Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 06/08/18
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(ACC Mentioned) China Strikes Back with More Tariffs on U.S. Goods
Aug 6, 2018 | Politico
By Sabrina Rodriguez
CHINA STRIKES BACK WITH MORE TARIFFS ON U.S. GOODS: Expect more fallout this week from China’s announcement Friday that it would hit about $60 billion worth of U.S. exports with new tariffs in response to President Donald Trump’s decision last week to pursue higher trade penalties on Beijing. -
(ACC Mentioned) People On The Move
Aug 6, 2018 | O'Dwyer's PR News
By Steve Barnes
FX Networks has hired Christine Shaw as senior VP of communications. -
PART 2: EPA Rams Through Its Reckless Review Scheme for New Chemicals Under TSCA, Your Health Be Damned (Blog)
Aug 6, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
I blogged last week about how political appointees at EPA are starting to clear new chemicals to enter commerce based on a new – apparently unwritten and certainly not public – review process that ignores the law and will put the health of the public, workers and the environment at greater risk than even under the weak reviews conducted before Congress’ 2016 overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
US EPA Sticking to Contaminants Position for 1,4-Dioxane
Aug 6, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
In the face of NGO objections, the US EPA is sticking to its decision not to include the occurrence of 1,4-dioxane as a contaminant in consumer products in its forthcoming TSCA risk evaluation of the substance. -
Congress Pulls Funding For IARC Statistics Organization
Aug 6, 2018 | Science 2.0
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is part of the World Health Organisation, which is part of the United Nations, but it is really its own agency that shares little in common with WHO. -
Two Years Ago, Trump Didn't Know What LNG Was. Now His Tariffs Could Cripple The Industry
Aug 6, 2018 | Forbes
By Ken Silverstein
Donald Trump is threatening even greater tariffs on Chinese imports, prompting the Asian nation to respond with its own promises — one that includes hitting American exports of liquefied natural gas and crude oil. -
Mexican Energy Sector Overhaul Could Reduce U.S. Export Demand
Aug 6, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
An ambitious plan to boost Mexico's oil and gas production could potentially slow the country's energy sector reforms and hinder trade opportunities for U.S. refiners and pipeline companies that have ramped up exports to meet growing demand there, according to research firm Morningstar. -
Divided FERC Approves Mo. Project After Argument Over Need
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Mintz
A divided Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a Midwestern natural gas pipeline last week, overriding concerns from Democrats at the agency, state regulators and others that there is not sufficient evidence of the project's need. -
FERC Halts All MVP Construction, Citing Court Order
Aug 6, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
FERC has ordered Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to stop all construction work because of a July 27 court order that rescinded the 303-mile, 42-inch diameter project’s authority to build across federal lands. -
New Wave of Mega LNG Projects Is Approaching
Aug 6, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Ron Bousso
A new race to build multi-billion dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants is gaining momentum after a long hiatus in investments as energy giants sense a widening supply gap within five years. -
Arkema, Management, Face Criminal Charges Related to Texas Fires
Aug 6, 2018 | Plastics News
By Shahrzad Pourriahi
French specialty chemical supplier Arkema SA says it will fight criminal charges against the company and its top managers after a Texas grand jury issued indictments related to a series of explosions and fires at its Houston area plant in 2017. -
TWI Launches Open Project on Early-Stage Detection of High Temperature Hydrogen Attack
Aug 6, 2018 | Hydrocarbon Engineering
By Nicholas Woodroof
TWI has recently launched a new Joint Industry Project (JIP) to explore and validate detection methods for high temperature hydrogen attack (HTHA). Inspections will be carried out on a carbon steel pressure vessel – operated in a regime calculated to induce accelerated HTHA – and designed to simulate the real world operations and challenges associated with detecting this phenomenon. -
Roll Back Car Emissions Rules for Safety's Sake? Baloney
Aug 6, 2018 | Los Angeles Times
By David J. Hayes
The Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, wants to walk away from a 10-year deal to gradually improve fuel efficiency for cars and light trucks through 2025. -
Groups Sue EPA Over Ozone Standards
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
EPA is facing at least three more lawsuits over its handling of attainment designations for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard. -
EPA Settlement Requires Glass Company to Curb NOx, SO2
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
A Florida-based manufacturer of glass containers will pay a $1.1 million fine and spend an estimated $40 million to limit pollution at a half-dozen plants under a tentative settlement announced Friday by EPA and the Justice Department that would run through the end of the next decade. -
Kavanaugh's Hero and Climate Science
Aug 6, 2018 | RealClearEnergy
By Jay Hakes
Senators reviewing U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh should consider his likely impact on federal efforts to slow the warming of the planet. With a lifetime appointment, the president’s choice to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy could serve on the nation’s highest court for many decades, and some greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere for over a century.
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(ACC Mentioned) China Strikes Back with More Tariffs on U.S. Goods
Aug 6, 2018 | Politico
By Sabrina Rodriguez
CHINA STRIKES BACK WITH MORE TARIFFS ON U.S. GOODS: Expect more fallout this week from China’s announcement Friday that it would hit about $60 billion worth of U.S. exports with new tariffs in response to President Donald Trump’s decision last week to pursue higher trade penalties on Beijing. The move elevated concern in the business sector that there’s no end in sight for the growing trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
Beijing’s logic: China said it’s taking the action “because the U.S. side has repeatedly escalated the situation despite the interest of both enterprises and consumers” and it must “defend the country’s dignity and the interests of the people, defend free trade and the multilateral system, and defend the common interests of all countries in the world.”
What to expect: Under the plan, China would impose tariffs – between 5 percent and 25 percent – on nearly all of the $130 billion in goods imported from the United States. China’s Ministry of Finance said Friday the new tariffs would target more than 5,200 types of U.S. goods, including energy exports like biodiesel and liquefied natural gas and more U.S. agricultural goods like lamb and honey. Pro Trade’s Adam Behsudi and Doug Palmer have more on China’s latest tariffs threat here.
IT’S MONDAY, AUG. 6! Welcome to Morning Trade, where your host is currently making big life decisions: whether or not to adopt a dog she's been fostering in recent weeks. Any tips for a (potentially) soon-to-be first-time dog owner? Send news and dog tips: srodriguez@politico.com or @sabrod123.
CHINA DEALS MAJOR TRADE BLOW TO U.S. LNG INDUSTRY: China’s latest tariffs threat would claim another American casualty – the U.S. LNG industry, which could face a 25 percent levy from Beijing. This puts the planned Alaska LNG project right in the trade war crosshairs, as well as other plants that have been working for years to sign supply deals with Chinese customers.
“These projects were planned on the back of Chinese demand,” Charlie Riedl, head of trade association Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, told POLITICO. “It’s problematic for them, at best, if tariffs go into effect. China needs its gas, but there’s plenty of other countries with projects that would gladly fill that supply.”
The administration’s trade and energy policies “are not aligned with each other, that’s for sure,” he added. More here.
Chemicals would take a big hit, too. Almost 1,000 American chemicals and plastic products – almost one-fifth of Beijing’s latest list – would face Chinese tariffs, according to an analysis by the American Chemistry Council. The ACC has previously said Trump’s escalating tariffs would be “devastating” for U.S. chemical manufacturers and that the administration, instead, should “negotiate with China to bring an end to this trade war.”
A threat to U.S. hide, skins survival: U.S. hides, skins and leather products would also face tariffs of either 5 percent or 25 percent from China. The industry had previously not been targeted for retaliatory tariffs by China or any other trading partner, according to the U.S. Hide, Skin and Leather Association.
“The Chinese market is not just important for the U.S. hide, skin and leather industry – it is essential to its survival, particularly as formidable competitors finalize free trade agreements that could place the U.S. industry at a competitive disadvantage,” said Stephen Sothmann, president of the industry group.
U.S., MEXICO MAKING SWIFT PROGRESS TO WRAP NAFTA TALKS: After two weeks of renewed talks, negotiators from the U.S. and Mexico have moved to wrap up an additional 10 chapters as part of their latest push to finish a new NAFTA by the end of the month. Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said Friday that negotiators “practically have 20 chapters closed of 30 chapters in total.”
