Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report - August 27, 2018
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Hearing on Energy and Education
Aug 29, 2018 | House Natural Resources
Location: Union High School, Roosevelt, Utah / 4:00 PM. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Companies Warn Of Potential Damages From Tariffs
Aug 25, 2018 | CGTN
A proposed tariff of 25 percent on 200 billion US dollars' worth of Chinese imports will eventually damage US companies and consumers, with higher prices and limited choices, representatives from the chemical industry said at the public hearings on US 301 investigation. -
3M Among Manufacturers Wary of Perfluorinated Chemical Limits
Aug 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
3M Co. and other manufacturers are fighting state and federal efforts to set limits for a group of ubiquitous chemicals being discovered in water supplies across the country. -
Bipartisan Bills To Address PFAS Contamination Introduced In Senate
Aug 24, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
Senators introduced two bipartisan bills today aimed at dealing with the country's burgeoning water contamination crisis from nonstick chemicals. -
EPA’s Asbestos Policy Is Toxic
Aug 27, 2018 | Sierra Magazine
By Casey O'Brien
Asbestos is one of the most dangerous chemicals in modern industry. Still, contrary to a common misperception, the toxic material, while largely phased out, has never been banned. -
Brazil Fighting Judge’s Glyphosate Ban, Industry Expects Reversal
Aug 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Michael Kepp
Brazil’s in-house legal office is appealing a federal judge’s decision that suspended the use of the herbicide glyphosate on genetically modified soy and other transgenic crops, saying courts shouldn’t evaluate pesticides. -
Gas Producers Counting On Mexico’s Market Have Plenty To Worry About
Aug 27, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
For years, U.S. producers have counted on Mexico to buy enormous quantities of natural gas from the prolific shale fields in West Texas and elsewhere. -
The Consequences Of Surging U.S. Natural Gas Exports To Mexico
Aug 27, 2018 | Oilprice
By Tsvetana Paraskova
New pipeline capacity additions on both sides of the border have helped U.S. natural gas pipeline exports to Mexico to jump to their highest level on record in July. -
Environmentalists Urge Court To Quickly Finalize RMP After Delay Vacated
Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Environmental and community petitioners are urging an appellate court that struck down the Trump administration's delay of the Obama-era facility accident prevention rule to quickly finalize its ruling, arguing that continued delay poses risks to millions, and that EPA is unlikely to prevail in any future appeal. -
Obama Chemical Risk Warnings Already Fulfill Wheeler’s Aims, EPA Told
Aug 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler could be missing an opportunity to improve how the agency communicates risk if he scraps Obama-era changes to chemical facility safety regulations in what House Democrats and attorneys general say is a legally dubious maneuver. -
How Trump’s EPA is Leaving Houston And All Of America at Risk One Year After Hurricane Harvey
Aug 27, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Felice Stadler
This weekend marks one year since Hurricane Harvey made landfall and wreaked a huge amount of havoc in Texas and other Gulf Coast states. -
Why Carbon Price at Highest in a Decade Won’t Save the Planet
Aug 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jeremy Hodges
Even after reaching their highest in a decade, the cost of carbon in Europe isn’t anywhere close to where they need to be to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. -
EPA Likely To Reconsider Utility MATS 'Appropriate & Necessary' Finding
Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA is expected to formally reconsider the Obama-era determination that its utility air toxics rule was “appropriate and necessary” under the Clean Air Act, a Senate source says, despite bipartisan calls from senators and utilities to retain the finding because of the millions of dollars that utilities have already spent to comply with the rule. -
Poll: Americans Support Moving Away From Plastic Straws, Less Sure Of Ban
Aug 24, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Most Americans support a recent push to cut back on plastic straw use, though a far small proportion supports a ban, a poll out Friday reports. -
Bipartisan Senators Say MATS Revamp 'Just Doesn't Make Sense'
Aug 27, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
A bipartisan pair of senators is urging EPA not to revisit its seminal 2011 regulations limiting power plant mercury emissions, even as the agency continues to mull that option.
Congressional Hearings - There are no hearings to report at this time.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
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Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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Hearing on Energy and Education
Aug 29, 2018 | House Natural Resources
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Companies Warn Of Potential Damages From Tariffs
Aug 25, 2018 | CGTN
A proposed tariff of 25 percent on 200 billion US dollars' worth of Chinese imports will eventually damage US companies and consumers, with higher prices and limited choices, representatives from the chemical industry said at the public hearings on US 301 investigation.
The list of 200 billion US dollars' worth of Chinese products includes 16 billion US dollars' worth of chemical and plastics goods, according to data from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry association.
The new tariffs “would have a potentially irreparable impact on our industry’s economic structure and supply chain,” the ACC’s director of international trade, Ed Brzytwa, warned at the hearing, US Chemical & Engineering News reported on Thursday.
Representatives from Chinese companies also attended the public hearing and argued that the implementation of tariffs will lead to a supply shortage in the US market and even potentially risk US consumers as they would have to resort to other alternatives.
Choon Teo, chief scientific officer at Zhejiang Medicine Co. Ltd, asked the Section 301 Subcommittee to exclude certain natural food coloring products from the new list of proposed Section 301 tariffs.
“Imposing tariffs on these products may cause Chinese suppliers to exit the market,” and then the previous duopoly by two European companies might return, according to the testimony Choon sent to CGTN.
With the duopoly, price increases and product shortages, “this would not be beneficial to the US industry,” he said at the hearing, adding that these European producers’ facilities are old and prone to accidents, leading to potential risks for US consumers’ health.
In addition to companies attending the public hearing, many chemical companies have submitted letters explaining the harm the tariffs would do to them and their customers.
One of them is chemical maker SNF Holding who has been importing quaternized dimethylaminoethyl acrylate from a sister company in China because of an industry-wide capacity shortage in the US.
SNF warned that the proposed tariff on this product, which is widely used to treat municipal drinking water, could raise the cost of water treatment by 20 percent, according to the Chemical & Engineering News report.
