups.
Earlier this year, plans for building the biggest-ever crude-by-rail unloading facility along Washington state's Columbia River fell through after Gov. Jay Inslee (D) rejected the proposal (Energywire, Jan. 30).
Refining firm Andeavor's joint venture with Savage Cos. would have been capable of moving 360,000 barrels of crude every day from rail tank cars onto barges at the Port of Vancouver.Tank car troubles
Defenders of these developments pointed to the potential for economic gains and cited the fact that the overwhelming majority of crude-by-rail shipments reach their destinations without incident.
There was recent precedent for moving flammable liquids in bulk — the ethanol industry in the Midwest had relied on "unit" trains since the mid-2000s, stringing dozens of loaded tank cars together.
But moving either commodity in rail cars came with new and as yet poorly understood risks. The kind of car typically used for oil and ethanol, known as the DOT-111, had already established a rickety performance record during crashes. Some refiners, including Andeavor (formerly Tesoro Corp.), pledged to use only newer-model cars in a bid to win more local support for crude-by-rail expansions. But with tank cars in short supply amid yearslong manufacturing backlogs, DOT-111s remained a go-to option through 2016.
"The cars they were using were basically designed to carry things like corn oil," said Christopher Hart, who served as chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 2015 to 2017. He retired from the independent agency earlier this year. "When one of these big trains derails, there's a good likelihood that there's going to be a major conflagration."
A 2009 ethanol train derailment and fire outside Cherry Valley, Ill., foreshadowed oil-fueled disasters to come.
A Canadian National Railway train composed of DOT-111 tank cars crashed and burst into flames, killing one woman and injuring nine other people.
Following an in-depth investigation, the NTSB urged regulators to build tank cars with tougher tank heads and improved puncture resistance.
But hordes of DOT-111s stayed on the tracks. Years later, following the Lac-Mégantic derailment, trains relying on these older-model tank cars earned a nickname from environmental and safety advocates: "bomb trains." They weren't alone: A 2014 analysis from the Transportation Security Administration, marked "For Official Use Only," warned that terrorist groups could use sticky bombs "to turn freight trains to giant firestorms."
The push to develop new tank car rules in the wake of the Lac-Mégantic accident grew into a yearslong, cross-border battle among green groups, rail car manufacturers, regulators and oil companies.
The rail industry pushed out an upgraded, voluntary tank car standard, the CPC-1232, while the outdated DOT-111 models kept rolling.
Under common carrier obligations, railroads couldn't legally refuse to transport DOT-111s. Yet companies like Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. and BNSF Railway Co. would be on the hook for any damages in the event their trains derailed and exploded.
"The industry was obviously the first to realize that they had a problem," Hart recalled. "I give them a lot of credit for trying to get ahead of that curve" by developing the CPC-1232 in concert with tank car manufacturers, he said.
In November 2013, a Genesee & Wyoming Inc. oil train derailed and triggered a series of tank car explosions outside Aliceville, Ala., injuring no one but raising the stakes in the U.S.
The following month, a BNSF oil train crashed into derailed grain cars outside Casselton, N.D., setting off another inferno and drawing scrutiny from lawmakers.
Subsequent oil train derailments and fires in Lynchburg, Va.; Mount Carbon, W.Va.; and several other states kicked off a flurry of action among local governments and environmental activists.
By May 2015, the Department of Transportation issued a final rule aimed at boosting oil and ethanol train safety over the next decade and a half. The regulations laid out a timetable for retiring or retrofitting DOT-111s, while defining a new, sturdier standard: the DOT-117, replete with a thicker steel shell, improved thermal protection and full-height head shields at either end of the car, among other changes.
In its justification for the rule, DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration predicted that up to 14 oil and ethanol trains would derail each year for nearly two decades if regulators failed to act.
That forecast hasn't come to pass, in part because the number of trains carrying hazardous materials has fallen precipitously. Last year, the Government Accountability Office found that DOT had so far overstated the frequency and impact of oil and ethanol derailments since its 2015 rule came into effect. Thirteen hazardous materials derailments occurred in those two years compared with the two dozen DOT had forecast.
Today, EOG's Stanley terminal, once tailored to fill two 100-car "unit" trains of crude each day, loads sand instead, a company spokeswoman confirmed.
"We stopped railing oil out of the Bakken in 2015 because pipeline was built and [price] differentials shrank," EOG spokeswoman Kim Ehmer said.
Similar stories played out across the U.S. as energy markets shifted and crude-by-rail traffic slumped.
In December 2015, Canadian pipeline giant Enbridge Inc. finished reversing a 400-mile stretch of its Line 9 oil pipeline, allowing it to pump light crude east from Alberta and the Bakken into Montreal refineries.
The 470,000-barrels-per-day Dakota Access pipeline became operational in June 2017, seemingly negating the need for crude to move by rail car.
"You should never say never, but it's probably unlikely that U.S. railroads will again carry as much crude oil as they did a few years ago," the Association of American Railroads (AAR) concluded in a June traffic report. "That said, U.S. rail carloads of crude oil are heading higher."
Hillary Stevenson, director of business development for oil at Genscape Inc., called it a "zombie" bounce in crude-by-rail traffic.
Oil traders have once again spotted profit margins in moving Bakken crude east by rail, as the price gap between U.S. oil and foreign Brent crude drifts apart.
In the first three months of the year, U.S. railroads moved 5,500 more carloads of crude than they did in the last quarter of 2017, according to AAR figures.
Even if the differential between Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude evaporates — it stood at just $5 midday Friday — Stevenson projected that crude-by-rail will always find a baseline market. But volumes may never again reach their 2014 heyday.
"We expect that North Dakota barrels will always move by rail to the Pacific Northwest — unless they build a pipeline through the Rockies, which no one has ever proposed," she said.
North Dakota regulators have urged energy companies to prepare for a second round of oil train traffic.
"We're seeing a fairly rapid increase in rail utilization," Lynn Helms, director of the North Dakota Industrial Commission's Department of Mineral Resources, said in a June press conference.
He said the uptick in train movements puts the state's oil "conditioning" rules back in the spotlight.
In 2014, under pressure from the federal government and even other state regulators, the North Dakota Industrial Commission placed a cap on certain chemical properties of crude oil bound for rail transport. The goal was to reduce the chance that volatile Bakken crude would explode in future derailments.
"It's very important that we stay focused on that as we move oil off the pipelines and back into rail cars," Helms said.Ongoing concerns
As of Jan. 1, DOT-111s are barred from being used to transport bulk quantities of crude oil or ethanol across North America.
But a June 22 derailment and spill near Doon, Iowa, brought renewed focus on some of their successors — DOT-111 cars that have been retrofitted to meet the new requirements.
BNSF estimated that 14 tank cars in the recent derailment were breached, spilling 160,000 gallons of heavy Canadian crude oil into floodwaters.
The case also reflects a recent uptick in the volumes of crude oil moving south into the U.S. from Canada's oil sands regions.
U.S. imports of Canadian crude by rail nearly doubled between March and May of this year, topping 200,000 barrels per day, based on the most recent data available from the Energy Information Administration.
For now, Global Partners has given up on its bid to move some of that crude through Albany.
On May 22, the company withdrew its application to modify a 2013 air permit in a move that could have enabled it to process heavier oil through its Albany terminal.
Global said in a statement that it would resubmit a permit application later this year.
The changes are set to "include a reduction in the amount of crude oil handled through the terminal and will not include a system for the heating of crude oil," the company said.
Amato of Earthjustice said he will try to make sure of that.
"We're hoping that in this new permit proceeding, we'll be able to gain some significant reductions in the amount of crude oil that this company is allowed to bring into the facility."
That would force Global to resubmit to the lengthy permitting process in the event crude-by-rail economics turned on a dime.
"Markets could change tomorrow — they could start hauling Bakken oil again into this facility," Amato said. "That's something that raises all of the concerns that we raised back at the beginning."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/08/06/stories/1060092773

