Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report - August 7, 2018
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Wheeler Under Fire to Undo Pruitt Policy on Science Advisers
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
The Union of Concerned Scientists, joined by more than 20 other advocacy groups, is urging acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to undo his predecessor's policy that generally bars agency grant recipients from serving on advisory committees. -
Bill Seeks to Press Pause on Pruitt EPA Proposals
Aug 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Two democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill to suspend any proposed rulemaking signed by Scott Pruitt during his time as EPA administrator, until ethics investigations have been completed. -
Trump Administration Is Considering Reweighing Costs and Benefits of EPA Regulations
Aug 5, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
The Trump administration has the Environmental Protection Agency’s hood up and is studying how to slow the engine that drives the agency’s regulatory activities. -
EPA Asks Court to Drop, Allow ‘Do Over’ of Parts of Chemical Rules
Aug 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA wants to drop part of a rule that threatened the public with civil or criminal penalties for providing incomplete information about a chemical to the agency. -
EPA New Chemical Approval Signals 'Reckless' TSCA Process, EDF Charges
Aug 6, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA has approved a new chemical for use under the revised toxics law but has limited its review and regulation of the substance's “reasonably foreseen uses,” a move environmentalists say signals a “reckless” process for reviewing new chemicals that violates the June 2016 toxics law by failing to preclude unintended uses from its requirements. -
EPA Adds Clarity to Interpretation of “Reasonably Foreseeable Conditions of Use”
Aug 6, 2018 | Lexology
By Lynn L. Bergeson, Charles M. Auer, Richard E. Engler and Oscar Hernandez
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) release of its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 5(a)(3)(C) determination for P-16-0510 represents a significant step in EPA’s implementation of the New Chemicals Program under new TSCA. -
EPA Extends Comment Period on TSCA Problem Formulations
Aug 7, 2018 | Lexology
By Lynn L. Bergeson
On August 7, 2018, EPA is expected to announce the extension of the comment period on the problem formulations for the risk evaluations for the first 10 chemicals under Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 6. -
EPA Is Now Allowing Asbestos Back into Manufacturing
Aug 6, 2018 | The Architect's Newspaper
By Sydney Franklin
One of the most dangerous construction-related carcinogens is now legally allowed back into U.S. manufacturing under a new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). -
Arizona Parents Pressing EPA for Ban on Toxic Chemical
Aug 7, 2018 | Kdminer
By Bryan Pietsch
Tucson mom Linda Robles was in Washington Wednesday to demand that the Environmental Protection Agency ban TCE, the chemical she blames for the death of one daughter and the birth defects of three other children. -
Are Toxic Chemicals in Our Drinking Water? Statewide Testing Should Let Us Know.
Aug 6, 2018 | News & Observer
By Craig Jarvis
North Carolina’s leading university science researchers will try to find out if water supplies in the state have been contaminated with toxic compounds like GenX, an unregulated chemical discovered in the Cape Fear River last year. -
Oregon Looks to Modify Reportable Chemicals List
Aug 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Oregon has proposed modifying its list of reportable substances under the state's children’s products reporting rule, and making changes to fees and notification requirements under the scheme. -
J&J Begins Revealing Fragrance Ingredients in Babycare Products
Aug 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
Consumer goods multinational, Johnson & Johnson, has announced that it will disclose all ingredients in its babycare products. -
(ACC Mentioned) Led by Sempra Energy, 'Global Natural Gas Coalition' Launched with Trump Admin and Labor Union in Fold
Aug 6, 2018 | DeSmog
By Steve Horn
San Diego-based Sempra Energy has spearheaded the launch of a group called the Global Natural Gas Coalition to promote exports of gas obtained via fracking (hydraulic fracturing) to the global market. -
China’s Gas Tariffs Are a Permian-Size Problem for Oil
Aug 6, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Liam Denning
Energy dominance sure does seem to come with a hefty dose of self-flagellation. -
Lesser Shales Beckon as Permian Pipes and Costs Dull Crude Rush
Aug 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Nussbaum and Kevin Crowley
Rising costs and dwindling pipeline space have some U.S. oil companies doing what was once unthinkable: saying no to the coveted Permian shale region. -
Delay Puts $3.7B Shale Gas Pipeline at Risk of Overhaul
Aug 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Adams-Heard
A $3.7 billion pipeline in America’s biggest shale gas play could be rerouted after a federal agency ordered all work on the project to stop. -
Anti-Fracking Petitioners Push for a Statewide Vote
Aug 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Colorado voters may get a chance to vote in November on a proposal that would severely curtail oil and gas development in the state. -
States' Oil & Gas Methane Suit Could Force Stricter EPA Clean Air Policies
Aug 6, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Pending litigation from 15 states and environmentalists to force the Trump EPA to issue first-time methane emissions standards for existing oil and gas equipment could, if successful, broadly force the agency to issue tougher Clean Air Act rules for several sectors, according to legal experts. -
Why We Should Cheer Trump’s Energy Policy Gambit
Aug 7, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Ellen R. Wald
The Trump administration recently announced a proposal to freeze planned increases to fuel economy and fuel emissions standards in new vehicles. -
(ACC Mentioned) Arkema Indicted for Fires, Chemical Releases Following Tropical Storm Harvey
Aug 6, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Randy Lee Loftis
A grand jury in Houston indicted Arkema and two of its executives Friday on criminal charges that they “recklessly” failed to prevent fires and releases from a chemical plant near Houston last year during catastrophic flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey. -
(ACC Mentioned) 5 Important Stories That Deserve a Closer Look
Aug 6, 2018 | PBS NewsHour
By Joshua Barajas, Jessica Yarvin and Erica R. Hendry
Last year, as Hurricane Harvey roared through Texas, chemical fires broke out at the Arkema plant northeast of Houston, sending clouds of black toxic smoke over emergency workers and forcing an evacuation of nearby homes. It took several days for police officers to completely put out the flames. -
Reilly Urges Wheeler To Advance Affirmative Agenda But Doubts Prospects
Aug 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
William Reilly, who served as EPA administrator during the George H.W. Bush administration, is urging Andrew Wheeler, the agency's new acting chief, to advance an affirmative environmental agenda rather than a continued focus on regulatory rollbacks, but he is also indicating that he does not expect Wheeler to wholeheartedly embrace that advice. -
Study Warns of Looming Potential for Runaway Global Warming
Aug 6, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Max Greenwood
A new study out Monday warns of the possibility of out-of-control global warming if humans fail to band together to fight the worst effects of climate change. -
Even 2 C of Warming Could Turn Earth into 'Hothouse'
Aug 7, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Chelsea Harvey
Keeping global warming in check might not be enough to prevent a cascading series of dangerous climate impacts, scientists are warning. -
Trump Admin Sees Grim Climate Outcome in Car Rule
Aug 7, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman and Scott Waldman
The last time carbon dioxide levels hit the mark the Trump administration envisions for the end of the century, crocodiles roamed the poles and palm trees existed where glaciers are today.
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Wheeler Under Fire to Undo Pruitt Policy on Science Advisers
Aug 6, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
The Union of Concerned Scientists, joined by more than 20 other advocacy groups, is urging acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to undo his predecessor's policy that generally bars agency grant recipients from serving on advisory committees.
By excluding leading scientists from participation, the policy "damages staff morale and isolates EPA from the scientific community," the groups wrote in a letter to Wheeler and three other top officials released this afternoon. The ban was imposed last October by then-EPA chief Scott Pruitt as part of a broader overhaul of membership standards for the agency's skein of almost two dozen advisory panels.
Under White House pressure, Pruitt resigned early last month following a stream of ethics and spending controversies. Promptly repealing his membership directive "would represent a good start in a larger effort to right the ship at EPA," the letter says.
EPA press aides did not immediately reply to a request for comment this afternoon. But in an interview with E&E News soon after assuming his new job, Wheeler said he planned to keep the policy and signaled agreement with Pruitt's rationale that it would help preserve the objectivity of researchers who furnish outside expertise on subjects including air quality standards and pesticides.
"It's my understanding that's what that policy was trying to get to, making sure that you don't have somebody on the advisory board recommending that the EPA go down a path where they're already doing their research and getting money from the EPA," Wheeler said in the interview (Greenwire, July 13).
But EPA records released in response to one of three lawsuits challenging the directive show that agency officials relied heavily on input from Republican lawmakers in crafting the policy while making little, if any, effort to consult with mainstream scientific organizations (Greenwire, May 24).
Under Pruitt, EPA also effectively ended a tradition of reappointing first-term members of panels like the Science Advisory Board and the Board of Scientific Counselors to second three-year terms. Coupled with the ban on service by current grant recipients, the upshot has been the departure of dozens of members who were either not reappointed or were forced to step down after declining to give up EPA funding. Their replacements in some cases have come from industries subject to EPA regulations.
The three lawsuits brought by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Physicians for Social Responsibility, all of which signed onto today's letter, are pending in different federal courts.
Under the Obama administration, EPA had defended its conflict-of-interest standards two years ago after an industry-allied group charged in a separate suit that grant recipients would be biased in favor of the agency's alleged position in favor of tighter air pollution standards (Greenwire, Aug. 2, 2016). Now, EPA lawyers are seeking to have the more recent round of suits dismissed on the grounds that the agency's administrator has untrammeled authority in making advisory board appointments (Greenwire, March 12).
But the policy could also prompt legal challenges to new regulations issued "with input from an advisory committee that has a skewed membership," the signers to today's letter suggested. Wheeler should "instead abandon this misguided policy and refocus on protecting the environment and ensuring that every American has access to clean air and water," they wrote.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/08/06/stories/1060092861
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Bill Seeks to Press Pause on Pruitt EPA Proposals
Aug 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Two democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill to suspend any proposed rulemaking signed by Scott Pruitt during his time as EPA administrator, until ethics investigations have been completed.
The so-called Ensuring Pruitt is Accountable (EPA) Act of 2018 (S3312 and HR6644) comes after Mr Pruitt stepped down from the top role at the agency last month amid allegations of ethical violations.
According to the bill sponsors – Representative Gerald E Connolly (D–Virginia) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D–Oregon) – it would ensure that his actions as administrator are not "allowed to stand unchallenged" until investigations have wrapped up.
If adopted into law, the measure would not permit the agency to "finalise or engage in" any proposed rulemaking signed by Mr Pruitt during his 17 months in charge at the EPA. Among the several dozen this would affect are the agency's controversial 'science transparency' rule, as well its ongoing effort to evaluate the costs and benefits underlying regulatory decisions.
It would also extend to the proposed TSCA fees rule, signed by Mr Pruitt in February.
Introduced in both the Senate and the House, the bill faces strong headwinds in a Republican-controlled Congress. It has been referred to the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee and to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, among others.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69276/bill-seeks-to-press-pause-on-pruitt-epa-proposals
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Trump Administration Is Considering Reweighing Costs and Benefits of EPA Regulations
Aug 5, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
The Trump administration has the Environmental Protection Agency’s hood up and is studying how to slow the engine that drives the agency’s regulatory activities. In response to a broad presidential directive on degregulation, EPA political appointees are asking the public how to rewire an analytical motor that helps determine how strictly—or whether—the agency curbs pollution. Depending on what strategy they settle on, modifications could substantially pare back the agency’s horsepower for controlling pollution and weaken the limits it sets for water, air, and land.
This work revolves around how the agency calculates the dollar value of regulations. Since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, the White House has required federal agencies to calculate the costs and benefits of proposed rules and demonstrate that the benefits will outweigh the costs. This long-standing economics practice isn’t directly at issue. Rather, EPA is focusing on a component of those calculations that critics contend inappropriately weights analyses in favor of regulation.
That analytical part takes into account side benefits of EPA regulations. Specifically, it considers reductions in a pollutant or pollutants that aren’t the target of a regulation. For example, technology designed to strip airborne mercury out of a power plant exhaust stack also removes pollutants that can form fine particulate matter. EPA adds up the economic value of these indirect effects, called cobenefits or ancillary benefits, and includes them in its calculation of the overall benefits of a regulation.
