Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 14/08/18
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(ACC Mentioned) NGO Warns of Chlor-Alkali Industry Asbestos and Mercury Pollution
Aug 14, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
The US NGO Healthy Building Network (HBN) has warned that the continued use of mercury and asbestos in the supply chain of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and other chlorine-based products, is a source of environmental pollution. -
EPA Gets Earful on Cost-Benefit Plan
Aug 14, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow
Dozens of public interest groups yesterday asked acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to withdraw a proposed shake-up of the agency's rulemaking process. -
Scientists Report Political Meddling, Self-Censorship
Aug 14, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall and Sean Reilly
Federal scientists at EPA, the Interior Department and other agencies are reporting political interference with their work, requests to remove "climate change" from research and declining staff levels, a new survey of government employees said. -
LCV Launches $200K Campaign Opposing Kavanaugh
Aug 14, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
The League of Conservation Voters started a $200,000 campaign today against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. -
Court Orders EPA to Ban Chlorpyrifos!
Aug 13, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Beth Kemler
Last week our allies achieved a big win for Americans’ health! -
Life In the PFAS Lane
Aug 14, 2018 | Politico
By Kelsey Tamborrino
LIFE IN THE PFAS LANE: EPA is holding another all-day PFAS engagement meeting this morning — this time in Fayetteville, N.C., where agency officials will hear about the state waterways suffering from contamination of GenX, a PFAS chemical similar to PFOA and PFOS. -
How to Choose the Best Sunscreen for Your Skin — And The Earth, Too
Aug 14, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Lindsey M. Roberts
It’s August and sunny days are in, but two of the top sunscreen ingredients are out. -
Organics Have a Deserved Good Reputation
Aug 14, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal - Opinion
By Laura Batcha
Regarding Henry I. Miller’s “The Organic Industry Is Lying to You” (op-ed, Aug. 6): The organic industry isn’t hiding anything. -
Stumping in New York, Trump Blames Dearth of Fracking for High Taxes
Aug 14, 2018 | ThinkProgress
By E. A. Crunden
President Donald Trump linked New York’s taxes to the state’s restrictions on fossil fuel development in a speech on Monday, arguing that such policies have hindered jobs and driven state costs up. -
PJM Seeks 3-Month Delay to Capacity Auction
Aug 14, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darius Dixon
PJM Interconnection is asking FERC for permission for a three-month delay its next capacity auction to August 2019 in light of FERC’s June order declaring the market was unjust and unreasonable, according to a filing today. -
Responders Need More Data on CFATS Facilities' Inventories: GAO
Aug 14, 2018 | Occupational Health and Safety
A new Government Accountability Office report finds the first responders are not able to access important information that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security develops from its inspections of facilities that handle hazardous chemicals — facilities that are assessed under the DHS Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program. -
Chemical Release from Texas Plant Less Severe Than Feared
Aug 14, 2018 | Houston Chronicle (In E&E Greenwire)
By Alex Stuckey
A Dow Chemical Co. plant in Freeport, Texas, estimated in June that it would release a record amount of benzene, a carcinogen, due to flaring when restarting the facility. -
Insight: Kaspersky Lab Contest Reveals Ease of Hacking an Oil Refinery
Aug 14, 2018 | Platts
By Herman Wang and Katherine Dunn
In October, four South Korean hackers in Shanghai spent seven hours attempting to infiltrate an oil refinery’s corporate network to gain access to its control systems and shut the facility down. -
Gore: Trump Not Yet as Damaging to Environment as He Feared
Aug 14, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Martha Waggoner
The Trump administration has made some dangerous changes to environmental policy, but the damage so far has been less than it initially appeared, former Vice President Al Gore said in an interview Monday. -
California Today: A Move to Mandate 100% Carbon-Free Electricity
Aug 14, 2018 | The New York Times
By Ivan Penn and Inyoung Kang
California has been a leader in trying to counter the forces contributing to climate change, from its stringent standards for auto emissions to its mandate that 50 percent of the state’s electricity come from carbon-free sources by 2030. -
Zinke Blames 'Environmental Terrorist Groups' for Scale of California Wildfires
Aug 14, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is blaming "environmental terrorist" groups for the deadly forest fires ripping through California. -
5 Questions About the Plastic Clogging the Seas
Aug 14, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
The ocean is awash in plastic, and what you can see on the surface is just the start of the problem.
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(ACC Mentioned) NGO Warns of Chlor-Alkali Industry Asbestos and Mercury Pollution
Aug 14, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
The US NGO Healthy Building Network (HBN) has warned that the continued use of mercury and asbestos in the supply chain of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and other chlorine-based products, is a source of environmental pollution.
The NGO surveyed the 86 largest chlor-alkali and 56 largest PVC plants in the Americas, Europe and Africa. They found that 32 chlor-alkali plants still use mercury cell and/or asbestos diaphragm technologies to produce chlorine. The others employ more modern methods, using diaphragms or membranes coated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs).
Chlorine-based production is responsible for some 300 tons of asbestos waste a year in the US, the NGO warned. And in a plant in Poland, for example, concentrations of asbestos in the workspace air "routinely exceeded up to 30 times the occupational exposure limits".
Meanwhile, two mercury-cell plants in the US have released over 23.8 metric tons of mercury into the air since 1987, HBN said. And another has released "at least" 715kg of the chemical into the Ohio River.
It further warned that releases of PFASs – the only alternatives to mercury and asbestos cells in chlor-alkali plants worldwide – are undocumented. HBN said this is concerning because the chemicals are toxic at low doses and persist in the environment.
The NGO said it hopes the report will help manufacturers avoid chemicals derived from "toxic technologies" and help scientists to better understand the material flow of the pollutants generated by PVC production.
Chlorine-based plastics production is driven by demand from the building industry, where PVC is widely used in products such as pipes, flooring and adhesives. Shift from asbestos and mercury
Most chlorine produced in Europe and Africa comes from PFAS-coated membrane technology, HBN reported, but the largest chlor-alkali plant in Europe – DowDuPont's complex in Stade, Germany – relies on asbestos diaphragms. Mercury cells are in use at two German chlor-alkali plants run by BASF and Evonik.
DowDuPont is converting plants using diaphragm technology to non-asbestos operations, in alignment with regional regulatory requirements. Meanwhile, DowDuPont said: "It is important to note that no asbestos is transferred to the chlorine during production".
BASF has one remaining plant using the mercury-cell process, but it will be replaced with a PFAS-membrane plant. The chemical giant said it is reducing mercury emissions to a minimum and "will eliminate it from the production of chlor-alkali by start-up of the membrane process".Asbestos in the US
While Europe is phasing out use of the chemical, asbestos diaphragms still account for 45% of chlorine-production capacity in the US, according to HBN. Most of this centres on the US Gulf Coast, the world’s lowest-cost region for production of chlorine, and home to nine facilities that use asbestos technology.
The US imports 480 tons of asbestos a year on average for 11 chlor-alkali plants, the NGO said. Most of this comes from mines in Brazil, but the country has banned production of the chemical and exports will soon cease. When they do, the use of asbestos in the US is likely to become dependent on a mine in Russia.
The American Chemistry Council’s (ACC's) chlor-alkali division declined to comment on how this might affect asbestos-chlorine production in the US, but said facilities that use asbestos during chlorine production "adhere to established safety protocols to minimise potential asbestos exposure to workers, the public and the environment".
The ACC said it will continue to work with the US EPA "to ensure risk evaluation of asbestos is scientifically accurate and continues to be protective of worker and environmental health".
HBN and other NGOs have previously tried to force asbestos use out of the chlor-alkali industry through action under the revised TSCA. The chemical is among the first ten substances subject to risk evaluation under the new law.
But the EPA recently moved against banning new asbestos products outright. Its proposed significant new use rule (Snur) for asbestos, if adopted, would block industry from initiating new uses without notifying the agency. The EPA could then regulate or deny those requests.
HBN's findings are published in Chlorine and Building Materials: A Global Inventory of Production Technologies, Markets, and Pollution. Phase 1: Africa, The Americas, and Europe. The NGO is planning a second report, which will cover the industry in Asia.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69688/ngo-warns-of-chlor-alkali-industry-asbestos-and-mercury-pollution
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EPA Gets Earful on Cost-Benefit Plan
Aug 14, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow
Dozens of public interest groups yesterday asked acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to withdraw a proposed shake-up of the agency's rulemaking process.