“This particular tariff will not increase costs for the latest electronic gadget or luxury item. Instead, this tariff will increase costs for drinking water and waste treatment, a basic human necessity,” the report said, quoting SNF President John Pittman.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774e79517a4e79457a6333566d54/share_p.html
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3M Among Manufacturers Wary of Perfluorinated Chemical Limits
Aug 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Report from toxic substances agency is flawed, denies health effects of chemicals, company says
States considering report while writing new standards
3M Co. and other manufacturers are fighting state and federal efforts to set limits for a group of ubiquitous chemicals being discovered in water supplies across the country.
3M warned the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in commentssubmitted Aug. 20 that “scientifically flawed assumptions” are made in the agency’s draft analysis of perfluorinated chemicals. The agency’s conclusions about the chemicals’ risks align closely with New Jersey’s justification for setting the nation’s strictest perfluorinated chemical standards, according to the state’s Aug. 16 comments.
Manufacturers are concerned that the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s analysis could push other states and the federal government to set more standards that are just as strict. Its chemical analyses review scientific literature to provide a broad picture of adverse health effects that a chemical could have.
The agency, which is part of the Health and Human Services Department, will review the comments and work on a final revision of the report. No timetable has been given for that report.
Chemicals of ConcernSome of the perfluorinated chemicals in the agency’s analysis, which include perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), have been used to manufacture firefighting foams and are contained in nonstick and stain-resistant coatings in clothing, fast-food wrappers, carpets, and other consumer products.
The chemicals have caused concern because no consensus exists on how much is safe to consume despite their widespread use.
Most people in the U.S. have the chemicals in their blood, most likely PFOA or PFOS, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Lawsuits have come from hundreds of residents, organizations, and state attorneys general concerned about the presence of those compounds in their water.
3M, which stopped making and using the chemicals in 2008, maintains that PFOS and PFOA don’t cause adverse health effects, despite warnings from the Environmental Protection Agency and state efforts to set protective limits for them in drinking water. The company and others, including footwear maker Wolverine World Wide Inc. and chemical company DowDuPont Inc., have been the subject of multimillion-dollar lawsuits because of their use of the chemicals.
Wholesale Revision?The National Association of Manufacturers pushed for any regulatory actions based on the report to also consider the “best scientific information possible,” spokesman Michael Short told Bloomberg Environment in an email Aug. 22. The association’s comments urged the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to emphasize that the health effects noted in the report are not necessarily caused by perfluorinated chemicals.
The agency report of “minimal risk levels” for the chemicals is intended to guide public health officials to take a closer look at the chemicals—not to define cleanup levels or levels at which an agency should take action. Exposing a person to a concentration of the chemicals above the “minimal risk level” doesn’t necessarily result in adverse health effects, according to the agency report.
The agency’s minimal risk levels support the basic building blocks of New Jersey’s perfluorinated chemical standards, the state said in its comments.
3M asked the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry for a “wholesale revision” of the report because the company believes the agency relied on “flawed and incomplete data” to generate those minimal risk levels.
Part of the ProcessThe EPA recommends limiting PFOA and PFOS to less than 70 parts per trillion in drinking water during a person’s lifetime. That amount isn’t enforceable, leading states to set their own stricter standards.
Wisconsin is considering groundwater standards for PFOA and PFOS. The agency’s minimal risk levels are part of the “overall body of scientific literature” that it will incorporate into its standard-writing process, Jennifer Miller, spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Health Services, told Bloomberg Environment Aug. 23.
Minnesota, which is considering standards for a similar set of perfluorinated chemicals, is taking a similar approach to the report.
“We’ll continue to look at it as another resource to help inform the state of knowledge of the toxicology of these chemicals,” Jim Kelly, manager of environmental surveillance and assessment at the Minnesota Department of Health, told Bloomberg Environment Aug. 23.
Pennsylvania has called for the EPA to lead the way in perfluorinated chemical limits, but “in the absence of strong leadership at the federal level,” the commonwealth is considering writing standards on its own, Neil Shader, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, told Bloomberg Environment.
If Pennsylvania were to write its own regulations, “the findings of the [Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry] report would be considered in the formulation of those,” but the commonwealth still believes that the EPA should establish standards, Shader said in an email Aug. 22.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/3m-among-manufacturers-wary-of-perfluorinated-chemical-limits?context=landing&limit=30&tab=news
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Bipartisan Bills To Address PFAS Contamination Introduced In Senate
Aug 24, 2018 | PoliticoPro
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-N.H.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.).
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.).
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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EPA’s Asbestos Policy Is Toxic
Aug 27, 2018 | Sierra Magazine
By Casey O'Brien
New policies place chemical companies above American health
Asbestos is one of the most dangerous chemicals in modern industry. Still, contrary to a common misperception, the toxic material, while largely phased out, has never been banned. The EPA during the Obama administration tried to remedy that; the agency, under President Trump, is trying hard not to, potentially putting thousands of lives at risk. Under the leadership of acting administrator Andrew Wheeler, the EPA recently punted on the opportunity to ban asbestos, which is believed to kill up to 15,000 Americans a year due to its host of health risks.
The development arrives after a years-long fight to finally ban the toxic material for good. In 2016, the Obama administration revised and updated the Toxic Substances Control Act, the nation’s main chemical regulation law. The revised TSCA, also called the Frank R Lauterburg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, was designed to remove roadblocks that had historically prevented the EPA from banning certain chemicals, even when they were known toxins. It declared that chemicals had to be reviewed only on the basis of their risks to health, not considering costs, and included protections for vulnerable populations.
Among other directives,the updated law charged the EPA with reviewing several chemicals common in American households, many of which were largely unstudied. Asbestos was one of the first 10 chosen for review. When it passed, the EPA called the revised law “a milestone to protect our health.”
President Obama pointed to the revised law as a historic moment in American regulatory history, saying, “For the first time in 20 years, we are updating a national environmental statute. For the first time in our history, we’ll actually be able to regulate chemicals effectively. And we’re doing it in the same, overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion as happened with those pillars of legislation to protect our air, and our water, and our wildlife—the initiatives where Democrats and Republicans first came together to pass laws more than four decades ago.”
The law gave environmentalists and public health officials hope that asbestos would be banned. Most uses of asbestos are legal in the United States, unlike in most other developed nations. Sixty countries have banned asbestos, but the U.S. and Canada are not among them.