EPA has included cobenefits in cost-benefit calculations for decades. One instance dates to 1985, when EPA reduced the amount of lead, which is neurotoxic, allowed in gasoline. Cars designed for unleaded fuel but run on leaded gasoline not only release lead to the atmosphere but also emit more nitrogen oxides and unburned hydrocarbons. The compounds can form ground-level ozone, commonly called smog, which causes health problems. The agency included the cobenefit of reducing those additional emissions when it did its overall cost-benefit analysis of reducing lead in gasoline, even though the benefits from prevention of neurological harm alone outweighed the cost.
Another example of cobenefits comes from 1987, when EPA started regulating chlorofluorocarbons that deplete Earth’s stratospheric ozone layer, which absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun. In this case, the agency didn’t stop at estimating the significant, direct health benefits from people being exposed to less UV radiation because of a more robust ozone layer. EPA also considered that maintaining the ozone layer helps minimize ground-level ozone.
In the field of economics for federal policy-making, “the case is completely clear: Ancillary benefits should count” in cost-benefit analyses, Alan J. Krupnick, an environmental and energy economics expert, says. Krupnick, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C., think tank Resources for the Future, points out that all federal regulatory agencies—not just EPA—have been required to include cobenefits in their cost-benefit analyses since 2004. That condition was added under President George W. Bush.
“Why wouldn’t you want a two for one?” Yogin Kothari of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science & Democracy says of counting cobenefits. “Who is going to say no to that?”
But some states, portions of the utility industry, and conservative groups contend that consideration of cobenefits can be an accounting gimmick that EPA uses inappropriately to support expensive regulations.
Last year, EPA solicited suggestions on which of its regulations could be repealed, replaced, or modified in response to a directive by President Donald. J. Trump ordering government agencies to slash unnecessary and burdensome regulations. A common theme in responses from industry was concern about how EPA weighs costs and benefits of proposed regulations, the agency says in a June notice soliciting feedback from the public. The issue of cobenefits figured prominently in those comments, EPA says.
Front and center in the arguments against including cobenefits is EPA’s 2012 rule requiring power plants to slash their emissions of mercury, which is toxic to the nervous system. The goal of this regulation is to trim the amount of airborne mercury that eventually ends up in rivers, lakes, and streams; the fish that live in them; and, ultimately, the people who eat those fish—especially children and pregnant women. Coal- and oil-fired power plants are the nation’s largest source of mercury emissions.
In its detailed economic analysis of the rule, the agency added up the costs to industry of installing mercury-control technology on exhaust stacks. EPA also summed the health benefits to people from lower emissions of the metal. And it tallied the health benefits from the cuts in fine particulate matter also captured by mercury scrubbers. People’s exposure to fine particulates in air is linked to lung and cardiovascular problems.
EPA’s bottom line was that the benefits of the rule, estimated to be $33 billion to $90 billion per year, outweighed its annual costs of about $10 billion.
Conservative organizations, utilities, and some states cried foul on the regulation. They pointed out that the rule’s benefits from controlling only mercury—EPA’s goal for the rule—were far lower than the estimated costs. According to agency calculations, benefits from reducing mercury emissions added up to between $4 million and $6 million per year. In fact, EPA attributed nearly all the estimated benefits of the rule to improving people’s health by reducing exposure to fine particulates.
Opponents of this regulation contend that the agency’s analysis of the mercury rule should not count the benefits from curbing emissions of particulates. These pollutants are already controlled under another EPA rule, they point out. Thus, the agency shouldn’t include the benefits from curbing particulates under regulations aimed at other pollutants, they argue.
One of those opponents of the mercury regulation is former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. In his previous job as Oklahoma attorney general, he joined a lawsuit against the regulation. Before he quit as EPA chief in early July, Pruitt issued the call in June for comments from the public about whether and how EPA should change its weighing of costs and benefits when developing regulations. Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is expected to continue this effort.
Meanwhile, EPA is preparing to repeal the mercury rule. A lawsuit challenging repeal is inevitable, and changing agency guidelines for economic analysis and consideration of cobenefits would bolster EPA’s position in court, Krupnick says.
Krupnick suspects that the Trump administration wants to craft a regulation establishing that EPA administrators “don’t have to—or maybe aren’t allowed to—consider ancillary benefits in their decisions,” he tells C&EN. If implemented, this change would affect every U.S. government agency, opening up what Krupnick calls an attack on rational cost-benefit analysis.
By not considering cobenefits, EPA “would create a systematic bias to reject pollution-reducing regulations,” Randall A. Bluffstone, an economics professor at Portland State University, wrote to the agency in response to the June notice.
EPA is accepting comments from the public on the cobenefits issue and other aspects of its cost-benefit analysis process through Aug. 13. The agency will take time to digest all the feedback it gets. It could propose changes in coming months.
https://cen.acs.org/policy/regulation/Trump-administration-considering-reweighing-costs/96/i32
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EPA Asks Court to Drop, Allow ‘Do Over’ of Parts of Chemical Rules
Aug 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA wants to drop part of a rule that threatened the public with civil or criminal penalties for providing incomplete information about a chemical to the agency.
A portion of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2017 final chemical risk evaluation rule (RIN: 2070-AK20) said people or groups that filed “inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading” information could face civil or criminal penalties.
That provision should be vacated, the EPA said in one of two briefs it filed Aug. 6 in a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lawsuit.
Yet, the rule allowed chemical manufacturers to submit partial information about a chemical as part of their request that the agency evaluate the risks of a chemical they make.
In its filing, the EPA said that when it proposed the rule, it never sought civil or criminal penalties for the public, no one requested them, and such penalties weren’t a logical outgrowth of the rule the agency drafted. So dropping, or “vacating,” this part of the rule would be appropriate, the EPA said.
Environmental, health, and labor advocates are challenging two important agency rules stemming from the nation’s primary industrial chemicals law.
The agency asked the court to allow it to revisit some other information standards provisions of two rules: its risk evaluation rule and a separate rule (RIN: 2070-AK23) that described how it would prioritize chemicals for risk evaluation.
The EPA can and must limit the chemical exposures it examines as it decides whether commercial uses of chemicals should be restricted, the agency told the court in its separate, primary brief also filed Aug. 6.
EPA Defends Other ActionsThe question at the heart of the lawsuit is whether the Toxic Substances Control Act amendments of 2016 give the agency the discretion to exclude ways chemicals are made, used, distributed, and disposed of when evaluating them for safety. Environmentalists are concerned that ignoring some exposures will result in avoidable harm to people’s health and the environment.
The EPA’s examination of such chemical uses and resulting exposures dictates whether the agency would decide if a compound poses an unreasonable risk of injuring people or the environment. If a chemical is too risky, the law requires the EPA to ban, restrict, or otherwise control it.
The court’s upcoming decision is important to a variety of players in the industrial supply chain. Twenty trade associations have intervened in the lawsuit, including several representing the mining and petroleum industries, as well as the Battery Council International and IPC-the Association Connecting Electronics Industries, which represent companies making batteries and electronics.
The EPA’s interpretation of TSCA threatens “to leave the public—and especially vulnerable groups like children, pregnant women, and workers—inadequately protected from the potential risks of the thousands of chemicals to which individuals are exposed every day,” the advocacy organizations said in their opening brief filedin April.
For example, the EPA’s rules allow its ongoing asbestos risk evaluation to ignore 25.6 million pounds of asbestos resulting from building demolitions, repairs, and renovations that occurred in 2015, the groups said, citing the agency’s own information. Asbestos causes lung cancer and other deadly diseases.
The case is Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families v. EPA, 9th Cir., No. 17-72260, 8/6/18.https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-asks-court-to-drop-allow-do-over-of-parts-of-chemical-rules
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EPA New Chemical Approval Signals 'Reckless' TSCA Process, EDF Charges
Aug 6, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA has approved a new chemical for use under the revised toxics law but has limited its review and regulation of the substance's “reasonably foreseen uses,” a move environmentalists say signals a “reckless” process for reviewing new chemicals that violates the June 2016 toxics law by failing to preclude unintended uses from its requirements.
While an industry source says EPA likely considered, but did not find, “reasonably foreseen” uses as the law requires, both sides agree that the approval signals a change in EPA's effort to review new chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), clearing the way for additional approvals of new chemicals.
Richard Denison of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in a series of recent blog posts argues that EPA is now approving new chemicals under a process that fails to consider reasonably foreseen uses and avoids issuing orders and significant new use rules (SNURs) limiting risks from a substance's intended and reasonably foreseen uses.
“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,” Denison says in an Aug. 6 blog post.
The criticism follows EPA's July 30 approval of a new polymer, known as Oxirane, 2-methyl-, polymer with oxirane, bis[2-[(1-oxo-2-propen-1-yl)amino]propyl] ether, for use as a deodorizer in products, including cat litter and fabric sprays, though the product poses human health and environmental hazards.
EPA found that the substance has no reasonably foreseen uses, which the revised TSCA requires the agency to consider. EPA's website documenting that the chemical is “Not Likely to Present an Unreasonable Risk,” says that the polymer “has low to moderate environmental hazard and the potential for the following human health hazards: irritation, mutagenicity, developmental/reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, and carcinogenicity.”
EPA says that under the conditions of use outlined in the company's premanufacture notice (PMN) the polymer would not “produce these potential unreasonable risks” because the company will import the substance “in solution at a concentration of 50% or less for processing which would result in a deodorizer for use at a concentration of 2% by weight in the formulation of the final product.”
In the decision document for the polymer, EPA defines reasonably foreseen conditions of use as “future circumstances, distinct from known or intended conditions of use,” under which EPA “expects” the chemical will be used. EPA also says it will identify “reasonably foreseen” uses on a case-by-case basis, and that the analysis will be “highly fact-specific.”
“Reasonably foreseen conditions of use will not be based on hypotheticals or conjecture,” the agency says, noting that regulators will rely on their professional judgment, experience and discretion when considering evidence.
Landmark Step
The polymer's approval appears to mark a landmark step in the Trump administration's effort to craft a process for reviewing new chemicals under the revised TSCA. According to agency officials, TSCA implementation has been hampered by questions over how to interpret the law's requirement to consider reasonably foreseen uses.
Late last year, EPA issued for public comment a draft “New Chemicals Decision-Making Framework” that proposed streamlining reviews by dropping use of enforceable orders as an interim step in regulating new chemicals, and allowing the agency to proceed directly from PMNs to issuing SNURs.
While environmentalists are challenging the framework in a pending lawsuit, EPA has argued in defense that it has not yet implemented the process the draft document describes.
A half dozen Senate Democrats have backed environmentalists' concerns about Trump administration plans for reviewing new chemicals. In a July 24 letter to Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, the senators sought meetings with agency staff on the new chemicals review process, noting that the agency has declined to implement the framework and press reports that the Trump administration is considering weakening the approach.
EDF's Denison had previously raised concerns that the agency was preparing to approve new chemicals under TSCA despite an unlawfully narrow approach.
“Overruling the recommendations of its own longtime professional staff, political appointees at EPA have begun green-lighting new chemicals to enter commerce using an approach that shows contempt for the letter and intent of the 2016 reforms to” Denison says in a prior Aug. 1 blog targeting approval of the new polymer.
“Once manufacture starts, the chemical will be placed on the TSCA Inventory, and that company or any other will be free to produce, import and use the chemical in any manner it chooses and without any obligation to inform EPA of its activities.”
An industry source says that the approval of the new polymer shows EPA for the first time “putting boundaries” on its oversight of reasonably foreseen uses, and says the change suggests that the agency has reached a new definition of that term that it will now apply to numerous new chemicals that have been submitted to the agency for review.
But the industry source faults environmentalists' assertions that EPA's new process disregards reasonably foreseen uses, noting that the statute does not require the agency to consider every possible use and so the agency is correct to limit the scope of what is “reasonably foreseen.”
“They considered them and said, 'we could not identify any other known or any other reasonably foreseen conditions of use,'” the source says. Questioning environmentalists' arguments, the source adds, “Is not identifying other reasonably foreseeable conditions of use, does that mean they didn't consider them?”