At issue is an advance notice of proposed rulemaking titled "Increasing Consistency and Transparency in Considering Costs and Benefits in the Rulemaking Process." In a flurry of letters, the groups said the proposal signaled a retreat from valuing gains from rules.
Like the so-called "secret science" plan, this proposal could have profound consequences for EPA's overall approach to assessing the need for new or stiffer standards to protect public health and the environment (Greenwire, May 16).
While the science proposal would restrict the types of studies EPA can use in crafting new regulations, the cost-benefit move would affect reviews that provide the economic justification for rules. Reform could have profound implications for air quality guidelines (Greenwire, June 22).
In a letter, 85 public interest groups said the cost-benefit proposal "reflects a failure to recognize the strong evidence that rules protecting public health and the environment often result in benefits 13 times greater than costs."
The groups signing the letter included the Center for Progressive Reform, Clean Water Action, Earthjustice and Public Citizen. They are all members of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards.
In a separate letter, six other groups wrote, "EPA safeguards promulgated under the nation's environmental laws have saved lives and improved health nationwide by reducing pollution in the air we breathe, water we drink and use, communities we live in, and public lands including national parks we recreate in and treasure."
The groups signing that letter were the Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Law & Policy Center, the National LGBTQ Task Force, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Waterkeeper Alliance.
Led by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood (D), a coalition of 13 attorneys general and state agencies also <a href=“https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2018_08_13_comment_letter.pdf”expressed concern that “changes to EPA’s consideration of cost-benefit analysis have wide-ranging implications for regulatory decisions on which our states rely.”
Yesterday at midnight was the deadline for submitting comments on the proposal. EPA received a total of 3,241 comments from interested parties, according to the site regulations.gov.
The vast majority of comments came from environmentalists, public health advocates and anonymous individuals who opposed the agency's direction.
"The EPA is a GOVERNMENT agency tasked with PROTECTING the environment from polluters," wrote one irate individual who preferred anonymity. "Even wealthy terrorists like [former EPA chief] [S]cott [P]ruitt cannot buy clean air after he destroys it."
Support for the rulemaking came from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as well as three GOP lawmakers from Western states.
Idaho state Sen. Chuck Winder, Wyoming state Sen. Drew Perkins and Utah state Rep. Steve Handy wrote that they fully back the proposal as members of the Energy Producing States Coalition.
"The cost-benefit process at EPA informs and underpins nearly every major and significant rulemaking that comes out of the federal government as it relates to energy production and the environment," they wrote.
"It is long past time that a serious and honest review of this often opaque, jargon-filled and bureaucratic mess received attention and scrutiny by the public," the state lawmakers said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/14/stories/1060094055
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Scientists Report Political Meddling, Self-Censorship
Aug 14, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall and Sean Reilly
Federal scientists at EPA, the Interior Department and other agencies are reporting political interference with their work, requests to remove "climate change" from research and declining staff levels, a new survey of government employees said.
Overall, 50 percent of scientists questioned on average across 16 agencies — also including the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture — agreed this year that "consideration of political interests" hindered science-based decisions, said the analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists and Iowa State University's Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology.
"In many of the critical science agencies — especially the agencies that handle environmental regulation — scientists reported that they are having trouble doing their jobs because of political interference, staff reductions and a lack of qualified leadership," said Jacob Carter, a research scientist with the Center for Science and Democracy at UCS and a co-author of "Science Under Trump."
"Hundreds also reported self-censorship to avoid becoming a political target," he said.
Also, a higher percentage of respondents from EPA, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and USDA reported low morale relative to scientists at other agencies, said the report.
The groups conducted the survey in February and March, before the departure of former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. At the time, it was uncertain whether many proposed budget cuts would make it through Congress. Numerous proposed and enacted regulatory rollbacks that affect climate and energy research were — and still are — on the table.
Censorship is an issue particularly on climate science, according to the report. It cites cases such as Interior forcing the head of Joshua Tree National Park last year to fly to Washington, D.C., over a climate-related tweet.
Scientists at the National Park Service were most likely to report censorship related to global warming. "We've been told to avoid using words like climate change in internal project proposals and cooperative agreements," one NPS worker said.
Overall, 47 percent of respondents at NPS and 35 percent at EPA said they had been asked to omit "climate change" from their work.
More than 30 percent at the U.S. Geological Survey and EPA said they avoided using "climate change" without explicit orders to avoid problems.EPA
EPA scored highest on many metrics in the survey, including the highest percentage of employees, 32 percent, listing influence of the White House or political appointees as a top barrier. More than half rated morale as "poor" or "very poor," Carter said in an interview.
One unnamed agency employee quoted in the report voiced a belief that internal review requirements have made it harder to provide "timely and important information to the communities within our nation."
Similarly, 70 percent of EPA respondents said the presence of senior "decisionmakers" from regulated industries influenced agency outcomes, compared with only 30 percent in the government as a whole.
EPA had the highest percentage of respondents who strongly agreed — more than 50 percent — that there have been workforce reductions in the past year because of hiring freezes, retirements and departures.
While the report generally does not seek to explore the reasons behind the survey results for individual agencies, EPA has been a particular target for President Trump.
During the 2016 campaign, he suggested the agency should be abolished. Since taking office, his administration has twice sought to slash EPA's budget by double-digit percentages, although Congress has so far refused to go along.
Last October, Pruitt banned current EPA grant recipients from serving on agency advisory committees. Coupled with a related decision to end a tradition of reappointing first-term committee members to a second term, that step has led to the exodus of dozens of researchers from the Science Advisory Board, Board of Scientific Counselors and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, as well as various subcommittees.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the lead plaintiff in one of three lawsuits now challenging Pruitt's policy. Records released in another suit show Pruitt's team relied heavily on input from Republican lawmakers in devising the ban.
Even more contested has been Pruitt's proposal this spring to limit the types of scientific studies the agency can use in crafting new regulations to those for which the underlying data "are publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation," according to the text of the draft rule.
While Pruitt has said his purpose was to bolster confidence in EPA rulemaking, critics see the proposal as a ploy to exclude research that could justify the need for stricter pollution standards.
Under White House pressure, Pruitt resigned early last month. In an interview soon after with E&E News, acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler voiced general support for both initiatives (Greenwire, July 13).
An EPA spokeswoman did not respond to an emailed request for comment this morning on the relatively high level of concern reflected in the survey about the influence of political appointees.
Asked about a separate finding that fewer than 35 percent of EPA respondents agree or strongly agree that the agency adheres to its scientific integrity policy, the spokeswoman said EPA has one of the federal government's most robust scientific integrity training programs, accompanied by regular improvements "to make it even stronger."Interior, DOE
Employees at Interior also recorded some of the highest levels of concern. Like EPA, scientists at NPS, USGS and FWS listed political influence as a "top barrier."
"This is particularly notable at the USGS, which as a nonregulatory agency, had experienced lower levels of political influence in previous years," the survey says.
It quotes an anonymous USGS employee saying political appointees at the department require review and approval of all research grants over $50,000.
Earlier this summer, the Trump administration reportedly issued a directive requiring USGS employees to get approval before talking to reporters (Greenwire, June 25). Other department employees left this year after alleging breaches of scientific integrity policies (Greenwire, Feb. 22).
More than 40 percent of respondents at both FWS and NPS agreed that people from regulated industries with a financial outcome in decisions influenced internal deliberations. More than half of respondents at FWS and NPS reported an overall decrease in personal job satisfaction.
In a statement, Interior spokeswoman Faith Vander Voort said "scientific integrity remains intact at the Department of Interior." She said, "Any assumption otherwise is categorically false."
Researchers at the Department of Energy, and other "energy agencies" at Interior, like the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, were less likely to cite political interference.
At those offices, employees cited "delayed" leadership or absence of leadership with scientific backgrounds as top barriers.
Still, 44 percent of respondents in energy agencies reported resources being moved from scientific work because they were viewed as politically contentious. Some employees reported anonymously that sensitive topics were "line-item" removed from calls for proposals or funding opportunities.
