Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - August 15, 2018
-
Morale Low, EPA Scientists Fault Industry, Political Influence
Aug 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
In a small new survey, the Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) reports a majority of responding EPA scientists consider agency morale to be low, with 70 percent of respondents saying they believe “that leadership from regulated industries inappropriately influences science-based decisions, among other conclusions. -
Rollbacks Saving Agencies More Money Than Expected — Study
Aug 15, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow
Federal agencies are on track to save more money than President Trump envisioned through their rollbacks of Obama-era rules, a new analysis said. -
This EPA Has a Blatant Double Standard When It Comes to Transparency on New Chemicals Under TSCA
Aug 15, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
I’ve blogged extensively over the past year about the Trump EPA’s moves to dismantle health-protective reviews of new chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
EPA Staff Emails Reveal Changed Asbestos Snur Approach Raised Concern
Aug 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Staff at the US EPA have voiced concern that changes imposed by the agency's leadership to a new regulation on asbestos would leave gaps that could allow abandoned legacy uses to be reintroduced, according to internal agency emails. -
Roundup Chemical Shows up in Cereal, Granola Bars — Report
Aug 15, 2018 | CNN (In E&E Greenwire)
By Susan Scutti
Some oat-based foods contain unsafe levels of glyphosate, the chemical used in the weedkiller Roundup, according to a report released today by the Environmental Working Group. -
BfR: BPA Link with Dental Condition in Children 'Unlikely'
Aug 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has dismissed a possible link between exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) and dental abnormalities in children as "unlikely". -
Hidden Studies from Decades Ago Could Have Curbed PFAS Chemical Problem
Aug 15, 2018 | Environmental Health News (In Truthout)
By Heather Mongilio
In editorial published in Environmental Health July 31 suggests that research on perfluorinated alkylate substances (PFAS) and their dangerous health effects was not revealed until several decades after it was conducted. -
‘Ambitious’ Database on SVHCs in Articles Needed – Beuc
Aug 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
European consumer group Beuc has called on Echa to take an "ambitious, forward-looking approach" to its forthcoming database on SVHCs in articles. -
REACH Unfit for Regulating Mutagens and Carcinogens, Dutch Experts Say
Aug 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
European regulators could be missing environmental and public health risks posed by carcinogenic and mutagenic substances because of a disconnect between REACH and CLP requirements, Dutch experts have warned. -
Interior Offshore Oil and Gas Lease Sale Brings in $171M
Aug 15, 2018 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Ben Lefebvre
The Interior Department’s latest Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale generated $178.6 million as rising oil prices drew higher bids than seen at other recent auctions. -
DHS Official Urges Renewal of Anti-Terrorism Program
Aug 15, 2018 | Ammonia21
By Michael Garry
An official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) is advocating for Congressional renewal of its Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program, which expires in January 2019. -
(ACC Mentioned) Former STB Chair Elliott Hosting Conference
Aug 15, 2018 | RailwayAge Magazine
By William C. Vantuono
Dan Elliott, who served as Chairman of the Surface Transportation Board from 2009 to 2017 and is now with Washington D.C. law firm Conner & Winters, is hosting the inaugural Railroads + Shippers = Solutions conference on Oct. 3 in Washington, D.C. -
Is It the FAA Bill’s Time to Shine?
Aug 15, 2018 | Politico - Morning Transportation
By Brianna Gurciullo
The Senate is back in session today, with 47 days until the FAA’s authorization runs out. -
How Infrastructure Went Wrong
Aug 15, 2018 | Politico - Morning Money
By Ben White and Aubree Eliza Weaver
President Donald Trump came into office pledging to update America’s rotting infrastructure with huge spending on big new projects. It hasn’t happened. -
Freight Trains Using Regional Rail Lines Threaten to Keep SEPTA from Full Positive Train Control Compliance
Aug 15, 2018 | Philadelphia Business Journal
By Jim Saksa
SEPTA general manager Jeff Knueppel took a moment to boast Tuesday afternoon while participating in an American Public Transportation Association conference call with national press on the efforts of commuter railroads to implement Positive Train Control before a federal deadline at the end of this year. -
Inside Trump's Climate Plan
Aug 15, 2018 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Kelsey Tamborrino
EPA's plan to undo the Obama-era climate rule for coal-burning power plants is widely expected to include a far less stringent replacement rule, but the new climate proposal would also boost states’ latitude to write their own regulations for coal plants or pave a path for seeking permission to opt out, according to POLITICO’s review of a portion of the unpublished draft and a source who reviewed other sections of the document. -
How Ginsburg's Reversal of Kavanaugh Saved 'Huge' Air Rule
Aug 15, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
If Judge Brett Kavanaugh had his way, EPA would be without an important tool for regulating air pollution that drifts across state lines.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
-
Morale Low, EPA Scientists Fault Industry, Political Influence
Aug 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
In a small new survey, the Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) reports a majority of responding EPA scientists consider agency morale to be low, with 70 percent of respondents saying they believe “that leadership from regulated industries inappropriately influences science-based decisions, among other conclusions.
“[A]mong scientists at the 16 federal agencies who received the UCS survey, EPA scientists were most likely to report political and ideological pressure on their work,” the report's EPA fact sheet states.
UCS released its report, “Science Under Trump” Aug. 14. It follows similar surveys that UCS conducted of scientists at federal agencies during the administrations of former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
In addition to its finding that EPA scientists were most likely to report political and ideological pressure, the report notes that the scientists also reported that “agency leaders diminish the role of science in policymaking with actions that are outside the scope of agency policies designed to protect scientific integrity.”
The responses to the survey also revealed “major challenges” to incorporating science into EPA decisions under the Trump administration, including reports of “a significant reduction in the EPA workforce, reductions in independent scientific expertise on advisory committees, and the removal of scientific input from EPA decisions.”
Among the survey results:
* 33 percent (137 respondents) agreed and 37 percent (156 respondents) strongly agreed that the presence of senior decisionmakers who come from regulated industries or have financial interest in regulatory outcomes inappropriately influences agency decisions.
* 82 percent (345 respondents) agreed that the level of consideration of political interests hinders the EPA’s ability to make science-based decisions.
* 32 percent (392 respondents) listed the influence of political appointees at the EPA and the influence of the White House as major barriers to science-based decisionmaking.
* Over 90 percent (403 respondents) reported workforce reductions due to hiring freezes, departures, or retirements.
* 61 percent (258 respondents) reported that the expertise of EPA scientific advisory committees has deteriorated over the past year.
* 35 percent (148 respondents) disagreed or strongly disagreed that EPA advisory committees are comprised of individuals with appropriate expertise and who can provide independent science advice.
UCS sent questionnaires to all 14,856 EPA employees in early 2018, part of its effort to survey some 63,000 federal scientists. Not all EPA employees are scientists, but it was not possible to determine how many were, so UCS sent surveys to all.
The group received 449 replies from EPA scientists. The resulting “response rate (3 percent) was lower relative to other agencies surveyed.”
In all, the survey findings “demonstrate significant challenges related to the development and use of science to protect the public from environmental and public health threats at some federal agencies,” UCS' report states. “However, the damage varies widely across agencies, with the EPA and [Interior Department] faring poorly and the [Food and Drug Administration] and [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] doing relatively well. Political and civil service leadership have significant influence on the state of science at their agencies.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/morale-low-epa-scientists-fault-industry-political-influence
-
Rollbacks Saving Agencies More Money Than Expected — Study
Aug 15, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Maxine Joselow
Federal agencies are on track to save more money than President Trump envisioned through their rollbacks of Obama-era rules, a new analysis said.
In recent months, agencies have proposed scaling back 47 regulations while implementing 10 new rules, which would save the economy $1.3 billion, said the analysis by the American Action Forum, a center-right group.
Trump in January issued Executive Order 13771, which directed agencies to eliminate two rules for every new one issued, with the goal of incurring zero net costs.
To achieve that target, agencies only needed to save $686 million. By saving $1.3 million, they far exceeded the president's goal.
"They're certainly doing, I think, everything that the administration envisioned when they first implemented a regulatory budget," said Dan Bosch, AAF's director of regulatory policy.
"What I'll be looking at is for agencies that didn't hit their individual goal, what sort of steps will the administration take to kind of get them back in line?" he added.
The top money-saving agencies were the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Transportation, the analysis found.
But Bosch noted that the Interior Department is in the midst of rolling back an Obama-era methane rule. If that rollback clears the White House Office of Management and Budget, he said, Interior will become the biggest money saver.
The rule, which restricts methane emissions on public and tribal lands, has been on a roller coaster in the agency and in the courts since its release in late 2016 (Energywire, July 31).
A district court in California has blocked two attempts by the administration to sideline parts of the standards, but a district court in Wyoming in April agreed to suspend it while Trump officials work on their final rollback.
It's a common conservative refrain that previous administrations have left behind a patchwork of unnecessary or duplicative regulations that shackle economic growth. Trump's regulatory czar, Neomi Rao, frequently says as much in speeches.