Under Trump, the EPA has failed to ban asbestos, despite conclusive evidence of its health risks. The agency announced in June that it will not review any “legacy uses” of asbestos and other dangerous chemicals or investigate exposure to them from air or water. “Legacy uses” are uses that are no longer ongoing, although they are still in buildings. But, legacy uses and indirect exposure are how most Americans come into contact with asbestos, whether it is in their homes, schools, or even their cosmetics.
“This is uncharted territory,” said Environmental Working Group (EWG) legislative attorney Melanie Benesh. “The Obama administration really only had six months to implement the changes to this law, but things were going in a very different direction than they are under this administration. It is certainly a much cozier relationship to the chemical industry than we have seen,” she added.
In addition to ignoring the TSCA’s regulatory directives, the EPA announced in June a "significant new use rule" (SNUR) on asbestos, which has environmentalists and scientists worried that the chemical isn’t being regulated well enough to protect Americans. The SNUR was passed over the objections of EPA staff members who tried to stop it. Asbestos has been a key issue for many veteran staffers, some of whom told The New York Times that they had “significant concerns” about the new policies in place.
The SNUR, which was open for public comment until mid-August, requires manufacturers to notify the EPA if they are bringing one of 15 asbestos uses back into their production. It is nowhere near the full ban that environmentalists have been fighting for. Benesh was clear that the SNUR was not a clear success for chemical regulation advocates. “It is more restrictive than what currently exists. But the real issue here is that currently, there are no regulations. There are very few uses of asbestos that are not legal,” said Benesh.
There are numerous public health risks to leaving asbestos unregulated. It is a long-established carcinogen. Exposure to the substance has high correlations with development of lung cancer and is the main cause of mesothelioma, a very rare cancer that appears in membranes that cover lungs and other internal organs, as well as scarring of the lung tissue due to breathing in asbestos fibers, known as asbestosis. It has also been linked to larynx and ovarian cancers. Industrial workers are especially at risk, but anyone can have health impacts from asbestos. It is particularly dangerous for people who live in older buildings, where the material is often in their walls.
Many people think of asbestos as a long-phased-out material, but it still surrounds us, even if it was put in place decades before. “It is still pretty pervasive in our environment, and it still causes the same health risks whether it was manufactured yesterday or manufactured 40 years ago,” said Benesh.
When the TSCA was first passed in 1976, it had significant loopholes that prevented the EPA from regulating certain dangerous chemicals beginning to surround concerned Americans. Among other issues, it required the EPA to find exposure risks in order to insist companies test their chemicals, a bizarre catch-22 that left the agency without any real authority over the powerful chemical lobby. About 62,000 chemicals were “grandfathered in” when the law was passed, and the EPA had little ability to review them. The TSCA focused almost entirely on new chemicals. Of the 85,000 chemicals on the U.S. market, the EPA had been successful in reviewing only 200 as of 2016.
The EPA did try to ban asbestos in 1989, but the law was overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 2016 TSCA overhaul, Benesh explained, was designed to pave the way for the abolishment of toxic chemicals. “This is really supposed to be the EPA’s opportunity to do what it wasn’t able to do in 1989 and just ban asbestos,” said Benesh.
So who stands to benefit from the administration’s harmful new policy? Chemical companies for one. Benesh is part of a team at EWG that has filed a FOIA request to investigate former EPA director Scott Pruitt’s ties to the chemical industry and how they might have influenced the decision, and Earthjustice is suing Trump to halt the administration’s chemical policies, claiming that the EPA is not adhering to the TSCA and that upper-level staff members have conflicts of interest interfering with their decisions. Pruitt hired Nancy Beck, who was a chemical industry lobbyist, to work in a chemical safety position at the agency, allowing her to regulate her own industry.
The new policy also happens to be good news for Russia, now the world’s largest asbestos producer. Most asbestos used in the U.S. was, until recently, imported from Brazil, but asbestos was banned there this year, leaving Russia the main supplier to the United States. The new rules have brought praise from Russia, even leading one company to print bags of asbestos with the president’s face, with the caption “Approved by Donald Trump” in Russian. The company, Uralasbest, reportedly has close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
Uralasbest, in the appropriately named Asbest, Russia, runs a massive mine that is seven miles long, about the length of the city of San Francisco. The company told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in an interview in Russia in 2010 that, “The only way to remove our cheap and widely available product is to ban it.”
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/epa-s-asbestos-policy-toxic
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Brazil Fighting Judge’s Glyphosate Ban, Industry Expects Reversal
Aug 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Michael Kepp
Federal courts shouldn’t evaluate pesticides, AGU says
Agrochemical organizations expect decision suspending use of Roundup to be overturned
Brazil’s in-house legal office is appealing a federal judge’s decision that suspended the use of the herbicide glyphosate on genetically modified soy and other transgenic crops, saying courts shouldn’t evaluate pesticides.
The appeal, which the Brazil attorney general’s office, or AGU, filed Aug. 23 in the First Regional Federal Court in Brasilia, seeks to overturn an Aug. 3 decision that suspended nationwide use of glyphosate, thiram, and abamectin until the Health Ministry re-evaluates their toxicity.
“The judiciary should not intervene in technical questions regarding the registration and reevaluation of a pesticide in the country, a serious violation of administrative processes,” the AGU said.
The suspension also will have serious impacts on the country’s economy and food security, according to the legal office.
Overturn ExpectedGlyphosate is the primary active ingredient in the popular weedkiller Roundup, made by Monsanto Co.
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer that found that glyphosate is a “probable carcinogen,” while chemical maker Monsanto said more than 800 studies and scientific analyses have concluded that glyphosate is safe for use.
“We believe that the just-filed appeal will result in the overturning of the decision suspending glyphosate’s use because as the herbicide is used on 90 percent of the soy grown in Brazil,” said Bartolomeu Braz Pereira, president of the Brazilian Soy Producers Association (Aprosoja), which was originally expected to file the appeal but deferred to the AGU.
“As there is no alternative herbicide, suspending its use will greatly impact, if not threaten, food security in Brazil,” he told Bloomberg Environment Aug. 23.
Monsanto’s patent on the last glyphosate-resistant seeds expired in 2015 and more than 50 companies in Brazil now produce glyphosate-resistant seeds, including Bayer AG, BASF SE, and Syngenta AG, according to the Brazilian Seed Producers Association.
