Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - August 17, 2018
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(ACC Mentioned) NE Asia EDC at 16-Month High on Tight Supply, US-China Trade War
Aug 17, 2018 | ICIS
By Jonathan Chou
Ethylene dichloride (EDC) prices in northeast Asia are at their highest in 16 months amid short spot supply and uncertainty caused by the US-China trade tensions. -
(ACC Mentioned) What's Happening With WOTUS
Aug 17, 2018 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Kelsey Tamborrino
Which streams and wetlands are protected under the Clean Water Act? As of Thursday, the answer depends on where you’re standing. -
Celanese to Raise Prices to Combat Rising Raw Material Costs, Effect of China Tariffs
Aug 16, 2018 | Market Watch
By Ciara Linnane
Chemicals company Celanese Corp. CE, +0.32% said Thursday it is raising the prices of its engineered materials polymer products to combat the rising costs of raw materials and the effect of a 25% tariff on products imported into the U.S. from China. -
Senate Dems Fire Another Shot at 'Secret Science' Proposal
Aug 17, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Nine Senate Democrats are framing an EPA plan to restrict the types of studies that can be used in crafting new regulations as part of a broader pattern of "regulatory capture" by industries the agency is charged with overseeing. -
(ACC Blog) Another Milestone for the Successful Implementation of TSCA
Aug 17, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
As EPA continues its important work to implement the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), we wanted to highlight another milestone in that process and what ACC has been doing to help ensure successful implementation. -
EDF Files Extensive Comments Critical of Epa’s Problem Formulations for the First 10 Chemicals Being Reviewed Under TSCA
Aug 17, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
Last night, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) submitted more than 200 pages of comments providing a detailed critique of each of the “problem formulations” EPA issued in June for the first 10 chemicals in commerce undergoing risk evaluations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
Industry Trumps Peer-Reviewed Science at EPA
Aug 17, 2018 | Nature (In Inforsuhoy)
By Jeff Tollefson
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is making major changes to the way in which it evaluates chemicals for environmental and public-health effects. -
California Proposes Change to Furniture Fire Safety Regulation
Aug 17, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
The US state of California is considering an amendment to its regulations, which would eliminate the need for flame retardant use in upholstered furniture designed for public places. -
Trade Fears Throw Future of U.S. Natural Gas Into Question
Aug 17, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Stephanie Yang and Timothy Puko
U.S.-China trade tensions threaten a promising area of growth in U.S. energy: natural-gas exports. -
U.S. Approves Cheniere Bid to Feed First Gas to Texas LNG Plant
Aug 17, 2018 | Reuters
By Sabina Zawadzki
The U.S. energy regulator has approved a request by Cheniere Energy to feed the first gas into its new liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, marking the beginning of a commissioning phase for the export terminal. -
Fracking Is Destroying U.S. Water Supply, Warns Shocking New Study
Aug 17, 2018 | Think Progress
By Joe Romm
An alarming new study reveals fracking is quite simply destroying America’s water supply. -
(ACC Mentioned) Court Torpedoes Trump Epa Bid to Delay Safety Standards
Aug 17, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
In another major court loss for the Trump administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today tossed out a rule delaying Obama-era safety standards for chemical facilities. -
Court Throws out EPA Delay of Obama Chemical Plant Safety Rule
Aug 17, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A federal court Friday threw out the Trump administration’s attempt to delay a chemical plant safety regulation written by the Obama administration. -
Trucking out the FAA Bill
Aug 17, 2018 | Politico - Morning Transportation
By Brianna Gurciullo
Democrats in the Senate want to tweak a provision in the FAA bill that would preempt states’ meal and rest break laws for truckers, Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said Thursday. -
Ewire: EPA's CPP Replacement Plan Could Come Late Next Week
Aug 17, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Trump EPA is planning to unveil its long-awaited proposal to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) utility greenhouse gas rule with a far weaker version late next week, according to a news report, giving the agency four months to finalize the rule by its stated goal of the end of 2018. -
EPA Plan to Retain SO2 NAAQS Prompts Competing Calls on Standard
Aug 17, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA's proposal to retain its existing sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) is prompting competing calls on the future of the NAAQS, with some industry groups in written comments calling for a weaker limit while environmentalists are pushing for the agency to issue a more-stringent standard. -
Can Trump Overcome Stumbles in Environmental Rollback?
Aug 17, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne
Earlier this week Al Gore, the former presidential candidate turned climate crusader, told a reporter that the Trump administration wasn’t as harmful to the environment as he’d feared, describing it as a “blend of malevolence and incompetence.” -
EPA Drafting Rule to Curb Its Veto Power — Sources
Aug 17, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Ariel Wittenberg and Dylan Brown
EPA is working on a regulation to limit the agency's ability to nix water pollution permits. -
She's Fighting Trump on Climate Change — and Bringing Cookies
Aug 17, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
Mary Nichols, California's "queen of green," is her state's standard-bearer in the legal fight over the Trump administration's regulatory rollbacks.
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(ACC Mentioned) NE Asia EDC at 16-Month High on Tight Supply, US-China Trade War
Aug 17, 2018 | ICIS
By Jonathan Chou
Ethylene dichloride (EDC) prices in northeast Asia are at their highest in 16 months amid short spot supply and uncertainty caused by the US-China trade tensions.
- US-origin cargoes being diverted away from Asia since early 2018
- China’s tariffs on US-origin EDC to change trade flows
- Prices supported by short supply of ethylene in Asia
Spot prices have more than doubled from 8 December 2017 to an average of $347.5/tonne CFR (cost & freight) NE (northeast) Asia in the week ended 10 August 2018, according to ICIS data.
The current price was last seen on 21 April 2017, ICIS data indicated.
Asia could see changing trade flows as China, a key import market in the region, will start imposing a 25% tariff on US-origin EDC on 23 August.
The US is a major supplier of EDC to China, which had a 28% share of its shipments of the material in 2017, according to data from the US’ International Trade Commission (ITC).
Spot EDC prices in Asia have been on a general upward trend this year, supported by tight spot supply as US-origin cargoes were diverted away from the region to Brazil, following an outage at Braskem’s chlor-alkali plant.
Roughly 95% of EDC is used in the manufacture of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), nearly all of which goes into polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Most EDC plants are integrated with VCM production.
US producers of key derivative PVC have been operating at near-full capacity, according to data from the American Chemistry Council (ACC). There is thus little room to consume more EDC feedstock into PVC production in the US, said a market source.
Market participants expect US EDC cargoes to flow to other regions in Asia, as well as Europe when China's tariff takes effect.
The first US-origin spot transaction in several weeks took place late last week at $330/tonne FOB (free on board) US Gulf to Europe.
This adds up to around $390/tonne CFR NE Asia, after accounting for freight rates. Market participants find it unlikely that deals in Asia will be made at such high prices.
There was a selling indication at $375-380/tonne CFR NE Asia this week, but no deals were concluded.
“If the [EDC] price rises to $390-395/tonne CFR NE Asia, maybe some VCM makers will reduce operating rates [instead],” the seller said.
A trader said: “The [Asia] EDC market already has limited buyers. If prices get higher, spot enquiries will be further limited.”
EDC prices could also remain supported by high ethylene feedstock prices, which rose to an average of $1,402.50/tonne CFR NE Asia in the week ended 10 August 2018. This was the highest in 30 weeks amid shortened supply due to upcoming turnarounds in Asia.
Upcoming September turnarounds for downstream VCM plants in northeast Asia could also cool demand for EDC during that period.
In spite of this, the tight spot supply situation for EDC in Asia is expected to persist until October at least, said a market source.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/08/17/10251295/ne-asia-edc-at-16-month-high-on-tight-supply-us-china-trade-war/
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(ACC Mentioned) What's Happening With WOTUS
Aug 17, 2018 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Kelsey Tamborrino
Which streams and wetlands are protected under the Clean Water Act? As of Thursday, the answer depends on where you’re standing. After a South Carolina District Court ruling overturning the Trump administration’s attempted delay of the Obama administration’s Waters of the U.S. rule for failing to offer the public a proper opportunity to comment, the 2015 rule is now officially on the books in 26 states — but not in the other 24 states where other district court injunctions are in place.
"The agencies refused to engage in a substantive reevaluation of the definition of the ‘waters of the United States' even though the legal effect of the Suspension Rule is that the definition of 'waters of the United States' ceases to be the definition under the WOTUS rule and reverts to the definition under the 1980s regulation," Judge David Norton wrote in Thursday’s ruling. "An illusory opportunity to comment is no opportunity at all."
Environmental groups hailed the decision, with Jon Devine of the Natural Resources Defense Council calling it a "sharp rebuke to the Trump administration." Meanwhile, Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, one of the fiercest critics of the Obama-era rule, called on the Trump administration to "to take immediate steps to limit the impact of this dangerous court decision."