EPA Staff Finding
In his recent blog posts, titled “EPA Rams Through Its Reckless Review Scheme for New Chemicals Under TSCA, Your Health be Damned,” Denison notes that records show that EPA staff in October 2016 found that there is insufficient information available to permit a reasoned evaluation of the polymer's health effects and recommended negotiating a consent order for the polymer under section 5(e) of TSCA.
He also says that EPA has failed to publicize its risk analysis underlying the approval of the polymer so environmentalists cannot determine whether the agency considered risks from combined exposures, and that the agency's decision document approved intended uses, which were left “astoundingly wide open.”
For example in a July 17 blog post, the second part in his series, Denison argued that Trump administration appointees were considering abandoning the draft framework and planning to approve new chemicals for their intended use without pursuing a SNUR -- essentially shirking the law's requirement to consider reasonably foreseen uses.
“EPA apparently intends to so narrowly define 'reasonably foreseen' as to render it effectively the same as 'intended,' ignoring the obvious fact that Congress clearly distinguished between the two,” Denison said. “This, too, flies in the face of the law, which requires EPA to impose restrictions whenever it finds a new chemical may present an unreasonable risk.”
Melanie Benesh of the Environmental Working Group tells Inside EPA that the agency's description of reasonably foreseen conditions of use in the new approval document is consistent with the Trump administration's past statements. But she agreed with Denison that EPA appears to be narrowly focusing on uses described in a manufacturers' PMN.
While the administration has emphasized that the law does not require consideration of every possible condition of use, Benesh says that for many chemicals other uses are reasonably foreseeable. For example, she notes that products are often used in greater quantities than producers expect, or that people may wash their hands with soap intended for dishes.
“We're not asking the agency to consider every conceivable use but the law does” require that the agency consider reasonably foreseeable uses, “and it doesn't seem like they are.”
The industry source says that EPA suggests in its decision document that it did look for reasonably foreseeable uses to consider in its review, but found no information to suggest uses would occur other than those described in the PMN. The source also notes that environmentalists have not detailed other foresseable uses for that particular polymer.
“It's hard to know what happened, but certainly there is no evidence from the document that they didn't consider it,” the source says. “There is no evidence either way in the document, it just states that they did not identify other reasonably foreseeable conditions of use,” the source adds. “I assume when they make that statement they actually thought about it.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-new-chemical-approval-signals-reckless-tsca-process-edf-charges
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EPA Adds Clarity to Interpretation of “Reasonably Foreseeable Conditions of Use”
Aug 6, 2018 | Lexology
By Lynn L. Bergeson, Charles M. Auer, Richard E. Engler and Oscar Hernandez
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) release of its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 5(a)(3)(C) determination for P-16-0510 represents a significant step in EPA’s implementation of the New Chemicals Program under new TSCA. The substance is a polymer (a copolymer of ethylene glycol and propylene glycol end-capped with acrylamide groups). It is intended to be used as a deodorizer in a variety of products, including floor cleaners, cat litter, fabric freshener sprays, and other consumer products.
Notably, EPA’s determination document specifies the conditions of use that are intended, known, and reasonably foreseen. EPA states that there are no known or reasonably foreseen conditions of use other than those intended by the submitter. This may appear to be a controversial statement. Based on EPA’s interpretation of “conditions of use,” it would not pass legal muster to speculate that “anybody could manufacture or use it for anything” and, hence, impose use restrictions to prevent purely speculative applications with no basis in fact or reality. EPA has repeatedly stated that it would base what is reasonably foreseen on information, knowledge, or experience, not on any conceivable condition of use.
EPA identifies the new chemical’s potential health hazard endpoints based on the acrylate/acrylamide category. The concerns are based on acrylamide itself and some low molecular acrylamide analogs and include mutagenicity, developmental toxicity, reproductive effects, neurotoxicity, and a “marginal potential” for oncogenicity. This too may sound alarming. The real question, however, is how toxic is the new chemical and are exposures expected to exceed a “safe” level.
In this case, EPA specifically considers the low-molecular weight (LMW) components of the polymer (i.e., the “worst case”) in its assessment and identifies two analogs of the LMW components. Both analogs have similar structural features (they are end-capped with acrylates), so both are expected to share the same mode of action, and have similar molecular weights as the LMW components of the premanufacture notification (PMN) substance. EPA states that it also considered the toxicity of acrylamide in its assessment. We note, however, that acrylamide is not a good analog because it is substantially lower molecular weight than the LMW components of the PMN substance. Based on the identified analogs, EPA set a no observable adverse effect level (NOAEL) of 250 mg/kg/day for systemic toxicity based on a combined repeat dose/reproductive/developmental toxicity screening test (OECD 422). This study tests for a chemical’s potential to cause toxicity and the primary endpoints of concern relevant to the category (developmental, reproductive, and neurotoxicity). This NOAEL would put the substance in the low-to-moderate toxicity category. Note that despite the nominally alarming set of health endpoints identified in EPA’s category assessment, the 422 study shows the analog is not especially toxic to mammals. By way of contrast, EPA’s most recent Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of acrylamide identified a NOAEL of 0.5 mg/kg-day.
EPA also identifies ecotoxicity concerns. Using its predictive models, EPA predicts toxicity levels for both acute and chronic effects to aquatic species and sets concentrations of concern (CoC) at 425 ppb for acute exposures and 43 ppb for chronic exposures. These levels put the substance in the “moderate” category for environmental hazard.
EPA then applies exposure modeling to predict exposures to workers, the general population, and consumers. EPA found that predicted exposures are sufficiently below EPA’s concern level to not present an unreasonable risk to workers, the general population, or consumers. EPA even found that at the “worst case” of 100 percent PMN substance, exposures would still be sufficiently below EPA’s concern level. EPA also evaluated surface water concentrations and found that the estimated maximum acute and chronic concentrations did not exceed the CoCs.
Summary
EPA reviewed the PMN, reviewed likely and potential exposures to workers, the general population, consumers, and aquatic species, and did not identify any foreseeable conditions of use that would lead EPA to predict that unreasonable risk was likely.
This is a marked and welcomed departure from previous TSCA Section 5(a)(3)(C) decisions. In nearly all cases in the past, EPA only made a not likely determination if it identified a low hazard for both health and ecological effects (“low/low” cases). Absent a low/low finding, EPA seemingly believed that there could be some conditions of use that could contribute exposures that could exceed EPA’s concern levels. Based on our review, EPA did not explain how it differentiated between “any possible/foreseeable” and “reasonably foreseeable” conditions of use. Instead, if EPA could imagine a set of circumstances that could elicit an exceedance, EPA was of the view that new TSCA precluded it from making a Section 5(a)(3)(C) finding. (While some stakeholders might applaud an approach based on concepts such as the European Union’s Precautionary Principle, this is not how new TSCA, or U.S. environmental legislation more generally, is structured.)
In the case of P-16-0510, EPA more carefully applied new TSCA as written when it identified a low/moderate health concern and a moderate eco concern, and nevertheless took a reasonable approach grounded on the law to go beyond mere consideration of potential hazard and to interpret the “reasonably foreseen” conditions of use and assess unreasonable risk as new TSCA requires. We support this more measured approach and believe it better meets the statutory intent and requirements. As we have written previously, in our view, a “not likely” finding is not limited to cases in which toxicity is so low that exceedances are unimaginable. Rather, EPA must limit its consideration to those conditions of use that are reasonably likely to occur and must evaluate unreasonable risks, not merely hazard, and regulate to protect to the “extent necessary” to protect against such unreasonable risks.
We applaud EPA’s more measured approach that likely indicates a maturation of its understanding of what is needed to meet a not likely determination. We urge EPA to articulate its thinking on what is and is not “reasonably foreseeable” and what PMN submitters can do to help EPA understand not only what is intended, but what might be reasonably foreseen to occur.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=5ebf1bbd-894d-4889-94f9-c98d054d7f01
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EPA Extends Comment Period on TSCA Problem Formulations
Aug 7, 2018 | Lexology
By Lynn L. Bergeson
On August 7, 2018, EPA is expected to announce the extension of the comment period on the problem formulations for the risk evaluations for the first 10 chemicals under Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 6. The notice extends the comment period on the problem formulations and the document titled Application of Systematic Review of TSCA Risk Evaluations, an additional 21 days, until August 16, 2018. Reportedly EPA received several requests to extend the deadline.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c96707de-ae1a-4ff4-835e-e3a07b34bb90
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EPA Is Now Allowing Asbestos Back into Manufacturing
Aug 6, 2018 | The Architect's Newspaper
By Sydney Franklin
One of the most dangerous construction-related carcinogens is now legally allowed back into U.S. manufacturing under a new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On June 1, the EPA authorized a “SNUR” (Significant New Use Rule) which allows new products containing asbestos to be created on a case-by-case basis.
According to environmental advocates, this new rule gives chemical companies the upper hand in creating new uses for such harmful products in the United States. In May, the EPA released a report detailing its new framework for evaluating the risk of its top prioritized substances. The report states that the agency will no longer consider the effect or presence of substances in the air, ground, or water in its risk assessments.
This news comes after the EPA reviewed its first batch of 10 chemicals under the 2016 amendment to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which required the agency to continually reevaluate hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals to see whether they should face new restrictions or be removed from the market. The SNUR greenlights companies to use toxic chemicals like asbestos without thinking about how it will endanger people who are indirectly in contact with it.
Asbestos, once seen as a magical mineral, was widely used in building insulation up until it was banned in most countries in the 1970s. The U.S. is one of the only developed nations in the world that has placed significant restrictions on the substance without banning it completely. New data revealed that asbestos-related deaths now total nearly 40,000 annually, with lung cancer and mesothelioma being the most common illnesses in association with the toxin. That number could rise if new asbestos-containing products make their way into brand new buildings.
Healthy Building Network (HBN), an environmental advocacy group, recently told Fast Company that the fibrous material poses a major health risk for everyone exposed to it, including those who mine it, those who handle it in industrial facilities, as well as people near or inside renovation and construction projects where it’s being used. HBN’s Board President Bill Walsh said that the chlor-alkali industry is the only industry in the country that still uses asbestos, reportedly importing about 480 tons of the carcinogen each year from Russia and Brazil.
Walsh also pointed out that chlorine-based plastics are commonly found in building-product materials and that “virtually all” asbestos in the U.S. is used in the industrial process to make chlorine. This includes PVC and vinyl plastics, which is largely found in the creation of pipes, tiles, flooring, adhesives, paints, and roofing products.
Though the EPA is easing its regulations against using harmful toxins like asbestos, it will largely be the responsibility of local and state governments, as well as companies and informed consumers to counter these federal moves. Walsh says it’s up to sustainable building-product manufacturers and ultimately, architects to pressure the market.
“Architects really set the pace of design, in terms of aesthetics and materials that we like,” he said. “If they start to incorporate health-based criteria into their palette, it could really have an influence on what the manufacturers produce.”
https://archpaper.com/2018/08/epa-asbestos-manufacturing/
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Arizona Parents Pressing EPA for Ban on Toxic Chemical
Aug 7, 2018 | Kdminer
By Bryan Pietsch
Tucson mom Linda Robles was in Washington Wednesday to demand that the Environmental Protection Agency ban TCE, the chemical she blames for the death of one daughter and the birth defects of three other children.
“Our community is tired of it,” Robles said at a Capitol Hill news conference with other parents whose children have died from TCE exposure. “We’re saying no more … stop twiddling around. Really.”
The EPA has identified TCE – trichloroethylene – as a toxic chemical that is “carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure” and that can affect fetuses even through short-term exposure. TCE is used as a refrigerant, as an industrial solvent for degreasing metals and in some dry-cleaning uses.
The chemical was included in an amendment to the Toxic Substances Control Act that was signed into law by President Barack Obama in the last month of his term. The EPA moved in December 2016 to ban the chemical as an aerosol degreaser and as a dry-cleaning agent, and in January 2017, it started the process of banning it as a commercial degreasing vapor.
But since then, progress on further limiting the chemical has stalled.
