AM ACC Clips Report - August 28, 2018

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) Chemical - Plastics Outlook: Prospects Bright Amid Tariff Woes

   Aug 28, 2018 | Zacks (In Nasdaq)

   The chemical plastic industry includes manufacturers of polymer materials for a host of end-use markets such as packaging, building & construction, transportation, electronics, containers and aerospace.
2. (ACC Mentioned) Xinhua Headlines: Americans Refuse to Live a "Life of Tariffs"

   Aug 28, 2018 | Xinhua

   By Sun Ding, Pan Lijun, and Xu Xiaolei
   
   
   "301 is a bed tax," "301 is a toothbrush tax," "301 is a food tax," "301 is a tax on your winter wardrobe..." said Hun Quach, the vice president for international trade at the Retail Industry Leaders Association.
3. U.S.-Mexico Pact Would Revise NAFTA Investor Provisions

   Aug 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Rossella Brevetti
   
   
   A U.S.-Mexico preliminary trade agreement contains revised provisions for settling investor disputes with either country, a senior administration official told reporters on a conference call.
4. Big Oil Calls Proposed NAFTA Agreement with Mexico Encouraging

   Aug 27, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

   By Miranda Green
   
   
   One of the leading oil lobbyists said it is "encouraged" by news that the Trump administration has reached an agreement with Mexico to update the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
5. Green Group Compares Kavanaugh to Cohen, Manafort

   Aug 27, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

   By Timothy Cama
   
   
   The Sierra Club is targeting President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by comparing him to other controversial people hired or nominated by Trump.

LCSA News

6. (ACC Mentioned) NRDC Drops Suit Over EPA's TSCA New Chemicals Analysis Framework

   Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

   By Maria Hegstad
   
   
   As a federal appellate court weighs the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) standing to sue, the group is moving to drop its suit challenging the agency's draft framework for reviewing new chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), arguing that EPA has decided not to implement the framework.
7. EPA Requests Underlying Pesticide Data from Epidemiologists

   Aug 28, 2018 | Inside EPA

   EPA has requested data underlying two major epidemiology studies used to justify proposed pesticide use restrictions, marking the latest indication that the agency is seeking to implement provisions of its controversial science transparency proposal, which critics fear could compromise the privacy of study participants.

Chemical Management News

8. (ACC Mentioned) The Science on Chlorpyrifos Is In, Even if Trump's EPA Doesn't Think So

   Aug 28, 2018 | Sierra Magazine

   By Wendy Becktold
   
   
   Fidelia Morales wanted to provide her young children with the tranquility she experienced growing up on a farm in Mexico.
9. Senators Introduce Bills to Spur PFAS Cleanups, Detections

   Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

   A Michigan senator has introduced separate bipartisan bills aimed at addressing growing contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), with one aimed at speeding cleanup of the substances from active and decommissioned military bases, and a second aimed at studying the extent of the contamination.
10. California Top Court Urged to Review Cereal Warning Ruling

    Aug 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Julie Steinberg
    
    
    California’s top court should reverse a decision that said federal law blocks state-mandated warnings on cereals made by Post Foods, LLC , General Mills, Inc. , andKellogg USA, Inc. , a California plaintiff says.
11. Can Using Weed Killer Give You Cancer?

    Aug 28, 2018 | Fox News

    By Matthew Berger
    
    
    A long-awaited jury decision last week has put new attention on the potential health risks of a popular weed killer — and the debate over those risks.

Energy News

12. Fracking, 10 Years Later: Its Benefits Far Outweigh Its Risks

    Aug 28, 2018 | Washington Examiner

    By Seth Whitehead
    
    
    It has been 10 years since the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies reversed the United States’ position from that of energy scarcity to energy abundance.
13. Deal Headed to Congress Keeps Energy Investor Protections

    Aug 28, 2018 | E&E Daily

    By Geof Koss
    
    
    The Trump administration said yesterday that a key investor dispute mechanism for the energy sector would remain in place in an upcoming bilateral trade deal with Mexico.
14. Exxon Mobil Subsidiary Could Appeal Maine Crude Oil Decision

    Aug 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Adrianne Appel
    
    
    An Exxon Mobil Corp. subsidiary is considering appealing a federal judge’s ruling that a Maine port city’s law against the offloading of crude oil is constitutional.

Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

15. FRA Allocates Nearly $204m for PTC Implementation

    Aug 28, 2018 | Railway Technology

    The Federal Railroad Administration, an agency under the United States Department of Transportation, has allocated nearly $204m in funding to implement positive train control (PTC) systems across 15 states.

Environment News

16. (ACC Mentioned) EPA's Wehrum Opposed Easing NSR 'Test' Before Backing It In ACE Rule

    Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

    By Dawn Reeves
    
    
    EPA air chief William Wehrum once opposed adopting an eased emissions test for triggering Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) permitting requirements that his office is now proposing to adopt for coal-fired power plants as part of its narrow replacement for Obama-era utility greenhouse gas standards.
17. EPA Again Seeks To Overhaul NSR Test But Still Faces Legal Doubts

    Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

    By Dawn Reeves
    
    
    EPA's proposal to ease the emissions test for triggering new source review (NSR) requirements to install modern pollution controls as part of its power sector climate rule, is reviving a decades-old fight and putting EPA on the opposite side of the issue when it was last litigated early in the Bush administration.
18. National Air Toxics Report Spurs EPA Review Of Ethlyene Oxide Air Rules

    Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

    By Stuart Parker
    
    
    EPA is launching a review of its Clean Air Act regulations for emissions of ethlyene oxide (EtO), a toxic gas released in the manufacture of several common products such as textiles and detergents, following findings in its latest national-scale assessment of air toxics that suggest a persistent cancer risk from EtO emissions.
19. Reversing Stance, EPA Urges High Court To Decline Appeal On HFC Powers

    Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

    By Lee Logan
    
    
    The Trump EPA is reversing its position on its Clean Air Act authority to limit refrigerant chemicals that act as potent greenhouse gases, urging the Supreme Court to reject a petition seeking to overturn an appellate court ruling that vacated key parts of a 2015 rule restricting the chemicals -- even though Trump officials initially defended the rule.
20. EAB Poised To Hear Case Testing Utility Battery Use As BACT Air Control

    Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

    By Stuart Parker
    
    
    EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) is poised to hear oral argument Aug. 30 in environmentalists' challenge to an agency-issued Clean Air Act permit that they claim wrongly rejected battery storage as an effective option to satisfy the best available control technology (BACT) standard for reducing emissions at a natural gas-powered power plant.

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) Chemical - Plastics Outlook: Prospects Bright Amid Tariff Woes

   Aug 28, 2018 | Zacks (In Nasdaq)

   The chemical plastic industry includes manufacturers of polymer materials for a host of end-use markets such as packaging, building & construction, transportation, electronics, containers and aerospace. These products include plastic resins such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polystyrene that are made from raw materials sourced from crude oil and natural gas.

   While escalating trade tensions between the United States and China pose as headwinds to the chemical plastic industry, it is poised to gain from an upswing in the global economy and healthy demand from major end-markets such as packaging, building & construction and transportation.

   Concerns over a fierce trade war between Washington and Beijing have gripped the markets since March 2018. The United States and China recently levied a 25% tariff on $16 billion worth of each other’s products, ramping up the trade tussle between the world's two biggest economies. The Trump administration, in July, had imposed tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods that led to China retaliating with tariffs on American products of equal value. China’s list of U.S. goods hit with tariffs include chemicals and plastics.

   China’s retaliatory tariffs would harm a major market for a range of chemicals and plastics produced in the United States. Chemical industry groups have raised concerns that the tariffs would hurt U.S. plastics exports and the competitiveness of the domestic chemical plastic industry.

   Notwithstanding trade-related worries, prospects of the chemical plastic industry look encouraging over the near term. In particular, the U.S. plastic industry is set for strong growth. The American Chemistry Council ("ACC"), a leading industry trade group, envisions U.S. plastic resins production to grow at the fastest pace this year since 2012 as new capacity comes onstream and demand firms for domestic and overseas customers.

   The American chemical plastic industry continues to enjoy the advantage of access to abundant and cheap ethane feedstock extracted from shale gas. The shale bounty has provided U.S. plastic producers a compelling cost advantage over their global counterparts, which use oil-based feedstock such as naptha.

   This is driving investment in plastic production projects in the U.S. Gulf Coast to beef up capacity. The shale boom has incentivized a number of companies to plough billions of dollars for setting up facilities (crackers) in the United States to produce key feedstocks like ethylene and propylene in a cost-effective way.

   Over the short haul, broader economic growth, higher industrial activities and growing consumer spending are expected to support demand for major plastic products including polyethylene and PVC across key markets. Demand for polyethylene -- the most widely consumed polymer globally -- remains strong in the packaging market for applications in films, bags, bottles and other packaging materials, thanks to growing usage in food and consumer packaging.

   Moreover, building and construction is a significant market for PVC (usages include piping, flooring, roofing and windows frames) and the favorable overall outlook for the housing market augurs well for this major plastic product.

   The companies in this space should also continue gaining from strategic measures, including cost-cutting and productivity improvement, earnings-accretive acquisitions and price increase actions in the wake of raw material cost inflation. These actions should spur industry-wide margin improvement. President Trump’s business-friendly tax reform would also remain a tailwind. The tax reform should favorably impact the bottom line and cash flows of U.S. chemical plastic companies.

   Industry Tops on Shareholder Returns  

   The Zacks Chemicals Plastics industry, which is a 9-stock group within the broader Zacks Basic Materials Sector, has outperformed both the S&P 500 and its own sector over the past year.

   While the stocks in this industry have collectively surged 26.8%, the Zacks S&P 500 Composite and Zacks Basic Materials Sector have gained 18.2% and 5.3%, respectively.

   The outperformance has been driven by a rally in the stocks of U.S. plastic makers. While the ongoing trade war has threatened the industry, American plastic makers are gaining from their cost-advantaged position, strong end-market demand as well as organic and inorganic growth measures.

   Stocks in the Industry Trading Cheap

   Despite the outperformance of the chemical plastic industry over the past year, the valuation looks cheap now. One might get a good sense of the chemical plastic industry’s relative valuation by looking at its EV/EBITDA (Enterprise Value/ Earnings before Interest Tax Depreciation and Amortization) ratio. The industry's valuation picture looks attractive.

   The EV/EBITDA multiple is a preferred measure for valuating cyclical industries like chemicals that have significant fluctuations in earnings from one quarter to the next. Notably, the value of commodity companies is dependent on the movements of the prices of commodities and growth in the underlying industry/economy, both of which typically move in cycles.  

   Going by this multiple, valuation for the Zacks Chemicals Plastics industry looks cheap at the moment when compared to the broader market and its own sector.

   The industry has a trailing 12-month EV/EBITDA ratio of 7.8, which is below its own average of 9.1 and the highest level of 10.6 in the past one year. The industry compares favorably with the market at large, as the trailing 12-month EV/EBITDA ratio for the S&P 500 is at 11.7 and the median level is 11.5.

   Moreover, a comparison of the group’s EV/EBITDA ratio with that of its broader sector indicates that the group is trading at a discount. Zacks Basic Materials Sector’s trailing 12-month EV/EBITDA ratio of 8 and the median level of 10.4 for the same period are above the respective ratios of the Zacks Chemicals Plastics industry.

   Earnings Outlook Paints Favorable Picture

   Chemical plastic stocks are expected to continue delivering positive returns over the near term on the back of favorable end-market fundamentals and expectations of industry-wide margin improvement driven by strategic actions. But what really matters to investors is whether this group has the potential to perform better than the broader market in the quarters ahead.

   One reliable measure that can help investors understand the industry's prospects for a solid price performance is the earnings outlook for its member companies. Empirical research shows that a company's earnings outlook significantly influences the performance of its stock.