Not all the results indicated dissatisfaction. Scientists at NOAA perceived "significantly less political pressure" than other agencies.
At several energy and environmental agencies, including FWS and NPS, about half of respondents indicated their employer was adhering to its scientific integrity policy.
It's unclear how representative the survey is for the federal government as a whole, considering the response rate, which was 6.9 percent overall.
The highest response rates were at USGS and the National Park Service, but they fell below 20 percent. The response rate was 8 percent at FWS and 3 percent at EPA.
Some science branches also were not included, such as the Office of Science at DOE, which oversees the majority of the national labs.
To conduct the analysis, UCS obtained staff lists through the Freedom of Information Act, then identified scientific employees based on job titles. Potential respondents were then invited to fill out the survey anonymously.
The survey was conducted among 4,211 scientific experts in the federal government. It is the ninth such analysis from UCS since 2005.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/14/stories/1060094079
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LCV Launches $200K Campaign Opposing Kavanaugh
Aug 14, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
The League of Conservation Voters started a $200,000 campaign today against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The campaign comprises digital ads and grass-roots organizing, with a focus on Nevada, Maine and Alaska — states where greens hope to convince vulnerable and moderate Republicans to oppose the nominee (E&E Daily, Aug. 2).
The ads and campaign focus on Kavanaugh's rulings in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he has served for a dozen years following his appointment by President George W. Bush.
On the court, Kavanaugh has a deep record of questioning EPA authority to issue environmental regulations and has struck down Obama-era air regulations. LCV plans to highlight what it calls a "Dirty Decision of the Day" in a blog.
"Brett Kavanaugh's nomination is a direct threat to our health, our environment and our future," said Ben Driscoll, director of the group's judiciary program. "From questioning the EPA's authority to protect public health to favoring corporations over safety, he's sided with polluters over people time and time again. With dozens of Trump's environmental attacks pending in court, the stakes couldn't be higher."
The group's push, though, is dwarfed by other campaigns from conservative groups. The group Judicial Crisis Network has already spent millions of dollars in advertising supporting Kavanaugh.
LCV spokeswoman Alyssa Roberts called it the group's "most expansive campaign" ever opposing a Supreme Court nominee.
The Senate Judiciary Committee last week announced that Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing will begin Sept. 4. Republicans are hoping to see him confirmed by Oct. 1, the start of the Supreme Court's next term.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/14/stories/1060094061
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Court Orders EPA to Ban Chlorpyrifos!
Aug 13, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Beth Kemler
Last week our allies achieved a big win for Americans’ health! A federal court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to move forward with a ban on chlorpyrifos—a toxic pesticide known to harm children’s brains that is used on many different crops, including nuts, apples and berries—within 60 days. The EPA proposed the ban in 2016 but it had languished under the Trump administration, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence showing exposure to low levels of the pesticide in early life can harm children.
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):
This decision supports the efforts of pediatricians, public health experts, and farmworker advocates to protect children from a chemical found to contaminate the food supply, drinking water, and the air in agricultural communities. Significant science—including from EPA itself—shows that exposure to low levels of the pesticide in early life can lead to increased risk of learning disabilities, including reductions in IQ, developmental delay and ADHD. Farmworkers—many of whom are Latinx—and their children face additional, disproportionate risk because the chemical is used so close to where they live, work, and go to school—resulting in exposures from air, drinking water, and dust in their homes.
Read more here and here.
Congratulations to NRDC, Pesticide Action Network North America, Learning Disabilities Association of America, Earthjustice and others!
https://saferchemicals.org/2018/08/13/court-orders-epa-to-ban-chlorpyrifos/
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Aug 14, 2018 | Politico
By Kelsey Tamborrino
LIFE IN THE PFAS LANE: EPA is holding another all-day PFAS engagement meeting this morning — this time in Fayetteville, N.C., where agency officials will hear about the state waterways suffering from contamination of GenX, a PFAS chemical similar to PFOA and PFOS. The chemical turned into a major issue in the state after it showed up in the Cape Fear River. Last December, both of North Carolina’s Republican senators helped sink the administration’s nominee to head EPA’s chemical safety office, in part because of the GenX crisis.
Republican Rep. Richard Hudson, who represents Fayetteville, will deliver remarks this morning. He called GenX “a top priority” in a statement, adding he will “work with federal, state, and local officials to help make sure the right steps are taken to protect public health.” Public comment begins at 3 p.m. See today’s agenda here.
Recall: EPA has said it will develop toxicity values for GenX by this summer. Ahead of the meeting, Trey Glenn, EPA’s Region 4 administrator, wrote an op-ed in the Fayetteville Observer on actions EPA is taking on PFAS chemicals.
ALSO TODAY: PERRY HEADS TO RENEWABLE LAB: Energy Secretary Rick Perry will be in Colorado today to tour the Energy Systems Integration Facility and the Science and Technology Facility at the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Perry, who will be joined by Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, will also deliver remarks at the NREL Partner Forum in Golden, Colo.
WELCOME TO TUESDAY! I'm your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. No one was able to correctly identify Harold Hufford, the Senate clerk who in 1927 found historical documents in the Capitol basement that would later be transferred to the National Archives. Switching gears this morning: Where can you find the Earth’s greatest sheer vertical drop? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com, or follow us on Twitter @kelseytam, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
EPA'S RFS STUDY TIMELINE: EPA wants 14 months to finish up an air quality study of the Renewable Fuel Standard, saying in a court filing Monday that the timeline “is the most expeditious one for the agency to complete the anti-backsliding study.” The study could ultimately lead to new regulations if the agency finds ethanol and other biofuels are creating too much pollution, Pro’s Alex Guillén reports. The review of the biofuels program was mandated to ensure the RFS wasn’t worsening air quality, but it was supposed to be finished in 2010. Yet, EPA’s inspector general previously found EPA had not yet acted in 2016.
The agency also asked the court Monday to hold off on setting a deadline for any follow-up action that EPA may deem necessary. "[W]hat the study says about the kind of impacts that renewable fuel has on air quality could greatly affect whether EPA requires mitigation measures as well as the types of measures it considers in a rulemaking," the agency wrote.
MARKEY QUESTIONS UTILITIES ON CYBER: Democratic Sen. Ed Markeyhas a few questions on how utilities are responding to Russian cyber threats to the electric grid. On Monday, the senator, who chairs the Foreign Relations subcommittee that handles cyber policy, sent letters to no fewer than 10 major power companies and three federal agencies — DHS, DOE and FERC — along with four power marketing organizations and the nonprofit group that sets electric grid security standards. Markey asked the companies whether Russian hackers breached their systems as part of a 2017 cyberattack campaign detailed late last month in a series of public briefings. The Massachusetts senator also asked the companies whether they believe that the latest cybersecurity regulations from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation are sufficient to guard against attacks. Pro Cybersecurity’s Eric Geller reports more on the letters here.
ZINKE DOUBLES DOWN ON CLIMATE: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke touched on climate change in an interview with Breitbart Radio this weekend, reiterating his call to thin out forests and for active forest management, and hitting “radical environmentalists” and their focus on climate change. “We’ve been held hostage by these environmental terrorists groups that have not allowed public access, that refuse to allow harvest of timber,” Zinke said. “The fuel load on our forest ... it's magnitudes higher.”
Later in the interview — where he also discussed questions about his travel and the Trump administration's monuments review — Zinke returned to the topic. “Look at climate change,” Zinke said. “It doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility to actively manage. So you can huff and puff and say, ‘Well it’s about climate change.’ Yes, the drought has caused temperatures to rise, the fire season has become longer, [but] whether you believe or not believe in climate change, doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility to remove the dead and dying timber and manage our forests so you don’t have these catastrophic burns.”
Those comments preceded the ones he made Sunday on Sacramento station KCRA. “I've heard the climate change argument back and forth,” Zinke said in that interview. “This has nothing to do with climate change. This has to do with active forest management.” California officials have instead pointed to rising temperatures across the state driven by climate change for worsening the wildfires raging across the state.
WHEELER READY FOR HIS CLOSE UP: Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler gave what appeared to be his first television interview as acting administrator to Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump campaign aide, where he discussed the administration's proposed rollback of Obama-era car and light truck emissions standards. "We really anticipate more new cars will be sold because the prices will be slightly lower, and when new cars are sold they’re safer and they’re cleaner for the environment," Wheeler said during the brief sit-down. Watch it here or wait for it to be broadcast across the more than 100 local TV news stations that Sinclair owns and operates.
