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ACC PM 24/08/18
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(ACC Mentioned) PS, PET Bottle Resin Prices Move in July
Aug 24, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
The lazy days of summer proved lazy indeed for North American commodity resin prices in July, as only solid polystyrene and PET bottle resin showed any change from the previous month. -
Pesticide Studies Won E.P.A.’s Trust, Until Trump’s Team Scorned ‘Secret Science’
Aug 24, 2018 | The New York Times
By Danny Hakim and Eric Lipton
José Camacho once worked the fields here in the Salinas Valley, known as “the Salad Bowl of the World” for its abundance of lettuce and vegetables. -
Embattled Science Office: 6 Years With No Confirmed Leader
Aug 24, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
EPA's top science post has been vacant for six years, and there's no sign anyone will be hired soon. -
The Trump Administration Might Be Deregulating More Than You Know (Or Could Know)
Aug 24, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Simon F. Haeder and Susan Webb Yackee
Since President Trump took office last year, his administration has been working to undo many Obama-era regulations affecting clean water, national parks, energy production and more. -
Bipartisan Bills to Address PFAS Contamination Introduced in Senate
Aug 24, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
Senators introduced two bipartisan bills today aimed at dealing with the country's burgeoning water contamination crisis from nonstick chemicals. -
Bipartisan Bills Target Emerging Environmental Threat
Aug 24, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Corbin Hiar
A coalition of senators from both sides of the aisle have introduced bills to address the dangers posed by a class of toxic compounds that have polluted the water supplies of millions of Americans. -
Will Brett Kavanaugh Keep Asbestos Legal?
Aug 24, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Melanie Benesh and Scott Faber
Will a vote for Brett Kavanaugh for the critical swing seat on the Supreme Court be a vote to keep asbestos legal? -
40 Years After the Love Canal Crisis I Still Feel Unsafe
Aug 24, 2018 | The Hill - Opinion
By Lois Gibbs
The other day I asked my daughter if her kids’ school tested their drinking water for lead. -
5 Reasons Your Food Could Be Messing with Your Hormones
Aug 24, 2018 | SHAPE
By Shannon Bauer
As with all things in wellness, balance is key—in your diet, exercise plan, and even your hormones. -
Ex-Chief Worries Trump 'Embedding' Staff at FERC
Aug 24, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
Jon Wellinghoff, the longest-serving head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, worries politics are seeping into the agency he once led. -
Ships May Switch From Crude to Gas to Meet New Rule—Energy Journal
Aug 24, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Neanda Salvaterra
The global shipping industry could become a new market for liquefied natural gas, because of a change in maritime law that aims to curb air pollution, writes the WSJ’s Paul Garvey. -
(ACC Mentioned) Courts Block Trump Administration from Further Delays of Chemical Safety Law
Aug 24, 2018 | The Chemical Engineer
By Amanda Doyle
A FEDERAL appeals court has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop delaying an Obama-era law that would improve safety at chemical facilities. -
From FRA, a $200MM PTC Infusion and An Upbeat Progress Report
Aug 24, 2018 | Railway Age Magazine
By Mischa Wanek-Libman
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has awarded more than $200 million in funds to assist with the deployment of Positive Train Control (PTC), with a second solicitation expected soon for a remaining $46 million. -
PTC = Progress Toward Completion
Aug 24, 2018 | Politico
By Brianna Gurciullo
PTC = PROGRESS TOWARD COMPLETION: Three out of 12 railroads deemed “at risk” of blowing the positive train control deadline or being ineligible for an extension have gotten themselves off that list, according to the FRA. -
A Chorus of Opposition to Wheeler’s Sham Clean Power Plan Replacement
Aug 24, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Charlie Jiang
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler just released his proposal to severely weaken America’s only nation-wide carbon pollution protections for existing power plants – to a chorus of opposition from the American public, state and local officials, faith organizations, health and environmental organizations, and leaders across the political spectrum. -
Clean Power Plan 2.0 Better Than Original, But Only Congress Can Solve ‘Wicked Problems’
Aug 24, 2018 | RealClearEnergy
By William Murray
How to get the United States to lower its greenhouse gas emissions profile without harming the economy is becoming the “wicked problem” of the 21st Century. -
Uncertainty Lingers Over Bills That May Frame Gov. Brown's Climate Legacy
Aug 24, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Curt Barry
With only a week left in California's 2018 legislative session, uncertainty surrounds many high-profile energy bills that could frame Gov. Jerry Brown's (D) climate and clean power legacy, and some measures might be tied up in deal-making likely to take place in the final day and possibly final hours of the session, sources say. -
Statewide Bill to Limit Straws Heads to Governor
Aug 24, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
By Sophia Bollag
California lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown (D) a bill yesterday that would ban full-service restaurants from handing out straws unless a customer requests one. -
19 Global Cities Commit to Make New Buildings Net-Zero By 2030
Aug 24, 2018 | EcoWatch
By Lorraine Chow
The world's most iconic skylines are going green.
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(ACC Mentioned) PS, PET Bottle Resin Prices Move in July
Aug 24, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
The lazy days of summer proved lazy indeed for North American commodity resin prices in July, as only solid polystyrene and PET bottle resin showed any change from the previous month.
For PS, a decline of 3 cents per pound occurred as prices for benzene feedstock — used to make styrene monomer — dipped 15 cents to $2.84 per gallon. That move represents a 5 percent decline vs. benzene prices for June.
Regional PS prices had been flat in June after falling 4 cents per pound in May. Counting previous increases and decreases, PS prices now are down a net of 1 cent per pound for the year.
North American PS sales slumped 5.5 percent in the first half of 2018. A domestic sales loss of just over 6 percent was lessened by a 19 percent surge in export sales. PS sales to resellers and distributors grew almost 10 percent in that six-month period.
PET bottle resin prices declined by an average of 2 cents per pound in July after having increased 3 cents in June and 2 cents in May. Lower demand was cited as a reason for the July dip.
Scattered production issues and tighter supplies of feedstocks could make regional PET markets tighter in August and September, sources said. This change could lead to flat pricing or even give regional PET makers a chance to raise prices, they added.
Average North American market prices for all grades of polyethylene, polypropylene and PVC were flat in July. High and low density PE prices now have been flat for four straight months, with linear LDPE prices now flat for two months in a row after sliding 3 cents in May.
In spite of a flat market, the impacts of large new amounts of HDPE and LLDPE capacity are being felt in regional demand. U.S./Canadian sales of HDPE jumped 8.8 percent in the first half of 2018, according to the American Chemistry Council, with LLDPE sales booming 16.3 percent. Exports played a big role in this growth, with LLDPE exports up an astonishing 60.2 percent and HDPE exports leaping 18.9 percent.
Domestic market growth for those materials also exceeded that of U.S. GDP. HDPE sales into the domestic market were up 6.5 percent in the first half, with domestic LLDPE sales up 4 percent.
Sales of LDPE — where less new capacity has been added — ticked up 0.9 percent for the half, as a 0.4 percent export loss weakened domestic growth of 1.4 percent. LDPE's nonpackaging film end market — including retail bags and trash and can liners — grew 7 percent.
Regional PP prices took a rare break in July after surging 8 cents per pound in June after moving up 7 cents in May. That followed a two-month period in March-April when prices slipped a total of 7 cents.
PP prices in the region now are up a net of 11 cents per pound for the year. Total price volatility for the material — including all increase and decreases — has reached 40 cents per pound.
For PP, North American sales dipped 0.5 percent. A 23.8 percent decline in export sales countered a gain of 0.2 percent in the domestic market. Among major end markets, sales of PP into oriented film were up 17 percent and into injection molded caps and closures were up 7 percent.
Regional suspension PVC prices were flat for the third straight month in July after moving down an average of 2 cents in April. First-half U.S./Canadian PVC growth of 5.5 percent was powered by export growth of 17 percent.
Sales of PVC into the domestic market ticked up 0.6 percent. Among major end markets, PVC sales into extruded windows and doors surged upward by 31 percent in the first half.Recycled resin changes
Plastics News also recently showed pricing changes for several recycled materials. In PET bottle resin, average selling prices for clear, post-consumer pellets and flake are both up 5 cents per pound since April. Prices for green, post-consumer PET flake and pellets are also up 5 cents in the same time period. These materials have been in higher demand as manufacturers work to meet sustainability goals.
"Demand for [recycled PET] pellet from bottle and packaging manufacturers continues to rise due to call to increase recycled plastics in plastic bottles, other containers and packaging," according to a recent report from the PetroChem Wire LLC consulting firm in Houston.
For recycled HDPE, prices for multicolored, post-consumer flake are down 5 cents per pound since April. In recycled polypropylene, prices for industrial flake are down 4 cents per pound in that same time period. Both moves are the result of decreased domestic demand and increased supplies resulting from lower exports of recycled material to Asia.
At the macro-feedstock level, U.S. prices for West Texas Intermediate crude oil slipped from $71.50 per barrel at the start of July to $67.75 by the end of the month for a decline of 5 percent. U.S. natural gas prices also slid, starting July at $2.85 per million British thermal units, but bouncing around before finishing near $2.75 by the end of the month for a decline of 3.5 percent.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180824/NEWS/180829929/ps-pet-bottle-resin-prices-move-in-july
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Pesticide Studies Won E.P.A.’s Trust, Until Trump’s Team Scorned ‘Secret Science’
Aug 24, 2018 | The New York Times
By Danny Hakim and Eric Lipton
José Camacho once worked the fields here in the Salinas Valley, known as “the Salad Bowl of the World” for its abundance of lettuce and vegetables. His wife still does.
But back in 2000, Mr. Camacho, who is 63, got an unusual phone call. He was asked if he wanted to work for a new project studying the effects of pesticides on the children of farm workers.
“This seemed really crazy,” he recalled saying at the time, since he barely spoke English. “A research study?”
The project, run by scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, and funded in part by the Environmental Protection Agency, is still going all these years later. Known as Chamacos, Spanish for “children,” it has linked pesticides sprayed on fruit and vegetable crops with respiratory complications, developmental disorders and lower I.Q.s among children of farm workers. State and federal regulators have cited its findings to help justify proposed restrictions on everything from insecticides to flame-retardant chemicals.
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But the Trump administration wants to restrict how human studies like Chamacos are used in rule-making. A government proposal this year, called Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science, could stop them from being used to justify regulating pesticides, lead and pollutants like soot, and undermine foundational research behind national air-quality rules. The E.P.A., which has funded these kinds of studies, is now labeling many of them “secret science.”
Studying disease trends in specific groups of people — a branch of medicine known as epidemiology — started to gain currency at the E.P.A. in recent years. These studies can be difficult because they require adjusting for all the various substances people are exposed to beyond pesticides. But researchers had amassed years of data from a wave of compelling chemical studies begun in the 1990s, giving regulators a new body of research to incorporate into their decision-making.
Under the Obama administration, the E.P.A., which had long favored tests on rats and other laboratory animals in its pesticide regulation, began considering epidemiological studies more seriously. The agency leaned on this type of research in proposing to ban an insecticide called chlorpyrifos in late 2016, and has been repeatedly prodded to take action on the chemical by federal courts.
But weeks after Donald J. Trump was elected president, CropLife America, the main agrochemical trade group, petitioned the E.P.A. to “halt regulatory decisions that are highly influenced and/or determined by the results of epidemiological studies” unless universities were forced to share more of their data.
EDITORS’ PICKSThis Is the Way Paul Ryan’s Speakership EndsThe Flourishing Business of Fake YouTube ViewsNaomi Osaka’s Breakthrough GameImageJosé Camacho was asked in 2000 to participate in the study, which tracks families as they go about their normal lives. Such research was embraced by the E.P.A. during the Obama administration.CreditCarlos Chavarría for The New York TimesIndustry leaders aggressively challenged such studies in high-level meetings and emails with E.P.A. leaders, according to thousands of pages of documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests. One trade group invited a top E.P.A. official to meet with its Washington lobbyist last year, complaining that “carefully controlled” animal studies were giving way to “conclusions reflected in epidemiological papers.”
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Gary W. Van Sickle, executive director of the California Specialty Crops Council, wrote to the agency last September that “there have been serious flaws with E.P.A.’s conclusion to use these data.”
The council, representing growers of crops as diverse as carrots, garlic, pears and peppers, cited “inappropriate use of the epidemiology.”
The E.P.A., whose new leadership is seeded with industry veterans, has responded. In a mid-July assessment of atrazine, a widely used weed killer long banned in Europe, the agency reviewed and dismissed 12 recent epidemiological studies linking the herbicide to such ailments as childhood leukemia and Parkinson’s disease. It echoed the conclusions of research funded by Syngenta, atrazine’s manufacturer, finding the chemical unlikely to cause cancer.
Before scandals forced Scott Pruitt out last month as head of the E.P.A., he proposed the transparency regulation. It would ban many epidemiological studies, and other outside research, unless more data behind the studies was made public. In doing so, he revived a strategy advanced for years by congressional Republicans and corporate interests like tobacco companies.