On the other hand, it's a common progressive argument that regulations provide critical protections for public health and the environment, and their costs are justified by their benefits to society.
James Goodwin, senior policy analyst with the Center for Progressive Reform, said the regulatory cost savings were nothing to celebrate because they undermined protections.
"What are we buying with those cost savings?" Goodwin said. "Invariably, it's more polluted air and water. And to paint that as some sort of policy victory is unconscionable."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/15/stories/1060094195
-
This EPA Has a Blatant Double Standard When It Comes to Transparency on New Chemicals Under TSCA
Aug 15, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
I’ve blogged extensively over the past year about the Trump EPA’s moves to dismantle health-protective reviews of new chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). A remarkable feature of those moves is that they have been cast as an effort to improve transparency in the new chemicals review process.
A year ago when Scott Pruitt unveiled his intent to institute “Improvements to New Chemical Safety Reviews,” he cast it as necessary to increase the program’s transparency, using the word no fewer than five times in the press release. When EPA released its “Points to Consider” guidance to aid companies in expediting getting their new chemicals through the review process, EPA touted it as a move to “improve transparency with the public.”
In fact, it seems that whenever the agency has acted to assist companies under the new chemicals program, it’s all about transparency. But as for the public? EPA has actually denied the public access to information it has a right to, and has taken steps to hide information from the public that it used to make available.
In a series of four detailed blog posts, EDF documented just how difficult it is for the public to gain access to even the most basic information about new chemicals, forced to rely on an antiquated, time-consuming request system out of the last century when EPA’s own regulations require ready electronic public access. Even then, the information provided to the public is incomplete and masks as confidential business information (CBI) health and safety studies and related data that are not eligible for CBI status. There is little evidence that EPA is reviewing the massive number of CBI claims made by companies in their new chemical submissions, and it is failing to require adequate substantiations of many of those claims.
We also blogged about a decision EPA political appointees made last December to stop providing the public with the recommendations that EPA’s professional staff made based on their initial reviews of new chemicals, opting instead to merely inform us that an initial review meeting had occurred. This came at a time when EPA was actively seeking ways to avoid regulating or requiring testing of any new chemicals. Before this decision to hide its tracks, these initial staff recommendations had been routinely made public for many years.
Just this summer, EPA began to apply an even weaker new chemical review system. Among its most notable features is that it hasn’t been written down, apparently even for sharing internally with the staff who are required to implement it, and certainly not for sharing with the public. Lack of public access hasn’t stopped industry from touting the new approach as one that “adds clarity.”
Which brings me to the lack of transparency surrounding the first greenlighting decision EPA made under its new approach. See this 3-part series for details on the chemical and why EPA’s decision is reckless. In our series, we questioned why EPA has not made public its risk assessment and other analyses it generated during the review process, instead providing only a short summary document. Access to those documents would assist stakeholders in evaluating for themselves the decision EPA made to provide unfettered market access to a chemical that presents considerable health hazards, for use in a wide array of everyday consumer products.
Upon learning of EPA’s decision, EDF requested the risk assessment and other analyses – so far, to no avail. To date, we have not received the documents we requested.
We are hearing, however, that EPA is balking at making those documents public, claiming they are confidential business information (CBI), despite the fact that the documents clearly comprise health and safety information not eligible for CBI protection.
Which brings me back to EPA’s double standard. EPA recently posted a large number of long-overdue “significant new use rules” (SNURs) it has proposed. These SNURs are linked to earlier consent orders on new chemicals, which were developed back before EPA decided to stop issuing such orders in response to industry complaints.
But here’s what’s curious: Those proposed SNURs reside in a docketon regulations.gov. In that same docket are numerous other documents, and among them are – you guessed it – risk assessments and related analyses EPA developed in the course of reviewing those new chemicals! See here and here for examples of risk assessments posted in the docket, and here and here for examples of the other analyses. While these documents appear to contain excessive redactions and arguably provide insufficient information to inform an adequate review of the assessment, at least EPA has made the analyses available and allowed people some opportunity to assess the adequacy of those analyses.
So … EPA is already making public these documents when they pertain to a new chemical EPA is proposing to regulate through a SNUR. That facilitates industry access in case they want to consider challenging the proposal.
But EPA isn’t doing the same even for final green-light decisions on new chemicals, which could be helpful for members of the public questioning those decisions.
So much for transparency.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/08/15/this-epa-has-a-blatant-double-standard-when-it-comes-to-transparency-on-new-chemicals-under-tsca/#more-8109
-
EPA Staff Emails Reveal Changed Asbestos Snur Approach Raised Concern
Aug 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Staff at the US EPA have voiced concern that changes imposed by the agency's leadership to a new regulation on asbestos would leave gaps that could allow abandoned legacy uses to be reintroduced, according to internal agency emails.
The revelation comes amid a media firestorm over the EPA's proposalto impose a significant new use rule (Snur) on the known carcinogen. Once in place, this would require companies wishing to reintroduce certain legacy uses of asbestos to first notify the agency, and allow it to review and potentially regulate the application.
Although the action would give the agency control over uses of asbestos that are currently not regulated in the US (see box), there has been consumer outrage that the EPA is 'allowing new uses of asbestos'.
And internal emails released this week by the New York Times show that concerns with the Snur were shared within the agency, after "upper management" steered staff towards a "different approach".'Significant change in direction'
According to discussions between EPA staff, the agency had originally planned for a Snur that would have required companies to submit a significant new use notice (Snun) for "all uses that are not ongoing".
But the agency's leadership reportedly requested that the rule instead specifically list certain uses that are no longer ongoing, which will require a Snun. As reflected in the 11 June proposal, this list of 14 products includes:certain tapes;adhesives and coatings;floor tiles; andbuilding materials other than cement.
Susan Fairchild, a senior environmental scientist in the EPA's air quality programme, was among staff who expressed concern that such a change could leave gaps: "If EPA failed to list one of the old uses that has been discontinued ... then it seems to me that the manufacture of such a product would not be subject to the Snur."
"I currently do not have a sense of how the draft notice will seek to ensure that the list of discontinued uses … is exhaustive and does not omit other uses that are not currently ongoing," added Sharon Cooperstein, from the EPA's Office of Policy.
"At the staff level, our recommendation was to structure the Snur as previously [discussed], as that would prevent any uses that are no longer ongoing from not being captured by the Snur," wrote Robert Courtnage, associate chief in the agency's fibres and organics branch, in a 26 April email. "However, this [new approach] is the direction we received from our upper management."Data gaps
Mark Seltzer, an attorney advisor in the EPA's enforcement division, wrote in an email that one of the "main impetuses" for the Snur was to gather information on all ongoing uses. Such data would allow the agency to identify parties not complying with existing bans, and ensure all current uses are factored into the scope of the substance's ongoing TSCA risk evaluation.
The original approach would require companies to "provide clear evidence whether any uses are existing rather than legacy" ones, wrote Mr Seltzer.
But under the revised approach, companies are "not motivated to voluntarily report any ongoing uses", with the exception of select companies commenting on the uses named in the Snur. Agency 'confident' it identified all uses
An EPA spokesperson has told Chemical Watch that it is "confident that the uses identified in the Snur constitute the universe of uses that could come back onto the market."
"When EPA identified asbestos as one of the first 10 chemicals for risk evaluation, it began a process where EPA had more than one round of input from stakeholders on understanding asbestos uses," said the spokesperson. And the agency is taking comment on its proposal to ensure it captures all uses.
The proposed Snur is a "good complement to the risk evaluation" of the substance, they added.Asbestos: Regulatory state of play
In 1989, EPA attempted to ban most asbestos-containing products under section 6 of TSCA. But a 1991 court ruling overturned the majority of this rule.
As a result, the ban applies only to commercial uses of asbestos initiated for the first time after 25 August 1989. A few specific asbestos-containing products are also subject to outright bans under TSCA and the Clean Air Act (CAA), including rollboard, flooring felt, certain speciality and commercial papers, and pipe insulation.
The Snur seeks to address certain uses of asbestos in use before the 1989 cutoff, but that are no longer ongoing. Without such a rule, as is the case currently, such uses could be reintroduced without notice to EPA.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69766/epa-staff-emails-reveal-changed-asbestos-snur-approach-raised-concern
-
Roundup Chemical Shows up in Cereal, Granola Bars — Report
Aug 15, 2018 | CNN (In E&E Greenwire)
By Susan Scutti
Some oat-based foods contain unsafe levels of glyphosate, the chemical used in the weedkiller Roundup, according to a report released today by the Environmental Working Group.
Two out of three of the food samples tested — including oatmeal, oat cereals, granola and snack bars — had glyphosate levels above what the advocacy group considers to be "protective of children's health."
A California jury last week awarded $289 million to a man with terminal cancer he said was caused by Roundup. Monsanto Co., which makes the weedkiller, has said it plans to fight the decision (Greenwire, Aug. 13).
"We will appeal this decision and continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use and continues to be a vital, effective and safe tool for farmers and others," said Monsanto Vice President Scott Partridge.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer has found that glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic to humans." But EPA and other scientific groups say the amount of glyphosate typically found in food is safe.