“The rest aren’t full chapters, but more the definition of a paragraph, the specific language," he said, adding that at the technical level, there isn’t much drafting left to do.
State of play: Nine chapters and nine sectoral annexes were already closed when Guajardo first resumed talks with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Washington two weeks ago. But while they’ve wrapped up 10 more chapters, some of the biggest sticking points – such as automotive rules of origin and the U.S.’s proposal to include a so-called sunset clause – have not been fully solved.
Mark your calendars: Guajardo will be back in Washington on Wednesday or Thursday to continue high-level talks, he said. In the meantime, technical teams from the two countries continued to meet throughout the weekend and are working on “creative solutions” for the remaining issues. The Canadian negotiating team has not been deployed to Washington, but that could happen in the coming days, Guajardo said.
“We know that Canada has to come into these discussions and probably it will happen quite soon,” he said.
TRUMP CLAIMS TARIFFS WILL PAY DOWN LARGE PART OF NATIONAL DEBT: Trump defended his tariff policy on Twitter on Sunday, falsely arguing the duties he has imposed and threatened so far will allow the federal government “to start paying down large amounts of the $21 Trillion in debt that has been accumulated, much by the Obama Administration, while at the same time reducing taxes for our people. At minimum, we will make much better Trade Deals for our country!”
However, the Treasury Department’s latest monthly statement shows that tariffs account for a small portion of U.S. government receipts. U.S. customs officials collected about $3.5 billion in duties in June, bringing the total for the first nine months of the fiscal year to about $28.3 billion. That’s only about $3.1 billion more than the $25.2 billion collected during the same period in fiscal 2017.
In addition, Trump so far has actually imposed duties on a small portion of U.S. goods imports, which totaled about $2.3 trillion in 2017. He set a 25 percent duty or quota restrictions on $29 billion worth of steel imports; a 10 percent duty on $18 billion worth of aluminum imports; a 25 percent duty on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods; a 30 percent duty on $8.5 billion worth of solar product imports and a tariff-rate quota on around $1.8 billion of washing machine imports.
TRUMP SUPPORTERS URGE REJECTION OF MTB: An advocacy group that shares Trump’s concern about the trade deficit has urged the president to consider vetoing the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, should it reach his desk. The bill, HR 4318, which recently passed the Senate and is pending in the House, would waive duties on raw materials and intermediate goods not made in the United States in order to reduce costs for U.S. manufacturers making final products from the imports.
“The Miscellaneous Tariff Bill should be called the ‘Never Make It Here Again Act’,” Dan DiMicco, chairman of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, said in a statement. “At precisely the moment when the president is tackling foreign trade cheating and trying to create leverage, Congress is again engaging in unilateral trade disarmament.”
“Our board of manufacturing, agriculture, and labor members voted to oppose the elimination of tariffs contained in this bill,” Michael Stumo, CEO of the CPA, added. “This is a giveaway to foreign manufacturers and other countries.”
DiMicco is a former Trump campaign adviser who worked closely with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro during the 2016 campaign. The former chairman of Nucor Steel Corp. He also serves on USTR’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.
Congress reformed the process for compiling the MTB a few years ago to get around concerns that the tariff waivers violated the House Republican ban on earmarks. The National Association of Manufacturers strongly supports the legislation and has urged the House to quickly finish work on the bill and Trump to sign it.
USTR THREATENS TO REVOKE TURKEY’S GSP BENEFIT: USTR said Friday it will review Turkey's eligibility for duty-free access to the U.S. market under the Generalized System of Preferences program because of concern that it is not providing the United States reasonable and equitable access to its market.
"We hope that Turkey will work with us to address the concerns that led to this new review of their duty-free access to the United States," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish said in a statement that did not mention what impediments U.S. exports face. However, Turkey is one of several countries that has retaliated against U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs. It imposed new duties of 4 percent to 70 percent on $1.8 billion worth of U.S. imports, based on 2017 trade values.
The Trump administration last week also sanctioned two senior Turkish officials over the country’s refusal to extradite Andrew Brunson, an American pastor whom Turkish authorities accuse of aiding the failed coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July 2016.
The U.S. imported $1.66 billion worth of goods from Turkey under the GSP program in 2017, which represented about 17.7 percent of total U.S. imports from the country. Top categories of goods imported under the program were vehicles and vehicle parts, jewelry and precious metals, and stone articles, according to USTR. A final decision on Turkey's GSP status will be made after a public hearing and comment process.
POMPEO GOES TO BAT OVER TRUMP’S TRADE POLICY: Trump’s trade policy will help the U.S. and also benefit the economies of Southeast Asia and the rest of the world, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday. Speaking on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ministers meeting, Pompeo underscored that the U.S. wants to engage in more free and fair trade with Indo-Pacific countries.
“We are a radically free-trade country, and President Trump is enormously supportive of that,” Pompeo said in an interview with Channel NewsAsia in Singapore. Trump is “simply looking for open, free trade. We want that with the Indo-Pacific, we want it with Singapore, with Southeast Asia. It’s an imperative.”
TPP-11 connection: While Pompeo expressed his desire to deepen trade ties with ASEAN members, four of those countries – Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam – are in the process of ratifying the updated Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump withdrew the U.S. from on his third day in office. More here.
WILL LIGHTHIZER ATTEND ASEAN TRADE MINISTER MEETING?Meanwhile, the ASEAN trade and economic ministers will meet hold their annual meeting at the end of the month. Last year, Lighthizer skipped the event regularly attended by his predecessor, Michael Froman, sending then-Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Barbara Weisel, who has since resigned.
As of last week, there was no word on whether Lighthizer would to go to Singapore for this year’s gathering or send his deputy, Gerrish, who has been assigned to find U.S. free trade partners in the Asia-Pacific and stood in for Lighthizer at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation trade ministers meeting in May.
The ASEAN gathering usually attracts senior trade officials from China, Japan, South Korea, India, Russia and other Asia-Pacific powers, creating a venue ripe for bilateral meetings. However, Lighthizer is pushing to wrap up the NAFTA talks by the end of the month, so he may be in Washington trying to nail down details of that pact.
U.S., COLOMBIA RECOGNIZE STRONG TRADE TIES: Officials from the U.S. and Colombia have seen their bilateral trade ties “continue to strengthen” over the past six years since the implementation of a bilateral trade promotion agreement, according to a release from USTR. Colombian officials were in Washington last week to assess the deal.
Officials noted that “both sides have worked together constructively to resolve issues when they arise, and that implementation is proceeding well and smoothly,” USTR said.
Labor issues remain: USTR noted that work remains to be done on labor issues, but that Colombia has made progress in that area. Officials also discussed other areas of concern, such as intellectual property and truck scrappage.
The countries have been working on these issues for months, as they were also areas of concern for U.S. industry and business groups – including Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America – when the South American country was making its push to join the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Colombia was invited to formally accede to OECD in May.
HEITKAMP KEEPS PRESSING FOR ‘SMART TRADE POLICIES’: Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) met with Canadian Deputy Ambassador Kirsten Hillman last week as part of her continued efforts to show U.S. trading partners, namely Mexico and Canada, that American farmers and ranchers want a successfully renegotiated NAFTA. Heitkamp, one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for re-election this year, has repeatedly spoken with Mexican and Canadian officials in recent months to discuss the negotiations and its effect on North Dakota agriculture.
Heitkamp “reaffirmed North Dakota’s interest in quickly finding a resolution to NAFTA talks so we can give certainty to the producers who rely on these markets to survive,” she said in a statement. “I’ll continue to push for smart trade policies that protect and open markets for our goods – not shut them out.”
INTERNATIONAL OVERNIGHT
–– Asian nations push back at U.S. over trade policies, The Wall Street Journal reports.
–– Two major steel manufacturers with deep ties to the Trump administration block tariff relief for hundreds of American firms, The New York Times reports.
–– Samsung mulls over how to navigate U.S.-China trade crossfire, The Wall Street Journal reports.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-trade/2018/08/06/china-strikes-back-with-more-tariffs-on-us-goods-307156
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(ACC Mentioned) People On The Move
Aug 6, 2018 | O'Dwyer's PR News
By Steve Barnes
FX Networks has hired Christine Shaw as senior VP of communications. Shaw joins FX from FremantleMedia North America, where she was senior VP/communications and marketing, leading FMNA’s corporate communications strategy, as well as publicity and marketing for the company’s series. She was previously VP of communications at BBC Worldwide and has held positions at Murphy O’Brien Public Relations and Rogers & Cowan. At FX, Shaw will be responsible for strategy and oversight of the network and studio’s corporate communications, trade advertising, talent relations, events, awards campaigns, and public affairs.