   While one could get a good sense of a company's earnings outlook by comparing the consensus earnings expectation for the current financial year with last year's reported number, an effective measure could be the magnitude and direction of the recent change in earnings estimates.

   The Price & Consensus chart for the industry shows the market's evolving bottom-up earnings expectations for the industry and the industry's aggregate stock market performance. The red line in the chart represents the Zacks measure of consensus earnings expectations for 2019, while the light blue line represents the same for 2018.

   This becomes even clearer by focusing on the aggregate bottom-up EPS revisions trend. The chart below shows the evolution of aggregate consensus expectations for 2018.

   Please note that the $4.92 EPS estimate for the industry for 2018 is not the actual bottom-up dollar estimate for every company within the Zacks Chemicals Plastics industry but rather an illustrative aggregate number created by our proprietary analytics model. The key factor to keep in mind is not the industry's earnings per share for 2018 but how this estimate has evolved recently.

   As you can see here, the EPS estimate for 2018 is up from $4.75 at the end of June, $4.47 at the end of March and $3.41 this time last year. In other words, the sell-side analysts covering the companies in the Zacks Chemicals Plastics industry have been steadily raising their estimates.

   Zacks Industry Rank Indicates Upbeat Prospects

   The group’s Zacks Industry Rank, which is basically the average of the Zacks Rank of all the member stocks, indicates a positive picture for the near term.

   The Zacks Chemicals Plastics industry currently carries a Zacks Industry Rank #53, which places it at the top 21% of more than 250 Zacks industries. Our back-testing shows that the top 50% of the Zacks ranked industries outperforms the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

   Long-term Growth Prospects Look Promising
    
   The long-term (3-5 years) EPS growth estimate for the Zacks Chemicals Plastics industry appears upbeat. The group’s mean estimate of long-term EPS growth rate has been increasing since April 2018 to reach the current level of 15.4%. This compares to 9.8% for the Zacks S&P 500 composite.

   In fact, the basis of this long-term EPS growth could be the recovery in top line that stocks in this industry group have been showing since the beginning of 2016.

   Another important indication of solid long-term prospect is the improvement in the group’s EBITDA, which is an important metric for evaluating chemical stocks.

   Bottom Line

   Chemical plastic makers face the heat from trade tariffs. However, strong end-market demand coupled with strategic actions including expansion of scale through acquisitions, capacity expansion and continued focus on cost and productivity should keep them afloat over the short haul.

   Packaging and construction industries will continue to be the mainstays of the chemical plastic industry. Moreover, U.S. plastic makers should continue to reap the benefits of abundant and affordable shale gas feedstock.

   Keeping the long-term expectations in mind, investors could take advantage of the cheap valuation and bet on a few stocks in this space that have a strong earnings outlook.

   https://www.nasdaq.com/article/chemical-plastics-outlook-prospects-bright-amid-tariff-woes1-cm1013831
   

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2. (ACC Mentioned) Xinhua Headlines: Americans Refuse to Live a "Life of Tariffs"

   Aug 28, 2018 | Xinhua

   By Sun Ding, Pan Lijun, and Xu Xiaolei

   "301 is a bed tax," "301 is a toothbrush tax," "301 is a food tax," "301 is a tax on your winter wardrobe..." said Hun Quach, the vice president for international trade at the Retail Industry Leaders Association.

   To make her case, Quach, a retail industry representative, brought a basket of supermarket shelf items, and walked the 301 committee through "a day in the life of tariffs."

   If enacted, the tariffs "will cut into the budgets of American families, especially lower- and middle-income families who can ill afford to pay more for everyday consumer goods," she said.

   Quach is among the over 300 business owners and representatives of industrial associations who attended public hearings held by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) regarding proposed tariffs on approximately 200 billion U.S. dollars of Chinese products.

   In an overwhelming message, hundreds of witnesses from a wide range of sectors across the country urged the government to stop slapping tariffs on Chinese imports, which are important for U.S. businesses, employment and consumers.

   HIGHER COSTS FOR U.S. CONSUMERS

   Since the United States initiated trade tensions with China, Quach has repeatedly appeared at tariff hearings on behalf of over 200 U.S. leading retailers, including household brands such as Walmart, Best Buy and Costco.

   This time, she aims to persuade the 301 committee to approve the exclusion of over 650 categories of products from the tariffs list.

   Together in this are U.S. bicycle suppliers, who are also feeling the chill of the tariff threats.

   "Do you remember how exciting it was to get your first bicycle?" asked Bob Margevicius, who's on the board of directors of the U.S. Bicycle Product Suppliers Association. "It was more than just metal and two wheels, it was a source of freedom, and an entry point to adulthood."

   "This is at risk today," said Margevicius. "I'm testifying to preserve this simple pleasure from becoming collateral damage in a trade dispute."

   According to figures compiled by the association, the country buys about 15 million complete bicycles, or roughly 94 percent of its total purchase, from China, worth over 1.1 billion dollars annually.

   Margevicius feared a devastating blow would be dealt to U.S. bicycle suppliers, as the proposed tariffs would apply to the entire 1.5 billion dollars of complete bicycles, bicycle components and safety accessories.

   After announcing additional tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and on 50 billion dollars of Chinese products, Washington threatened last month to slap extra tariffs of 10 percent on 200 billion dollars of Chinese goods, later upping the rate to 25 percent.

   According to a recently-released study by the U.S. National Retail Federation, if the 25-percent additional tariffs are slapped on Chinese-made furniture and travel goods, American consumers will pay an extra 6 billion dollars each year.

   "GOOD AMERICAN JOBS" AT RISK

   Besides pointing out the extra financial burden on consumers, Americans outlined how the measure would hit American companies and lead to layoffs.

   John McCann, who represented MEC Aerial Work Platforms, presented one of the most moving testimonies. His California-based manufacturing company makes scissor lifts and boom lifts used in construction and maintenance for a U.S. market worth about 2.6 billion dollars.

   He shared several stories. One was about a woman who had never had a full-time job before. But after her husband went to prison, she came to work at MEC. She started by attaching connectors to the ends of wire and cable and rose to become the head of the wire department.

   "She proudly tells me she's no longer on welfare, food stamps... and how grateful she is to be able to support her family," McCann said.

   Another story was about a young man who was one of five siblings raised in a family of drug abusers. He left home at 14 and lived intermittently with friends or relatives, having no skills or work experience.

   "We trained him to operate a forklift. He rose to head a five-man team and now has his own apartment," McCann said.

   "The terms used to discuss international trade say nothing about the lives of these men and women who get up every morning to go to work," he said. "Tariffs will cause layoffs. (Lives) will be devastated. The hope and optimism that comes from many of our employees will be gone."

   For many employees, MEC is the best job they have ever had, he said. "Those are good American jobs in a small rural community."

   Mutual investment and trade cooperation between China and the United States have helped add millions of U.S. jobs, according to a recent report from the U.S.-China Business Council.

   U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska also came to testify before the 301 committee. The fishermen in his constituency are baffled by the purpose of the proposed tariffs.

   Sullivan said the 900 million dollars of seafood on the list are initially exported from Alaska, processed in China, and then imported by the United States to sell in its domestic and global market. A hike in the tariffs is nothing less than a bullet aimed at Alaskan fishermen.

   GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN UNDER THREAT

   According to the USTR, the proposed tariffs are a supplemental action in response to what it called China's unfair trade practices related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation, based on findings in its investigation of China under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a one-sided tool that was created and honed during the Cold War era and has been banned by the World Trade Organization.

   Mark Kinzie, director of Logitech, Inc., said there were no practices of forced technology transfer or intellectual property rights infringement by Chinese entities, drawing on his business experiences with Chinese counterparts. His views were widely shared by other representatives.

   During the hearings, U.S. officials asked frequently if there's any source of imports that can replace China, if it's possible to reduce dependence on China as part of the supply chain or just simply "could you move production out of China?"

   However, the one-sided idea was not well received. "Supply chains are not plug-and-play -- they cannot easily be reconfigured to meet the whims of U.S. trade policy," said Ed Brzytwa, director of international trade at the American Chemistry Council.

   "Supply chains do not exist in a vacuum but move with the ebb and flow of market forces," Brzytwa said. "Forcing companies to reconfigure their supply chains would threaten the viability of their businesses."

   Speakers representing various industries, including apparel, suitcases and bags, bicycles, semi-conductors and electronics, said that it would take years and a massive amount of capital to move production out of China, let alone moving it back to the United States, which has a high labor cost.

   "There are no other more sophisticated supply chains than in China," said Mark Karnes, vice president of strategic planning with Cedar Electronics, the parent company for several automotive and consumer electronics brands.

   "The dramatic increases in our product costs are making us less competitive...," Karnes said.

   "Any claim that U.S. producers are capable of supplying the market with domestically produced products or those sourced from Korea, the EU (European Union) or anywhere else for that matter ignores economic reality and is simply wrong," said Harlan Stone, co-founder of the American Consumers & Workers Justice Coalition.

   Naomi Wilson, director of global policy, China & Greater Asia for the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents companies including Amazon, Apple and Facebook, said the "most egregious long-term impact" of the proposed tariffs would be on "U.S. competitiveness and technological advantage."

   "Many of the components on this list are building blocks of future technologies," Wilson said, noting that Internet of things, AI, machine learning, and 5G will all become more expensive.

   http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-08/28/c_137425425.htm
   

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3. U.S.-Mexico Pact Would Revise NAFTA Investor Provisions

   Aug 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Rossella Brevetti

   A U.S.-Mexico preliminary trade agreement contains revised provisions for settling investor disputes with either country, a senior administration official told reporters on a conference call.

   “With respect to companies that have contracts with either government in certain sectors, they will get the current North American Free Trade Agreement provisions for settling [investor] disputes,” the official said. Those sectors are oil and gas, infrastructure, energy generation, and telecommunications, the official said.

   For other sectors, the current investor-state dispute settlement process will be limited to cases involving expropriation, failure to give national treatment, and failure to give most-favored nation treatment (MFN), the official said. National treatment refers to the principle of giving others the same treatment as one’s own nationals. Companies in countries given MFN status may not be treated less advantageously than any other country with MFN status.

   NAFTA’s current Chapter 11 covers the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS)system, which allows investors to bring NAFTA governments before arbitration panels for alleged breaches of investment provisions.

   U.S. business groups have repeatedly called for strong investor-state dispute settlement provisions. In addition, key Republican lawmakers, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), have said Congress has made clear that a trade agreement must include effective investor-state dispute settlement provisions to win its support. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas), in an Aug. 27 statement, said he looked forward to analyzing the details and consulting with his colleagues to determine whether the preliminary agreement meets the trade priorities Congress established.

   The U.S. Council for International Business, in a statement provided to Bloomberg Law, said it was troubled that certain investor protections had been removed or reserved for specific sectors. “Cherry picking sectors that are afforded greater protections than others does not constitute adequate protection of U.S. investment in Mexico or elsewhere,” the USCIB said.

   New intellectual property provisions in the deal would require 10 years of data protection for biologic drugs and include more products eligible for protection, according to a USTR fact sheet. Biologics, which are made using live organisms, are used to treat life-threatening diseases such as cancer. Companies such as Baxter, Eli Lilly, Novartis and Pfizer are notable manufacturers of biologics.

   The U.S. and Mexico also agreed on new provisions covering trade in specific manufacturing sectors, including Information and communication technology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, cosmetic products, and chemical substances. Each of the annexes on these sectors include provisions promoting enhanced regulatory compatibility, best regulatory practices, and increased trade between both countries, USTR said.

   The U.S. sealed the preliminary agreement with Mexico about a year after talks started. Canada has yet to weigh in.

   “This wasn’t designed to put pressure on anyone,” a senior administration official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity said. “Ideally we’ll get the Canadians to join,” the official said.

   https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/us-mexico-pact-would-revise-nafta-investor-provisions-1?context=landing&limit=20&tab=news
   

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4. Big Oil Calls Proposed NAFTA Agreement with Mexico Encouraging

   Aug 27, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

   By Miranda Green

   One of the leading oil lobbyists said it is "encouraged" by news that the Trump administration has reached an agreement with Mexico to update the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

   The American Petroleum Institute (API) said Monday that the industry relies on open trade and modernized relationship with Mexico.