Parents at Wednesday’s event, hosted by Sen. Tom Udall, D-New Mexico, said delaying the ban is not acceptable when their communities and families are still feeling the negative impacts of the chemical, which can remain in groundwater and in the air for years.
The parents, including Robles and her husband, shared the stories of how TCE has affected them.
Kari Rhinehart from Franklin, Indiana, said her daughter was diagnosed with the same kind of rare brain tumor inflicting Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona. Her daughter, Emma, died of cancer four years ago.
Jerry Ensminger said his daughter was exposed while in the womb to TCE at the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and she died of cancer in 1985. Ten years later, he saw a news report about contamination at the base.
“The reporter on there said that many of the chemicals that were found in Camp Lejeune’s drinking water for nearly three decades are linked to childhood cancer,” Ensminger said. “I dropped my plate of spaghetti on the living room floor.”
Robles said her children were exposed to TCE pollution left by military contractors at the airport near their south Tucson neighborhood. Her children all were born prematurely and all had birth defects, such as heart murmurs, nasal-cavity deformities and cleft palates.
Her daughter, Tianna, died in 2007, four years after being diagnosed with lupus.
The parents blamed former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt for the delay on a TCE ban, an issue that Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, pressed in a Senate hearing Wednesday morning with acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
Booker asked Wheeler, whose appointment still needs Senate confirmation, whether the agency would investigate TCE pollution of land, air and water. Wheeler said that he believes the agency has done so, according to a video of the hearing.
EPA officials did not immediately comment Wednesday on the status of a ban.
Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that he is tired of agency heads “putting the profits of chemical corporations ahead of the health and well-being of the American people.”
“No community deserves this,” Grijalva said. “I demand that the EPA continue testing for TCE in Tucson, expand the current testing area, hold polluters responsible, and ban this toxic chemical once and for all.”
Beyond banning the substance, Robles said there’s more to be done. She wants the EPA to relocate and compensate people affected by TCE pollution, and to make the polluters pay for the cleanup.
“Enough is enough,” she said. “We’ve been exposed to this stuff for over four decades. Four decades. And I say no more.”
https://kdminer.com/news/2018/aug/06/arizona-parents-pressing-epa-ban-toxic-chemical/
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Are Toxic Chemicals in Our Drinking Water? Statewide Testing Should Let Us Know.
Aug 6, 2018 | News & Observer
By Craig Jarvis
North Carolina’s leading university science researchers will try to find out if water supplies in the state have been contaminated with toxic compounds like GenX, an unregulated chemical discovered in the Cape Fear River last year.
Over the next year, each municipality in the state will have its water tested at the point where the water enters the public system. In addition, each municipality will pick one well that supplies public drinking water to test. Air testing will also be conducted across the state because emissions can settle on the ground. It isn’t known yet how many locations will have air testing.
The study will lay the groundwork for long-term monitoring of changes in the state’s water quality. If researchers find there is a threat, they will try to determine how much of an impact it has and find ways to protect public health.
State environmental regulators looking into the presence of GenX in the Cape Fear River determined the Chemours chemical company discharged it from its factory south of Fayetteville. GenX is a chemical used to make non-stick cookware and other products. The state Department of Environmental Quality issued notices of regulatory violations and has asked a judge to impose stronger measures requiring the company to eliminate or reduce air and water contamination.
As The News & Observer reported earlier this year, a federal class-action lawsuit contends Chemours knew the chemical was dangerous but secretly dumped it into nearby waters anyway. And an environmental group has sued the state environmental agency alleging it has not exercised its authority to order the company to immediately halt the pollution without going to court.
DEQ says as a result of its investigation GenX and two other compounds are no longer being discharged into the river, and water quality is now deemed to be within state health standards.
The municipal testing is being paid for with money from the state budget. Legislators put an additional $5 million into the state budget this year for staff and equipment for the N.C. Policy Collaboratory, a research and policy center at UNC. The focus of the study will be on drinking wells, chemical compound removal and the impact on air quality.
Researchers will be looking for chemicals that are classified as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and include GenX, which can be toxic. The state funding will pay for grants to more than 20 researchers at universities throughout North Carolina.
“This research model is the first of its kind for any state in the U.S., and we’re hopeful that it could motivate other states to develop similar research programs to study PFAS in the environment,” Jason Surratt, a professor with a background in environmental chemistry, said in an email.
Surratt will be the lead investigator for the study, which will be managed by the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. He said water and air samples will be collected multiple times from each location over the next 18 months.
Five research teams and an advisory committee will be comprised of faculty from N.C. State University, Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Wilmington, NC A&T, East Carolina University and UNC-Charlotte.
Two internationally recognized experts in emerging water contaminants will be co-chairs of the committee: Detlef Knappe, a professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at NCSU, and Lee Ferguson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University.
It was Knappe and his team that found high concentrations of industrial chemicals in the Cape Fear, including GenX, and published their findings in an academic journal. Ferguson and fellow Nicholas School of the Environment professor Heather Stapleton in December said they have found the GenX-related chemicals in Jordan Lake, two feeder streams and in Cary’s tap water.
Cary responded with its own tests and found that the contaminates were not sufficiently elevated to cause alarm and that the water was safe to drink.
The study will make periodic reports to the legislature and make its final report in December 2019.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article216001615.html
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Oregon Looks to Modify Reportable Chemicals List
Aug 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Oregon has proposed modifying its list of reportable substances under the state's children’s products reporting rule, and making changes to fees and notification requirements under the scheme.
Overseen by the Oregon Health Authority, the Toxic-Free Kids programme requires manufacturers of children's products to notify the state if items contain any of 66 substances on the High Priority Chemicals of Concern for Children’s Health (HPCCCH) list above de minimis levels.
The proposed changes come as a result of the first triennial review of the list. During this, the health agency must consider adding or removing chemicals that have been similarly amended on Washington state's Chemicals of High Concern to Children (CHCC) list.
The latest proposal calls for adding five of the 20 substances that Washington added to the CHCC list last autumn.
The five are:bisphenol S (BPS);triphenyl phosphate (TPP);tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TCPP);short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs); and2-ethylhexyl-2,3,4,5-tetrabromobenzoate (TBB).
It also proposes removing reporting obligations from the three chemicals that Washington removed.
The three are:phthalic anhydride;octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4); andmolybdenum and its compounds.
If adopted, the changes to the reportable substance list are slated to take effect for the next biennial reporting deadline – 1 January 2020.Further amendments
The state is also looking to make clarifying amendments to its notification requirements. These are:specifying that the report must include the number of children's products offered for sale;clarifying that only one person or entity is required to provide biennial notification with respect to a specific product; andoutlining a 'hierarchy' of responsible parties which the agency will hold primarily responsible for the submission of accurate reports. This will begin with the manufacturer and then the distributor, or lastly the importer if neither has a presence in the US.
Finally, it is looking to modify the existing fee schedule, consistent with an administrative law passed by the legislature last year (HB 5027). This entails a $1,500 non-refundable fee for filing an exemption request, plus a $200 per hour fee for their review.
The Oregon Health Authority will hold a public hearing on the proposal on 16 August. Comments are due by 22 August.
The final implementation phase of the state's 2015 Toxic-Free Kids Act calls for manufacturers to remove chemicals of concern from certain children’s products. Alternatively they can seek a waiver for their continued use.
The agency intends to start the rule development process for this, in the coming year.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69272/oregon-looks-to-modify-reportable-chemicals-list
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J&J Begins Revealing Fragrance Ingredients in Babycare Products
Aug 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
Consumer goods multinational, Johnson & Johnson, has announced that it will disclose all ingredients in its babycare products.
This includes disclosing fragrance ingredients, down to 0.01% of content. But for all other ingredients the company has not set a disclosure threshold.
The effort is part of a relaunch of the multinational’s babycare range, which was announced on 1 August.
It covers products sold in the US, China, Canada and India but J&J says the transparency initiative will eventually be rolled out everywhere its babycare products are sold. The company has not revealed a timeline for this.
Fragrance ingredients will be listed on the products' webpages but not on the labels. Some product pages - such as for the brand's baby lotion and baby shampoo - already give the fragrance content. J&J's relaunch announcement does not detail when the company plans to release full ingredient lists for all products in the babycare range.
J&J also disclosed online the fragrance palette it uses for its baby product line. The company says it avoided known and potential allergens in its new formulas.Mixed reviews
Environmental Working Group president, Ken Cook, said the industry giant’s move is "raising the bar for other companies to disclose chemical ingredients on labels and online, especially for products marketed for babies and children."
Other major consumer companies to announce fragrance ingredient disclosure efforts over the past few years, include SC Johnson, Unilever and Procter & Gamble, which also set a disclosure threshold at 0.01% of content.
But US Getting Ready for Baby, a coalition of more than 100 NGOs, criticised J&J's concentration threshold for being misleading. Bobbi Wilding, the coalition’s director, said it contradicts the company's statement that it would disclose "100% of ingredients" in the babycare product range.
"To the average consumer, ‘all’ is really simple: it means every single ingredient. Not withholding some ingredients if they're only adding a little of them," said Ms Wilding, who is also deputy director of the NGO Clean & Healthy NY.
"Surely Johnson & Johnson and their suppliers know all the ingredients in their fragrance mixtures. And unlike on labels, they have as much room as they need to list them online."
She added that the multinational should fully disclose fragrance ingredients in all of its products, beyond the baby range.
US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) echoes this sentiment: "J&J ... is lagging behind its competitors Unilever and Procter & Gamble by failing to commit to disclose fragrance ingredients in adult products as well," the group says in a statement. J&J's adult brands include Aveeno, Clean & Clear and Neutrogena.
But US PIRG also welcome the industry giant's disclosure initiative as a sign that the cosmetics industry is responding to calls for transparency. "Policymakers need to take note and mandate fragrance disclosure for all consumer products," the group adds.Ongoing court cases
J&J’s babycare relaunch initiative comes amid an ongoing legal battle the company has faced in the US and Canada over alleged asbestos contamination of its baby powder.
The company and its supplier, Imerys Talc, are fighting thousands of claims from people who say their cancers were caused by using the company’s products.
Courts in several US states have handed down multi-million dollar verdicts to J&J. Most recently, a Missouri jury ordered $4.7bn in damages to 22 women who claim that use of the talcum powder products caused them to develop ovarian cancer.
J&J has continually defended the safety of its talcum powder products, which it says do not contain asbestos or cause mesothelioma.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69218/jj-begins-revealing-fragrance-ingredients-in-babycare-products
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Aug 6, 2018 | DeSmog
By Steve Horn
San Diego-based Sempra Energy has spearheaded the launch of a group called the Global Natural Gas Coalition to promote exports of gas obtained via fracking (hydraulic fracturing) to the global market. Sempra is a natural gas utility giant and liquefied natural gas (LNG) export and import company.
Announced at a June 25 gathering at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the Global Natural Gas Coalition features other participants such as the American Petroleum Institute (API), LNG Allies, the American Gas Association, American Chemistry Council, and others, according to its event page on the website Eventbrite. The RSVP information for the Press Club event features the contact information for Paty Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Sempra, and the company's representatives consisted of eight out of the 78 attendees of that event, according to the Eventbrite page.
Also attending the event were officials from several agencies in the Trump administration. They included Mark Menezes, Elise Atkins, Christine Harbin, Jessica Szymanski, and Sara Kinney of the U.S.Department of Energy (DOE); Deaver Alexander, William Thompson, and Stephen Morel of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (a federal agency focused on helping “American businesses invest in emerging markets”); Scott Condren of the U.S. Export-Import Bank; and John McCarrick of the U.S.Department of State.
Harbin, before beginning her job as senior advisor for external affairs in the DOE's Office of Electricity, worked as vice president of external affairs for Americans for Prosperity, a front group created and run by the petrochemical billionaire Koch brothers and funded by Koch Industries.
The labor union Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) also has voiced support of the coalition, sending its lobbyists Yvette Pena O'Sullivan and Ryan Sandmann to the kick-off event in D.C.