Kat KuhlREQ has named Kat Kuhl VP of technology and engineering. Kuhl previously served as director of solutions consulting at FFW and director of technology at CHIEF. Her areas of expertise include technical architecture, UX design, application development, technical project management and business strategy. In her position at REQ, Kuhl will work to help teams and clients define program success, map milestones, achieve stakeholder buy-in, and bridge the gap between technology and marketing. “Her expertise not only lends itself to streamlining processes and communications internally, but also makes the complex world of tech attainable and accessible to clients,” said REQ CEP Tripp Donnelly.
Greg LebedevPotomac International Partners has named Greg Lebedev to its advisory board. The former president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, Lebedev served before that as a senior partner of The Hay Group. He is currently chairman of the Center for International Private Enterprise (part of the non-profit National Endowment for Democracy) and a senior advisor to the president and CEO of the United States Chamber of Commerce. In 2008 he was President George W. Bush’s nominee to be U.S. Representative to the United Nations for Management and Reform (with the rank of Ambassador. “Our advisory board will certainly benefit from his strong background,” said Edwin J. Feulner, chairman of the board of advisors for Potomac International Partners.
https://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/11098/2018-08-06/people-move.html
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Aug 6, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
I blogged last week about how political appointees at EPA are starting to clear new chemicals to enter commerce based on a new – apparently unwritten and certainly not public – review process that ignores the law and will put the health of the public, workers and the environment at greater risk than even under the weak reviews conducted before Congress’ 2016 overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
In this post I’ll start to take a deeper look at the specific fragrance chemical that is the subject of EPA’s first decision under the new scheme. Recall that, even as it declared the chemical safe, EPA noted its “potential for the following human health hazards: irritation, mutagenicity, developmental/ reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, and carcinogenicity.” I’ll explore those hazard concerns more in a subsequent blog post. Here, let’s consider use of and exposure to the chemical.
With its decision, EPA has allowed this chemical to enter the market without any conditions whatsoever placed on how or how much of it can be produced or used or by whom. This is in fact the aim of the new scheme and, barring another change in course, we can now expect this outcome for the great majority of new chemicals EPA reviews. It will be achieved by EPA routinely making determinations that the chemicals are “not likely to present an unreasonable risk.”
First I need to provide a little context.
While EPA had made some “not likely” determinations before now, for more new chemicals reviewed under the new law EPA had been finding either that:EPA had insufficient information to “permit a reasoned evaluation of the health and environmental effects” of a new chemical – not surprising, given that the great majority of new chemical notices include little or no such data; orthe chemical “may present an unreasonable risk.”
With either determination, the law requires EPA to issue an order specifying binding conditions or testing requirements that have to be met in order to commence manufacture of the chemical. In addition, within 90 days of issuing the order, EPA has to either commence a rulemaking to require that any company notify EPA before deviating from the terms of that order (through what is called a Significant New Use Rule, or SNUR), or publicly explain why that is not necessary.
That’s what EPA had been doing after the new law passed. But EPA’s aim now is to avoid making either of the above findings so it won’t have to issue an order and won’t have to promulgate a SNUR. And because such orders are the primary means by which EPA could require a company to test its new chemical, not issuing orders gets companies out of any testing obligations as well.
In sum, EPA’s new aim is to issue no orders or SNURs and to require no testing – which means unfettered access to the market for any company who wants to make a chemical in any amount for any use it desires without having to notify EPA of its activities. EPA apparently intends to pursue this approach even for chemicals, such as this one, which present many potential human health hazards.
In the absence of those binding instruments, the only thing there is to go on is a company’s indication of its intentions for the chemical in the premanufacture notice (PMN) it submits to EPA. Unfortunately, EPA makes it quite hard for the public to get PMNs. Despite the fact that EPA’s own regulations require it to make the PMN and associated information publicly available online, EPA rarely does so.
To obtain these documents for this first chemical cleared under EPA’s new scheme, EDF had to do it the old-fashioned way: We submitted a request to EPA’s docket center and got the “public file” for this chemical, which included the PMN, sent to us on a CD (and then we had to locate a CD reader). Still, it was worth the trouble in this case. Here’s what the PMN submitted by International Flavors and Fragrances Inc. said the company intends or expects for this chemical:import of the chemical in the amount of approximately 1,000 kilograms/year;import of the chemical to its site in New Jersey as a 50% solution of the PMN substance;sales of the chemical “to industrial and commercial customers for their incorporation into industrial, commercial, and household consumer products such as floor cleaners, cat litters, fabric refresher sprays, Etc.” “to reduce malodors;” andan expectation that its customers will use the chemical in their products at 2% concentration.
EPA’s “not likely” determination document echoes these intended parameters verbatim. But here’s the thing: None of this is binding. It can be deviated from at any time without consequence. The company could increase the amount imported 10-fold or more, starting day one or any time later. It could begin manufacturing it domestically. Or its customers could use it at higher concentrations, or in other products. Indeed, the “intended use” is left astoundingly wide open by EPA: Note the “such as” and the “Etc.” in the use description. And attachments to the PMN reflect the company’s interest in selling it for use in general cleaners, laundry detergents, bar soaps, and other “down-the-drain” products.
Notably, the company could have indicated its willingness to be bound to any of those conditions, but it chose not to do so. Throughout the PMN form are boxes labeled “Binding option.” Checking the box by itself doesn’t actually bind the company to anything (see p. 35 of EPA’s “Points to Consider” guidance), but it signals its willingness to accept a limit on, say, production or use in a subsequent order or SNUR. But that’s all moot in this case, because the company chose not to check any of those boxes and because EPA issued no order and does not plan to promulgate a SNUR.
As I noted, EPA based its review on the intended use as stated by the company. That summary document provides limited information beyond EPA’s conclusions. It alludes to EPA’s “risk assessment” – but if it has conducted one, EPA has not elected to make it or any other analyses it did public. No docket for this decision has been set up. EDF has requested these documents, and we’ll let you know if we get them. Meanwhile, the only EPA document is the 5-page summary, which leaves many more questions unanswered than answered.
For starters, did EPA consider the combined exposures to the chemical from a consumer’s use of multiple products containing the chemical?
Let me describe what would likely be a very common sort of consumer: a cat owner who likes to keep a tidy house, and who has considerable brand loyalty. He or she could well use a cat litter, wash their clothes with a detergent, clean their floors or other surfaces, “refresh” their upholstered furniture and bedding, and bathe or shower with a bar soap, all made by the same company and containing this chemical.
Here’s another scenario involving commercial products: an employee of a housekeeping service or a building maintenance company who uses multiple cleaning products containing the chemical for many hours every day, five or even six days a week, year-round. By the way, it’s not at all unusual for commercial versions of such products to contain significantly higher concentrations of a chemical than general consumer versions. It would not be unreasonable to expect that such an employee might use products containing the chemical at home as well.
So it is curious that EPA’s summary indicates it identified no reasonably foreseen uses of the chemical. “None,” EPA succinctly states.
EPA’s summary document makes no mention of such users, and without seeing the risk assessment EPA has not made public, there is no way to know whether, in reviewing the chemical’s “intended conditions of use,” EPA analyzed the combined exposures arising from these imminently foreseeable exposure scenarios before it declared the chemical safe.
It is also notable that, while EPA says in its summary that it did consider the possibility that the chemical might be imported in higher than a 50% solution, EPA made no mention of looking at products containing the chemical at greater than 2% concentration.
These are a few of the many concerning questions raised by EPA’s decision that are impossible to answer, at least at this point.
Stay tuned for my next post, where I’ll look deeper at what the company and EPA had to say about the hazards posed by this chemical.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/08/06/part-2-epa-rams-through-its-reckless-review-scheme-for-new-chemicals-under-tsca-your-health-be-damned/
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US EPA Sticking to Contaminants Position for 1,4-Dioxane
Aug 6, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
In the face of NGO objections, the US EPA is sticking to its decision not to include the occurrence of 1,4-dioxane as a contaminant in consumer products in its forthcoming TSCA risk evaluation of the substance.