The Environmental Working Group's benchmark for today's report is based on a standard developed by scientists in California, said the study's author and EWG toxicologist Alexis Temkin.
"EWG used that level to then develop a guideline that was more protective for children's health," she said. "It's 100-fold lower."
The EWG benchmark is 0.01 milligram, said Olga Naidenko, the group's senior science adviser for children's health.
The group tested 45 food samples. Two had no detectable levels of glyphosate, 12 had levels of glyphosate below the EWG benchmark, and 31 had levels of the chemical that were at or above the benchmark (Susan Scutti, CNN, Aug. 15). — CC
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/15/stories/1060094181
-
BfR: BPA Link with Dental Condition in Children 'Unlikely'
Aug 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has dismissed a possible link between exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) and dental abnormalities in children as "unlikely".
The BfR assessed whether BPA intake was tied to molar incisor hypomineralisation (MIH), a condition that affects the enamel and outer layers of the tooth and can lead to dental decay.
Concern over such a link has its roots in a 2013 rodent study which reported on a possible connection between MIH and BPA. The paper - and subsequent research by the same team - exposed rats to BPA, first by administering it to the pregnant or feeding dams, and then to the weaned offspring.
Twelve of the 16 test animals displayed MIH-like symptoms, the researchers reported. They found no similar symptoms in any of the 16 animals in the control group.
The BfR has dismissed concerns that these results show a link between exposure to BPA and MIH in children, however.
Oral intake of BPA in children is estimated at 0.14 micrograms/kg body weight/day, according to research by Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).
That is about 35 times lower than the daily dosage of BPA the rats were exposed to in the 2013 study, which gave pregnant or feeding rats and their offspring 5 micrograms/kg body weight/day, the BfR said.
Considering this intake gap, as well as toxicokinetic differences between rats and humans, the BfR said a "direct connection between BPA and MIH is unlikely for humans".
It adds that other rodent studies looking into effects of BPA intake used dosages of 2.5 micrograms/kg body weight/day and reported no tooth damage to the animals. The BfR also pointed to several flaws in the 2013 paper, such as only examining male rats and not varying the BPA dosage administered to the animals.
MIH has also been linked to complications during pregnancy and birth, low vitamin D blood levels, as well as exposure to dioxins. The BfR concluded that the condition depended on "a variety of factors".
BPA is a monomer used to make polycarbonates for a wide range of applications, including food contact materials. In particular, it is used in coatings inside cans, from which it can migrate into the food or drink.
The European Food Safety Authority is reassessing the safety of BPA, with the aim of deciding whether scientific evidence published since 2012 supports the temporary tolerable daily intake.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69733/bfr-bpa-link-with-dental-condition-in-children-unlikely
-
Hidden Studies from Decades Ago Could Have Curbed PFAS Chemical Problem
Aug 15, 2018 | Environmental Health News (In Truthout)
By Heather Mongilio
In editorial published in Environmental Health July 31 suggests that research on perfluorinated alkylate substances (PFAS) and their dangerous health effects was not revealed until several decades after it was conducted.
The lack of publicly available research has prevented proper guidelines for levels of the chemical compounds, including in drinking water, Philippe Grandjean, a professor at University of Southern Denmark and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, argued in his piece.
In the editorial, Grandjean said studies conducted up to four decades ago found health effects, including on the immune system, from PFAS chemicals, but those studies were hidden by production companies, like 3M Co.
“It’s frustrating to be an environmental health researcher and spend years and years to characterize the exposures and the adverse health effects of these compounds, only to discover that most of that information was already known but had been kept secret,” Grandjean told EHN.Ubiquitous Problem
PFASs are industrial chemicals known for repelling water and fat. They are often used in stain or water resistant sprays, teflon and in microwave popcorn bags, among other household items.
“It’s very challenging to avoid PFASs in consumer products,” Laurel Schaider, a research scientists at Silent Spring Institute, told EHN.
They were also used in fire fighting foams, which is why areas near military sites across the US have been found contaminated.
Their chemical compounds, defined by the length of their carbon chains, have made them toxic to both humans and the environment. The chemicals have been linked to multiple human health problems, including testicular and kidney cancers, decreased birth weights, thyroid disease, decreased sperm quality, high cholesterol, pregnancy-induced hypertension, asthma and ulcerative colitis.
Most research has been done on two PFASs, Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), Schaider said, however, there are new perfluorinated compounds that are raising alarm among scientists as well.
The editorial comes as communities across the US continually uncover dangerous amounts of the chemicals in water supplies. Just in the past week, Michigan declared a state of emergency over the levels of PFAS chemicals found in the town of Parchment’s water, and state health officials warn the compounds could be affecting up to 11,000 sites statewide.
Michigan isn’t alone: In May, an analysis released by the Environmental Working Group reported that more than 1,500 drinking water systems, serving up to 110 million Americans, may be contaminated with PFAS compounds.
The compounds have also been the subject of multiple lawsuits against chemical manufacturers Dupont and 3M, the most recent of which was settled in Minnesota. 3M ultimately settled with the state of Minnesota for $850 million, and during the lawsuit, many of 3M’s documents were released, including unreleased studies showing some of the health effects of the chemicals.Hidden Research
According to Grandjean’s editorial, health effects from PFASs have been known since 1978 when two internal reports from the International Research and Development Corporation prepared for 3M about monkey studies were released. One of the studies was halted due to monkey mortality from doses of PFOS, according to the editorial.
The studies were eventually released to the EPA, which used them infurther studies and reports on PFAS.
The chemicals had also been found in production workers’ blood in 1976, and PFAS have been found to transfer to babies as far back as 1981. But despite knowing that PFAS were found in umbilical cord blood in 1981, the information was not released until 20 years later, according to the editorial.
Grandjean had published a study in 2012 detailing how higher PFAS exposure was linked to vaccinated children developing lower amounts of antibodies, a finding at the time he considered a “major discovery.”
But the 1978 monkey study had shown that the immune system was affected by PFOA. The study was not published nor was there a follow-up. And without the published research, the compounds were spread into the environment without scrutiny, Grandjean said.
“Had I found out in 1978 that this industrial chemical was toxic to the immune system, I could see all sorts of examinations of exposed kids that could be done, but I was not told, so it had to wait, this case 30 years, before I turned my attention to this,” he said.
But it goes beyond not releasing information. As part of the Minnesota lawsuit against 3M, a Science Publication Strategy from 1998 was released, which details how the company planned to release selected studies on PFASs and use their narrative to make it clear the substances were not harmful.
The strategy included releasing a study on pregnant mice that showed no birth defects on the babies. But another document listed in the strategy reported that PFOS, when given to pregnant mice, reduced pup survival and the mouse’s average weight gain during the pregnancy.
In another case, a draft study of PFOS and PFOA found a link between PFOA, cholesterol and triglycerides, which was not published in the final study.
3M settled in February 2018 with Minnesota for $850 million. It also had settled for a lesser amount in 2007, which started one of the first clean up efforts, Walker Smith, spokesperson for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, told EHN.
With the first settlement in 2007, the state was able to start some cleanup efforts, including removing contamination from soil, providing bottle water for people who get their water from wells and getting filters for some of the wells, Smith said.
“Up to this point, it’s been a kind of Band-Aid approach,” he said.
With the new settlement, the state has created working groups to decide what projects the money should fund, he said.
But Minnesota is not the only place where lawsuits have occurred against PFAS production companies. Robert Bilott, a lawyer working for Taft, Stettinius and Hollister LLP, has made a name for himself going after these companies.
Bilotts’s first case was against DuPont, which settled. And over the past 20 years, he tried to forward studies and data to the EPA, he told EHN.
Bilott then filed a class action lawsuit against DuPont, which, he said, allowed scientists to start weighing in on the PFASs found in the drinking water in West Virginia, which ultimately led to the massive study a decade ago of nearly 70,000 community members in the Ohio River Valley—dubbed the C8 Science Panel. The panel became a model for studying current contamination and health impacts from highly fluorinated chemicals.
Once the science came back, individuals who had one of the six diseases linked to PFASs were able to sue DuPont.
Prior to the lawsuits, people had not known that there were PFASs in their drinking water, Bilott said.
“These were things that could have been avoided if handled properly by the companies,” he said.
A spokesperson for 3M did not return a request for comment as of publication.The Old and New PFASs
Most companies have stopped producing PFOA and PFOS, but there is nothing banning their production, Schaider said. And they still persist in the environment.
PFOA and PFOS have long carbon chains, which mean they take longer to break down. Some of the new PFASs being produced have shorter carbon chains, meaning their half-lives are closer to months, she said.
“And while they don’t stick around in our bodies as long, they pose some other challenges. They are harder to remove with the same water treatments people use to remove PFOS and PFOA from drinking water,” she said.
They also have accumulative effects on the environment, she added.