But will it hold? The Justice Department is reviewing the decision, a spokesman said, and players on both sides broadly expect an appeal. Separately, EPA said in a statement it and the Army Corps of Engineers "will review the order as the agencies work to determine next steps." But the fate of the delay rule could ultimately become moot if the federal district judge in Texas grants a nationwide injunction request.
And don’t forget, this is just the warm-up fight. The battle royale will be over the Trump administration's rule to repeal the 2015 rule, which the agency has not finalized. Geoff Gisler, the Southern Environmental Law Center attorney who brought yesterday’s case on behalf of local environmental groups, argued that Thursday’s South Carolina court decision has implications for that fight and "should give the agencies pause" as they move forward. "The agencies just aren't telling the public what they're doing," he argued. "What this decision said was you can't just have a comment period, it has to be a meaningful comment period."
WE MADE IT TO FRIDAY! I'm your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. Simon and Company’s Jen Covino named the eight senators who formerly served as mayors: Dianne Feinstein, Cory Booker, Jim Inhofe, Bob Corker, Bernie Sanders, Tim Kaine, Mike Enzi and Bob Menendez. For today: Who are the three current House lawmakers who previously served as ambassadors? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com, or follow us on Twitter @kelseytam, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
FAR FROM OVER: A federal judge’s order directing the State Department to conduct a supplemental environmental review for the Keystone XL pipeline’s updated path through Nebraska is another setback in nearly a decade full of them for TransCanada. The order is sure to stall construction of the pipeline for months, Pro’s Ben Lefebvre reports. Plaintiffs in the case said the review would involve public hearings in Nebraska and consultations with Native American tribes whose land the pipeline would traverse.
Pipeline opponents are hoping to use the new review to push for a broader study of the project, Ben reports. Doug Hayes, a lawyer for the Sierra Club and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said the judge’s ruling that the “entire pipeline remains interrelated and requires one [environmental review] to understand the functioning of the entire unit” could open the door for them to seek a new review for the pipeline's entire route. “If they are going back to do a supplemental environmental impact statement, our position is they would need to evaluate all the new impacts of the pipeline,” Hayes said. “That would take definitely months.”
WHERE’S WHEELER? Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler travels to Michigan today to discuss issues plaguing the Great Lakes and meet with GOP Rep. Tim Walberg, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and officials from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Department of Environmental Quality.
WHEELER DELIVERS MESSAGE ON HARASSMENT: Wheeler reaffirmed EPA’s policy against harassment in a memorandum sent to staff Thursday. Wheeler wrote that he expects “all individuals working at the EPA — employees, supervisors and non-employees — will not engage in or be subjected to unlawful and prohibited harassment.”
MURKOWSKI: FERC NOMINEE SHOULD GO LITMUS TEST-FREE: Senate Energy Chairman Lisa Murkowski wouldn’t comment on POLITICO’s report that DOE’s Bernard McNamee will be nominated to FERC. But the Alaska Republican said she believes that the next nominee shouldn’t face a litmus test over their view of the Trump administration’s efforts to prop up coal and nuclear power plants, Pro’s Darius Dixon reports. “I worry that this is going to be viewed as, ‘If you don’t commit to voting against or voting for, then you’re not going to have my support,’” Murkowski said. “That’s not the way that we should be selecting commissioners for the FERC.”
GET YOUR COMMENTS IN: American Petroleum Institute’s Frank Macchiarola reiterated the need for Renewable Fuel Standard reform on a call with reporters Thursday outlining the group's comments for EPA's proposed biofuel blending requirements for the coming year under the RFS. “Very simply what we want is an end to this program by 2022,” he said. Macchiarola said API is “willing to compromise” on certain policies like a waiver for summertime sales of E15, but only if the program will sunset by 2022. “The problem again is that the ethanol industry has been dug in to not doing anything,” Macchiarola said. He added legislation is being drafted to reform the program in both chambers, but noted challenges and lengthy debate are likely ahead. Comments are due today on EPA’s proposed volumes, with the final rule due to be released by Nov. 30.
— API is also looking at the proposed plan by EPA and the Department of Transportation to freeze fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. “It is a very complex proposal to a very complex program,” Macchiarola said. “We will say that we appreciate the administration’s relooking at CAFE in the light of changing energy market realities.”
SECRET’S OUT: Thursday was the last day for comments on EPA’s proposed "secret science" rule, which would ban the use of studies that don't publicly disclose all their data. Getting their thoughts in under the wire, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, Brian Schatz, Maggie Hassan, Jeff Merkley, Ed Markey, Tammy Duckworth, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tom Carper and Kamala Harris banded together to make their opposition known. “The proposed rule is illegal because it is arbitrary and capricious,” they write, adding that “the proposed rule is illegal because it is the result of an effective delegation of rulemaking authority to private interests.”
The American Chemistry Council, meanwhile, applauded the proposal in its comment Thursday. "EPA’s proposal codifies an important good governance principle — that government agencies should be as transparent as possible, within the bounds of the law, about scientific information relied upon and the justifications for the significant regulatory decisions they make." Still, the trade association also highlighted that implementation of the plan would benefit from better historical context and applicability, and that greater clarity is required on key definitions and regulatory text, among other recommendations.
FIGHTING FIRE WITH A FEDERAL PLAN: The Agriculture Department released a new, aggressive approach to fighting wildfires Thursday, with proactive steps. During a bipartisan press conference, Secretary Sonny Perdue unveiled a plan that emphasizes increased collaboration with states, implementation of mapping and remote sensing tools, and management practices such as prescribed burns and timber sales, Pro’s Liz Crampton reports. Though Perdue brushed aside specific questions on climate change's role, he said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is on board with the plan and noted further details and costs will be forthcoming from the U.S. Forest Service. "Really a lot of people ... when you talk about climate change, they want to talk about what the causes are,” Perdue said. “[What] we’re trying to talk about is the impact.”
FERC RESTARTS PART OF PIPELINE: FERC modified a stop work order for the Mountain Valley Pipeline this week, allowing construction to restart for around 77 miles of the pipeline’s West Virginia route with the exception of a 7-mile area surrounding the Weston and Gauley Bridge Turnpike Bridge Trail, MVP said Thursday. However, the company said about half of its construction workforce has been released due to continued delays. MVP said that it “remains committed to the earliest possible in-service date,” though it noted that is now expected to arrive during the fourth quarter of 2019.
GREENS CALL FOR FERC REVIEW: The Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Mountain Advocates petitioned the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday to review FERC’s approval of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The suit was filed on behalf of 13 other conservation groups. “FERC ordered the ACP construction stopped because the 4th Circuit determined that permits were issued without proper scrutiny,” SELC attorney Greg Buppert said in a statement. “On the very same day, FERC rejected a rehearing request in which the conservation groups asserted that it also rushed through its decision to permit a pipeline that we don’t need.” The 4th Circuit last week vacated two permits issued for the project by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service.
GREENS FILE FOIA SUIT: Environmental group Friends of the Earth filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Interior Department for lack of response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The lawsuit seeks to compel DOI to produce documents related to senior members of the department and the industries they regulate. The suit points to David Bernhardt's work as a lawyer and lobbyist for oil and gas companies and Vincent DeVito's time working as an energy industry representative. Friends of the Earth is being represented by the law firm Meyer Glitzenstein & Eubanks LLP.
AD-ING IT UP: Ahead of Wyoming’s gubernatorial primaries Tuesday, a partnership between the Wyoming Wildlife Federation and Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, dubbed the Wyoming Conservation Legacy, will launch a five-figure ad campaign asking candidates to support conservation. The campaign will begin on Saturday and run through Aug. 21 with full-page print ads in the Casper Star Tribune and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, separate radio buys on Wyoming Public Media programs, and digital ads across the state. See the ads here.
MAIL CALL! ON THE FARM: The National Biodiesel Board sent a letter to farm bill conference committee lawmakers reiterating its support for the inclusion of biodiesel programs in the five-year bill.
STAR-STUDDED SUMMIT: Attendees of the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco in September will hear from former White House officials, including former Vice President Al Gore and Secretary of State John Kerry. The summit announced Thursday night that new delegates will join the event, including Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Patricia Espinosa and U.N. Special Envoy for Climate Action Michael Bloomberg. Actor Alec Baldwin and chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall will also attend.
GO NUCLEAR: The American Nuclear Society this week launched a nuclear science educational program for middle schoolers that covers topics like fission and fusion, and detecting radiation. The “Navigating Nuclear: Energizing Our World” program is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards framework, which provides an evidence-based foundation for scientific research.