   "We are encouraged that negotiators have reached a preliminary agreement to modernize our trade relationships,” said API President and CEO Mike Sommers in a statement. “America’s natural gas and oil industry depends on trade to continue to grow U.S. jobs and our economy, and deliver for consumers.”

   Mexico in 2017 was the leading importer of American oil and petroleum products, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

   President Trump said Monday the U.S. has reached an agreement with Mexico amid contentious talks on revamping NAFTA

   "It’s a big day for trade. It’s a big day for our country," the president told reporters in the Oval Office, who were summoned to watch Trump speak by phone with outgoing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

   The president said he plans to "terminate" the existing NAFTA agreement, which currently includes Canada. 

   If Canada is excluded in the new deal, it would mark a major shift in U.S. trade policy.

   While the negotiations have largely focused on crafting a deal on auto trade, bilateral talks between the U.S. and Mexico have been bogged down by a split opinion between Mexican administrations over energy policy — some who have long been skeptical of foreign oil companies entering the Mexican oil industry.

   http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/403841-big-oil-calls-proposed-nafta-agreement-with-mexico-encouraging
   

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5. Green Group Compares Kavanaugh to Cohen, Manafort

   Aug 27, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

   By Timothy Cama

   The Sierra Club is targeting President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by comparing him to other controversial people hired or nominated by Trump.

   An advertisement the environmental group is pushing on the web starting Monday quotes Trump’s numerous declarations that he wants to hire the “best people,” juxtaposing Kavanaugh with Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges; former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was convicted on tax charges; dismissed officials like former adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman and others.

   "Unlike Trump's other bad hires, this one can't be fired," the ad text reads while is heard Trump speaking. "If Kavanaugh is confirmed, he's in for life."

   The video doesn’t focus on environmental matters, though it does warn that Kavanaugh on the bench would be "a loss for women's rights and environmental safeguards."

   “Given Brett Kavanaugh's extreme track record on presidential power and immunity, public health, women's rights, and commonsense environmental safeguards, it's no question that the Senate must reject Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court,” Courtney Hight, director of the Sierra Club’s Democracy Program, said in a statement.

   “Americans deserve a justice who will restore the balance on the court and serve as a check on the executive branch, but we know that Brett Kavanaugh will do anything but. That's why the Sierra Club is mobilizing our 3.5 million members and supporters to stop Brett Kavanaugh and protect the right of the public to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in safe communities.”

   The group said it plans to spend five figures on the ad. The ad is running nationally, but the Sierra Club is promoting it in Maine, Nevada and Colorado, states with senators who are undecided on Kavanaugh and might be the key votes for or against him: Susan Collins (R-Maine), Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).

   The Senate Judiciary Committee is planning to hold confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh next week.

   http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/403880-green-group-compares-kavanaugh-to-cohen-manafort
   

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LCSA News

6. (ACC Mentioned) NRDC Drops Suit Over EPA's TSCA New Chemicals Analysis Framework

   Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

   By Maria Hegstad

   As a federal appellate court weighs the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) standing to sue, the group is moving to drop its suit challenging the agency's draft framework for reviewing new chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), arguing that EPA has decided not to implement the framework.

   The request appears to mark a strategic decision for the group, allowing it to withdraw the suit before any adverse decision, while nevertheless succeeding in forcing the agency to admit that the draft framework has not been used to approve any chemicals despite officials' indications that it would be.

   NRDC's attorneys filed an Aug. 27 brief asking that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit drop the case, NRDC v. EPA, with prejudice and with each side bearing the cost of the suit.

   NRDC points to EPA's July response to the suit, in which the agency argues that the framework EPA's toxics office proposed to use to evaluate the risks that new chemicals may pose has not been utilized, as the explanation for its request.

   “In light of these representations, Petitioner has elected to move for voluntary dismissal of this petition for review,” the brief states.

   Late last year, EPA issued and sought comment on a draft “New Chemicals Decision-Making Framework” that proposed streamlining reviews of new chemicals by dropping EPA's use of enforceable orders as an interim step in regulating them.

   The approach would allow the agency to proceed directly from premanufacture notices to issuing significant new use rules (SNURs) to address any unreasonable risks the new chemical's uses might pose if unaddressed.

   New chemicals are those chemicals that are not on the TSCA inventory of chemicals -- the list of chemicals that were on the market when the original TSCA was enacted in 1976 and those EPA has since added to the inventory.

   The agency said the approach it was proposing in its draft framework was needed to speed approvals of new chemicals, which were facing a backlog due to lawmakers' adoption of a new review standard in the revised TSCA. Officials said they would begin implementing the draft framework even before they finalized it.

   But NRDC sued over the framework last January, arguing that the framework inappropriately narrows the scope of new chemical reviews to only the intended uses of a new chemical, while punting other reasonably anticipated uses to a SNUR.

   They also raised concerns that the draft framework allowed the agency to drop use of enforcement orders as an interim step to prevent some unapproved uses before issuance of a lengthy SNUR.

   NRDC was joined by intervenor Safer Chemicals Healthy Families (SCHF), which alleged procedural violations, noting statements from EPA officials that they had already started implementing the framework late last year.

   EPA's Defense

   But EPA defended its framework in a July 31 response arguing that the policy is consistent with the 2016 law, but also saying the framework is a draft that it might never finalize and therefore critics lack legal standing for their challenge.

   “The Framework is a non-final statement of policy that explains one possible approach that EPA may apply in an appropriate case to make a determination on a new chemical substance under TSCA,” the filing says.

   In arguing environmentalists lack standing, EPA adds, “Petitioner’s members face no injury at all, unless and until EPA applies the approach described in the Framework to an individual determination, and then the determination allows Petitioner’s members to be exposed to the chemical substance under circumstances that pose an unreasonable risk to human health.”

   While the court has not yet ruled on EPA's procedural challenge, industry and other attorneys have long said that even though NRDC's suit faced procedural hurdles, it nevertheless dissuaded the agency from following the novel process spelled out in the draft framework. “The goal is not to get a decision on the merits but to signal to EPA not to issue one-step SNURs and that is what has occurred at EPA,” Herb Estreicher, a partner with the law firm Keller and Heckman, said earlier this year.

   In explaining their reasons for dropping the suit, NRDC in its Aug. 27 filing points to EPA's defense of the framework, as well as an attached deposition of Jeff Morris, director of EPA's toxics office, in which the agency acknowledges making 150 determinations on pre-manufacture notices since the framework's release but “has not yet followed the SNUR approach described in the Framework.”

   The brief notes that “EPA does not oppose the dismissal of the petition with prejudice,” nor does SCHF. NRDC adds that trade groups who intervened in the case, American Chemistry Council and National Association of Manufacturers, “have not stated their position.”

   Similarly, NRDC reports that EPA and SCHF agreed to bear their own costs, which the industry intervenors have yet to state a position.

   https://insideepa.com/daily-news/nrdc-drops-suit-over-epas-tsca-new-chemicals-analysis-framework
   

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7. EPA Requests Underlying Pesticide Data from Epidemiologists

   Aug 28, 2018 | Inside EPA

   EPA has requested data underlying two major epidemiology studies used to justify proposed pesticide use restrictions, marking the latest indication that the agency is seeking to implement provisions of its controversial science transparency proposal, which critics fear could compromise the privacy of study participants.

   According to the New York Times, EPA recently made such a request of Columbia University, where researchers' work on the effects of chlorpyrifos is at the heart of a tussle over whether to ban or continue the use of the common pesticide.

   Last month, the agency also requested “the original data” from University of California Berkeley Professor Brenda Eskenzi's nearly two-decade long study of Salinas Valley, CA, farmworkers' children, Eskenazi told the Times.

   The agency cited “uncertainty around neurodevelopmental effects associated” with pesticides included in Eskenazi's Chamacos study, which has been the basis for more than 100 publications.

   Worried about the privacy of the participants in her study, Eskenazi said she informed university attorneys. She told the Times she is concerned the agency may “try to undermine her study’s repeated findings that some pesticides may be harming children.”

   The Times also points to EPA's draft human health risk assessment associated with its registration review of another pesticide, atrazine, released last month, in which the agency reviewed and “dismissed 12 recent epidemiological studies linking the herbicide to such ailments as childhood leukemia and Parkinson’s disease.”

   Such actions suggest the agency is seeking to implement a provision in the agency's controversial proposal, issued by former Administrator Scott Pruitt, that bars use of scientific information where the underlying data is not publicly available.

   Critics have argued that such a policy will generally bar EPA's use of epidemiology, since the underlying data involves private medical records.

   The allegation marks the second time that critics have charged the agency with implementing the rule's approach before it was final. In recent comments, public health researchers charged that EPA's proposed approach for how it will gather and evaluate scientific information about chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) mirrors its controversial science transparency plan, which they say seeks to block studies that could drive stricter rules.

   While the provisions of the proposed science rule may not apply to individual pesticide decisions, the agency's actions suggest that officials in the pesticide program may be seeking to return to their general historic practice of not using epidemiology studies.

   The Obama EPA, reversing long-held practice in the agency's pesticides office to disregard epidemiology research, relied on the Columbia study and others to propose banning chlorpyrifos.

   The Obama EPA struck a deal improving agency access to the Columbia study in an apparent attempt to alleviate concerns that failure to review the underlying data hampered use of the study. Under the deal, Obama-era pesticides officials accepted a Columbia offer to work with the agency to develop redacted data sets, despite arguing that EPA privacy rules made the precaution unnecessary.

   Pesticide makers protested EPA's use of epidemiology studies, and petitioned former Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to reverse that decision, a request he granted in March 2017.

   But earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a scathing decision in League of United Latin American Citizens et al. v. Wheeler concluding the agency had failed to justify Pruitt's controversial decision to reverse the proposed Obama-era chlorpyrifos ban. In a 2-1 decision, the panel of judges ordered the agency to ban the pesticide's use on food within 60 days.

   In response, EPA suggested it is considering appealing the ruling, saying in a statement that it has concerns with the Columbia University epidemiology study that formed the basis for Obama administration's proposed ban because the underlying medical data is not public -- picking up on the proposed science transparency rule.

   “EPA is reviewing the decision,” EPA spokesman Michael Abboud said after the 9th Circuit's ruling. “The Columbia Center’s data underlying the Court’s assumptions remains inaccessible and has hindered the Agency’s ongoing process to fully evaluate the pesticide using the best available, transparent science,” he added.

   Now EPA's website shows the agency is pushing for further access to the Columbia study, backing Pruitt's assertions that additional consideration is needed before epidemiological data is used in pesticide risk assessment. The web page titled “Chlorpyrifos: EPA's Seven Year Quest for Columbia's Raw Data,” notes that EPA has repeatedly requested the study's underlying data and notes objections of both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and members of the FIFRA SAP to EPA's use of human exposure to strengthen chlorpyrifos oversight.

   https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-requests-underlying-pesticide-data-epidemiologists
   

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Chemical Management News

8. (ACC Mentioned) The Science on Chlorpyrifos Is In, Even if Trump's EPA Doesn't Think So

   Aug 28, 2018 | Sierra Magazine

   By Wendy Becktold

   Fidelia Morales wanted to provide her young children with the tranquility she experienced growing up on a farm in Mexico. So, in 2006, the family moved from Los Angeles to the small farming community of Lindsay in California's Central Valley. She bought a house on an acre of land surrounded by orange groves. 

   Had Morales known what she knows now, she would not have chosen that property. 

   The kids got sick more often at their new home. Over time, Morales began to notice a pattern: Their headaches and upset stomachs happened frequently in the spring and the summer, when growers around her house were spraying the fields with pesticides. Sometimes she could see a fine mist drifting across the yard. 
   