The other problem with the newer chemicals is the lack of research on the newer compounds. Just like with PFOA and PFOS, these compounds are being used without a full assessment to any possible harm they might bring, Grandjean said.Regulations and Going Forth
What Grandjean, Billot and Schaider want is more regulation on PFASs.
There is no current federal standard for the amount of PFASs that can be in drinking water, Schaider said.
In his editorial, Grandjean calls for more research before widespread usage of PFASs. But there are other “easy” fixes Congress could do to have more regulation over the compounds, such as determining PFOA and PFOS as hazardous so the military can be involved in the clean up, Grandjean said.
“It’s a fairly simple thing, and when I say we’re 20 years behind in research and rediscovering what was known by the private sector much earlier, we’re also way behind in regard to the decisions in society, the regulatory agencies,” he said.
“This is really in my mind low hanging fruit. The airport should use fluorine-free fire-fighting foams and we should simply measure PFASs in drinking water across the country.”
https://truthout.org/articles/hidden-studies-from-decades-ago-could-have-curbed-pfas-chemical-problem/
-
‘Ambitious’ Database on SVHCs in Articles Needed – Beuc
Aug 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
European consumer group Beuc has called on Echa to take an "ambitious, forward-looking approach" to its forthcoming database on SVHCs in articles.
The agency is required to generate the database as part of an amendment to Article 9 of the Waste Framework Directive, which obliges suppliers to notify Echa of the presence of SVHCs in articles. It entered into force in July.
Companies will have until the end of 2020 to submit the information if they produce, import or sell articles that contain REACH candidate list substances.
The obligation for producers and importers to notify of such substances present in their articles is not new, but according to Echa the number of such notifications "remains worryingly low".
And in a recent paper, Beuc said consumers experience "severe difficulties" in accessing information about SVHCs present in products, as companies "rarely have sufficient knowledge" of their obligations under REACH Article 33(2).
When developing the database, Beuc said, Echa should ensure that it is designed to correct these shortcomings.
Efficient supply-chain communication is necessary for economic operators to implement appropriate risk management measures, and for suppliers to respond to consumer requests under Article 33(2), Beuc added.
However, information on SVHCs in articles "remains woefully incomplete", it said. This situation "de facto curtails the consumer’s right to know, while also hampering" risk management of chemicals during waste recovery processes and the promotion of non-toxic materials cycles.
Reinforcing compliance with REACH Article 7(2) and improving the availability of information on SVHCs in articles is therefore "crucial" for a successful circular EU economy, Beuc added.
The organisation "strongly urges" Echa to develop the database with a view to achieving the general REACH objectives on candidate list substances, including their substitution with safer alternatives.Recommendations
Beuc has recommended that Echa establishes a notification portal that will facilitate tracking of potential future candidate list substances. As "a minimum", it added, this should include substances falling within the definition(s) of substances of concern identified in the European Commission’s Communication on the interface between chemicals, product and waste legislation.
It also recommended that Echa:ensures the database is accessible for consumers at the point of sale, including through an easy-to-use search interface. This interface, Beuc said, should aim to enable informed consumer choice by allowing comparisons across and within product groups or categories, such as furniture or textiles. Additionally, the database needs to provide consumers with sufficient information, presented in an appropriate format, to allow safe use of the article;collaborates with the AskREACH project to ensure the two databases feed information into each other about SVHCs in products. Cooperation will strengthen both projects, Beuc added; andpromotes communication about SVHCs in articles across the supply chain. The database should require notification of SVHCs in articles at all steps of the supply chain – from initial manufacture to final sale and the waste phase. A technical solution can be found to handle possible duplicate notifications, Beuc said.
When transposing the revised Waste Framework Directive, Beuc said, member states should establish sufficient incentives, including clear dissuasive penalties, to ensure economic operators provide the information required by REACH to Echa.
A harmonised approach to reporting information to the agency would be preferable, it added. Member states should use the information available in the database to guide their enforcement activities – to identify product groups or categories for systematic compliance checks, for example.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69748/ambitious-database-on-svhcs-in-articles-needed-beuc
-
REACH Unfit for Regulating Mutagens and Carcinogens, Dutch Experts Say
Aug 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
European regulators could be missing environmental and public health risks posed by carcinogenic and mutagenic substances because of a disconnect between REACH and CLP requirements, Dutch experts have warned.
REACH information requirements do not generate enough data to conclude that a substance is a category 1B mutagen and/or carcinogen under the CLP Regulation, according to the scientists from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).
The Dutch team compared how the two flagship legislations handled data for each of these endpoints in a paper published in August in the journal Human and Ecological Risk Assessment.
They concluded that REACH data requirements and CLP classification requirements don’t line up.
Classification of a substance as a 1B mutagen under CLP, for instance, must be backed by somatic or heritable in vivo germ cell tests in mammals or humans.
REACH only makes in vitro studies compulsory, however. In some cases, the legislation asks registrants to "consider" performing a germ cell test, but there is no strict legal requirement to do so, the RIVM experts said. And because the test is time-consuming and costly, registrants are unlikely to conduct it voluntarily, they added.
Classification presumes carcinogens face a similar hurdle. A 1B CLP classification usually must be based on animal experiments giving "sufficient evidence" to demonstrate animal carcinogenicity.
But under REACH, a carcinogenicity study will only be performed when Echa specifically requests it.
This means the agency has to identify a data gap during its compliance check of the registration dossier; and, so far, compliance checks have rarely resulted in a request for a carcinogenicity study, according to RIVM.
"Obviously, if there is no carcinogenicity study available and no possibility to use read-across, the carcinogenic properties of a substance cannot be evaluated under CLP," the experts wrote.Possible solutions
In theory, this data gap should be bridged through the REACH substance evaluation (SEv) process. Member states can ask registrants to perform in vivo tests if they are concerned that a substance could be a carcinogen or mutagen.
But RIVM doesn’t think SEv will address the problem. Requesting an in vivo test takes time and investment from a member state authority, the experts said. The full process – from arguing a reason for concern in a SEv report to inclusion of the study in the registration dossier – can take as long as seven years.
The scientists suggested three possible ways to address the problem:changing the REACH information requirements to make in vivo mutagenicity and carcinogenicity studies compulsory;changing the CLP criteria to accept certain in vitro evidence for category 1B classifications; orlowering the criteria for classifying a SVHC by amending REACH to also include category 2 carcinogens and mutagens.
These options would, however, cost "considerable time and political will", RIVM said. The experts added that, rather than find a fix for the problem, their study aimed to "raise awareness" on the disconnect between REACH and CLP and "start a discussion".
https://chemicalwatch.com/69760/reach-unfit-for-regulating-mutagens-and-carcinogens-dutch-experts-say
-
Interior Offshore Oil and Gas Lease Sale Brings in $171M
Aug 15, 2018 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Ben Lefebvre
The Interior Department’s latest Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale generated $178.6 million as rising oil prices drew higher bids than seen at other recent auctions.
The results, the highest amount since March 2017, showed increased interest in offshore oil and gas development compared to the previous two auctions, which each generated about $120 million. Still, the auction results were well below those that took place before August 2017, when the sale regularly brought in totals above $250 million.
Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said 29 companies bid on 144 tracts, less than 1 percent of the total offered. The vast majority of those tracts were won with a single bid, with a handful being subject to two or three bids.
“I look at is as a positive sale,” BOEM Director for the Gulf of Mexico Mike Celata said during a conference call with reporters. “There’s increased competition from the last sale.”
Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell and other companies have been focusing more of their attention and dollars on other offshore regions, including in East Africa and the Mexican side of the Gulf, which the Mexican government has only recently re-opened to foreign developers.
More interest in the U.S. Gulf is expected next year, when tracts that are currently unavailable may come up for auction. The industry is also aggressively lobbying Interior and Congress to allow them to develop the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which is currently under a drilling moratorium until June 2022.
WHAT'S NEXT: Interior is expected to announce the final version of its five-year drilling plan sometime this fall.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
-
DHS Official Urges Renewal of Anti-Terrorism Program
Aug 15, 2018 | Ammonia21
By Michael Garry
An official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) is advocating for Congressional renewal of its Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program, which expires in January 2019.
CFATS, established in 2007 and most recently reauthorized by Congress for four years in 2014, calls for risk reduction measures at high-risk chemical facilities in possession of certain levels of any of over 300 dangerous chemicals (including ammonia), and helps facilities implement a set of enhanced security standards.
“CFATS needs legislative action to continue the vital work of securing America’s highest-risk chemical facilities,” said Bob Kolasky, acting assistant secretary for the Office of Infrastructure Protection at the Department of Homeland Security, in a presentation he gave at a DHSChemSecurityTalks event in Chicago on July 19. (The text of his presentation, slightly edited, appeared in the August 2018 issue of Accelerate America.)
“Failing to reauthorize CFATS for the long-term could be costly,” he continued. “The persistent terrorist threat that gave rise to the program continues today, and the consequences of a successful attack, could be devastating to our economy and our people.”
Kolasky said industry considers CFATS “an important contributor to national security” and has advocated for Congress to reauthorize the program.