MOVER, SHAKERS: Jack Cramton, policy adviser for Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), will start Monday as a legislative affairs adviser at the Department of Energy’s Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs Office.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-energy/2018/08/17/whats-happening-with-wotus-320196
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Celanese to Raise Prices to Combat Rising Raw Material Costs, Effect of China Tariffs
Aug 16, 2018 | Market Watch
By Ciara Linnane
Chemicals company Celanese Corp. CE, +0.32% said Thursday it is raising the prices of its engineered materials polymer products to combat the rising costs of raw materials and the effect of a 25% tariff on products imported into the U.S. from China. The company said it is raising the price of its propylene-based long fiber thermoplastics, including Celstran, and its polybutylene terephthalate and polyethylene terephthalate compounded engineering plastics, including Celenex, Vandar, Impet, Pibiter, OmniTech and Compel. The price hikes will become effective for orders shipped on or after Aug. 23, or as contracts allow. Shares were not yet active premarket, but have gained 6.9% in 2018, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.06% has gained 5.4%.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/celanese-to-raise-prices-to-combat-rising-raw-material-costs-effect-of-china-tariffs-2018-08-16
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Senate Dems Fire Another Shot at 'Secret Science' Proposal
Aug 17, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Nine Senate Democrats are framing an EPA plan to restrict the types of studies that can be used in crafting new regulations as part of a broader pattern of "regulatory capture" by industries the agency is charged with overseeing.
"Numerous EPA political appointees, all of whom have their own significant ties to the fossil fuel industry, were intimately involved in this rulemaking," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and the other eight lawmakers wrote in formal comments on the proposed rule filed yesterday. While former EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who released the proposal in April, has since resigned, "his conflicts and the flawed process he oversaw lingers on," they said. Besides being "arbitrary and capricious," they added, the proposal is "illegal because it is the result of an effective delegation of rulemaking authority to private interests."
Their filing, extensively footnoted and spanning 54 pages, was among a flurry of last-minute submissions by the proposal's foes and supporters ahead of yesterday's deadline for written comments. In two petitions submitted by the American Lung Association, more than 7,000 health care professionals and members of the general public called on acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to scrap the plan, according to a spokeswoman.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a business-allied think tank, countered that EPA was "well within its authority" in advancing the proposed rule, which would broadly restrict the agency to using only studies for which the underlying research data "are publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation," according to the text.
While opponents say the underlying purpose is to stymie the agency's ability to tap research that would argue in favor of stricter regulations, "preference should be given to studies that can be independently validated," wrote Marlo Lewis, senior fellow in energy and environmental policy at the institute. Such validation "is not possible unless the public has access to the underlying data and models," Lewis concluded in another well-footnoted submission.
As of this morning, more than 250,000 comments had been turned in on the proposal, according to the Regulations.gov website, although the vast majority appeared to be the fruit of mass advocacy campaigns. The total number is certain to grow as entries turned in yesterday are added to the online public docket.
The proposed rule, officially dubbed "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science," grew out of legislation repeatedly introduced by House Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas).
Smith was on hand to offer support at Pruitt's announcement of the proposed rule in April; a spokeswoman did not immediately reply to an email this morning asking whether he or other Republican members of the committee formally weighed in on the proposed rule during the comment period. A spokesman for Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) also did not respond to a similar query.
Besides Whitehouse, signers of the Senate Democrats' comments were EPW Committee ranking member Tom Carper of Delaware and Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois; Whitehouse's office released a copy this morning. Some of the same lawmakers had joined Hassan this spring in inquiring about the White House Office of Management and Budget's extraordinarily swift review of the proposed rule before its public release.
In her reply last month, Neomi Rao, head of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, offered almost no information on that process (E&E Daily, July 18).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/17/stories/1060094651
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(ACC Blog) Another Milestone for the Successful Implementation of TSCA
Aug 17, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
As EPA continues its important work to implement the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), we wanted to highlight another milestone in that process and what ACC has been doing to help ensure successful implementation.
Earlier this summer, EPA released for comment the first 10 problem formulations for risk evaluation under TSCA and its proposal for systematic review.
The First 10 Problem Formulations
For the first 10 risk evaluations, EPA released the scopes of the risk evaluations, followed by more detailed problem formulations. Those documents are important because they provide more clarity about how the agency plans to undertake the risk evaluations for the first 10 chemicals. They are also important because the problem formulation step will be integrated into future risk evaluation scopes. Together, the scope and problem formulations are the blueprints that describe how EPA will perform each risk evaluation.
The law requires EPA to ensure that each risk evaluation identifies and addresses the circumstances that could present the highest potential for risk. The problem formulations show that EPA is consistently applying this principle.
Below are several recommendations we made to the agency for the first 10 problem formulations and future scoping documents for TSCA risk evaluations. You can also read our comments in full by clicking here.Systematic review: EPA’s development of a structured process to identify, evaluate and integrate evidence from both the hazard and exposure assessments developed during the TSCA risk evaluations is appropriate and will provide increased transparency into the TSCA risk evaluation process.Conditions of use: EPA should develop a framework for its scoping approach that articulates its process for deciding when conditions of use will be in or out of scope of the risk evaluation. This would help streamline the agency’s future efforts, increase transparency and help industry anticipate EPA’s information needs in the risk evaluations.Coordination with other appropriate federal executive departments or agencies: EPA should develop new or update existing memoranda of understanding with other federal agencies, in particular OSHA, to clarify how it will undertake its TSCA Section 9(d) consultation obligations. This coordination is essential to avoid duplicative and unnecessary regulation.Tiered approaches to assessment: EPA should apply tiered approaches to hazard and exposure assessments throughout the risk evaluation process. This will enable EPA to meet TSCA’s deadlines, adhere to TSCA’s science standards and enable EPA and the regulated community to apply resources efficiently. For example, a roadmap showing EPA’s approach to tiered exposure assessments and guidance on the same would be useful.
Systematic Review Proposal
Another proposal that was released at the same time as the problem formulations was EPA’s approach to application of systematic review in TSCA risk evaluations. That document is important because it will guide the way the agency identifies and evaluates studies and should provide more transparency about how scientific information will be evaluated by EPA.
We believe the systematic review proposal has many positive attributes and that several areas of guidance are well developed. It focuses on fit-for-purpose evaluations and an iterative evaluation process, which allow for flexibility that is necessary given the wide array of chemical substances that will be reviewed under TSCA.
However, the approach would benefit from additional explicit guidance, particularly related to evidence integration, which will ensure objective, comprehensive, scientifically supported risk evaluations for TSCA chemicals.
You can read our full comments on the proposal for systematic review by clicking here.
ACC will continue to support the efficient and effective implementation of TSCA. Successful implementation of this important bipartisan legislation is essential to ensuring protections for human health and environment while enabling our industry to continue to innovate, create jobs and grow the economy.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2018/08/another-milestone-for-the-successful-implementation-of-tsca/
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Aug 17, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
Last night, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) submitted more than 200 pages of comments providing a detailed critique of each of the “problem formulations” EPA issued in June for the first 10 chemicals in commerce undergoing risk evaluations under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). EDF also delivered 45,000 comments to EPA from members of the public across the country echoing our concerns.
The EPA documents lay out the scope of each of the risk evaluations EPA will conduct. They are highly flawed and deviate in numerous ways both from what TSCA requires and from use of the best available science.
Some of the deficiencies in EPA’s documents stem from the illegal Risk Evaluation Rule the agency issued in July, 2017. In that rule, EPA asserted sweeping authority to ignore known uses of and the resulting exposures to chemicals when evaluating their risks under TSCA. EDF joined with 14 other organizations in litigation challenging that rule, in a case that is being heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Petitioners’ Opening Brief was filed in April.
EPA strays even farther from the law in its problem formulations, however, now asserting that it can also ignore known exposures to chemicals when they are released into our air, water or land. EPA also relies on inadequate information, questionable assumptions, and cursory analyses to ignore many exposure pathways as well as certain hazards and relevant subpopulations.
As a result, these documents do not meet TSCA’s requirements that EPA use the best available science based on reasonably available information.
Among EDF’s comments addressing the many serious problems in EPA’s documents are the following:
· EPA cannot ignore ongoing, real-world exposures that are occurring despite another EPA-administered statute that could potentially cover those exposures.
o EPA must, based on the clear text and overall structure of TSCA, analyze exposures even if they have been or could be assessed under another statute.
o EPA cannot accurately evaluate risk to potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations, such as fenceline communities, if it excludes the vast majority of exposure pathways leading to their greater exposure.
o EPA’s authorities under other Federal laws cannot be used to sidestep EPA’s authority or obligations under TSCA.
o EPA ignores the numerous problems with compliance, implementation, and enforcement under the other authorities EPA seeks to rely on instead of TSCA.
· EPA needs to promptly finalize its proposed bans on high-risk uses of trichloroethylene, methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone, rather than delay the health protections the bans would deliver by subjecting those uses to unnecessary re-evaluation.
· EPA must evaluate exposures from legacy and other past uses and related disposal of these chemicals.