U.S. REFINERY INPUT HITS RECORD: The four-week average for U.S. refinery inputs exceeded 18 million barrels per day last month, hitting a new record level for refinery runs. American plants are hitting record levels in response to strong domestic and international demand for gasoline and distillate fuel oil, the U.S. Energy Information Administration found. Before the week of historic refinery runs ending July 6, EIA said the last time the four-week average of U.S. gross refinery inputs came close to 18 million barrels per day was the week of Aug. 25, 2017 — one week before Hurricane Harvey made landfall, resulting in widespread refinery closures and shutdowns.
ANOTHER WRINKLE IN TESLA: Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote up a new blog post Monday in an effort to explain questions about last week’s surprise announcement that he was considering taking the electric car company private. In the post, Musk dives into why he previously said funding was “secured” for the deal. “Going back almost two years, the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund has approached me multiple times about taking Tesla private,” Musk wrote. “They first met with me at the beginning of 2017 to express this interest because of the important need to diversify away from oil. … Obviously, the Saudi sovereign fund has more than enough capital needed to execute on such a transaction.” The post did little to qualm concerns of investors: On Monday, Tesla’s stock closed at $356.41, well below Musk’s proposed buyout figure of $420 per share.
AD WARS: The Renewable Fuels Association launched a weeklong ad campaign in Iowa on Monday, coinciding with Wheeler’s visit to the state’s annual fair. The ads hit EPA on the Renewable Fuel Standard and push the agency to institute year-round sales of E15 blends. The ads will run on WHO-AM and KIOA-FM, two Des Moines radio stations. Listen to the ads here and here.
GORE: TRUMP NOT AS BAD AS FEARED: Former Vice President Al Gore says President Donald Trump’s environmental policy moves haven't been as damaging as he expected them to be. Trump “had less of an impact so far than I feared that he would. Someone said last year his administration is a blend of malevolence and incompetence,” he told The Associated Press while in North Carolina. “I think they’ve made some mistakes in some of the moves they’ve made. The courts have blocked some of what they wanted to do as a result.” The former-VP-turned-environmentalist told the AP that the Republican-controlled Congress has stepped in at times, too. “The U.S. system has a lot of inherent resilience,” Gore said. “It’s hard for one person, even the president, to change things very quickly if the majority of American people don’t want them changed.”
MAIL CALL! NOMS EDITION: The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute sent a letter Monday in support of Bill Cooper, the nominee to be general counsel at the Energy Department. In a letter to leadership of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which will hold Cooper’s nomination hearing Thursday, AHRI’s Joe Trauger writes Cooper “clearly has a deep understanding of energy policy and the regulatory process under which it is implemented.”
— Twenty-five environmental groups signed a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. “Judge Kavanaugh’s approach to the law threatens key elements of environmental and public health protections, and makes it harder for people to hold the government and big corporate polluters accountable,” the letter says.
— More than 150 conservation, health and environmental groups signed onto a letter Monday opposing EPA’s proposed repeal of the Clean Water Rule, aka the Waters of the U.S. rule.
SCIENTISTS LINK OCEAN FLOWS TO CO2 RISE: A “flushing” within the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean that was ramped up by water circulation patterns around Antarctica caused the release of carbon dioxide from the ocean into the atmosphere at the end of the last Ice Age that’s long stumped researchers, according to new research from Oregon State University. The new study, publishedMonday in the journal Nature Geoscience, showed for the first time how carbon stores from the ocean might make their way into the atmosphere, long before humans began burning fossil fuels. “The Pacific Ocean is big and you can store a lot of stuff down there — it’s kind of like grandma's root cellar — stuff accumulates there and sometimes doesn’t get cleaned out,” said Alan Mix, co-author on the study, in a statement.
COMMENTS ARE IN: The National Association of Manufacturers has weighed in on EPA’s proposed cost-benefit analysis rule at the filing deadline Monday. The proposed rule could potentially shift the balance in how the agency calculates costs and benefits of its rules, which might make issuing future regulations more difficult. In its comments, NAM lays out recommendations and how the new rule could address existing issues within the current rulemaking structure, highlighting the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone and the proposed Waters of the United States rule, among others. “Too often in the regulatory process, the vital national public policy objectives of international competitiveness and technological innovation are given short shrift due to other competing mandates,” NAM writes.
THE BUSINESS OF CARBON TECH: Wyoming is well-positioned to grow its carbon tech industry, according to a new report from the American Jobs Project and University of Wyoming College of Business released Monday. The carbon tech industry, which refers to the “high-value products and chemical feedstocks made from coal, natural gas, oil, or captured carbon dioxide,” is projected to increase significantly in the next decade, with products ranging from carbon fiber to concrete. Given Wyoming’s abundant coal supply, the report found the state is positioned to tap into the industry, fortified by investments in R&D institutions, private R&D facilities and anchor companies, which could result in an average of 2,600 jobs annually through 2035.
QUICK HITS
— “Coming soon: Wheeler's first big moves on science,” E&E News.
— “Nonprofit asks for criminal probe into coalition reimbursements,” The Santa Fe New Mexican.
— “Shipping-fuel rule change cuts demand for Canadian oil,” Bloomberg.
— “Will Myanmar become a conduit for Iranian crude into China?” S&P Global Platts.
— "U.S. Energy Secretary applauds North Dakota for role in energy 'renaissance,'" Grand Forks Herald.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-energy/2018/08/14/life-in-the-pfas-lane-315802
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How to Choose the Best Sunscreen for Your Skin — And The Earth, Too
Aug 14, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Lindsey M. Roberts
It’s August and sunny days are in, but two of the top sunscreen ingredients are out. In July, Hawaii became the first state to ban the sale of sunscreens with the chemicals oxybenzone and octinoxate, because of the reported damage they cause to coral reefs as they wash off swimmers’ bodies in the ocean. “In fact, just three drops of oxybenzone in an Olympic-sized swimming pool is enough to damage coral larvae,” says Nathan Donley, senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity. (The CDB recently petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban the same ingredients on a national level.)
Some dermatologists and consumers have preferred sunscreen without those ingredients anyway, using protection with physical blockers such as zinc and titanium oxide for sensitive skin or other reasons. There is some question as to whether certain chemical sunscreens disrupt the endocrine system, notes Kimberly Morel, pediatric dermatologist at the Columbia University Medical Center. (However, she adds, “There is no controversy that ultraviolet light is a carcinogen, and so sunscreen is still important to use on areas of skin that cannot be protected by other means.”)
[Not into industrial lofts and capsule wardrobes? This is minimalism for the rest of us.]
No matter what you choose, be sure it’s labeled as broad spectrum, meaning it filters both UVA and UVB rays, says Morel. Look for products that are water resistant for 80 minutes, and for at least SPF 15, but preferably in the SPF 30 to SPF 50 range (and no higher). When shopping for these physical blocks, check ingredients, even if a sunscreen purports to be “natural,” as some physical sunscreens still incorporate chemical ingredients. “Sunscreen brands can also change their ingredients, so it’s better to become a label reader than to look for a specific brand,” Morel adds.
However, if you want to get out under the sun fast, Morel and others have some suggestions to get you started.EltaMD UV Elements Broad-Spectrum SPF 44 Tinted 2.0 (EltaMD)Clinique’s Broad Spectrum SPF 30 Mineral Sunscreen Lotion for Body (Nordstrom)
Mary Sheu, assistant professor of dermatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, vacationed with her family in Hawaii soon after the sunscreen ban, but she would have packed physical sunscreen anyway. “Physical blocks are easier for people with sensitive skin,” she explains. “They’re less irritating and they last longer. They don’t break down and become inactive with sun exposure.” Sheu likes EltaMD UV Elements Broad-Spectrum SPF 44 Tinted 2.0 ($25.77, walmart.com) because the tinted nature moderates that chalky white look physical blocks can give skin.