DHS requires facilities with 20,000 lbs or more of ammonia at a concentration of 20% or higher, or with 10,000 lbs or more of anhydrous ammonia at concentrations of 1% or higher, to register with the CFATS program and fill out what’s called a Top-Screen online at https://csat-registration.dhs.gov/. The information in the Top-Screen is used to determine the risk posed by the facility.
Those facilities considered to be at risk are placed into one of four tiers, based on the degree of risk. If a facility isplaced in one of the tiers, it must then conduct a security vulnerability assessment (SVA) and a ite security plan. An SVA takes into consideration factors such as the location of the facility, the location of the ammonia storage within the facility and other factors.
Then, DHS visits the facility and goes over the security plan, which, once approved, must be followed by the facility.
DHS, said Kolasky, “is committed to continuing to work with Congress and stakeholders to reauthorize CFATS and build on the vital work that has been accomplished reduce our risk and elevate security.“As the January reauthorization deadline is fast approaching,” he continued, “we cannot let our guard down in protecting America’s chemicals from terrorism.”http://www.ammonia21.com/articles/8485/dhs_official_urges_renewal_of_anti_terrorism_program
-
(ACC Mentioned) Former STB Chair Elliott Hosting Conference
Aug 15, 2018 | RailwayAge Magazine
By William C. Vantuono
Dan Elliott, who served as Chairman of the Surface Transportation Board from 2009 to 2017 and is now with Washington D.C. law firm Conner & Winters, is hosting the inaugural Railroads + Shippers = Solutions conference on Oct. 3 in Washington, D.C.
Elliott says he “hopes to bring together railroads, shippers and others to look at the relationship between railroads and customers, and to solve issues between these parties through informal discussions. The never-ending battle in D.C. over STB issues will be the primary focus.”
Among the confirmed speakers are Pat Ottensmeyer, President and CEO, Kansas City Southern; Michael Lacey, President North America Zone and GBU Soda Ash and Derivatives North America Director, Solvay; Cal Dooley, President and CEO, American Chemistry Council; Roger Nober, Executive Vice President, Law and Corporate Affairs, BNSF Railway and former STB Chairman; Keith Borman, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association; Chip Nottingham, former STB Chairman and Principal, Charles D. Nottingham, PLLC; Frank Mulvey, former STB Commissioner; Jennifer Hedrick, Executive Director, The National Industrial Transportation League; Charlie Delacruz, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, National Grain and Feed Association; William Huneke, former Director, STB Office of Economics; and Alison Graab, STB Detailee and Counsel, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
https://www.railwayage.com/regulatory/former-stb-chair-elliott-hosting-conference/
-
Is It the FAA Bill’s Time to Shine?
Aug 15, 2018 | Politico - Morning Transportation
By Brianna Gurciullo
IS IT THE FAA BILL’S TIME TO SHINE? The Senate is back in session today, with 47 days until the FAA’s authorization runs out. In late July, Senate Commerce ranking member Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) told us that a provision on trucker meal and rest breaks was holding up a Democratic hotline of the chamber’s reauthorization (S. 1405 (115)). Whether self-driving car legislation (S. 1885 (115)) will be tacked on is also TBD — at least in part because of concerns about arbitration. And that’s not all. “We still have a basket of amendments that we’re sorting through and figuring out how to process and deal with,” Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said before recess.
ABOUT TWO-THIRDS TO GO: Thirty-four percent of U.S. commuter railroads are testing or running positive train control-equipped trains as of late June, according to the American Public Transportation Association. Your MT host had the details for Pros. On a call with reporters, APTA President and CEO Paul Skoutelas spoke about PTC’s costs and technological hurdles: working with a small pool of vendors, tackling software problems, getting access to both locomotives and tracks, and “achieving interoperability.”
In Chicago and Philadelphia: Jim Derwinski, the CEO and executive director of Metra, added that a “huge challenge” has been communicating with the public. “As many times as we informed the public and informed the public and told them it was coming, that there could be some adverse effects with regard to the operation, it became really a big pressure point for us as we rolled out on the BNSF, our busiest line, this year,” he said. Jeffrey Knueppel, SEPTA’s general manager, also noted the turnover that commuter railroads like his have experienced in recent years. “There’s just a lot of retirements going on and trying to keep the project teams intact and moving forward — that’s no minor issue to get around,” he said.
Guessing game: Skoutelas pointed out that the fiscal 2018 omnibus reserved $250 million for PTC projects. But, he said, “it would have been much more helpful to [agencies] if these dollars were made available at a much earlier date.” And asked what the FRA will do to commuter railroads that don’t satisfy certain federal PTC requirements by Dec. 31, Skoutelas said: “I will tell you that that’s not clear to us, what FRA ultimately will decide.”
HELLO, WEDNESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on all things trains, planes, automobiles and ports. Have feedback about today’s newsletter, a tip for a story or a suggestion for lyrics? I’m at: bgurciullo@politico.com or @brigurciullo.
“That’s disregard / You find another friend and you discard / As you lose the arguments in a cable car / Hanging above as the canyon comes between.”
LISTEN HERE: Follow MT’s playlist on Spotify. What better way to start your day than with songs (picked by us and readers) about roads, rails, rivers and runways?
INSIDE THE AGENCIES: The EPA pushed back on NHTSA’s case that a freeze on fuel economy standards would prevent fatalities, Pro Energy’s Alex Guillén reports. NHTSA had said “the freeze would save 150 lives per year [from 2036 to 2045], but EPA analysts said it would actually lead to 17 more fatalities each year over the Obama standards,” Alex writes. “It was not immediately clear how or whether that affects NHTSA’s broader statement in the proposal that a freeze in the standard would ultimately save nearly 13,000 lives over the lifetimes of vehicles built through 2029.”
AIR MAIL: DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen noted during a speech Tuesday that TSA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection haven’t had to stop any air cargo shipments from entering the U.S. under new screening rules. The Air Cargo Advance Screening Program, which requires the agencies to tighten screening requirements for all air cargo shipped to the U.S., is tracking data from 193 countries and, so far, has been met with “positive feedback” from industry, Nielsen said.
THANKS, LA: TSA chief David Pekoske commended Los Angeles transit officials Tuesday for being the first to buy the TSA-endorsed Thruvision portable passenger screening tool, which our Stephanie Beasley told Pros about earlier this week. “We offer up our recommendations to organizations like L.A. County Metro, Metrolink and Amtrak, and then it’s up to them to make a decision as to whether or not they want to proceed and employ the equipment inside their systems,” he said. “L.A. County Metro and Metrolink is the first system in the entire country to purchase this technology. And that’s a great credit to the leadership of these organizations and to the oversight committees that provide the funding for these organizations.”
SLICE OF PI: Monument Policy Group is lobbying for Waymo on driverless cars, our friends at POLITICO Influence report. Marianne LeVine and Theodoric Meyer also report that Rick Dearborn, a nominee to Amtrak’s board of directors, has started as a senior policy adviser for Adams and Reese, while keeping his position as a partner in The Cypress Group.
SUMMER READING: The Governors Highway Safety Association will unveil a report today on self-driving cars and their safety challenges. (State Farm funded the report.)
SHIFTING GEARS: Dan Horvath is being promoted to vice president of safety policy at the American Trucking Associations. He’ll replace Mike Cammisa, who plans to do “consulting in the automated vehicle technology space,” according to ATA.
HELP WANTED: Electric scooter company Bird is seeking a government relations manager to “help solve regulatory challenges related to entering and operating in multiple markets.” And Lime is on the hunt for a director of public affairs. (h/t POLITICO's Daniel Lippman)
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-transportation/2018/08/15/is-it-the-faa-bills-time-to-shine-317318
-
Aug 15, 2018 | Politico - Morning Money
By Ben White and Aubree Eliza Weaver
HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WENT WRONG — President Donald Trump came into office pledging to update America’s rotting infrastructure with huge spending on big new projects. It hasn’t happened.
In this week’s POLITICO Money podcast, POLITICO Magazine’s Michael Grunwald talks about his piece on Trump turning cold on the Gateway project, an ambitious $30 billion effort to build a new rail tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan and to update other pieces of a critical but crumbling leg in the heavily-trafficked northeast corridor.
Federal funding for Gateway is now in doubt. And the entire American approach to infrastructure — once a source of bipartisan deal-making — is now completely polarized. The result could be that nothing happens on infrastructure until catastrophe hits. Sign up for the pod here.
PRIMARY BLAST— Stu Loeser emails: “You reported this a.m. that the US Chamber took the unusual step of endorsing in a Dem primary (CT-5) against our client Jahana Hayes. Jahana — the 2016 National Teacher of the Year — won tonight!”
PRIMARY BLAST II — Jeff Hauser emails on Tim Pawlenty trailing in the Minnesota governor GOP primary: “The simple lesson of the Minnesota Governor primary is one Tim Pawlenty is only realizing belatedly: Voters of both parties increasingly reject bank lobbyists.”
THE CASE AGAINST ECONOMIC OPTIMISM — NEC Director Larry Kudlow in MM on Tuesday suggested the growing economy and low jobless rate will offer a big boost to the GOP this fall, helping the party keep the House.