The position was criticised by the groups, when it was initially outlined in the substance’s ‘scope’ document – with one describing the EPA’s approach as "backwards". There are concerns that leaving it out of the risk evaluation could result in lower exposure estimates for human populations and therefore lower estimates of the risks to human health.
However, the EPA has confirmed its approach in the substance’s draft problem formulation, saying that "contamination of industrial, commercial and consumer products are not intended conditions of use for 1,4-dioxane and will not be evaluated".Ethoxylated chemicals
The substance 1,4-dioxane is used primarily as a solvent in a variety of industrial and commercial applications. But it also occurs as an unintentional contaminant in consumer products containing ethoxylated surfactants, including shampoos, detergents and cosmetics. The substance is a byproduct of the ethoxylation reaction, used to make the surfactants.
The EPA said in its scope that it would not include this occurrence in its risk evaluation because it "anticipates that 1,4-dioxane byproduct and contaminant issues will be considered in the scope of any risk evaluation of ethoxylated chemicals".
It added that it believes the risk management tools it has under section 6(a) "are better suited to addressing any unreasonable risks that might arise from [its presence as a byproduct] through regulation of the activities that generate 1,4-dioxane as an impurity or cause it to be present as a contaminant than they are to addressing them through direct regulation of 1,4-dioxane."
This was rejected by NGO the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in the public consultation on the scope. "Evaluating 1,4-dioxane formation as part of the risk evaluation for each ethoxylated chemical separately — each of which could be years or decades apart — would give EPA a disjointed and incomplete picture of the real problem," it said.
Its inclusion is needed to properly account for aggregate exposures in individuals exposed to multiple sources of the substance, the EWG said. Those exposed through personal care products might also be through other products - such as detergents, paints and dyes - or live in areas with relatively high levels in drinking water.Wider dispute
The dispute over treatment of 1,4-dioxane as a contaminant is part of a wider disagreement about "conditions of use" in risk evaluations, conducted under the revised TSCA. Across the ten substances currently undergoing evaluation, the EPA has also excluded potential exposures on the basis that they, for example, stem from 'legacy' uses or have been adequately assessed by another regulatory agency.
But Herb Estreicher, a partner at law firm Keller and Heckman, told Chemical Watch that the preamble to the final risk evaluation rule gives EPA ""discretion on how to deal with a substance that is only present as a contaminant in another substance".
The agency can address the occurrence, in the evaluation of the contaminant substance or in that of the substance in which the contamination arises, he said. Furthermore, if the EPA has has a basis to conclude that the risk from the presence of the impurity would be ‘de minimis’ or otherwise insignificant, the agency can decide not to address the contaminant in any risk evaluation.
Last year, NGOs took the EPA to court over its TSCA framework rules, saying that, among other things, the agency was affording itself too much discretion to "pick and choose" which conditions it addresses.
But in the ongoing case, Dr Estreicher says that he expects the judiciary to uphold the EPA’s interpretation of the law, pointing to the courts’ typical "deference " towards this.
"We also believe that the 9th Circuit will be sympathetic to the agency’s efforts to assign priorities and manage its workflow, given the relatively short period it has to conduct the risk evaluation," he added.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69225/epa-sticking-to-contaminants-position-for-14-dioxane
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Congress Pulls Funding For IARC Statistics Organization
Aug 6, 2018 | Science 2.0
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is part of the World Health Organisation, which is part of the United Nations, but it is really its own agency that shares little in common with WHO. Whereas WHO wants to save lives, IARC has taken to using statistics to scaremonger trace chemicals by conflating hazard and risk. So if high doses, 10,000 exposures of a chemical all at once, might be linked to cancer by looking at statistics, their flawed methodology, where five orders of magnitude are considered equal, will cause them to declare even 1 exposure a hazard.
And though they do not calculate risk, they frequently talk about risk in their media kits for journalists, which leads to confusion in media and therefore the public.
Though they were once vital to searching for carcinogens, in recent years they have been taken over by activists such as Dr. Chris Portier, who works for trial lawyers and environmental groups opposed to the chemicals he is convincing them to declare hazardous. And their impact has been just what was hoped for in having activists work their way up the ranks: In 1986, California abdicated its decision-making under Proposition 65 to IARC, back when IARC was finding carcinogens rather than creating scares. Now that body has 900 compounds they say we all need to be worried about and Prop 65 labels are on everything activists sought. But they have become a joke to the public and they are costing the public a fortune in nuisance lawsuits against things like common herbicides and coffee.
The U.S. Congress is no longer laughing. Owing to recent gambits by IARC activists, the House Committee on Appropriations has retaliated and withheld funding for IARC. The rogue agency claiming the weedkiller glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic in humans” based on statistics in hand-picked epidemiology papers, in defiance of every other expert body from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Food Safety Authority, and that may have been the last straw.
They claimed they had “sufficient evidence” in animals and limited evidence for non-Hodgkin lymphoma in humans, which was a slap in the face to experts in Europe and America, because it suggested 17 statisticians, chaired by Aaron Blair, a retired NCI epidemiologist, found something no one in biology, chemistry, or toxicology could.
As a result, expensive court cases are being fought now. Though IARC is only losing $2 million - that is a scant 0.1% of environmental coffers just in the US, it can easily be replaced - it is a vote of no-confidence by the US Congress, which means pressure will be on for California to hold a new voter initiative to replace Prop 65 with guidelines that uses more than statistics, and incorporate actual assessments of risk instead.https://www.science20.com/news_staff/congress_pulls_funding_for_iarc_statistics_organization-233610
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Two Years Ago, Trump Didn't Know What LNG Was. Now His Tariffs Could Cripple The Industry
Aug 6, 2018 | Forbes
By Ken Silverstein
Donald Trump is threatening even greater tariffs on Chinese imports, prompting the Asian nation to respond with its own promises — one that includes hitting American exports of liquefied natural gas and crude oil. Altogether China said it would impose $60 billion in tariffs on U.S. goods if Trump does not back down.
Trump started this war of words and China is determined to fight back. After all, the United States has become one of the world’s biggest exporters of LNG and crude oil thanks to its shale deposits and the advent of the drilling technic known as hydraulic fracturing. At the same time, China is becoming the world’s biggest importer of LNG, namely because it is trying to replace its coal use. But it can get that natural gas from other sources, like Russia or Qatar.
During the presidential campaign, Trump didn’t even know what LNG was. That is perhaps the biggest irony of them all, given that the fuel has become a linchpin of American energy independence as well as a critical source to reduce global CO2 emissions from China and elsewhere.
The United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, exported $3.3 billion in LNG in 2017. And next year, this country is expected to be the world’s biggest exporter of that fuel.
The United States is already exporting 50 billion cubic feet, with Cheniere’s Louisiana facility sending LNG to 11 different countries. China is expected to be the biggest market at 400 billion cubic meters. It’s also the same country that has a choice of where to buy not just its LNG but also its coal.MORE FROM FORBESCivic Nation BRANDVOICEHow Tennessee Is Proving FAFSA Completion Leads To A College-Going CultureGrads of Life BRANDVOICEThe U.S. Has Over 6 Million Job Openings. Why Aren't They Being Filled?
The trade dispute no doubt affects others, including Sempra Energy’s Cameron Project, Freeport LNG's facility in Freeport, Texas, Dominion Energy’s Cove Point and Southern Co.’s Elba Island.
“Considering the unreasonable U.S. demands, a trade war is an act that aims to crush China’s economic sovereignty, trying to force China to be a U.S. economic vassal,” China’s Global Timessaid in an editorial. “Given China’s huge market, its systemic advantage of being able to concentrate resources on big projects, its people’s tenacity in enduring hardships and its steadiness in implementing reform and opening-up policies, the country can survive a trade war.”
China has vowed to hit 6,000 U.S.-made goods with tariffs. That’s about two-thirds of the stuff it imports. Those words are in response to Trump’s bluster to up this country’s ante — raising tariffs on Chines-made goods sent to the United States from 10% to 25%, totaling $200 billion.