“LIUNA’s half-million members — who have worked over 80 million hours in the pipeline industry in the last five years — are proud to join the Global Natural Gas Coalition to promote the use of natural gas as a safe and affordable fuel to meet the world’s energy needs,” Pena-O’Sullivan stated in a June 25 press release.
Also attending were diplomats from the European Parliament, Mexico, Croatia, Latvia, and an energy official from Brazil.
“Natural gas is expected to become the fastest-growing major fuel globally by 2040,” the coalition explains in a blog post about its launch. “To articulate the essential role of natural gas in this transformation and as part of a true global energy strategy, gas producers, infrastructure developers, operators, manufacturers, and consumers have joined together in a universal pursuit to build a platform that supports natural gas as a foundational fuel now and into the future.”
It is not clear who created the Global Natural Gas Coalition, which had its website first published on June 18, one week before the Press Club event. According to the domain name search tool CentralOps.net, the coalition registered its website on the whoisprivacyprotect.com web domain, which is run by the company Enom.
“We know that you want your information to be private and protected,” says Enom of its web domain concealing skills on its website. “Even if you don’t mind this type of information being public, anyone — including mail, email, and telephone marketers — can use WHOIS records to pester domain registrants with unwanted solicitations.”
The address for the pro-LNG export advocacy group LNG Allies is listed on the contact portion of the coalition's website.
This may be Sempra's first foray into leading a major coalition promoting the extraction of natural gas via fracking, but it's not the only example in the industry.
The company Cheniere — which has a proposed export terminal in the Gulf of Mexico called Corpus Christi LNG and another Gulf-based one currently open for business called Sabine Pass LNG — helped back a different front group called Our Energy Moment and Sempra is still listed as a member of that coalition. But that coalition, whose public relations efforts were led by Democratic Party operatives as DeSmog revealed in an investigation, appears to have fallen by the wayside in the Donald Trump era. The group has not issued a press release or had any social media activity since prior to his inauguration
Dennis Arriola, chief strategy officer and executive vice president for Sempra, is listed as a founding member of the coalition on a press release disseminated by the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. Arriola was scheduled to give opening remarks at the Press Club event, according to the RSVP page.
“The world is in the midst of a fundamental energy transformation where natural gas will be the foundational fuel for economic prosperity throughout the world,” Arriola said in the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America press release. “Our Global Natural Gas Coalition brought together groups and individuals to show our strength and provide a voice for natural gas and the many benefits it provides.”
LIUNA did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Sempra responded to questions about the new coalition by pointing to the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America press release. A spokesman for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America deferred comment on the Global Natural Gas Coalition to the other member groups. TransCanada's Cameron Access Pipeline
Sempra has two major proposed LNG export terminals, one in the Gulf of Mexico named Cameron LNGand another in Baja California, Mexico, named Costa Azul LNG.
The company is also a tour de force in Southern California's electricity market and in Mexico through its utility sector subsidiaries SoCalGas, San Diego Gas and Electric (SDGE), and IEnova. In the San Diego-area, SDGE has actively used its political and business clout in an attempt to fend off community choice policy proposals, which would allow residents to pick the company where they get electricity, including from competing renewable energy sector companies.
For its Cameron LNG facility, which would be a competitor to Cheniere's Sabine Pass facility in Sabine Pass, Louisiana, pipeline giant TransCanada plans to build a $300 million pipeline which would connect to the terminal called — appropriately enough — the Cameron Access pipeline. TransCanada is best known for the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, which would ship tar sands extracted from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska, but through other projects, the company has become an increasingly sizeable carrier of fracked gas to the Gulf Coast export market and across the U.S. border into Mexico.
Cameron LNG is expected to open for business in 2019 after receiving final approval from the Obama administration in 2016. The Cameron Access pipeline, too, is expected to open at about the same time and received the permit it needed from the Obama administration in 2015.
Cameron Access will create “significant value for our customers by providing additional connectivity for their domestically produced natural gas to the high-value U.S. Gulf Coast LNG export market,” Stanley Chapman III, TransCanada's President for U.S. Natural Gas Pipelines, stated in a March 2018 press release. “Additionally, LNG export projects such as Cameron Access will help reduce global carbon emissions by allowing emerging markets to displace coal-fired power generation with clean-burning natural gas.”
Scientific reports have found that leaks of the powerful greenhouse gas, methane, during natural gas operations are higher than previously thought and may make gas worse for the climate than coal power.Sempra Lobbying, Political Spending
Beyond its business plans, Sempra has remained politically active through both its federal lobbying activities and campaign donations for the 2018 midterm elections, donating an almost equal amount to members of both the Democratic and Republican parties in Congressional races, according to campaign finance data reviewed by DeSmog. Major recipients of the company's money have included Democratic House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, U.S. Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA), U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), U.S. Rep. Devin Dunes (R-CA), among others.
To date in 2018, Sempra has spent over $1 million on federal lobbying, with two teams (one in-houseand one contracted team) lobbying in support of LNG exports. It has also spent over $63,000 on the midterm elections.
One of the attendees at the Press Club event, Sempra lobbyist Maryam Sabbaghian Brown, formerly served as the top energy adviser for Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. From 2006-2008, Brown served as staff director of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy &Mineral Resources.
Environmental organizations, including Food & Water Watch, Oil Change International, 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity, and dozens more, recently critiqued the Department of Energy for a draft study it commissioned, which they say did not account for the climate change impacts and future costs associated with a global LNG export boom fueled by U.S.-produced fracked gas. As Lorne Stockman, Senior Research Analyst with Oil Change International and lead author of the comments, said in a statement:
“The draft study is deeply flawed, as the authors chose to ignore both climate science and climate action in favor of what appears to be a political imperative over any objective analysis … In my experience, this would not stand up to peer review in any academic institution.”
With the Energy Department involved in this new coalition, however, those critiques appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/08/06/global-natural-gas-coalition-sempra
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China’s Gas Tariffs Are a Permian-Size Problem for Oil
Aug 6, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Liam Denning
Energy dominance sure does seem to come with a hefty dose of self-flagellation.
The latest bit of America’s energy sector to feel the over-the-shoulder lash is the liquefied natural gas-export business. On Friday, LNG joined the list of goods that China will hit with tariffs in retaliation for U.S. ones. This is problematic when you consider China has taken 13 percent of U.S. LNG exports (and more like a quarter last winter), according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
As I wrote here about U.S. oil, a tariff imposed by one of the world’s largest importers of fuel will act as an effective tax on exporters. China buys U.S. LNG on the spot market, so its demand is very sensitive to the spread between benchmark U.S. natural gas prices and Asian prices. That spread has to absorb the cost of converting U.S. gas into a liquid (typically a 15 percent premium) and shipping it across the world (about $2 per million BTU via the Panama Canal, according to BNEF’s LNG Shipping Calculator).
Using futures prices for Henry Hub natural gas and the Japan-Korea Marker (JKM) as proxies, here’s what happens to the theoretical netback, or margin, of an exporter on the U.S. Gulf Coast selling LNG to Shanghai if a 25 percent tariff is imposed:
The really fun thing about the LNG trade, though, is that, like with most other trades, everything is connected. So apart from the LNG sector, these tariffs could really cause problems for a bigger business up the pipe: the Permian basin’s oil producers.
How so? A side-effect of the surge in Permian oil output is a similar surge in associated gas that comes up alongside it. As long as oil prices encourage more fracking for oil, the gas essentially comes for free. This is a problem in west Texas because, short of coming up with an ingenious method allowing local residents to breathe the stuff, there isn’t enough demand there to take it all. Hence, gas priced in Waha, Texas, trades at a discount of almost 80 cents per million BTU, or 28 percent, to the Henry Hub benchmark.
Just as lifting the crude-oil export ban helped alleviate a similar problem in oil a couple of years ago, so the ability to get gas to the Gulf Coast and ship it worldwide is a vital escape valve here. In an analysis published in May, Sanford C. Bernstein estimated that rising associated gas production – the vast majority of it from the Permian basin – would be enough to meet most of the increase in domestic U.S. demand and exports through 2025. And given that U.S. gas demand is barely growing – in part because it is in a knife fight with renewable energy in markets such as Texas and California – exports are key:
Notice that the growth in LNG exports drops off after 2020. That’s because, after the initial wave of new export capacity has opened up, there’s a gap because new projects haven’t yet received a final investment decision. Given that it takes three to four years to build a new terminal, those decisions need to be made soon if exports are to grow appreciably in the early 2020s.
Guess what could really bother an energy executive contemplating taking the plunge on a multi-billion-dollar investment in a facility built for the sole purpose of international trade? And guess what could really bother a potential trade partner thinking about maybe signing a 20-year contract with said facility?
Tariffs aren’t likely to derail U.S. LNG exports in the near term, as cargoes can be switched elsewhere to a degree. But if this trade war is extended, then the combination of lower margins, likely lower utilization of terminals and the shadow hanging over trade policy in general is a strong deterrent to anyone thinking of financing or contracting with new U.S. capacity. China is, after all, expected to account for almost half the growth in global LNG demand over the next five years, and a fifth through 2030.
In weighing on U.S. competitiveness, tariffs would also encourage rival producers to invest in new capacity. “If Qatar had any doubts about expanding, they won’t now,” says Marianne Kah, a former chief economist of ConocoPhillips, now on the advisory board of the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy.
We are currently witnessing a temporary slowdown in oil-production growth from the Permian basin due to inadequate oil pipeline capacity. But that could drag on far longer if there’s no place for excess gas to go. The old option of flaring it and providing a Texan light show for astronauts is no longer tenable.
Tariffs, born of a policy of dominance, may ultimately stymie that for America’s gas producers. Just remember many of them also happen to pump out another product for which, similarly, dreams of dominance could backfire.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-06/china-s-lng-tariffs-could-slam-permian-oil-producers
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Lesser Shales Beckon as Permian Pipes and Costs Dull Crude Rush
Aug 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Nussbaum and Kevin Crowley
Rising costs and dwindling pipeline space have some U.S. oil companies doing what was once unthinkable: saying no to the coveted Permian shale region.
Drillers once paid $60,000 an acre or more to secure a slice of the prolific reserves in West Texas and New Mexico. But in recent weeks, explorers including ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil Corp., EOG Resources Inc. and WPX Energy Inc. have all said they’re shifting spending to other places or curtailing activity as logistical constraints choke profits.
The pullback, even if fleeting, is a sign of the eroding economics in the Permian, where pipeline builders have struggled to keep up with growing production. With drillers forced to haul crude away via more costly trucks and rail, barrels sold in the basin now take an almost $20 discount to oil at the U.S. Gulf Coast. Demand for everything from labor to equipment to electricity is driving up costs too.
“There could be more slowing down because the infrastructure constraints will only get worse,” said Sarp Ozkan, Denver-based director of energy analysis at DrillingInfo.
The latest move came Aug. 3, when Houston-based Noble Energy Inc. said it would complete fewer wells than planned in the coming months and spend more in the Denver-Julesburg shale play centered on Colorado.
Noble, which also explores in the Mediterranean and Africa, fell as much as 10 percent the day of the announcement. The company said a $200 million budget increase over this year’s original plan won’t elevate output.
Record Production This MonthIt’s not a wholesale exodus, even by the companies reallocating spending. The Energy Department still expects the Permian to produce a record 3.4 million barrelsa day this month and almost 11 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The number of rigs drilling Permian wells has risen 20 percent this year and remains at a 3 1/2-year high, according to Baker Hughes.
Still, those with options are deciding some dollars are better spent elsewhere.
Conoco is shutting one Permian rig and shifting a second to the less-congested Eagle Ford play in South Texas. The discount on Permian crude is likely to last through next year, Executive Vice President Al Hirshberg told analysts on a conference call July 26.
“There’s no reason to try to spend money to grow production hard into that kind of headwind when you have the flexibility,” Hirshberg said.
In June, Permian-focused Halcon Resources Corp. announced plans to lower its rig count, citing near-term oil prices in the local market that had fallen “significantly.” Marathon also reduced its rig count by one in the Delaware section of the basin.