Return to headline | Return to top
Another Voice: Rail Inspections Needed to Protect Our Towns

Aug 4, 2018 | The Buffalo News

By John S. Szalasny

Paul A. Karas, the acting commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, claimed in a recent Another Voice article that the Town Board in Cheektowaga was off-target in its request to have New York State reinstate rail safety inspections.
The inspections were monthly news in 2014 through 2016, but the news stopped when the Bakken Crude Oil shipments through the Buffalo metro area ended. I feel that the resolution passed by Cheektowaga is due diligence with the resumption of crude oil transport.
The town has a unique rail accident history along the CSX rail lines. In 2006, a freight train derailed directly across the street from the Cheektowaga Town Hall. Seven years later to the day, a train carrying Bakken Crude derailed in the rail yards along Broadway. The town may have been saved that day by the cold December temperatures that kept down pressure in the tankers.
The town also is aware that the federal government is failing on regulating the rail industry and its oil shipments. Both the rail and oil industries have fought efforts calling for oil stabilization, a process that would remove the natural gas and other volatile non-crude oil petrochemicals, making the oil stable and non-explosive. Both also resist calls for lower train speeds, which would make the transport of oil that moves within the tankers safer.
The rail industry has been slow to adapt to required safety equipment, including the industry-led repeal of a requirement to switch to electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. These brakes were part of the safety requirements in 2015 from the U.S. DOT in light of the bomb train epidemic. The industry has also failed to comply with congressional mandates calling for all trains to be equipped with an automatic braking technology by 2015.
Oil tankers tend to derail more often than other liquid-filled tankers because the oil train tends to be longer and heavier than comparable ethanol tankers. In addition, there is no regulation to weigh oil tankers, and there is no regulation dictating the safe train length for transporting hazardous material shipments like oil. Weight stresses from bomb trains of 100 or more overloaded oil tankers on the rails and bridges should be a concern of the town.
Finally, leadership in regulatory agencies under the current administration has fallen to industry insiders, allowing the foxes to guard the henhouse. The Federal Railroad Administration has been tasked with cutting regulations, inspections and enforcements to allow the rail industry to keep more profits. With the lack of inspection updates from the state DOT, and the industry’s lack of compliance with current federal regulations, the Cheektowaga Town Board was on-target in highlighting the need to maintain rail safety through the town and the state.
John S. Szalasny is on the executive board for the Sierra Club Niagara Group.
https://buffalonews.com/2018/08/03/another-voice-rail-inspections-are-needed-to-safeguard-our-towns/