Paula Begoun, the Seattle-based skin care expert and “Cosmetics Cop” of Paula’s Choice Skincare, likesClinique’s Broad Spectrum SPF 30 Mineral Sunscreen Lotion for Body, though it is admittedly pricey. She prizes its “elegant, non-chalky texture” and the fact that it contains antioxidants, “which boost a sunscreen’s effectiveness” ($32, nordstrom.com). She recommends avoiding sunscreens that contain fragrance — natural or synthetic — as they can cause skin irritation and longterm damage.Thinkbaby Safe Sunscreen, which uses zinc to protect the skin (Target)Bare Republic Mineral Mousse SPF 30 (Bare Republic)
“Zinc oxide or titanium dioxide are also the safest options for kids,” says Donley, who is based in Olympia, Wash. “It’s important to ensure that children are always adequately protected from UV rays . . . [as] skin cancers are the most preventable types of cancer.” For kids, both Sheu and Begoun likeThinkbaby Safe Sunscreen, which uses zinc to protect the skin ($8.39, target.com).
When trying to decide between zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, the beauty director at “O, The Oprah Magazine” in New York, Brian Underwood, says to go for a product that has a mix of the two. Bare Republic Mineral Mousse SPF 30 is one of his favorites — it’s a “solid option,” “reasonably priced,” and doesn’t “leave an undesirable whitish cast on your skin” ($16.99, ulta.com). “The best sunscreen is one you’ll actually use, so you want to look for a formula that feels good on your skin, doesn’t leave any sticky or whitish residue, and is generally pleasant to use,” he says. Meaning, you should want to use your sunscreen of choice.
100% Mineral Invincible Setting Powder (Supergoop)Sometimes, reapplication can be tricky. Morel, who is also an associate professor of dermatology and pediatrics at the Columbia University Medical Center, says the rule of thumb is to reapply every two hours, but even that guideline can vary. “For example, swimming or actively participating in sports on hot days with an 80-minute water-resistant sunscreen means you should reapply every 80 minutes, and even sooner if you towel dry and rub off the sunscreen,” she explains. For reapplying over makeup, Columbia, Md., resident Kara Ferguson of the blog Politics of Prettyrecommends Supergoop’s 100% Mineral Invincible Setting Powder ($30, supergoop.com). “This comes in a translucent color or you can choose one close to your skin tone and it has a matte finish,” she says. “I usually stick this in my handbag for work and the weekends and it’s great for travel too.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/how-to-choose-the-best-sunscreen-for-your-skin--and-the-earth-too/2018/08/13/2608149a-943b-11e8-a679-b09212fb69c2_story.html?utm_term=.8d0d6f0d02ce
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Organics Have a Deserved Good Reputation
Aug 14, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal - Opinion
By Laura Batcha
Regarding Henry I. Miller’s “The Organic Industry Is Lying to You” (op-ed, Aug. 6): The organic industry isn’t hiding anything. Organic foods reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals, promote ecological farming practices and conserve vital resources like soil, water and biodiversity.
Mr. Miller would have us believe that organic farmers frequently use unsafe chemicals on crops “just as conventional farmers do.” The truth is organic farming has a baseline prohibition of harmful chemicals. Transparent processes are required by law allowing certain synthetic products to be used only when all other measures have failed. They must go through rigorous, public review to prove their use “would not be harmful to human health or the environment” and must be re-reviewed every five years. We aren’t being duped; choosing organic is the best way to reduce dietary exposure to pesticides.
Cameron Harsh
Center for Food Safety
Washington
Organic is all about choice. It’s about consumers being able to choose food that has been produced with the least amount of pesticides of any food grown, with no GMOs, no growth hormones and no artificial flavorings, colorings or preservatives. It’s about allowing consumers to choose food that has been grown and produced in ways that are the healthiest for ourselves, our families and our environment.
When we choose products with the USDA Organic label, we are choosing a product that has been raised and produced by the most highly regulated and most transparent sector of our food and agricultural system. No other agricultural system operates under the comprehensive and rigorous set of federal regulations and standards by which organic farmers choose willingly to abide.
Laura Batcha
CEO and Executive Director
Organic Trade Association
Washington
https://www.wsj.com/articles/organics-have-a-deserved-good-reputation-1534264116?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
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Stumping in New York, Trump Blames Dearth of Fracking for High Taxes
Aug 14, 2018 | ThinkProgress
By E. A. Crunden
President Donald Trump linked New York’s taxes to the state’s restrictions on fossil fuel development in a speech on Monday, arguing that such policies have hindered jobs and driven state costs up.
While in the city of Utica stumping for Rep. Claudia Tenney (R), Trump took aim at New York’s taxes, blasting them as “the highest” in the nation and arguing that “we should have no taxes” while accusing Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) of falling short in exploring hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
“No, think of it, if they would’ve allowed a little bit of fracking, and taken some of the richness out of the land, which by the way is being sucked away by other states, you know they don’t have state lines underground, you know what that means?” Trump asked, addressing some 300 people in a room at Hotel Utica.
Arguing that untapped fossil fuels in the ground just go “down, down” and benefit other states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, the president argued that fracking and drilling in those states has created jobs.Advertisement
“This place, it’s just so sad to see it,” he said, referencing New York. “And we had the potential to do it better than anybody, and now it’s dissipating, it’s dissipating. Because that stuff flows, do you understand that, it flows.”
Indicating a horizontal line with his hands to indicate flowing, the president then made turning motions, seemingly to describe the process of fracking.
“And they probably have those little turns, you know they make the turns at the border, it goes like this, right?” he said, motioning a curving shape, before returning to the topic of New York’s finances.
“And all of a sudden, some day, you’re not going to have that underground maybe so much, and it’s a shame,” Trump said, “’cause you could have had no taxes, you could’ve had the lowest taxes instead of the highest taxes, and it’s very sad to see what’s happened with New York.”
Stunning new research finds fracking a major source of carbon pollution in Pennsylvania
New York does have a high tax burden, a statistic that correlates to things like high local property taxes. The state also has a disproportionately high percentage of millionaires, along with a large percentage of homes worth more than $2 million, according to PolitiFact — factors that have contributed to high taxes.Advertisement
What correlation might exist between fracking for natural gas and low taxes is unclear. The Trump administration has touted fossil fuel development as a job creator and economic boon, scrapping Obama-era rules for fracking on federal land and rolling back regulations more broadly. The president has honed in on the dying coal industry in particular, which is notably shedding jobs to natural gas fracking efforts.
Fracking itself is associated with air and water pollution, in addition to dangers posed to both the environment and human health. The process involves high-pressure injections of chemicals and sand-laced water into rock, allowing oil and gas to become exposed. Such practices threaten water and nearby residents, in addition to increasing the likelihood of earthquakes.
Those dangers have prompted states like New York to take drastic measures. Under pressure from environmental advocates, Gov. Cuomo banned fracking in the state in 2015, following Vermont’s lead in 2012. The decision was unpopular in areas along New York’s border with Pennsylvania, where struggling communities have seen fracking as a lifeline. In the time since the decision, New York has increasingly invested in renewable energy, with an emphasis on solar and wind projects.
Environmental activists were among those in Utica on Monday protesting Trump’s visit, including representatives from the Sierra Club and other organizations. Rep. Tenney, the candidate Trump came to support, faces a challenge from state Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi (D-Utica).
Protestors told a local news outlet that they supported Brindisi’s stances on health care and the environment, among other issues, and that they had come to oppose Tenney and Trump.
“The point of being out here right now is to let them know, to let Trump know and Tenney know, that we oppose their policies on taxes, on health care, on the environment,” protester Joelle Taylor said.
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-new-york-fracking-1e12b3dbffee/
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PJM Seeks 3-Month Delay to Capacity Auction
Aug 14, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darius Dixon
PJM Interconnection is asking FERC for permission for a three-month delay its next capacity auction to August 2019 in light of FERC’s June order declaring the market was unjust and unreasonable, according to a filing today.
The one-time delay from May to August is warranted, PJM says, because of the “unique circumstances” created by FERC’s order. PJM now faces a short window of time to draft new rules that must be approved and potentially revised by FERC by early January.
PJM said that the delay would push back the need for a final order from FERC until March 15.
Today’s request does not come as a surprise since FERC’s order said that such a delay was possible.
“We recognize that modifying the PJM capacity market as discussed herein would be a significant undertaking and that the next Base Residual Auction is scheduled to occur in May 2019. Accordingly, we note that PJM may file requests for waiver or other relief, as appropriate,” the June 29 order states.