The New York Fed on Tuesday released its latest Survey of Consumer Expectationsand it has some lest optimistic findings, including that “consumers expect higher growth in taxes … Wage growth expectations retreated somewhat, and consumers were less optimistic about stock price growth.
“Median one-year ahead earnings growth expectations fell from 2.7% in June to 2.4% in July, dropping below its 2.5%-2.7% range since November 2017. The decline was broad based across income groups, but largest among younger (below age 40) respondents.” The report finds that consumers expect prices to rise faster than wages, meaning they feel like they will have less not more to spend. Not a great signal.
THE CASE FOR FREE TRADE — The Competitive Enterprise Institute has a new report out this morning “that makes a comprehensive case for free trade on economic, moral, and historical grounds.”
Among the report’s recommendations: “Lower tariffs and other trade barriers regardless of what other countries do. Repeal the sections of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and the Trade Act of 1974 that allow the president to impose unilateral tariffs. Remove non-trade provisions from existing trade agreements, including NAFTA, and keep them out of future agreements.
From the report: “The case in favor of free trade has been uncontroversial among economists since the time of Adam Smith, but support among policy makers and the public has ebbed and flowed with the political winds. Now, with the Trump administration raising tariffs and other trade barriers … the ongoing liberalization process that began in the aftermath of World War II is experiencing the greatest threat it has yet faced. …
“When people in China trade with people in America, one country is not “beating” the other on trade. It means people in both countries are making mutually beneficial deals with one another. In that sense, all trade is balanced. Trade deficits are worse than useless as a guide to policy … 85 percent of America’s job churn is due to technological change, not trade.” Read more.
WELCOME TO THE LONGEST BULL MARKET IN HISTORY — John Lynch and Ryan Detrick if LPL Financial note that on Aug. 22nd “this bull market can overtake the bull market of the 1990s as the longest ever. From tariffs to trade wars to inflation to a flattening yield curve to a global economic slowdown, the headlines continue to cast doubt on the sustainability of this economic cycle and bull market.
“Although we see several potential stumbling blocks, we continue to believe this economy and stock market rally have plenty of fuel left in the tank. … This might be the longest bull market ever, but you could argue it isn’t the greatest; at least not yet. The S&P 500 gained nearly 420 percent during the 1990s bull market when all was said and done, versus the current bull standing just over 320 percent.
TRUMP TO ROLL BACK CLIMATE RULE — POLITICO’s Emily Holden scoops: “The Trump administration is preparing to unveil its plan for undoing Barack Obama’s most ambitious climate regulation — offering a replacement that would do far less to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet, according to POLITICO’s review of a portion of the unpublished draft.
“The new climate proposal for coal-burning power plants, expected to be released in the coming days, would give states wide latitude to write their own modest regulations for coal plants or even seek permission to opt out, according to the document and a source who has read other sections of the draft. That’s a sharp contrast from the aims of Obama’s Clean Power Plan” Read more.
SANDERS MISLEADS ON BLACK JOB CREATION — Bloomberg’s Toluse Olorunnipa: “White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders falsely claimed that … Trump has created three times as many jobs for black workers as his predecessor Barack Obama did during his entire time in office.
“Sanders asserted at a White House press briefing Tuesday that Trump had tripled Obama’s eight-year job creation record in just 18 months, quoting numbers that are not even close to accurate.
“‘This president since he took office, in the year and a half that he’s been here has created 700,000 new jobs for African-Americans,; Sanders told reporters Tuesday. ‘That’s 700,000 African-Americans that are working now that weren’t working when this president took place. When President Obama left, after eight years in office, he had only created 195,000 jobs for African-Americans.’
THE FACTS: “The claim isn’t true, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. While the U.S. economy has added about 700,000 jobs held by black workers since Trump took office, it added about 3 million while Obama was in office, according to BLS data. … Two hours after Sanders made the claim, the White House Council of Economic Advisers posted in a tweet its ‘apologies’ for a ‘miscommunication to’ Sanders.” Read more.
FOR FURTHER REFERENCE — Here is a chart showing black employment since the depths of the great recession. It’s been very steady as has overall job creation. There is no evident Trump effect.
GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING — MM will be on a reporting trip on Wednesday and Victoria Guida will drive the bus for a day. Email her on vguida@politico.com and follow her on Twitter @vtg2. Email Aubree Eliza Weaver on aweaver@politico.com and follow her on Twitter @AubreeEWeaver.
DRIVING THE DAY — Big day for economic data with Productivity and Unit Labor Costs at 8:30 a.m. expected to rise 2.5 percent and 0.0 percent, respectively … Retail Sales at 8:30 a.m. expected to rise 0.1 percent, 0.4 percent ex-autos … Industrial Production at 9:15 a.m. expected to rise 0.4 percent …
CFTC RULE CRITIQUED — POLITICO’s Patrick Temple-West: “The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's recently proposed rule for swaps registration violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the law that governs how federal agencies write regulations, a watchdog group said in a letter to the agency released today.
“Coming amid universal industry support for the CFTC's so-called de minimis rulemaking, Better Markets said the agency should lower the registration threshold for companies to $3 billion. The CFTC's June proposal would keep the threshold at $8 billion of swaps exposure, a move that would spare many companies from registering with the agency.” Read more.
MORE ON MUSHY MUSK — Bloomberg’s Sridhar Natarajan and Alex Barinka: “Elon Musk’s announcement about his advisers might be as squishy as his funding. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. hadn’t been formally tapped as a financial adviser by Tesla Inc.’s chief executive officer when Musk revealed plans last week to take the automaker private and said he’d secured the funding for the transaction, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
“The bank still hadn’t officially signed on when Musk said on Twitter late Monday that he’s working with Goldman Sachs and private-equity firm Silver Lake as financial advisers, the people said. Such a statement from a public company CEO typically signals a formal agreement. But Musk has shown a willingness to take an unusual approach, including tweeting last week that he had funding secured for a take-private deal.” Read more.
EUROPEANS WARN ABOUT THE END OF CASH — POLITICO’s Laurens Cerulus and Cat Contiguglia: “Europe’s central bankers are warning that a gradual phase-out of cash in many countries poses a serious threat to the financial system, as relying too heavily on digital payment systems exposes them to catastrophic failures in the event of cyber-attacks.
“Regulators are also weighing in to say that IT failures, systemic hacking risks — and the fact that more vulnerable members of society would be alienated in a cashless world — all argue in favor of keeping a robust system in place — ie., cash. A November study by the European Central Bank showed, while almost 80 percent of all payments were still done in cash in the eurozone, countries like Estonia, the Netherlands and Finland already use electronic payments for about half of all transactions.” Read more.
ICYMI: WH LOOKS TO EASE MILITARY LENDING RULES — NYT’s Glenn Thrush: “The Trump administration is planning to suspend routine examinations of lenders for violations of the Military Lending Act, which was devised to protect military service members and their families from financial fraud, predatory loans and credit card gouging, according to internal agency documents.
“Mick Mulvaney, the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, intends to scrap the use of so-called supervisory examinations of lenders, arguing that such proactive oversight is not explicitly laid out in the legislation, the main consumer measure protecting active-duty service members, according to a two-page draft of the change.” Read more.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-money/2018/08/15/how-infrastructure-went-wrong-317452
-
Aug 15, 2018 | Philadelphia Business Journal
By Jim Saksa
SEPTA general manager Jeff Knueppel took a moment to boast Tuesday afternoon while participating in an American Public Transportation Association conference call with national press on the efforts of commuter railroads to implement Positive Train Control before a federal deadline at the end of this year.
“Since May 1st of 2017, SEPTA commuter trains have been operating under PTC on all 13 of our Regional Rail lines,” said Knueppel. “But it wasn't easy.”
Knueppel listed the challenges SEPTA had to overcome — a lack of federal support, most notably, plus a huge backlog of maintenance projects and not enough state or local money to pay for it all — before admitting that the local rail agency got a little bit lucky, too.
“We began designing our PTC system in November 2009, without really knowing how we would pay for it,” he said. “But we had a couple of things break right for us.”
Congress required all railroads — Amtrak, freight rail, and commuter lines such as SEPTA’s Regional Rail — to adopt PTC after a deadly Metrolink crash outside Los Angeles in 2008. Officials have said that PTC, which, among other features, automatically enforces train speed limits, would have prevented the Amtrak derailment that killed eight passengers in Philadelphia in 2015. At the time, Amtrak had installed PTC near the derailment site, but had not yet activated the system.
SEPTA’s construction budget doubled after Harrisburg passed Act 89, an infrastructure-spending bill fueled by increased gas taxes. The agency also had some luck securing federal grants.
SEPTA is only one of two railroad operators in the United States to have already activated PTC on all its trains — Metrolink, in L.A., is the other. Should the freight rail companies meet the deadline, SEPTA will be in full and complete compliance with the law. Amtrak has implemented PTC on all its trains and tracks along the Northeast Corridor, but it leases rails from many local and freight agencies that are farther behind. Many have requested a two-year extension that would give them until Dec. 31, 2020, to finish installing PTC.