Boisterous Businesses
Forty-give business groups spearheaded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is opposing the tariffs and calling them “particularly harmful,” adding that that they are jeopardizing ‘innovation.’ The move, in fact, is expected to benefit China’s European trading partners, which will step in and fill the void left by U.S. exporters.
“U.S. (natural gas) exports are unlikely to make much of a dent into European and Asian markets currently serviced by Russia within the next next decade,” says Hill Huntington, executive director, Energy Modeling Forum, at Stanford University, in an earlier interview. “There are other sources in the Middle East and elsewhere that may be a lot more competitive with Russian supplies than U.S. exports.”
The president feels that other countries are blocking access to their markets while this country provides unfettered access to its consumers. His U.S. Trade Representative is saying that global trade rules allow each ‘sovereign nation’ to impose tariffs if they are deemed in their national interest — even those of the world’s most developed countries. Robert Lighthizer says that President Trump deems tariffs on China to be in the interest of “national security.”
For its part, China says that the World Trade Organization has long allowed developing countries to impose greater tariffs to protect their domestic industries from international competition.
And the takeaway from the U.S. business community is that the tariffs would do little to fix what the president says are unfair trade practices. In fact, it would increase prices on U.S. consumers and businesses and especially electronics and apparel — in effect, a tax, that would negate recent U.S. tax reform measures.
Altogether, the U.S. exported $1.3 trillion in manufactured goods, some of which could be placed at risk as a result of the tariffs. Gross domestic product would fall by $11 billion while financial markets would be depressed, says the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Tariffs would “ensure that foreign companies take the place of markets that American companies, farmers and ranchers must vacate when China retaliates against U.S. tariffs.” the U.S. Chamber says.
Impetuous Nature. Long Term Harm
Behind the scenes, businesses feel that the U.S. government is acting on a whim and on the impetuous nature of the president. And while the president may believe in trade fairness, the policies are tentative and will change with “political” circumstances. Simply, Trump wants to appear to have “won” and the substance of the resolution is less concerning to him.
Some of the U.S. manufacturing and industrial community will be headed to Shanghai in November to participate in an expo — one where Chinese President Xi Jinping will speak. While their main concern right now is a trade war that would hamper their ability to expand their presence in Asia, they are also concerned about China’s energy and environmental policies as well as their personal safety; just recently, a bomb was triggered outside the U.S. embassy, although no one was injured except for the man who detonated it.
China has committed to reduce its reliance on coal — now at 66% of its electric generation portfolio. Its immediate aim, however, is to reduce that percentage to 59% and to increase the use of natural gas to 7.5%. U.S. LNG producers could capture that market, but the proposed tariffs are a threat to that
Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson and Wal-Mart have taken pro-environment positions and have tried to enlist their supply chains to do the same, including those in China. And China has responded by implementing much tougher air quality rules, not just because it wants to clean its environment but also because it wants to ingratiate itself in the global community.
Will the ‘trade war’ and the resulting tariffs have a permanent effect on U.S.-Chinese relations? The huffing-and-puffing will continue for a while but that Trump will ultimately cave-in — mainly because China has hit the U.S. heartland that voted for Trump. And once he backs down, things will cool off.
Businesses, generally, feel the Trump effect will be short-term — that more rational national leadership will eventually take the helm. The damage, though, could take years to repair, especially to America’s LNG industry.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2018/08/06/two-years-ago-trump-didnt-know-what-lng-was-now-his-tariffs-could-cripple-the-industry/#4121fab72a74
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Mexican Energy Sector Overhaul Could Reduce U.S. Export Demand
Aug 6, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
An ambitious plan to boost Mexico's oil and gas production could potentially slow the country's energy sector reforms and hinder trade opportunities for U.S. refiners and pipeline companies that have ramped up exports to meet growing demand there, according to research firm Morningstar.
Mexican president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced late last month a plan to invest billions of dollars in Pemex, the country's state-owned energy company, in an effort to reverse years of declining production. He also reaffirmed his intent to review more than 100 exploration and production contracts awarded to private oil and gas companies since the 2013 reforms, which opened the country's energy sector to foreign investment for the first time in decades.
Mexico's energy reforms are enshrined in its constitution, and López Obrador has said that he will he will honor existing contracts so long as they don't reveal corruption. But Morningstar noted that any effort to scale back the reforms or increase Mexican energy production could jeopardize some $200 billion in outside investments planned for the country's oil and gas, power, refining and distribution sectors.
Part of López Obrador's plan involves investing $2.6 billion to upgrade the nation's six existing refineries as well as building a new, $8.6 billion refinery at the oil port of Dos Bocas in Tabasco. The country's existing refineries have been operating at less than 70 percent capacity since 2012, according to Mexico's energy department, requiring the country to import more gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined products.Recommended Video:
American companies have covered much of the shortfall. U.S. exports of finished gasoline products and diesel have more than tripled since 2010 amid a boom in oil and gas production from shale fields in West Texas and elsewhere.
Morningstar oil and products research director Sandy Fielden wrote that Mexico's attempt to overhaul its energy sector could have particular ramifications for U.S. refiners and pipeline companies. Both sectors have expanded operations in recent years to support growing demand from Mexico.
"There is no denying that consequences for U.S. refiners could be considerable," Fielden wrote. "The expansion of Gulf Coast refining during the shale era is closely bound to growing export demand, with Mexico being the largest customer."
Mexico's election early last month came during a pivotal time for both North American trade negotiations and the U.S. oil and gas industry. Texas in particular has benefited from the country's energy reforms, last year shipping nearly $100 billion in goods, including petroleum products, south of the border under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
More than 25 cross-border pipeline projects, headed by major companies including Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners and Houston-based Kinder Morgan, are also underway as Mexico has emerged as one of Texas' largest natural gas customers.
López Obrador will take office in December, around the time President Donald Trump is expected to resume NAFTA negotiations.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Mexican-energy-sector-overhaul-could-reduce-U-S-13134774.php
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Divided FERC Approves Mo. Project After Argument Over Need
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Mintz
A divided Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a Midwestern natural gas pipeline last week, overriding concerns from Democrats at the agency, state regulators and others that there is not sufficient evidence of the project's need.
The Spire STL pipeline, a 65-mile, $225 million project that would run through Illinois and Missouri, was granted a certificate of public convenience and necessity by FERC on Friday.
The Missouri Public Service Commission, environmentalists and other energy companies in the state had argued that it is not sufficiently clear the project is needed. They contested that there is flat demand for natural gas in St. Louis and that a contract between the pipeline's developer and natural gas utility Spire Missouri — the only precedent agreement supporting the project — does not by itself indicate there is significant market demand, because the two are affiliates.
The FERC majority, made up of three Republicans, shot down that argument.
"The fact that Spire Missouri is affiliated with the project's sponsor does not require the Commission to look behind the precedent agreements to evaluate project need," they wrote in the order.
"An affiliated shipper's need for capacity and its obligation to pay for such service under a binding contract are not lessened just because it is affiliated with the project sponsor," the majority wrote.
The decision brought dissents from both Democrats on FERC, who have also challenged several recent pipeline approvals over separate issues connected to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.
Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur argued that the record does not demonstrate a sufficient need for the project.
"The Spire Project has a single precedent agreement with Spire Missouri, its local distribution company (LDC) affiliate, and will force duplicative gas transportation capacity into a regional market of flat demand, shifting gas supply away from an existing pipeline and adversely impacting rates for the existing pipeline captive customers," she wrote.
She argued that while FERC typically does not look beyond precedent agreements to determine economic need, it is not prevented from doing so under its pipeline policy guidelines.
Her fellow Democrat, Rich Glick, said the order "turns a blind eye" to concerns raised in the record.
"To conclude that a precedent agreement between affiliates will always represent accurate, impartial and complete evidence of need, as the Commission appears to suggest today, is to abdicate our responsibility under the NGA," Glick wrote.
Glick said that "at the very least," FERC should have taken a deeper look at the issues raised by those who challenged the project's need, "rather than brushing them blithely aside."
The Democrats' dissents were "very unusual," according to Ari Peskoe, an energy law expert at Harvard Law School.