Syngenta did not respond to Bloomberg Environment’s Aug. 23 request for comment while DowDuPont said it wanted more time to respond.
SINDIVEG, the Brazilian association of pesticide producers, said in an email to Bloomberg Environment, that it would only comment on appeal once a judge ruled on it.
A First Regional Federal Court judge could issue an injunction overturning the lower court decision suspending the use of glyphosate.
If that does happen, federal prosecutors plan to appeal the injunction, Marco Antonio Delfino de Almeida, who coordinators the federal prosecutor’s office’s pesticide review group, told Bloomberg Environment Aug. 23.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/brazil-fighting-judges-glyphosate-ban-industry-expects-reversal?context=landing&limit=20&tab=news
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Gas Producers Counting On Mexico’s Market Have Plenty To Worry About
Aug 27, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Katherine Blunt
For years, U.S. producers have counted on Mexico to buy enormous quantities of natural gas from the prolific shale fields in West Texas and elsewhere. The fracking boom has given rise to massive pipeline projects to carry that gas across the border, where energy production has plummeted.
Later this year, four long-awaited pipelines to distribute U.S. natural gas throughout Mexico are expected to start up to supply the nation’s power generation and industrial sectors, potentially helping to ease bottlenecks in the crowded Permian Basin.
The question is whether those exports will continue — at least at the same rate. That depends on two political variables: The inauguration of Mexico’s president-elect and the ongoing renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
U.S. natural gas exports to Mexico ramped up in earnest after 2013 and 2014, when Mexico opened its energy market to foreign investment and pushed to expand its pipeline network to buy cheap natural gas from its northern neighbor. The country imported roughly 1.5 trillion cubic feet of U.S. natural gas via pipeline last year, more than double 2013 levels.
U.S. producers are banking on that export demand. Natural gas shipments to Mexico by pipeline exceeded 5 billion cubic feet per day for the first time last month, up from an average of 4.2 million cubic feet per day in 2017.
The July election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, however, has spelled uncertainty for the energy sector. Among other things, he has pledged to boost domestic oil and gas production and decrease the country’s reliance on imports by investing billions of dollars in Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, the country's state-owned energy company.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto are aiming to nail down a NAFTA deal before Lopez Obrador assumes the presidency in December. NAFTA, long criticized as unfair by the Trump administration, makes it easier for Texas oil and gas producers to pipe or otherwise exports their products across the border.
The pipelines nearing completion, which include Enbridge's Nueces-Brownsville project in the Rio Grande Valley and three projects in Mexico, depend in large part on that ease of access. They’re expected to start up in October and November, and several other major projects are under construction.
Complicating the equation: López Obrador built his support in part with a vow to oppose Trump. That could further undermine trade relations between the two countries when he takes office. Already, we’ve seena heated back-and-forth over Trump administration’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
If relations continue to sour — either because of Obrador’s policies or Trump’s rebuke of NAFTA — natural gas exports would likely take a hit. For Texas, which supplies the majority of Mexico’s natural gas imports, that could mean less demand — and fewer projects.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Gas-producers-counting-on-Mexico-s-market-have-13178722.php
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The Consequences Of Surging U.S. Natural Gas Exports To Mexico
Aug 27, 2018 | Oilprice
By Tsvetana Paraskova
New pipeline capacity additions on both sides of the border have helped U.S. natural gas pipeline exports to Mexico to jump to their highest level on record in July.
American exports are set to further increase with a number of pipelines expected to become operational by 2020, the EIA said in a note this week.
The newly commissioned pipelines benefit both countries. For the United States, more pipeline takeaway capacity gives the Permian an additional export outlet from West Texas to Mexico as producers are looking at ways to ease pipeline constraints not only on crude oil production, but also on natural gas whose production is also booming.
For Mexico, natural gas imports help to meet its rising gas demand as the country is adding gas-fired electricity generation capacity at a rapid clip while it faces a decline in its domestic gas production. More pipeline imports also mean cheaper gas than liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, of which Mexico is the number-one customer of the United States.
However, several pipeline projects on the Mexican side of the border face delays of more than a year, capping the U.S. piped gas export surge, as well as the expected relief of Permian gas constraints via pipelines from West Texas into Mexico, the EIA warned.
In 2017, the U.S. became a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957, the EIA said earlier this year. Thanks to growing demand for gas-fired power generation in Mexico and favorable prices compared to LNG shipments, U.S. pipeline capacity into Mexico has also increased over the past few years along with U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico—exports which have more than doubled since 2014 to average 4.2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2017.
Despite the current delays in Mexico, U.S. pipeline exports will continue to increase, according to the EIA. Total U.S. pipeline exports of natural gas are expected to average 7.0 Bcf/d this year and 8.5 Bcf/d next year, up from 6.7 Bcf/d in 2017, driven by growing U.S. production and the completion of new pipelines to demand centers in Mexico.
Between January and May 2018, U.S. exports averaged 4.4 Bcf/d. Last month, after several key pipelines were commissioned in Mexico, U.S. natural gas exports to its southern neighbor jumped for the first time above 5 Bcf/d, the EIA said, citing data by Genscape.
Currently, about three-quarters of U.S. natural gas pipeline exports to Mexico flow from South Texas, mostly from the Eagle Ford. Yet, despite the jump in cross-border pipeline capacity in recent years, exports from West Texas have been limited, due to delays of the connecting pipelines on Mexican territory which has led to relatively low utilization of cross-border pipeline capacity from West Texas, the EIA said.
By the end of the year, however, West Texas can rely on two additional pipelines in Mexico expected to become operational in November—La Laguna-Aguascalientes (1.2 Bcf/d) and Villa de Reyes-Aguascalientes-Guadalajara (0.9 Bcf/d). While these two pipelines will carry natural gas from West Texas into central and western Mexico, they may displace some LNG imports at the Manzanillo LNG terminal, according to the EIA.
Mexico is the single largest market for U.S. LNG exports, having taken nearly 20 percent of all American exports since LNG shipments began in February 2016, U.S. Department of Energy data shows.Related: Is Renewable Energy As Clean As We Think?