· EPA must evaluate the combination of all exposures and risks, and not treat individual exposures or risks in isolation.
· EPA ignores numerous information gaps in the problem formulations, providing no strategy or intent to fill such gaps despite enhanced information authorities Congress just gave EPA.
o EPA should utilize its TSCA section 4 and 8 authorities to fill identified data gaps.
o EPA cannot use an absence of sufficient information as a basis to ignore uses or exposure routes and pathways.
· EPA should generally utilize its prior hazard assessments that exist for a number of the first 10 chemicals, and must justify any decision to deviate from these values.
· EPA has not adequately identified potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations in many of its documents.
o EPA should identify people living near disposal sites and other sources of contamination as potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations.
o EPA needs to ensure that environmental justice is appropriately considered, analyzed, and addressed in the risk evaluations.
o EPA needs to consider infants, children, and pregnant women who may be more susceptible to those chemicals exhibiting potential for developmental or reproductive toxicity.
· EPA needs to accurately evaluate real-world occupational and consumer exposures.
o EPA needs to have a strong empirical basis when characterizing the extent of use and efficacy of occupational exposure controls or compliance with standards or guidelines.
o EPA should always evaluate exposure scenarios without controls to assess exposures and risks to subpopulations not subject to the controls.
o EPA should never rely on labeling and personal protective equipment as a basis to assume low or no exposure, given the major real-world limitations of these measures.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/08/17/edf-files-extensive-comments-critical-of-epas-problem-formulations-for-the-first-10-chemicals-being-reviewed-under-tsca/
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Industry Trumps Peer-Reviewed Science at EPA
Aug 17, 2018 | Nature (In Inforsuhoy)
By Jeff Tollefson
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is making major changes to the way in which it evaluates chemicals for environmental and public-health effects. The latest push includes changes to chemical-safety guidelines that place greater weight on industry-sponsored research, among other things, and is a part of efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to reshape how the agency uses science to make decisions.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its chemical-assessment guidance in May, and is soliciting public comments until 16 August. The guidance contains changes dictating the kind of data that studies must include in order to be considered in the EPA’s decision-making process. Researchers and environmental and public-health advocates say that the guidelines provide a non-peer-reviewed alternative to the EPA’s main system for conducting chemical reviews and calculating acceptable exposure limits. The agency is required by law to do these evaluations, but the guidance defines how officials conduct them. At stake are tens of thousands of chemicals destined for public use and governed by the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
The guidance dovetails with a rule proposed in April by then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, which, if finalized and implemented, would reduce the role of published scientific studies in decision-making across the agency. The changes also coincide with attacks on the EPA’s core chemical-assessment programme, known as the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), by industry and Republican politicians over the past year.
Meeting the requirements
In a statement to Nature, the EPA says the changes are meant to provide clear criteria to help determine the quality of the research used to evaluate chemicals—and that the guidance is a work in progress that can be revised in response to new information. But scientists say the process laid out by the EPA is at odds with established, peer-reviewed procedures for such assessments.
Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group based in New York City, suspects that the goals are to promote science from industry and change the calculations that the EPA uses to develop regulations and estimate safe exposure limits for chemicals.
The guidelines introduce many data reporting requirements—including statistical analyses that measure whether a study correctly identifies the presence of an effect—that are standard for industry-funded research. But because such criteria vary among peer-reviewed journals, many academic studies would be disqualified, says Tracey Woodruff, who led the development of a chemical-evaluation process at the University of California, San Francisco. “Only industry studies will survive.”
Multiple challenges
The changes represent a major shift because they create a new system for chemical-risk assessments under TSCA. Unlike IRIS, the process introduced by the Trump administration has not been peer reviewed, and yet it would allow agency officials to circumvent IRIS evaluations. Under former president Barack Obama, the EPA would have used IRIS to perform these reviews when considering regulations under TSCA.
The IRIS programme dates back to 1985, but under the Obama administration, the EPA modernized and standardized its chemical-evaluation procedures to improve transparency and confidence in its health assessments. Woodruff says that the IRIS process is solid and that bypassing it would be a mistake.
“The TSCA office is deciding to ditch all of the experts and empirical methods that have been developed over the last 30 years for a method that appears to be based on their whim and personal opinion,” she says.
But the EPA insists that the review process used in these chemical evaluations is intended to “comprehensively capture all available science”.
Friendly faces
Politicians in the U.S. House of Representatives have also hammered IRIS, holding hearings questioning the quality and validity of the programme’s assessments. The political manoeuvring parallels efforts from industry to bypass scientific reviews of certain chemicals.
One plant in LaPlace, Louisiana, makes the chemical chloroprene for the Tokyo-based company Denka. Chloroprene is used to make neoprene, a synthetic rubber integral to products such as wetsuits. A 2010 IRIS evaluation and subsequent government studies suggested that chloroprene exposure levels in LaPlace were high enough to increase cancer risk in some areas of the city. Denka challenged that ruling last year, arguing that the assessment was incorrect. The company lost its challenge in January but has since appealed against that ruling. A panel appointed by the EPA leadership will now consider the appeal.
Denka has argued to its political allies that reducing chloroprene emissions would be too expensive, says Karl Brooks, a former EPA official who last year served as a consultant in a lawsuit filed by LaPlace residents against Denka. That’s a potentially dangerous development, he says, because IRIS assessments are meant to focus on the health effects of chemicals—not the economic challenges that a company might face as a result of the core science.
Researchers fear that the chloroprene case represents yet another strategy for companies seeking relief from the burdens of regulations: challenge the science and, when that fails, appeal to friendly politicians and political appointees.
http://infosurhoy.com/cocoon/saii/xhtml/en_GB/science/industry-trumps-peer-reviewed-science-at-epa/
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California Proposes Change to Furniture Fire Safety Regulation
Aug 17, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
The US state of California is considering an amendment to its regulations, which would eliminate the need for flame retardant use in upholstered furniture designed for public places.
A proposal by the California Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair, Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation (Bearhfti) would remove all reference to Technical Bulletin (TB) 133 from the California Code of Regulations.
This is a standard for furniture intended for public occupancies that seat 10 people or more, which is typically met through the use of flame retardants. It applies to venues such as restaurants, prisons, hotels, churches. hospitals and care homes.
TB 133 includes an open flame test designed to simulate conditions "typical of arson or incendiary fires or common accidental fires in public buildings".'Unnecessary health risks'
According to a notice of proposed change by Bearhfti, TB 133 is "a redundant test standard that causes confusion within the industry and presents unnecessary health risks".
The proposed regulatory action is projected "to lower costs of upholstered seating furniture used in public buildings and reduce the need for flame retardants in component materials," the document continues.
Also, it says the action is anticipated to "improve public health by reducing exposure to carcinogenic organohalogen flame retardants".
If the proposal to remove reference to TB 133 is adopted, it would also remove labelling requirements for upholstered seating furniture meeting TB 133.
Manufacturers would instead have to comply with the California upholstered furniture flammability standard, TB 117-2013, which requires a smoulder-resistance test that can more readily be met without the use of flame retardants.
Members of the public are invited to submit comments about the proposal in writing to Bearhfti. A public hearing about the proposed amendment will take place on 17 September.Industry view
David Panning, technical services director at the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association (Bifma), said its members are "very supportive of California repealing the TB 133 Regulation".
He added that "the scientific community is very concerned about the use of fire retardant chemicals to meet TB 133" because of the associated health risks.
But the North American Flame Retardant Alliance (Nafra) insists the use of flame retardants is important to ensure the safety of public spaces.
"Fire-related fatalities and injuries associated with upholstered furniture are among the most serious fire problems in the US, and this proposal would reduce the fire safety standard for furniture," a spokesperson told Chemical Watch. National action
In October last year, the US state of San Francisco banned the sale of upholstered furniture and children’s products containing flame retardant chemicals. The law is due to go into effect in January 2019.
More than a dozen US states have banned some categories of flame retardants and many more are considering legislation to restrict their use.
On a national level, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) voted in September last year to ban the use of organohalogen flame retardants in furniture and several other household product categories. The CPSC plans to make a decision next year on whether to adopt California's TB 117-2013 as a national flammability standard for residential upholstered furniture.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69802/california-proposes-change-to-furniture-fire-safety-regulation
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Trade Fears Throw Future of U.S. Natural Gas Into Question
Aug 17, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Stephanie Yang and Timothy Puko
U.S.-China trade tensions threaten a promising area of growth in U.S. energy: natural-gas exports.
While the trade dispute hasn’t impacted near-term prices, some analysts believe it could disrupt exports and slow new infrastructure expansions. That could weigh on natural-gas prices in the longer term because U.S. producers are quickly running out of places to sell an unrelenting rush of supply.
Earlier this month, in response to U.S. tariffs, China proposed its latest round, including a 25% levy on liquefied natural gas, or LNG.