EOG didn’t explicitly say they were shifting due to pipeline constraints but they’ve gotten most of their Permian drilling out of the way in the first half of 2018, executives said on a call Aug. 3. The day before, WPX Chief Financial Officer J. Kevin Vann said his company’s ability to grow in North Dakota’s Williston basin gives it an option pure Permian players would “love to have” right now.
Noble said it will reassess next year, as it watches progress on pipeline expansions expected online near the end of 2019.
“It’s going to be tied to that export capacity,” Executive Vice President Gary Willingham told analysts. “We are shifting it out, to give the system time to grow the capacity to be able to deliver the wells that we’d actually be drilling.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/lesser-shales-beckon-as-permian-pipes-and-costs-dull-crude-rush
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Delay Puts $3.7B Shale Gas Pipeline at Risk of Overhaul
Aug 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Adams-Heard
A $3.7 billion pipeline in America’s biggest shale gas play could be rerouted after a federal agency ordered all work on the project to stop.
In a rare move Aug. 3, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered EQT Midstream Partners LP to halt construction on its 303-mile (488-kilometer) Mountain Valley conduit, which would carry natural gas from the Marcellus Formation to southern markets. The decision follows a U.S. appeals court’s order a few weeks ago vacating two key permits for the project.
The ruling, which requires agencies including the U.S. Forest Service to take a closer look at the project’s environmental impact, could lead to a “material re-route” for the pipeline, Height Securities LLC analysts Katie Bays and Josh Price said in an Aug. 6 note to clients.
EQT Midstream is confident that the permits in question will be restored and the Bureau of Land Management will stand by its decision that the route the company favors is better than alternatives, spokeswoman Natalie Cox said in an email.
The company’s parent, EQT Corp., last month pushed the expected in-service date for the project to the first quarter of 2019 from late 2018. But late 2019 or early 2020 is more likely, Charles Robertson, an analyst at Cowen & Co., said in a note to clients.
And while the setbacks probably won’t cost EQT the $600 million it estimated earlier this year, “those construction stops do start to pile on material costs when the delays are reaching months instead of weeks,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Brandon Barnes said in an email.
Mountain Valley is a joint venture of EQT Midstream, NextEra Energy Inc., Consolidated Edison Inc., WGL Holdings Inc., and RGC Resources Inc.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/delay-puts-37b-shale-gas-pipeline-at-risk-of-overhaul
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Anti-Fracking Petitioners Push for a Statewide Vote
Aug 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Colorado voters may get a chance to vote in November on a proposal that would severely curtail oil and gas development in the state.
Activists believe they've acquired enough signatures to force a vote on Initiative 97, which would change state law and impose a 2,500-foot setback between oil and gas wells and surrounding buildings. The environmental group Colorado Rising said it gathered 171,000 signatures, nearly twice the number required to call a statewide election.
"We feel very confident about the number that we turned in and that it'll make the ballot," said Anne Lee Foster, one of the organizers of the petition drive.
Business groups have also submitted a petition aimed at bolstering property rights in Colorado. Initiative 108 would change the state constitution to require local governments to reimburse property owners for the value of any losses caused by local laws or regulations.
The secretary of state has until Sept. 5 to verify that the signatures on both petitions are valid.
Colorado has more than 50,000 oil and gas wells, many of them in residential areas around Denver. Production has boomed in the last 10 years thanks to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and other new technology.
Environmentalists have tried twice in the last four years to force a statewide referendum to limit drilling and fracking in Colorado. Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) negotiated a compromise in 2014 that led backers to withdraw a petition. Another campaign in 2016 failed to gather enough signatures (Greenwire, Aug. 29, 2016).
The issue took on new urgency last year when a pipeline leak at a gas well sparked an explosion that destroyed a home and killed two people in Firestone, Colo.
Colorado already requires a 500-foot setback between well sites and surrounding homes, and there's a 1,000-foot buffer for schools and other institutions. Initiative 97 would broaden the setback to 2,500 feet between new wells and any occupied structure. The setback would also apply to "vulnerable areas" including playgrounds, sports fields, rivers, lakes and streams.
The energy industry said the setback proposal would devastate oil and gas production in the state and put thousands of people out of work. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates drilling, said the broader setback would bar new production on 85 percent of the state's nonfederal land.
"We're confident most Coloradans will see this charade for what is and support the men and women who are the backbone of our state and who produce the energy we all need each day," Colorado Oil and Gas Association President Dan Haley said in a statement.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/08/07/stories/1060092879
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States' Oil & Gas Methane Suit Could Force Stricter EPA Clean Air Policies
Aug 6, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Pending litigation from 15 states and environmentalists to force the Trump EPA to issue first-time methane emissions standards for existing oil and gas equipment could, if successful, broadly force the agency to issue tougher Clean Air Act rules for several sectors, according to legal experts.
Even so, the agency is mulling a plan to scrap direct limits on the potent greenhouse gas methane for new oil and gas sources that were imposed by the Obama administration, a move that could undercut the states' claims.
During an Aug. 2 session of the Texas Environmental Superconference here, Baker Botts attorney Megan Berge said the states' suit is “interesting” in that it argues that EPA has unreasonably delayed fulfilling a mandatory duty to issue the existing source methane rules, though in this case the Clean Air Act does not include a specific deadline for the agency to take action.
The states, led by New York, and intervenor Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) argue that EPA has long known about the climate-related threats from methane, and that its 2016 issuance of new source performance standards (NSPS) with first-time methane controls for the oil and gas sector triggered a non-discretionary duty to issue rules for existing sources.
Such cases are “typically . . . brought where there is a clear deadline,” Berge said. That contrasts with section 111 of the air law, which simply says that EPA “shall” issue rules for existing sources after it regulates new sources in that category for a particular pollutant.
“This just says, 'You will do something later,'” she said. “What does 'later' mean?”
She said that one possible answer to that question could be EPA relying on a years-old settlement agreement with states that it would craft climate rules for power plants first and then move on to other sectors such as the oil and gas industry. However, she said, rules for both sectors could move on “parallel tracks.”
EPA on July 31 filed its answer to separate complaints filed by the states and EDF. The agency generally rejects many of the legal claims in the complaints and argues that the each complaint “fails to state a claim for which relief can be granted.” The court has ordered parties to submit a joint briefing schedule by Aug. 21.
Berge said she will be looking for “hints” about EPA's stance in its subsequent filings, saying it might fight the suit rather than agreeing to a schedule to develop the regulations the states seek. “It may actually fight a non-delegable duty suit, which . . . isn't necessarily the norm.”
Regulatory 'Sea Change'
Also speaking at the conference, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) staff attorney Terry Salem said the litigation, New York, et al v. EPA in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is “really the one to watch” regarding oil and gas methane standards.
Salem noted that the case could have broader implications for how EPA develops rules under section 111, in which NSPS rules are issued under section 111(b) and companion rules for existing sources crafted under section 111(d).
The suit raises several questions about EPA's “statutory obligations under the 111 program. Clearly [EPA has] not consistently adopted 111(d) standards” following the issuance of 111(b) rules, she said. As such, she suggested that if states prevail, it could cause a “sea change” in the agency's regulatory efforts in this area.
However, a forthcoming regulatory rollback by the Trump administration could undercut a key underpinning of the states' suit.
Agency officials in recent weeks have signaled that they are contemplating whether to scrap the key determination in the 2016 NSPS that EPA should directly regulate methane, and might instead rely on a prior NSPS for the sector that targeted volatile organic compounds (VOCs) but achieved methane cuts as a co-benefit.
At the Texas conference, EPA air official Clint Woods said Aug. 2 that officials will seek comment in a forthcoming proposal about whether EPA was “chasing the right rabbits” in the 2016 rule. Former Administrator Scott Pruitt also suggested that EPA might target methane as part of a “bundle” with VOCs.
Such a shift would be important because section 111 bars development of existing source rules if the agency is regulating one of six criteria pollutants. VOCs are an ozone precursor, while methane is not a criteria pollutant. That means EPA is prohibited from crafting an existing source standard expressed as a VOC limit, while it would be required to do so if the agency continues to directly regulate methane.
While states and environmentalists pursuing the existing source litigation would object to any such rollback, they likely would be forced to challenge a final rule rescinding methane limits from the NSPS before they could continue their push for existing source limits.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-oil-gas-methane-suit-could-force-stricter-epa-clean-air-policies
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Why We Should Cheer Trump’s Energy Policy Gambit
Aug 7, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Ellen R. Wald
The Trump administration recently announced a proposal to freeze planned increases to fuel economy and fuel emissions standards in new vehicles. Under the current regulations, issuedby the Obama administration, car and truck makers are expected to produce vehicles with an average fuel economy of 51.4 mpg by 2025. The Trump administration wants to keep the 2020 standard of 36.9 mpg in effect until at least 2025.
It would be simple to see this move as a blow to Democrats’ environmental agenda or as part of a pro-big-business Republican agenda. But it is actually a response to a new energy situation in the United States in which oil and gas are abundant and cheap once again.
The regulations were conceived when oil and gasoline prices were significantly higher, with the assumption that, in the future, consumers would desire significantly more fuel-efficient and even electric vehicles. Since then, however, new technologies and more investment in oil exploration and production unlocked billions of barrels of oil and equally impressive amounts of natural gas beneath the United States’ own soil. By 2014, oil prices were trending downward, and by 2016, the price of oil bottomed out at $27 per barrel. Now, with gasoline prices steadily remaining less than $3 per gallon across most of the United States, consumers are just not as willing to pay extra for cars that get outstanding gas mileage.
Although not unprecedented, adjusting policy to reflect the new energy reality is actually rare. Policymakers have historically been bad at forecasting the future when it comes to oil prices and energy technology. Repeatedly, even as the energy situation inevitably changed, energy policy remained static. Political interests, ideological beliefs and a lack of will to undo policies that were no longer effective all explained why certain energy policies remained in place long after they made sense.
Clinging to these policies exacerbated certain economic trends and created political situations that could have been avoided had the government adjusted policies and regulations to fit new developments in energy. By doing so now, the Trump administration is avoiding a repeat of this persistent mistake.
In the early 1970s, inflation was a pressing policy issue. The Nixon administration decided to implement price controls on oil, among other things, to keep prices low for consumers.
Policymakers were reacting to the immediate economic situation without considering how this might affect energy use and availability. Just a year later, however, domestic oil production hit a wall while demand continued to grow. As a result, the United States became a net importer of oil for the first time in 1972.
That became an even bigger problem in 1973, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) unilaterally increased oil prices and the Arab members of OPEC initiated an oil embargo against the United States. Americans were suddenly hit with soaring energy prices and gasoline shortages that they were completely unprepared for. The fact that prices had been kept artificially low because of the 1971 decision exacerbated the economic shock in 1973 and 1974.
Low oil prices also stifled the development of new oil resources in the United States. Oil companies would not commit financial resources toward developing oil reserves, such as those in Alaska, because the return on investment for these projects was considered too low. Oil companies were interested in investing only in cheap resources, which were mostly found in the Middle East. The Nixon-era price controls, therefore, actually exacerbated the United States’ dependency on foreign oil.
Oil prices fluctuated over the next 30 years, but at the turn of the millennium, they again reached extreme heights.
Many analysts and industry experts came to believe that the world might soon run out of oil. These fears prompted a comprehensive energy policy overhaul by the George W. Bush administration designed to cut the use of oil and prepare to shift the U.S. economy away from oil entirely. New policies included, among another things, a mandate to mix ever-increasing amounts of ethanol, a substance made from corn or sugar, into U.S. gasoline — producing a boon for corn farmers.
But this policy was based on the flawed assumption that the total amount of gasoline used in the United States would continue to increase at essentially constant rates and that petroleum would become increasingly scarce and expensive in the future. This turned out to be false.
Gasoline use fell during the recession, and gasoline producerscould not use all of the ethanol mandated by regulation. There simply was not enough gasoline being sold to mix in all of the ethanol the government was demanding the industry use. To comply with the law, refineries were forced to purchase “credits” for the ethanol they could not use.
In short, the Bush administration policies quickly stopped matching the reality of gas consumption. And so, such regulations became inefficient and ineffective. Compounding the problem, the ethanol mandate created a powerful ethanol lobby funded by farming interests that has successfully blocked legislation that would modify the standards to reflect the ever-changing gasoline market.