That order was FERC’s most significant move into a long-simmering conflict over state-level energy incentives for nuclear power and renewable energy, and it was approved by FERC, on a 3-2 vote.
WHAT’S NEXT: Initial responses from PJM and others to FERC order are due in two weeks. However, the Organization of PJM States has requested an extension that PJM itself endorsed.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Responders Need More Data on CFATS Facilities' Inventories: GAO
Aug 14, 2018 | Occupational Health and Safety
A new Government Accountability Office report finds the first responders are not able to access important information that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security develops from its inspections of facilities that handle hazardous chemicals — facilities that are assessed under the DHS Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program. Some of the chemicals at these facilities could be stolen and used to build explosive devices; DHS inspects them to ensure they comply with security standards and shares information about the facilities with local officials so that first responders are prepared for potential security incidents.
GAO, however, found that first responders may not have all the information they need to safely respond to incidents at these facilities. Its audit recommended, among other things, that DHS provide first responders with better access to the information.
There were 29,195 facilities assessed for security risks as of February 2018, and DHS has designated 3,500 of those as high risk and subject to further requirements, according to the audit report. It says as of May 2018, DHS had conducted 3,553 compliance inspections and had begun to update its performance measure for the CFATS program to evaluate security measures implemented both when a facility submitted its initial security plan and again when DHS approves its final security plan. GAO found that DHS' methodology does not measure how facilities' vulnerability is reduced by the implementation and verification of planned security measures during the compliance inspection process.
DHS developed a secure interface called the Infrastructure Protection Gateway that provides access to CFATS facility-specific data on chemical inventories, but GAO found that IP Gateway "is not widely used at the local level." Thirteen of the 15 Local Emergency Planning Committees, consisting of first responders and covering 373 CFATS high-risk facilities, told GAO they did not have access to CFATS data in the IP Gateway.
By encouraging wider use of the gateway, DHS would have greater assurance that responders have information about high-risk facilities and the chemicals they have on site, the audit report says.
https://ohsonline.com/articles/2018/08/14/responders-need-more-data-on-cfats-facilities.aspx
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Chemical Release from Texas Plant Less Severe Than Feared
Aug 14, 2018 | Houston Chronicle (In E&E Greenwire)
By Alex Stuckey
A Dow Chemical Co. plant in Freeport, Texas, estimated in June that it would release a record amount of benzene, a carcinogen, due to flaring when restarting the facility.
The original estimate of 41,000 pounds was 30 times the allowable amount, an even larger benzene release than the emissions caused by Hurricane Harvey.
But an updated final report said that about 1,256 pounds was released, under the legal emissions limit. The company did release 85,244 pounds of carbon monoxide, another toxic chemical, at 70 times the legal limit.
The Freeport plant released 34,000 pounds of benzene, toluene, carbon monoxide and other pollutants after it was struck by lighting during Harvey last year.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/14/stories/1060094033
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Insight: Kaspersky Lab Contest Reveals Ease of Hacking an Oil Refinery
Aug 14, 2018 | Platts
By Herman Wang and Katherine Dunn
This is the second in a series of two special features on cybersecurity in the oil and gas sector
In October, four South Korean hackers in Shanghai spent seven hours attempting to infiltrate an oil refinery’s corporate network to gain access to its control systems and shut the facility down.
Another 15 minutes or so, and they likely would have succeeded.
Fortunately for the industry, the attack was not real. It was performed in a live-televised cybersecurity competition put on by Internet security firm Kaspersky Lab. The competition pitted teams from around the world in a race to breach a model of a real oil refinery that is one of the company’s clients.
Part 1: Oil companies scramble to stay ahead of cybersecurity threats
None of the three teams in the final managed to bring the refinery down; the South Korean team came closest and won the contest. But as the organizers note, real-world hackers do not operate under such tight time restrictions.
“The contest demonstrated once again that, by exploiting weaknesses in the corporate network’s protection and network configuration faults, a remote threat actor can gain unauthorized access to the industrial segment of the network,” Kaspersky’s industrial control system vulnerability research group manager, Vladimir Dashchenko, said.
This was the third annual cybersecurity competition that Kaspersky has held. The 2016 contest invited hackers to penetrate the network of a model power plant.
The competition highlights the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure, including oil refineries, as the stakes of cyberwarfare grow. The environmental and human toll of a cyber-induced disaster could be significant, to say nothing of the disruption to oil and gas markets.
“Oil and gas is one of the industries that is essential to how societies and economies function,” Dashchenko said.
The Moscow-based company earlier this year said it discovered malware infecting a control system installed at more than 1,000 gasoline stations that would have allowed hackers to shut down fueling systems, change fuel prices and cause leakages, among other acts of sabotage.
Kaspersky itself has faced allegations of helping the Russian government spy on its customers, as the US has banned the use of its products on federal networks and reportedly is weighing sanctions against the company.
The company denies the charges and says it is “caught in the middle of a geopolitical fight” between the US and Russia.Malware lurking
Most sophisticated cyberattacks on oil refineries and other critical infrastructure are multipronged.
Hackers will first try to infiltrate the facility’s distributed control system (DCS) or supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA) by installing malware that collects intelligence on its operations, security features and other sensitive information.
They will often also try to gain access to the plant’s independent safety control system, usually with the intention of being able to override automatic shutdowns.
The malware installed to gather this data can lurk on systems for years undetected.
Then, when assailants have gleaned enough information on the facility’s vulnerabilities and the time is right for an attack, they will unleash the targeted, sophisticated code they have developed to bring down the refinery – or worse, cause a catastrophe, such as an explosion that was narrowly averted at a Saudi petrochemical plant last year.
Investigators say that attack was foiled because of a glitch in the malware that had targeted the plant’s safety system.
“Most of the activity seen has been reconnaissance penetrating systems to try to understand these SCADA systems, such that when the attack is made, it’s effective,” said Daniel Quiggin, a fellow at Chatham House who studies energy systems.
To reduce the risk of being hacked, many facilities are “air gapped,” or isolated from public networks. But air gapping is not foolproof, as hackers can still use creative methods to exploit security holes and access secure internal networks. For example, they could steal personal information from an on-site vending machine that uses a wireless internet signal to transmit data and use it to breach the refinery’s secure operating and safety networks, or program a security camera’s infrared LEDs and sensors to transmit information.
“It’s good to have isolation, but there’s no such thing that could secure you with isolation,” said Beyza Unal, a senior research fellow with Chatham House’s International Security Department. “Now we are in an age where the legacy systems can’t cope with today’s needs. There are so many cases where we know air gapping wasn’t enough.”
Once the air gap is breached, facilities are as good as hacked. Companies are largely focused on protecting the perimeter of a plant from hacking, but have relatively few tools to detect or prevent an attack once the hacker is inside the system, experts say.Capture the flag
In the Kaspersky contest, the teams had to solve several tasks to breach the perimeter of the model refinery’s corporate network. Once they had accomplished that, they would be required to figure out the internal industrial system’s communication protocols and command the refinery to shut down.
The South Korean team was at the final stage of the corporate network level, the most difficult part of the competition, when time expired.
Had they gotten past it, the rest of the job would have been “very easy compared to the previous tasks,” Dashchenko said. “Based on our estimation, they were just 15-20 minutes away from completing it.”
The event did not reveal any previously unknown security holes, known as zero-day vulnerabilities, as happened in Kaspersky’s previous two contests. But these exercises, known as “capture the flag” or CTF, are a crucial step for testing the security of computer systems, as the conditions closely model real-life scenarios.
“Everything that happens at a CTF site can also happen to real critical infrastructure and industrial systems,” Dashchenko said. “Cybersecurity risks [for oil refineries] are still high, and the industry should still take proper security measures for better infrastructure protection.”
http://blogs.platts.com/2018/08/14/insight-kaspersky-lab-contest-oil-refinery-hacking/
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Gore: Trump Not Yet as Damaging to Environment as He Feared
Aug 14, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Martha Waggoner
The Trump administration has made some dangerous changes to environmental policy, but the damage so far has been less than it initially appeared, former Vice President Al Gore said in an interview Monday.