   After one such incident in 2016, Morales filed a formal complaint with the county agricultural commissioner. An inspector came out to the property and found pesticide residue on the swing set. 
   
   Morales worries that one chemical she and her family have been exposed to is chlorpyrifos, which is heavily used on citrus fruit. In Tulare County, where Lindsay is located, growers used 181,182 pounds of it in 2016, the second-highest amount in the state, behind Kern County. 
   
   Chlorpyrifos is in a class of neurotoxins called organophosphates. The EPA banned it for indoor pest control in 2001, but 6 million pounds of it are applied annually to approximately 50 crops, including oranges, alfalfa, and almonds. In 2015, after a multiyear review, EPA scientists concluded that chlorpyrifos was harmful to human health and recommended that the agency ban it permanently. Then, just days before the ban was scheduled to go into effect in March 2017, newly appointed EPA administrator Scott Pruitt reversed it, on the grounds that the science was inconclusive.

   But evidence of chlorpyrifos's negative effects, particularly on children in utero, has been mounting for years. In 2012, researchers at Columbia University found that the brains of children whose mothers had been exposed to chlorpyrifos while pregnant showed abnormalities in regions associated with attention, decision-making, language, and impulse control. A 2014 study by the University of California, Davis, showed an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder among children whose mothers lived within a mile of agricultural fields during their pregnancies. And researchers at UC Berkeley who have been tracking mothers and children in Salinas, California, for more than a decade have found that children who were exposed to organophosphates in utero score an average of seven IQ points lower than those who weren't. 

   So why say that the science on chlorpyrifos is inconclusive? "It's a really easy out for people who don't want to ban this chemical to say, 'We don't have solid proof,'" Kim Harley, a researcher in the Salinas study, says. "These are observational studies, but we have been very rigorous, and a number of other studies have yielded the same results. At a certain point, you have to say, 'How much proof do we need before we act?'"

   "It's not perfect-laboratory-conditions science," explains Paul Towers, organizing director at Pesticide Action Network. "This is real-world science about how people are affected when something is sprayed in the orchard next to their house."

   Pruitt's reversal may have had more to do with politics than science. His pick for deputy assistant administrator, Nancy B. Beck, had spent the previous five years as an executive at the American Chemistry Council. Dow Chemical, which manufactures chlorpyrifos under the brand name Vulcan, contributed $1 million to President Donald Trump's inaugural committee.

   In response to federal inaction, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation has moved to restrict the use of chlorpyrifos. Since 2014, growers have had to file a notice of intent with the county agricultural commissioner before applying the pesticide, and the DPR has put into place even more stringent guidelines, such as increased buffer zones between application and residential areas. In July, the department moved to classify chlorpyrifos as a toxic air contaminant, a decision that will likely lead to even tighter restrictions. 
   
   Regulations like these are not enough, says Lupita Gonzalez, a farmworker and organizer with the Coalition Advocating for Pesticide Safety. At 24, she's been picking oranges for 
   12 years. Farmworkers are rarely informed when chlorpyrifos or other dangerous pesticides are being sprayed near them, she says. In May 2017, some farmworkers picking cabbage were sickened when chlorpyrifos drifted over from a nearby tangerine grove. 
   
   Since she began filing complaints, Morales has seen some improvements in how pesticides are applied around her house. For example, inspectors are more likely to be present. But when she sees growers spraying, she keeps her kids indoors. 
   
   Gonzalez and Morales are hoping that the state will ban chlorpyrifos outright, like Hawaii did in May. And two lawsuits filed by environmental groups and farmworker organizations could eventually force the EPA's hand.
   
   "If people don't think there is real proof that this chemical is damaging our health, they should come live near the fields," Gonzalez says. "If they would see it, if they would live it, things would change."

   https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2018-4-september-october/grapple/science-chlorpyrifos-even-if-trumps-epa-doesnt-think-so
   

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9. Senators Introduce Bills to Spur PFAS Cleanups, Detections

   Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

   A Michigan senator has introduced separate bipartisan bills aimed at addressing growing contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), with one aimed at speeding cleanup of the substances from active and decommissioned military bases, and a second aimed at studying the extent of the contamination.

   Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) Aug. 23 introduced S. 3381, which “sets clear deadlines and reporting requirements for cleaning up PFAS contamination at all federal facilities across the country,” says an Aug. 24 statement from the senator.

   “The last thing that Michigan families who were exposed to PFAS-contaminated water and soil need is finger pointing from our federal agencies,” Stabenow says in the statement. “Our legislation will bring quicker relief for some families by holding the Department of Defense and all federal agencies more accountable.”

   The legislation is co-sponsored by Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Gary Peters (D-MI), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).

   The new bill follows up on earlier action by Stabenow and Peters, who secured funding to investigate and clean up PFAS from active and decommissioned military bases.

   But “in order for much of the federal money to be used to address PFAS contamination, federal agencies, including the [DOD], must enter into cooperative agreements with states,” Stabenow's statement explains.

   The legislation seeks to expedite these agreements, which “commit the federal government to take specific actions and enable states and local communities to be reimbursed for costs incurred to address PFAS contamination.” The bill would set a one-year deadline for a finalized agreement after a request by a state for one. If the deadline is not met, DOD must report to Congress why and provide a schedule for completing the agreement.

   “With the new information we are learning about these chemicals, federal agencies who may have inadvertently contributed to contamination issues should be partners in working to limit neighboring communities’ potential exposure to PFAS compounds,” Rubio, the lone GOP supporter, says in Stabenow's statement. “I am proud to join my colleagues in introducing the PFAS Accountability Act to ensure that federal agencies have the ability to constructively engage with states to protect our drinking water, soils, and wetlands.”

   Stabenow and Peters also joined Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) in introducing S. 3382, which requires the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to set a performance standard for the detection of PFAS and conduct nationwide sampling “to determine the concentration of perfluorinated compounds in estuaries, lakes, streams, springs, wells, wetlands, rivers, aquifers, and soil using the performance standard."

   The bill also authorizes $45 million in new funding for USGS “to develop new advanced technologies to detect PFAS.”

   Stabenow explains in a second Aug. 24 statement that S. 3382 it is needed because while there are “more than 3,000 chemicals containing PFAS but less than 30 of these substances can be detected using current technology. The data collected by the USGS could be used to better assess the likely health and environmental impacts of exposure to PFAS chemicals and determine how to address contamination moving forward.”

   https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/senators-introduce-bills-spur-pfas-cleanups-detections
   

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10. California Top Court Urged to Review Cereal Warning Ruling

    Aug 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Julie Steinberg

    California’s top court should reverse a decision that said federal law blocks state-mandated warnings on cereals made by Post Foods, LLC , General Mills, Inc. , andKellogg USA, Inc. , a California plaintiff says.

    A cancer warning about acrylamide, required by California’s Proposition 65, would mislead consumers and cause them to avoid the products, the California Court of Appeals, Second District held. This would impede federal nutrition policies that encourage people to eat whole grains, the court said.

    But the same appeals court panel in 2010 held that Prop 65 warnings relating to a chemical found in grilled chicken were not preempted by federal law, plaintiff Richard Sowinski said.

    Under the reasoning and procedural requirements from the earlier case, the court would not have found preemption here, Sowinski said.

    The decision here also conflicts with a California Supreme Court decision in a nicotine patch case, Sowinski said.

    In that case, the California top court said there could be preemption only if the Food and Drug Administration had adopted a specific warning label and the proposed Prop 65 warning would clash with the federal one, Sowinski said.

    Here, the FDA has not provided any warning about acrylamide and is still studying its health impact, the petition said.

    Acrylamide is formed when starchy material is heated. It is found in cereal and many other foods.

    Proposition 65 requires companies to warn consumers about chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive harm, or to reformulate their products to remove those substances.

    Graham & Martin LLP represented Sowinski.

    Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer and Perkins Coie represented the defendants.

    The case is Post Foods, LLC v. Superior Court, Cal., petition for review 8/24/18.

    https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/california-top-court-urged-to-review-cereal-warning-ruling?context=landing&limit=20&tab=news
    

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11. Can Using Weed Killer Give You Cancer?

    Aug 28, 2018 | Fox News

    By Matthew Berger

    A long-awaited jury decision last week has put new attention on the potential health risks of a popular weed killer — and the debate over those risks.

    Researchers say the jury is still out on whether the popular weed killer Roundup poses risks to the average consumer.

    However, scientists are piecing together a picture that shows the chemicals in the weed killer are becoming increasingly common in humans.

    DeWayne Johnson is an extreme example of exposure to glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup and related products sold by agricultural biotech giant Monsanto.

    The California school groundskeeper sprayed a high-concentration version of the product around school property between 20 and 30 times a year over the course of about four years.

    Twice, he accidentally got drenched in the herbicide, he testified during his trial.

    Two years into his time as groundskeeper, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and, later, with a more aggressive form of the cancer.

    A San Francisco Superior Court jury decided the cancer was caused by the exposure to glyphosate and ordered Monsanto to pay $289 million in damages.

    The company is appealing the decision, but if it stands it could set a precedent for the hundreds of other cases in the United States brought against Monsanto by people with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.How much exposure is harmful?

    Johnson sprayed the herbicide out of 50-gallon drums as part of his job. Farmers also use it in high quantities.

    But the more typical consumer might take a spray bottle of Roundup out to the backyard a couple of times a month to combat annoying weeds.

    For most of them, there’s much less risk of significant harm from Roundup products — but exactly how much less is still unclear.

    “There is consensus, among non-industry scientists, that there is no safe level of exposure to glyphosate. That is, no level established that comes with no possible harm,” said Paul Mills, a public health professor at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) who has studied the prevalence of glyphosate exposure in humans.

    The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded in 2015 that glyphosate was a probable cause of cancer in humans.

    California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has concluded it’s known to cause cancer.

    But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has concluded that it’s not likely to cause cancer in humans, as has the UN’s pesticide review group and the European Food Safety Authority.

    In court in San Francisco, Monsanto pointed to the latter findings. The plaintiff’s lawyers pointed to the former.

    But how concerned should the average consumer be?

    One of the many problems in determining health effects on humans is that experiments measuring the effects of different exposure levels can’t be conducted on people, said Ariena van Bruggen, a plant disease epidemiologist at the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute who has studied the environmental and health effects of glyphosate.

    But van Bruggen told Healthline that studies have found correlations between exposure to glyphosate and various diseases.

    She pointed to studies showing sugar cane cutters exposed to the chemical were found to suffer renal damage and that women in rural communities where crop-dusting planes dropped the herbicide have later experienced shortened pregnancies.

    “As circumstantial, correlational evidence accumulates and points in the same direction, together, these observations can become corroborating evidence,” van Bruggen said.

    She added that these studies have often been dismissed by politicians and scientists, although she noted some of these critics have documented ties to Monsanto.

    A paper published last year found that the “acute toxic effects” of glyphosate are low but that there’s data “raising the possibility of health effects associated with chronic, ultra-low doses.”

    J. Glenn Morris, director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute, told Healthline the compound may affect our intestinal flora and may be tied to reproductive impacts and health problems.

    However, he said, the data is “all very soft” and needs more and longer-term studies before anything can be determined with certainty.It’s not just the spraying

    What we do already know is that for most of us, exposure to glyphosate comes more through eating foods that have been exposed to it in the fields.

    Exposure from accumulation in drinking water is also an issue in rural, farming areas.

    And we know that a significant proportion of the population has low levels of glyphosate in their bodies, that concentrations of the chemical accumulate over time, that those exposure levels have been growing, and that they’re likely to continue to increase since glyphosate is being used in greater quantities in farming.

    Crops such as soybeans are often genetically modified to not be affected by Roundup, which allows the herbicide to be sprayed on fields and kill weeds without killing the crop.

    But since Roundup gets sprayed on everything in the field, some glyphosate residue remains on the food we eat.