The two countries on Thursday announced they would hold lower-level talks on trade issues later this month.
If the sides can’t come to an agreement, natural-gas tariffs in China could lead to opportunities for other major LNG exporters, such as Australia and Qatar, if U.S. gas becomes more expensive. China also may tap supply from Russia via a major pipeline under construction, or from its own domestic production in the coming years, analysts said.
“China will look elsewhere in the world to source the commodities they need,” said J. Alexander Blackman, senior executive at Standard Delta LLC, a Houston-based commodities firm with operations in Asia.
U.S. exporters, in turn, will need to sell LNG to other countries if they are cut off from the rapidly growing Chinese market. Since exports wouldn’t be hit immediately, analysts doubt tariffs would lead to a sudden swelling of supplies or depressed prices.
The more chilling prospect is that companies investing in U.S. export infrastructure scale back plans or put them on hold. “There’s no way in the current environment that anyone’s going to be signing any deals,” said Neil Beveridge, senior oil analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. “It’s causing a big overhang on what can get done.”
That could inhibit producers’ future ability to access the international market, limiting the growth of the U.S. natural-gas sector and an avenue to work off excess supply.
As the shale boom took off, U.S. companies rushed into projects to superchill gas into liquid so it can be loaded onto tankers and traded around the world. Growing demand for LNG and unexpectedly fast growth in China in particular have been a boon for U.S. producers hoping to sell natural gas overseas as an outlet for their record production.
“China could be really pivotal in underpinning that U.S. LNG growth,” Mr. Beveridge said.
Since 2011, companies such as Houston-based Cheniere Energy , Inc. and Dominion Energy ,Inc. in Richmond, Va., have spent about $44 billion constructing the plants and terminals necessary to export LNG, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
China’s voracious appetite for the fuel has helped drive the industry’s transformation. Thanks to its need for cleaner-burning fuel, the country is expected to become the world’s largest importer of natural gas next year, according to the International Energy Agency. The country is aiming to boost natural-gas use to 15% of energy consumption by 2030, up from about 6% in 2015.
As a result, “trade policy is fundamental,” Total SA Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanné said to reporters at the beginning of the World Gas conference in Washington in June.
The French energy company owns a minority stake in the $10 billion Cameron LNG export plant in Hackberry, La. “I hope [the U.S.] will not lose the Chinese market,” he said. The U.S. has “a very good place, a game to play in the LNG business. But the market is mainly driven by Asia and by China.”
For the moment, traders are taking the trade dispute in stride as they wait to see how the threats play out. Last week, prices of natural-gas futures for September delivery rose to seven-week highs as weather-related demand kept the market buoyed.
“There’s some flexibility with what’s on the list and what China actually does,” said Jason Gabelman, vice president at Cowen & Co who covers the energy sector.
Other analysts are skeptical that today’s trade tensions will derail the long-term trend of LNG exports in the U.S., which the IEA expects to become the second-largest exporter by 2022.
Even before China announced the potential LNG tariffs, though, energy executives were on edge. The World Gas conference this year drew high expectations for a slew of deals for U.S. LNG, but saw little result.
The Friday night before the June conference, executives at Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd., a Houston-based developer of gas-export projects, hosted counterparts from a Chinese oil company to wrap up yearlong negotiations to help finance an 8-million-ton project in Louisiana.
But toward the end of the dinner in Houston, the Chinese executives made it clear they wouldn’t sign until trade fears are resolved, LNG CEO Greg Vesey said in an interview.
“It’s the fear of the unknown,” Mr. Vesey said. “It puts a big slowdown on everything.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trade-fears-throw-future-of-u-s-natural-gas-into-question-1534503600
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U.S. Approves Cheniere Bid to Feed First Gas to Texas LNG Plant
Aug 17, 2018 | Reuters
By Sabina Zawadzki
The U.S. energy regulator has approved a request by Cheniere Energy to feed the first gas into its new liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, marking the beginning of a commissioning phase for the export terminal.
The approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), issued late on Thursday, means Cheniere will be able to produce the first commissioning cargo by the fourth quarter of this year, if not earlier.
Train 1 at the Corpus Christi facility will become the first LNG export terminal in Texas and the third functioning one in the United States as the country ramps up the sale of the super-chilled gas to unprecedented levels in the coming years.
Cheniere’s Chief Executive, Jack Fusco, told analysts earlier this month the facility would produce its first LNG in the fourth quarter, implying a commercial startup of the facility earlier than the slated first half of 2019.
The LNG market looks out for facility startups not only because they ultimately add supply but because the commissioning cargos tend to be traded on the spot market, whereas initial commercial deliveries go to prearranged long-term buyers.
Cheniere’s Sabine Pass terminal, with four operational so-called trains or plants, is the largest LNG facility in the country with a 18 million tonne a year (mtpa) capacity and it began operations in 2016.
Dominion Energy’s 5.3 mtpa Cove Point terminal in Maryland began operations in March of this year and so far is the second operating LNG export terminal.
Over a dozen trains are expected to become operational next year on the U.S. East Coast adding 36 mtpa to global LNG supply compared to the 290 mtpa traded in 2017.
Aside from Cheniere’s terminals, these include Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island facilities in Georgia, Sempra Energy’s Cameron LNG in Louisiana and Freeport’s Texas facility.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lng-cheniere-corpuschristi/u-s-approves-cheniere-bid-to-feed-first-gas-to-texas-lng-plant-idUSKBN1L20TS
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Fracking Is Destroying U.S. Water Supply, Warns Shocking New Study
Aug 17, 2018 | Think Progress
By Joe Romm
An alarming new study reveals fracking is quite simply destroying America’s water supply.
That means we are losing potable water forever in many semi-arid regions of the country, while simultaneously producing more carbon pollution that in turn is driving ever-worsening droughts in those same regions, as fracking expert Anthony Ingraffea, a professor at Cornell University, explained to ThinkProgress.
The game-changing study from Duke University found that “from 2011 to 2016, the water use per well increased up to 770 percent.” In addition, the toxic wastewater produced in the first year of production jumped up to 1440 percent.
“Previous studies suggested hydraulic fracturing does not use significantly more water than other energy sources, but those findings were based only on aggregated data from the early years of fracking,” explained co-author Avner Vengosh, a professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke.
“After more than a decade of fracking operation, we now have more years of data to draw upon from multiple verifiable sources,” said Vengosh. The researchers looked at data on water used — and oil, gas, and wastewater produced — for over 12,000 wells from 2011 to 2016.
Ingraffea, who was not involved in the study, explained that while first generation wells used 3 to 5 millions gallons of water, current third generation wells use 10 to 30 million gallons. Ingraffea — who worked with the fossil fuel industry for three decades and has been co-editor-in-chief of the journal Engineering Fracture Mechanics since 2005 — noted that the federal government “forecasts a million more such wells in the next 20 years.”
That would mean trillions of gallons of water used.
The Duke study warns that the water footprint of fracking could jump as much as 50-fold in some areas by 2030, “raising concerns about its sustainability, particularly in arid or semi-arid regions in western states, or other areas where groundwater supplies are stressed.”
As their analysis shows, some of the fracking sites that are seeing the biggest jump in water footprint per well — like the Permian and Eagle Ford Basins — are also located in highly water-stressed areas (see chart below).
One key point the study makes is that, unlike other energy sources, much of the water fracking uses is essentially lost to humanity. Either the water doesn’t escape the shale formation or, when it does come back to the surface, it “is highly saline, is difficult to treat, and is often disposed through deep injection wells.”
Therefore, even though other forms of energy have a higher intensity of water use, “the permanent loss of water use for hydraulic fracturing from the hydrosphere” may still be higher.
The study also points out that the world has seen “rapidly diminishing global water resources due to population growth and climate change.”
Yet countless studies show that because the fracking process leaks so much methane — a highly potent greenhouse gas — fracked gas isn’t a climate solution. In fact, “natural gas could warm the planet as much as coal in the short term,” one major 24-author study from June concluded. So those who continue touting fracked gas as a bridge to a low-carbon future are not keeping up with the latest science.
And so we have the tragic situation where we are using up one of our most precious non-renewable resources, water, to produce oil and gas, which worsens the stress on our water system.
As Ingraffea put it, “shale gas/oil is exchanging absurd volumes of water for absurd volumes of fossil fuels at a time where using the latter is jeopardizing the availability of the former.” At the same time, fracking “is exchanging precious volumes of water usable for drinking and farming for toxic volumes of wastewater most of which has to be transported and injected underground,” at grave risk to underground sources of drinking water. Finally, “most of what is not transported and injected stays underground, an exchange of H2O for CO2.” Therefore, almost all of what arrives at a well is forever lost to the water cycle.”