Most vehicles on the road today cannot run efficiently on gasoline that is more than 10 percent ethanol. But the ethanol lobby continues to agitate for the current ethanol mandate and support politicians who resist changes, even though this policy poses economic challenges for refineries and environmental threats as well.
Although historically U.S. energy policy has proven difficult to adjust, we do sometimes get it right — illuminating the advantages of a deft, flexible energy policy. During the Carter administration, the United States banned the export of almost all domestically produced oil. In the wake of the oil shocks and the 1973 oil embargo, policymakers wanted to keep American oil in the United States and prevent future gasoline shortages.
At the time, it seemed that the United States would never again become a major oil producer. Forty years later, however, the fracking revolution brought American oil production up to almost 9.5 million barrels per day. U.S. oil storage facilities were overflowing with crude oil that U.S. refineries could not process.
President Barack Obama and Congress wisely adjusted course, ending the crude oil export ban in 2015. In 2016, the United States started exporting its crude oil around the world. Last month, the United States exported an average of 1.87 million barrels per day of oil — more than double what U.S. producers exported in 2016. U.S. crude oil exports are a growth industry and are already helping to reduce America’s trade imbalance, create jobs and generate investment in new ports and shipping facilities.
Policies, especially with regards to energy, need to be adjusted to fit changing circumstances. It turns out that no one, especially not the government, can predict the future of the energy industry.
The real problem lies with government’s proclivity toward crafting comprehensive schemes that set policy for the future based on the economic conditions of today. As interest groups that benefit from such policies mobilize, change becomes difficult. Even without legislation, adjusting rules and regulations requires a time-consuming process of public comment that can drag on for many months or even years. Most politicians lack the will or the desire to go through the process of adjusting rules and regulations, preferring comprehensive legislation or ignoring what appear to be minor issues.
When it comes to fuel economy standards, the Trump administration isn’t even trying to reverse or undo the current policy but is simply seeking to delay the implementation of higher standards for several years. This flexibility can better serve consumers and the broader economy and shows the dexterity that all administrations need to have in this policy realm.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/08/07/why-we-should-cheer-trumps-energy-policy-gambit/?utm_term=.19083d4863cb
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(ACC Mentioned) Arkema Indicted for Fires, Chemical Releases Following Tropical Storm Harvey
Aug 6, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Randy Lee Loftis
A grand jury in Houston indicted Arkema and two of its executives Friday on criminal charges that they “recklessly” failed to prevent fires and releases from a chemical plant near Houston last year during catastrophic flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey.
Reactive organic peroxides decomposed and caught fire after floodwaters knocked out power and disabled refrigeration at Arkema’s Crosby, Texas, plant. The chemicals must be kept cool to remain stable.
In addition to the company, the indictment names Richard Rowe, CEO of Arkema’s North America operations, as well as plant manager Leslie Comardelle. If convicted, Arkema could face $1 million in fines and the executives could face five years in prison.
“Companies don’t make decisions, people do,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, whose office sought the indictment, said in a statement. “Responsibility for pursuing profit over the health of innocent people rests with the leadership of Arkema.”
The defendants’ attorneys said the indictment has no legal, factual, or historical basis. Prosecuting a company for the impacts of an unprecedented natural disaster for which local officials weren’t prepared “would set an ominous precedent,” Rusty Hardin, Arkema’s attorney, said in a statement.
Rowe’s attorneys, Tim Johnson and Nick Dickerson, said that “while Mr. Rowe proudly leads the women and men who are the Arkema family, acts of God are outside of his domain.”
Comardelle and his crew “acted heroically, working around the clock throughout the storm, trying to protect the plant and the public,” said his attorneys, Paul Nugent and Heather Peterson.
“The prosecutor’s decision to pursue this course of action is discouraging and sets an alarming and unreasonable precedent of seeking to hold people responsible for acts of nature,” said the chemical industry group American Chemistry Council in a statement.
About 2 meters of floodwater shut down the plant’s power and refrigeration in late August of 2017, putting nearly 159,000 kg of organic peroxides at risk of catching fire. Workers moved chemicals to nine refrigerated trailers, but three trailers ignited and Arkema eventually burned the others to end the emergency. The release caused 21 people to seek medical care.
The U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board concluded in May that while Arkema had safety systems, “all of these layers of protection failed” due to flooding. The board called industry guidelines on flooding inadequate and warned that companies must plan for more frequent extreme rainfall and other weather events due to climate change.
“These potential prison sentences and fines should spur Arkema and other chemical companies to develop and maintain robust contingency plans in anticipation of natural disasters,” said Bay Scoggin, state director of the Texas Public Interest Research Group, an environmental advocacy organization. “Without responsible planning, we could again end up with tragic consequences for brave first responders and people who happen to live close by.”
The next court hearing in the criminal case is scheduled for Oct. 22. First responders, Harris and Liberty Counties, and residents of the area around the plant have filed civil suits against the company.
BP also faced criminal charges for a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers and injured nearly 200 others at its Texas City refinery. It wound up paying a $50 million fine for violating the Clean Air Act. That was the last time a chemical company faced criminal charges for an incident in Texas, the Houston Chronicle reports.
https://cen.acs.org/safety/industrial-safety/Arkema-indicted-fires-chemical-releases/96/web/2018/08
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(ACC Mentioned) 5 Important Stories That Deserve a Closer Look
Aug 6, 2018 | PBS NewsHour
By Joshua Barajas, Jessica Yarvin and Erica R. Hendry
1. Chemical company fined over fires during Hurricane Harvey
Last year, as Hurricane Harvey roared through Texas, chemical fires broke out at the Arkema plant northeast of Houston, sending clouds of black toxic smoke over emergency workers and forcing an evacuation of nearby homes. It took several days for police officers to completely put out the flames.
Arkema makes chemicals used to produce plastic products. At the time, company officials said “no amount of planning” could have stopped its supply of organic peroxides, which must be kept below freezing and were spread across multiple refrigerated buildings and trailers, from catching fire.
But a grand jury last week indicted Arkema and two of its executives for “reckless” behavior before and during the storm, the Houston Chronicle reported. While Harvey dropped an unprecedented amount of rain on the area, the company was not adequately prepared for a flood of even smaller proportions, according to an investigation by the Chemical Safety Board and federal records obtained by the Chronicle. If it was, the fires could have been prevented, prosecutors said.
The indictment charges the company, along with its CEO and plant manager, with “reckless emission of an air contaminant under the Texas Water Code.” If found guilty, the company faces up to $1 million in fines, and the named executives could face years of prison time, the Texas Tribune reported.
In a statement on its website, Arkema said “it is outrageous to assert that Arkema or any of its employees behaved criminally.” An attorney for the company told the Chronicle it planned to fight the charge. The executives are expected to appear in court this week. [The Houston Chronicle]
Why it matters: Last year was one of the most extreme and most expensive yearsfor natural disasters in the U.S. on record.
Cities and states have not only had to deal with billions of dollars in repairs to roads, buildings, homes and other infrastructure, but also with the fallout of other health and environmental damages that may not appear until months or years later.
Separate civil lawsuits have been filed against Arkema since Hurricane Harvey, including by community members, local governments and first responders. One of them is on behalf of 14 residents seeking money for health care expenses and property damages; at least six emergency workers also fell ill while working at the plant, according to another suit. But indictments of corporations for their role in natural disasters, in Texas or elsewhere, is rare.
The American Chemistry Council said in a statement that the indictment “sets an alarming and unreasonable precedent of seeking to hold people responsible for acts of nature.”
But advocates like Environment Texas Executive Director Luke Metzger told the Chronicle that the charges could send a strong message to corporations across the country that “they can’t play fast and loose with safety standards and the protection of the public.”
A May report by the Chemical Safety Board called for better guidance across the industry” to help hazardous chemical facilities better prepare for extreme weather events, like flooding.”
“The chemical industry must be prepared for worst case scenarios at their facilities. We cannot stop the storms, but working together, we can mitigate the damage and avoid a future catastrophic incident,” Chemical Safety Board Chairperson Vanessa Allen Sutherland said in a statement.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/5-important-stories-that-deserve-a-closer-look
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Reilly Urges Wheeler To Advance Affirmative Agenda But Doubts Prospects
Aug 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
William Reilly, who served as EPA administrator during the George H.W. Bush administration, is urging Andrew Wheeler, the agency's new acting chief, to advance an affirmative environmental agenda rather than a continued focus on regulatory rollbacks, but he is also indicating that he does not expect Wheeler to wholeheartedly embrace that advice.
“I hope he will undertake some positive initiatives that do not have, as their primary motivation, the economic impact of environmental policies but rather the protection of nature and the environment and health,” Reilly tells Inside EPA following his Aug. 4 meeting with Wheeler.
One example of a positive initiative Wheeler could undertake would be to “promote a better consensus on wetlands regulation, particularly the regulations for wetlands of high conservation value.”
However, Reilly also indicates that Wheeler's response to his remarks suggests he is unlikely to heed that advice. EPA “will not be the focus of positive and cutting-edge initiatives that I would have hoped, and I think frankly the situation now calls for,” Reilly says.
“But it will be just, professional, respectful, done with integrity and with a sense that the nation's environmental business is being responsibly dealt with by someone . . . who is honest.”
Wheeler, who has been publicly releasing his calendars with a day or two of lag time, met with Reilly on Aug. 4, his calendar shows.
Reilly, when contacted about the meeting by Inside EPA, confirms that he met with Wheeler, along with some senior staff, “a few of whom had been there in my own time,” last week. Reilly served as administrator from 1989 to 1993 and was at the helm of EPA when the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments were signed.
Wheeler has pledged to continue to execute President Donald Trump's deregulatory agenda, but has also shown he could try to oppose certain efforts if he thinks they go too far.
For example, Wheeler is said to have expressed deep concern about the legality of the agency's new joint proposal with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to freeze vehicle greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards at 2020 levels, and to revoke a Clean Air Act waiver that allows California -- and other states -- to set standards that are stricter than the federal government's.
The proposal, which was released Aug. 2, is said to have been delayed in part by Wheeler's concern about the veracity of safety data used to support the rollback, though Wheeler told the Dallas Morning News Aug. 3 that he is “confident” in the analyses.
Reilly cites Wheeler's “early reaction on automobile fuel efficiency standards,” including that “he thinks that changing them and canceling the California waiver may be unlawful,” as “very encouraging signs. And everything I've heard was to attest to his openness, his seriousness as a person” respectful of EPA's mission.
He compared that to former Administrator Scott Pruitt, Wheeler's predecessor, saying whether he “really was sensitive to it, and respectful of it, was always in doubt.”
Positive Tone
Despite Reilly's concerns that Wheeler will not go as far as he believes is needed in pursuing an affirmative environmental agenda, he nonetheless sought to strike a positive tone when discussing the new acting administrator.
Reilly says their meeting lasted about an hour and that he was struck by the reaction of the senior staff, who are “relieved, happy, productive again, they say, looking forward to a good relationship with the administrator. They are listened to, he has done most of the things that I recommended some time ago, without having spoken with him, that he do. Meet with the regional administrators, show that he was sensitive to data and information and to science and the laws.”
Reilly is now affiliated with Climate One, which is a leadership dialogue on energy, the environment and the economy to advance clean energy, through his work as an adviser to TPG Capital. He is chairman of the board for the World Wildlife Fund, is co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center energy project, chair of the advisory board for the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, and he co-chaired the Obama administration's commission to study the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
Reilly remains a Republican but endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and has spoken out against some of Trump's policies.
For example, he joined two other former GOP EPA administrators, William Ruckelshaus and Lee Thomas, in coauthoring a May 2017 opinion piece in the Washington Post warning about the “dangerous path” on which Trump is taking the nation with his refusal to address climate change.
“With no seeming clue as to what's going on, the president seems to have cast our lot with a small coterie of climate skeptics and their industry allies rather than trying to better understand the impact of increased greenhouse-gas emissions into the atmosphere. His policy of willful ignorance is a bet-the-house approach that is destructive of responsible government.