    “What we’ve found — and others have found — is when you screen urine samples of people, a third to a half will have fairly low levels of glyphosate,” said Morris. “So we’re probably seeing fairly constant exposure, primarily through foodstuff.”

    A paper that UC San Diego’s Mills co-authored last year found that 70 of the 100 people they studied outside San Diego had detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine.

    The average levels in urine had more than doubled in two decades, from 0.203 micrograms per liter (µg/L) in 1993-1996 to 0.449 µg/L in 2014-2016. (Genetically modified crops that are resistant to Roundup were introduced in the U.S. in 1994.)

    “The concentrations are often higher in the urine of farmers, but not that much higher, indicating that indirect chronic exposure through water or food is perhaps as important as direct exposure,” van Bruggen said.

    She added that the amounts of glyphosate recommended for spraying by homeowners is low and that only accidentally high exposures “would lead to noticeable direct toxicity.”

    But, she said, “such high exposures do occur, for example when applicators are not protected properly, as might be common for homeowners.”

    Asked for comment, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society said it “does not comment on active litigation, but is aware of the lawsuits related to glyphosate and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. We are closely monitoring ongoing large epidemiologic studies that we expect will provide additional insights.”

    The American Cancer Society said it relies on the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and National Toxicology Program to determine carcinogenicity. They directed Healthline to a page on its website that lists the groups’ findings, including IARC’s that glyphosate probably causes cancer.

    The NTP is re-evaluating the chemical and expects to issue a report next year.How concerned should you be?

    Given how much is still unknown, Morris said to not worry too much about what you’re eating for now.

    He said he might “hesitate slightly before going for a GMO product” but that “there isn’t enough to make me change any eating habits right now.”

    “It’s reasonably safe,” Morris said, “and to get up to the level to cause illness it takes a whole lot of it. So you’re not going to get that through food.”

    But there’s still some cause for concern.

    Part of the reason long-term studies are still so needed despite Roundup being around for decades is that the way it’s used, and thus our exposure to it, is always changing.

    Over the years, weed species develop tolerances to glyphosate as the most resistant individuals survive and pass on their resistance to future generations.

    This resistance means that farmers have to use more Roundup to kill weeds. That, combined with the fact that more farms are using it each year, means that more glyphosate may be finding its way into our bodies, Morris said.

    It’s possible the same logic might apply to homeowners, van Bruggen said.

    “It is not known how often homeowners spray, but they may spray repeatedly because the effect of glyphosate on plants is not immediate but takes a few days. Homeowners may spray again just to be sure.”

    What effect prolonged but low-level exposure could have is still largely an open question, as is whether those effects might vary widely from person to person.

    “That is the golden question: What are the actual health consequences from the chronic exposure over the past 20-plus years?” Mills told Healthline. “Surprisingly, little human clinical or epidemiological research has been done on this.”

    It does appear that some people should be more cautious than others.

    Someone with a weaker liver might be more susceptible to glyphosate’s observed impacts on the liver, for example, van Bruggen said.

    Small children and immune-deficient adults may also be more susceptible to impacts, she added.

    The state of California has tried to warn people who might come into contact with potentially carcinogenic compounds through its Proposition 65, which requires warning labels on products found to cause cancer, birth defects, or reproductive harm.

    But a week after the Johnson ruling, a judge in Sacramento ruled that California couldn’t require a label on glyphosate products because of what he saw as a “heavy weight of evidence” showing the herbicide was safe.

    Some experts disagree with that finding.

    “I think that warning labels are appropriate because there is sufficient evidence of potential carcinogenicity and reproductive harm,” said van Bruggen.

    She would even like to take it a step further.

    “I also think that there is no need for glyphosate to be available to the general public,” she said. “Consumers often spray too much and too frequently, which is dangerous for their health in the long run.”

    But significant gaps remain in our knowledge, and long-term studies are still needed.

    Mills said UC San Diego is currently working to fill some of those gaps, and the initial findings are “suggestive of a relationship” between prolonged glyphosate exposure and non-cancer illnesses.

    For now, though, the evidence is still accumulating.

    “How do you convey the idea that [there] may be a risk but don’t worry about it?” asked Morris.

    http://www.foxnews.com/health/2018/08/27/can-using-weed-killer-give-cancer.html
    

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Energy News

12. Fracking, 10 Years Later: Its Benefits Far Outweigh Its Risks

    Aug 28, 2018 | Washington Examiner

    By Seth Whitehead

    It has been 10 years since the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies reversed the United States’ position from that of energy scarcity to energy abundance. This has changed the economy for the long haul and in the process thrust the term “fracking” into the mainstream American lexicon.

    During this time, “keep it in the ground” anti-fracking activists have desperately tried to diminish fracking’s many benefits by exploiting its clickbait-inducing moniker. They have claimed incessantly that the process causes just about every environmental and health calamity imaginable. Most recently, shale opponents have even tried to link fracking to depression, obesity and sexually transmitted diseases.

    But amid muddied waters created by these unfounded and oftentimes ridiculous assertions, a sober evaluation of a decade’s worth of scientific data clearly reveals that fracking’s benefits have far outweighed its risks. And those risks have been routinely exaggerated or flat out made up by shale opponents.

    The most obviously false claim has been that fracking makes climate change worse. To the contrary, a 2014 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment found that fracking is an “important reason for reduction of [greenhouse gas] emissions in the United States.”

    Increased natural gas use, made possible by fracking and the resulting low prices, is the primary reason the United States has reduced carbon emissions by 13 percent since 2008, more than any other nation in the world so far this century on a raw tonnage basis. At the same time, methane emissions from natural gas systems, which activists have falsely claimed wipe out natural gas’ climate benefits, have also declined since 2008, even as oil and natural gas production has skyrocketed.

    Remarkably, overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are down nine percent since the shale revolution took hold.

    There is also no scientific evidence to support the claim that fracking adversely impacts water on a widespread basis. No fewer than two dozen scientific reports released over the past 10 years show that fracking is not a major threat to groundwater. And that's for good reason: The scientific community agrees that upward migration of fracking fluid from production zones, typically located a mile or more beneath the surface, is implausible. A landmark 2016 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report even noted that “hydraulic fracturing operations are unlikely to generate sufficient pressure to drive fluids into shallow drinking water zones.”

    Anti-fracking activists also claim that fracking increases air pollution and impacts public health. But once again, increased natural gas use, made possible by fracking, has actually led to dramatic reductions in emissions of the three most prominent “criteria” pollutants deemed most harmful to public health by the EPA. Fracking is thus yielding undeniable net health benefits.

    And at a local level, multiple reports based on actual air measurements have found that emissions near oil and natural gas production sites are nothing unusually high. For instance, a 2017 Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment assessment based on 10,000 air samples collected near areas of significant oil and natural gas development concluded, “[T]he risk of harmful health effects is low for residents living [near] oil and gas operations.”

    All told, the widespread environmental and health-related calamities that anti-fracking activists claimed shale development would create have simply not materialized over the last decade.

    In the meantime, the United States is enjoying its ninth consecutive year of economic growth, an unprecedented run of prosperity in our nation’s history. The fact that this growth has occurred at the same time fracking has helped us emerge as “the undisputed leader of oil and gas production worldwide,” according to International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol, is no coincidence.

    Thanks to fracking, literally millions of jobs have been created and energy prices are at all-time lows, not only helping Americans make more money, but keep more money in their pockets. We are also reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the same time as our economy soars, an unprecedented and once unimaginable trend. And our nation’s energy security is as strong as it’s ever been, putting the United States in a position of geopolitical strength at a crucial juncture in an increasingly volatile world.

    Despite fracking opponents’ claims, the evidence really couldn’t be any clearer: The first decade of the U.S. shale revolution has yielded huge benefits. Moving forward into the second decade of America’s remarkable energy renaissance, these benefits should carry far more weight than the tired and unsubstantiated rhetoric disseminated by the "keep it in the ground" movement.

    Seth Whitehead is a spokesman for Energy In Depth , a research, education and outreach program sponsored by the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/fracking-ten-years-later-its-benefits-far-outweigh-its-risks
    

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13. Deal Headed to Congress Keeps Energy Investor Protections

    Aug 28, 2018 | E&E Daily

    By Geof Koss

    The Trump administration said yesterday that a key investor dispute mechanism for the energy sector would remain in place in an upcoming bilateral trade deal with Mexico.

    The White House, however, said the provision would be scaled back from what's currently part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and lawmakers are keen on many more details.

    Speaking to reporters yesterday after the president announced he had struck a preliminary trade deal with Mexico, top White House officials said NAFTA's investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions would remain for companies with Mexican government contracts for certain sectors, including oil and gas, infrastructure, energy generation, and telecommunications.

    "For those companies, there's no change in ISDS," a senior administration official said. "They continue to have the full suite of ISDS protections that they enjoy under NAFTA 1.0."

    However, the ISDS provisions of the new U.S.-Mexico deal will otherwise be limited to cases of expropriation or for "national failure" to observe most-favored-nation status in trade issues, the aide said.

    Retaining the existing ISDS process has been a top priority for the energy industry and other sectors, whose leaders argue it protects their interests abroad.

    More than a hundred Republican lawmakers earlier this year signed a letter supporting the retention of ISDS in the ongoing talks to renegotiate NAFTA, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer — who has criticized the trade tribunals — got an earful over the issue when he testified on the Hill earlier this year (E&E Daily, March 22).

    The White House did not offer additional details yesterday on how the new U.S.-Mexico deal would otherwise affect energy trade between the two nations.

    The American Petroleum Institute, which has highlighted the importance of the ISDS provisions to its members, yesterday said only that it was "encouraged" by the preliminary agreement between the two nations.

    The administration said yesterday it has also retreated somewhat from another disputed position that has drawn flak on Capitol Hill: its preference for a five-year sunset provision.

    Instead, the bilateral deal with Mexico that the White House hopes to finalize later this year will include an "alternative to sunset" that would assign a 16-year lease on the deal that would automatically be reviewed every six years.

    "We would have a review after six years where we would hope to work out problems, and then at the end of that review we would expect that that agreement would be extended for another 16 years," said the official, who noted the provision "would keep modernizing on track and keep disputes from festering."'Please share details with Congress'

    While the administration appears to have heeded congressional critics on these issues, lawmakers yesterday signaled they want to see and hear far more from the White House on its trade plans.

    Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) took to Twitter yesterday with a plea for more information. "Does anyone understand what the President is doing with NAFTA?" he tweeted. "If so please share details with Congress; he isn't making any sense right now."

    Part of the confusion stems from the president's announcement he was "terminating" NAFTA to pursue a bilateral deal with Mexico, which the administration hopes Canada will eventually enter into (Greenwire, Aug. 27).

    White House officials told reporters it will notify Congress on Friday that it plans to finalize a deal with Mexico, meeting a requirement in a 2015 fast-track trade law that it give lawmakers 90 days' advance notice before it signs such a deal.

    On yesterday's call, the administration official downplayed questions about whether the bilateral deal it plans to sign with Mexico passes legal muster, given that the administration last year notified the Hill of plans to renegotiate NAFTA — a trilateral deal.

    "Ideally we'll have the Canadians involved," the official said. "If we don't have the Canadians involved, then we will notify that we have a bilateral agreement that Canada is welcome to join, and we think that satisfies the requirements of the statute."

    Congress must still approve any trade deal, and top GOP lawmakers yesterday made clear they want that agreement to include Canada.

    "This is a positive step, and now we need to ensure the final agreement brings Canada in to the fold and has bipartisan support," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in a statement.

    "A trilateral agreement is the best path forward, and any modernized agreement should do no harm to states like Texas whose economy has seen the benefits of cross-border commerce," he said.

    Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) — whose committees have jurisdiction over trade — both indicated they want to see Canada be part of the deal.

    Brady further said he plans to consult with his colleagues to determine "whether the new proposal meets the trade priorities set out by Congress under Trade Promotion Authority."