Return to headline | Return to top

Environment News

EPA Air Official Predicts Push For Strict PM NAAQS But Doubts Feasibility

Aug 3, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Lee Logan

A top EPA air official is predicting some stakeholders will push for significantly ramping down the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) ambient air standard from the current limit of 12 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) to as low as 5 ug/m3 as part of EPA's ongoing review of the limit, but is suggesting such a standard might be technically impossible.
Clint Woods, deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Air & Radiation, told the Texas Environmental Superconference here Aug. 2 that there will be a “robust” debate over the future of the PM2.5 standard, which the agency last tightened in 2012 down from the 2006 standard of 15 ug/m3.
The Clean Air Act mandates that EPA review its six national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), including the limits for ozone and PM2.5, every five years, though the agency has often missed that statutory deadline. The Trump administration is making an effort to overhaul and accelerate the NAAQS reviews, and recently predicted that it could complete the PM2.5 standard review by December 2020.
Woods sees an inevitable push by some groups for a massive tightening of the standard. “I think there's a lot of those who think that science that has been developed since 2012 suggests that that standard needs to be in the single digits, and maybe as low as 5 [ug/m3], which is well below what any current monitor can measure,” he said.
Some environmental groups might argue that science on PM2.5's health impacts justifies tightening the standard to 5 ug/m3 in order to satisfy the air law's mandate that NAAQS be set at a level requisite to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety. But such a request is unlikely to gain traction in the deregulatory Trump administration, which for months considered undoing the Obama EPA's 2015 tightening of the ozone NAAQS.
Woods predicted a “big, in-depth discussion” about several toxicological and epidemiological issues surrounding PM pollution, and said the debate about setting the standard would be “robust.”
His claims about the inability to measure emissions at low levels such as 5 ug/m3 could preview potential agency rebuttals to requests for such a strict limit, even though the Clean Air Act currently does not allow technical feasibility to enter into the agency's process for setting a NAAQS.
The law generally limits such analysis to health risks for a given pollutant, though Woods touted a May memo from then-Administrator Scott Pruitt that outlined a broad set of considerations for implementing the NAAQS program.
That memo, Woods said, directed officials to pay attention to language in Clean Air Act section 109(d) saying that officials should review “background pollution,” as well as any “adverse public health, welfare, social, economic or energy effects” that may result from implementing a NAAQS.
Critics say such analysis could serve as the pretext for issuing a NAAQS that is weaker than what science would otherwise suggest is required to protect public health.
The May memo also directed staff to begin a process to review and update both the PM2.5 NAAQS and the agency's ozone NAAQS by the end of 2020 -- a timeline that some sources are skeptical that the agency can meet.
The memo also requires that EPA issue implementation rules concurrently with new NAAQS to help states craft plans to attain the standard -- a step long sought by many states.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-air-official-predicts-push-strict-pm-naaqs-doubts-feasibility

Return to headline | Return to top
EPA Expects 'Flexible' Ozone SIPs By Oct. 1 Deadline, States Fear Sanctions

Aug 3, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Lee Logan and Stuart Parker