FERC used to reject pipelines for failing to meet the "public convenience and necessity" standards, but such decisions are now rare, Peskoe said.
The disagreement could carry over into FERC's ongoing work on updating its pipeline policy guidelines, a document that was last updated in 1999. FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre initiated a comprehensive review of the policy statement last year.
A number of public comments in that docket have argued FERC should differentiate between contracts between affiliates and other contracts when it is determining whether a project is needed.
"As FERC revisits its policy statement, will it continue to defer to manufactured demand to justify a PCN finding?" Peskoe wrote on Twitter.
The decision also again raises questions about FERC's ability to advance projects in the wake of the upcoming departure of Republican Commissioner Robert Powelson, who is leaving the agency this month to lead the National Association of Water Companies.
FERC has cleared several major decisions from its queue in recent weeks, but some remain and others may pop up in the time that the agency has a 2-2 partisan split. Progress on pipelines in particular could be stalled if Glick and LaFleur continue to challenge projects based both on climate issues and on the consideration of need.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/06/stories/1060092831
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FERC Halts All MVP Construction, Citing Court Order
Aug 6, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
FERC has ordered Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to stop all construction work because of a July 27 court order that rescinded the 303-mile, 42-inch diameter project’s authority to build across federal lands...
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Story can be found here:
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/115321-ferc-halts-all-mvp-construction-citing-court-order?v=preview
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New Wave of Mega LNG Projects Is Approaching
Aug 6, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Ron Bousso
A new race to build multi-billion dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants is gaining momentum after a long hiatus in investments as energy giants sense a widening supply gap within five years.
Spending on new, complex facilities that super-chill gas into liquid in order to allow its transportation dried up following the collapse in energy prices in 2014.
Appetite was further dampened by fears that a plethora of LNG plants built since the late 2000s would lead to a large supply glut until early in the next decade.
But sentiment has radically changed over the past year. Buoyed by rising oil prices and exceptionally strong demand from rapidly growing economies such as China and India, executives are increasingly confident conditions are once again ripe for new projects.
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Qatar, the world's largest LNG producer, is preparing to expand its facilities by around one third to produce 100-108 million tonnes per year (mtpa) by 2023-2024.
"The glut that people see I don't see ... If you just count on being pessimistic about the market, and don't build expansions, you will never catch that upside when the market is up," Saad al-Kaabi, the head of Qatar Petroleum, told Reuters in May.
The state-owned company expects long-standing partners Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and ConocoPhillips to help build and fund the new expansion phases as well as possibly new entrants, he said.
A major change in the outlook happened after China strongly boosted imports of LNG in recent years to reduce coal burn in its fight against pollution.
"The supply-demand balance definitely looks more favourable towards producers these days," said Philippe Sauquet, the head of gas at France's Total, the world's second largest LNG trader after Shell.EDITORS’ PICKSGeorge Soros Bet Big on Liberal Democracy. Now He Fears He Is Losing.How Trump’s Trade War Went From 18 Products to 10,000Inside Nicaragua’s Protest Movement
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"China will continue to make the real difference in demand. I don't see them slowing down. They are shifting attention to building more and more infrastructure," Sauquet told Reuters.
(Graphic: LNG supply and demand - https://tmsnrt.rs/2mQuxSY)
GAS GAP
The LNG market will require over 200 million tonnes per year of new supply through to 2030, or roughly 25-30 mtpa per year in new capacity additions to 2025, according to Bernstein.
"We believe 60 mtpa needs to be sanctioned by 2020 and a further 100+ mtpa between 2020-2025 to ensure markets are adequately supplied," Bernstein said.
Liquefaction capacity additions are expected to fall sharply by the end of 2019 as newly commissioned plants reach their maximum capacity, according to Bernstein.
The main source of growth is expected to come from the United States, where supplies rose sharply and prices plummeted with the expansion of shale drilling.
Investors were highly critical of oil and gas companies earlier this decade as costs ballooned for many LNG projects under development such as Chevron's $54 billion Gorgon project in western Australia, the most expensive in history, or Shell's $14 billion (£10.80 billion) Prelude LNG, the world's largest floating structure.
But with services costs still languishing in the wake of the 2014 slump and new technologies helping to simplify and improve designs, new projects are able to compete for capital.
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Executives also say they have learnt from past mistakes.
NEW PROJECTS
The renewed confidence in the outlook for LNG and the recovery in oil prices that has led to a surge in revenue for energy companies, boards are getting ready to invest.
Exxon last year bought for $2.8 billion a 25 percent stake in Eni's Rovuma development in Mozambique, which holds a massive estimated resource of 85 trillion cubic feet.
Speaking to Reuters, Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said partners in the project, Exxon, Korea Gas Corp and China National Petroleum Corporation [CNPET.UL], will take a final investment decision next year so it could be operational by 2023-2024. The project will produce 15 million tonnes of LNG per year, or 5 percent of global output.
Shell, which acquired BG Group in 2016 for $54 billion to boost its gas output, is nearing a decision on the development of LNG Canada. It would be its first new LNG project since 2011.
"We expect a supply gap in the gas market in the early 2020s ... LNG Canada looks very promising," Shell Chief Financial Officer Jessica Uhl said last month.
Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said the Anglo-Dutch company expects the partners in the Nigeria LNG processing plant, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Shell, Total and Eni, to consider its expansion by the end of the year to increase its capacity to 30 mtpa.
Shell's British rival BP and its partner Kosmos Energy will decide on the development of the Tortue field off the coast of Senegal and Mauritania by next year.
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Global demand for LNG surged by 12 percent in 2017, far exceeding forecasts, and is expected to grow by up to 10 percent in 2018, according to analysts at Bernstein.
Oil and gas companies have heralded LNG as the fossil fuel of the future thanks to its relatively low carbon emissions.
Natural gas, the least polluting fossil fuel, is a key growth area for energy companies which see it playing a pivotal role in the world's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming.
For companies like Shell and BP, the share of gas production has surpassed that of oil in recent years.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/08/06/business/06reuters-lng-supply-analysis.html
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Arkema, Management, Face Criminal Charges Related to Texas Fires
Aug 6, 2018 | Plastics News
By Shahrzad Pourriahi
French specialty chemical supplier Arkema SA says it will fight criminal charges against the company and its top managers after a Texas grand jury issued indictments related to a series of explosions and fires at its Houston area plant in 2017.
Flooding related to Hurricane Harvey inundated the Crosby, Texas, plant, leading to the Aug. 31 fires.
The Harris County grand jury issued a series of indictments Aug. 3, charging the company and two of its leaders — Arkema North America CEO Richard Rowe and plant manager Leslie Comardelle — with playing a role in “recklessly” releasing toxic cloud into the air.
With the indictment, Arkema faces up to a $1 million fine while Rowe and Comardelle can face up to five years in prison.
“Companies don’t make decisions, people do,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said. “Responsibility for pursuing profit over the health of innocent people rests with the leadership of Arkema.
“Indictments against corporations are rare,” Ogg said. “Those who poison our environment will be prosecuted when the evidence justifies it.”
“As the hurricane approached, Arkema was more concerned about production and profit than people,” added Alexander Forrest, chief of the Environmental Crimes Division at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Arkema’s attorney, however, countered that Arkema had followed emergency procedures and took steps to protect the materials, but the flooding was worse than anyone had expected.
The explosions at the Crosby plant occurred after flooding cut power used to cool storage of some organic peroxides stored at the site, which exploded due to high temperatures.
Arkema officials described the decision by the jury as “outrageous,” saying it found it hard to believe “anyone would seek to criminalize the way in which one facility was impacted by such a crushing natural disaster.”
The French supplier also pointed to an eight-month investigation by U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which stated that the Crosby site had plans, procedures and multiple contingency measures to prevent loss of power and refrigeration.
Describing the hurricane as an “act of God”, the board also noted that the Arkema plant met “all requirements related to flood planning, and there simply are no requirements or guidance that would have been enough to prevent the incident in the face of such unexpected flooding.” “These criminal charges are astonishing, especially since the U.S. Chemical Safety Board concluded that Arkema behaved responsibly,” Arkema noted in its Aug. 3 statement.
At the end of its eight-month investigation, the Chemical Safety Board noted that Hurricane Harvey was the most significant rainfall event in U.S. history, an “Act of God” that never before has been seen in this country.
Arkma’s attorney, Rusty Hardin, of Rusty Hardin & Associates, also issued a statement on the same day, saying there was no foundation for a criminal case against Arkema.
“The [Harris County District Attorney’s] office has no legal precedent in Texas courts and there are no cases on point. And they chose to use this unprecedented charge for a tragedy. 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,” said Hardin.
In pursuing these charges against Arkema, said Hardin, “Harris County will have the daunting task of trying to prove that Arkema anticipated the possibility of 6 feet of floodwater and then decided not to prepare for it.”
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180806/NEWS/308069999/arkema-management-face-criminal-charges-related-to-texas-fires
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TWI Launches Open Project on Early-Stage Detection of High Temperature Hydrogen Attack
Aug 6, 2018 | Hydrocarbon Engineering
By Nicholas Woodroof
TWI has recently launched a new Joint Industry Project (JIP) to explore and validate detection methods for high temperature hydrogen attack (HTHA). Inspections will be carried out on a carbon steel pressure vessel – operated in a regime calculated to induce accelerated HTHA – and designed to simulate the real world operations and challenges associated with detecting this phenomenon.Carbon steels are used extensively in oil and gas refinery equipment, and have fallen victim to HTHA, as is evident from the industrial incident in 2010 at the Tesoro Anacortes refinery in the US. The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB)’s report, published in 2014, recommended the use of a new boundary for carbon steel in API 941 (Steels for Hydrogen Service at Elevated Temperatures and Pressures in Petroleum Refineries and Petrochemical Plants) which would effectively prohibit the use of carbon steel equipment at process conditions above 400°F and greater than 50 psia hydrogen partial pressure. Consequently, this would preclude the use of carbon steel for many vessels currently operating in refineries. In 2016, a new limit line for non-post-weld heat treated welds in carbon steel was introduced into API 941 to take into account several recent incidents affecting such material.
An important aspect of preventing similar industrial incidents is the effectiveness of the inspection process used to assess components at risk. The CSB’s report found that there were severe limitations to inspection practices on refinery plants, such that they were not sufficiently reliable to ensure mechanical integrity and prevent HTHA equipment damage. Hence, the report raised a key technical challenge to develop and implement practical techniques for industry to use in the field that would be sensitive to early-stage HTHA.
The JIP led by TWI proposes to assess and validate front running, ultrasonic techniques for the inspection and identification of HTHA damage. There will be a particular focus on welds and their heat-affected zones, which are recognised as being preferential sites for HTHA and were strongly implicated in the Tesoro Anacortes refinery incident. The work will be carried out on a representative pressure vessel, incorporating different weld types and configurations, which will be designed to present similar challenges to those found during monitoring and inspection on petrochemical sites. Periodic inspection of the vessel in use will enable practical demonstration and validation of the techniques for early-stage detection of HTHA. If required, the vessel can be operated until failure within TWI’s unique high-pressure test pit facility.
Channa Nageswaran, NDT Team Manager at TWI, said: “TWI is currently developing cutting-edge ultrasonic techniques for the detection of early-stage creep damage that are also applicable to the problem of high temperature hydrogen attack (HTHA), therefore, the decision to undertake this project was a natural progression of our existing research. Furthermore, we can also bring to this challenge an in-depth knowledge of non-destructive testing practice, and expertise in residual stress measurement, modelling, fracture and metallurgy.”
He went on to explain: “The benefits that companies or organisations can expect to gain from participating in the Joint Industry Project include: access to proprietary, validated ultrasonic techniques that can detect the early stages of microstructural degradation due to HTHA; resultant procedures for inspecting vessels and pipework whilst in service, or during outages using commercially available equipment; improved ability to meet regulatory requirements for the operation of ageing assets; and a reduction in equipment replacement costs.”
https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/refining/06082018/twi-launches-open-project-on-early-stage-detection-of-high-temperature-hydrogen-attack/
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Roll Back Car Emissions Rules for Safety's Sake? Baloney
Aug 6, 2018 | Los Angeles Times
By David J. Hayes
The Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, wants to walk away from a 10-year deal to gradually improve fuel efficiency for cars and light trucks through 2025.
We have come to expect that the EPA under President Trump will roll back environmental protections without blinking. But why is the Department of Transportation reversing course on improved fuel economy standards that will reduce gasoline demand and harmful tailpipe emissions, while saving drivers money at the pump?
With the bureaucratic equivalent of a straight face, DOT says that safety considerations explain why auto companies shouldn’t have to meet a 54.5 miles-per-gallon goal set in 2012. The department asserts that consumers won’t want to pay for more gas-efficient cars, keeping older, less safe vehicles on the road. And it claims drivers who would buy more fuel-efficient cars would drive more, also leading to more accidents.
Today’s Transportation Department is slashing safety regulations to lower industry compliance costs.Share quote & link
These arguments are baloney. Auto companies have maintained high consumer satisfaction by using stronger, lighter materials and improved engine technologies to meet mileage targets. There is no evidence that consumers won’t welcome new cars that deliver improved mileage and lower gas costs, or that driving patterns would radically change. Plus, DOT cannot ignore the flip side of the safety issue: Leaving more gas guzzlers on the road means increased tailpipe emissions and — as a consequence — increased adverse health impacts and premature deaths.
The Transportation Department also faces a credibility gap on the safety issue because during the Trump administration, it has strayed badly out of its traditional, safety-oriented lane. Since Jan. 20, 2017, the DOT has prioritized the dismantling of industry regulations over the promulgation of new transportation safety rules, despite near-daily reminders of glaring safety gaps in the transportation world.
An Associated Press report made this point earlier this year when it identified a dozen or more DOT deregulatory actions that would sideline important safety fixes devised to respond to real-life road tragedies: state inspections of commercial bus operators, installation of vehicle collision-avoidance systems and sleep apnea testing for truckers.
The most recent regulatory agenda published by the Transportation Department tells the same story. For example, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — like NHTSA, a DOT subagency — candidly admits that it intends to “ease regulatory burdens on the construction and operation” of hazardous liquid pipelines and gas transmissionpipelines, even though they are the sites of dozens of major accidents that cause multiple deaths each year.Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion »
Despite the horrific gas pipeline failure and explosion that killed eight people and leveled 35 homes in San Bruno in 2010, the pipeline and hazardous materials safety agency is entertaining an industry request to “mitigate” a long-standing requirement to pressure-test and replace old gas pipelines in densely populated areas. Likewise, the agency’s agenda has called out the hard fought safety requirements put in place after Southern California’s Aliso Canyon disaster as ripe for deregulation. In other words, DOT is looking to water down those rules too.
The pattern is clear. Today’s Transportation Department is slashing safety regulations right and left to lower industry compliance costs, while giving scant attention to the health and safety considerations that underpin those rules.
Facts do not support the DOT’s argument that the auto industry’s fuel economy standards must be dialed back to improve automotive safety. To the contrary, the rollback of emissions standards would give the auto industry an unneeded regulatory break at the expense of our collective health, safety and environmental welfare.
This is the dangerous Trump deregulatory agenda at work.
David J. Hayes is executive director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law. He was deputy secretary of the Interior Department in the Clinton and Obama administrations.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-hayes-dot-epa-safety-emissions-20180806-story.html
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Groups Sue EPA Over Ozone Standards
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
EPA is facing at least three more lawsuits over its handling of attainment designations for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard.
The suits, all filed late last week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, challenge the round of designations published by the agency in early June.
One was brought by the Sierra Club; another by the Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center and Respiratory Health Association; and the third by the city of Sunland Park, N.M., and Familias Unidas del Chamizal, an El Paso, Texas, advocacy group.
That last suit seeks to vacate EPA's decision to deem El Paso County as "attainment/unclassifiable" for the 70 parts per billion standard. While the other two suits do not spell out the specific designations that are being challenged, the Sierra Club expects to target EPA's decisions for El Paso County; Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Waukesha and Washington counties in southeastern Wisconsin; Jefferson County in eastern Missouri; Ottawa County in western Michigan; and part of Weld County in northeastern Colorado, senior attorney Josh Berman said in an email.
Judith Nemes, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, said this morning the group will challenge attainment designations for the Chicago area, the Milwaukee area and the St. Louis area but would name specifics in a court filing early next month.
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is a lung irritant tied to asthma attacks in children and worsened breathing problems in adults with emphysema and other chronic respiratory ailments.
Three other suits challenging some of the same designations were also filed late last week (Greenwire, Aug. 3).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/06/stories/1060092845
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EPA Settlement Requires Glass Company to Curb NOx, SO2
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
A Florida-based manufacturer of glass containers will pay a $1.1 million fine and spend an estimated $40 million to limit pollution at a half-dozen plants under a tentative settlement announced Friday by EPA and the Justice Department that would run through the end of the next decade.
The proposed consent decree calls on Anchor Glass Container Corp. to add new controls to curb emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter at six plants in Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Minnesota, New York and Oklahoma.
The proposed deal, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, would resolve alleged violations of EPA's New Source Review program.
"The resulting pollution reductions will mean cleaner and clearer air for communities in six states," Susan Bodine, head of EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said in a news release.
In a statement, Sam Hijab, Anchor's general counsel, said the company disputes the allegations but "recognizes its responsibilities to the environment and the communities in which it operates."
When fully implemented, the tentative settlement is expected to cut the firm's total emissions of NOx by more than 2,000 tons, SO2 by more than 700 tons, and particulate matter by some 100 tons, according to EPA. Anchor will also have to install continuous emissions monitors at all of its plants for NOx and SO2.
Anchor is headquartered in Tampa and has about 1,850 employees. Its product lines include beer bottles and food jars, according to its website. Under a staggered compliance schedule, the company would have until the end of 2029 to fully meet the terms of the proposed deal, which is part of a long-running EPA enforcement initiative targeting the glass industry. It carries a 30-day public comment period.
In a lawsuit also filed Friday in conjunction with the proposed consent decree, EPA and the Justice Department charged Anchor with repeatedly violating New Source Review requirements by expanding furnaces or making other major modifications that led to "significant net emissions increases" without first obtaining pre-construction permits or meeting "best available control technology" (BACT) emissions limits.
The suit also alleged that Anchor failed to get operating permits that incorporated those limits. EPA had previously slapped the company with formal violation notices in 2011 and 2014.
The $1.1 million fine would be split three ways, with the federal government getting $550,000, and the states of Indiana and Oklahoma each receiving $275,000, according to the proposed deal.
Anchor has also agreed to undertake two mitigation projects with a combined price tag of at least $600,000. One would require the company to install or retrofit hydronic heaters and other wood-burning appliances at its Shakopee, Minn., plant with cleaner-burning models. The other mandates replacement or retooling of higher-polluting diesel-powered vehicles at its Jacksonville, Fla., facility.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/06/stories/1060092839
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Kavanaugh's Hero and Climate Science
Aug 6, 2018 | RealClearEnergy
By Jay Hakes
Senators reviewing U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh should consider his likely impact on federal efforts to slow the warming of the planet. With a lifetime appointment, the president’s choice to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy could serve on the nation’s highest court for many decades, and some greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere for over a century. Thus, it is no stretch to suggest that Kavanaugh’s decisions on climate could be felt into the late-22nd century.
Kavanagh’s opinions during his service on the Circuit Court, per one legal analysis, have demonstrated skepticism about environmental regulation that at times employed contradictory legal principles. Another indicator of Kavanaugh’s approach to climate change cases comes from a justice who wrote a dissenting opinion on a most important case on climate and for whom he has expressed great admiration.
Kavanaugh has called the late Justice Antonin Scalia “a role model” and praised, among other desirable traits, his commitment to “read the words of the statute as written.” The tie to Scalia is hardly trivial. White House Counsel Donald McGahn recently told the Federal Society, a group committed to the placement of conservatives on the Supreme Court and that screened President Donald Trump’s potential picks, “This administration’s mandate on judicial selections is clear: Choose judges in the mold of Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, and now Justice Gorsuch.” So, what can we learn from Scalia’s record on the Court?
The Court’s pivotal decision on climate came in Massachusetts v. EPA, which in 2007 found that the Clean Air Act required the Environmental Protection Agency to make a reasoned judgment whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted from motor vehicles endangered “public welfare.” This opinion later led to EPA rulemaking that found that such gases did, indeed, endanger public welfare.
On a 5–4 vote, three justices appointed by different Republican presidents joined the two appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in the majority opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens. With the retirement of Justice Kennedy, none of those GOP judges will be involved in future deliberations of the Court. The remaining four Republican justices agreed with two dissenting opinions written by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Scalia. Scalia’s analysis running just over a dozen pages provides a template of what the White House says we should expect from a justice in the mold of the Federalist Society.
In his dissent, Scalia quotes language in the Clean Air Act providing that the Administrator of EPA:
shall by regulation prescribe … standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicle or new motor vehicle engine, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare (emphasis added by Scalia).
According to Scalia, this passage indicates that the EPA administrator should be granted wide latitude in his judgment, but his use of italics deflected attention away from other words, like “shall,” that could have led to a different interpretation. Moreover, he argued, the government’s research and voluntary action programs were an adequate substitute for “regulation.” By narrowly focusing on this passage, however, Scalia ignored other parts of the law that clearly indicated what it meant.
For instance, he did not acknowledge, as did the majority opinion, that the Act plainly specified that “public welfare” could be endangered by the effects of pollution on “weather” or “climate.” Indeed, an ample body of evidence shows that the authors of the 1970 legislation were aware of the growing science on climate change and also anticipated that the Act could be used to deal with it when a greater consensus developed on issues that were still in contention. In the early-1970s, there were disagreements whether the cooling effects of aerosols or the warming effects of carbon dioxide would prove more powerful. By later in the decade, there was little doubt among scientists that the warming impacts would come to dominate.
Amidst a plethora of legal arguments in the Court’s opinions, the pivotal issue on the merits was how the administrator’s judgment should be constrained by the term “reasonably be expected to.” Scalia conceded that the discretion of the administrator to take no action was “not entirely unbounded.” But if there were bounds, how and by whom would they be determined?
According to the majority opinion, written by Stevens, reasonable expectations on climate change should be determined by scientists who were experts on the subject and so turned to the latest available report (2001) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Based on its reading of that report, the majority concluded that “The harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized.”
The scientific basis of Scalia’s dissent was the National Academy of Sciences 2001 report “Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions,” written at the formal request of the administration with a one-month deadline, which embraced the IPCC findings. The opening sentence of the summary reads: “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.” The document included numerous caveats (as would any intellectually honest forecast of future trends), including the inability of scientists to fully understand the natural forces at work. Scalia’s opinion puts more weight on the “uncertainties” of climate science than on what scientists regarded as the most likely scenarios.
The problem with this “uncertainty trap” is a lack of historical perspective. For instance, while the Bush administration in 2003 described its effort to reduce scientific uncertainties about climate science as a “new initiative,” scientists with federal funding had been trying to reduce levels of uncertainty since the Eisenhower administration. And over the years, they have made a good deal of progress. But there will never be complete certainty, mainly because natural systems are so complex that the abilities of humans to fully understand them may be limited in perpetuity. That there remain — and always will remain — unknowns in science does not negate what scientists know to be likely to happen.
If the Scalia model holds true, it is likely that Federalist Society judges, including Kavanaugh, will acknowledge a link between the emission of greenhouse gases and rising global temperatures. They may be reluctant to overturn the Massachusetts case directly, based on its status as precedent. We should expect, however, that they will tend to side with polluters over the public interest in protecting the climate and that the impacts of the Massachusetts case will be seriously eroded.
Bet on the “uncertainty” argument making future appearances to provide ammunition for judges to block climate action. Meanwhile, Alaskans will observe melting permafrost; coastal residents around the country will experience rising sea levels and more intense storms; and farmers in many areas will confront greater aridity of soils.
The Senate’s vote on Kavanaugh will likely affect the pace at which these climatic changes occur.
Jay Hakes is a historian specializing in energy and the American presidency. He is the author of A Declaration of Energy Independence: How Freedom from Foreign Oil Can Improve National Security, Our Economy, and the Environment.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2018/08/06/kavanaughs_hero_and_climate_science_110322.html
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