“The consequences of the president's being wrong are hard to imagine.”
Reilly tells Inside EPA that in everything he and Wheeler discussed, regardless of whether Wheeler agreed or disagreed with him, “he was attentive and encouraged me to be heard and to let [him] know anytime what I think, and I look forward to his reconstructing the EPA.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/reilly-urges-wheeler-advance-affirmative-agenda-doubts-prospects
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Study Warns of Looming Potential for Runaway Global Warming
Aug 6, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Max Greenwood
A new study out Monday warns of the possibility of out-of-control global warming if humans fail to band together to fight the worst effects of climate change.
The analysis, conducted by researchers at the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Center, among other institutions, outlines the potential for a "threshold" that, if crossed, would lead to runaway warming patterns and the advent of a "Hothouse Earth."
If such a threshold is crossed, the study warns, global average temperatures could climb as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit above current temperatures and sea levels could rise 30 to 200 feet.
"Crossing the threshold would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years and to sea levels significantly higher than at any time in the Holocene," the study says.
The report is based on a review of past research of thresholds for climate change, according to USA Today.
Even if every country that signed on to the Paris climate agreement meets its obligations under the pact and limits the global temperature increase to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, runaway global warming could still be a threat, the newspaper reports.
The study says that mitigating that risk would require collective global action, including a drastic transformation of "social values" and the pursuit of new technology.
"Such action entails stewardship of the entire Earth System – biosphere, climate, and societies – and could include decarbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed social values," the study says.
President Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement last year, arguing that it placed unfair burdens on the U.S. to curb carbon emissions and would ultimately hurt American businesses and industry.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/400647-study-warns-of-looming-potential-for-runaway-global-warming
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Even 2 C of Warming Could Turn Earth into 'Hothouse'
Aug 7, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Chelsea Harvey
Keeping global warming in check might not be enough to prevent a cascading series of dangerous climate impacts, scientists are warning.
The planet may soon be headed for an unstoppable "Hothouse Earth" trajectory, even if warming is kept at the threshold of 2 degrees Celsius that forms the basis of the Paris climate agreement, according to a new study. The research suggests that there may be a kind of planetary threshold that, once crossed, leads to even more warming, accelerated sea-level rise and other dire climate impacts.
Once the process is in motion, it's likely "a pathway that could not be reversed, steered, or substantially slowed," says the new paper, published yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors include a team of international climate experts led by Will Steffen of the Australian National University.
Concerns about climate feedbacks and tipping points are nothing new. In fact, they're a major focus of many ongoing research efforts. The idea is that some aspects of the Earth's system have certain thresholds that can lead to runaway feedback loops or sudden, rapid change if they're exceeded.
Permafrost, the frozen layer of soil found in many high-latitude regions, is a prime example of a potential feedback loop. It's well-known that warming in the Arctic is causing permafrost in some places to thaw — and when permafrost thaws, it releases large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Some scientists worry that the emissions released by thawing permafrost could exacerbate global warming, leading to more thawing, more emissions and so on — a climate feedback that, at some point, could potentially become unstoppable.
Meanwhile, some experts worry that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets may have tipping points of their own — thresholds beyond which they become so unstable that the ice loss becomes unstoppable, eventually leading to the collapse of entire glaciers or even the ice sheets at large. Most experts believe there's no immediate risk of a large-scale collapse occurring in either place. But as melting accelerates in certain parts of both Greenland and Antarctica, figuring out the point at which it might become a risk is an increasingly important priority.
The possibility of these kinds of climate thresholds has already been explored in numerous studies and reports in recent years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted the possibility of certain feedbacks and tipping points in its last assessment report. And last year's U.S. National Climate Assessment also devoted a chapter to the risk of climate "surprises," including self-reinforcing feedback processes and dangerous climate thresholds (Climatewire, Nov. 8, 2017).
In many cases, experts largely agree that these thresholds likely exist — but at exactly what point they'll be crossed remains highly uncertain. This new paper adds an element of urgency to the issue by suggesting that even 2 C of warming could be enough to send the whole Earth system over the edge.
Drawing on previous estimates of where some of these climate thresholds may lie, the researchers note that just a couple of degrees above preindustrial levels could be enough to trigger certain feedback processes — the rapid thawing of Arctic permafrost, for instance, or the large-scale decline of tropical forests, which would also release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere as they die. Those processes could lead to additional warming, even if human greenhouse gas emissions were halted after that point.
After a certain level of warming, accelerated polar ice melt could lead to catastrophic sea-level rise. But even 2 or 3 C of warming could cause a cascading series of processes that might affect the Earth system in other ways, the researchers suggest. For instance, some studies have suggested that an increase in the flow of meltwater from Greenland could disrupt a major Atlantic Ocean current, potentially affecting weather patterns throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
The paper also explores the possibility of a variety of other processes, including feedbacks caused by the melting of polar sea ice, declines in snow cover and a rise in carbon dioxide-producing bacteria in the ocean. All of these processes working together, and potentially influencing one another, could push the Earth onto the "hothouse" trajectory, the researchers note — potentially locking in several additional degrees of warming and a host of dangerous climate impacts as a result.
It's a grim picture of the future — especially considering the fact that current nation-level commitments to the Paris climate agreement are likely still not enough to keep the planet within a 2 C threshold. That said, some experts note that there's still a high degree of uncertainty associated with climate feedbacks and tipping points, and it's nowhere near certain that 2 C of warming will actually trigger all of these effects.'The good news'
Another recent study, published in June in Nature Geoscience, took a look at the past few million years of Earth's climate history to explore the consequences that similar levels of warming have had on the planet before.
"The good news is that warming on the scale of that envisioned by the Paris climate agreements did not appear to trigger runaway feedbacks to a hothouse" during some of these warm periods, Alan Mix, a climate expert at Oregon State University and one of the authors of that study, said in an emailed comment on the new research to E&E News. "Some extra warming, sure, but not a runaway warming."
On the other hand, he added, some feedbacks did occur, including extra releases of carbon dioxide from permafrost, the ocean or other natural sources. These feedbacks didn't seem to tip the Earth wholly into an unstoppable "hothouse" pathway in the past — but Mix also said that "those natural carbon releases in the past were not accompanied by human releases."
He added that climate data from even more distant periods in the Earth's past suggest that long, self-sustaining "hothouse" states have occurred before, although they would have been linked to natural sources of carbon dioxide emissions and thus could potentially occur again.
So although the exact thresholds for the Earth's climate tipping points — and the ways in which they may feed into one another — may remain uncertain, the new paper could at least trigger additional studies that attempt to answer the question in greater detail, the authors suggest.
Because of the uncertainty that still exists — and because some research suggests that some climate thresholds could be crossed at even just 1 or 2 C — they've argued that a transition to the hothouse Earth trajectory could exist even if the Paris goals are met. But, they added, "our initial analysis here needs to be underpinned by more in-depth, quantitative Earth System analysis and modeling studies" to determine whether a hothouse pathway really is imminent and what can be done to stop it.
Mix also said the paper's provocative thesis could spur a greater interest in studies aimed at narrowing down the risks of these kinds of thresholds.
"The paper's supposition that we are close to a tipping point toward a hothouse world will motivate a lot of research to figure out if this is true, and if so, just where those triggers may lie, and at what level of CO2 they would occur," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/08/07/stories/1060092901
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Trump Admin Sees Grim Climate Outcome in Car Rule
Aug 7, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Zack Colman and Scott Waldman
The last time carbon dioxide levels hit the mark the Trump administration envisions for the end of the century, crocodiles roamed the poles and palm trees existed where glaciers are today. In fact, there were no glaciers — not even in Antarctica.
Although the White House has avoided addressing climate change, it made a rare acknowledgement that its proposal to weaken vehicle fuel efficiency standards would contribute to a warmer planet. Its prediction for what the atmosphere will look like in 2100 startled climate scientists — a carbon dioxide concentration of 789.76 parts per million. That's nearly double current levels.
Scientists said reaching that mark would be devastating for the planet. Although humans would survive, much of that would depend on the ability to adapt to new conditions. Food and water scarcity would result from changing precipitation patterns and higher temperatures. Potentially billions of people would struggle. Some species and ecosystems would collapse.
"By mid Century, food and especially water shortages will likely become so widespread that regional conflicts and environmental refugees will dwarf anything we see now, and hence it is not really livable for all humans," Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said in an email. "So the last time 800 ppm occurred is not really pertinent because there were not 10 billion people present."
The administration's chart attempts to prove that there will be little noticeable effect on global temperatures as a result of its plan, triggering "3/1,000ths of a degree Celsius increase in global average temperatures by 2100." It says that the estimated atmospheric CO2 under the Trump plan would be 789.76 ppm, compared with 789.11 ppm under the Obama plan. The agencies said its proposal would increase oil consumption by 500,000 barrels per day.
The Trump administration does not acknowledge the significant impact of a world where emissions would rise to such an extreme level, one that would be far hotter, with dramatic sea-level rise and an increase in droughts and deadly heat waves.
The number used by the Trump administration assumes that fossil fuel consumption will continue to rise every year, said Ralph Keeling, head of the CO2 program at the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It does not account for competition from renewable energy, emissions reduction policies or the assumption that the market can support that rate of growth, he said. It also doesn't account for a significant global effort to curb emissions, such as the Paris climate agreement.
"That 700 range is accessible, but only if we continue to have a few-percent-per-year growth in emissions, all the way through to 2100," he said. "It's more than a doubling of emissions, so it's assuming that the world is going to be burning more than twice as much fossil fuel in 80 years than it is burning now, so not only are we not cutting emissions, we're just continuing to grow them."
Keeling said the current level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is likely equivalent to that of about 3 million or 4 million years ago. The number used by the Trump administration would put the planet at the same level of carbon dioxide it experienced during the Eocene Epoch, he said. In the early Eocene, when carbon dioxide levels topped 1,000 parts per million, there were crocodiles swimming in the Arctic.
The concentration of atmospheric CO2 has risen more than 35 percent since before the Industrial Revolution, when it was estimated to be 280 ppm, according to Scripps. When scientists first started recording CO2 about 60 years ago, it was 320 ppm. This year, that number hit 410.31, a record high in modern history and a sharp increase since 2013, when CO2 levels surpassed 400 ppm for the first time, according to Scripps.
Scientists said it's the rates of change, rather than the absolute value of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, that will matter most.
"In my view, the human species will be just fine," Daniel Schrag, director of Harvard University's Center for the Environment, said in an email. "But many individual humans (perhaps billions of individuals) will suffer terribly."
EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said its proposal to freeze vehicle fuel efficiency standards at 2020 levels, rather than keep tightening targets through 2026, would raise carbon dioxide concentrations 0.65 ppm relative to the Obama administration levels in 2100.
"EPA and NHTSA welcome comments on all aspects of the environmental analysis," NHTSA said in a statement.
Schrag and other scientists said the Trump administration's projection reflects a business-as-usual scenario. Those atmospheric concentrations would most closely resemble the Eocene Epoch, Schrag said, about 40 million to 45 million years ago, though not when the Eocene was at peak warmth.
Kate Marvel, a physicist at Columbia University and a researcher at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said the administration's estimate would align with levels not seen in 50 million to 55 million years. She called it "horrifying," noting that it could result in a meter of sea-level rise.
Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate expert, said it is "highly doubtful" that humans "would thrive in such a world, reached in a mere century."
The atmospheric carbon dioxide number selected by the Trump administration is one of the most pessimistic scenarios outlined in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. It also does not account for the world's other major polluters fulfilling their emissions goals under the Paris climate agreement, from which Trump has pledged to withdraw.
The rollback of the vehicle efficiency rules is one of Trump's most consequential actions on climate, observers have said. Schrag said the administration's proposal shows that it is not fully considering the implications of its actions.
"I think it is pretty clear that they care only about immediate impact on existing businesses that they are close to," Schrag said. "If you don't care about the long-term future, then climate change is not as much of a worry."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/08/07/stories/1060092895
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