Rising U.S. natural gas exports to Mexico, regardless of whether they are shipped via pipelines or LNG cargoes, will help Mexico to meet its growing gas-fired power generation demand at a time when its domestic production is declining. The future of Mexico’s energy sector overhaul is unclear under incoming president Andrés Manuel López Obrador who has been critical of the reform that outgoing president Enrique Peña Nieto enacted in 2013 to end the monopoly of state firm Pemex.
For example, Pemex signed in March this year a contract with San Antonio-based Lewis Energy to assess and develop an unconventional field, which is the extension of the Eagle Ford in Mexico, with investment expected at US$617 million.
A month after López Obrador was elected president of Mexico, he said that the country would not use fracking anymore, dashing hopes that Mexico could replicate the U.S. shale gas boom in 10 years’ time.
With or without domestic shale gas production, Mexico will increasingly need natural gas, while the U.S. has an outlet—and a very close one at that—for both its pipeline exports and LNG shipments.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Consequences-Of-Surging-US-Natural-Gas-Exports-To-Mexico.html
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Environmentalists Urge Court To Quickly Finalize RMP After Delay Vacated
Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Environmental and community petitioners are urging an appellate court that struck down the Trump administration's delay of the Obama-era facility accident prevention rule to quickly finalize its ruling, arguing that continued delay poses risks to millions, and that EPA is unlikely to prevail in any future appeal.
In an Aug. 24 filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, community groups issued a rare request for the appellate panel to expedite issuance of a mandate finalizing their Aug. 17 ruling in the case Air Alliance Houston, et al., v. EPA and Andrew Wheeler.
In its Aug. 17 ruling, the two-judge panel scrapped EPA's 20-month delay of the Obama-era safety rule, which strengthened requirements for the Risk Management Plan (RMP) program.
While the ruling would not take effect until EPA has had opportunity to appeal, around Oct. 8, petitioners ask the court to issue a final mandate within 21 days of the Aug. 17 ruling.
“Petitioners submit that there is no basis for any further delay of the Chemical Disaster Rule’s effectiveness and that because such delay causes and threatens severe and irreparable harm to Petitioners and their members or residents, expedited issuance of the mandate is warranted,” the groups say.
The groups note that a panel of the court already granted the petitioners' request for expedited hearing of their lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's delay of the January 2017 rule that updated the agency's RMP program with new requirements, and they contend the arrival of hurricane season makes implementation of the Obama-era rule all the more necessary.
The groups also say that EPA lacks adequate basis to prevail on a petition for rehearing, noting that the judge's ruling found that the Trump administration's delay rule was unlawful.
“If any such petition is filed before the deadline, Petitioners respectfully submit that it would not provide any valid basis to delay issuance of the mandate, as there are no grounds for the Court to grant panel or en banc rehearing,” petitioners say.
“In a well-reasoned decision based on the agency record, the Court held that EPA violated the plain language of the Clean Air Act and that EPA’s action was also arbitrary and capricious,” the groups add.
Delay Rule
EPA issued the final rule updating RMP with new requirements shortly before the Obama administration left office in 2017, imposing new requirements for certain facilities, and including provisions aimed at streamlining disclosure of facility data, and improving coordination between facilities and first responders.
The delay rule postponed by nearly 20 months, from June 19, 2017, to Feb. 19, 2019, the effective date of the revisions. The delay was to allow the Trump administration time to revise the regulation after it accepted an industry petition for reconsideration.
EPA sought comment on the delay rule through Aug. 23.
In their Aug. 17 opinion, the panel ruled that the delay was at odds with an air law requirements for timely implementations of rule's requirements that would reduce accidents and “made a mockery” of the Clean Air Act.
In the request for expedited issuance of the mandate, community petitioners note that they challenged EPA's delay rule in June 2017, the day after it was issued, and that the court has granted their subsequent request for expedited review.
In arguing that the start of hurricane season makes the Obama-era rule more necessary, the groups note that EPA's Office of Inspector General is investigating whether the agency's emergency response provisions are adequate after releases occurred last summer as a result of flooding from Hurricane Harvey.
“Time is of the essence because hurricane season has begun in the Gulf, so the threat is even greater now for communities near the highly concentrated oil refineries and chemical facilities in that region,” petitioners say.
“Hurricane Harvey showed that communities that regularly face hurricanes and other natural disasters have a particularly strong need for the Chemical Disaster Rule to be in effect without further delay,” they add.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmentalists-urge-court-quickly-finalize-rmp-after-delay-vacated
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Obama Chemical Risk Warnings Already Fulfill Wheeler’s Aims, EPA Told
Aug 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
State attorneys general, House Democrats want the EPA to enforce chemical plant regulations
The EPA is facing a decision on whether to change course after losing at D.C. Circuit
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler could be missing an opportunity to improve how the agency communicates risk if he scraps Obama-era changes to chemical facility safety regulations in what House Democrats and attorneys general say is a legally dubious maneuver.
Wheeler has said he wants to improve how the agency tells people about the environmental and health risks they face—something Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and 65 other House Democrats say the chemical plant safety regulation does. It also requires greater coordination with emergency responders, analyses of chemical releases and near-releases, and public meetings when a release or near-release occurs.
Now Wheeler, the lawmakers say, has a chance to back up his words with action.
With a public comment period closing Aug. 23, Wheeler faces a choice whether to issue a regulation weakening the Obama plan—and sharing less information with the public—or letting the plan take effect after a recent court loss questioned the basis for how the repeal came about.
His decision has big stakes for companies like ExxonMobil Corp., LyondellBasell Industries, DowDuPont Corp., and others, because the Obama plan was estimated to cost about $131 million per year, but prevent some of an estimated $274.7 million in annual damages from unplanned chemical releases at about 12,500 facilities using high-risk chemicals.Companies have opposed the changes over the increased costs and what they say are security risks.
Wheeler has spoken out in favor of better “risk communication"—though the details aren’t entirely clear. He has specifically cited residents who live near oil refineries, steel, and chemical plants as populations that require reliable information about health and safety risks.
“If your goal is to improve EPA’s engagement with communities about the environmental risks they face, finalizing this rule would undermine such a commitment to the American public,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and 65 other House Democrats wrote Aug. 23.
Others question whether the matters are connected.
“I think he’s more addressing, ‘How do we quantify these risks?’” Micah Smith, a partner at the law firm Conn Maciel Carey’s workplace safety practice group, told Bloomberg Environment.