EPA expects states to meet an Oct. 1 deadline for submitting plans to reduce interstate air pollution and predicts many will opt to use regulatory “flexibilities” that could reduce their obligations, but some sources say there is major concern about the potential sanctions the agency could impose on states that will miss the deadline.
Speaking to Inside EPA on the sidelines of the Texas Environmental Superconference here Aug. 2, Clint Woods, deputy assistant administrator within EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, said, “We fully expect states to satisfy their obligation” to supply the agency with the state implementation plans (SIPs) by Oct. 1.
Under the Clean Air Act, states must supply the agency with SIPs showing the pollution control measures they will adopt to satisfy their “good neighbor” obligation three years after EPA adopted a new national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS). The Obama EPA adopted its toughened ozone NAAQS Oct. 1, 2015, at 70 parts per billion (ppb), down from the weaker 2008 standard set at 75 ppb by the George W. Bush administration.
The good neighbor provision requires that states mitigate their air pollution that contributes “significantly” to problems attaining NAAQS, or which “interferes” with maintaining NAAQS in other states downwind. Under the Obama administration, EPA established a method to determine “significant contribution” in its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), an emissions trading program for ozone-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate-forming sulfur dioxide emitted by power plants in multiple Eastern states. The courts have largely upheld the CSAPR methodology.
But Woods says EPA now expects states to take advantage of “flexibilities” the agency provided in a March memo in order to depart from the CSAPR methodology. EPA has indicated it will not craft another emissions trading program to help states meet the 2015 ozone NAAQS, and will rely instead on states supplying SIPs.
Where states fail to submit the necessary SIPs, EPA must issue a “finding of failure to submit,” and if the state still does not provide the plan, EPA must within two years issue a federal implementation plan (FIP) instead. The Obama EPA drew fire from upwind states over its decision to issue FIPs directly to set CSAPR's state emissions caps, which the agency justified legally by arguing that SIPs from the states were already overdue for the 2008 NAAQS by the time EPA promulgated CSAPR in 2011.
Woods said that EPA will not pursue a series of FIPs like the Obama administration. Instead, he said that EPA posted “tools” for states in March, including air quality modeling results and “flexibilities” in crafting SIPs. That includes “alternative ways” to calculate significant contribution under such plans, and the agency hopes those flexible options will be sufficient to rely on states to craft plans satisfying the Oct. 1 mandate.
Under CSAPR, EPA set a threshold of 1 percent of the applicable NAAQS -- here, 0.70 ppb -- to determine significant contribution. If an upwind state was found through modeling to contribute 1 percent or more of the NAAQS to a downwind location in nonattainment with the NAAQS, or a “maintenance” area that previously violated the NAAQS but has since attained it, the upwind state then is considered a possible significant contributor. The upwind states' pollution reduction obligations are then set after consideration of the cost-effectiveness of any required controls.
But EPA's March memo offers a suite of other options to this method. For example, states can take international emissions into account, they can select an alternative “analytic year” to 2023 -- the year chosen by EPA to project future ozone levels -- and they can use “alternative power sector modeling.” States can determine significant contribution using “a contribution threshold based on variability” in projected ozone values, and can identify air monitors they “interfere” with using different criteria than in the past.
Woods said EPA has held monthly calls and meetings with states to discuss the issue. “We think we've given them all the tools they need” to submit SIPs ahead of the deadline. Using such flexibilities would make it easier for states to show they do not have ongoing interstate pollution reduction obligations.
Potential Sanctions
But speakers at the Texas conference and other sources say that many states will not submit their SIPs on time, and there are concerns about the potential sanctions those states could face.
Baker Botts attorney Megan Berge told the Texas conference that EPA has said it would deal with the issue through its interstate trading program, but “when you're talking about something like the 2015 ozone standard, there is no trading program.” Berge added: “It's not clear, if states aren't able to step up and get their SIPs in, how EPA is going to respond. They haven't really done a state-specific FIP.”
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality official Terry Salem told the conference that “we won't have all of those answers [to these issues] until those interstate transport SIPs are due and/or are not submitted,” predicting that “many, many states” will not submit plans for the 2015 standard.
Salem said that Texas plans to be one of the first states to submit such a SIP, adding that the state is taking a more “practical” approach to the “significant contribution” test rather than relying on the historic 1 percent threshold. She said it is “inappropriate” to rely only on that threshold, “without also looking at the particular monitor of concern,” and what is driving nonattainment at that monitor, and “whether and how Texas in total could be providing a significant contribution” to that.
SIPs and the FIPs impose pollution reduction mandates on states, not on their neighbors who contribute to their air pollution problems. This raises the possibility that if EPA issues “findings of failure to submit,” and ultimately issue FIPs, it will do so for East Coast states already struggling with high levels of transported air pollution.
Many states are both “upwind” and “downwind,” in the sense that they both receive a lot of transported pollution, but also contribute to air pollution further downwind. Such states could find themselves stuck with pollution reduction mandates they may argue they can ill afford.
East Coast states are already locked in a dispute with EPA over the agency's failure to fully address transported ozone under either the 2008 or 2015 ozone standards.
The agency has proposed to find that CSAPR, as updated in 2016, fully satisfies good neighbor obligations under the 2008 standard by 2023. It has further proposed to deny petitions from several Eastern states, such as Delaware and Maryland, for direct federal regulation of dozens of power plants in upwind states.
One northeastern air quality expert says that EPA action that places further pollution reduction burdens on East Coast states would be inequitable. One possible scenario would see EPA issuing findings of failure to submit for these states, but delaying doing so, or declining to do so at all, for upwind states, based on the assumption that they have no further interstate obligations.
“If this were to occur, it certainly would look inequitable to hold the downwind states to a different standard than the upwind states in terms of meeting deadlines,” the expert says. “It is pretty clear that EPA has given the upwind states a wide opening to avoid having to adopt any additional pollution reductions to address interstate pollution transport. Of course, a number of downwind states disagree with EPA's assessment on lack of contribution.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-expects-flexible-ozone-sips-oct-1-deadline-states-fear-sanctions

Return to headline | Return to top
Kavanaugh's Record on EPA Rules Worries Environmental Groups

Aug 6, 2018 | AP (In the New York Times)