“He (President Trump) has had less of an impact so far than I feared that he would. Someone said last year his administration is a blend of malevolence and incompetence,” Gore said in an interview with The Associated Press in Greensboro. “I think they’ve made some mistakes in some of the moves they’ve made. The courts have blocked some of what they wanted to do as a result.”
Even the Republican-controlled Congress has stepped in at times, he said. “The U.S. system has a lot of inherent resilience,” Gore said. “It’s hard for one person, even the president, to change things very quickly if the majority of American people don’t want them changed.”
Gore was in North Carolina on Sunday and Monday to speak on behalf of the Poor People’s Campaign, which names “ecological devastation” as one of the problems hurting poor people. Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his campaign to protect the environment. He authored a 1992 book on the climate, “Earth in the Balance,” just before he became vice president. His work also includes the 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” More recently he founded The Climate Reality Project .
Historians say a 1982 campaign against a PCB landfill in North Carolina’s majority-black Warren County helped give birth to the environmental justice movement so it’s especially appropriate that the Poor People’s Campaign has its roots in the state, Gore said. The campaign’s co-chair is the Rev. William Barber, who founded the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina and has served as president of the state NAACP chapter.
Low-income communities typically suffer the brunt of environmental damage because they lack the “economic and political clout necessary to make their case and defend themselves” so they’re more likely to become locations of “these pollution streams and waste sites,” Gore said.
He said current dangers include the loosening of regulations for dumps for coal ash, which contains toxic metals such as lead, mercury and arsenic. The new acting secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, was quick to ease rules for handling the toxic ash from more than 400 U.S. coal-fired power plants. Coal ash is a particular issue in North Carolina, where a major leak from a Duke Energy site in 2014 left coal ash coating 70 miles (110 kilometers) of the Dan River on the North Carolina-Virginia border.
“And there are hundreds of other environmental procedures and regulations that Trump’s group has begun to undo,” Gore said. “So he’s doing some damage, but overall I would say less than i had feared.”
Gore cited the Paris Climate Accord as one example of the Trump administration failing to change environmental rules as quickly as it might want. While the United States withdrew from the accord, he says the first date that can become official is the day after the 2020 presidential election.
“If there’s a new president -- excuse me for a moment,” Gore said as he placed in hands together as if in prayer, “then a new president could simply give 30 days’ notice, and we’re right back in the Paris agreement.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/gore-trump-not-yet-as-damaging-to-environment-as-he-feared/2018/08/13/ab782d0a-9f66-11e8-a3dd-2a1991f075d5_story.html?utm_term=.6061c7bae8ce
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California Today: A Move to Mandate 100% Carbon-Free Electricity
Aug 14, 2018 | The New York Times
By Ivan Penn and Inyoung Kang
California has been a leader in trying to counter the forces contributing to climate change, from its stringent standards for auto emissions to its mandate that 50 percent of the state’s electricity come from carbon-free sources by 2030.
Now, with climate concerns magnified by extreme summer temperatures and catastrophic wildfires, lawmakers are considering a move that would go further: a proposal to mandate 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045.
The bill’s sponsor, State Senator Kevin de León, says that with the Trump administration’s efforts to bolster electricity generated from fossil fuels, California and other states must chart their own course on energy policy. And, partly owing to recent events, he thinks the bill can pass within three weeks.
“Because of the fires, because of the extreme drought, because of the anti-environmental edicts coming from this president, there’s a huge ground swell of support,” Mr. de León said of his proposal, designated Senate Bill 100.
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His timeline would send the measure to Gov. Jerry Brown for signature before the governor convenes a global energy summit meeting in San Francisco in September.
The bill has passed the Senate and is awaiting a vote in the Assembly. But Mr. de León may be hampered in getting it to the finish line as he also pursues a United States Senate seat in a race against a fellow Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein.
The proposal is among a handful of pending bills intended to alter how California produces and manages electricity.
The Legislature also is weighing a measure pushed by Mr. Brown to expand the state’s electric grid operator into a regional organization that manages electricity in states throughout the West to share solar and wind power. Other legislation focuses on who pays for damages from the growing problem of wildfires, many of which have been attributed to utility company error.
Supporters say the all-in mandate for carbon-free power in Mr. de León’s bill is important to California’s pace-setting role on climate issues.EDITORS’ PICKSInside Nicaragua’s Protest MovementOpinionMake Your Daughter Practice Math. She’ll Thank You Later.The Water Wars of Arizona
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“If California is going to be the prophet when it comes to clean energy, then it needs to set a 100 percent renewable goal,” said Jamie Court, president of the advocacy organization Consumer Watchdog. “The clock is ticking.”California Online
(Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.)ImagePeter Strzok, a top F.B.I. counterintelligence agent who was taken off the special counsel investigation after his disparaging texts about President Trump were uncovered, was fired.CreditT.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times
• The F.B.I. fired Peter Strzok, a senior agent whose anti-Trump text messages were seized on by the president to assail the Russia inquiry as an illegitimate “witch hunt.” [The New York Times]
• Elon Musk’s cryptic tweet about taking Tesla private with a Saudi investment fund was said to have been dashed off in haste, blindsiding even the electric-car maker’s board. [The New York Times]
• “I don’t think it helps to talk about gender,” says Diane Harkey, the Republican candidate for the 49th Congressional District. Female Republicans like her are in a bind, facing anti-Trump resistance and unable to gain an advantage on gender issues. [The New York Times]
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• The suspect in the Golden State Killer case has been charged with a 13th murder, this time in Tulare County. [The Los Angeles Times]
• A firefighter died battling the Mendocino Complex Fire, the largest in California history. [The Los Angeles Times]
• “It’s all going to burn like you planned.” The man suspected of setting the Holy Fire in Cleveland National Forest had a history of troubling behavior, neighbors said. [The Los Angeles Times]ImageThe Carr Fire near Redding last month.CreditMark Ralston/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
• In a Montana laboratory, a division of the U.S. Forest Service is studying how blazes in the West are becoming hotter and spreading faster than ever. [The New York Times]
• Google is tracking your movements even if you turn off its location services, an investigation found. [The Associated Press]
• California will add 2 million jobs in the next decade, according to new projections. This interactive shows projected growth for each profession. [The Sacramento Bee]
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• A man in Clearlake shot and killed his three children before turning the gun on himself. [East Bay Times]
• Our tech reporters were invited to interview Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Twitter. Here’s what they talked about. [The New York Times]
• Some Southern California residents have taken matters into their own hands and are waging a guerrilla war against the electric scooters that have taken over their communities. [The Los Angeles Times]
• In memoriam: Fakir Musafar, 87, a leader of the modern primitive movement who believed that spiritual clarity could be achieved through rituals like piercing, branding, tattooing and other outré practices he called “body play.” [The New York Times]
• Modern surf culture has been nearly inseparable from that of its capitals of Southern California, Hawaii and Australia. But the growing popularity of freshwater surfing has become a testament to the art of making do. [The New York Times]ImageAvalon Bay on Catalina Island is one possibility for a last-minute Labor Day getaway.CreditMonica Almeida/The New York Times
• Looking to book a last-minute Labor Day trip? Look to Catalina Island and a beachside getaway in Coronado, among others. [The New York Times]
ADVERTISEMENTAnd Finally ...ImageA busy lunchtime at Tartine Manufactory in San Francisco, which comprises a bakery, pastry shop, restaurant, ice cream parlor and coffee shop. Our new California restaurant critic, Tejal Rao, visitedwhen it opened in 2016.CreditElizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times
Yesterday our food editor introduced you to Tejal Rao, The Times’s first California restaurant critic. He took note of the state’s roughly 72,000 restaurants, which represent the incredibly diverse blend of cultures and cuisines and are crucial to understanding how Californians live.
Ms. Rao brings a much-needed perspective to California and should be “a wake-up call to the state’s food media,” according to Eater. California is “shaped by its Mexican history, its deep-rooted black communities, and its multilayered immigrant communities,” the website added, saying the state is a place where the palate is being constantly reshaped by everyday cuisine.
Where in California do you think Ms. Rao should go first? Tell us where — and why — she should explore. Tell us what you want to read! Write to CAtoday@nytimes.com and sign up for our cooking newsletter here.