An EPA spokesperson said the agency will review the letter in a statement to Bloomberg Environment.
What to Do?Abandoning Pruitt’s rollback could be the only option that can survive judicial scrutiny, state attorneys general say.
To roll back the Obama regulation, Pruitt delayed the old rule 20 months to give his staff time to develop a replacement. But judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit blocked the delay in a ruling Aug. 17, leaving the old rule to take effect as soon as the EPA exhausts its ability to appeal.
The judges’ findings against the EPA show the rollback isn’t justified, the attorneys general of Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington wrote.
In its ruling, the court said the Obama administration EPA proved the need to toughen the regulation to protect workers and communities by preventing injuries and deaths. But Conn Maciel’s Smith said that while the court found the EPA must show its actions are consistent with the purpose of the Clean Air Act, it can do so in changing the provisions.
“There are good arguments for how they would not really improve safety or why they might be infeasible to implement in a broad way,” Smith said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/obama-chemical-risk-warnings-already-fulfill-wheelers-aims-epa-told?context=landing&limit=10&tab=news
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How Trump’s EPA is Leaving Houston And All Of America at Risk One Year After Hurricane Harvey
Aug 27, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Felice Stadler
This weekend marks one year since Hurricane Harvey made landfall and wreaked a huge amount of havoc in Texas and other Gulf Coast states. While there are many lessons we can learn from the storm, and much finger pointing that can be done, one fact is clear: Trump’s EPA failed to properly protect children and families in Houston from chemical leaks triggered by the storm.
We now know that Houston’s vast petrochemical industry released at least 8.3 million pounds of air pollution in the wake of the storm, and that many of the area’s toxic Superfund sites were improperly secured and subsequently flooded.
But perhaps worse than these impacts is the fact that one year later, the more than 134 million Americans who live near chemical plants and storage facilities, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color and lower-income, are still at great risk.
The Trump EPA’s dangerous failures
During and after Hurricane Harvey, as well as Hurricanes Irma and Maria that followed, EPA failed to take important steps to protect families and neighborhoods from health threats:Arkema chemical plant explosion: Neither EPA nor the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) moved fast enough to monitor air quality issues at the Arkema plant when chemical drums caught fire and lids exploded. But a lack of data didn’t stop them from reassuring residents about local air quality. To date, neither TCEQ nor EPA has taken any enforcement action against Arkema, despite the violations (although the company and its CEO and plant manager have been indicted for reckless emissions of dangerous pollutants).Valero refinery leak: Hundreds of families in Houston’s Manchester neighborhood may have breathed in concentrations of benzene that could have damaged their health. But neither EPA nor TCEQ tested the air there until news outlets had published independent air quality monitoring results showing high benzene readings that EDF and Air Alliance Houston paid to do (as did the city of Houston).
Instead, EPA relied on statements by Valero Energy—which EPA later acknowledged “significantly underestimated” the amount of benzene and other volatile organic compounds released at the refinery. To date, neither TCEQ nor EPA has taken any enforcement action against Valero, despite the violations.Superfund sites: The Houston metro area has more than a dozen Superfund sites, designated by EPA as being among America’s most intensely contaminated places. Many of them flooded during and after Harvey, raising risks that waters would loosen contaminated sediment. Even as reporters inspected most of these sites up close, EPA only surveyed them from the air, claiming they were inaccessible. Superfund sites in the Southeast and PuertoRico were also hit by rain and winds from Hurricanes Irma and Maria, creating concerns about toxic drinking water.
In the wrong direction: The Trump administration now weakeningchemical safety rules
In the wake of this health crisis, former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt moved to eliminate EPA rules issued after a chemical explosion killed 15 people at a Texas fertilizer plant (including a dozen first responders) in 2013.
Undoing these safeguards would exempt plant owners from releasing information on chemical hazards to local communities and how to respond in event of a disaster, end requirements that chemical plant owners keep up to date safety information, get rid of training and more.
The good news is that last week a federal judge ruled that the EPA’s bizarre and dangerous effort to delay the Obama-era disaster safety rules was illegal and ordered the Trump administration to put them in place for the time being. The judge even said the Trump Administration “makes a mockery” of federal laws governing federal chemical plant safety.
However the Trump Administration is moving forward with their much weakened rule, which they may finalize in the coming months.
Attacks on chemical safety go beyond regulatory rollbacks
Trump’s EPA is not content to stop there in its efforts to weaken chemical protections. They are also putting over 134 million Americans at risk with their staffing choices, and by trying to cut budgets and eliminate expert oversight:Staffing: The head of the Trump EPA Air Office, William Wehrum, is a former polluting industry attorney who has attacked protections against chemical disasters. He has provided legal services to several members of a coalition fighting the rules.Crippling oversight:The EPA has worked to eliminate the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, an independent agency that investigates chemical accidents at industrial facilities, how they occurred, and how to prevent them.Cutting budgets: President Trump and his EPA have urged cuts of more than $5 million to programs that help prevent, prepare and respond to disasters stemming from chemicals and other dangerous materials. They have also proposed to cut more than $6 million from programs that require companies to let the public know what chemicals they are using so that communities and localities can make informed decisions about the threats they face.
Acting EPA Administrator Wheeler, who has previously worked as a chemical industry lobbyist, faces many test in the coming weeks and months as he considers whether the agency should move forward with these weaker rules and oversight efforts.
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2018/08/24/how-trumps-epa-is-leaving-houston-and-all-of-america-at-risk-one-year-after-hurricane-harvey/
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Why Carbon Price at Highest in a Decade Won’t Save the Planet
Aug 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jeremy Hodges
Allowances must than double to stimulate carbon capture
Markets alone won’t deliver emissions reductions needed
Even after reaching their highest in a decade, the cost of carbon in Europe isn’t anywhere close to where they need to be to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon futures in the EU’s Emissions Trading System moved past their highest point in a decade this week, surpassing 20 euros ($23) a ton. Although the five-fold leap in just over a year has resurrected a moribund market, the price of the permits is still too low to do anything but give industry a gentle nudge toward using cleaner fuels.
At least 50 euros a ton is needed to stimulate the most crucial technologies that halt the flood of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, according to analysts at the International Energy Agency and the private researcher Carbon Tracker. Those include carbon capture and storage, which siphons atmosphere-damaging pollutants from industrial smokestacks and sticks them underground permanently.