Environmental groups were not going to be happy with anyone President Donald Trump picked for the Supreme Court. But the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh has them especially worried.
A conservative who would replace the more moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy, Kavanaugh has a record of slapping back Environmental Protection Agency regulations during his 12 years as a federal appeals court judge.
Kavanaugh could shift the court to the right in many areas. But Kennedy was especially pivotal on environmental cases, ruling with the majority on nearly all of them over 30 years on the bench — and often siding with the environmentalists in the biggest cases.
Kavanaugh has a narrower view of what environmental protections the federal government can implement. That was clear from an Associated Press review of his opinions while on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, along with other writings and speeches.
"It threatens to take us back to the old days," said Pat Gallagher, the legal director at the Sierra Club, recalling environmental disasters from the 1960s and '70s. "The Cuyahoga River, Love Canal — when there was no environmental protection."
Kavanaugh's backers don't see him as anti-environment.
"His rulings in cases involving the EPA say far more about the aggressive nature of the EPA in terms of trying to stretch beyond its breaking point its mandate from Congress," said John Malcolm, vice president of the conservative Heritage Foundation's Institute for Constitutional Government.
Republicans hope the Senate can confirm Kavanaugh by the time the court's next session begins Oct. 1. But that is in doubt because of delays in reviewing documents related to Kavanaugh's time in President George W. Bush's administration.
In his opinions on environmental issues, Kavanaugh has often stressed the importance of policies to protect against climate change before saying that Congress, not the EPA, should create those policies.
One prominent example came last year in a majority opinion that found the EPA lacks the authority to regulate hydrofluorocarbons, chemicals linked to global warming. Kavanaugh wrote: "EPA's well-intentioned policy objectives with respect to climate change do not on their own authorize the agency to regulate."
William Buzbee, a Georgetown Law professor who teaches constitutional and environmental law, said Kavanaugh often rules that either Congress didn't delegate duties clearly enough to the EPA or that the agency wasn't carrying them out correctly — in contrast with a history of judges giving wide latitude to agencies to try to solve problems.
"It's a move that sounds like an attitude of deference and separation of power," Buzbee said. "The effect is to take away an agency's powers to deal with real-world problems."
President Barack Obama relied heavily on administrative action as Republicans controlled Congress for most of his presidency and resisted passing laws that favored environmental protections over companies.
Kavanaugh addressed that in the hydrofluorocarbons case: "Under the Constitution, congressional inaction does not license an agency to take matters into its own hands, even to solve a pressing policy issue such as climate change."
Kavanaugh took similar approaches in two major 2012 rulings.
In one, Kavanaugh dissented from the circuit, wanting to grant further review in a case in which the appeals court upheld the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases.
In another, Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion to eliminate a 2011 EPA rule limiting emissions from power plants and other sources to reduce pollution in neighboring states. Writing for a divided panel, he found that this "good neighbor" rule overstepped the EPA's authority. The Supreme Court overruled Kavanaugh.
In a speech last year at the American Enterprise Institute, Kavanaugh praised the late Justice Antonin Scalia for applying a principle laid out by Chief Justice William Rehnquist to an EPA case. The "major questions doctrine," he said, "is critical to limiting the ability of agencies to make major policy decisions that belong to Congress, at least unless Congress clearly delegates that authority."
Still, Kavanaugh has not always ruled against environmental regulation. In 2010, he wrote the majority opinion for a divided panel when trucking groups sued the EPA over California's regulations for engines such as those that power refrigeration systems on trucks. Kavanaugh praised the agency for properly following Congress' directions in delegating that narrow area of regulation to California.
In environmental cases, judges often must sort out who has the legal standing to challenge regulations or push for protections.
"The Supreme Court now for decades has said that environmental and aesthetic interests count for standing," Buzbee said. "My sense is they count less for Judge Kavanaugh."
In a 2014 case, he wrote the unanimous opinion finding that environmental groups did not have standing to challenge an EPA decision not to tighten carbon monoxide standards.
There are also cases where he found that industrial groups have standing to oppose environmental restrictions. One of those came last year, when he was on a panel that unanimously found that logging interests had standing to challenge the designation of 9.5 million acres (3.8 million hectares) in California, Oregon and Washington as a critical habitat for the northern spotted owl. He wrote that industry groups showed clearly that they would face economic harm if logging was banned in the area.
There are exceptions in his record. Kavanaugh was part of a unanimous 2009 ruling that found road- and transportation-building groups did not have standing to challenge some EPA rules.
If Kavanaugh is confirmed in time for the new court session, the first case he'd hear would deal with an environmental issue.
In the case, the private owners of land used for logging in Louisiana object to their property's inclusion in the critical habitat for the dusky gopher frog, which was added to the endangered species list in 2001, when fewer than 100 were known to be in existence — all in southern Mississippi. None of the frogs has been spotted in Louisiana for more than 50 years.
A federal appeals court found the land's inclusion as a critical habitat was appropriate.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/08/06/us/ap-us-supreme-court-kavanaugh-environment.html

Return to headline | Return to top
Inquiry Ends Into Exxon Mobil’s Accounting Tied to Climate Change

Aug 3, 2018 | The New York Times

By Claire Ballentine

The Securities and Exchange Commission has ended an investigation into Exxon Mobil’s policy of not writing down the value of its oil reserves to account for the risk that future climate change regulations might pose to the company.
The commission informed Exxon of its decision in a letter on Thursday, saying that it did not intend to pursue enforcement action against the company at this time.
The inquiry, which began in January 2016, focused on how Exxon calculated the potential costs of complying with regulations meant to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Such regulations could force fossil fuel companies to keep oil, natural gas and coal in the ground.
Scott Silvestri, an Exxon spokesman, said in a statement that the company had cooperated fully with the investigation, producing more than 4.2 million pages of documents. Mr. Silvestri reiterated the company’s position that its handling of the information at issue was appropriate.
“We are confident our financial reporting meets all legal and accounting requirements,” he said.
The commission declined to comment.
In August 2016, the commission requested documents and other information from Exxon and from its auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
It also received documents that Exxon submitted as part of an inquiry by state attorneys general, including New York’s, into the company’s internal research and other activities related to climate change. In March, a federal judge dismissed Exxon’s effort to block that investigation.
Exxon has argued that fossil fuels will be necessary to meet the energy needs of the world’s growing population in coming decades. The company contends that oil and gas prices rise and fall over time and that it makes long-term investment decisions. The company has also said it is making efforts to curb climate change by studying carbon-capture and sequestration technology and advanced biofuels made from algae.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/business/exxon-mobil-sec-climate-change.html

Return to headline | Return to top
Free-Market Energy Group Launches Anti-Carbon Tax Initiative