Fracking is truly a Faustian bargain.
https://thinkprogress.org/fracking-is-destroying-americas-water-supply-new-study-9cb163923d24/
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(ACC Mentioned) Court Torpedoes Trump Epa Bid to Delay Safety Standards
Aug 17, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
In another major court loss for the Trump administration, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today tossed out a rule delaying Obama-era safety standards for chemical facilities.
According to the court, EPA failed to adequately justify the 20-month delay in the face of Congress' desire to ensure protections for workers and residents against highly dangerous chemical releases.
The D.C. Circuit also found that EPA turned a Clean Air Act provision that allows for only short delays of rules on its head.
The court did not mince words: EPA "makes a mockery of the statute" with a rule that was "calculated to enable non-compliance," the 36-page opinion said.
Judges Judith Rogers and Robert Wilkins, both appointed by Democratic presidents, issued the ruling. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who is President Trump's nominee to the vacant Supreme Court seat, heard arguments in the case in March but did not participate in the opinion.
It's the third time in eight days that a federal court has ruled against a high-profile piece of the Trump EPA's deregulatory agenda, emboldening foes of the administration (Greenwire, Aug. 13).
Last week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found EPA unlawfully failed to finalize a ban on the heavily used farm chemical chlorpyrifos. Yesterday, a federal judge in South Carolina halted the administration's rule delaying implementation of the Obama-era Clean Water Rule.
"Again and again, the Trump EPA has tried to push through policies that jeopardize our health and fly in the face of the law — and again and again, we've taken them to court and won," said Democratic New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood.
At issue in the case is a regulation EPA published in January 2017, shortly before the Obama administration left office, aimed at protecting emergency responders from chemical exposure, preventing accidents at plants and helping facility operators learn from accidents that do occur.
The Obama administration issued the updated Risk Management Program (RMP) rule largely in response to a 2013 chemical fire at a Texas fertilizer facility that killed 15 people.
The new standards were supposed to start taking effect in March 2017, but then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt stayed compliance for 90 days. The agency followed up in June by announcing a nearly two-year delay to Feb. 19, 2019.
Pruitt said EPA needed more time to weigh concerns, including those raised by some states that the rule would pose national security risks because it would allow data about chemical facilities to be disclosed to the public.
But several states and a coalition of community and environmental groups sued, arguing EPA had both violated the Clean Air Act and failed to follow proper rulemaking procedures.'This is not EPA's call'
EPA based its delay on a provision of the Clean Air Act that allows the agency to put off a rule by 90 days if it has received reconsideration petitions. The agency said, though, that it needed more time to review objections to the chemical safety rule.
In court, EPA's foes argued that the agency had turned its authority to delay rules into an "effective rescission" of the Obama-era standards.
The D.C. Circuit agreed, finding that Congress clearly placed limits on EPA's ability to stay regulations.
Regardless of whether EPA believes three months is an "insufficient" amount of time, "this is not EPA's call," the court opinion says. "Congress saw fit to place a three-month statutory limit."
The court also slammed EPA's efforts to escape the 90-day limit set in the Clean Air Act provision by pointing to its general rulemaking authority. EPA would deprive the air law of "virtually all effect," the opinion says.
The delay rule is "for all intents and purposes" an attempt by EPA to stay the standards while it decides "what it wants to do, rather than a substantive amendment to tools and programs in the Chemical Disaster Rule," the D.C. Circuit ruled.
Rogers and Wilkins also ruled that EPA failed to follow proper rulemaking procedures because it didn't adequately explain why it was departing from the conclusions reached during the Obama administration.
The judges noted, though, that the ruling is narrow. EPA, they said, can still go back and substantively revise the rule and its compliance deadlines. In May, Pruitt signed off on a proposal to roll back portions of the Obama-era standards (E&E News PM, May 17).
But the judges today also devoted many words to dissecting Congress' intent in issuing the Clean Air Act.
"Reading the plain text makes clear that Congress is seeking meaningful, prompt action by EPA to promote accident prevention," they said.
At the March arguments, Rogers in particular appeared concerned by testimony from an attorney representing the United Steelworkers and other labor unions that workers continue to be hurt or killed by accidents at chemical plants.
"The record is full of this problem that these are extremely dangerous situations, people are continuing to be harmed," the Clinton-appointed judge said. "I don't see anything in the delay rule that says, 'We have evidence that these harms are not occurring.'"
An EPA spokesperson said the agency was "reviewing the decision."
The American Chemistry Council and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, two groups that supported the Trump administration's delay, did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/17/stories/1060094649
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Court Throws out EPA Delay of Obama Chemical Plant Safety Rule
Aug 17, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A federal court Friday threw out the Trump administration’s attempt to delay a chemical plant safety regulation written by the Obama administration.
In a major blow to the Trump administration, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Clean Air Act forbids the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from delaying the regulation’s enforcement, as it tried to do in June 2017.
It is the second big court loss in as many days as President Trump's EPA attempts to delay Obama administration rules, following a judge’s ruling Thursday that the agency improperly tried to delay President Obama’s Clean Water Rule.
It is the third loss for EPA deregulatory actions in just over a week, following another court’s ruling last week that the agency was wrong when it declined to ban the toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos.
“Because EPA has not engaged in reasoned decisionmaking, its promulgation of the delay rule is arbitrary and capricious,” the court wrote in its Friday opinion.
The judges said the EPA’s action “makes a mockery of the statute” and that “there is no textual basis for EPA’s current interpretation” of the law.
“By delaying the effective date, EPA has delayed compliance, reduced or eliminated the lead-up time to achieve the compliance that EPA had earlier found necessary, and thus has delayed life-saving protections.”
An EPA spokesman declined to comment on the ruling beyond saying that the agency is “reviewing” it.
New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood (D), one of the leading litigants opposing the Trump delay, cheered the court’s decision.
“Again and again, the Trump EPA has tried to push through policies that jeopardize our health and fly in the face of the law — and again and again, we've taken them to court and won,” Underwood said in a statement.
“This decision is a major victory for New Yorkers’ — and Americans’ — health and safety, ensuring that the EPA cannot put special interests first and block common sense protections against toxic chemical accidents.”
The Obama administration made the rule final a week before President Trump’s inauguration.
It set new standards for the risk management plans that chemical, manufacturing and similar facilities must write to mitigate explosions and other major incidents. It had provisions meant to prevent accidents, better incorporate lessons from them, increase information shared to local first responders and better inform the public about risks, among other pieces.
The regulation was one of the main takeaways of the 2013 chemical explosion in West, Texas, which killed 15 people.
Companies that operate the plants argued that the rule was unnecessarily costly and would put their plants at risk by exposing too much information about them.
Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt agreed. He acted last year to delay the rule — the decision at issue in Friday’s ruling — and proposed earlier this year to repeal many of its main provisions.
Environmental groups sued to stop the delay, arguing that it was illegal and dangerous.
Friday’s decision was written by Judge Judith Rogers, nominated by President Clinton; and Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama nominee.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a George W. Bush nominee, participated in the case and heard oral arguments, but did not participate in the decision or dissent from it. Trump nominated Kavanaugh last month for the Supreme Court, and his confirmation is pending in the Senate.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/402328-court-throws-out-epa-delay-of-obama-chemical-plant-safety-rule
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Aug 17, 2018 | Politico - Morning Transportation
By Brianna Gurciullo
Democrats in the Senate want to tweak a provision in the FAA bill that would preempt states’ meal and rest break laws for truckers, Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said Thursday. “We’ve got it in both versions of the bill,” he said, referring to S. 1405 (115) and H.R. 4 (115). “But Senate Democrats are now — I think in reaction to pressure from some of their constituencies — would like to change or modify it. But I suspect that this is something that both the House and Senate are very committed to getting done on a bipartisan basis, and I hope that we can keep on track to do that.”
Squeaky clean? Meanwhile, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) is looking to hitch a bill related to tariffs onto the FAA reauthorization, as The Hill reported. But Corker told reporters that leadership isn’t backing him. “Well, I think the FAA tax title we’d like to keep intact and clean,” Thune said Thursday, when asked about the Corker measure. “And so far we’ve been able to do that.”
EYE ON THE BALL: Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said Thursday she would like the Commerce Committee to hold a hearing on the recent theft of a Horizon Air plane that focuses on the use of new security technology. “I do think that technology can be helpful here, and so we’re going to look at that as one of the key issues,” she told our Stephanie Beasley. Cantwell sent a letter to Thune and ranking member Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) earlier this week requesting a field hearing. Thune has yet to respond, a committee staffer said.
Here’s an idea: An industry source said re-examining cockpit door security would be a good place to start. “That might take some sort of re-engineering of the system to be able to lock the cockpit door when the aircraft is remaining overnight, or is removed from service for maintenance, or something like that,” the source said. “It’s certainly something to consider.”
WOO FRIDAY: 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? Send it all to me: bgurciullo@politico.com or @brigurciullo.
“City traffic’s movin’ way too slow / Drop the pedal and go, go, go / We goin’ ridin’ on the freeway of love / Wind’s against our back / We goin’ ridin’ on the freeway of love / In my pink Cadillac.”
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?
NOM TIME: The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled an Aug. 23 hearing for a trio of nominees: Joel Szabat, to become assistant secretary for aviation and international affairs; Jim Morhard, to become NASA’s deputy administrator; and Kelvin Droegemeier, to become the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s director. Szabat currently serves as the deputy assistant secretary for aviation and international affairs. Asked by the committee what he thinks are his office’s “top three challenges,” Szabat mentioned promoting “safe and efficient air transportation while ensuring that U.S. carriers and the broader U.S. aviation industry are given the opportunity to compete on a fair and level playing field,” as well as being able to “efficiently and effectively manage” the Essential Air Service and Small Community Air Service Development programs. Meanwhile, Morhard noted in response to a committee question that while in the private sector, he “provided advice and guidance on the intricacies of appropriations legislation for such issues as the [NextGen] air traffic control system,” among others.
SPOTTED: Derek Kan, DOT’s undersecretary for policy, on Capitol Hill. Heidi Reutebuch, a spokeswoman for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), said the two met to discuss “transportation infrastructure issues, the future of tech policy and artificial intelligence.” Also, MT wishes a (belated) happy birthday to Kan, who turned 40 on Wednesday.
ON THE OTHER COAST: Amtrak plans to bring back service starting in the spring to a Washington bypass that was the site of a fatal derailment last year, the state’s department of transportation said Thursday. “This schedule allows time for the National Transportation Safety Board to complete its investigation and issue its recommendations related to the 2017 derailment in DuPont,” according to a statement from the department. “It also provides time to monitor how Positive Train Control (PTC) is working on the current Amtrak Cascades route, before returning the service to the bypass.”
IN WITH THE ‘IN CROWD’: Swiss International Air Lines is the 54th carrier to join TSA’s Precheck program, the agency announced Thursday. TSA has been looking to grow the program, which allows travelers to go through expedited screening lanes. It also provides the agency with more information about airline passengers. Almost 93 percent of Precheck users waited less than five minutes at checkpoints, according to the latest data from TSA.
S-SO WHERE ARE WE? D.C., Virginia and Maryland still haven’t applied for certification of their so-called state safety oversight program for Metro, FTA saidThursday. Florida also hasn’t sent an application. States that have rail transit need certification of their safety programs by mid-April 2019 to keep receiving transit funding. Twenty states — the latest being Michigan — and Puerto Rico have gottenFTA’s approval. The agency also certified D.C.’s safety program for its streetcar.
ICYMI: The White House on Thursday formally sent Ronald Vitiello’s nomination to be U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director to the Senate. He's been serving as ICE’s acting director and formerly was U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s acting deputy commissioner.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-transportation/2018/08/17/trucking-out-the-faa-bill-320174
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Ewire: EPA's CPP Replacement Plan Could Come Late Next Week
Aug 17, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Trump EPA is planning to unveil its long-awaited proposal to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) utility greenhouse gas rule with a far weaker version late next week, according to a news report, giving the agency four months to finalize the rule by its stated goal of the end of 2018.
Reuters has the goods on the timing, citing an agency source.
The schedule aligns with a prior agency pledge to issue the proposed rule by the end of August, though it might be difficult for officials to hit the year-end goal. After publishing the plan, EPA likely will take comment on it for 60 days, given the scope of the rule and the intense public interest it has generated.
That would leave just two months for agency officials to digest and respond to what is likely to be a raft of technical and legal arguments before issuing a final regulation.
EPA is issuing a narrow replacement to give industry greater regulatory certainty, rather than a riskier legal strategy of simply rescinding the CPP. Administration officials had been hoping to complete the regulation by the end of this year to give themselves the best chance of fully defending the measure in court during President Donald Trump's four-year term.
Some elements of the plan have begun surfacing in recent days, including a controversial possible element in which states could argue why they don't have to impose GHG limits for power plants at all, which was reported by Politico.
Inside EPA has been closely following the forthcoming rule, which is widely expected to focus on “inside-the-fence” measures such as increasing coal plants' efficiency. That would likely only achieve a couple of percentage points of GHG cuts from the power sector, compared with the CPP's goal of a 32 percent cut from 2005 levels by 2030.
We have also reported that the plan includes tailored reforms to the new source review (NSR) program that will allow power plants making efficiency upgrades solely to comply with the CPP to be exempt from NSR requirements to install up-to-date pollution controls.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-epas-cpp-replacement-plan-could-come-late-next-week
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EPA Plan to Retain SO2 NAAQS Prompts Competing Calls on Standard
Aug 17, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA's proposal to retain its existing sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) is prompting competing calls on the future of the NAAQS, with some industry groups in written comments calling for a weaker limit while environmentalists are pushing for the agency to issue a more-stringent standard.
EPA's May 25 proposal would leave the current SO2 NAAQS of 75 parts per billion (ppb) over one hour unchanged. The Obama EPA set the standard in 2010 using the novel one-hour averaging time, resulting in years of implementation delays while states established a new air monitoring network to ensure compliance. Under a court-ordered deadline, the agency must issue a final NAAQS rule by Jan. 28.
In recently filed written comments, the American Petroleum Institute (API) is pushing EPA to set the standard no lower than 150 ppb should it keep the existing form.
But if the agency does keep the existing 75 ppb level, API wants EPA to shift away from a 1-hour daily maximum standard to a different hourly form not dependent on daily maximum levels.
The comments follow a public hearing in Washington, D.C., July 10, where API pushed for a significantly weaker NAAQS, and also a possible shift in the form of the NAAQS. “API continues to assert a standard of 75 ppb is more stringent than necessary to protect public health because it is conservatively based on protection from 5-minute SO2 concentrations of 200 ppb and higher whereas 400 ppb and higher is an appropriate level,” API Senior Policy Advisor Ted Steichen said at the time.
In contrast, the American Lung Association in its written comments repeats its argument made at the hearing that EPA should tighten the standard down to 50 ppb, using the existing form.
Sierra Club in its written comments says EPA should reverse its proposal and “instead lower the standard, to at most 50 parts per billion, and tighten both evaluation of the standard and implementation.”
Several other industry groups in their written comments filed ahead of an Aug. 9 deadline for providing input are adopting a position in the middle ground by supporting EPA's proposal to leave the SO2 NAAQS unchanged, using its existing form. These include the Class of '85 Regulatory Response Group of 30 electric generating companies; the Utility Air Regulatory Group of electric generating utilities; the Edison Electric Institute, representing investor-owned power generators; and the National Mining Association.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-plan-retain-so2-naaqs-prompts-competing-calls-standard
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Can Trump Overcome Stumbles in Environmental Rollback?
Aug 17, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne
Earlier this week Al Gore, the former presidential candidate turned climate crusader, told a reporter that the Trump administration wasn’t as harmful to the environment as he’d feared, describing it as a “blend of malevolence and incompetence.”
A cutting insult, it was also a sharp contrast to how many other environmentalists and world leaders have portrayed the Trump administration. When Trump announced last year he was pulling the United States from the Paris climate change agreement, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “He is making a mistake for the future of his country and his people and a mistake for the future of the planet.”
But looking at some of the recent roadblocks Trump’s hit in his promise to pull back environmental regulation and speed up permitting for oil and gas projects, coal miners and industry at-large, it’s not hard to see Gore’s point.
Just in the last few weeks two major natural gas pipeline projects in Virginia were put on hold after a federal appellate court ruled the government had failed to meet their own protocols in approving permits on the projects. Of the U.S. Forest Service’s permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, the judges wrote that Americans “deserve more than silent acquiescence to a pipeline company’s justification for upending large swaths of national forest lands.”
The fallout appeared swift. The supervisor of the Jefferson National Forest now reassigned to a regional office in Atlanta, the Roanoake Times reported.
The Trump administration hasn’t fared much better in their bid to expand offshore drilling outside its traditional home off the Texas and Louisiana coasts. So far, almost every governor on the Atlantic Coast, even Republicans such as South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, has told the administration their state doesn’t want oil and gas drilling off the coast. Governors don’t have veto power on this, and Trump could go ahead without them, but in doing so, could create political backlash that he might not want to risk.
Already some pundits are wondering whether a renewed push by oil lobbyists to drill off the Gulf Coast of Florida could hurt Republican Governor Rick Scott’s bid to take one of the state’s two senate seats from the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Bill Nelson.
Come January, the Trump administration will be halfway through its first term. You would figure that to be enough time to work out some of the kinks in navigating America’s inordinately complex legal and bureaucratic systems.