“Carbon markets are just not delivering change at the scale and pace needed,” said Craig Bennett, chief executive officer of Friends of the Earth. “It’s high time governments used good old fashioned taxes, regulation, and legislation to drive far faster progress.”
China, IndiaCCS is crucial because deploying those plants would allow nations such as China and India to keep burning coal, something they see as essential to fuel their climb out of poverty.
The IEA says that CCS is a critical part of the plausible scenarios for capping emissions at tolerable levels. It estimates that plants need to account for 14 percent of all emissions cuts by 2060 to keep global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
There needs to be a 10-fold increase in carbon capture by 2025 to put it on the right path to restrict global warming, translating to a $60 billion investment, the IEA said. In order to meet the Paris Agreement around 760 gigatonnes of CO2 emission reductions across the energy sector between now and 2060 will be needed.
“A CO2 price in the range of $50 to $100 a ton is needed to equalize the operating costs of coal and gas-fired power plants in 2025 in the European Union,” the IEA said in a recent report on CCS.
That is a massive development from where the CCS industry stands now. There are currently 18 large-scale CCS facilities operating worldwide, with five more under construction and a further four in advanced development, according to the Global CCS Institute, a group promoting the technology.
“CCS will be critical in delivering on climate goals, and a rising carbon price is to be welcomed,” said Luke Warren, CEO of the U.K.’s Carbon Capture Storage Association. “However, in the near term, while necessary, it is not sufficient. What is also required are targeted policy interventions that can help bring these technologies into the market.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/why-carbon-price-at-highest-in-a-decade-wont-save-the-planet?context=landing&limit=20&tab=news
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EPA Likely To Reconsider Utility MATS 'Appropriate & Necessary' Finding
Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA is expected to formally reconsider the Obama-era determination that its utility air toxics rule was “appropriate and necessary” under the Clean Air Act, a Senate source says, despite bipartisan calls from senators and utilities to retain the finding because of the millions of dollars that utilities have already spent to comply with the rule.
Scrapping the finding would remove the legal underpinning for the utility mercury and air toxics standards (MATS), although it is unclear if this would automatically invalidate the rule -- whose requirements power companies have largely already met. Bill Wehrum, assistant administrator in EPA's Office of Air & Radiation, said in April that undoing the appropriate and necessary finding could help justify a move to “eliminate this regulation.”
Alternatively, Wehrum could use the reconsideration process to craft a new cost-benefit analysis of the MATS rule that might result in data the agency can then use to justify a weakening of the rule without scrapping it.
The Senate source says, “We are hearing directly from stakeholders that the EPA is going to move on this” by reconsidering the finding, and that Wehrum's calendars show regular meetings with his staff about it.
In public remarks, Wehrum has talked about whether to “unring that bell” by reversing the determination. Should EPA opt to scrap the MATS rule that the Obama administration finalized in 2011, it would be another boost for the coal sector, following the agency's proposal to dramatically scale back greenhouse gas limits for power plants. However, MATS is fully implemented, and the power generation sector has already moved away from coal as fuel.
In a statement to Inside EPA, an agency spokesperson says, “We are looking at certain issues related to the 2011 [MATS]. Currently, MATS is in place for affected coal- and oil-fired power plants. EPA fully recognizes that key investments have been made under MATS and substantial emissions reductions achieved.”
However, the spokesperson added, “[W]e believe there were key methodological questions raised by the U.S. Supreme Court, that may not have been resolved by the prior administration’s actions,” referring to the high court's 2014 ruling in Michigan v. EPA. In that decision, the court in a 5-4 ruling faulted the agency for not considering costs to the utility sector in its initial determination that the MATS rule was “appropriate and necessary.”
To address the ruling, EPA then crafted a supplemental cost-benefit analysis for the regulation that still resulted in a determination that its air toxics limits for power plants was appropriate and necessary.
But Wehrum has continued to question the overall process for crafting the finding and how EPA conducted the cost review, and now appears poised to announce a formal reconsideration of it.
“We are taking a close look at the issues raised by the court, including the appropriate and necessary determination, and the treatment of units that burn waste coal,” says the agency spokesperson.
Litigation over the revised cost finding the Obama EPA issued is on hold in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit case Murray Energy v. EPA pending a decision on reconsideration.
If EPA reconsiders the finding but does not scrap MATS altogether, it might instead move to justify weakening the rule's requirements using a new cost review. Wehrum has floated the option of softening the rule through the Clean Air Act risk and technology review (RTR) process, under which the agency must review its various air toxics policies eight years after their issuance to determine whether any regulatory changes are necessary.
While EPA has used RTRs to soften some compliance mandates such as monitoring requirements, an environmentalist attorney warns the process is not a legitimate option for weakening emissions limits.
MATS Regulation
The Obama MATS rule limiting mercury and other toxic air pollutants relies in part on forcing coal-fired power plants to add modern pollution controls. Many plants, however, have either shut down or switched their fuel source to natural gas, motivated also by the low price of gas and state-level environmental regulation.
Wehrum and other critics of the MATS rule said that its health and other benefits were overstated and that the emissions control requirements were too stringent, although most utilities have now complied.
Reconsidering the finding was an option Wehrum floated at an April 19 American Bar Association's Section of Environment, Energy and Resources conference, where he said he acknowledged his dilemma over whether to grant calls from utilities and others to scrap the regulatory justification for the 2011 rule as a “satisfying” move, or retain it as even some of its staunchest industry critics have spent millions in compliance costs.
“If we decide it's not appropriate and necessary to regulate, maybe that provides grounds to eliminate this regulation,” he said. “On the other hand, this rule became effective several years ago now, and it was stringent, it was costly, and a number of coal-fired power plants were shut down in part, if not in large part, due to this rule. A lot of money was spent at the power plants that operators decided to continue running, so they installed scrubbers, they installed mercury control equipment -- they did a lot of things that cost a lot of money.”
He added, “If we keep the rule in place, I'd like to think about doing RTR, residual risk and technology review, for that rule.” Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is required to reassess its air toxics rules eight years after their implementation to determine whether emissions from a sector still pose health risks, or whether new technology exists to further reduce a sector's toxic air pollution. If EPA answers either question in the affirmative, it can revise and tighten the standard -- but it can also use RTRs to soften its rules' compliance requirements.