Aug 3, 2018 | Inside EPA

The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a free-market advocacy group, is launching an initiative to oppose a carbon tax bill recently unveiled by Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL).
The bill, which Curbelo called a “template” for further discussion when he formally unveiled it July 23, is noteworthy for being the first major legislative climate mitigation proposal from a House Republican since 2009. The plan, H.R. 6463, is cosponsored by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and proposes a “moratorium” on EPA climate rules in exchange for a $24 per ton carbon tax beginning in 2020.
The tax would rise by 2 percent a year, adjusted for inflation, until 2030. The proceeds would be divided between the Highway Trust Fund, receiving 70 percent; grants to states for low-income households, receiving 10 percent; mitigation and adaptation for coastal flooding, receiving 5 percent; and the remaining 15 percent going to research and development, and to assist displaced workers. The tax would also replace the federal gas tax that currently goes to the Highway Trust Fund, which is essentially depleted.
AEA is launching a $75,000, two-week digital ad buy to oppose the bill in Florida, what it calls “the first phase of a sustained anti-carbon tax initiative educating and encouraging citizens to hold their elected officials accountable for their support for destructive energy taxes.”
AEA says the “Curbelo carbon tax” would “greatly increase energy prices across the board -- including gasoline and utility bills.”
The group's president Tom Pyle says in an Aug. 3 statement, “Florida families deserve to know whether their elected representatives are willing to reject a new tax on the energy that we rely on every single day.” By contrast, Curbelo “is leading an effort to tax our energy and hand the levers of our economy to the EPA and a newly created 'National Climate Commission.' There is no such thing as a 'conservative' carbon tax.”
The Florida digital ad campaign comes as the group also has a broader initiative for its supporters to contact their Congress members via a form on AEA's website.
There, the group warns that a carbon tax “is nothing more than a tax on energy that would impact every American,” and cites statistics from Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy showing the tax would impede natural gas production and gross domestic product, while raising gasoline and electricity prices, with per capita expenses increasing by $186 to $278.
Meanwhile, the Institute for Energy Research, of which AEA is the advocacy arm, has an Aug. 1 blog post criticizing the bill for failing to “solve the ostensible climate change problem” and for not even pretending to be revenue neutral. “[I]t literally establishes a new 'trust fund' to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure and other projects.” The blog also notes that the GOP bill was not warmly received by environmental groups, which instead criticized it for being too weak.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/free-market-energy-group-launches-anti-carbon-tax-initiative

Return to headline | Return to top
To Kill Climate Rule, Agency Wants to Redefine Danger of Soot

Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Niina Heikkinen

Whether it's in haze-shrouded cities, plumes of car exhaust or even clear skies, fine particle pollution can be found just about everywhere in the United States.
These pollutants are so small they can slip inside buildings and penetrate deep into lung tissue. On hot summer days, high concentrations of the pollutant help trigger poor air quality alerts, warning the very young, elderly and sick to stay indoors. Exposure to fine particles is linked to premature death and higher risks of asthma and heart attacks.
After decades of increasingly strong assertions that there is no known safe level of fine particle exposure for the American public, EPA under the Trump administration is now considering taking a new position. The agency is floating the idea of changing its rulemaking process and setting a threshold level of fine particles that it would consider safe.
The change would affect how EPA counts the health benefits of reducing fine particles when crafting rules aimed at reducing other pollutants, like greenhouse gases. If the plan moves forward, it could have implications for how well EPA's regulations protect human health.
The Trump administration introduced the idea in the fall of 2017, when it publicly released a proposal for repealing the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era rule to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. While the rule wasn't focused on fine particles, it would have reduced them anyway by requiring plant operators to install new technology to cut CO2 emissions.
The authors of the rule had counted the health benefits from reducing particles in their justification for why the benefits of regulating greenhouse gases outweighed the costs of implementing it. The health benefits of cutting CO2 become even more evident when paired with the "co-benefits" of cutting fine particles.
This process of weighing the economic pluses and minuses of any particular rule is known, in EPA lingo, as a cost-benefit analysis. It's a key factor in determining whether a rule makes sense both in terms of its environmental and health benefits and in the costs it imposes on industry.
Critics see EPA's latest proposal on particulates as a way to undermine efforts to establish strict controls on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, by making the benefits of regulating them seem significantly lower.
"It would be hard for the Trump administration to say [the Clean Power Plan] is a net bad for the American people; the total benefits were significantly more than the cost," said Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University.
Revesz noted that Trump's EPA was only able to legally justify rolling back the rule by "mangling" the Clean Power Plan's direct greenhouse gas benefits and its additional co-benefits of cutting pollutants like fine particles.
Roughly half of the estimated benefits from reducing greenhouse gases at power plants comes from the accompanying reductions of fine particles. The Obama administration estimated that the Clean Power Plan would have $20 billion in climate benefits and an added $13 billion to $30.3 billion in benefits from reductions in particulates.From coal plants — and cigarettes
EPA is considering changes to its cost-benefit analysis, even as researchers studying fine particles warn that federal regulations already fail to fully protect the public from the pollutants' effects on human health.
Fine particles, or particulate matter, get their shorthand name, PM 2.5, from their size. Measuring in at a minuscule 2.5 micrometers, these particles are a tiny fraction of the width of a human hair.
They can come from sources like power plants and automobiles, and from smaller sources like fireplaces and cigarette smoke. Fine particles can also form from other pollution sources in the atmosphere through a chemical reaction. They're everywhere.
Because of their ability to travel deep into the lungs, a number of its effects are linked to the cardiovascular system. The pollutants have been found to enter the bloodstream. Health studies have also drawn connections between fetal exposure and low birth weight, and increased risk of lung cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The PM 2.5 index is most strongly associated with health effects than any other," said C. Arden Pope, an economics professor at Brigham Young University. He is one of the researchers involved in the landmark studies of the pollutant called the "Harvard Six Cities" and the American Cancer Society study. Both outlined the connections between human health and exposure to fine particles.
Pope describes the relationship between fine particle exposure and its harm on people as linear. Like lead or cancer-causing compounds, there is no known safe level of exposure. In other words, PM 2.5 is not a "threshold pollutant," meaning there is no level below which no risk exists.
It's this fact that has Pope and other experts concerned about the EPA proposal on particulates buried in the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan.
To reset that threshold, the agency turned to another air regulation, the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
This nationwide standard limits emissions of particle pollutants to within an "adequate margin of safety." Currently, that standard is set at an annual average concentration of 12 micrograms per cubic meter.
In its proposal, EPA suggested it would assume there were no health benefits in cutting fine particle pollution below the levels set in the NAAQS. Such an approach would leave out the very lowest concentrations of fine particle exposure.Debate over small levels of pollution
It's still unclear whether the particle proposal will make it into the final replacement for the Clean Power Plan. A draft notice is still under White House review and could become public in the coming weeks. Because the benefits of cutting fine particles, to health and the economy, are included in a variety of federal rules, the implications of altering those values could extend beyond the Clean Power Plan.
Pope said it was "absurd" for EPA to make the argument that there was no benefit to reducing fine particles below the current national standard set by NAAQS.
"There is no evidence there is anything magical in 12 micrograms," said Pope.
Similarly, EPA's proposal to not count fine particles below the "lowest measured level," or LML in epidemiological studies, also raised concerns about not fully accounting for health risk. (The lowest measured level EPA took comment on in its repeal proposal was between 8 or 5.8 micrograms per cubic meter.) Just as EPA is assuming adequate health protections from controls of fine particles set by NAAQS, in this approach it's assuming that any concentration of NAAQS that hasn't been tested in health studies carries no risk.
Using LML instead of NAAQS would mean that EPA counts more benefits of cutting fine particles but still suggests that some exposure for the American public is OK.
"LML is just a better arbitrary threshold than the NAAQS," said John Bachmann, former associate director for science, policy and new programs in EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards.
Bachmann pointed out that recent research using Medicare data found there was an increased risk of premature death from fine particle exposure at less than half the concentrations controlled by NAAQS. That 2017 study relied on data from 60 million Medicare recipients nationwide.
The EPA proposal on fine particles is supported by industry representatives like Robert Kappelmann, an energy and environmental consultant working for the Florida Municipal Electric Association.
Kappelmann and other critics of the Clean Power Plan argue that EPA is "double-counting" health benefits already accounted for under NAAQS, which requires states to craft their own plans to control particulate pollution. He noted that most places in the country are already compliant with NAAQS standards.
Kappelmann pointed to EPA's standard for fine particulate matter, stating EPA had established 12 micrograms to be within a "margin of safety." That means either EPA's value is wrong or particulate levels below that are safe enough for human exposure, he said.
"Something is out of whack there. We think that's inappropriate," Kappelmann said of the Clean Power Plan's original co-benefit analysis.
Other groups, like the Utility Air Regulatory Group, have raised similar concerns in public comments to EPA.
The group noted that EPA's own modeling from 2016 predicted that just 5 percent of the population would be exposed to particle levels that reach 12 micrograms per cubic meter. Most of the predicted benefits of the Clean Power Plan would come from reducing fine particles below that level, the group said.
"Because, as discussed above, NAAQS are set at the level EPA has determined is protective of public health, it is improper to claim benefits below that level," the group wrote.Trump aims for 'underpinnings'
But former EPA officials noted that when the agency talked about bringing fine particle levels down to within a "margin of safety," officials weren't saying that level of exposure was without risk.
"That doesn't mean zero pollution — there's a judgment for the administrator to make each time the NAAQS are reviewed, looking at the newest science, weighing public health protection against the certainty of scientific information," said Janet McCabe, former acting assistant administrator of EPA.
She argued that the Trump administration's main target is the "underpinnings" of public health protections.
Bachmann, the former EPA official, also rejected the idea that EPA was double-counting benefits. Factoring in the co-benefits of other regulations is a regular part of drafting rulemaking, he said. Besides, he added, the Clean Power Plan was looking at benefits of fine particle reductions below the levels controlled under NAAQS.
"Most of the things we regulate, it's hard to quantify the benefits, so we quantify what we can," said Bachmann. In this case, it was cutting particulate pollution.
If EPA does go forward with its proposal on particles, it could have ripple effects on other federal rules.
In a recent working paper in the Minnesota Law Review, NYU's Revesz and co-author Kimberly Castle said that if the proposed changes are finalized, the ensuing court challenges could have "far-reaching consequences" for climate and other public health rules. That's because the co-benefits of particulate reductions below 12 micrograms are widely used in regulations on emissions from stationary sources.
In addition to the Clean Power Plan, the value of reducing fine particles plays a major role in backing up the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. The Obama administration estimated that reducing mercury and toxics would save between $4 million and $6 million, while a whopping $37 billion to $90 billion would come from the byproduct of lessening particle pollution.
Revesz said it's hard to imagine the courts would accept any attempt by EPA to undo its use of co-benefits. That would deviate from standard practice at the agency. He and Castle slammed the Trump administration's proposed changes.
"The Administration, and other regulation opponents, suggest theirs is a logical way to account for effects, arguing that including these benefits artificially inflates the positive effects of regulating. But what they advocate is a dishonest attempt to obscure the actual effects of regulations from the public," they wrote.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/08/06/stories/1060092763

Return to headline | Return to top
How Big a Deal Is Trump’s Fuel Economy Rollback? For the Climate, Maybe the Biggest Yet