And there is some sign the administration is learning from its mistakes. The promotion of Andrew Wheeler, a studied Washington hand and former top staffer in the Senate, to acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is an example. Wheeler, who is familiar with how things get done in the capital, was cheered by the oil and gas attorneys who had shaken their heads at Scott Pruitt’s repeated ethical blunders.
If that’s a sign of things to come, Gore might very well come to rue his words.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Can-Trump-overcome-stumbles-in-environmental-13162277.php
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EPA Drafting Rule to Curb Its Veto Power — Sources
Aug 17, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Ariel Wittenberg and Dylan Brown
EPA is working on a regulation to limit the agency's ability to nix water pollution permits.
Agency sources told E&E News the regulation will follow limits outlined in a June memo from former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Under the Clean Water Act, the Army Corps of Engineers is the permitting agency for dredging and filling in waterways and wetlands, but Section 404(c) of the law grants EPA the ability to restrict or veto permits.
Until Pruitt, EPA policy did not explicitly prevent the agency from moving forward with vetoes before, during or after the permitting process.
The memo forbids EPA from acting before applications are filed with the Army Corps or after a permit is issued (Greenwire, June 27).
Pruitt's action came after years of conservative outrage over the Obama administration's two uses of the veto authority. In the case of the Spruce coal mine in West Virginia, the veto was issued years after the corps' permit was issued. In the case of the Pebble Mine in Alaska, action preceded a mining proposal.
Pruitt's memo earned its own outcry from environmental groups and Democrats.
Following his departure from the agency, Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.) and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee ranking member Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) wrote a letter to acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler urging him to rescind the document.
The pair said the memo is "in opposition to the will of Congress" and that Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act "provides EPA with clear authority" to veto a project whenever the agency determines it would have an unacceptable adverse effect on aquatic resources (E&E Daily, July 20).
EPA sources, who spoke with E&E News on the condition of anonymity, say the agency is planning to submit a proposed rule nixing pre-emptive and retroactive vetoes to the White House for review by the end of December.
Agency officials did not respond to a request for official comment.
Action against Spruce sparked debate, years of litigation and congressional efforts against retroactive vetoes. Ultimately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled they were legal under a strict reading of the law.
The debate over pre-emptive vetoes intensified in 2014, when the Obama EPA, relying on a watershed assessment, proposed restrictions to protect Alaska's Bristol Bay from mining. The proposal was made before the company behind the Pebble mine had formally submitted a permit application.
The Trump administration lifted that proposal long enough for Pebble LP to submit its permit application to the Army Corps, but has not completely withdrawn the watershed assessment. That move infuriated Pruitt's conservative allies, who are now taking their case to Wheeler (Greenwire, July 31).
Pebble opponents have called on the acting chief to recuse himself because his former lobbying firm set up the meeting between Pruitt and the mining company just before Pruitt ordered his staff to start the process of tossing the 2014 restrictions — a move he would later abandon. EPA said Wheeler would not be recusing himself from matters involving Pebble.
On Aug. 2, Pebble leaders met with EPA's second in command, Henry Darwin, at agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to Darwin's online calendar.
Pebble CEO Tom Collier declined to comment on the meeting, but said a potential rulemaking was not discussed.
"From where I sit," he said, "I think that getting rid of retroactive and pre-emptive vetoes is a smart thing to do, and I hope they follow through with a rulemaking."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/17/stories/1060094643
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She's Fighting Trump on Climate Change — and Bringing Cookies
Aug 17, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
Mary Nichols, California's "queen of green," is her state's standard-bearer in the legal fight over the Trump administration's regulatory rollbacks.
A tough negotiator known for bringing homemade cookies to tense meetings, the California Air Resources Board chairwoman is still drawing up battle plans to counter President Trump's push to weaken automobile pollution rules and strip her state's ability to set its own Clean Air Act standards.
"I wish I could tell you I had a road map to success here. I don't know how it's going to play out," Nichols said in a telephone interview from her home in Los Angeles yesterday. "I hope we will be able to get our federal counterparts to sit down at the technical level, as well as the industry, and come up with an alternative to the [notice of proposed rulemaking] that the feds released in August."
Nichols, 73, plans to stay on the front lines through 2020 as leader of California's air agency, where she's emerged as one of the most dynamic and consequential regulators in the country.
After earning a law degree from Yale, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) tapped Nichols in 1975 to serve on CARB. Four years later, she was leading the council.
She went on to found the Natural Resources Defense Council's Los Angeles office in 1989 before going to work in the Clinton administration as the assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, where she ran a cap-and-trade program to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions and curb acid rain.
In 2007, Nichols was once again asked to lead the council, but this time by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. That year, Nichols moved to avoid an appearance of conflict of interest after it was revealed she had stock holdings in major oil and coal companies and utilities. Nichols put her oil stocks in a trust (Greenwire, Aug. 20, 2007).
Two years ago, Nichols' husband of 46 years, John Daum — whose longtime work representing Exxon Mobil Corp. would earn them the title of the "odd couple" in media reports — passed away.
Nichols spoke with E&E News about California's legal strategy, growing up in New York, and the power of freshly baked cookies.
Who dubbed you the "queen of green"?
[Laughs.] Dan Rather gave me that name in a profile he did when he was doing a news magazine program. I was one of his early profile subjects, and he had his crews following me around and I did various things, including a day I spent at the forestry school at Yale.
What do you hope to accomplish with the fuel efficiency standards?
An alternative to the [federal notice of proposed rulemaking, or NPRM] that gives companies some relief, particularly in light of the changes in their market and the transformation the industry is going through, but at the same time keeps them moving forward toward meeting our goals both for fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions.
We're doing the best we can to marshal all the legal and political and technical tools we have to make that happen.
Are you discussing your legal strategies around the fuel efficiency standards?
No, although it is true that even with our actions we are able to take that directly relate to fuels and vehicles, we're also looking at other ways of reducing the total amount of driving that's going on for a variety of reasons.
At our board meeting in September, we're looking at a rule that would require transit agencies as they turn over their fleets to purchase a percentage of their buses as zero-emission buses, so battery-electric or fuel cells.
You met with acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in July. Were you surprised when EPA moved to roll back the clean car standards?
Not really. He's lived up to his reputation as someone who knows his way around the agency, is committed to process — which is a big change from his predecessor — as someone who's interested in making progress on the environmental front, but also somebody who's deeply loyal to the administration and won't do anything to derail a process that was almost finished by the time he got there that led to this NPRM.
I didn't get the sense he was deeply wedded to the details that were in the NPRM. I think it was well along in the Office of Management and Budget process at that point.
I understand — not from anything he's said to me directly, but other sources — that he made an effort to improve the NPRM by attempting to make some of the more extreme arguments at least be modified. He wasn't successful in that.
Do you have plans to meet with him again?
Not at the moment, but it's quite likely we'll have an opportunity to talk again in the next few weeks.
You've been known to bring homemade cookies to tense meetings.
[Laughs] Hopefully, it illustrates that I believe in government; we have a tendency to take ourselves very seriously, and the work we do is serious. But if people can't find a way to relate to each other on a more human level, then it's much more difficult to actually arrive at practical solutions that can be communicated to real people.
Have you seen the leaked draft of EPA's Clean Power Plan replacement? Any thoughts?
The Clean Power Plan is perhaps in even more trouble than the vehicle standards, in the sense that they're trying to come up with something new. And so far, it doesn't look like much. We'll be commenting.
Would the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court change your legal strategy?
At this point, I wouldn't say we have to come up with a strategy that includes never having a case go to the Supreme Court because of the potential that Kavanaugh could be sitting there. He's certainly not somebody we would be expecting to be an advocate for us, but in spite of that fact, people change when they move from the Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court, get involved in a generally broader set of considerations. He is a former clerk for Justice [Anthony] Kennedy who was a very important vote in decisions.
It has not caused us to change our position.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Ithaca, N.Y. My father was a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell. My mother had a doctorate in French literature and taught in the local schools. Both of my parents were also local elected officials, so I grew up in a political family. My dad was the mayor of Ithaca for three terms. After he stepped down as mayor, he served on the school board.
Would you ever go back to work at EPA?
I don't think it would be something that would ever be in the cards. All the jobs, including the one I have now, need to be turned over to future generations.
I’m looking forward to the day that happens; I'm just not in a big rush right now.
And you're expecting to lead CARB through 2020?
I've had a direct conversation with [Democratic Lt. Gov.] Gavin Newsom, who's likely the next governor of California, in which he indicated he would like for me to stay. I told him that I would be honored to work through a transition. But we didn't set a deadline.
Is there a reason you wanted to stay?
I feel like I'm in the middle of a couple of really big things — certainly, the future of our auto standards is fundamental to California's entire approach to air quality and climate change and our ability to set standards for new motor vehicles, which then in turn enables us to work more effectively on fuels.
I'm having a wonderful time.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/17/stories/1060094645
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