    Other lawmakers echoed the calls for more information, including Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, an oil-patch Democrat, who said yesterday he wants a detailed briefing from the administration on the U.S.-Mexico deal.

    "Although this deal is a step in the right direction, there is still a lot of work to do before Congress votes on this agreement," Cuellar said in a statement. "Canada still must agree to U.S.-Mexico agreements that affect their interests, and there is significant trilateral ground to cover."

    Nebraska GOP Sen. Ben Sasse said, "I am working through the details of the possible U.S.-Mexico agreement, but there is reason to worry that this might be a step backward from NAFTA for American families — especially on fundamental issues of presumed expiration of the deal, and empowering government bureaucrats rather than markets to determine the components in cars and other goods."

    A spokesman for the Canadian government told E&E News that Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland would travel to Washington, D.C., for talks now that the U.S. and Mexico have made progress.

    "We will only sign a new NAFTA that is good for Canada and good for the middle class," said Adam Austen, press secretary for Canada's foreign minister. "Canada's signature is required."'Enforceable' environmental, labor provisions

    Although details about the preliminary deal were scant yesterday, a U.S. trade representative fact sheet said the U.S. and Mexico had agreed to "the most advanced, most comprehensive, highest standard chapter on the environment of any trade agreement," which it touts as "enforceable."

    It includes obligations to fight wildlife, timber and fish trafficking, and to address "pressing environmental issues such as air quality and marine litter."

    The USTR touted prohibitions on "harmful fisheries subsidies"; new protections for marine species, including whales and sea turtles; and a prohibition on shark-finning. The deal will also support "sustainable forest management and ensure appropriate procedures for environmental impact assessments."

    The Sierra Club was unimpressed, criticizing the "rushed secret NAFTA deal."

    "All we know from these backroom talks is that Trump plans to replace a failed trade deal with one that weakens environmental standards and continues to allow corporations to outsource jobs and pollution to Mexico, harming communities on both sides of the border," Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement.

    "If this deal moves forward as is, it will exacerbate — not relieve — NAFTA's decades of damage to North America's communities," Brune said.

    The White House official also told reporters yesterday that he was "optimistic" the deal would win bipartisan support, citing the "enforceable" labor provisions he called unprecedented.

    "I believe there has never been a trade agreement remotely as good on labor from the point of view of organized labor and Democrats for whom that's a high priority than this one," said the official.

    https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/08/28/stories/1060095309
    

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14. Exxon Mobil Subsidiary Could Appeal Maine Crude Oil Decision

    Aug 27, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Adrianne Appel

    An Exxon Mobil Corp. subsidiary is considering appealing a federal judge’s ruling that a Maine port city’s law against the offloading of crude oil is constitutional.

    Judge John A. Woodcock Jr. dealt a blow to the Portland Pipe Line Corp.—owned by Imperial Oil Ltd., an Exxon Mobil subsidiary—when he ruled Aug. 24 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine that a 2014 South Portland ordinance prohibiting the loading of crude oil doesn’t violate the company’s right to engage in interstate commerce or foreign commerce.

    “We are disappointed with the decision. We are closely studying the ruling and considering all available options, including appeal,” the company said in an Aug. 27 statement to Bloomberg Environment.

    The American Petroleum Institute, which filed a friend of the court brief in the case, also told Bloomberg Environment Aug. 27 that it was reviewing the court’s order.

    The case has become a focal point for the national debate about tar sands oil. National environmental groups, including 365.org, flocked to Portland for the four-day trial in June to support the city’s position, while the API and other oil advocates backed the company.
    Reverse Flow

    The company filed a complaint in 2015 against the ordinance, because it wants to carry crude oil from Canada to South Portland through an existing pipeline, where it would be loaded onto tankers and delivered to other areas of the country.

    The company has used the 236-mile pipeline for 76 years to transport foreign oil that is offloaded at a 3.5-million-barrel tank farm in South Portland and then sent through the pipe up to refineries in Montreal, the company said in its complaint. That flow of foreign oil has reduced to a trickle in recent years, with the discovery of large deposits of Canadian crude, and Portland Pipe Line wants to reverse the flow in the pipe.

    The South Portland city council approved the Clear Skies ordinance after more than a year of debate about whether offloading Canadian tar sands oil posed a threat to the city’s clean air and general environment if it spilled, and if banning the practice would harm the company and other local businesses such as tugboat owners who tow the tankers through the port.

    In his ruling, Woodcock said it may be tempting for observers to view his ruling as one-sided, but that it was based on available law.

    The court “is not charged with determining whether the city of South Portland should have adopted the ordinance, only whether it legally could do so,” Woodcock said.

    It is the city’s job to determine whether the ordinance “effectively puts a lawful local business out of business,” he said.
    City Pleased

    The city of South Portland was pleased with the court’s decision, Mayor Linda Cohen said.

    “Faced with the prospect of hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil being loaded onto marine tank vessels in the city and threatening the health of the residents and preventing redevelopment of the waterfront, the City Council prohibited this new activity,” Cohen said in an Aug. 24 statement.

    Catherine Connors and a team from Pierce Atwood LLP of Portland, Maine, are representing Portland Pipe Line Corp.

    Sally Daggett and Mark Bower of Jensen Baird Gardner & Henry of Portland, Maine, and Jonathan Ettinger and a team from Foley Hoag LLP of Boston are representing the city of South Portland.

    The case is Portland Pipe Line Corp. v. South Portland, D. Me., No. 2:15-cv-00054, 8/24/18.

    https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/exxon-mobil-subsidiary-could-appeal-maine-crude-oil-decision?context=landing&limit=20&tab=news
    

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

15. FRA Allocates Nearly $204m for PTC Implementation

    Aug 28, 2018 | Railway Technology

    The Federal Railroad Administration, an agency under the United States Department of Transportation, has allocated nearly $204m in funding to implement positive train control (PTC) systems across 15 states.

    The grant was awarded as part of a total $250m that has been appropriated under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 to deploy PTC systems. The funding will be utilised for 28 projects.

    US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said: “These $200m in grants will help the railroads continue to implement positive train control, a technology that could help reduce accidents and save lives.”
    

    In May this year, the FRA issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) and completed the application review process to release the allocated funds for the selected projects.

    It is expected to issue a second NOFO soon, seeking applications for the remaining $46m to be allocated for other PTC systems-related projects.

    The overall grant is being provided through the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) programme in order to expedite the process of PTC implementation.

    FRA administrator Ronald Batory said: “It was our goal to award today’s grants as quickly as possible to help the recipients implement PTC.

    “We also encourage eligible applicants to apply for the remaining balance of the PTC CRISI grants after that NOFO is published.”

    The funding will be utilised to carry out multiple elements of PTC system implementation, including the deployment of back office PTC systems, communications and onboard PTC system equipment.

    It will also be used for personnel training on PTC systems, as well as its testing and interoperability.

    Under a US Congress mandate, all railroads in the country are required to implement PTC systems by 31 December 2018.

    However, railway operating companies can extend it to 31 December 2020, subject to FRA approval and fulfilment of congressionally mandated criteria.

    https://www.railway-technology.com/news/us-fra-allocates-nearly-204m-ptc-implementation/
    

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Environment News

16. (ACC Mentioned) EPA's Wehrum Opposed Easing NSR 'Test' Before Backing It In ACE Rule

    Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

    By Dawn Reeves

    EPA air chief William Wehrum once opposed adopting an eased emissions test for triggering Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) permitting requirements that his office is now proposing to adopt for coal-fired power plants as part of its narrow replacement for Obama-era utility greenhouse gas standards.

    Wehrum worked in EPA's air office early in the Bush administration, which advanced a series of NSR changes in 2002, some of which were successfully challenged by states and environmentalists before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in New York, et al. v. EPA.

    While those regulatory changes included a similar “clean unit exemption” to allow older units to pursue efficiency upgrades without triggering NSR, that rule did not specifically change the emissions test from annual to hourly to trigger NSR -- as EPA is now proposing in its Aug. 21 “Affordable Clean Energy” (ACE) rule.

    EPA's 2002 decision to reject the hourly test was decades in the making and emerged from an arcane set of circumstances, an environmentalist explains.

    Industry groups including the Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG) were urging EPA to change the NSR test from annual to hourly dating back to the 1980s, and the issue was included for EPA's consideration as part of an “Exhibit B” of a 1982 settlement the agency entered into with the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA), now known as the American Chemistry Council.

    Under that pact, EPA agreed to take comment on adopting an hourly emissions rate test, which it did in 1996. EPA then decided against adopting the test in the 2002 rules challenged in New York. The agency “made the point that [changing to an hourly test] would result in massive emissions increases and harm ambient air quality,” the environmentalist says.

    CMA and other industry groups had sued over 1980 rules, which imposed NSR on facilities with “actual” emissions increases, rather than a “potential to emit” baseline. But the litigation was held in abeyance for 20 years because EPA had agreed to consider the industry's proposed NSR changes in the 1982 settlement.

    The issue finally was included as part of the New York litigation, which the D.C. Circuit decided in 2005. There, the court struck down a similar “clean unit” exemption -- which based its test on whether a facility exceeded “emissions limitations” comparable to pollution controls it has installed -- with the court holding that NSR requires emissions increases to be measured in terms of actual emissions, not potential or allowable emissions.

    In that litigation, “it was Wehrum who opposed industry's insistence that an hourly rate test be adopted for EPA,” the environmentalist says. “So Wehrum was on the opposite side where he is now.”

    'Actual Emissions'

    For example, in an August 2004 brief in New York, the Department of Justice on EPA's behalf explained the history of the CMA settlement and said, “In adopting the actual-to-projected-actual test, EPA rejected the potential-to-potential test of CMA Exhibit B.”

    EPA's filing also strongly rejected the industry arguments that it was required to have the same test for NSR and the air law's new source performance standards (NSPS) program, writing, “EPA long ago recognized that differences in the purposes of the NSPS and NSR programs justify different interpretations.”

    It added: “Industry Petitioners believe that 'an increase in the amount of any air pollutant emitted' . . . for NSR purposes, occurs only when there are both more pollutants being emitted and they are being emitted faster. EPA here was constraining the NSR test (whether 'more' pollution is emitted . . . ) with the NSPS test (whether pollutants are being emitted 'faster').”

    EPA also argued that the phrase “'actual emissions' means the rate at which an emissions unit actually emits a particular pollutant,” which generally equals the average rate in tons per year of actual emissions. It also cited one of the earliest NSR rulings, known as Alabama Power, which “emphasized reliance on actual impacts on ambient air.”

    The D.C. Circuit in its June 2005 decision in New York found in EPA's favor on the NSR emissions test issue, while striking down its similar “clean unit exemption” in the 2002 rule.

    “Therefore, because the plain language of the [Clean Air Act] indicates that Congress intended to apply NSR to changes that increase actual emissions instead of potential or allowable emissions, we hold that EPA lacks authority to promulgate the Clean Unit provision, and we vacate that portion of the 2002 rule,” the ruling said.

    UARG sought en banc review of that opinion in September 2005, calling the ruling out of step with prior court history that had based emissions increases on what is actually emitted when operating at full capacity. Yet “the panel here has decided that EPA cannot define 'major modification' so as to exclude activities that would not increase source-wide potential emissions. This extraordinary result . . . warrants rehearing.”

    The D.C. Circuit rejected UARG's request in December of that year and the decision stood.

    'Shoots Him in the Foot'

    The environmentalist says that EPA's prior arguments are so significant now because the agency characterized the NSPS hourly rate test as unlawfully addressing potential, not actual, emissions, while arguing that under NSR it was bound to address actual emissions.

    “Wehrum is now trying to pretend that the NSPS hourly rate test is one that meets the D.C. Circuit's 'actual emissions' holding in New York,” but EPA's own brief “shoots him in the foot today,” the source says.