“The era of secret science at E.P.A. is coming to an end,” Mr. Pruitt proclaimed at the time. The agency’s new acting administrator, Andrew R. Wheeler, says he’s moving forward with the proposal, as the agency re-evaluates a class of widely used insecticides, called organophosphates, that have been the subject of numerous epidemiological studies like Chamacos.
Nancy B. Beck, a chemical industry veteran who is the E.P.A.’s deputy assistant administrator, said there was no attempt to thwart epidemiology, adding that the agency was committed to “the best available science in the most transparent manner.”
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But academics and state health officials say universities are being pressured to release data that would ultimately divulge the identities of study participants, a strategy once used by tobacco companies seeking to undermine research on the dangers of smoking. While participant data is shared with regulators in drug trials, academics fear that the E.P.A.’s proposal would additionally require divulging confidential personal information, potentially violating privacy regulations for federally funded research.ImageAna Lilia Sanchez, a farm worker and the mother of a participant in the Salinas Valley study, said her family took precautions to avoid pesticide contamination.CreditCarlos Chavarría for The New York Times
“It is a naked attempt to use a false claim that something nefarious is going on with these studies in an effort to allow industry to challenge conclusions that are not in their favor,” said James Kelly, a manager of environmental surveillance at the Minnesota Department of Health.A Wave of Studies, an Uneasy Industry
An advertisement in a Nebraska student newspaper was looking for people who wanted to “earn extra money.” Thirty-six college student volunteers and others from the community who responded were paid $460 to drink gelatin capsules filled with the pesticide chlorpyrifos, at up to 300 times levels the E.P.A. considered safe, without a full discussion of the risks.
Sponsored by Dow Chemical, this study, conducted in 1998, was one of the last of its kind. That year, the E.P.A. banned the use of studies exposing people to pesticides, and it continues to severely restrict them.
Epidemiology, which has been used to examine everything from the effects of climate change to childhood obesity, offered a way to continue studying disease trends, amid new legal requirements to examine how pesticides particularly affect infants and children. And it could do so by tracking people during their normal lives instead of treating them as if they were lab rats. Chamacos and other studies began almost immediately, although it took decades to collect sufficient data and study how participants changed over time.
One study by Columbia University researchers linked an insecticide to developmental delays in toddlers. Another, by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, connected pesticides to Parkinson’s disease. Academics at the University of Rochester found that pesticides lower sperm counts in men, while researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found lower fertility in women.
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By 2015, there was a growing body of research, often funded in part by the E.P.A. The agency decided that year to consult epidemiology more seriously in its evaluation of glyphosate, the world’s most popular weed killer and the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup.
“This is a watershed event in our Program, and one which I feel particularly proud to be a part (go epi!!),” Carol Christensen, then an E.P.A. epidemiologist, wrote in a 2015 email to a colleague — using “epi” as shorthand for epidemiology. “In the 35 year history of our program, this will be the FIRST time epi studies are actively considered in the decision making.”
Yet even then, there was friction over what to make of studies aiming to determine whether glyphosate causes cancer.
One E.P.A. division, the Office of Research and Development, closely examined epidemiological research and came to believe either that glyphosate was likely to cause cancer or that there was at least some evidence suggesting a problem. But another division, the Office of Pesticide Programs, was dismissive of epidemiological studies and determined that glyphosate was not a carcinogen, a view that prevailed at the E.P.A., according to interviews, emails and an internal memo obtained by The New York Times. Those involved in the agency’s debates on epidemiology spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions weren’t public.
Monsanto said in a statement that “we cannot speak to the internal E.P.A. discussions” but emphasized the agency’s ultimate finding that glyphosate was not likely to cause cancer.
The cancer question received renewed attention this month when a California jury awarded $289 million to a groundskeeper who alleged that the chemical had sickened him. In his closing argument, the plaintiff’s attorney, R. Brent Wisner, called epidemiology one of “the three pillars of cancer science” that the case relied on.
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At the E.P.A., the debate swung in favor of epidemiology. While such studies are often complex and can be of varying quality, the agency was reluctant in the past to give them as much weight as lab experiments on animals. But by the Obama administration’s final months, the agency moved for the first time to ban a pesticide largely because of epidemiological research.
The pesticide, chlorpyrifos, was the same one ingested years earlier by unwitting Nebraskans. It is applied to crops like apples, oranges and strawberries to combat insects like spider mites and sap-sucking bugs.
In California alone, chlorpyrifos was sprayed on 640,000 acres in 2016, according to state data. And research from Salinas, and the Chamacos study, became a central element in the E.P.A.’s recommendation.
“There is a breadth of information available on the potential adverse neurodevelopmental effects in infants and children as a result of prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos,” the agency concluded in 2016, also citing epidemiological research from Columbia University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
The pesticide industry’s reaction was loud and intense.
Monsanto, in emails with the E.P.A., was dismissive of critical epidemiological research related to Roundup, writing that “such studies are well known to be prone to a number of biases.”ImageA Trump administration proposal would prevent the E.P.A. from using many epidemiological studies, like the one in Salinas, unless more data behind them was made public.CreditCarlos Chavarría for The New York Times
Dow Chemical said in reports submitted to the E.P.A. that “the evidence from these studies is insufficient” and called chlorpyrifos a “proven first-line of defense” against new pest outbreaks.
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A month after taking over the E.P.A., Mr. Pruitt acted. He disregarded agency scientists and rejected the proposed chlorpyrifos ban, later callingfor “a new day, a new future, for a common-sense approach to environmental protection.”View From the Field
Ana Lilia Sanchez, 50, has worked in the fields in Salinas more than half her life, and one of her daughters has been a Chamacos study participant.
Ms. Sanchez has learned to watch for drifting droplets or the whir of a helicopter spraying overhead.
“Sometimes when we feel it, or we hear it, we start talking about it,” she said recently, sitting with her 5-month-old granddaughter at her home on a Salinas cul-de-sac. “Why wouldn’t they tell us, you know, to get out of here, to not come today?” she asked. “Women, they cover themselves, but men are working in short sleeves, so they are more exposed.”
Insecticides like chlorpyrifos are organophosphates, from the same chemical family as nerve agents like sarin and Novichok, the Russian-developed compound linked to recent attacks in Britain. While the safety of insecticides is extensively tested, long-term health impacts, or even how far pesticides drift, are the subject of continuing disagreement.
Ms. Sanchez showers after work, before touching her granddaughter.
“I also put my clothes aside,” she said. “We separate the clothes we use when we’re working, both my husband and I, and wash them separately so they’re not contaminated.”
While some human studies examine potential harm from pesticide residue found on fruits and vegetables, the Chamacos project is more personal, following hundreds of children in the heart of where American food is grown. California has the nation’s largest agricultural industry and uses more than 200 million pounds of pesticides annually.
ADVERTISEMENTImageBrenda Eskenazi, the director of the Salinas Valley project, said that “well-controlled epidemiologic studies” were essential for understanding “how things affect human health.”CreditCarlos Chavarría for The New York Times
For locals, pesticides are part of life. “It’s a big difference from when I was working,” Mr. Camacho said, while standing in a strawberry field framed on three sides by distant hills. Men and women were bent over nearby, pulling weeds. “My supervisor would say: ‘That’s not dangerous. Just keep working.’ There was no information.”
Chamacos is built on an unsettling premise: What happens to children of pregnant mothers certain to have pesticides in their bloodstreams? The E.P.A. and other government agencies have spent millions of dollars funding Chamacos.
Half the Chamacos children have been tracked since before birth. Researchers have collected 350,000 samples of blood, urine, breast milk and even household dust and spent nearly two decades studying maturing children. They perform neurodevelopmental and physical assessments and study factors like diet and school performance. After nearly two decades, the study’s data appears in more than 160 academic papers.
During a visit to the Chamacos office in Salinas, Brenda Eskenazi, the director of the project and a professor of epidemiology at Berkeley, was testing out brain monitoring equipment, wearing what looked like a black swim cap strewn with knobs and wiring. She has long been fascinated with cognitive development, going back to when she saw a Woodstock reveler — one having a bad acid trip — dive into pavement.
“Why did he do that?” Ms. Eskenazi remembers wondering at the time. “What was he thinking? What’s going on in that brain?”
“Any science is imperfect,” she said, but stressed that “well-controlled epidemiologic studies” were essential for understanding “how things affect human health.” She added, “Otherwise you’re just making huge assumptions that a rodent is the same as a human.”
ADVERTISEMENTA Bitter Debate
The day after Mr. Pruitt made his March 2017 decision to reject a ban on chlorpyrifos, he hosted top executives from one of the nation’s largest farming and pesticide trade organizations for a closed-door conversation.
Near the top of the meeting agenda was “Epidemiology Study Policy” in the aftermath of the “chlorpyrifos matter,” according to internal records.ImageMcKinnon Elementary School in Salinas. The pesticide industry contends that epidemiological studies are prone to biases and not as reliable as testing on lab animals.CreditCarlos Chavarría for The New York Times
“There are no guideposts, if you will, for what is a legitimate, useful epidemiology study and what is not,” Jay Vroom, CropLife America’s president, said in an interview, explaining what he had told agency officials at this and other meetings.
In a subsequent letter to the E.P.A., a CropLife America lobbyist said the agency was relying on a “shortsighted approach,” and the group submitted formal proposals to curb the embrace of epidemiology the E.P.A. undertook under the Obama administration.
Mr. Pruitt responded with his proposal, made this past spring, to ban epidemiological and other studies that did not make study details public, including at least some information on study participants.
Academics have resisted previous requests to review their data, notably at Columbia University. In a 2016 letter to the agency, a university official wrote that it could not provide “extensive individual level data to E.P.A. in a way that ensures the confidentiality” of “our research subjects.”
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David Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration during the Obama administration, said Mr. Pruitt’s plan was not about transparency but about discrediting studies that made pesticides look bad.
“The underlying justification for this ‘transparency’ proposal is a caricature of how science really works,” Mr. Michaels said at a recent hearing. “The cynical approach proposed by E.P.A. can be best described as ‘weaponized transparency.’”
It is no coincidence, he said, that the term “secret science” was also used in the 1970s when the tobacco industry was trying to forestall critical research about smoking.
Researchers have had wins. This month, a federal appeals court ordered the E.P.A. to ban chlorpyrifos, citing findings from human studies. The Trump administration is mulling whether to appeal.
But epidemiologists are unsettled. In mid-July, after nearly two decades of work on Chamacos, the E.P.A. emailed Ms. Eskenazi requesting “the original data” from her research, citing “uncertainty around neurodevelopmental effects associated” with pesticides she has studied. The agency made a similar request to Columbia.
Ms. Eskenazi, worried about her study participants’ privacy, alerted university lawyers. She is now concerned that the E.P.A. may try to undermine her study’s repeated findings that some pesticides may be harming children.
“I knew this was going to come sooner or later,” she said. “And here it is.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/business/epa-pesticides-studies-epidemiology.html
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Embattled Science Office: 6 Years With No Confirmed Leader
Aug 24, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
EPA's top science post has been vacant for six years, and there's no sign anyone will be hired soon.
The Office of Research and Development has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since Paul Anastas left in early 2012. President Obama's next nominee for that job languished in the face of Republican opposition, and the Trump administration hasn't put forward its own nominee during 19 months in office.
The long-term lack of leadership in EPA's research arm has current staffers and former agency officials worried about the state of science at the agency charged with protecting public health and the environment. They warn that the Trump administration is overhauling EPA's science policies and crafting consequential rules without giving proper consideration to the agency's experienced researchers. And some see it as a signal that the administration more broadly is sidelining scientists as it advances industry-friendly policies.
"The strategic decisions are made at the political level," said Anastas, who's now a professor at Yale University. "If science isn't at those strategic discussions, there's an important voice being left out."
The administration is rumored to have reached out to several people for the job, all of whom declined, according to a career EPA employee. Myron Ebell of the Conservative Enterprise Institute, who led the EPA transition team under President Trump, said he suggested several people for the agency to consider. "I don't know whether any of them wanted the job," he said. "It's frustrating that they still have these openings."
EPA's press office did not respond to a request for comment about the lack of political leadership in the science office.
The Office of Research and Development (ORD) "is the scientific research arm" of the agency, "whose leading-edge research helps provide the solid underpinning of science and technology for the agency," according to EPA's website. The office's research covers topics including air, climate, chemical safety, human health risks and water safety.
ORD has about 1,700 employees, according to an agency spokesman. Its staff is the largest within EPA's headquarters, and it's the second largest division after the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance when the regional office staff is included.
Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta. EPA
For now, longtime EPA career employee Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta is at the helm of the science office as its principal deputy assistant administrator. She has a doctorate in wildlife science and public health and has been at EPA since 1981. She's respected by her colleagues, but she isn't seen as an empowered leader of the office.
"The person we have is excellent, but she's an underdog," the career EPA employee said. Orme-Zavaleta attends meetings with political staff, and "she's there from time to time briefing them, but there's no consequence for them beating up on her," that person added. "ORD as a whole is being held hostage by the fact that we don't have someone at their equivalent stature going to bat for us."