Concern about the potential for an imminent reconsideration of the appropriate and necessary finding prompted a bipartisan duo of senators to write to Wehrum opposing such a move.
Senate Environment & Public Works Committee ranking member Tom Carper (D-DE) and Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee member Lamar Alexander (R-TN) in their Aug. 24 letter to EPA's Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler ask him to leave the MATS rule in place. “This rule is already in effect, and we urge you not to propose changes to it. Keeping the current rule in place will provide much-needed certainty for the electric power industry and help protect the health of all Americans,” the senators write.
“Today, MATS is overachieving expectations. We are seeing public health benefits faster than predicted,” they write. “MATS has been a success, and changing the MATS rule just doesn’t make sense.”
The senators cite a July 10 letter from a variety of groups representing the power generation sector, and also labor unions, urging EPA to leave MATS in place. The July letter, however, does urge EPA to conduct an RTR of the MATS rule to assess potential revisions to its requirements.
The groups in their letter “urge EPA to move forward with an RTR for power plants under [air law] section 112 and to leave the underlying MATS rule in place and effective. We also urge EPA to consider potential technical revisions to MATS -- such as considering whether performance tests could be performed less frequently if units are running less frequently -- while still ensuring that the standards are being achieved.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-likely-reconsider-utility-mats-appropriate-necessary-finding
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Poll: Americans Support Moving Away From Plastic Straws, Less Sure Of Ban
Aug 24, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Most Americans support a recent push to cut back on plastic straw use, though a far small proportion supports a ban, a poll out Friday reports.
Nearly 80 percent of respondents said they strongly or somewhat support companies shifting toward biodegradable straws and nearly as many — 75 percent — supported businesses only providing plastic straws when asked, according to the survey from BuzzFeed News and market research firm Ipsos.
The straws are a source of plastic pollution that often clogs waterways and harms wildlife.
The online poll, which surveyed 2,000 adults nationwide from August 14-16, found, however, that respondents were less supportive of government intervention on straw use.
Some 48 percent said they supported local bans on plastic straws, including 56 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of Republicans, compared to 42 percent overall who oppose one.
BuzzFeed and Ipsos's research found that nearly 130 million plastic straws are used per day, a number far below a commonly cited statistic of 500 million.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
A recent environmental movement against plastic straws' use has led to national retailers ranging from Starbucks to McDonalds to pledge to get rid of the product. A number of municipalities and states have followed suit, passing bans on the sale or use of plastic straws in restaurants.
Seattle was the first major city to ban plastic straws and utensils in July.
On Thursday, California moved a step closer to passing a statewide ban. A bill approved by lawmakers that awaits the signature of Gov. Jerry Brown (D) would stop full-service, dine-in restaurants from offering any single-use plastic straws to customers unless asked.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/403484-americans-support-moving-away-from-less-plastic-straw-use-but-not
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Bipartisan Senators Say MATS Revamp 'Just Doesn't Make Sense'
Aug 27, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
A bipartisan pair of senators is urging EPA not to revisit its seminal 2011 regulations limiting power plant mercury emissions, even as the agency continues to mull that option.
"Keeping the current rule in place will provide much-needed certainty for the electric power industry and help protect the health of all Americans," Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said in a Friday letter to acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler.
The rule, formally known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, has been a success, they wrote. Changing it, they said, "just doesn't make sense."
They also alluded to a recent letter from the Edison Electric Institute and other industry and labor organizations calling on EPA to keep the regulations intact and noting that mercury emissions are down by almost 90 percent over the past decade (Greenwire, July 11).
Carper and Alexander previously supported the standards. They opposed, for example, a 2012 attempt by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) to legislatively nullify the rule. Inhofe's bill failed by a 46-53 margin; Alexander was one of five Republicans to vote against it.
But while the entire industry is now in compliance with the standards, EPA air chief Bill Wehrum, who previously represented utilities and other industries as a lawyer in private practice, has been frank about his interest in re-evaluating them.
"Under the law, there are good reasons why the standard shouldn't exist because it's not appropriate and necessary," he told an environmental law conference in April (Greenwire, April 19).
"But on the other hand, we cannot turn a blind eye toward the practical, the implications of the possibility of rescinding the rule and the uncertainty that that would cause within the regulated community," he said.
In a Friday statement, an EPA spokeswoman struck a similar note.
"EPA fully recognizes that key investments have been made under MATS and substantial emissions reductions achieved," the statement said.
"There are, however, outstanding challenges to the final rule that need to be addressed as well as key methodological questions raised by the U.S. Supreme Court," the statement said. "We are taking a close look at the issues raised by the court, including the appropriate and necessary determination, and the treatment of units that burn waste coal."
In a 5-4 opinion three years ago on lawsuits brought by utilities and Republican-leaning states, the high court ruled that EPA should have done a better job of considering potential compliance costs before deciding that it was "appropriate and necessary" under the Clean Air Act to regulate releases of mercury and other hazardous pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants.
In response, the Obama-era EPA issued a "supplemental finding" that reaffirmed the agency's decision, saying that the benefits far outweighed the costs.
That finding is now facing challenges before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from many of the same states and industry groups that originally contested MATS. Among them is the Utility Air Regulatory Group, which is presented by a legal team from Wehrum's former firm, now known as Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP. Wehrum was never listed as an attorney of record in the case.
Another plaintiff is the Anthracite Region Independent Power Producers Association, which represents a small group of plants that generate electricity from waste coal; the group backs H.R. 1119, a House-passed bill that would relax some of the standards for such plants, but the measure has been languishing in the Senate for months.
On Friday, a branch of Vistra Energy Corp. said it was closing down one 51-megawatt waste coal plant in Pennsylvania but described the decision as "purely economic" (Greenwire, Aug. 24).
At EPA's request, legal proceedings in the D.C. Circuit case have been in abeyance since April 2017, while the agency ponders its position.
In their latest status report last month, EPA officials offered no clue to their next move, saying only that they continue to review the supplemental finding to determine whether it "should be maintained, modified, or otherwise reconsidered."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/08/27/stories/1060095241
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