    The source adds that Wehrum “boxed himself into a corner” by rejecting the CMA Exhibit B plan while supporting the “clean unit” exemption -- which effectively achieve the same result. The source adds that UARG's en banc petition shows that it “understood well that the court had pulled out key cards from the house of cards that UARG had erected, pretending that an NSPS hourly rate test could be adopted for NSR modifications.”

    But shortly after the D.C. Circuit issued its 2005 ruling, EPA -- with Wehrum then as acting air chief -- proposed a rule to adopt the hourly NSR test. EPA also supplemented that proposal in 2007 but never finalized either plan.

    The environmentalist cites a 2005 leaked agency enforcement memo and case studies to support the concerns that an hourly test would render NSR meaningless. Both documents criticize the 2005 proposal.

    The memo, written by then-civil enforcement director Adam Kushner, expresses “significant concerns about the test proposed and the positions taken in this proposed rule,” which he warned “will adversely impact our enforcement cases and is largely unenforceable.”

    The first case study accompanying the memo shows that one power plant subject to an NSR enforcement action had increased its sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 13,096 tons per year without increasing its hourly emissions rate at all.

    This illustrates that “Wehrum's draft proposed NSR loophole (the hourly emissions rate test) would not have required NSR and this unit would not be required to install a scrubber,” the environmentalist says.

    This concern remains true for the current proposal in ACE to allow coal plants to use an hourly NSR test when making efficiency upgrades, this and other sources say.

    Additionally, Wehrum told senators in November 2005 that he did not review the Kushner memo prior to issuing the proposal, but his staff did. The proposal “reflects the agency's determination regarding this matter,” rejecting the enforcement office's concerns.

    Wehrum also said at the time that EPA would continue to pursue its existing NSR enforcement cases, arguing the proposal was forward-looking and would not affect anything that occurred in the past. He also did not answer senators' questions regarding the case study showing massive SO2 increases not subject to NSR, saying “we intend to provide in the near future a thorough environmental analysis of the NSR proposal in a supplemental proposal.”

    EPA did issue a supplemental proposal in 2007, but never finalized any change to the test. The issue was dropped when the Obama administration took over, and Wehrum went back into private practice until he was confirmed as Trump EPA air chief late last year.

    Environmental groups filed opposing comments on both the 2005 and the 2007 proposals, stressing that the Clean Air Act and courts unambiguously find NSR is triggered when a physical or operational change “increases the amount of any pollutant emitted.”

    They intend to continue to stress that argument and to forcefully oppose any final rule that includes the NSR test change.

    EPA did not respond to questions from Inside EPA on the agency's shifting position on the NSR test, but spokesman Michael Abboud defended the policy change to the New York Times, saying it was designed to benefit the environment and intended “to further encourage efficiency improvements at existing power plants.”

    https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epas-wehrum-opposed-easing-nsr-test-backing-it-ace-rule
    

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17. EPA Again Seeks To Overhaul NSR Test But Still Faces Legal Doubts

    Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

    By Dawn Reeves

    EPA's proposal to ease the emissions test for triggering new source review (NSR) requirements to install modern pollution controls as part of its power sector climate rule, is reviving a decades-old fight and putting EPA on the opposite side of the issue when it was last litigated early in the Bush administration.

    In the Aug. 21 “Affordable Clean Energy” (ACE) proposal to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, EPA proposes to change the test to measure an emissions increase that triggers NSR. The plan seeks to change the test from an annual to hourly measure for power plants that choose from seven EPA-supplied “candidate technologies” to improve efficiencies and lower greenhouse gas emissions, even if the projects allow overall emissions to increase.

    The Clean Air Act's NSR program requires existing facilities undergoing a major modification that increases actual emissions to install state-of-the-art pollution controls. For example, many older coal plants still lack scrubbers to limit sulfur dioxide and selective catalytic reduction to limit nitrogen oxides.

    The proposed change to NSR, which EPA describes as “severable” from the rest of the GHG rule, would mean that it would rarely, if ever, be triggered at coal plants, both proponents and opponents say.

    A fact sheet on the proposal describes what EPA calls a “Catch-22” in the NSR program that has prevented such efficiency upgrades. To resolve the issue, it wants to ease the emissions test that triggers NSR from an annual to an hourly test -- a change that the Bush EPA proposed, but never finalized in 2005 and in 2007 after opposing it earlier in the Bush administration during legal challenges over a different set of NSR changes.

    Specifically, EPA proposes that NSR would only be triggered if undertaking a physical change or change in operation method of an electric generating unit (EGU) that results in “an increase in the hourly emissions rate at the EGU based either on the maximum achieved hourly emissions rate . . . or maximum achievable hourly emissions rate.”

    If there is an hourly emissions rate increase, NSR would be triggered. If the plant's annual emissions go up but not its hourly rate, then it would not have to install any pollution controls.

    Some of the “candidate technologies” listed as options to lower GHGs under ACE were the subject of a sweeping NSR enforcement initiative started in the late 1990s and if undertaken, would allow older plants to boost capacity back to their original levels but not beyond. For example, a 600 megawatt (MW) plant now operating at 550 MW could seek to upgrade its efficiency to run again at 600 MW and not be subject to NSR but could not exceed its original limit, an industry source explains. The plant could produce more electricity from less coal, but its conventional emissions could still increase and its life could be extended.

    Legal Debate

    The legality of the proposal is hotly debated -- with environmentalists and many in industry suggesting it is doubtful while other industry sources argue EPA has discretion to change the test.

    One proponent of the change says the Clean Air Act's NSR provisions include language addressing an emissions increase but it does not dictate how, and allows EPA to define the measure of an increase. This source cites a unanimous 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Environmental Defense Fund v. Duke, which held EPA is not required to use the same test for NSR and new source performance standards (NSPS).

    Those standards are governed by section 111 of the air law, the same section under which ACE is being issued and has always used an hourly trigger test.

    Proponents say the justices did not, however, conclude that EPA is barred from using an hourly test for NSR, arguing they left the door open for the agency to pursue its latest plan.

    In the proposal, EPA outlines its legal arguments for changing the test and rehashes the long legal history of the case that led to the Duke ruling. EPA initially lost at the 4th Circuit in an NSR enforcement challenge, with that court ruling that EPA had to have a uniform emissions standard for NSR and NSPS. That was appealed to the high court, which reversed.

    “Although the [Supreme] Court had no occasion to address whether the Clean Air Act allows, rather than directs, EPA to define 'modification' the same way in both the NSPS and NSR programs, EPA believes that the answer is clearly yes,” EPA says in its ACE proposal.

    After the Duke ruling, EPA issued its 2007 proposal to change the test, revising a similar 2005 proposal. Then, it argued the high court “left room for EPA to revise the regulations when it has a rational basis for doing [so]. . . . Accordingly, EPA has broad discretion to propose a reasonable method by which to calculate the 'amount' of an emissions 'increase' for purposes of NSR applicability.”

    However, opponents say other court rulings by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that NSR is triggered when actual emissions increase, and under those holdings, EPA is precluded from changing the test to one that would rarely if ever trigger the program and deliberately allow emissions to rise.

    One industry attorney notes that NSR was enacted only after the NSPS program was shown to be unsuccessful in reducing ambient air pollution, as another reason for why a stricter test is required.

    Some industry officials have already publicly acknowledged the proposal's vulnerability. Jim Matheson, the CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, told reporters Aug. 22 that the proposal's NSR provisions may be legally vulnerable. “We'll see,” he said, adding that if it does survive, it provides “an opportunity for investment” at some co-ops' coal plants.

    But another industry proponent of NSR reform notes that the plan is welcome but secondary to the survival of the broader ACE rule.

    'Giant Loophole'

    Even EPA in the proposal notes that the D.C. Circuit in 2005 rejected a similar 2002 “clean unit exemption” in New York v. EPA, “because Congress intended to apply NSR to increases in actual emissions.”

    University of California-Los Angeles law school fellow Meredith Hankins details much of the history and current issues in an Aug. 21 Legal Planet blog post, noting that the House is pursuing a similar legislative change to an hourly NSR test. The change creates “a giant loophole for industry: sources can increase the hours of operation . . . without undergoing NSR review -- so long as the hourly average remains the same.”

    Former Obama EPA senior counsel Joe Goffman, now at Harvard University, also offers strong criticism of the proposal in an Aug. 22 Twitter thread, where he says it would “bor[e] a hole into the heart of the very program -- NSR -- designed to make sure that long operating facilities at some point install pollution controls.”

    A former EPA official says an hourly test would “almost never” trigger NSR, and that a true efficiency upgrade -- where a facility burns less coal to make the same amount of electricity -- has already been exempted for years. But a “life-extension project,” which appears to be what is at issue here, could indeed require NSR under the current emissions test.

    As for the proposal's legal fate, the source notes that EPA has not had much prior success in overhauling NSR, and suspects the NSR changes are the key motivator for the climate rule. “The only reason for doing ACE is for this,” the source says, noting if it survives it would put an “enormous burden” on states to review each power plant to determine if any of the seven candidate technologies are viable.

    However, another industry source says the Supreme Court's Duke ruling and EPA's prior proposals will help the agency advance the changes here. This source says the high court only said the air law did not require NSR to have an hourly emissions test, and did not address whether EPA could impose one.

    A third industry source agrees, saying the “court left an opening for EPA to at least explore changing the test. And the interesting thing here is they are trying it out with respect to just one sector.”

    This source agrees that the NSPS' hourly test is rarely triggered but also notes that people seek to avoid NSR at all costs. “Whatever triggers NSR, people don't do,” because of its cumbersome permitting requirements and sky-high costs, and also because of uncertainties about which activities trigger it.

    The source describes the biggest difference between the tests is that an hourly test determines if the project is making the unit bigger, what the source calls an engineering dilemma that is easy to recognize, while the annual test can be affected by many complex factors that bring ongoing uncertainty.

    This proposal, if successful, could finally settle those issues, according to this source.

    However, another industry lawyer says the outcome could very well depend on which D.C. Circuit judges are seated to hear the case, noting that many of the judges that ruled against EPA on its earlier NSR reforms remain on the court. This source also sees political motives by EPA for taking the action, more than practical ones.

    “Trump ran on, and kept talking about” coal, and “he perceives in part his election success in getting” coal states to vote for him, the source says.

    https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-again-seeks-overhaul-nsr-test-still-faces-legal-doubts
    

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18. National Air Toxics Report Spurs EPA Review Of Ethlyene Oxide Air Rules

    Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

    By Stuart Parker

    EPA is launching a review of its Clean Air Act regulations for emissions of ethlyene oxide (EtO), a toxic gas released in the manufacture of several common products such as textiles and detergents, following findings in its latest national-scale assessment of air toxics that suggest a persistent cancer risk from EtO emissions.

    The 2014 National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA), released by EPA Aug. 22, reveals the agency's concern over the risk from the chemical, even as overall air toxics levels across the country are trending downward. The latest NATA uses a 2014 air toxics emissions inventory, unlike the prior version released in 2015 that relied on a less complete 2011 emissions inventory.

    NATA is a screening tool to help state, local or tribal air regulators identify air toxics hot spots where further investigation and emissions reduction may be required to reduce health risks to the public. The 2014 NATA estimates risks from 180 of the 187 air toxics listed under the Clean Air Act and diesel particulate matter. These pollutants are emitted by a variety of sources, including large stationary sources, smaller “area” sources and mobile sources, natural sources like wildfires and also created by “secondary” formation in the atmosphere.

    EPA discourages comparisons from one NATA to the next, because of significant methodological differences between the studies. “The 2014 NATA includes several improvements that were not available for the previous version” summarizing 2011 data, EPA says in a fact sheet. “Those include data that allow the Agency to better estimate where emissions are occurring within a county, improved modeling accuracy for some pollutants, and updated information about the health effects some pollutants cause.”