Aug 3, 2018 | The New York Times

By Brad Plumer

President Trump’s proposal this week to weaken fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks could be his most consequential climate-policy rollback yet, increasing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by an amount greater than many midsize countries put out in a year.
Assuming the plan is finalized and survives legal challenges, America’s cars and trucks would emit an extra 321 million to 931 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere between now and 2035 as a result of the weaker rules, according to an analysis by the research firm Rhodium Group. A separate estimate by the think tank Energy Innovation pegged the number even higher, at 1.25 billion metric tons.
To put that in context, the extra pollution in 2035 alone would be more than the current annual emissions from countries like Austria, Bangladesh or Greece, the Rhodium Group analysis found.
How big a deal is that for global warming? The Trump administration claims it is negligible. By 2100, officials argued in their proposal, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would only be 0.65 parts per million higher under the rollback than they would be if the stricter Obama-era rules had stayed in place. (Current levels in the atmosphere are around 410 parts per million.)
But that’s the wrong way to look at it, according to Trevor Houser, lead author of the Rhodium Group report. Any single climate policy from a single country will look relatively modest in isolation. Stopping global warming will require a wide variety of efforts to cut emissions from every sector of nearly every country. “In that context, this single policy really does have a big impact,” he said.
His analysis estimated that the fuel-economy rollback could have a bigger effect on emissions than either Mr. Trump’s attempts to repeal the Clean Power Plan — a federal rule to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants — or his efforts to scale back regulations on oil and gas operations that release methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.
There’s a simple reason for that. Many states have already been making impressive headway on cleaning up their power plants, thanks to a glut of cheap natural gas (which is pushing coal plants into retirement) and the falling cost of wind and solar power. Carbon dioxide emissions from the United States electricity sector are now on pace to fall below the targets envisioned in the original Clean Power Plan.
But pollution from cars and trucks has proved much trickier for states to take on. Transportation now accounts for one-third of America’s carbon-dioxide emissions, surpassing power plants as the largest source, and vehicle emissions have been steadily rising over the past few years. Federal fuel-economy standards were widely seen as a vital tool for curbing gasoline use.
“We’ve seen nowhere near the same progress in transportation as we’ve seen in electricity,” said Jordan Stutt, a policy analyst at the Acadia Center, a group in New England that is pushing for cleaner energy.
The original Obama-era standards would have required automakers to roughly double the fuel economy of their new cars, pickup trucks and S.U.V.s by 2025, putting out vehicles that would average roughly 36 miles per gallon on the road. The Trump proposal would halt the rise of those standards after 2021, when new cars were expected to average around 30 miles per gallon.
The Obama-era rules also granted California permission to set up a separate, more ambitious program to mandate more zero-emission cars on the road. Nine other states in the Northeast have adopted that program, which would require roughly 8 percent of new vehicles sold in-state to be plug-in hybrid, electric or hydrogen fuel cell models.
The Trump proposal plans to challenge California’s authority to mandate zero-emissions cars and to halt the clean vehicle program, which could dramatically slow the adoption of electric vehicles around the country in the near term.
“The zero-emissions vehicle waiver has been the biggest catalyst to date in bringing electric vehicles to market,” said Don Anair, research and deputy director of the Clean Vehicles Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
There are, however, a few important factors that could potentially counteract the climate impact of the Trump administration’s rollback, assuming that it survives any court challenge by California and other states and becomes final.
First, fuel prices will matter enormously. If oil prices increase significantly over the next decade, then many drivers might opt to buy more efficient vehicles regardless of what federal standards require. (The lower emissions numbers in the Rhodium Group analysis are based on a scenario where oil prices are high.)
But if gasoline prices stay at current levels — around $2.80 per gallon — or drop further, then Americans are expected to continue to buy S.U.V.s and other gas guzzlers, as they have been doing in increasing numbers the past few years.
Second, states could try to enact other fresh policies to try to cut emissions from the transportation sector and blunt the impact from Trump’s rollback. California and New York, for instance, have been offering tax breaks for people to buy electric vehicles, and they have been investing hundreds of millions of dollars in new charging infrastructure.
Other Northeastern states have been participating in discussions on how to reduce vehicle emissions, through steps like expanding mass transit, buying electric buses or reconfiguring cities to make them denser and more walkable.
But some of these state policies can be politically difficult and take time to enact. In the absence of stricter federal fuel economy standards, states like Connecticut and Maryland that have set legislative targets for reducing economywide emissions might struggle to meet their goals.
“Transportation is extremely complicated and it really takes all levels of government working together,” said Vicki Arroyo, the executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center, who has been working with states on plans to cut emissions from transportation. If the federal government pulls back, she said, “it’s a tremendous setback.”
The automakers themselves are another wild card. While many manufacturers have been developing new electric car models in response to the ever-rising fuel economy standards, it’s not clear how many would completely pull back if the standards were frozen. China and Europe are continuing to push hard on fuel efficiency and battery-powered vehicles, and automakers have those international markets to consider.
And the biggest wild card of all? What the next president might do. “If a new administration came in, they’d have a blank slate for rethinking the standards entirely, and there are a lot of ideas out there for standards that would be even more effective” than the Obama-era rules, said Mr. Houser.
If a future president ultimately managed to put even stricter vehicle rules in place, he said, “that would certainly reduce the magnitude of the emissions impact that we’re projecting.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/climate/trump-climate-emissions-rollback.html

Return to headline | Return to top

Add recipients

Suggested