There's an issue of trust, said Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Any administration needs someone they're going to trust in a leadership position, and this administration in particular is extremely distrustful of career staff," he said.
If the career staff running EPA's science division "were to threaten to quit and go to your news group or The Washington Post with a tell-all of how EPA is distorting science, it's a lot less powerful than if President Trump's nominee does it," said Bernard Goldstein, EPA science adviser during the Reagan administration. He took the science office's reins in late 1983, after Reagan's first EPA leader, Anne Gorsuch Burford, had resigned under pressure and while William Ruckelshaus was doing his second tour as administrator.
Goldstein recalled butting heads with EPA's air office over wood-stove rules. Congress wanted EPA to regulate pollution from wood stoves, but — fearing pushback for regulating household stoves — the air office drafted a document downplaying the cancer risks, he said.
As ORD chief, Goldstein went to Ruckelshaus to defend the science. Ultimately, by using the threat of regulation, the air office worked with industry to boost wood stoves' efficiency to produce less smoke and reduce the health risks, Goldstein said.
"Being in the room when the information on a regulation that's science-based is presented to the administrator and the deputy administrator for a decision is really important to protect the science," Goldstein said. "Having someone who is nominated and confirmed by the Senate gives one more likelihood of being able to be there."
Norine Noonan, who led the EPA science office during the Clinton administration, said her shop provided scientific support for tougher limits on fine particle air pollution and on arsenic in drinking water. She was frequently called before Congress to defend her office's work.
Bob Huggett, who was also appointed to lead EPA's science office under Clinton, said he had to battle "all the time" to defend the agency's research — on Capitol Hill, in particular.
He recalled an epic brawl over curbing fine particle pollution. "We had hearings on the Hill, fights that you can't believe. [California Rep.] Dana Rohrabacher and other Republicans didn't want any part of it because it would have been more stringent regulations on emitters," Huggett said.
Former officials say it's important to have the backing of the White House during those fights.
And there are plenty of political fights ahead for some of the big scientific and regulatory decisions currently pending at EPA.
The agency has proposed to overhaul how science is used in rulemaking by barring some scientific studies for which the underlying data aren't publicly available. Supporters of that move say it will boost transparency, but critics — including many scientists — say it will keep important public health data from being considered and will result in weaker regulations.
A political appointee in the research office, Richard Yamada, is a former House Republican staffer who is widely seen as a driving force behind the push to change which science EPA uses in rulemakings (Climatewire, May 23).
EPA is also drafting important regulations dealing with everything from climate change and air pollution to water contaminants and pesticides. Those include major greenhouse gas rules for cars and power plants, which have been proposed but not finalized.
Not everyone is convinced that a political leader in the science office is critical for moving ahead.
"Obviously the agency has been able to proceed with rulemakings. They have a Science Advisory Board, a Clean Air [Scientific] Advisory Committee; they have an agency with thousands of scientists in it," said Howard Feldman, senior director for regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Petroleum Institute. "I'm not sure a singular individual is that essential."
But former EPA officials and some advocacy groups say an empowered science official should be on hand to help shape those moves.
The bureaucracy of the science office has attracted scrutiny in the past. A report by the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council back in 2000 found that the assistant administrator for the research office was one of EPA's weakest and most transient administrative positions, Government Executive reported at the time. The report found that the role had no authority over scientific work done by EPA program officials or the regional offices and often sparred with the agency's lawyers.
The power of the position to defend science likely depends on how much sway its holder has with the agency's top political brass. Former EPA officials and some advocacy groups are calling for Trump to hire an empowered science official to help shape future policies.
"Without science at the table, you're guaranteed not to have a strong scientific basis for your decision," said Tom Burke, who was appointed by Obama to replace Anastas as the head of the research and development office. Burke wasn't confirmed before the administration left office.
"This has not been a supportive environment for the application of science to policy choices," he added.
He and other critics of the Trump administration pointed to a recent EPA court setback on the pesticide chlorpyrifos as an example of where a confirmed official might have changed the outcome.
In that instance, then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected agency scientists' proposed ban on the pesticide, prompting a fierce backlash from critics. A federal court earlier this month ordered EPA to reinstate the ban (Greenwire, Aug. 9).
"The science was settled on that," said Noonan, the Clinton-era ORD chief. "Without a leader in ORD — not that the administrator would necessarily go along with it or even listen — but when there is no assistant administrator at ORD, there is no one at the agency who can stand on the pillars of science and technology and say, 'This is a mistake.'"
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/24/stories/1060095083
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The Trump Administration Might Be Deregulating More Than You Know (Or Could Know)
Aug 24, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Simon F. Haeder and Susan Webb Yackee
Since President Trump took office last year, his administration has been working to undo many Obama-era regulations affecting clean water, national parks, energy production and more. Most recently, President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency has proposed weakening Obama-era regulations on coal-fired power plants.
But there could be still more deregulating underway than most government watchers realize. Trump — like many presidents of both parties — is using the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to change regulations before they are issued. And while these changes can be significant, the public has little or no ability to learn about them.
Here’s how we did our research
Rulemaking is a crucial, if often overlooked, part of making public policy. When Congress passes a law, it often tasks a specific agency with implementing it. That’s because these agencies are staffed by subject-matter experts with appropriate training. And it means that the executive branch must often decide how to put laws to work, which can profoundly shape their effects in the real world.
To ensure that the public can observe this policymaking, the relevant agency must first publish a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” in the Federal Register that solicits public comments. This notice offers detail on how the agency plans to implement the law. After “considering” those comments and, at times, making changes based on them, the agency typically promulgates a legally binding “Final Rule” that defines how the law will be put into effect.
[Congress is about to loosen the reins on the banking industry. Here’s why.]
With thousands of rules issued each year, one might assume that the agencies craft these regulations somewhat autonomously, relying on civil servants’ neutral expertise and public commenters’ feedback. But because these rules are often consequential, the White House rarely leaves rulemaking to chance. A Clinton-era executive order requires the OMB to act as a gatekeeper by reviewing all “significant” government regulations, an order designed to make the OMB review process more transparent than it had been under previous administrations. This order also authorizes the OMB to offer “suggested policy changes” to the issuing agency, so that the agency can modify its rules to better fit “presidential priorities” and other goals.
To determine how the OMB exercised its power, we studied more than 1,500 final regulations that the OMB reviewed between 2005 and 2011 under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. We determined whether the OMB sent the rules back to agencies with suggested changes or accepted them as is. We also analyzed a set of more than 120 significant rules using plagiarism software to see whether the agencies accepted the OMB’s suggested changes.
Our goal: assess whether the OMB was more likely to request changes to rules issued by liberal, neutral or conservative agencies. We used two standard metrics for determining agency ideology: one based on expert opinions and one based on a survey of federal executives.
Here’s what we found
1. Both Republican and Democratic presidents rewrite rules from left-leaning agencies
Under both Republican and Democratic presidents, the OMB was more likely to recommend changes to rules proposed by liberal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Labor, than those submitted by neutral or conservative agencies.
Without cataloguing the precise changes requested by the OMB, we can’t know whether Democratic and Republican presidents seek the same sorts of shifts. It could be that Republican presidents use the OMB to water down these rules while Democrats try to toughen them, or vice versa. Nonetheless, a number of scholars have noted that since the 1980s, the OMB has had a deregulatory bent, favoring business over consumer and environmental interests. While these scholars found individual instances of this, our work is the first step toward a large-scale quantitative assessment.
[Why is it so hard to regulate guns — even though gun regulation is so popular?]
2. Some deregulation may occur away from public view
The Clinton-era executive order that established the modern OMB review also requires agencies to document and publish any substantive policy changes that result from that review. This was meant to ensure transparency in the process. Years ago, however, the Government Accountability Office (GAO)pointed out that that rarely happens. That’s why we used plagiarism software to determine how much an agency changed a rule in response to OMB review.
Overall, in more than three-quarters of the rules we studied, we found that the OMB indicated that it required agencies to make changes. Moreover, our detailed analysis of approximately 120 rules indicates that on average, agencies alter about 20 percent of the rule’s text. In 5 percent of the rules, the agency changed the text by more than 70 percent.
Why so many — and such broad — changes so late in the regulatory process? Presumably, at this stage, the agency has already adjusted rules based on public and expert input, leaving little to be done. What’s more, the OMB could have raised its concerns during the public comment period, or in earlier interactions with the agency.
In at least some cases, it may be because business interests lobby the OMB more heavily than do public interest groups during the OMB review.
3. Trump is doing what his predecessors did — but more of it
While presidents of both parties have relied on the OMB to review rules, Trump’s OMB appears to be more actively involved in reviewing those rules.
Under Trump, the OMB reviewed more than one-third of all rules issued by nonindependent agencies, the vast majority of which were not economically significant. This means that the OMB specifically chose to review these not because of a traditional consideration, such as a large economic impact, but because of the president’s policy, political, or other considerations.
Further, Trump appointed Neomi Rao, a former scholar from the strongly deregulation-oriented Mercatus Center, to direct the OMB’s gatekeeping role over the rulemaking process. Rao has advocated requiring OMB review for independent agencies like the Federal Election Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. Congress insulated these agencies from presidential control to protect their independence and expertise; OMB review would give the White House a larger say.
Meanwhile, interest groups have stepped up their lobbying at the OMB — meeting with that office over 80 percent more under the Trump administration than under Obama.
[Will Republicans be able to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?]
Calls for greater public access are as old as the Magna Carta. Much has been done to improve transparency during rulemaking over the last several decades. Yet OMB review continues to be difficult to follow, raising concerns about improper influence and corruption.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/08/24/the-trump-administration-might-be-deregulating-more-than-you-know-or-could-know/?utm_term=.3a39dcc55490
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Bipartisan Bills to Address PFAS Contamination Introduced in Senate
Aug 24, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
Senators introduced two bipartisan bills today aimed at dealing with the country's burgeoning water contamination crisis from nonstick chemicals.
One bill, S. 3381 (115), would encourage the Defense Department to speed up its process of entering into cooperative agreements with states to investigate and clean up contamination from the chemicals, called PFAS, at bases. Military bases where firefighting foam containing the chemicals was used are one of the largest areas of contamination.
Cooperative agreements lock the military into specific actions and enable communities to be reimbursed for costs. But DOD has been slow to enter into them, in part because of disagreements about how thorough the cleanup should be. The measure would require DoD to comply with standards set by states when they have been finalized. Several states have set standards lower than EPA's health advisory level.
The bill is sponsored by Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.).
The second measure, S. 3382 (115), would authorize $45 million for the U.S. Geological Survey to develop new technologies to detect PFAS and conduct nationwide sampling. Scientists have had a surprisingly hard time testing for PFAS in water, soil and air, in part because testing equipment often contains PFAS. EPA is still in the process of developing validated tests for a handful of the most well-understood PFAS in drinking water supplies.
The bill was introduced by Sens. Stabenow, Peter and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).
WHAT'S NEXT: The measures will be referred to committees for consideration.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Bipartisan Bills Target Emerging Environmental Threat
Aug 24, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Corbin Hiar
A coalition of senators from both sides of the aisle have introduced bills to address the dangers posed by a class of toxic compounds that have polluted the water supplies of millions of Americans.
The measures, focused on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, were both filed yesterday by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Gary Peters of Michigan and Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, among others.
One bill would require the U.S. Geological Survey to perform a nationwide survey of PFAS contamination. There are thousands of types of PFAS on the market and in the environment, many of which are hard to detect and have unknown health effects.
S. 3382 is backed by Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota.
The other bill would encourage federal agencies to coordinate with states on cleaning up PFAS pollution. Some of the nation's most contaminated sites are military bases, where soldiers used PFAS-containing foams in firefighting exercises.
S. 3381 is supported by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, both of whom represent New Hampshire.
PFAS have been prized by industry and the military since the 1940s for their stain- and fire-resistant qualities. But in recent decades, the substances have been linked to cancer and developmental problems, and have been found in many public water systems and private wells nationwide.
Stabenow's bills are part of a broader congressional effort to grapple with the emerging environmental threat.
Peters, the top Democrat on a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee, is planning to hold the first congressional hearing specifically focused on PFAS next month (E&E Daily, Aug. 24).
Congress also recently passed a defense spending bill that ordered the Pentagon to commit resources to studying PFAS contamination (E&E News PM, Aug. 1).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/24/stories/1060095219
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Will Brett Kavanaugh Keep Asbestos Legal?
Aug 24, 2018 | Environmental Working Group
By Melanie Benesh and Scott Faber
Will a vote for Brett Kavanaugh for the critical swing seat on the Supreme Court be a vote to keep asbestos legal?
Many Americans don’t realize it, but despite its well-known health hazards, most uses of asbestos are still legal. Recent research has found that asbestos-related diseases still kill as many as 40,000 Americans per year.
After sweeping changes to the law governing toxic substances, the Environmental Protection Agency had a historic opportunity to finally ban asbestos once and for all. But President Trump’s political appointees to the EPA have cooked the books in ways that could keep asbestos legal, inviting legal challenges that could reach the Supreme Court.
If confirmed to the open swing seat, would Kavanaugh vote to protect workers and consumers from asbestos? Or would he vote to protect the companies lobbying EPA to keep asbestos legal?
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Kavanaugh has consistently voted against safeguards designed to protect health by concluding that safety rules were too expensive for big corporations.
For example:Mercury pollution. In 2014, Kavanaugh argued against standards for toxins like mercury – which is linked to premature deaths, heart attacks and childhood asthma – by insisting that costs to polluters must always be considered.
Air pollution. In 2015, Kavanaugh overturned a rule to limit the amount of air pollution that crosses state lines. That rule could have prevented as many as 34,000 premature deaths.
Water pollution. In 2016, Kavanaugh argued in favor of a company dumping coal mining waste into streams, citing the costs to polluters – even though the agency had no obligation to consider the costs.
Air pollution. In 2017, Kavanaugh ruled that the EPA could not require companies to replace fluorinated chemicals known as HFCs with other substances – even though replacement chemicals are readily available.Kavanaugh has also argued that it’s okay to rely on the chemical industry’s data, ruled in favor of dumping hazardous waste, and ruled that it’s okay for factory farms to foul the air of their neighbors. He has frequently argued against giving the victims of pollution their day in court, including groups challenging carbon monoxide standards.
No wonder the nation’s leading environmental groups oppose his nomination. His record on worker safety is just as bad.
As one expert recently noted, Kavanaugh is in favor of considering the costs of a regulation – but only when it helps polluters, not public health.
The arguments Kavanaugh has made against clean air, clean water and worker safety are the same arguments that have been used to keep asbestos legal.
In 1989, the EPA tried to ban most uses of asbestos, but the proposed ban was blocked by judges who concluded it would be too costly for industry and that a ban was not the “least burdensome” way to address the risks. In the wake of that ruling, the EPA didn’t propose to ban any other toxic chemicals for decades.
In 2016, Congress finally overhauled federal toxic chemicals law and tried to remove obstacles to chemical regulation, including EPA consideration of the costs to industry. Under the new law, asbestos is one of the first chemicals to be assessed for safety. But Trump’s political appointees at EPA have twisted the new law to put polluters ahead of public health, leading environmental groups to challenge Trump’s rules in court.
Trump’s EPA appointees – who include many former officials and lobbyists for polluting industries – have deliberately ignored many of the ways workers and consumers are exposed to asbestos, including existing asbestos contamination of buildings.
Ultimately, the EPA’s decision to ban asbestos or keep it legal, will almost certainly be challenged in the courts. That’s why the critical swing vote on the Supreme Court – and Kavanaugh’s record on public health and safety – are so important.
A great deal is at stake. Between 1999 and 2013, more than 100,000 Americans died from asbestos-related illnesses, including thousands of people in Maine, West Virginia, North Dakota, Indiana, and Alaska.
Senators must ask themselves: If confirmed, would Kavanaugh vote to keep asbestos legal? Would he continue to put the interests of industry first? Would he allow EPA to underestimate the risks asbestos still poses to workers and consumers?
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/08/will-brett-kavanaugh-keep-asbestos-legal#.W4A1tdUza6I
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40 Years After the Love Canal Crisis I Still Feel Unsafe
Aug 24, 2018 | The Hill - Opinion
By Lois Gibbs
The other day I asked my daughter if her kids’ school tested their drinking water for lead. She said, “I don’t know, Mom.” How many parents do know? Most parents just trust that when we send our kids to school, they will be safe. I used to, but I learned the hard way.
Forty years after my children and I moved away from one of the most notorious toxic waste sites in the country, Love Canal, in Niagara Falls, N.Y., I know my family is still at risk from unintended exposure to toxic chemicals.
My three grandchildren live in Texas. Last year a state bill was introduced to mandate testing of lead in drinking water at all schools in the state. The bill never passed. Why, I’m not sure. But I did find a 2017 study conducted by Environment Texas that showed 65 percent of schools in Texas that tested their water for lead found levels greater than the standard recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Texas isn’t alone. More than half the states in the nation don’t require schools to test for lead in their drinking water.
Today there is a bill Get the Lead Out of Schools Act, (S. 1401) that would assure that every school nationwide tests their drinking water for lead. If passed, the law would protect America’s school children from lead poisoning by requiring the public water system to test all water flowing into schools.
The bill requires all results of the water testing to be shared with the school community, because everyone has the right to know what they are drinking. If a level of lead is found that is higher than the EPA’s action level for lead of 15 parts per billion, then the act also provides grants to help schools address their water contamination issue and protect the health of their students.
There is no safe level of exposure to lead. Even tiny amounts of lead can cause neurological damage like speech delays, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, seizures and even death.
The Get the Lead Out of Schools Act is a common sense fix to protect our kids. Too many schools have toxic drinking water and may not even know it. I’m baffled by the lack of concern after Flint, Mich. where the whole town was endangered by elevated lead in their drinking water.
There are so many other toxic water incidences, poisoning innocent children, because the authorities charged with keeping our kids safe have failed to act.
There are laws that force parents to send their children to school. If they don’t, their children can be taken away from them or the parents could spend time in jail.
And then there is the case of Fayetteville, W.Va. where the local school’s principal purchased sanitary wipes for the school bathrooms so students wouldn’t wash with the water — for fear of serious chemical exposure.
The EPA estimates that about 90,000 public schools and half a million child-care facilities are not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act because they depend on water sources such as municipal utilities that are expected to test their own water. That means parents have no assurance at all that lead isn't seeping into children's water from a school building’s pipes, solder or fixtures.
In 1996 our country banned lead in gasoline to protect public health. Yet in the 22 years since we acknowledged the public health threats from lead exposures and took action with vehicles, our government has failed to take the next logical step to protect our children from widespread lead poisoning from drinking water in public schools.
Public schools are controlled by government. Federal, state and local funds support the schools; so it should be an easier task to get lead out of schools than convincing the gas and oil industry to get lead out of gasoline. Yet the bill that would do exactly that just sits in the senate with little attention and few champions.
Parents and teachers need to step up and demand testing and then, where necessary, demand the immediate cleanup of lead-related water problems. Our children — and grandchildren — deserve better than being forced to attend a school that may be killing them ever so slowly.
Lois Gibbs is the founder of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, a project of People’s Action Institute. In 1978 she blew the whistle on Love Canal after learning her kindergartener’s school was built on a toxic dump. Her work led to the creation of Superfund.
http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/403435-40-years-after-the-love-canal-crisis-i-still-feel-unsafe
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5 Reasons Your Food Could Be Messing with Your Hormones
Aug 24, 2018 | SHAPE
By Shannon Bauer
As with all things in wellness, balance is key—in your diet, exercise plan, and even your hormones. Hormones control everything from your fertility to your metabolism, mood, appetite, and even heart rate. Our healthy (and not-so-healthy) habits alike contribute to keeping them in balance.
And, unsurprisingly, what you put in your body every day can be a huge contributor to hormone imbalances. Here, the biggest triggers and what you can do to keep levels in check. (Also see: The Most Important Hormones for Your Health)1. Preservatives
Just because a food is considered "healthy" doesn't mean you're protected from hormone disruptors. For example, the oils from whole grains used in cereals, breads, and crackers can go rancid, so preservatives are often added, says Steven Gundry, M.D., a heart surgeon and author of The Plant Paradox.
Preservatives disrupt the endocrine system by mimicking estrogen and competing with naturally occurring estrogen, which can cause weight gain, low thyroid function, and lessened sperm count. The concerning fact is: Preservatives, such as butylated hydroxytoluene (a compound commonly called BHT that dissolves in fats and oils), do not have to be listed on nutrition labels. Because the FDA generally regards them as safe, they don't require them to be disclosed on food packaging. (These seven strange food additives are on the label.)
Your fix: In general, it's best to eat as many whole, unprocessed foods as possible. Consider buying bread from bakeries, or eat fresh foods with a shorter shelf life to avoid added preservatives.2. Phytoestrogens
Phytoestrogens—natural compounds found in plants—are present in many foods including fruits, vegetables, and some animal products. The quantity varies, but soy, some citrus fruits, wheat, licorice, alfalfa, celery, and fennel have higher amounts of phytoestrogens. When consumed, phytoestrogens may affect your body in the same way as naturally produced estrogen—but there's a lot of controversy around phytoestrogens and the positive or negative health effects. Case in point: All three experts cited here had differing options. Therefore, the answer about consumption is not one size fits all.
Some research shows that dietary phytoestrogen consumption may be linked to a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, menopausal symptoms, and hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, says registered dietitian nutritionist, Maya Feller, R.D.N. She recommends visiting a qualified health professional to determine how age, health status, and gut microbiome may affect how your body responds to phytoestrogens. (Related: Should You Eat Based on Your Menstrual Cycle?)
"Women with breast or ovarian cancer frequently avoid phytoestrogen compounds in soy and flax, but the ligands in soy and flax can block the estrogen receptors on these cancer cells," says Dr. Gundry. So not only are they perfectly safe but probably useful as part of an overall healthy diet, he says.
The effects of soy can vary depending on the person, the specific body organ or gland in question, and the level of exposure, says Minisha Sood, M.D., an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in NYC. While there is some evidence that soy-rich diets actually lower breast cancer risk, there is also evidence that soy is an endocrine disruptor as well, she says. Since there's conflicting information, avoid consuming soy products in excess, like exclusively drinking soy milk. (Here's what you need to know about soy and whether it's healthy or not.)3. Pesticides & Growth Hormones
It's worth noting that foods themselves generally do not disrupt hormones in a negative way, says Dr. Sood. However, pesticides, glyphosate (a herbicide), and added growth hormones in dairy and animal products can bind to the hormone receptor in a cell and block your body's naturally occurring hormones from binding, causing an altered response within the body. (Glyphosate was the chemical that was recently found in many oat products.)
Experts have mixed feelings on soy itself, but there's another potential pesticide issue at play: "Glyphosate-based herbicides are used extensively in soy crops and there is often a residue on soybeans that could be problematic for people who consume high quantities of soy milk, especially before puberty," says Dr. Sood. Eating too many phytoestrogens treated with glyphosate may decrease sperm count and affect levels of testosterone and estrogen.
While there is no way to completely avoid pesticides, considering even organic farmers use them. (You may want to consider buying biodynamic foods.) However, organic produce tends to be grown with less toxic pesticides, which may help, says Dr. Sood. (This guide can help you decide when to buy organic.) Also, try soaking fruits and veggies for 10 minutes in baking soda and water—it's been shown to reduce exposure, she says. When available, buy animal and dairy products from local farms with a track record of hormone-free products to avoid the added growth hormones.4. Alcohol
Alcohol can have a profound effect on both the female and male reproductive systems. Chronic use of alcohol disturbs communication between your body's systems, including the neurological, endocrine, and immune systems. It can result in a physiological stress response that can present as reproductive problems, thyroid problems, changes in your immune system, and more. (This is also why it's common to wake up early after a night of drinking.)
Both short- and long-term alcohol consumption can affect sex drive and testosterone and estrogen levels, which could lower fertility and interfere with menstrual cycles, says Dr. Sood. Evidence on the effect of low to moderate drinking on fertility is still unclear, but heavy drinkers (who consume six to seven drinks per day) or social drinkers (two to three drinks per day) have more reproductive endocrine changes than occasional or non-drinkers. The best route is to drink in moderation or at least drink less when you are trying to conceive, says Dr. Sood. (See: How Bad Is Binge Drinking for Your Health, Really?)5. Plastic
Recycling, avoiding straws, and buying reusable items have a bigger impact than just saving the turtles—your hormones will also thank you. Bisphenol A and bisphenol S (you've probably seen them referred to as BPA and BPS), found in plastic bottles and in the lining of cans, are endocrine disruptors. (Here's more on the issues with BPA and BPS.)
There are also phthalates in plastic wrap and food storage containers. Studies have shown that they can cause premature breast development and block thyroid hormone function, which regulates metabolism as well as heart and digestive functions, says Dr. Gundry. He recommends avoiding plastic wrapped food (like pre-portioned meat at the grocery store), switching to glass food storage containers, and using a stainless steel water bottle. (Try these BPA-free water bottles.)
https://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/diet-tips/reasons-food-causing-hormone-imbalance
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Ex-Chief Worries Trump 'Embedding' Staff at FERC
Aug 24, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
Jon Wellinghoff, the longest-serving head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, worries politics are seeping into the agency he once led.
The 69-year-old attorney, who stepped down as chairman in 2013, is alarmed by reports indicating his successor, Republican Kevin McIntyre, is inheriting — and not appointing — key staff.
"I am concerned about some of the things I've seen, mostly about the administration embedding staff at FERC, which is something totally unprecedented," Wellinghoff said from his home in Berkeley, Calif. "My understanding is the chief of staff was embedded by the administration, not selected by the chairman, as has been the tradition for every chief of staff I'm familiar with."E&E SERIES
Energy and environmental newsmakers dish on politics, pet peeves and their TV addictions. Click here to read more stories in this series.
Wellinghoff was referring to FERC Chief of Staff Anthony Pugliese, a former White House official brought to the agency by then-Chairman Neil Chatterjee, a Republican appointed by President Trump (Energywire, Dec. 13, 2017). Chatterjee in a statement said he was tasked with hiring Pugliese and that he and McIntyre agree Pugliese is "a key asset" for the agency.
Chatterjee in a statement said he was tasked with appointing a chief of staff during his stint as chairman and proud to bring Pugliese aboard. Chatterjee also said he and McIntyre agree Pugliese is "a key asset" for the agency. McIntyre, who is currently facing questions on the Hill about Pugliese, did not respond to E&E News when asked to comment on the matter.
These days, Wellinghoff, a father of four who grew up in Nevada, is watching his old agency from afar. After leaving FERC, he jumped to law firm Stoel Rives LLP out of San Francisco before joining SolarCity Corp. as its chief policy officer in 2016. After a year, Wellinghoff left to launch his own consulting firm, Grid Policy Inc., in Berkeley.
He's now advising startups and midlevel energy companies and, among other things, advocating for legislation in California: A.B. 813, which would begin the process of turning the state's electricity grid operator into a regional transmission organization (Climatewire, Aug. 9).
Wellinghoff talked to E&E News about FERC's independence, looming threats to the electric grid and growing up in the Silver State:
Are you concerned about the politicization of FERC?
Historically, the chairman is the one who sets the tone and direction of the agency; I hope that continues to be the case. That, and the chief of staff has been making speeches externally, that's extremely unusual.
I don't think the people have changed, the staff. They're still doing what they know to do under their authority.
Why is FERC's independence so important?
Because it's a quasi-judicial agency and has to act on the statutory authority it has, and only on substantial evidence of record. It's important that the actions it takes are based upon an open, transparent record that doesn't have any outside, nontransparent information that's influencing it.
It's supposed to be an independent regulatory entity. I have no evidence or information that it's in fact being influenced contrary to the way the agency has operated in the past.
FERC is helping DOE by identifying at-risk plants. Are you concerned FERC is pre-judging policy?
No, all FERC is doing is providing data as to the utilization of certain plant assets; it's doing modeling or load studies, I assume, to look at the effectiveness of those plants during certain conditions and reporting that and sharing that with the agencies. Those data may be used at some future time in some proceeding, but that should all be open and available for anyone to look at, review, submit comments on, etc.
Do you lose sleep over threats to the grid?
Absolutely.
I still believe physical security of substations is the most important issue of grid security. I don't understand all the brouhaha and emphasis on cybersecurity.
I can give you the scenario in two minutes on how to take out every interconnect in the United States based on a physical attack. I can't conceive of how a cyberattack would have the same devastating effect as a physical attack on a few critical nodes of the system.
And physical threats are everything from squirrels to the sophisticated attack we saw in 2013 on 17 transformers at the Metcalf substation in California?
They still have no idea who did that. They never caught anybody. It was, in my opinion, a terrorist attack on these transformers, but the FBI told me no, it wasn't, because we couldn't determine who did it.
Back in 2015, the DOE's inspector general found you released nonpublic, sensitive information on grid threats.
I think the IG was wrong. You can go back and look at public reports that were put out by the National Academies of Sciences and other entities that all said there are a number of critical substations that, if physically destroyed, would have significant impacts on portions of the grid. That was all publicly out there.
The IG's assessment was incorrect.
What happened after that report was released?
Then-Chairman Cheryl LaFleur moved ahead with a rule that put in place a requirement for physical security. I just wish I could have done that while I was at FERC. I didn't have enough time to do it from the time I started the investigation into the issues.
We actually did modeling on the critical substations before the Metcalf ever happened and knew what the problems were.
FERC's policy's on climate change in pipeline reviews has ebbed and flowed since you left. How should the agency move forward?
I probably come down what the environmentalists consider the wrong side of the issue. I've always maintained FERC doesn't have the legal, statutory authority to look beyond the need for the pipeline itself and immediate and local requirements.
Until Congress gives FERC that level of authority under the Natural Gas Act, it doesn't have it. I think environmentalists' argument is with Congress, not FERC. They really need to change the law, which I would support.
During your time at FERC, were you close with former Democratic Sen. Harry Reid [of Nevada]?
In college, I interned for former [Democratic] Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan, and Harry Reid was the lieutenant governor. So I met Harry then and knew him all through my life. My wife, Karen, her family had a very close relationship with him.
What was it like growing up in Reno?
It was this little quiet college town with gambling downtown. My mother, Mary, was a waitress a good portion of her life. She worked at a place downtown called the Arch Drug, where there was a lunch counter. It was called that because there was an arch downtown over the main street, Virginia Street. My dad, Bill, was a real estate broker.
What kind of kid were you? Any nicknames?
I used to sell newspapers downtown, the Reno Evening Gazette. Of course the biggest tips you'd get was if you went into the bars to sell papers, which we used to do after school. I did that in the sixth and seventh grade.
My parents called me "Jack." My mother named me after my uncle Johnathon, who was killed in Iwo Jima. She believed I was given to her in replacement for her favorite brother because I was born on Memorial Day.
How did you meet your wife, Karen Galatz?
I met her in the governor's office. She was the press secretary and legislative aide. I went in to a meeting with the governor. I was asking if he'd appoint me to the public utilities commission. At the time, I was a consumer advocate in Nevada, I represented utilities and consumers before the commission, and I was head of a division of the attorney general's office.
And she's a journalist?
She was a TV reporter and had her own show in Las Vegas; it was called "Business in Nevada." It went for over five years, and she was the staff, producer and on-air co-anchor. She was the head of the show, and it was all about featuring businesses in Nevada, and it was extremely interesting stories about what they did.
Have any of your four children gone into energy?
(Laughs) No, they're all scattered. One's a computer programmer, one's an accountant in Austin, another is a Buddhist nun in Thailand.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/24/stories/1060095209
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Ships May Switch From Crude to Gas to Meet New Rule—Energy Journal
Aug 24, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Neanda Salvaterra
THE NEW GAS MARKET: SHIPOWNERS NEEDING CLEANER FUEL
The global shipping industry could become a new market for liquefied natural gas, because of a change in maritime law that aims to curb air pollution, writes the WSJ’s Paul Garvey.
Major cruise liners and the world’s biggest freight companies have ordered 125 new LNG-powered vessels and another 119 are already in operation, according to current figures from maritime consultancy DNV GL. That is partly because new regulations issued by the International Maritime Organization taking effect in 2020 will reduce the maximum amount of sulfur permitted in the oil used by ships from 3.5% to 0.5%.
LNG is gas that is supercooled until it turns into a liquid. While LNG use as a shipping fuel is still too small to affect its prices, the projected uptake is supporting the outlook of companies like Royal Dutch Shell PLC on expectations that LNG demand will continue to grow.
The shipping industry currently consumes about five million barrels a day of oil, and most of the industry is expected to meet the new obligations by either switching to more expensive low-sulfur fuels or installing ”scrubbers” that clean sulfur out of exhaust fumes.
Meanwhile, oil prices rose on the back of a weaker U.S. dollar. Brent crude, the global benchmark, was up 0.72% to $75.27 a barrel on London’s Intercontinental Exchange. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate futures were trading up 0.84% at $68.40 a barrel.
EX-BANKER PLEADS GUILTY IN VENEZUELA OIL MONEY-LAUNDERING CASE
A former Swiss banker has pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to helping launder $1.2 billion embezzled from Venezuela’s bankrupt state oil company in a scheme that involved close relatives of a Venezuelan official, reports the WSJ’s José de Córdoba. People familiar with the case say that official is President Nicolás Maduro. Matthias Krull, a 44-year-old Panama-based former Swiss bank executive, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering on Wednesday, the Justice Department said.
‘The issues are tough, and they will be tough to resolve. But the president has created an opening, and it’s one that we must take by seizing every possible opportunity to realize the vision for a peaceful future for the people of North Korea.’—Stephen Biegun, U.S. special representative to North Korea and departing VP of international governmental affairs at Ford Motor Co.
FORD EXECUTIVE STEPHEN BIEGUN TO LEAD NORTH KOREA TALKS
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Ford Motor Co.’s Stephen Biegun would take over nuclear talks with North Korea as the new special representative. Mr. Pompeo on Thursday said Mr. Biegun, who served as the company’s vice president of international governmental affairs, would travel with him to North Korea next week. They will attempt to prod negotiations that have halted over disagreements about the pace of denuclearization.
UK OIL SERVICE FIRM OFFLOADS NORTH SEA ASSETS
The U.K.-based oilfield services provider Petrofac Ltd. is set to sell its stake in a North Sea project to oil-and-gas firm Ithaca Energy. The deal is valued at about $292 million.
BIG NUMBER: 42%
Russia’s Gazprom will report another strong performance for the second quarter of 2018, lifted by a combination of rising gas exports to Europe and higher gas prices, UBS analysts say. As a result, the investment bank forecasts that Ebitda in U.S. dollar terms will grow 42% year-on-year, even despite lower sales in Russia, writes the WSJ’s Oliver Griffin.
https://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2018/08/24/energy-journal-ships-may-switch-from-crude-to-gas-to-meet-new-rule/?guid=BL-MBB-69783&mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2&dsk=y
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(ACC Mentioned) Courts Block Trump Administration from Further Delays of Chemical Safety Law
Aug 24, 2018 | The Chemical Engineer
By Amanda Doyle
A FEDERAL appeals court has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop delaying an Obama-era law that would improve safety at chemical facilities. However the EPA is still trying to roll back crucial safety measures.
On 13 January 2017, the Obama administration finalised amendments to the Risk Management Program in response to the explosion at the fertiliser plant in West, Texas, in 2013. The explosion killed 15 people, including 12 first responders who were unaware of the risks posed by the ammonium nitrate stored at the facility. The plant exploded as firefighters were attempting to put out the fire. The new rule, dubbed the Chemical Disaster Rule, would ensure that any facilities dealing with hazardous chemicals would be required to disclose potential risks to local police and firefighters.
The Chemical Disaster Rule also advocates that the public should be made aware of any hazardous material and any potential health risks they may face if an accident occurs. The rule requires facilities to have third-party audits, incident investigation analyses, and to assess possibilities of safer technologies. These regulations were delayed when Donald Trump took office a week later and were delayed twice more by the EPA until February 2019.
The EPA was sued for the delay by a group of 11 state attorneys general and Earthjustice, which represents fenceline communities, workers’ unions, and scientists. On 17 August, the DC Circuit Court ruled that the EPA did not have the authority to delay the Chemical Disaster Rule, saying that the “EPA’s action was arbitrary and capricious in any event.”
The rule was originally supposed to come into effect in March 2017. Since then, over 61 incidents have occurred, including the fire and explosion at the Husky refinery in April 2018, and the Arkema fire during Hurricane Harvey in August 2017. First responders to the Arkema fire were exposed to fumes from the burning organic peroxides as they didn’t have enough information on what was stored at the plant.
Supporters for delaying the rule had argued that stricter measures would not have helped in the case of the West fertiliser explosion as it was reportedly caused by arson. However, the court ruling argued that sharing information with first responders was vital, regardless of the initial cause of the accident. “Given that 12 of the 15 fatalities in the West, Texas disaster were local volunteer firefighters and other first responders, this would be a fairly weak explanation for delaying provisions that EPA previously determined would help keep first responders safe and informed about emergency-response planning.”
Trish Kerin, director of the IChemE Safety Centre, said:
“The tragedy at West Texas, that saw emergency responders lose their lives was a preventable incident. The Obama chemical safety rule would require among other things, analysis of safety technology, third-party audits, incident investigation analyses and stricter emergency preparedness. These are all standard requirements in several other countries, designed to minimise the likelihood and consequence of an incident such as this. As such it is pleasing to see the DC Circuit Court ruling that these basic safety measures cannot be bypassed or delayed.”
Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said:
“This is a victory first and foremost for the neighbourhoods most susceptible to dangerous and toxic chemical releases. EPA needlessly blocked an important public protection that would have resulted in fewer chemical releases causing direct harm to communities.”Overturning the safety rule
While the 17 August ruling means that the EPA must implement the rules immediately, the EPA is still planning to overturn the rule, having submitted proposed revisions back in May. Former head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, who resigned in July over a series of ethics scandals and is currently the subject of several federal investigations, said at the time: “The rule proposes to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens, address the concerns of stakeholders and emergency responders on the ground, and save Americans roughly US$88m/y.”
The total cost of the damage in West was estimated to be around US$100m by the Insurance Council of Texas.
The proposed revisions block most of the January 2017 changes from taking effect. Arkansas attorney general Leslie Rutledge called the new rules “another victory for common sense over environmental radicalism.”
A public hearing on the new revisions was held on 14 June. According to NPR reporting at the hearing, representatives from the American Petroleum Institute and the American Chemical Council (ACC) argued that companies already have regulatory incentives to prevent disasters and that the Obama-era rules would add a significant burden. The ACC representative further argued that sites that hadn’t reported problems shouldn’t face tighter regulations.
The revisions plan to rescind the requirement for companies to disclose information to emergency responders. The new rule would also eliminate the requirement for facilities to assess the possibility of safer technologies, the requirement that an investigation should determine the root cause of an accident, and that the investigation team should have at least one person knowledgeable in the process.
Timothy Gablehouse, who leads a local emergency planning committee outside Denver, told the EPA panel at the hearing: "The entire community is responsible for preparedness. That means the entire community needs to understand the risks to the community. The response does not begin at the 911 call."
Communities, environmental groups, and scientists also called on the EPA to withdraw the proposed changes through comments submitted on the regulation by Earthjustice in August, saying that the efforts to weaken safety measures were just as unlawful as the delay tactic.
Gordon Sommers, an attorney with Earthjustice, said:
“The court’s decision to end the delay of the Chemical Disaster Rule is a tremendous victory, but there is still work to be done. Now we have to ensure the rule gets implemented fully and swiftly. EPA needs to stop trying to roll back critical public health protections.”
https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/courts-block-trump-administration-from-further-delays-of-chemical-safety-law/
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From FRA, a $200MM PTC Infusion and An Upbeat Progress Report
Aug 24, 2018 | Railway Age Magazine
By Mischa Wanek-Libman
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has awarded more than $200 million in funds to assist with the deployment of Positive Train Control (PTC), with a second solicitation expected soon for a remaining $46 million. As well, the agency released its second-quarter 2018 PTC progress report, which shows “significant improvement.”
Twenty-eight projects in 15 states will receive $203.7 million awarded through the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program. While the initial Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) issued in May said $250 million was available, FRA is expected to issue another NOFO to solicit applications for the remaining funds. FRA promised a “quick turnaround” for the second solicitation, with applications due 30 days from when the NOFO is published in the Federal Register.
“It was our goal to award these grants as quickly as possible to help the recipients implement PTC,” said FRA Administrator Ronald L. Batory. “We also encourage eligible applicants to apply for the remaining balance of the PTC CRISI grants after that NOFO is published.”
Congressional offices had previously released some of the PTC funding. FRA said the awards fund many aspects of PTC system implementation, including back office PTC systems; wayside, communications and onboard PTC system equipment; personnel training; PTC system testing; and interoperability. A full list of awards appears below.
Award amounts vary greatly, with the smallest dollar amount to a single entity awarded to Nebraska Central Railroad Co. at a bit more than $527,000, and the largest dollar amount, more than $29 million, awarded to Rio Metro Regional Transit District, N.Mex. (Rail Runner).
In making the selection decisions for the PTC grants, the factors FRA considered included supporting economic vitality; leveraging federal funding; using innovative approaches to improve safety and expedite project delivery; and holding grant recipients accountable for “achieving specific, measurable outcomes.” FRA said preference was given to projects proposing at least a 50% match and that “maximize the net benefits of the grant funds.
Grants awarded are as follows, by state, then agency; an asterisk by the agency’s name indicates those properties FRA has classified as “at-risk” based on second-quarter 2018 PTC progress reports:
Alaska
Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC), up to $10.38 million: Development, testing, system certification and implementation of Interoperable Electronic Train Management System (I-ETMS) with an Independent Vital Server to improve safety and the railroad’s overall operations along ARRC’s main line that stretches 470 miles from Seward to Fairbanks, Alaska.
California
California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), up to $11.34 million: Design and install I-ETMS wayside controllers at 30 existing control points and 111 intermediate signal locations along the Coast Subdivision from Oakland to North San Luis Obispo, Calif.
*Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (Caltrain), up to $18.69 million: Build upon Caltrain’s efforts to test and validate certain technical PTC components of its I-ETMS system between San Francisco and southern San Jose.
Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART), up to $5 million: Install Enhanced Automatic Train Control (E-ATC) on the 3.3-mile passenger rail extension between the Sonoma County Airport job center and Windsor.
Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA/Metrolink), up to $9.94 million: Upgrade Metrolink’s PTC Train Management Computer (TMC) to improve processor power as well as upgrade the wayside system hardware to support deployment of nearside crossing inhibits and wireless activations in southern California.
Florida
Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), up to $14.91 million: Complete installation of I-ETMS, with testing and documentation to support PTC System Certification, on the 61.3-mile Central Florida Rail Corridor from DeLand to Poinciana, Fla. *SunRail operates along this route.
Iowa
Iowa Interstate Railroad (IAIS), up to $1.77 million: Install onboard PTC systems and radios on 23 IAIS locomotives and procure a back-office service messaging systems license to allow for interoperable PTC operations on Metra’s Rock Island District commuter line in Illinois.
Iowa Northern Railway Company (IANR), up to $1.98 million: Install I-ETMS onboard 20 locomotives, along with software, a back-office system, component testing, interoperability testing, and training for IANR’s line between Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa, on CN’s Waterloo Subdivision.
Illinois
Belt Railway Company of Chicago (BRC), up to $8.6 million: Complete the final phase of BRC’s I-ETMS PTC systems engineering, integration, testing, and training on its entire main line network in Cook County, Ill.
Chicago Rail Link (CRL), up to $1.64 million: Onboard computer equipment and communication systems, locomotive radio licenses, messaging licenses, and a back-office service messaging systems management license, along with PTC system testing and training to support the five CRL and Illinois Railway locomotives operating on the Metra commuter rail system, while Metra and BNSF Railway activate I-ETMS PTC systems.
Commuter Rail Division of the Regional Transportation Authority (Metra); up to $22.98 million: Construct the fiber-optic backbone to provide redundancy and resiliency for I‐ETMS PTC operations on two Metra-operated commuter rail routes, the Rock Island and South West Service lines.
Indiana
Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railroad (CSS) up to $720,000: I-ETMS installation, testing, and training as well as interoperability between CSS and the host railroad, Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD), between Chicago, Ill., and South Bend, Ind.
Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD), up to $8.08 million: Complete design, implementation, training, and support of NICTD’s I-ETMS PTC system for the wayside, onboard, locomotive, back office and communications segments for commuter rail operations between South Bend, Ind., and Chicago, Ill.
Massachusetts
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), up to $20 million: Support completion of MBTA’s ongoing implementation of the Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System II (ACSES II) with system acceptance testing of 12 non-pilot lines in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, where equipment installation is ongoing.
Springfield Terminal Railway Company (ST)/Pan Am Railways, up to $2.99 million: Install ACSES II and Automatic Train Control on ST’s locomotives on rail lines throughout the New England area and support related testing and training.
Maryland
Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), up to $2.08 million: Upgrade, test, and commission nine *Maryland Area Regional Commuter (MARC) locomotives with I-ETMS and provide training for service on CSX Transportation, Inc.’s (CSX) and Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor territories along MARC’s three lines from Washington, D.C., to Martinsburg, W.Va.; Brunswick, Md.; and Frederick, Md.
Nebraska
Nebraska Central Railroad Company (NCRC), up to $527,596: Deploy the PTC back office system, onboard hardware equipment for three locomotives, software, component testing and training for NCRC to operate along 62 miles of Union Pacific Railroad tight-of-way between Grand Island and Columbus, Neb..
New Mexico
*Rio Metro Regional Transit District (Rio Metro), up to $29.36 million: Full implementation of New Mexico Rail Runner Express’ (NMRX) I-ETMS PTC system, which will be installed on 96 miles of the NMRX system between Belen, and Santa Fe, N.Mex., including approximately 74 miles of the Albuquerque Subdivision and 22 miles of the Santa Fe Subdivision.
New York
Middletown & New Jersey Railroad, up to $1.2 million: Deploy ACSES II PTC back office systems, communications, onboard hardware equipment and software as well as support testing and training to ensure that Middletown & New Jersey Railroad locomotives can operate on New Jersey Transit-dispatched territory in Orange County, N.Y.,.
New York & Atlantic Railway Company (NYA), up to $1.01 million: Install PTC onboard equipment on 10 NYA locomotives as well as support training and testing for its operations on freight lines owned by the New York MTA/Long Island Rail Road.
Pennsylvania
Allegheny Valley Railroad Company (AVR), (1) up to $1.83 million;(2) up to $302,444: (1) Upgrade AVR’s 10 locomotives with PTC and cab signal systems for operations utilizing AVR trackage rights over Norfolk Southern (NS) rail lines, upgrade four other locomotives solely with PTC, and support testing and training. (2) Install a PTC back office and support system engineering, testing and training for AVR operating on 77 miles of right-of-way in the greater Pittsburgh area.
North Shore Railroad Company, up to $4.42 million: Deploy I-ETMS back office systems, communications and onboard hardware equipment; software, equipment installation, testing and training for the implementation of PTC systems; and interoperability testing for six short line railroads operating in central Pennsylvania on NS-owned right-of-way.
Texas
*Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Capital Metro), up to $5.65 million: remaining integration testing of PTC components, preparation of the PTC safety plan, contract engineering and oversight, systems testing, and training for Capital Metro’s installation of E-ATC on its Red Line in the cities of Austin, Cedar Park, Leander, and surrounding Texas communities.
Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), up to $9.52 million: Support a PTC back office system, I-ETMS systems integration and interoperability testing with multiple freight and passenger railroads, and training for the Trinity Railway Express and TEXRail commuter railroads in the Dallas-Fort Worth urban area.
Denton County Transportation Authority (DCTA), up to $4 million: PTC programming changes, insulated joints, track monitoring equipment, testing and communications and dispatch software/hardware integration with the Enhanced Automatic Train Control (E-ATC) temporary speed restrictions server, support training and testing along a 21-mile commuter rail line in Denton County, Tex.
Utah
Utah Transit Authority (UTA), up to $2.78 million: Software redesign to advance E-ATC on the 44.26-mile FrontRunner South Segment from Salt Lake City to Provo.
Washington State
Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad (PSAP), up to $1.99 million: Install onboard PTC systems on 18 locomotives across five Class III railroads, test crew initialization back office server system across eight railroads, and establish a PTC Help Desk/Lab to support eight railroads in Arkansas, California, Ohio, Oregon, Minnesota, Missouri, and Washington.
PROGRESS REPORT
Concurrently, FRA released data showing second-quarter progress in implementing PTC. The data showed “significant improvement” compared to where the rail industry stood in December 2016, despite nine railroads being classified as “at-risk.” The statutory interim deadline to implement PTC is Dec. 31, 2018. Railroads that meet six criteria can apply for an alternative schedule to complete installation of PTC no later than Dec. 31, 2020.
Chart showing progress within key categories. Values are current through June 30, 2018. Federal Railroad Administration illustration.
FRA said the most recent data, current as of June 30, 2018, shows that 15 railroads have installed 100% of the PTC system hardware identified in their PTC Implementation Plans; 12 have installed between 95% and 99%; and all railroads, except for one, that use spectrum-based PTC systems have acquired sufficient spectrum. By comparison, in December 2016, freight railroads had PTC active on just 16% of required route-miles, while passenger railroads were at 24%.
In addition, FRA explained that 14 railroads have initiated sufficient Revenue Service Demonstration (RSD) or met substitute criteria, which is one of the six statutory criteria needed to qualify for an alternative schedule of Dec. 31, 2020. PTC systems are in RSD or operation on approximately 37,705 route-miles (65%) of the nearly 58,000 route-miles that are subject to the statutory mandate.
The number of “at-risk” railroads dropped 25%, from 12 to 9, based on Q2 2018 data. FRA currently considers any railroad that installed less than 90% of its PTC system hardware as of June 30, 2018, to be at risk, as “installation of all PTC system hardware is only an initial phase of implementing a PTC system and only one of the six statutory criteria required to qualify for an alternative schedule.”
The nine at-risk railroads are New Mexico Rail Runner Express (Rio Metro), Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New Jersey Transit, Altamont Corridor Express, Maryland Area Regional Commuter, Trinity Railway Express, South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (Caltrain) and Central Florida Rail Corridor (SunRail). The nine at-risk railroads own or control approximately 665 route-miles that are subject to the statutory PTC mandate, which is approximately 11% of the route-miles that must be governed by a PTC system and 0.475% of the U.S. rail network.
FRA has held quarterly meetings with those railroads classified as “at-risk” and recently held the final of three symposia focused on PTC.
https://www.railwayage.com/cs/ptc/from-fra-a-200mm-ptc-infusion/
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PTC = Progress Toward Completion
Aug 24, 2018 | Politico
By Brianna Gurciullo
PTC = PROGRESS TOWARD COMPLETION: Three out of 12 railroads deemed “at risk” of blowing the positive train control deadline or being ineligible for an extension have gotten themselves off that list, according to the FRA. Two-thirds of the freight rail route miles that need PTC technology installed have it in operation, up from 16 percent in December 2016. However, PTC is operating on only a quarter of the passenger rail route miles that need it, largely unchanged from the end of 2016. Tanya has morefor Pros.
Let me throw some money at that: FRA is giving more than $200 million in grant funding to 28 PTC projects in 15 states from the $250 million appropriated by Congress for implementation via the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements program. The list of grantees overlaps with, but does not include all of, the at-risk railroads.
NJ Transit: The railroad “remains far behind on its installation” of PTC, “despite a rapid acceleration of the work ahead of the end-of-year deadline,” POLITICO New Jersey’s Ryan Hutchins reports.
IT’S FRIDAY: Thanks for tuning in to POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on all things trains, planes, automobiles and ports. Did you get outside Thursday? Your MT host sure hopes for more weather like that. Feel free to send feedback about today’s newsletter, a tip for a story or a suggestion for lyrics to me: bgurciullo@politico.com or @brigurciullo.
“But me and Cinderella / We put it all together / We can drive it home / With one headlight.”
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?
A TRUCK-SIZED BARRIER: A commercial trucking issue continues to stand in the way of a hotline on amendments to the Senate FAA bill (S. 1405 (115)), which is leaving floor time out of reach. Tanya asked Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) whether it was realistic to think the measure could be passed by the Senate, conferenced and signed into law by Sept. 30. “’Course it is! Right, Nick?” Thune said, turning to his staff director, Nick Rossi. “Yes sir,” Rossi said. “We’re looking at all potential avenues to get the bill on the president’s desk and signed into law before the Sept. 30 deadline. All avenues,” Thune said.
** A message from PlanetM – Michigan, where big ideas in mobility are born:When it comes to mobility, safety is no accident in Michigan. Recently named a federal driverless car proving ground, Michigan’s American Center for Mobility offers real world testing environments to validate self-driving systems. Learn how public-private ventures are helping Michigan create a safer world. Visit PlanetM.com **
HUNTER OUT: After first resisting, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) will give up his committee assignments following his indictment, POLITICO’s Rachael Bade reports. “I fully intend to resume my position as an active member of these committees upon a successful resolution of the pending legal matters,” Hunter wrote in a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan. Hunter is the House Transportation Coast Guard subpanel chairman.
DO MORE WITH LESS: Joel Szabat, the nominee to be assistant secretary for aviation and international affairs at DOT, swore to back the Essential Air Service program at a hearing Thursday, as well as work to improve its reliability. But at the same time, he indicated that he thought some of the administration’s cost-cutting ideas should be implemented, Tanya reports. Over eight months, Szabat has visited six EAS sites — conveniently, as one senator noted, in the home states of key Senate Commerce Committee members.
Come together, right now: Szabat also said that DOT had urged U.S. airlines to join together against China’s demand that they stop referring to Taipei as being in Taiwan, though the agency didn’t “want to fall in that same trap and order U.S. businesses how they should respond.” The airlines ended up mostly bending to China, which irritated Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.). He said the carriers should have defied Chinese “bullying tactics” — and that he’s drafted an amendment to the FAA bill to require them to explicitly list “Taipei, Taiwan,” on their sites.
Blast from the past: Former DOT Secretary Ray LaHood introduced Szabat at the hearing, calling him an “exemplary leader." He noted that Szabat, as deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy under President Barack Obama, helped administer the department's $48 billion in stimulus funding, including the first round of TIGER grants.
Not a long wait: The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a markup for Wednesday, listing the nominations of Szabat; James Morhard, to be deputy NASA administrator; Kelvin Droegemeier, to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy; and Rick Dearborn, to be an Amtrak board member. The panel was supposed to consider Dearborn’s nomination at an Aug. 1 markup, but Thune said at the time he hoped “additional time would give Democrats an opportunity to get the answers to the questions that they have and then hopefully find a way to support him.”
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE: A FedEx plane’s landing gear failed in a 2016 accident in Florida because of a “metal fatigue crack,” the NTSB said Thursday. An “interval of nine years between scheduled overhauls of the main landing gear, which exceeded Boeing’s recommendation of eight years, contributed to the accident,” the agency added. When the plane was on the ground at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, there was a “fuel-fed fire” on one wing. The captain experienced minor injuries in an evacuation.
YELLOW ALERT: The State Department has lowered a travel advisory for Cuba by one level. “Exercise increased caution in Cuba due to attacks targeting U.S. Embassy Havana employees resulting in the drawdown of embassy staff,” the current advisory reads. In the first six months of 2018, the number of U.S. travelers to Cuba — not including Cubans who had previously left the island nation — decreased by almost 24 percent, The Miami Herald reports, citing a Cuban economist.
EX-IM NOM MOVES FORWARD: The Senate Banking Committee unanimously approved Kimberly Reed’s nomination to be president of the Export-Import Bank on Thursday. But, as Pro Financial Services’ Zachary Warmbrodt reports, “it remained unclear whether the agency’s opponents would go along with the confirmation of other appointees needed to get the agency up and running again.”
SHIFTING GEARS: Zachary Radford, senior policy adviser and counsel to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), is leaving to be the Metrorail Safety Commission’s director of external relations. Melissa Rudinger, vice president of government affairs for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, has joined the RTCA board of directors. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has appointed Steve Biegun as special representative for North Korea. Biegun has been vice president of international government affairs at Ford for 14 years. Meanwhile, at the Railway Engineering-Maintenance Suppliers Association, Alan Reynolds will replace Bruce Wise as president.
THE AUTOBAHN:
— “Offices of Italian bridge manager Autostrade searched in three cities.” The Wall Street Journal.
— “Hurricane Lane: Airlines waive change fees.” USA Today.
— “European airlines are scrapping flights to Iran.” CNN Money.
— “Scooter companies are trying to rehabilitate their reputations as cities crack down.” The Verge.
— “China slaps back at latest United States tariffs in trade war escalation.” South China Morning Post.
— “Elon Musk hires Morgan Stanley to help take Tesla private.” Bloomberg.
— “Psychology 101: Why do drivers involved in crashes flee the scene?” The Washington Post.
— “TSA finds loaded gun in man’s bag at Dulles Airport checkpoint.” The Washington Post.
THE COUNTDOWN: DOT appropriations run out in 38 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 38 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 769 days.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-transportation/2018/08/24/ptc-progress-toward-completion-326688
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A Chorus of Opposition to Wheeler’s Sham Clean Power Plan Replacement
Aug 24, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Charlie Jiang
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler just released his proposal to severely weaken America’s only nation-wide carbon pollution protections for existing power plants – to a chorus of opposition from the American public, state and local officials, faith organizations, health and environmental organizations, and leaders across the political spectrum.
Wheeler’s proposal would scrap the landmark Clean Power Plan –increasing harmful air pollution and exacerbating climate change. According to EPA’s own numbers, Wheeler’s proposal could lead to more than one thousand extra deaths and tens of thousands of additional asthma attacks each year. It forfeits the lifesaving benefitsthe Clean Power Plan would provide for the health and well-being of all Americans.
More than 70 percent of Americans – including a majority in every Congressional district in the country – support putting strict limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants, according to a recent poll analysis. A broad and diverse group of them spoke out in opposition to the sham Clean Power Plan replacement proposal.
Here are some notable quotes (and you can see a more complete list here).
From bipartisan state and local leaders across the country:“Wildfires burning all over the world – smoke everywhere – and President Trump wants to burn more coal with fewer clean air protections by dropping the Clean Power Plan.” – Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Democrat“As communities across the country deal with the impacts of climate change and air pollution, this is simply the wrong approach.” – Vermont Governor Phil Scott, Republican“With intense droughts, wildfires, rainstorms, and flooding plaguing our nation, we need to move swiftly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the very real impact climate change is having on the health and economic vitality of our communities.” – Columbia, South Carolina Mayor Steve Benjamin, President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors“As Seattleites’ health is threatened by smoke from wildfires – which climate change is making more and more of a threat – our national leaders in the other Washington are taking us backwards.” – Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan
From state Attorneys General, who are pledging to sue:“If the Trump administration’s proposal to dismantle the Clean Power Plan is adopted, we will work with our state and local partners to file suit to block it – in order to protect New Yorkers, and all Americans, from the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change.” – New York State Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood“The U.S. EPA’s complete rejection of the Clean Power Plan and our country’s path to a cleaner and safer environment will have disastrous consequences. I will take legal action to ensure the federal government does its job to protect our environment and our health.” – Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan
From health experts, faith leaders and community advocates:“With today's proposal, President Trump and Acting EPA Administrator Wheeler abandon much-needed public health safeguards against power plant pollution, placing the health of all Americans at risk, and especially those who are most vulnerable, including children, older adults, and people with asthma and heart disease.” – Harold P. Wimmer, National President and CEO of the American Lung Association“As people of faith, we have a moral calling to be faithful stewards of God’s creation and care for vulnerable peoples, but this new plan will do the exact opposite. The recent wildfires, hurricanes, and floods that are devastating communities around the country paint a clear picture: the impacts of climate change are already happening and causing irreparable harm.” – Emily Wirzba, Legislative Representative for Friends Committee on National Legislation“This latest scam aims to transfer billions from the poor and middle class to a few Trump cronies and invite unspeakable harm to the U.S. by accelerating, rather than mitigating, climate change.” – David Arkush, Climate Program Managing Director of Public Citizen“The Trump Administration continues to put the health of the Latino community and all Americans at risk by gutting the Clean Power Plan… The Latino community is hit first and worst by climate change, and we suffer disproportionate public health effects.” – Mark Magaña, President & CEO of GreenLatinos“Today’s proposal ignores the strong public support for reducing climate pollution and instead prioritizes the profits of coal barons over our children’s health. Moms are watching. We are appalled by this scam to disregard our children’s health and future.” – Dominique Browning, Senior Director of Moms Clean Air Force
From Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle:“I oppose the Trump Administration's regulatory roll back of the Clean Power Plan that was announced today. As the proud home of the Adirondacks, the North Country knows the importance of protecting our environment for future generations.” – Elise Stefanik (R-New York)“The Clean Power Plan was an important step for our nation to combat climate change. Today’s decision continues a long line of misguided actions by this President that are toxic to our planet and to the American people.” – Tim Ryan (D-Ohio)“The Administration’s proposal to rewrite the national standards established by the Clean Power Plan is a step in the wrong direction.” – Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine)“If I were grading the Trump Administration’s proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan, I would give it an ‘F.’ This egregious climate denial plan fails to protect the American people from the serious risks of climate change [and] fails to produce the same health and energy saving benefits that were achieved under the Clean Power Plan.” – Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware)“President Trump's proposal is full-fledged climate denial. It gives coal companies the green light to pollute the air we breathe and the water we drink. This proposal flies in the face of scientific fact, morality, and America's leadership.” – Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii)
From experts in energy, environment and law:“This is about coal at all costs. There is no other country in the world that is looking at coal as its future — they are all running to clean energy to save money, create jobs and save lives today and protect our children’s future.” – Gina McCarthy, former EPA Administrator“By only requiring marginal efficiency improvements at individual coal plants, the proposed replacement plan is a regulatory fig leaf. Instead of reducing carbon pollution from coal plants as required by the Clean Air Act, the proposal provides coal plants with a virtually free pass to continue polluting with impunity.” – David Hayes, former Deputy Secretary of the Interior“To no surprise, Trump and his corporate puppets running our government are again putting profits over people. Their new ‘Affordable Clean Energy Plan’ is neither affordable nor clean, and nothing more than a dirty and dangerous scam.” – Mustafa Ali, former EPA Senior Advisor for Environmental Justice“Killing the Clean Power Plan will not bring coal back, because the Clean Power Plan did not kill coal. It’s still economics.” – Professor James Van Nostrand, West Virginia University College of Law“In regulating greenhouse gas pollution, the EPA is legally required to use the ‘best system of emission reduction,’ not a mediocre or downright counterproductive system of emission reduction. This proposal is an enormous step backwards, and it will have severe repercussions for public health and the climate.” – Professor Richard Revesz, New York University School of Law
You can read more reactions here.
The immediate opposition to Wheeler’s proposal is a sharp contrast to reactions to previous efforts to address climate pollution from power plants. For instance, power companies representing more than 10 percent of U.S. generating capacity supported the Clean Power Plan in court – as did a wide array of states, municipalities, leading businesses and business associations, faith organizations, health and medical associations, consumer advocates, and elected officials.
More recently, elected officials, energy experts, public health advocates, and many others have affirmed the importance of ambitious measures to address climate change and secure cleaner air in the face of the Trump administration’s misguided rollbacks, including:More than a dozen GovernorsThe Attorneys General of at least 19 states and the District of Columbia244 mayors from 48 states and territories, representing 51 million AmericansLeading businesses including Apple, Google, Mars, and Gap, Inc.Hundreds of Members of CongressEminent former U.S. environmental regulators and legal expertsEnvironmental, public health, and consumer advocates – including, of course, EDF
The message is clear – Americans across the country, and across the political spectrum, want a safer climate and healthier air, not a rollback of the Clean Power Plan.
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2018/08/24/a-chorus-of-opposition-to-wheelers-sham-clean-power-plan-replacement/
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Clean Power Plan 2.0 Better Than Original, But Only Congress Can Solve ‘Wicked Problems’
Aug 24, 2018 | RealClearEnergy
By William Murray
How to get the United States to lower its greenhouse gas emissions profile without harming the economy is becoming the “wicked problem” of the 21st Century.
The EPA’s decision this week to update the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) is a welcome and necessary move to curtail a measure that would have essentially nationalized the electricity sector of the U.S. economy. But it gets the country no closer to a comprehensive strategy to combat climate change.
Why? Because like all problems for which the solution requires tens of millions of people to change their mindsets and behavior, solutions beget unanticipated new problems, often infinitum. And, any attempt by the executive branch at regulation can be challenged in court by opposing forces with very deep pockets or simply changed by a future administration.
The root cause of the congressional impasse on climate policy actually predates the rise of the rigid left-right partisanship of the last 20 years. The fact is that the modern administrative state has seen better days; compared to when it mutated into its current form a half century ago, it can no longer properly balance the health and economic trade-offs that surround environmental regulation.
Perhaps as a result of the administrative state’s increasing age and ineffectiveness, environmental policies passed by Congress in the 1970s and enhanced by executive agencies in the 1980s are getting increased scrutiny from the U.S. Supreme Court. And the potential for overturning the deference now afforded to federal agencies may increase if D.C. Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanagh ascends to the Supreme Court.
The new regulations mandate that EPA emission reduction regulations must apply only to equipment and activities “within the fence-line” of existing power plants. The new proposal will also give states wide latitude to write their own regulations for coal plants—something the previous administration never allowed. The new plan will also do little to further emissions reductions and instead simply plateau the recent fall in power plant emissions.
But industries and energy consumers shouldn’t plan their victory lap just yet. The 2007 Supreme Court ruling Massachusetts vs. EPA that found greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act will remain in force as “settled law.” This will put the Trump-era regulations in legal jeopardy if the high court finds them insufficiently effective at combating climate change.
What’s more, all the legal and regulatory tools available for a future administration to devise an even more intrusive regulatory regime will still be in place after Trump leaves office.
Considering how volatile and animated the electorate has become over the past decade, the threat of more aggressive administrative action from an Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders White House should at least give some of the more imaginative – and politically honest – Republicans pause. This rabbit-hole of failed climate regulation, however, could be ended with Congressional action.
With the failure of cap-and-trade legislation in Congress during the Obama years and the struggles of carbon markets in places like California and the European Union, it’s increasingly likely that a carbon tax is the best remaining policy option to finally give U.S. industry some certainty. It would also likely have bipartisan support.
Before agreeing to collaborate, critics of the Trump administration’s proposal must come to terms with the legal weaknesses of the original plan. Likewise, critics of the original Obama-era proposal must come to terms with the reality of climate change and the increased action that businesses and communities are already taking across the United States.
If such realizations were to come to pass (hope springs eternal), a revenue-neutral carbon tax – in conjunction with the ending of future greenhouse gas regulation and a roll-back in the scope of landmark environmental legislation like parts of the Clean Air Act – could possibly gain support amongst Capitol Hill Republicans.
Such actions could address climate change more meaningfully, at a lower cost to consumers and without expanding government. Let’s use the next few years wisely before a “wicked problem” becomes even worse.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2018/08/24/clean_power_plan_20_better_than_original_but_only_congress_can_solve_wicked_problems_110332.html
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Uncertainty Lingers Over Bills That May Frame Gov. Brown's Climate Legacy
Aug 24, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Curt Barry
With only a week left in California's 2018 legislative session, uncertainty surrounds many high-profile energy bills that could frame Gov. Jerry Brown's (D) climate and clean power legacy, and some measures might be tied up in deal-making likely to take place in the final day and possibly final hours of the session, sources say.
“Anything can happen,” says one environmental lobbyist ahead of the Aug. 31 final day of session. “While there is a general effort to make everything that happens in this session part of Brown's legacy, he doesn't have as much control over what happens in these final two weeks as he may have had in previous years because he's functionally a lame duck. And there are people [in the Capitol] who feel they don't need to do his bidding anymore.”
That sentiment may be truest when it comes to one of Brown's top priorities -- AB 813, sponsored by Assemblyman Chris Holden (D) -- which would create a governance structure for an expanded regional power market including multiple Western states.
Critics of the measure -- including leading Democrats in the Legislature, environmentalists and some ratepayer advocates -- have long charged that the plan would thwart the state's clean power and greenhouse gas policies, give federal officials appointed by President Donald Trump control over local power supply decisions and hike costs.
But Brown and other supporters say the grid expansion plan would bolster renewable power generation, reduce GHGs and lower ratepayer costs. The plan would first add territory served by the utility PacifiCorp, including parts of Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The proposed market could eventually also include Nevada and Arizona, which currently participate in the California grid operator's Energy Imbalance Market, and other Western states.
AB 813 recently received a special rule waiver allowing it to bypass the Senate Appropriations Committee and move to the Senate floor for a potential vote in the final days of the session.
The bill is one of several key measures pending in both chambers that could be part of lawmakers' horse-trading for a final grand deal before the session ends at midnight Aug. 31.
All the legislative uncertainty comes as Brown prepares to hold a climate change conference -- the “Global Climate Action Summit” -- Sept. 12-14 in San Francisco. The event will “bring leaders and people together from around the world to 'Take Ambition to the Next Level,'” the summit's website says. “It will be a moment to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of states, regions, cities, companies, investors and citizens with respect to climate action.”
The administration expects the event will also be a “launchpad for deeper worldwide commitments and accelerated action from countries -- supported by all sectors of society -- that can put the globe on track to prevent dangerous climate change and realize the historic Paris Agreement.”
'Don't See' The Votes
In one possible sign of potential deal-making, some sources say Brown -- whose final term ends in January -- may be hedging his support for another high-profile clean energy bill -- SB 100, sponsored by Sen. Kevin de Leon (D) -- to persuade key lawmakers to support the grid expansion plan.
The bill would accelerate the state's renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to require 60 percent clean power by 2030 and 100 percent “zero carbon” energy resources by 2045
But the environmental lobbyist is skeptical that Brown can muster the Democratic votes to pass AB 813 regardless of whether he uses SB 100 as leverage. “Every labor group, environmental group, environmental justice group, consumer group, and local public utilities oppose” AB 813. “I just don't see where he's going to get the votes. And I don't know that the language has been crafted” adequately to move the measure.
While environmentalists, labor unions and clean-power industry groups are strongly supporting SB 100, investor-owned utilities and major industry groups are heavily opposed, arguing it would drive up costs for ratepayers amid substantial uncertainty about how power will be generated and sold in the state going forward.
SB 100 is pending on the Assembly floor, having previously cleared the Senate.
Environmentalists are perplexed that Brown has not come out in strong support of the bill. “SB 100 is probably the closest thing to being able to have something to show for his tenure; it's probably one of the most important from an energy perspective,” the lobbyist says.
A second environmentalist says it is “odd” that Brown hasn't taken a public position on SB 100, “given that it’s the most important climate bill of the year.”
Environmentalists say Brown's clean power and climate change legacy would take a hit if he were to spurn SB 100 and sign AB 813.
This is reflected in messaging by some groups that say the grid expansion bill represents a “Trump takeover” of California's clean energy policies, as well as other advocates who urge Brown to “resist the financial might of the fossil fuel industry” by strongly advocating for SB 100.
A spokeswoman for Brown's office declined to comment directly on the administration's position on SB 100. But she noted that Brown underscored his commitment to clean power in 2015 when he signed SB 350, the landmark bill that established “world-leading energy efficiency and renewable energy goals for California,” including a 50 percent RPS by 2030.
In addition, “Under SB 350, the California Public Utilities Commission this year defined the path to ensure that the electric sector is on track to help the state achieve its 2030 greenhouse gas reduction goal,” the spokeswoman notes.
Opponents of SB 100 say the measure is premature precisely because of the passage of SB 350 and current efforts by the state and utilities to meet the law's mandates.
Biomass Wildcard
Another high-profile wildcard that may affect any broader legislative deals in the coming days is a strong press by the biomass industry for policymakers to approve new bioenergy procurement mandates as part of the state's plan to limit wildfires and dispose of millions of dead or dying trees and other woody fuel.
A biomass sector subsidy plan could be included in SB 901, sponsored by Sen. Bill Dodd (D), which has been debated in recent weeks by the Wildfire Preparedness & Response Legislative Conference Committee and is expected soon to move to the Senate floor.
A source in Dodd's office says the committee will be preparing a report soon on its deliberations over the bill, which likely will reflect final amendments to the measure before it moves to the Senate floor. The amended bill -- including potentially the new biomass subsidies -- may be available on Aug. 28, in compliance with a new requirement that amended final versions of legislation must be in print 72 hours prior to the end of session, the source says.
Environmentalists oppose the biomass industry proposal, charging that burning trees to produce electricity or transportation fuel emits more carbon pollution that coal-fired power plants. So if Brown were to support such a proposal, he would risk a black mark on his environmental and clean power legacy, they say.
“We are hearing disturbing sounds that the governor is looking to prop up dirty, old biomass plants, despite the fact that they are major contributors to the air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley,” says the second environmentalist.
The first environmental lobbyist says Brown and other administration officials have been “listening too much to the biomass industry -- having a lot of negotiations about the fires and forest stuff without having any environmental input.”
Some sources have speculated that a biomass subsidy proposal could be a key component of a broader deal on energy legislation. Under one potential deal, sources say, biomass groups could pledge to support either SB 100 or the grid expansion legislation in exchange for passage of new subsidies and procurement requirements. The outlines of any agreement remain murky, however.
“The biomass industry is working like crazy at [the Capitol] to figure out -- how can they shoehorn in anywhere to get more requirements for buying that energy," says another environmentalist close to the issue. "So I think some deal is being cooked up . . . and there will be an unspoken agreement that other [bills] will get out if SB 100 gets out.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/uncertainty-lingers-over-bills-may-frame-gov-browns-climate-legacy
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Statewide Bill to Limit Straws Heads to Governor
Aug 24, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
By Sophia Bollag
California lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown (D) a bill yesterday that would ban full-service restaurants from handing out straws unless a customer requests one.
Supporters of the measure, which passed the state Assembly 45-20, say it would make California the first state to impose such limits.
Assemblyman Ian Calderon (D) said his measure would be a small step to fight plastic pollution.
Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez (R) disagreed, saying it would not effectively curb plastic pollution in the ocean and would punish restaurants.
Calderon said the restaurant industry does not oppose the measure.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/08/24/stories/1060095175
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19 Global Cities Commit to Make New Buildings Net-Zero By 2030
Aug 24, 2018 | EcoWatch
By Lorraine Chow
The world's most iconic skylines are going green. Nineteen city leaders from the C40 coalition signed the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Declaration on Thursday to ensure all new buildings operate with a neutral carbonfootprint by 2030.
The mayors of Copenhagen, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York City, Newburyport, Paris, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Monica, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, Tshwane, Vancouver and Washington, DC also pledged to ensure all buildings in the cities—old or new—will meet net-zero carbon standards by 2050, according to a press release. The cities are home to 130 million people combined.
Buildings are often a city's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions due to fossil fuels being used for heat, hot water and other energy needs. About 39 percent of the total energy consumption in the U.S. comes from the residential and commercial sectors. In megacities such as London, Los Angeles and Paris, buildings account for more than 70 percent of their overall emissions. These structures are not only driving climate change, but the air pollution emitted from the buildings is also a public health concern.
Net-zero buildings, however, are incredibly energy-efficient and meet any remaining energy needs from renewable energy sources. Not only are these green buildings environmentally and socially beneficial, but they also offer economic benefits, such as cost savings on utility bills for tenants and higher property value for owners.
"Combating climate change is a moral necessity, an environmental imperative, and an economic opportunity—and Los Angeles is proud to be a leader in creating our clean energy future," said Mayor Eric Garcetti in statement. "By pledging to reduce the carbon footprint of our buildings, cities are moving us another step closer to the goals of the Paris Agreement–and the promise of lower emissions, less pollution, and more renewable energy innovation."
The pledges were made ahead of the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco next month and align with the Paris agreement goal of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"Delivering on the commitments made today will require a united effort, as city governments do not have direct control over all the buildings in a city. This commitment includes a pledge to work together with state and regional governments and the private sector to drive this transformation, and calls on national governments for equal action," the press release stated.
As part of the commitment, the cities will develop a roadmap to reach net-zero carbon buildings as well as a suite of supporting incentives and programs. Each year, they will release a report on their progress towards meeting their targets.
"Paris is home to some of the world's most beautiful and iconic buildings. As mayors of the world's great cities we recognize our responsibility to ensure every building, whether historic or brand new, helps deliver a sustainable future for our citizens," said Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, in a statement. "With this commitment cities are getting the job done, concretely delivering on the Paris Agreement and building better cities for generations to come. One more time, the future is taking place in cities."
https://www.ecowatch.com/net-zero-emissions-buildings-cities-2598664498.html
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