    The latest NATA finds, “several areas could have elevated cancer risks from long-term exposure to the chemical ethylene oxide. These elevated risks are largely driven by an EPA risk value that was updated in late 2016,” according to the fact sheet. The agency defines elevated cancer risk as a greater than 100-in-one million chance of developing cancer because of the target pollutant.

    EtO is used in the manufacture of antifreeze, textiles, plastics, detergents and adhesives. It is also used to sterilize medical equipment and plastic devices that cannot be sterilized by steam.

    The Obama EPA in December 2016 released its final assessment of the chemical's inhaled cancer risk, that echoed three earlier drafts of the study finding EtO causes both breast cancer and leukemia. The Integrated Risk Information System assessment sets a cancer potency estimate that the chemical industry has protested as overly strict, particularly for a chemical with EtO's benefits.

    EPA is now suggesting that the results of the 2014 NATA on the lingering cancer risk from EtO emissions warrant a review of its Clean Air Act regulations for the chemical.

    'Two-Pronged Approach'

    In a second fact sheet, the agency details its “two-pronged approach” to mitigating EtO risks, saying that it intends to both review two air regulations with a view to updating them, and to gather more information on the chemical's risks to the public.

    One rule is EPA's national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP) to cut toxic emissions from miscellaneous organic chemical manufacturing, last updated in 2006 and already due for another review by a court-ordered deadline of March 2020.

    The agency also says it will “take a closer look” at its rules governing emissions from other sectors, starting with the NESHAP for EtO commercial sterilization and fumigation operations, last updated in 2006.

    To support those rule reviews, EPA further intends to “gather additional information on industrial emissions of ethylene oxide, including where emissions occur, how those emissions can be controlled, and how current emission controls can be improved. The Agency also may seek information from emissions testing at facilities that emit ethylene oxide, focusing first on areas where NATA estimates elevated cancer risk.”

    “For ethylene oxide, facility emissions testing, combined with air quality modeling, can provide a more complete picture of ethylene oxide in the air in an area than air quality monitoring can,” EPA says.

    “Existing monitoring methods are not sensitive enough to detect ethylene oxide at all levels in the outdoor air. EPA is actively working to develop new techniques for measuring ethylene oxide,” the agency says.

    Also, “data from emissions testing can be used in the review and development of air toxics regulations; data from air quality monitoring cannot,” EPA notes.

    Despite the heightened concern over EtO, “Nationwide, total emissions of air toxics are declining, and air quality monitoring data show that concentrations of many toxics in the air, such as benzene, also are trending downward,” EPA says in reference to the broader findings of the 2014 NATA.

    EPA developed the 2014 NATA in cooperation with state air regulators. In a synopsis of the new study, the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA), representing many state, local and tribal air regulators, says that, “Fewer than 1 percent of the census tracts in the U.S. had an estimated cancer risk of greater than or equal to 100 in one million and in those areas that did, the risk was driven [primarily] by point source emissions of ethylene oxide . . . , cholorprene and coke oven emissions.”

    Further, “about one half of the national average cancer risk was the result of secondary formation (formaldehyde and acetaldehyde) from both anthropogenic sources (stationary and mobile) and biogenic sources,” NACAA says.

    https://insideepa.com/daily-news/national-air-toxics-report-spurs-epa-review-ethlyene-oxide-air-rules
    

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19. Reversing Stance, EPA Urges High Court To Decline Appeal On HFC Powers

    Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

    By Lee Logan

    The Trump EPA is reversing its position on its Clean Air Act authority to limit refrigerant chemicals that act as potent greenhouse gases, urging the Supreme Court to reject a petition seeking to overturn an appellate court ruling that vacated key parts of a 2015 rule restricting the chemicals -- even though Trump officials initially defended the rule.

    The reversal is included in an Aug. 27 brief from the Justice Department (DOJ) opposing petitions for a writ of certiorari that were filed in June by environmentalists and chemical firms that back the 2015 rule.

    At issue is the 2016 split panel ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Mexichem Fluor v. EPA, et al.

    That ruling vacated key parts of EPA's Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) rules limiting HFCs in a variety of end uses, finding that EPA lacks authority to require manufacturers that have already “replaced” ozone-depleting products with another non-ozone depleting product to then switch to a new substitute -- even if EPA has since found that the new substitute is better for the environment or public health.

    The SNAP program was originally intended to address chemicals that destroy the stratospheric ozone layer, and HFCs were crafted as an ozone-friendly alternative to chlorofluorocarbons and other chemicals that damage ozone.

    However, HFCs act as potent short-term GHGs, and the Obama EPA began using SNAP to require manufacturers to use replacement chemicals that do not deplete the ozone layer and have a far lower global warming potential.

    While the Trump EPA defended the 2015 rule in the initial stage of litigation, DOJ's latest brief says EPA “has revisited the issue in light of the court of appeals' ruling. The agency now believes that the decision below reflects the better understanding of section 612(c)” of the Clean Air Act, which governs the SNAP program.

    Because EPA now agrees with the D.C. Circuit panel majority's view on the issue, DOJ argues, the issue is “of limited prospective importance. Granting review to consider an interpretation of EPA’s authority that EPA itself no longer supports would serve little or no purpose.”

    It adds that the ruling's dissent would have upheld the Obama EPA's interpretation as “reasonable,” but “did not suggest that EPA was required to adopt that approach.”

    DOJ also contends that a forthcoming rulemaking -- intended to respond to the Mexichem ruling -- will help resolve any uncertainty created by the ruling and could help to resolve petitioners' concerns about the D.C. Circuit's interpretation of section 612(c).

    'Specious' Arguments

    Also filing an Aug. 27 brief opposing cert are HFC producers Mexichem Fluor and Arkema Inc., which had originally challenged the 2015 regulation. Among other arguments, these companies say their rival chemical makers and environmentalists offer “specious” arguments that the court vacatur will have major climate change impacts.

    The D.C. Circuit “did not hold that EPA may not ban HFCs or other non-ozone-depleting substances; it held only that the agency may not use the SNAP program to ban HFCs or other non-ozone- depleting substances that have already replaced ozone-depleting substances,” the Mexichem and Arkema brief says, arguing that EPA has “expansive” other authorities to limit HFCs.

    These companies also tout their support for a 2016 international deal to limit HFCs -- known as the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol -- calling it a “holistic approach.”

    The Trump administration has yet to fully embrace the Kigali deal, despite calls from various industry groups and Republicans to send the deal to the Senate for ratification.

    https://insideepa.com/daily-news/reversing-stance-epa-urges-high-court-decline-appeal-hfc-powers
    

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20. EAB Poised To Hear Case Testing Utility Battery Use As BACT Air Control

    Aug 27, 2018 | Inside EPA

    By Stuart Parker

    EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) is poised to hear oral argument Aug. 30 in environmentalists' challenge to an agency-issued Clean Air Act permit that they claim wrongly rejected battery storage as an effective option to satisfy the best available control technology (BACT) standard for reducing emissions at a natural gas-powered power plant.

    The appeal, In re: Palmdale Energy LLC, Palmdale Energy Project, concerns the Clean Air Act permit EPA granted to the planned power plant in Palmdale, CA.

    The facility is a modern combined-cycle gas plant but its design includes “duct burners” that would allow it to ramp up power output quickly to meet peak electric demand. Environmentalists say the burners will contribute unnecessarily to air pollution, and they argue that EPA instead should have considered battery use to curb emissions.

    Environmental groups Center for Biological Diversity, Desert Citizens Against Pollution, California Communities Against Toxics and Sierra Club say that the permit issued by EPA Region 9 on April 25 under the prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) program is “fatally flawed” for not mandating battery use as BACT.

    PSD permits are required for new facilities or those making major modifications in areas meeting national ambient air quality standards, while related “nonattainment” new source review (NSR) permits are required for such facilities in areas violating federal air standards. The air law mandates that permit holders subject to PSD satisfy requirements for BACT, which determines the type of controls facilities must install to reduce emissions.

    The environmental groups in their May 29 EAB petition say that despite their comments recommending battery storage as an alternative to duct burners, Region 9 issued the permit for the higher-polluting duct burners.

    Although the permit was issued by Region 9, which covers the Pacific Southwest, EAB will hear the Aug 30 argument on the case at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C.

    Among the failings the groups cite and will raise at argument is that EPA wrongly considered the impact of using battery storage in the context of retail electricity prices, when in fact it should have done cost-effectiveness calculations using wholesale prices, which would render batteries more cost-competitive.

    “This issue also raises important policy considerations as California in particular, and the Nation as a whole, transitions to a clean energy economy. The question is whether EPA will use outdated, and thus inaccurate data, to stick with its old ways of only truly examining 'end of the pipe' pollution approaches or whether EPA will properly consider approaches which result in less pollution, as well as save ratepayers money and support increased grid resiliency as a co-benefit,” the environmental groups said in their initial petition.

    The case is at least the second recent attempt by environmentalists to push regulators to accept battery storage as a mainstream method of emissions control, as the capacity of industrial batteries increases and their price falls.

    In an earlier EAB decision, the board in 2016 denied Sierra Club's petition for review of the PSD permit issued by Maricopa County, AZ, to an expansion of the generating power of the Ocotillo Power Plant in Tempe, AZ, operated by Arizona Public Services Company.

    The project involved construction of five new gas turbines on the site, and Sierra Club again claimed that battery storage could serve to reduce the gas burned at the plant. But Maricopa County found this would constitute an unlawful “redefinition of the source,” and EAB agreed.

    Palmdale Permit

    In the Palmdale case, EPA again rejects pressure to approve battery storage as BACT. In this case, BACT applies with respect to nitrogen oxides (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO) from the gas facility.

    In a June 19 brief in the case, Region 9 says it did not evaluate whether using battery storage would impermissibly “redefine the source.” But the region still rejects the petition on the grounds that it “determined that using battery storage to replace duct burners could be rejected as BACT because this option was not technically feasible . . . would potentially not rank higher than the use of duct burners . . . and would be cost-prohibitive."

    The region says environmentalists have failed to show that battery storage is a viable alternative to duct burners to meet the plant's intended purpose, or that it is cost-competitive. Environmentalists have failed to show that batteries are necessarily less polluting than duct burners, given that the batteries have to be charged by operation of the gas-burning plant's combustion turbines, EPA says. The agency says the difference in terms of air pollution between use of the main turbines to charge batteries and using duct burners would be marginal.

    Further, the region says that environmentalists' comments on the permit after it was proposed in 2017 were too general in nature and therefore some issues they raise on appeal have not been properly “preserved” for EAB review.

    Another aspect of the appeal concerns EPA's alleged failure in its permit to fully consider all emissions emanating from an Air Force facility adjacent to the Palmdale power plant, known as Plant 42, which hosts facilities operated by military aircraft manufacturers. EPA excluded the emissions on the basis that the base is off-limits to the public and therefore the air above it is not considered “ambient,” and not subject to Clean Air Act permit requirements.

    Environmentalists say this ignores that the plant shares a runway with a regional airport that is still on occasion accessed by members of the public, and therefore the airspace is “ambient” and aircraft emissions should be factored into the Palmdale permit. But EPA counters that its action is consistent with its longstanding definition of “ambient air."

    EPA defines “ambient air” as “that portion of the atmosphere, external to buildings, to which the general public has access” -- though staff has indicated that the agency is working on guidance to a revise this definition to provide additional “flexibility."

    The environmental groups reject EPA's criticisms of their case, arguing in a June 29 reply brief that EPA's arguments are “fatally flawed,” and based on outdated or incorrect assumptions about technical feasibility of batteries, their pollution reductions and cost.

    The groups say that EPA committed a “clear error of law” when it assumed that the plant would have to purchase electricity to charge a battery system at retail rates rather than wholesale rates. This is because Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order 841 “mandates that batteries energy storage facilities be allowed to purchase electricity from the grid at wholesale rates,” the groups say. 

    https://insideepa.com/daily-news/eab-poised-hear-case-testing-utility-battery-use-bact-air-control
    

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