California Today goes live at 6 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/california-today-sb100-clean-energy-bill.html
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Zinke Blames 'Environmental Terrorist Groups' for Scale of California Wildfires
Aug 14, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is blaming "environmental terrorist" groups for the deadly forest fires ripping through California.
Zinke, who visited neighborhoods ravaged by the state's largest wildfire ever over the weekend and on Monday, said environmentalists and green regulations in California made the fires much worse.
"We have been held hostage by these environmental terrorist groups that have not allowed public access — that have refused to allow [the] harvest of timber,” Zinke told Brietbart radio over the weekend.
During his visit to the Golden State, Zinke pushed a narrative that increasing logging industry access to national forests could limit fire intensity.
"But we have these radical environmentalists that close off roads, refuse to have firebreaks, refuse to have any timber harvested, no grazing, and the result is these catastrophic fires,” Zinke said.
Zinke's message echoes President Trump, who last weekend tweeted that California's environment laws were to blame for the state's fire disaster.
"California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!," Trump tweeted August 6.
In an op-ed for USA Today last week, Zinke similarly blamed "radical environmentalists" for the fires. "[W]e are attacked with frivolous litigation from radical environmentalists who would rather see forests and communities burn than see a logger in the woods,” he wrote.
Environmentalists and California politicians have pushed back on the characterization, arguing that logging is not enough to preventing fires, and that the real issue is climate change, which they say the administration is avoiding.
Zinke visited neighborhoods surrounding California's Carr fire with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. A number of provisions in the House's version of the farm bill would open up logging opportunities on public land.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/401736-zinke-environmental-terrorist-groups-responsible-for-california
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5 Questions About the Plastic Clogging the Seas
Aug 14, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
The ocean is awash in plastic, and what you can see on the surface is just the start of the problem.
Researchers haven't pinpointed the exact location of much of the plastic pollution, but it could be in the gyres, in the water columns and even absorbed into the sea floor.
So what can we do about it? How much do straw and bag bans help? Here's a look at five questions on the issue.How does plastic stack up against other threats?
Plastic straws found on the beach at Sandy Point State Park in Maryland. NOAA
The ocean faces a long list of threats. Overfishing and pollution are high on the list, and so is climate change, which brings with it warmer temperatures and acidification.
But Ocean Conservancy scientist George Leonard said that when he talks about climate change, he can "lose people really quickly." Plastic pollution, on the other hand, is a problem people can visualize, he said at a talk in Tampa, Fla., last month.
So where does plastic pollution stand in the threat ranking?
Most marine scientists would put it toward the bottom, said Mike Gravitz, the director of policy and legislation at Marine Conservation Institute.
"Is it a problem? Yes. Is it the biggest problem? Likely no," he said.
However, experts point out that this is a new field of research and that the full impacts of plastic pollution on the ocean are relatively unknown.
And the problem of coastal trash reaches beyond plastics.
In a report this year, Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup took stock of all the items it picked up during a U.S. coastal cleanup effort. Cigarette butts were the No. 1 collected item with over 800,000 documented. Food wrappers were next on the list, with plastic bottle caps and bottles following. Straws and stirrers came in sixth, and plastic grocery bags came in eighth.Why is it getting so much attention?
Marine debris in the oceans puts endangered species like this Hawaiian monk seal at risk. NOAA
Plastic pollution has led to eye-catching headlines like "Plastic straw removed from turtle's nose by marine biologists in heartbreaking video" and "Whale dies from eating more than 80 plastic bags."
Businesses like Starbucks Corp., the Walt Disney Co. and Hyatt Hotels Corp. have responded to mounting public pressure by pledging to get rid of straws.
Why does the issue get more media attention than other threats like climate change? "I think it's the graphic images," Gravitz said.
Carlie Herring, a research analyst in NOAA's Marine Debris Program, agreed that the issue is a visual one.
"When you walk on the beach, you see it," Herring said. "It's something they can see and understand."
While U.S. campaigns are beneficial, researchers said, the biggest sources of plastic pollution are elsewhere.
The leading source of plastic waste in oceans is China, followed by Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, according to a 2015 study published in Science.
Coming in at the No. 20 spot, the U.S. still has "some issues we need to work on on our own," Herring said.How helpful are plastic bag and straw bans?
Tiny chips of plastic permeate the upper surface of the ocean. Collection of Allen Shimada, NOAA Fisheries Office of Science and Technology
Cities including Seattle and San Francisco have hopped on the straw-ban train. While such bans help, experts said the root of the problem will be much more difficult to solve.
Increased awareness is probably the most helpful aspect of these bans, experts said.
"It is useful to have these iconic issues that grab at people's heartstrings," Gravitz said. "People can pretty easily take action or say something to not get a straw at their neighborhood restaurant."
Gravitz noted that banning plastic bags will make a bigger difference than nixing plastic straws because they are bigger pieces of plastic and marine creatures like sea turtles and whales can mistake them for food sources like jellyfish.
But plastic bags and straws aren't the only large plastic debris floating through the sea.
Over 705,000 tons of lost fishing gear, or "ghost gear," accumulates in the ocean annually, according to a World Animal Protection report.
The Marine Debris Program has collected over 2.1 million pounds of this gear from 41 locations across the U.S., according to NOAA.
On a much smaller scale, microfibers entering the ocean from washing clothes are an "emerging issue," said Leonard.
"It turns out that plastic problems in the ocean isn't just about straws and plastic bags," he said. "It's more complicated than that."
The bans have also come with some controversy.
After Starbucks announced it would phase out plastic straws, several New York-based disability rights groups planned a protest outside the coffee shop's Union Square location. The groups included the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled and Disabled in Action.
They said straws aren't just a convenience for people with disabilities; some need them to drink and eat.
They decided to cancel the protest after an updated announcement from Starbucks that said straws will be made available to anyone who asks for them.
So if plastic straw and bag bans aren't enough of a solution, what is?
Well, improving the world's waste management infrastructure would help.
Herring said many countries rely on single-use items without a system to dispose of them.
Southeast Asia is a big contributor, Leonard said. "We can ban all the straws we want, but if we don't solve waste management in any of the developing countries, we're not going to solve the problem in the ocean itself," he said.Does plastic pollution hurt human health?
Scientists have found that people can consume plastic by eating oysters and other bivalves. NOAA
It is clear that animals are consuming plastic, and humans are consuming those animals.
But research into the human health side of plastic pollution is new and limited.
Luckily, humans don't typically eat the stomachs of fish, which is where the plastic is most concentrated, Herring said.
But people consume bivalves like oysters, clams, mussels and scallops whole, which could be a problem.
A 2015 study in Scientific Reports looked at the stomach contents of fish in public markets in California and Indonesia. It found that roughly 25 percent of fish in the markets contained plastic particles.
"There is great worry about this, but there is not yet a smoking gun saying plastic is making your seafood toxic," Leonard said.
Gravitz said it is unclear whether plastic pollution in the ocean threatens human health but added a caveat: "We don't usually escape these things."
It's not just fish and oysters that could be a vessel for plastics. Herring added that microplastics have been found in the air, tap water, sea salt and beer.Will inventions to clean the ocean save the day?
A 390-foot unit of Ocean Cleanup's system is being tested in the Pacific Ocean. Ocean Cleanup
A 24-year-old Dutchman has proposed cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with a giant sieve made of pipes, nets and solar panels.
One of Boyan Slat's prototypes was deployed in the North Sea in June 2016 but later removed due to sustained damage from wind and waves.
Now Slat's company, Ocean Cleanup, plans to launch its final design in September off the California coast (Greenwire, Aug. 8). If this trial goes well, the cleanup system will be sent to the garbage patch, 960 miles farther out, and potentially joined by dozens more devices.
Herring said these kinds of projects have "brought a lot of attention to the marine debris issue."
"I wish them well," Gravitz said. The ocean is an unforgiving place, he said, and most of the debris is very small and does not sit on the ocean's surface.
"I'm not saying don't try. We should all try. It's hard for me to feel very confident that it will yield a big, significant solution to the problem," Gravitz said.
Leonard noted that funding for plastic pollution in the ocean is limited. He said money could probably be spent on more sustainable solutions but also said he didn't want to sound like "sour grapes."
Even if these inventions do work, he said, they'll have to keep working forever if the problem isn't addressed on land.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/14/stories/1060094049
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