Go to whyy.org for details on two freight rail companies' use of SEPTA's lines and the impact on PTC.
https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2018/08/15/ptc-septa-csx-norfolk-southern-positive-train-cont.html
-
Aug 15, 2018 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Kelsey Tamborrino
INSIDE TRUMP'S CLIMATE PLAN: EPA's plan to undo the Obama-era climate rule for coal-burning power plants is widely expected to include a far less stringent replacement rule, but the new climate proposal would also boost states’ latitude to write their own regulations for coal plants or pave a path for seeking permission to opt out, according to POLITICO’s review of a portion of the unpublished draft and a source who reviewed other sections of the document.
The draft offers the first look at the specifics of the Trump administration's proposal to undo the Clean Power Plan since EPA released a broader notice that it would reconsider the rule in April, POLITICO's Emily Holden reports. The White House Office of Management and Budget has reviewed the draft and sent it back to EPA this week, meaning the plan will likely be unveiled in the coming days. Legal experts say a replacement rule could stall a future president from quickly writing carbon regulations.
Under the new regulation, states would be allowed to write rules to make coal power plants more efficient, enabling them to burn less coal to produce the same amount of electricity. But critics say that could be bad for the planet by making it cost-effective for companies to run those plants more often, Emily reports. According to the draft, EPA intends to argue that the Obama administration's rule illegally sought to regulate the broader power sector, beyond coal plants, and that the compliance costs would have been high and the climate benefits negligible.
Other details of the proposal include:
— State plans could be in effect before 2025
— Coal plants upgrades could avoid triggering New Source Review requirements
— EPA expects the average power plant heat rate improvement would be 1-3 percent and cost $30 to $60 per kilowatt
— Retail electricity prices could be similar or somewhat higher than if EPA repealed the Clean Power Plan
— EPA would only count the domestic benefits of curbing greenhouse gas emissions
— In comparing costs and benefits of replacing the rule, EPA assumes states would have capped emissions and would not have used interstate trading — which would have decreased the expected costs of the Clean Power PlanWELCOME TO WEDNESDAY! I'm your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Holland & Knight’s Beth Viola was the first to know Mount Thor, on Canada’s Baffin Island, is home to the Earth’s greatest sheer vertical drop at 4,101 feet. For today: Who were the first and only sisters to serve simultaneously in Congress? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com, or follow us on Twitter @kelseytam, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
OPENING WATERS: Oil and gas companies are lobbying Florida lawmakers to open up eastern portions of the Gulf of Mexico for offshore drilling, even after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke seemingly shut the door on the prospect when he declared the state's waters “off the table” seven months ago, Pro's Ben Lefebvre reports. It's a controversial effort in a state that for decades has seen bipartisan opposition to offshore drilling.
The lobbying effort, Ben writes, is looking to potentially bring oil rigs as close as 75 miles off the coast, putting drilling 125 miles closer to Florida's beaches. And the energy lobbyists and trade associations pushing the effort think Zinke left just enough room in his previous comments to persuade lawmakers to sign on to possible compromises.
Zinke’s tweet exempting Florida and his subsequent statement that he was “removing Florida from consideration for any new oil and gas platforms” shouldn’t be read as official Interior policy, said Randall Luthi, president of the trade group National Offshore Industry Association, which is pressing for access to the waters. One lobbyist working the issue also told POLITICO that Zinke and Gov. Rick Scott were careful to "not say the entire Eastern Gulf” was off the table. Keep in mind: The state's jurisdiction only extends nine nautical miles from the shoreline. Read more here.
FOR YOUR RADAR: The Interior Department will hold its Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale today, with 77.3 million acres stretching from south Texas to the Florida-Alabama border up for grabs.
EPA CHALLENGED AUTO SAFETY ARGUMENT: An internal EPA staff memo released Tuesday shows EPA officials questioned the Trump administration’s rationale for its recent proposal to roll back Obama-era mileage standards, Pro’s Alex Guillén reports. The June 18 memo warned that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s projection that freezing fuel economy standards would save lives was “unrealistic” and “difficult to justify.” The memo specifically addressed fatalities for years 2036 to 2045 identified under an April NHTSA model. NHTSA said the freeze would save 150 lives per year over that decade, but EPA analysts said it would actually lead to 17 more fatalities each year over the Obama standards.
THEY’RE BAAACK: Senators return to town today after a brief recess, ready to tackle some National Parks legislation. The Energy and Natural Resources National Parks Subcommittee will meet this afternoon on a slate of bills related to parks, and hear from National Parks Service Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith. If you go: The legislative hearing begins at 4 p.m. in 366 Dirksen.
OHIO LNG DELIVERABLES: Tellurian LNG Vice President of Federal Affairs Majida Mourad is moonlighting as a fundraiser for Ohio gubernatorial candidate Mike DeWine, sources told ME. Mourad, whose day job involves advocating for the start-up liquefied natural gas export company in Houston, accompanied Vice President Mike Pence on Air Force Two on Tuesday to travel to a DeWine rally in Cincinnati and then to another fundraising event in Toledo, a source familiar with the planning said. DeWine’s campaign paid for Mourad’s flight, the source added. Mourad, who started divorce proceedings against Ohio Republican Rep. Mike Turner earlier this year, is “instrumental in raising money” for the DeWine campaign, the source said. Mourad is traveling “in her capacity as a supporter for the political candidate, not as a lobbyist. She’s instrumental in raising money,” the source added. A Tellurian spokesperson did not immediately reply to questions.
IN FULL BLOOM: Officials from EPA, the Interior Department and the Army Corps of Engineers today will tour areas affected by toxic algae blooms in southwestern Florida, with Rep. Francis Rooney as their guide. The Florida Republican has called on Trump to issue a major disaster declaration for the state over the harmful algae blooms.
What’s at stake? The algae blooms have caused widespread deaths among aquatic animals and left millions of fish rotting along beaches, harming the state’s economy. The crisis has taken hold of the state’s high-profile Senate and gubernatorial races — and just this week Scott declared a state of emergency for the nine-month-old “red tide” algae bloom.
CHICAGO TRUMP TOWER SUED FOR WATER VIOLATIONS: Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced a lawsuit Tuesday against Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, alleging it has violated environmental laws by dumping millions of gallons of water in the Chicago River daily without first conducting studies on the impact to the river’s fish, as federally mandated. The suit also alleges the hotel has released the water without an updated National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.
“We are disappointed that the Illinois Attorney General would choose to file this suit considering such items are generally handled at the administrative level,” a spokesperson for the Trump Organization said in a statement. “One can only conclude that this decision was motivated by politics.”
PERRY HEADS TO MEXICO: Energy Secretary Rick Perry travels to Mexico City today to attend the 2018 FIRST Global Challenge — a yearly international STEM-related robotics challenge. Perry will also meet with Mexican government officials to discuss bilateral energy partnerships between the two countries.
SOUND BITE: Perry sought to defend the Trump administration’s plan to rescue economically struggling coal and nuclear plants during his tour of Colorado’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory on Tuesday, though he may have made his job a little tougher. "The government's been picking winners and losers since government was created,” Perry said, according to Bloomberg’s Catherine Traywick. “... Use the right kind of technical people to help you decide where to invest and pick the winners, pick them right. Government's going to continue to do that."
— Greens pounced on the remarks: Jonathan Levenshus, of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, released a statement calling Perry’s comment a “ridiculously hypocritical statement,” pointing to his 2010 book in which he wrote Americans were “fed up” with the “government picking winners and losers based on circumstance and luck with no real benefit to the economy.”
ON THE MOVE: Margaret Schneider, the Bureau of Land Management’s assistant director of business, fiscal and information resources management, started Monday as acting deputy director of operations, replacing Richard Cardinale, BLM spokesperson Heather Feeney confirmed to ME. Cardinale “completed his two-month acting assignment” and will “return to the Department of the Interior's Office of Chief Information Officer as the Business Operations Division Director,” Feeney said. He will remain in the position until a permanent selection is made. Schneider previously served as deputy director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and at EPA.
HOW SCIENCE FARES: More than 80 percent of federal scientists within EPA say consideration of political interests within the agency obstructs its ability to make science-based decisions, according to a new survey from the Union of Concerned Scientists and Iowa State University’s Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology. The anonymous survey, which was released Tuesday, fielded responses from around 5,000 government scientists across 16 agencies. Many scientists reported science is under pressure under the Trump administration, with close to 80 percent of respondents reporting that the scientific workforce is shrinking through retirements, buyouts and hiring freezes. Respondents also reported censorship of their work, especially related to climate change.
FUEL FOR THOUGHT: The Sunrise Movement and 350 Action today will protest the Democratic National Committee’s recently passed resolution that they say reverses a ban on accepting donations from fossil fuel companies. The groups will hold a sit-in at the DNC’s Washington headquarters at 11 a.m., calling for a recommitment to ban fossil fuel money and for the party to endorse a “Green New Deal.”
MAIL CALL! The National Wildlife Federation, joined by a coalition of more than 50 other groups, will urge Congress in a letter today to reauthorize and fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The conservation program is set to expire at the end of September.
GREENS WEIGH IN: Environmental groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund and Environmental Law and Policy Center, submitted comments in opposition to EPA’s proposed cost-benefit analysis rule. “Despite the tremendous record of success demonstrated by EPA safeguards, and the enormous benefits they provide for the health and well-being of the American public, the current administration has relentlessly sought to undermine and dismantle these life-saving protections,” the comments say.
LCV LAUNCHES ANTI-KAVANAUGH ADS: The League of Conservation Voters is putting $200,000 into a newly launched initiative opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, highlighting his record in environmental cases. With an emphasis on Nevada, Maine and Alaska, LCV will launch both digital ads and a grass-roots campaign to encourage the public to tell their senators to reject Kavanaugh. See the first digital ad here.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-energy/2018/08/15/inside-trumps-climate-plan-317320
-
How Ginsburg's Reversal of Kavanaugh Saved 'Huge' Air Rule
Aug 15, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
If Judge Brett Kavanaugh had his way, EPA would be without an important tool for regulating air pollution that drifts across state lines.
Kavanaugh — President Trump's Supreme Court nominee — would want to know exactly how much pollution each upwind state was sending to their downwind neighbors.
His goal: Reduce the chance that EPA might "over-control" a state's emissions.
But Kavanaugh's views in the 2012 opinion he wrote for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ran smack into a wall on the Supreme Court.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a 2014 majority opinion that Kavanaugh had failed to take into account the complexities of air pollution and would create a standard that's nearly impossible to meet. "Nothing in the text" of the Clean Air Act "propels EPA down this path," she wrote, panning Kavanaugh's view that she said "could scarcely be satisfied in practice."
Ginsburg — who was joined by the conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and then-Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom Kavanaugh would replace on the court — in a 6-2 decision revived an Obama-era program for addressing interstate emissions in 27 states in the eastern United States (Greenwire, April 29, 2014).
To this day, Ginsburg's opinion in EPA v. EME Homer City Generation LP remains the only time the Supreme Court has reversed one of Kavanaugh's environmental rulings on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. A George W. Bush appointee, Kavanaugh has been on the D.C. Circuit for a dozen years.
The case provides a glimpse into the nominee's broader approach to environmental law and how that may translate on the Supreme Court bench.
"It's a very significant case. It's a huge environmental regulation at stake," said Richard Lazarus, a professor at Harvard Law School who has argued in front of the Supreme Court more than a dozen times. "It shows you exactly the potential divide between Kennedy and Kavanaugh, and also between Roberts and Kavanaugh.
"That's why it's the most significant data point for environmental law in thinking about Kavanaugh's nomination," he said.
At issue in EME Homer City was the Obama administration's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule issued under the Clean Air Act's "good neighbor" provision. CSAPR — pronounced "casper" — required upwind states to curb nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions that were harming downwind states. EPA concurrently issued a federal plan allocating state emission budgets.
EPA set budgets for all upwind states that produced 1 percent or more of an air pollution violation in a downwind state, based on a cost threshold. In other words, EPA said the states would be required to reduce emissions by the level that was cost-effective.
The agency finalized the rule in 2011, replacing a George W. Bush-era version that the D.C. Circuit tossed out in 2008.
Kavanaugh sat on the three-judge panel hearing the litigation, which involved more than a dozen states, as well as industry groups and environmentalists.
He rejected EPA's method, writing that the agency was required by law to allocate responsibility for emissions in a manner that's proportional to each state's contribution to pollution problems.
"The transport rule includes or excludes an upwind state based on the amount of that upwind state's significant contribution to a nonattainment area in a downwind state," Kavanaugh wrotein the majority opinion.
"That much is fine," he said. "But under the rule, a state then may be required to reduce its emissions by an amount greater than the 'significant contribution' that brought it into the program in the first place. That much is not fine."
Kavanaugh also said EPA was required to give states more time to develop their own pollution control plans. Judge Thomas Griffith, another Bush appointee, joined the opinion, while Clinton appointee Judge Judith Rogers dissented (Greenwire, Aug. 21, 2012).
"EPA was betwixt and between," Lazarus said. "They had a huge problem, interstate pollution, and a great policy program, which many in industry thought was a sensible idea. But the D.C. Circuit was saying the statute just doesn't allow you to do this."
'Not so simple'
Then the Supreme Court stepped in.
Ginsburg wrote that Kavanaugh's approach would only work if there was one downwind state and two upwind states.
"Imagine that States X and Y now contribute air pollution to State A in a ratio of one to five ... EPA could require State Y to reduce its emissions by five times the amount demanded of State X," Ginsburg's opinion said.
"The realities of interstate air pollution, however, are not so simple. Most upwind States contribute to multiple downwind States in varying amounts," the justice said.
Kavanaugh's majority opinion, she wrote, failed to "face up to this problem."
In upholding EPA's approach, the justice relied on the so-called Chevron doctrine, under which courts defer to reasonable agency interpretations when Congress has been silent or ambiguous on an issue. Because Congress did not specify how to allocate responsibility among multiple contributors of air pollution, EPA was free to come up with a reasonable method.
As for "over-control," Ginsburg wrote that states are free to challenge their own emission budgets. Concerns about individual budgets don't justify "wholesale invalidation" of the rule, she said.
The Supreme Court also rejected Kavanaugh's contention that upwind states should have been allowed to write their own plans for reducing pollution levels consistent with their emission budgets. The D.C. Circuit "stretched out" the Clean Air Act process and "allowed a delay Congress did not order," Ginsburg wrote.
With Roberts and Kennedy, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the opinion. Justice Samuel Alito of the court's conservative wing did not participate.
When the case went back to the D.C. Circuit, Kavanaugh wrote another opinion that overturned certain state emission budgets, but this time the court kept the CSAPR program in place.
'Reading obstacles into the statute'
Legal experts say the case reflects Kavanaugh's skepticism of EPA authority and his deep concern for separation of powers, themes that appear in many of his opinions in his 12 years on the D.C. Circuit.
It can be seen, for example, in an opinion last year that Kavanaugh wrote rejecting the Obama administration's rule for phasing out hydrofluorocarbons, which are potent greenhouse gases.
"He was really reading obstacles into the statute intentionally to make it harder for the agency to engage in regulatory actions," said Patrice Simms, vice president of litigation at Earthjustice.
But in overturning the D.C. Circuit opinion, the Supreme Court concluded the Clean Air Act was more flexible than what Kavanaugh ruled.
"Kavanaugh came in and basically upended the whole thing. 'No, we're going to do cost-benefit analysis my way. You're not allowed to over-control pollution in this state,'" said Patrick Gallagher, the Sierra Club's legal director.
"Justice Ginsburg issued an opinion basically saying interstate pollution is a big problem and it's a complex problem. EPA did a really good job trying to grapple with this and come up with some rules," he said.
In some cases, though, the Supreme Court has adopted decisions by Kavanaugh limiting EPA authority.
In fact, in the questionnaire he submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee ahead of his Sept. 4 confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh noted that the CSAPR case was the only one out of his 307 opinions that has been "reversed in part by the Supreme Court."
Roberts takes on new role
But the 2014 CSAPR decision shows the court has historically been willing to go only so far in accepting Kavanaugh's views on agency authority.
The ruling also shows the importance of Roberts for environmental law. Without Kennedy, long considered the court's swing vote, Roberts will take on a heightened role.
While Roberts joined the Ginsburg majority in the CSAPR case, he's voted in other cases to limit EPA authority.
"He certainly is more likely to be skeptical of broad readings of EPA authority than Justice Kennedy was," Lazarus said. "I would never call him a swing justice because he doesn't swing very much. But he may well be the dispositive vote."
Environmentalists say they are not confident that the Supreme Court would uphold such rules for the cross-state pollution program going forward.
"With a five-justice ultra-conservative court, the court would pursue an agenda to hamstring regulatory agencies, and we would see a fundamental shift in the law that would lead to drastically less protective regulation," Simms said.
Cross-state air pollution, meanwhile, remains a hot issue at EPA. The agency recently denied "good neighbor" petitions from Maryland and Delaware that sought a crackdown in ozone-forming pollution from coal-fired power plants outside their borders.
EPA justified the denial by pointing to CSAPR. The agency's modeling forecasts that all of the eastern United States will meet the 2008 ozone standard by 2023.
Interstate pollution is among the reasons why Delaware Sen. Tom Carper — the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee — says he won't support Kavanaugh's nomination in the Senate, despite having voted for his confirmation in 2006 to the D.C. Circuit.
Carper says he's concerned about EPA's decisions and what might happen if the issue makes its way again to the high court.
"We've had an opportunity to see what Judge Kavanaugh would do in part of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on this issue," Carper said, "and I don't want to sit around and just wait around to see what he would do nationally if he were a member of the Supreme Court."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/15/stories/1060094201
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested