Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report 8/29/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Report: Single-Use Plastic Packaging Must Adapt to Survive
Aug 29, 2018 | Plastics News
By Michael Lauzon
Recycling and sustainability are here to stay, and the plastics industry must adapt in order to survive. -
(ACC Mentioned) How REMADE Could Drive Innovation in Circular Manufacturing Techniques
Aug 29, 2018 | Green Biz
By RP Siegel
The challenges involved in converting the global economy from linear to circular processes and consumption habits are massive, multi-faceted and multi-dimensional. -
How Special Interests Hide the True Costs of Tariffs
Aug 29, 2018 | New York Times
By Veronique de Rugy
If there is a silver lining to the recent trade insanity, it’s the bright light that it shines on the victims of President Trump’s tariffs. -
Industry Needs to Prepare for No-Deal Brexit – Germany’s VCI
Aug 28, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Chemicals trading between the UK and the EU could come to a "complete standstill" without a Brexit deal and it is "high time" for companies to prepare for this eventuality, the head of the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) has warned. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Systematic Review Approach Exposes Mechanistic Data Debate
Aug 29, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
A recently concluded EPA consultation has shown that industry and academics strongly disagree over the role of mechanistic data in the regulatory hazard assessment of chemicals. -
(ACC Mentioned) No Need for New Chemicals Lawsuit to Proceed, Advocates Say (1)
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The environmental organization that filed a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s approach to deciding whether a new chemical could be sold is asking a federal court to dismiss the case. -
East Chicago Advocates: Lead Dust Standards Unequal Across Superfunds
Aug 28, 2018 | Indiana Public Media
By Rebecca Thiele
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to tighten restrictions on lead dust in homes. But it wouldn’t affect those by Superfund sites like USS Lead in East Chicago. Advocates say the EPA needs to do more to protect the people most vulnerable to lead dust exposure. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals Contaminating Drinking Water Spur Senators’ Interest (2)
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Michigan’s Democratic senators—and Republican senators from other states—want to know whether multiple new federal standards and extensive studies are justified for a family of ubiquitous chemicals that are contaminating drinking water across the country. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Raises Legal Warnings over ATSDR's Strict Draft PFAS Findings
Aug 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Industry and business groups are questioning the science used by a federal health agency to derive draft toxicity values for four perfluorinated chemicals, two of which adopt more conservative values than those developed by EPA, and warning that the values may be vulnerable to legal challenges. -
Target Will Require Suppliers to Reveal Chemical Data
Aug 29, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Target's suppliers must give the US retailer access to further chemical data by the end of 2018, according to an internal company document obtained by Chemical Watch. -
House to Take up Bill Expediting Small LNG Exports
Aug 28, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
The House Rules Committee will meet Sept. 4 to set up the floor debate on a bill, H.R. 4606 (115), that would speed the approval of shipments of small amounts of liquefied natural gas that qualify for categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act, according to a notice. -
Aging Power Plants Get Lifeline in Clean Energy Rule, EPA Head Says
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
States could prolong the life of aging and less efficient power plants if they so choose under the EPA’s new proposed carbon emissions rule, Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said. -
Oil and Gas Companies Find (Some) Value in Capturing Methane
Aug 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Oil and natural gas companies have been cutting methane emissions from wells, tanks, pipelines, and other equipment while uneasily looking over their shoulders at regulators pressuring them to cut more. -
States Highlight Concerns Over Produced Water As EPA Launches Study
Aug 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
State regulators are highlighting uncertainties surrounding reuse of “produced” wastewater from oil and gas drilling, including difficulties accurately assessing its contents, variability in samples, and liability issues, as EPA embarks on a “holistic study”... -
Colorado Initiative Backed by Oil Drillers Makes Ballot
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz and Ryan Collins
A “regulatory takings” measure backed by the oil and gas industry has qualified for the November ballot in Colorado. -
In America’s Hottest Drilling Spot, Vast Volumes of Gas Go Up in Smoke
Aug 29, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Rebecca Elliott
In America’s busiest oil field, roughly $1 million worth of natural gas goes to waste each day. -
Cheniere Prepares for Flowing Feedgas to Fifth Train at Louisiana LNG Export Terminal
Aug 29, 2018 | Platts
By Harry Weber and Michael van Duinen
Cheniere Energy wants permission from the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by next week to begin flowing feedgas to its fifth liquefaction train at its Sabine Pass LNG export terminal, as it prepares to begin production on that unit and the first at its Corpus Christi, Texas, facility before the end of the year. -
Arctic Ice Melt Opens LNG Energy Trade Route near North Pole
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jeremy Hodges, Anna Shiryaevskaya and Dina Khrennikova
A new trade route for energy supplies is opening up north of the Arctic Circle as some of the warmest temperatures on record shrink ice caps that used to lock ships out of the area. -
(ACC Mentioned) Critics Vow Suit Over EPA's RMP Rollback Plan, Citing Scrapped Delay Rule
Aug 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Environmentalists and Democratic-led states are threatening to sue EPA if the agency does not drop its plan to roll back the Obama-era rule strengthening the agency's facility accident prevention program, citing the recent appellate ruling vacating EPA's measure... -
Senate Confirms Head of New Energy Department Cybersecurity Office
Aug 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern and Patrick Ambrosio
The Senate Aug. 28 confirmed Karen Evans to lead a new Energy Department office devoted to protecting the nation’s electric grid. -
Updated: FRA Releases Latest Railroad Progress Report as PTC Deadline Looms
Aug 28, 2018 | Lexology
By Justin Marks
The Federal Railroad Administration (“FRA”) has released its latest Positive Train Control (“PTC”) implementation progress report for the 2nd quarter of 2018. The FRA’s latest report indicates that railroads are making steady progress toward PTC compliance. -
Texas Challenges Adding San Antonio to List of Ozone Violators
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Karn Dhingra
Texas is challenging the EPA’s recent decision that San Antonio’s air contains unhealthy levels of ozone pollution. -
Exxon Sets Canada Emissions Goal, Heeding Climate Concerns
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kevin Crowley
Exxon Mobil Corp. set a goal for reducing emissions from its Canadian oil sands, the second time this year the world’s biggest oil explorer by market value published a greenhouse-gas target. -
California Lawmakers Set Goal for Carbon-Free Energy by 2045
Aug 28, 2018 | New York Times
By Ivan Penn
California took some of the most aggressive steps yet to counter the effects of climate change as legislators voted Tuesday to require that 100 percent of the state’s electricity come from carbon-free sources. -
How California Can Save the Amazon
Aug 29, 2018 | New York Times
By Michael Oppenheimer and Steve Schwartzman
Next month, when Gov. Jerry Brown convenes the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, it will be a chance to mark the huge strides he has made on behalf of the climate, and measure how much remains to be done. Under his leadership, California has cut greenhouse gas emission...
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Mentioned) Report: Single-Use Plastic Packaging Must Adapt to Survive
Aug 29, 2018 | Plastics News
By Michael Lauzon
Recycling and sustainability are here to stay, and the plastics industry must adapt in order to survive.
That outlook is the main take away of “Rethinking single-use plastics,” a study just published by market researchers with major financial institution Citi. The researchers paint an extensive picture of the battle between plastics, paper, metal and glass in packaging, but an embargoed version of the study stops short of make firm recommendations to plastics packagers.
The stakes are huge. Packaging accounts for about 45 percent of the $1 trillion global plastic market. Only 14 percent of plastic packaging is recycled, the report stated.
Recycling and sustainability issues have been debated for years in North America and Europe but the drastic cutback of imported plastic scrap by China that began in 2017 has added extra urgency to the debate. China’s recycling industry accounted for about half the global recycling trade at its peak, and when the country began throttling back plastic scrap imports last year, prices for recycled plastics fell through the floor as mountains of scrap tried to find a home.
China’s actions have accelerated bans and other restrictions for single-use plastics in countries around the world. These restrictions have cascaded into a series of responses. The American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division, for example, is urging all plastic packaging be reused, recycled or recovered by the year 2040. Europe is striving for all plastic packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2030.
Citi researchers point to a multi-pronged approach to meet recycling and sustainability concerns.
Standardized pricing mechanisms could help plastic recycling and trading. Waste-to-fuel technologies could spur increased recycling rates by providing a ready and useful market for scrap plastic. Use of radio-frequency identification tags in plastic packaging could make sorting and recycling easier, the report noted. Large plastic and chemical companies have the ability to innovate and are introducing polymers that compete with conventional plastics and other materials.
Biodegradable plastics have been around for about 20 years but the field is still in its infancy. In their favor is an ability shown those plastics can decompose in about a half year, similar to other compostables such as paper.
Citi researchers cite a study indicating biodegradable polymers demand over the next five years will grow at 9 percent per year starting from the base point in 2017 of a global total of 335,000 tons. Acceptance of the polymers could be aided by their ability to reduce carbon footprints so that carbon credits could offset their higher cost. Consumer trends and legislation also could make biodegradables’ higher cost acceptable. Already, more than 1 million tons of biodegradable plastics production capacity is in place globally.
Plant-based raw materials are noted in the report as another solution, and are especially pertinent to PET bottles. Such raw materials promote sustainability and fortify PET’s ability to compete against traditional materials on a performance basis. Coca-Cola Co.’s faith in this approach led it aim that all its bottles be made with plant-based content by 2020, up from 30 percent in 2015.
Consolidation in the packaging sector could help plastics compete, researchers wrote. Larger companies are better able to research and develop new packaging and improve efficiencies in manufacturing and transportation. Mergers usually result in cost synergies, especially in resin procurement. Resin can account for 50 percent or more of the cost of plastic packaging.
Consolidation is well underway in the packaging industry, the biggest recent move being Amcor Ltd.’s plan to acquire Bemis Co. Inc.
For the time being, however, plastic packaging production now is extremely fragmented, according to the study. The top four firms in plastic packaging account for some 28 percent of the market whereas the top four in glass containers account for 95 percent of production and the top four in beverage cans hold 90 percent of their market.
Plastics processing may be more difficult to consolidate than companies reliant on traditional materials. Plastic packaging encompasses a wide range of media, from film to pouches to bottles to trays, while glass and metal packaging have much narrower applications. Although innovation and scale will favor continued consolidation, the researchers predict there will always be smaller, niche players in plastics.
Resin producers can play a key role in protecting plastics demand. Many have introduced polymers based on sustainable raw materials. New resins can offer more opportunities to reduce weight.
Some resin companies, especially in Europe, have acquired recycling companies that might offset any erosion in virgin resin demand. LyondellBasell, for example, recently acquired a 50 percent interest in Quality Circular Polymers, a plastics recycler based in the Netherlands.
Cost vs. performance
With plastic packaging under fire on many fronts, traditional materials suppliers are eager to regain lost market share. In many applications it will be a fight between cost and performance with no obvious winner.
Aluminum could regain market share in single-serve soft drinks and other beverages. One appeal of aluminum is its recycling record. An average aluminum can is comprised of 70 percent recycled content compared with about 3 percent for PET and 23 percent for glass.
PET bottles greater than 24 ounces appear less threatened than smaller sizes. Europe is more reliant on PET bottles than the United States and could see more PET market share erosion.
PET has essentially replaced glass in carbonated soft drink markets and now holds 50 percent of the U.S. market for the beverages.
Plastics caps and closures are also susceptible to replacement by metal. About 73 percent of caps and closures are made of plastic, mainly polypropylene, for which there is a paucity of recycling capacity.
Glass is a threat to plastic in high-end and niche applications like cosmetics where it can be perceived as denoting high quality. However, glass has its drawbacks. It breaks easily, is heavy and has low or negative value in recycling streams, the report noted.
Single serve cups for hot and cold beverages are another battleground where sustainability and recyclability are not clear cut, according to the Citi study. Expanded polystyrene cup use has been declining 3 percent a year or more recently. Paper cups have the largest U.S. market share at 52 percent but some beverage suppliers are using paper with a polyethylene lining which frustrates recycling.
Protective packaging is another area where plastics could lose ground. Only 15 percent of U.S. plastic film is recycled. Recycled paper packaging is being adopted to the detriment of plastic. Crushed kraft paper could replace some plastic bubblewrap, pillows and peanuts that are now dominant materials to fill voids in e-commerce packaging.
Plastic stretch films, however, may face less substitution. The films are mainly used in manufacturing and distribution where they are not obvious to environmentally concerned consumers. The films have a cost advantage over metal strapping and new stretch hooding techniques promise less plastic use than conventional spiral wrapping. About 70 percent of stretch film usage goes to pallet wrap for storage and distribution.
The “paper or plastic” dilemma for shopping bags will continue. Each material has advantages and disadvantages. In the United States some 30 billion plastic bags are used annually compared with about 10 billion paper bags.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180828/NEWS/180829897/report-single-use-plastic-packaging-must-adapt-to-survive
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(ACC Mentioned) How REMADE Could Drive Innovation in Circular Manufacturing Techniques
Aug 29, 2018 | Green Biz
By RP Siegel
The challenges involved in converting the global economy from linear to circular processes and consumption habits are massive, multi-faceted and multi-dimensional.
Considering the technological, policy, marketing, logistical and infrastructural innovations that will be required, it is clear that the solutions will be bigger than any one player — or even any one group of industry-specific collaborators players — can orchestrate. Such a monumental challenge requires a monumental effort.
The REMADE Institute is one such effort, funded with $70 million from federal funding sources and $70 million from its various members. Composed of 26 universities, 44 companies, seven national labs and 26 industry trade associations and foundations, it's the largest and most comprehensive effort (at least in the United States) focused primarily on addressing the changes required to retool remanufacturing processes for the circular economy.
That includes finding ways of expanding the list of recyclable materials and improving the efficiency with which they can be extracted and reprocessed, as well as improving processes for remanufacturing products from recycled cores, which is what the products are called when they are returned at the end of their life.
REMADE is also looking for ways to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions, which today comprise 21 percent of the global total, making it the third largest sector.
While many of these issues are being addressed by individual companies as well as consortia such as Project Effective in Europe, the REMADE Institute intends to engage a broader scope of players in its endeavor to "dramatically reduce the embodied energy and carbon emissions associated with industrial-scale materials production and processing." Participating companies include Caterpillar, John Deere, Alcoa, Davies Industries, Unilever, Nike, First Solar and Michelin.
The institute (the name derives from the phrase Reducing EMbodied-Energy and Decreasing Emissions ) is specifically charged with finding new and less expensive ways to reuse, recycle and remanufacture metals, fibers, polymers and electronic waste. Here are some of its specific targets: Reduce primary feedstock consumption in manufacturing by 30 percent Achieve 25 percent reduction in embodied energy of targeted materials Achieve cost parity for secondary (recycled) materials Improve energy efficiency of secondary material processing by 30 percent Increase the size of the remanufacturing industry by 100 percent
Just how big is the remanufacturing segment today? REMADE CEO Nabil Nasr, who also is the director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), said remanufacturing generated $43 billion in 2012. It employs 180,000 people.
In developing the institute's operating structure, the team chose not to organize activities by material types. Instead, it opted to focus on how to transition processes in these five functional areas: Systems analysis and integration Design for reuse/disassembly Manufacturing material optimization Remanufacturing and reuse Recycling and recovery
In a sense, this is a new industry with new processes and requiring new equipment and new skills. So the early-stage research prioritized by REMADE is intended to provide a proving ground that ultimately can grow these new disciplines and capabilities to levels commensurate with conventional manufacturing practice.
At the administrative level, the institute operates as a grant-maker, soliciting proposals from within its membership that are focused on offering solutions relevant to each of the five functional areas listed above. Selected proposals receive funds, as well as oversight resources.
Twenty selections from the first round of 106 proposals recently were chosen to receive funding. A few examples help to illustrate the kinds of efforts that REMADE is supporting: A framework for managing end-of-life solar technologies: Given that the first solar installations will be approaching the end of their useful life in the near future, it's not too soon to consider how these materials will be managed when those installations are replaced or deconstructed. A project backed by University of Pittsburgh, University of California, Irvine, First Solar and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is exploring a new solar design framework that will incorporate material recovery from the outset. New approaches for removing contaminant: Many metals require high levels of purity to meet performance requirements. The presence of contaminants seriously can erode the value of recycled metals. An initiative led by Ohio State University, Alcoa and CompuTherm intends to advance new methods for contaminant removal. Establishing more efficient sorting methods for plastic packaging: American Chemistry Council, Resource Recycling Systems and Idaho National Lab are spearheading a project to "examine barriers along every stage of the recovery process. [This effort's] goal is to gather data on the efficacy of new types of sortation equipment, the impact that equipment has on quality of other commodities processed in the materials recovery facility (MRF), the market potential for recovered film and flexible packaging, and more."
The use of collaborative teams from academia, industry and the national labs improves the chances of developing solutions with broad applicability. "Local optimization does not always lead to global optimization," Nasr said. "Here, we're comprehensively looking at the whole system and defining broad goals. Before this, you wouldn't see people working in recycling technology, and manufacturing and design, all working on the same projects."
What's in it for the companies?
Caterpillar has been in the business of remanufacturing for over 20 years. Today, it remanufactures some 2 million components annually, which equates to some 148 million pounds of iron across a broad range of parts ranging from flywheels to fuel injectors to complete engines, according to the company's website. Caterpillar recognizes that a lot more recoverable value can be gained from an old engine by tearing it down and rebuilding it, and adding new components where needed, than in simply melting it down and starting over from scratch. The result is considerably less resource usage and better value all the way around.
Over the 20-plus years, the company's ability to recapture value from remanufactured items has continued to grow. One of REMADE's funded projects — in which Caterpillar is participating along with RIT and CoreCentric, a company that specializes in "reverse logistics supply chain service solutions"— is called "Condition Assessment of Used Electronics." The aim of the project is to expand upon the ability to assess electronic parts being returned for their remaining useful life, using automation. This could help Caterpillar expand the portfolio of parts that it effectively can recover.
SunnKIng, a western New York company that specializes in collecting, processing and redistributing electronic equipment at its end of life, is also working REMADE to rethink its business model. Matt Plummer, environmental, health and safety compliance manager for SunnKing, said the company began life by identifying usable items and selling them on eBay. From there, the organization evolved into a repair facility with extensive sorting capabilities. Today SunnKing recycles 25 million pounds a year, including a significant amount of toxic metals and other dangerous substances. It's a private company performing a largely public service.
The business model is a challenging one, especially given the continually fluctuating prices of commodities such as metals. SunnKing's REMADE project is called "Evaluation of Logistics Systems for Collection, Reprocessing, and Production of Secondary Feedstocks from e-Waste." Under the initiative, SunnKing will partner with Idaho National Lab, which has done extensive work on e-waste recovery. The processes they develop could allow companies such as SunnKing to operate far more efficiently, according to the institute.
Through projects such as these, REMADE is poised to make substantial contributions to the science and art behind the circular economy. With four years remaining in its DOE grant (after which the organization intends to become self-sustaining), you can expect to see much more.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-remade-could-drive-innovation-circular-manufacturing-techniques
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How Special Interests Hide the True Costs of Tariffs
Aug 29, 2018 | New York Times
By Veronique de Rugy
If there is a silver lining to the recent trade insanity, it’s the bright light that it shines on the victims of President Trump’s tariffs. These victims include construction companies, equipment manufacturers and the many American producers whose costs are increasing. Workers in these industries as well as ordinary American consumers pay higher prices for automobiles, washers and dryers, and the other goods whose prices are artificially hiked by the tariffs.
Because of the president’s hyperactive use of his trade authority, the scale of this pain is unusually high. But the reality is that this disregard for the consequences inflicted on buyers in the industries downstream from tariffs is nothing new. In fact, thanks to the handiwork of interest groups who benefit from the tariffs and the politicians who serve them, it’s embedded in our trade system, sometimes even in the legislation itself.
Consider how easy it was for Mr. Trump to get a 25 percent tariff on steel imports. His administration simply concocted a fanciful national-security narrative about why the steel industry needed protection from foreign steel imports — this despite the industry’s enjoying a 70 percent share of the United States steel market and despite the Department of Defense finding no national-security harm from global steel imports.
Why is such a half-baked justification so easy to spin? In large part, it has to do with the Commerce Department, which is responsible for measuring a given tariff’s impact. A department report on a tariff measures the direct impact on an industry — say, steel manufacturers — as well as steel-consuming industries and the economy more broadly.
However, while it has the data, the Department of Commerce is not required by law to consider the impact on the industries in the cross hairs of a tariff in its recommendation to impose the penalty — even though the impact can be brutal.
For example, for the projected impact of the steel tariffs, numbers produced by the Commerce Department show that they may increase employment in the metals industry by 14,000 jobs. But the report also says that a significantly larger number of jobs will be destroyed, as a result of these tariffs, in industries downstream from metal production.
One of the dozens of such industries is construction, where 16,000 jobs alone are projected to disappear. This explains why over 20,000heartbreaking requests for exemption from the steel tariffs have already been filed by American firms, all begging their own government to stop hurting them.
Under the current system, if Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross decides to protect his friends and business interests in the steel industry, he can ignore the damage that his own data show the tariffs will inflict on some of the 6.5 million workers in America’s steel-consuming industries. His sole lawful obligation is to demonstrate that the economic fortunes of the 140,000 steel employees will be promoted by the tariffs. (The same story — available data on negative downstream effects ignored by the administration — applies to the tariffs on Chinese goods.)
Even worse is the legislatively required bias that the United States International Trade Commission must exercise against American consumers of imports when deciding whether or not to impose duties on foreign producers accused of selling their goods for less than they should or selling unduly subsidized products. These trade remedies are called antidumping, and countervailing duties and deciding whether or not to impose them is a core function of the I.T.C. As my colleague Christine McDaniel, a trade economist and former adviser to the I.T.C. chairman, and I exposed in a recent paper published by the Mercatus Center, when I.T.C. commissioners make their determinations in such cases, they’re actually forbidden by statute from considering the impact of these so-called trade remedies on downstream industries — those consumers of goods and services hit by the tariffs.
To understand just how lopsided the process is, look at the tariffs imposed by the Commerce Department in March on Canadian newsprint paper. An American company, North Pacific Paper Company, complained to the Commerce Department that Canadian manufacturers were harming their business by selling newsprint at noncompetitively low prices. The reality is that the general shift to digital platforms is the main cause of declining demand for newsprint.
That case in now before the I.T.C. (which will render its decision today). Unfortunately, in making their decision about whether to uphold the tariffs to protect the 34 employees of North Pacific Paper, the commissioners are not allowed to consider the damage that this domestic trade remedy would wreak on the 600,000 people employed throughout the American publishing industry. The law forbids it. And that, simply put, is crazy.
The good news is that there’s an easy fix: Change the statutes so that commissioners are required to consider the effects of trade restrictions on downstream industries and consumers.
The bad news is that the same steel special interests that nudged the administration to impose these punishing steel tariffs on millions of American consumers are protecting the biased I.T.C. process. Trade commission data shows that over 52 percent of anti-dumping duty and countervailing-duty cases that have landed before the I.T.C. are steel related, and most resulted in a duty on imports — which means higher costs for American producers that need steel.
Today, steel executives have an iron grip on the White House thanks to the deep ties of the president’s advisers to the industry. Mr. Ross made his fortune buying and selling steel companies and was sitting on a steel company’s board until his confirmation as commerce secretary. Robert Lighthizer, a private lawyer who represented the steel industry for years, is now the United States trade representative. The upper levels of both the Office of the United States Trade Representative and the Commerce Department have predictably been populated by other individuals with close ties to Big Steel. And the trade adviser Peter Navarro’s 2012 documentary, “Death by China,” was funded by one of the top beneficiaries of these tariffs — the steel producer Nucor.
This cronyism explains how the steel industry is directly involved in deciding which companies do or don’t receive exemptions from the steel tariffs and why so few exemptions have been granted.
The bias of Trump administration personnel alone makes it unlikely we will soon reform our trade-remedy system to weigh the interest of downstream consumers before imposing trade sanctions. But such reform isn’t so far-fetched. The European Union and Australia have “national economic interest” requirements built into their trade remedy processes. They take different forms, but they are meant to limit the imposition of tariffs to protect one industry at the expense of everyone else.
Less known is the fact that at the time of China’s admission to the World Trade Organization, the United States implemented a transitional safeguard measure allowing the president to provide import relief for any industry of concern as long as the provision of such relief was in the national economic interest of the United States. As a result — to the great benefit of the American people — trade restrictions were imposed only once during the nine years the provision was in place: President Barack Obama’s tire tariffs, which unsurprisingly proved to be an unmitigated failure.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/opinion/tariffs-trump-trade-special-interests.html
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Industry Needs to Prepare for No-Deal Brexit – Germany’s VCI
Aug 28, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Chemicals trading between the UK and the EU could come to a "complete standstill" without a Brexit deal and it is "high time" for companies to prepare for this eventuality, the head of the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) has warned.
The association represents around 1,700 German companies and units of foreign companies, accounting for 90% of the country’s chemicals industry.
Chief executive Utz Tillmann said an "uncontrolled" Brexit would have "direct and serious" consequences and that unilateral technical advice for those affected by the British government "does not solve this problem".
The UK government is expected to publish no-deal EU withdrawal advice for the chemicals industry in early September.
The likelihood of negotiations failing is growing every day, he added. Without an agreement, or at least common transitional arrangements, customs payments and time-consuming procedures at the border could bring down numerous supply chains, with "suddenly missing registrations or approvals for chemical products from the UK," he warned. Downstream users would also be "seriously affected".
In May, the European Chemical Industry Council, Cefic, put forward the idea of allowing the transfer of UK REACH registrations to downstream users of those chemicals in the EU to ensure their continued use after Brexit.
‘Back-up’ measures
In order to avert "chaotic conditions", Dr Tillmann said it is necessary for politicians to take "suitable back-up" measures. He called on European leaders to work hard to achieve a negotiated outcome at the EU summit on 18-19 October. The meeting is widely regarded as a make-or-break moment for a Brexit deal.
Dr Tillmann said EU leaders must negotiate a "solution-oriented" deal as time is running out before the 29 March withdrawal date. The UK’s continued membership of Echa is "extremely important", he added, and regulatory alignment of chemicals must be set out in the guidelines for a future relationship.
In July, the UK reiterated its desire for associate membership of Echa in a Brexit white paper that sets out the government's vision for a future economic partnership with the EU.
However, preparations are underway at the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for changes to the chemicals regulation division workforce in the event a trade deal is not negotiated.
Should this be the case, the HSE would take on most of the responsibilities currently carried out by Echa. These include parts of the plant protection products Regulation and REACH.
And the HSE recently said IT capability to enable the registration and regulation of chemical substances placed on the national market after Brexit is mostly built and "would work" tomorrow if needed.
Meanwhile, environmental groups have warned that a ‘no-deal’ Brexit could make the UK industry a dumping ground for chemicals banned in Europe.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69957/industry-needs-to-prepare-for-no-deal-brexit-germanys-vci
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Systematic Review Approach Exposes Mechanistic Data Debate
Aug 29, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
A recently concluded EPA consultation has shown that industry and academics strongly disagree over the role of mechanistic data in the regulatory hazard assessment of chemicals.
Mechanistic data can be used to identify how toxicity occurs and is often applied in the form of evidence for, or against, a particular mode of action. Its use in regulatory hazard assessment is relatively new, compared with other types of data.
The differences of opinion emerged in comments to the 45-day consultation on the EPA’s application of systematic review in TSCA risk evaluations which closed on 16 August.Call to add discussion
In its remarks, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) called on the agency to add discussion to the approach that emphasises the importance of incorporating mechanistic data in problem formulation. The EPA, it said, should consider organising the step dealing with problem formulation around such data, even if the mechanism is not entirely clear from the outset.
In separate comments, however, a group of 33 scientists – including ten from the University of California – called on the EPA to clarify that mechanistic data, if available, can only be used to increase, not decrease, confidence in a body of evidence. This means that if the other data indicates a certain hazard, it is inappropriate to use conflicting mechanistic data to reduce confidence in that finding. They said the EPA had "correctly" recognised that mechanistic data is not required for hazard assessment, although overall they were damning about the framework.
Traditionally, regulatory hazard assessments were dominated by data from toxicity studies of animals as model organisms and large-scale epidemiological studies of humans. In recent years, mechanistic data has become central to the discourse for several long-running assessments. It is, for example, key to the claim that formaldehyde does not cause leukaemia, which the ACC has made repeatedly in relation to the assessment of the substance under the EPA's Integrated Risk Information System programme (IRIS).
In their comments, the scientists cited a 2017 report by the US National Academies of Sciences (NAS) on the use of systematic review for consideration of endocrine disrupting chemicals. This concluded that the foundation of the hazard classification in a systematic review is the animal and human data, with the mechanistic data playing a supporting role.Evaluating quality
Comments to the consultation also showed that the two parties differed greatly over the proposed process for evaluating the quality of studies, which involves determining scores for individual studies
The ACC said it "appreciates the EPA's intention to be highly transparent and consistent in its evaluations through the use of a quantitative study scoring system".
But the group of scientists said that quantitative scores are, in general, arbitrary and not scientific and that the EPA’s proposed scoring system:
· wrongly conflates the extent of study reporting with the study quality; and
· excludes otherwise quality research based on single reporting or methodological limitations.
Referring to the framework in general, the ACC gave some support, commending the EPA on a "strong baseline" approach and described the guidance on searching, screening and extracting data as "comprehensive and useful". But it said critical concepts and methodologies "remain to be discussed or fully developed".
The scientist group were strongly critical of the systematic review framework, calling it "ad hoc", "incomplete" and "inconsistent with current, established, best available empirical methods for systematic review".
Systematic review is a research methodology for integrating data from multiple sources to answer scientific questions. The EPA’s framework outlines how the methodology should be used in risk assessment of chemical substances under the revised TSCA.NAS workshop
The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) is to hold a workshop on the systematic reviewing of mechanistic data.
The event in Washington, DC, on 10-11 December, will look at the strategies and tools under development to help the EPA come up with guidance for performing chemical assessments in its Integrated Risk Information System programme (IRIS).
Topics covered will include:
· approaches and tools to search and screen the literature for mechanistic data;
· approaches to evaluating the validity of mechanistic studies,
· methods for assimilating and using mechanistic information to support evidence synthesis and integration; and
· practical experience with implementing systematic reviews of mechanistic evidence into human health assessments.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69942/epas-systematic-review-approach-exposes-mechanistic-data-debate
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(ACC Mentioned) No Need for New Chemicals Lawsuit to Proceed, Advocates Say (1)
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The environmental organization that filed a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s approach to deciding whether a new chemical could be sold is asking a federal court to dismiss the case.
The Natural Resources Defense Council—which brought the original lawsuit before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit—said the Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t actually implemented the decision-making approach for new chemicals that in 2017 the agency said it already was using, Daniel Rosenberg, a defense council attorney told Bloomberg Environment Aug. 28.
Under the approach that prompted the lawsuit—the New Chemicals Decision-Making Framework that the EPA released in 2017—the agency would have allowed a new chemical to be sold even if the agency found some of its uses could pose health or environmental risks, the defense council originally argued.
The EPA, however, is controlling unreasonable risks that new chemicals could pose before allowing them on the market, Rosenberg said. The defense council reached that conclusion based on information the EPA filed during the lawsuit.
The EPA declined to immediately comment.
The defense council’s motion, however, said, “EPA does not oppose dismissal of the petition with prejudice.” The term “with prejudice” means the defense council couldn’t file a future lawsuit against the 2017 framework.
The American Chemistry Council, which intervened in the case in support of the EPA, provided Bloomberg Environment a statement. “We were disappointed that litigation on EPA’s description of its approach to new chemicals review was brought,” said the chemistry council, which the largest trade association representing chemical manufacturers.
“Litigation such as this consumes EPA’s and stakeholders’ resources that could otherwise be dedicated to the efficient and effective implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act. In our view, NRDC’s suit lacked merit, and we are confident that EPA would have prevailed on the merits of the case,” it said. “We are pleased they have chosen to withdraw the petition.”
The National Association of Manufacturers, which also intervened in support of the EPA, didn’t respond immediately to Bloomberg Environment’s request for comment.
Future Lawsuits Possible
Although the defense council can’t relitigate the EPA’s 2017 framework, which the agency issued as a proposed strategy for public comment, future lawsuits are possible, Rosenberg said.
If a future, final framework used the same or similar strategy and allowed new chemicals onto the market despite potential risks, the defense council could challenge that, he said.
The group also could challenge the EPA’s decisions to allow specific new chemicals to be made and sold, Rosenberg said. Filing such lawsuits would depend on the details of each decision, he said.
The case is Nat. Resources Defense Council v. EPA, 2d Cir., No. 18-00025, 8/27/18.
(Updated with additional reporting)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/no-need-for-new-chemicals-lawsuit-to-proceed-advocates-say-1?context=landing&limit=30&tab=news
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East Chicago Advocates: Lead Dust Standards Unequal Across Superfunds
Aug 28, 2018 | Indiana Public Media
By Rebecca Thiele
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to tighten restrictions on lead dust in homes. But it wouldn’t affect those by Superfund sites like USS Lead in East Chicago. Advocates say the EPA needs to do more to protect the people most vulnerable to lead dust exposure.
If you live in a home built before 1978, it’s likely that there’s some lead dust in your house from lead-based paint. But people who live in areas with known lead contamination in the soil or air are at a greater risk.
Attorney Debbie Chizewer represents East Chicago residents dealing with lead through the Northwestern Law School’s Environmental Advocacy Clinic. She says in a place like the USS Lead site, lead dust can get kicked up into the air as soil is excavated for cleanup or get tracked in on the bottom of residents' shoes.
So far, the EPA has only tested lead dust in East Chicago homes where contaminated soil was found on the property, but Chizewer says all homes near the affected area need to be tested.
“You can clean the outside, but if you don’t clean the inside then residents remain exposed to a harmful neurotoxin,” she says.
The EPA is planning to make stricter standards for lead dust in homes — reducing acceptable levels from 40 micrograms per square foot (µg/ft2) to 10 µg/ft2 on floors and 250 to 100 µg/ft2 on window sills.
It would be a change in the EPA's Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which is meant to protect the general public and doesn't cover lead dust at Superfund sites.
Instead, Chizewer says, in the rare instaces where the EPA does test Superfunds for lead, they use site-specific standards. She says that can lead to more thorough cleanups at some sites than others — like how East Chicago can have a limit of 25 µg/ft2 of lead and homes in Pueblo, Colorado have a stricter limit of 10 µg/ft2.
Chizewer says the EPA should have the same limit for lead dust across all Superfund sites based on what’s protective for public health.
“There is no level of lead that is safe and that reinforces the need to have as much protection as possible across all programs,” she says.
Chizewer says as there's already a standard for lead dust through TSCA, she feels confident that the EPA could implement something similar and perhaps even more stringent than the new proposal.
On Aug. 16, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Environmental Advocacy Clinic joined the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law and Health Justice Innovations, LLC in commenting on the EPA's proposed changes to lead dust limits.
The EPA is unable to comment at this time.
https://indianapublicmedia.org/news/east-chicago-advocates-lead-dust-standards-unequal-across-superfunds.php
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals Contaminating Drinking Water Spur Senators’ Interest (2)
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Michigan’s Democratic senators—and Republican senators from other states—want to know whether multiple new federal standards and extensive studies are justified for a family of ubiquitous chemicals that are contaminating drinking water across the country.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) called for a Senate subcommittee hearing—which will be held next month—to determine whether the Environmental Protection Agency needs to set multiple enforceable standards for poly- and perfluorinated chemicals instead of the agency’s current advisory level. The chemicals, contained in nonstick and stain-resistant coatings in clothing, fast-food wrappers, carpets, and other consumer products, are the subject of two bills that Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) introduced Aug. 23.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) also is interested in identifying whether the chemicals should be more closely regulated, according to his staff, but the chemicals’ health and environmental effects are still unclear.
Peters wants to know whether different federal standards are needed for different groups of the chemicals, depending on how easily they can be filtered from drinking water, according to a spokesperson for his office.
No consensus exists on what amounts of the chemicals are safe to consume, and states, especially those on the East Coast, are seeking progressively stricter limits. The chemicals may cause adverse health effects, including developmental effects to fetuses, testicular and kidney cancer, liver tissue damage, immune system or thyroid effects, and changes in cholesterol, according to the EPA.
“Short-chain” perfluorinated chemicals, so called because of their chemical structure, can spread farther through water, while “long-chain” chemicals may stay in the body longer, according to reports from the Danish Ministry of the Environment and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Current GuidelinesCurrent EPA health guidelines address two long-chain perfluorinated chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). The EPA recommends consuming no more than 70 parts per trillion of both chemicals in drinking water over one’s lifetime, but a spokesperson for Peters said the senator wants to know whether limits such as 7 or 11 parts per trillion are more protective.
A Bloomberg Environment analysis last year of EPA water contaminant data found that 65 water utilities across 24 states and territories had at least one sample that came back above the agency’s lifetime health advisory of 70 parts per trillion for PFOS and PFOA.
The American Chemistry Council said the group and its members “support a process based on the best available science” to determine maximum contaminant levels and cleanup levels for PFOS, PFOA and other poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS.
“EPA should also take steps, including the use of a significant new use rule, to eliminate the import of products containing PFOS and PFOA. It is critical that regulators utilize sound science when establishing standards for both legacy substances and the new PFAS replacements,” the council said in an Aug. 28 statement to Bloomberg Environment.
Focus on MichiganMichigan’s senators are drawing attention to the chemicals as they turn up in communities across their state.
Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality has found some amount of the chemicals in drinking water supplies for more than 1.5 million people, according to local news reports. Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley (R) declared a state of emergency for Kalamazoo County July 29 to address an “unacceptable level” of per- and polyfluorinated chemical contamination in drinking water for 3,100 residents. The area’s drinking water advisory was lifted Aug. 27.
The state is still working to find their sources, a spokesperson for Peters’ office told Bloomberg Environment Aug. 27.
At some sites, the chemicals come from companies such as shoe manufacturer Wolverine World Wide Inc., which used materials with the chemicals in its products.
Peters called for the Sept. 26 Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ subcommittee on federal spending oversight and emergency management hearing, The subcommittee chairman is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
“Senator Paul believes the issue needs further exploration, and that is why he is chairing the upcoming hearing,” Paul’s office told Bloomberg Environment in an Aug. 28 statement.
New LegislationStabenow’s first bill, the “PFAS Accountability Act of 2018” (S.3381), would encourage federal agencies to work with states to address fluorinated chemical contamination that either came from a federal property or was released when a site was owned by the federal government. The bill is sponsored by a handful of Senate Democrats and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
Rubio is especially interested in the bill because several military bases in his state have been affected by fluorinated chemical contamination, including Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Kennedy Space Center, a spokesperson from Rubio’s office told Bloomberg Environment Aug. 27.
The second bill, the “PFAS Detection Act of 2018” (S.3382), orders the U.S. Geological Survey to sample bodies of water and soil for the chemicals, looking at sources of drinking water first. The bill authorizes $5 million for the study for fiscal year 2019 and $10 million for each fiscal year from 2020 through 2023.
The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Rounds, chairman of that committee’s subcommittee on Superfund, waste management, and regulatory oversight.
“Scientists at USGS and the EPA should work together to determine the extent of the problem nationwide so Congress can be better prepared to identify possible policy solutions to this issue,” Rounds said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg Environment Aug. 27.
Peters is a co-sponsor on both bills. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has not yet scheduled a hearing on the bills, committee majority spokesman Mike Danylak told Bloomberg Environment Aug. 27.
(Adds American Chemistry Council comments starting in ninth paragraph.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemicals-contaminating-drinking-water-spur-senators-interest-2?context=landing&limit=20&tab=news
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Raises Legal Warnings over ATSDR's Strict Draft PFAS Findings
Aug 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Industry and business groups are questioning the science used by a federal health agency to derive draft toxicity values for four perfluorinated chemicals, two of which adopt more conservative values than those developed by EPA, and warning that the values may be vulnerable to legal challenges.
But environmentalists are generally applauding the findings although they say the agency should address the chemicals as a class, while some states are asking for more clarity and advice on how the values should be applied.
The varied reactions from major industry and environmental groups respond to the much-anticipated June 21 release of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's (ATSDR) draft toxicological profile evaluating 14 per- and polyflouroalkyl substances (PFAS), and setting minimum risk levels (MRLs) for four of them. ATSDR accepted comment on the document through Aug. 20.
How the draft values are to be used is a key question raised by states in their comments, coming after much criticism from lawmakers, environmentalists and others when it was uncovered earlier this year that ATSDR's draft risk levels were much more stringent than the risk levels underpinning EPA's health advisory for two PFAS in drinking water set in 2016.
While states are questioning how the risk levels should be applied in the face of varying risk numbers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Aug. 20 comments goes so far as to suggest that any agency action relying on ATSDR's analysis could face "legal invalidation" because they would be considered "arbitrary and capricious."
"The Draft Profile relies on flaws and incomplete data that does not justify its conclusions," the Chamber says.
At the same time, environmentalists are commending ATSDR's work but say it should go even further. Environmental Working Group (EWG), which has long called for strict drinking water levels for PFAS, says the profile is a step in the right direction, "albeit a step that does not go far enough." It calls on ATSDR to establish health guidance for the entire class of shorter-chain PFAS, as they replace long-chain PFAS that have been phased out.
ATSDR released the draft profile in the face of significant criticism from lawmakers and others after Inside EPA and other news outlets reported EPA and other Trump administration officials had urged the White House to block the document because it sought more conservative values for two PFAS than EPA had used when setting its advisory levels.
ATSDR eventually released the draft report -- its third iteration of the tox profile -- for comment but sought to downplay potential health concerns from exposures above its limits, cautioning the public not to read its levels as cleanup or health effects standards.
The draft profile proposes MRLs -- an estimate of the level of a chemical a person can be exposed to daily without a detectable non-cancer health risk -- for four PFAS. Most notably, its draft levels for "intermediate" duration oral exposures for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) are between seven and 10 times stricter than EPA risk estimates underlying its 2016 drinking water health advisories for lifetime chronic exposure to the two PFAS.
ATSDR based its draft risk level for PFOS, at 2x10^-6 milligrams/kilograms/day (mg/kg/day), on developmental effects, but added in an additional "modifying factor of 10" to account for immunotoxicity risks, indicating a possibly more sensitive endpoint than developmental toxicity. And the health agency derived its draft PFOA level -- an oral MRL of 3x10^-6 mg/kg/day -- using different studies than EPA relied on, including a 2011 behavioral study by Onishchenko et al. and a 2016 study by Koskela et al. -- which was published after EPA released its risk assessment.
Risk Values
But industry parties take ATSDR to task for the science it used in developing the risk values. On PFOS, the Chamber disputes the use of an uncertainty factor of 10 in deriving the MRL "to account for potential immunological effects associated with" the chemical. "The 10-fold factor is arbitrary and has not been justified," it says. It notes EPA in deriving its water advisory level for PFOS did not include such an uncertainty factor for possible immunological effects.
In addition, industry is questioning ATSDR's decision to rely on rodent studies, given differences between human and rodent physiology.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC), which represents the chemical industry, says in Aug. 20 comments that the profile includes several assumptions it questions for deriving the MRLs. "Among our concerns are the choice of studies used to define adverse effects relevant to humans, the methods used to predict exposures in humans, and the use of uncertainty factors in the evaluation of risk," it says. ACC says the agency overstates the persistence of three of the PFAS in humans and should withdraw the profile and subject it to formal peer review.
Other industry parties as well as the American Water Works Association (AWWA), which represents a wide variety of drinking water utilities, question ATSDR's use of a study to set the PFOA MRL that relied on a single dosing level, making the MRL flawed. "This study only evaluated effects in animals at a single dosing level, making it impossible to confirm that there was a positive-dose response attributable to PFOA exposures," the Chamber says.
AWWA argues that it is "very difficult for water systems to explain the risks and cost consequences of managing PFAS to customers using the Toxicological Profile as currently drafted." Water systems, the public and regulators will view the final MRLs "as 'bright line' thresholds rather than utilize the much more carefully caveated" profile, it says.
It advises ATSDR to review the MRLs to ensure they are supported by the weight of evidence and develop a communications strategy that provides context for using the MRLs. AWWA says ATSDR should also work with other agencies and be certain its approach matches EPA's risk management framework, in particular criticizing ATSDR's use of a 10x "modifying" factor for immunotoxicity in calculating the PFOS provisional MRL.
In addition, industry attorney James Votaw in Aug. 20 comments submitted on behalf of the Responsible Science Policy Coalition, criticizes ATSDR for allegedly failing to follow National Academy of Sciences' (NAS) advice for conducting human health assessments. The comments do not describe what entities comprise the coalition. "ATSDR's draft profile relies on associational studies that suffer from inconsistency, incoherency, and fail to establish cause-and-effect relationships." As such, if it would have followed NAS' National Research Council recommendations on conducting systematic review and evidence integration, it would have reached different conclusions, the coalition says.
The coalition also raises the issue facing state regulators right now over whether to follow ATSDR or EPA's risk levels, with the group arguing that if ATSDR had collaborated with other agencies, it could have avoided the current situation where two different federal agencies are backing safe levels of PFAS that differ by an order of magnitude.
States' Comments
States, in their comments, signal a need for direction, although New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) warns that it is not widely known that ATSDR's tox profiles do not provide health-based guidelines for drinking water. The state says ATSDR, to avoid public confusion, should "clearly explain that it does not develop guidelines for drinking water or other environmental media" in its profiles.
Nevertheless, New Jersey regulators are generally commending ATSDR for improving the technical quality of its profile, adopting many of the suggestions the state made on a 2015 version, according to Aug. 15 comments. ATSDR's draft risk levels generally correlate with levels recommended by science advisors to New Jersey's environment agency.
Specifically, NJDEP says it backs ATSDR's conclusion "that sensitive toxicological endpoints from rodent studies should be used as the basis for MRL development for these perfluoroalkyls." But NJDEP says it differs with ATSDR in its conclusion "that increased liver weight and hepatocellular hypertrophy in rodents should not be used as the basis for risk assessment of perfluoroalkyls."
But other states are seeking clarity, with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Patrick McDonnell asking ATSDR to work with EPA to "(d)evelop guidance for state drinking water programs, public water systems, and the public regarding [health advisory levels, MRLs,] toxicity values, and reference doses so that the public understands how the values are used." He also asks it to prioritize addressing multiple PFAS compounds as groups.
Michigan's multi-agency action team focused on addressing PFAS -- known as the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team -- in Aug. 17 comments says while it supports the rationale for the new MRLs, it is concerned that their application has not been addressed by EPA or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "While this is beyond the content of a Toxicological Profile, additional guidance from the ATSDR would be beneficial on use of the MRLs and resulting drinking water comparison values, especially with the context of other federal agency values," the team says, making an allusion to EPA's much less conservative risk values used to set its 70 parts per trillion health advisory for combined PFOA and PFOS in drinking water.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), meanwhile, supports ATSDR's decision to derive the MRLs from more sensitive health endpoints for PFOA and PFOS than were used in the agency's 2015 draft profile and in EPA's drinking water health advisories for the two chemicals. "The acknowledgment of PFOA- and PFOS- associated immune and developmental effects more accurately reflects current data on PFOA and PFOS and results in MRLs that are more protective of human health," NRDC says.
"These new MRL values suggest that current advisory and regulatory levels for PFOA and PFOS are much too permissive and do not protect human health."
Further, NRDC suggests recalculating the PFOS MRL using the most sensitive endpoint -- immunotoxicity -- to protect from the effects of the chemical on the immune system saying that while ATSDR expresses concern that immunotoxicity is a more sensitive endpoint for this substance than developmental toxicity, "it does not derive its MRL from this endpoint."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-raises-legal-warnings-over-atsdrs-strict-draft-pfas-findings
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Target Will Require Suppliers to Reveal Chemical Data
Aug 29, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
Target's suppliers must give the US retailer access to further chemical data by the end of 2018, according to an internal company document obtained by Chemical Watch.
The vendor guidance to Target’s chemical implementation policy requires suppliers to provide access to product data through the WERCSmart platform by 31 December.
The company will ask suppliers for consent that will allow it to access data related to its chemicals policy. Tier 2.1 data involves unwanted chemicals list screening and aggregate chemical usage reports. Tier 2.2 data provides the chemical identities of publicly disclosed ingredients and product transparency ratios.
"All vendors must take appropriate steps to ensure products can be screened" in accordance with Target's expectations, the document says.
Suppliers must also ensure that all intentionally added ingredients are in the WERCSmart platform and up-to-date with appropriate chemical name and chemical abstract numbers.
Target will not have search access to full formulation datasets. Nor will it have access to confidential business information, including product formulations or ingredients not marked as "publicly disclosed" within WERCSmart or on product labels.
The vendor guidance does not, however, outline consequences for suppliers who fail to meet Target's data disclosure requirements.Transparency goal
In 2017, Target committed to a transparency goal that would see it receive material disclosure from suppliers about all intentionally added ingredients, including fragrances.
This is part of Target's plan to eliminate "unwanted chemicals" from certain product categories by 2020, including:
· phthalates;
· flame retardants;
· perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs); and
· parabens.
"To gain product ingredient visibility, we must first obtain permission from vendors to screen the products in scope for this goal," Target's 2018 corporate social responsibility (CSR) report said.
"We have full transparency for 15% of items in beauty, baby care, personal care baby care, personal and household cleaning formulated products. We do not have full transparency to 23% of our products and do not have permission to screen 62% of our cleaning formulated products," the CSR report said.
Target spokesman, Joe Poulos, told Chemical Watch: "In 2017, we collaborated with our vendor partners to approve and screen approximately 38% of our products and are making progress in obtaining permission to screen the remaining 62% of our product assortment."
The company will provide an update in its 2019 CSR report, he added.
"We encourage Target to follow through on their stated goal to secure better product screening access as this is a key factor to being able to drive the safer formulation they’d like to see," Boma Brown-West, a senior manager at the NGO Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) said.
The CSR report also said Target is focused on developing a roadmap for removing flame retardants from textiles categories including children's loose-fit sleepwear, sporting goods and indoor upholstered furniture.
The retailer is also trying to identify where PFCs exist in its products and assess how to remove them.
Target invested more than $800,000 in 2017 in an impact venture capital fund focused on green chemistry and four NGOs, one of the steps to reach its goal of investing $5m in green chemistry innovation by by 2022.
https://chemicalwatch.com/69785/target-will-require-suppliers-to-reveal-chemical-data
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House to Take up Bill Expediting Small LNG Exports
Aug 28, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
The House Rules Committee will meet Sept. 4 to set up the floor debate on a bill, H.R. 4606 (115), that would speed the approval of shipments of small amounts of liquefied natural gas that qualify for categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act, according to a notice.
The bill from Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) would codify into law a final Energy Department rule that went into effect Aug. 22. It would approve the export of LNG cargoes in quantities up to 140 million cubic feet per day, a move that backers say would open new markets in the Caribbean and Central and South America.
Johnson's bill cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee in early May on a 35-15 vote. Many Democrats have bashed the legislation as unnecessary given the DOE rule, describing it as "a bill in search of a problem" in the committee report.
WHAT'S NEXT: The Rules Committee meets on Sept. 4 at 10 a.m. to discuss the measure.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Aging Power Plants Get Lifeline in Clean Energy Rule, EPA Head Says
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
States could prolong the life of aging and less efficient power plants if they so choose under the EPA’s new proposed carbon emissions rule, Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said.
Wheeler touted the agency’s Affordable Clean Energy proposal, which would replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, during a visit to Columbus, Ohio, Aug. 28. While the Clean Power Plan set statewide carbon dioxide reduction requirements, the latest proposal would set federal guidelines for reductions and then give states three years to design their own requirements for each power plant.
That will help aging power plants, Wheeler said, because states can regulate each plant individually, and not based on the Obama administration’s more stringent standards.
“Instead of saying every plant will be judged by the same standard, they’re going to be judged by the class they’re in and the age of the facility,” which Wheeler said could prolong the life of older plants or coal-fired plants.
Step Back or Legal Necessity?Environmental groups are attacking the proposal as a step back. They said it will allow states to prop up coal plants that produce more pollution and delay moving toward cleaner energy resources.
The Clean Power Plan never took effect after being halted by the U.S. Supreme Court, but Wheeler said the Affordable Clean Energy rule proposal would survive a legal challenge. The challenge to the Obama administration’s standards was mounted by Republican-led states opposed to the carbon dioxide limits.
“States can set reduction targets for each plant, so it’s not going to require the wholesale closure of coal power plants, or any type. It’s going to level the playing field,” Wheeler said at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce event. He said the plan also will be a boon to businesses and residential customers through lower energy costs than what would have been available under the Clean Power Plan.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/aging-power-plants-get-lifeline-in-clean-energy-rule-epa-head-says?context=landing&limit=20&tab=news
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Oil and Gas Companies Find (Some) Value in Capturing Methane
Aug 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Oil and natural gas companies have been cutting methane emissions from wells, tanks, pipelines, and other equipment while uneasily looking over their shoulders at regulators pressuring them to cut more.
These efforts are continuing even as the Trump administration moves to roll back rules on methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Expected any day is a final rule that will eliminate most of the 2016 Waste Prevention Rule, which tightened methane emissions standards for all oil and gas drilling and production on federal and Indian lands.
But companies are taking an underlying long-term trend of tighter regulation—possibly by future administrations, but also at the state level— into account.
The oil and gas industry has been promoting voluntary measures rather than mandates. The latest push came in mid-August from the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. The pipeline group reaffirmed its commitment to voluntarily minimizing methane emissions, saying it was “recognizing the increased concern about climate change.”
Other groups have organized or encouraged similar efforts, while in several cases, companies have taken their own steps to reduce methane leaks.
The initial steps that an oil or gas company takes for methane emissions control can pay for themselves through the value of the gas captured, if the market price of gas is high enough, according to Jennifer Stewart, senior vice president of government and regulatory affairs at Southwestern Energy Co. in Houston, a large U.S. producer of natural gas.
After the initial changes are made in technology and practices, however, a company could experience diminishing returns from subsequent inspections and new equipment.
“The big bang you got at the beginning is gone,” Stewart said to Bloomberg Environment about her company’s efforts. The net value of the recovered gas now is probably about 80 percent of the company’s leak detection and repair costs, she said.
‘Richer Than We Thought’The oil and gas sector still can do more to reduce methane emissions. Several large companies announced programs to reduce their methane intensity—the percentage of natural gas production lost as emissions.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc limited its methane intensity to 0.25 percent for its shale operations in North America as of 2017, according to Greg Guidry, Shell executive vice president for unconventionals, the term often used for oil from shale and tight sands.
“Most of the things we’ve done have actually been more commercial than we thought. Either the opportunity was richer than we thought, in terms of the leakage that we found, or the cost of mitigation was actually less than what we had believed it to be going into this,” Guidry said at the World Gas Conference in Washington in June.
“An advantage that we have is that we don’t have a lot of old assets in our portfolio. There are a lot of old assets out there,” he said, suggesting that such “legacy assets” are the main challenge. Newer equipment typically is lower polluting.
Southwestern Energy has cut its methane intensity to 0.175 percent, Stewart said. The company in 2014 set itself a goal to reach 0.36 percent or lower within 10 years but met the goal in one year, she said.
Italian energy giant Eni SpA has set a target to reduce fugitive methane emissions in its oil and gas production by 80 percent by 2025. Eni is six years ahead of target, according to Ben Ratner, a senior director at the advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund.
Smaller companies could object that they cannot afford what a Shell or an Eni can afford. But the Environmental Defense Fund in 2016 counted up a thriving cottage industry of about 60 companies offering leak detection and repair services to small and midsize companies, as well as large companies in the U.S., Ratner said.
Federal Changes Pending
The Environmental Protection Agency in 2016 established performance standards for methane capture at new and modified emissions sources in the oil and gas sector, leaving existing equipment and facilities unaffected. The Interior Department in 2016 tightened its emissions standards for all oil and gas drilling and production, new or existing, on federal and Indian lands.
Both rules face reconsideration by the Trump administration.
The EPA said it was looking at three factors of its rule: monitoring frequency, low-production wells, and ways to account for emerging technologies and state programs when considering alternative strategies. The agency’s proposed rule (RIN:2060-AT54) was sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget for interagency review April 27.
Interior’s Bureau of Land Management in February proposed a rule that would roll back most of its 2016 Waste Prevention Rule, commonly called the venting and flaring rule. BLM sent the final version of that rule (RIN:1004-AE53) to OMB June 19.
The Western Governors’ Association gave federal regulators an extra push in May with a policy resolution urging federal agencies to tailor rules to fit with what states are doing and to be less restrictive about which technologies to use.
States Strengthen Mandates
Oil and gas companies prefer voluntary programs because of their adaptability to specific circumstances and generally lower costs. In addition, industry experts formulate the voluntary standards.
But many companies might not adopt the best practices, and regulators could step in.
States such as Colorado and North Dakota have insisted that companies reduce emissions and have toughened their standards over time.
Some oil companies in North Dakota have been throttling back output this summer to adhere to methane capture targets that state regulators set. The state limits are scheduled to ratchet down to a tighter emissions limit Nov. 1.
“That is a challenge,” Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said Aug. 24.
Six natural gas processing plants are under construction in North Dakota to handle the growing volumes of associated gas pouring from oil wells in the Bakken Shale. A few of the plants could be completed in 2018, but several have bumped their completion dates to 2019, Ness said.
Nevertheless, the underlying trend for oil and gas production in North Dakota is up.
Technical Details and Cost IssuesMethane is the smallest hydrocarbon molecule, consisting of only one carbon atom with four hydrogen atoms. That means it can escape from many of the smallest cracks—a decaying seal around the hatch in a storage tank, for example, or an imperfect weld connecting pipeline segments.
Oil and gas companies and regulators narrow the methane emissions problem to a short list of primary sources, especially storage tank leaks, pneumatic equipment exhaust, compressor station leaks, and certain temporary operations at gas wells that release some gas during the work, such as when liquids are cleaned out of a gas well.
One of the ways that Southwestern Energy cut its emissions was to install better pneumatic controllers wherever it made economic and technical sense, and to shift more equipment to electrical power rather than gas power.
The company established a leak detection program that included annual inspections, or more often where required by the 2016 EPA regulations. The program included methane leak detection using infrared cameras.
The transmission and storage sector, however, can’t capture extra revenue because those companies don’t own the methane, Cathy Landry, spokeswoman for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, said Aug. 13.
Nevertheless, commitments to minimize methane emissions have come from many of the association’s members, such as Enbridge Inc., Kinder Morgan Inc., and the Williams Cos. Inc.
Emissions Higher and DecliningA research report in June, led by the Environmental Defense Fund and published in the journal Science, said emissions from the oil and gas sector are about 60 percent higher than the EPA has been estimating. The report was an analysis of other recent studies.
Facilitywide measurements of methane emissions using detectors in vehicles parked outside the facilities generally agreed with overflight data, according to Ramon A. Alvarez, a researcher on atmospheric chemistry who led the Environmental Defense Fund study. By contrast, the EPA inventories used calculations based on equipment data studies, which don’t add up to the amounts reported by the overflights or the measurements outside the fence lines.
The June report is “the most comprehensive look at what the emissions from oil and gas are to date,” said Jeff Peischl, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who also works with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and was one of the contributors.
EPA calculations indicate a long-term declining trend in U.S. methane emissions, down 16 percent in 2016 from 1990 levels, while oil and gas production has sharply increased. The Environmental Defense Fund report was offered as a snapshot—roughly the year 2015—without trend data.
“It’s certainly possible that both are true,” Peischl said. Emissions may be higher than EPA estimates, but could be declining because of such factors as better equipment and practices, he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/oil-and-gas-companies-find-some-value-in-capturing-methane?context=landing&limit=10&tab=news
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States Highlight Concerns Over Produced Water As EPA Launches Study
Aug 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
State regulators are highlighting uncertainties surrounding reuse of “produced” wastewater from oil and gas drilling, including difficulties accurately assessing its contents, variability in samples, and liability issues, as EPA embarks on a “holistic study” of how federal, state and industry officials regulate or manage the reuse that is already occurring in some states.
Martha Rudolph, director of environmental programs at the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, told the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) fall meeting here Aug. 28 that regulators face significant uncertainties in assessing the contents of water produced at oil and gas sites and determining where and how it can be safely reused.
“We don't know what's in the produced water,” she said, noting that recent testing has not reached definitive results.
“This is an issue that the states are trying to grapple with particularly as their citizens know more and more and become more and more concerned” about produced water potentially being applied to roadways for deicing, among other uses.
Rudolph said salt in produced water can confound testing and that there is tremendous variability in water samples taken from different sites. Regulators also face questions about whether to test areas where produced water might be applied given that arsenic may be present in both soils and the produced water.
David Glatt, Environmental Health Section chief of the North Dakota Department of Health, said that reuse of produced water has also prompted concerns in that state. In response, North Dakota officials have crafted guidelines on how and where produced water may be used that seek to limit risks to waterways or other problems.
As states grapple with the issue, EPA last month announced it is embarking on a new “Study of Oil and Gas Extraction Wastewater Management” to review approaches to managing wastewater from both conventional and unconventional oil and gas extraction.
“EPA's study will address questions such as how existing federal approaches to produced water management
under the Clean Water Act can interact more effectively with state and tribal regulations, requirements or policy needs, and whether potential federal regulations that may allow for broader discharge of treated produced water to surface waters are supported, according to the agency's website.
Coinciding with that effort, EPA's Region 6 and New Mexico have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU)seeking to clarify existing regulatory and permitting frameworks relating to use of produced water from oil and gas extraction activities.
Both efforts come as regulators say oil and gas extraction is producing greater quantities of waste water and greater opportunities for beneficial reuse, while also increasing the need to find new alternatives to disposal through underground injection, especially in arid areas of the country.
EPA is planning to seek public input on the new study during an Oct. 9 meeting at agency headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Future Policymaking
But the Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) Scott Anderson raised early concerns at the ECOS meeting, saying that any EPA study clarifying existing rules and regulations should have implications for future policy making and arguing that significant uncertainties exist around reuse of produced water from oil and gas drilling.
“Just because you find a way to permit something ... doesn't necessarily mean that you should be permitting something,” he said, arguing that current environmental policy lacks a mechanism for addressing discharges to soil.
State regulators told the meeting that reuse of produced water varies greatly from state to state. Rudolph said that companies in Colorado are seeking to use produced water to reduce dust.
Glatt said produced water was used for years for deicing in North Dakota until it was stopped to be reviewed after concerns from the public. More recently, Glatt says North Dakota has begun allowing reuse of produced water in cases where it's proven to provide equal benefit to other approved products on the market.
He also said the state has crafted guidelines for where and how produced water is reused, including precluding use on bridges to protect waterways, as well as requirements for a chemical analysis conducted in the last six months, record-keeping requirements, and others.
But Glatt also noted that recent testing has not shown any environmental damage in areas that saw significant past reuse of produced water. While some are calling for significant or increased testing, Glatt suggested that the benefits from reuse and the prevalence of the water make a significant increase in reuse likely,
“I expect in the near future we'll start seeing this show up in a big way in North Dakota,” he said of prospects for greater reuse. “Are we going to have all the answers, probably not. Is it going to be used, probably so, and well find out.”
Also during the meeing Region 6 Administrator Anne Idsal requested that states, industry and environmental groups provide input to a working group formed under the MOU with New Mexico. In the next six months, the group is seeking to develop, a white paper on regulatory approaches to beneficial reuse of waste water from oil and gas extraction.
“We are looking at everything as it relates to what policy decisions are going to come out of the question of reuse,” she told the panel discussion. Including, “what barriers there might be. just to get our arms around what's going on.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-highlight-concerns-over-produced-water-epa-launches-study
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Colorado Initiative Backed by Oil Drillers Makes Ballot
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz and Ryan Collins
A “regulatory takings” measure backed by the oil and gas industry has qualified for the November ballot in Colorado.
The citizens’ initiativewould entitle property owners to compensation for state and local fracking restrictions and drilling rules that infringe on private property rights, according to the measure, proposed by the Colorado Farm Bureau and supported by the energy industry in the state.
The measure, if approved by voters Nov. 6, would require the payment of “just compensation” for taking private property for public use, including if the property is “reduced in fair market value by government law or regulation.” Colorado Secretary of State Wayne W. Williams said Aug. 28 that 137,029 valid signatures were received, exceeding the required minimum of 98,492.
The measure will “strengthen private property rights in our state” if it passes, Dan Haley, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, told Bloomberg Environment in an email. “If a state or local government steamrolls their constituents and conducts actions that negatively impacts an individual’s private property value, then those individuals should be compensated, plain and simple.”
The initiative is an answer to another proposed ballot measure (97), which would impose a 2,500-foot setback statewide, the minimum required distance between new oil and gas operations and occupied buildings such as homes, schools, and hospitals. The measure, which has not yet qualified for the ballot, is pushed by an anti-fracking group, Colorado Rising.
Williams said he has until Sept. 5 to complete his review of the signatures submitted to his office by the Colorado Rising campaign. The campaign said it submitted 171,000 signatures Aug. 6.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/colorado-initiative-backed-by-oil-drillers-makes-ballot?context=landing&limit=10&tab=news
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In America’s Hottest Drilling Spot, Vast Volumes of Gas Go Up in Smoke
Aug 29, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Rebecca Elliott
In America’s busiest oil field, roughly $1 million worth of natural gas goes to waste each day.
Shale drillers in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico say they have no way to move the gas—a byproduct of oil drilling—to market because there aren’t enough natural-gas pipelines. Instead, they are getting rid of the excess gas by setting it on fire, a practice known as flaring.
Companies flare about 3% of the gas they extract in the Permian. But production in the basin is so high that the volume of gas burned every day would be large enough to supply the daily needs of states such as Montana or New Hampshire, by some estimates. The flaring also produces greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 2 million cars.
Shale drillers are flaring with the consent of state regulators. Until more natural-gas pipelines and storage facilities are added, the only alternative to burning gas would be to reduce some of the area’s lucrative oil production, which has supercharged the region’s economy and boosted overall U.S. crude output to a record of around 11 million barrels a day.
Texas officials say they expect the issue to resolve itself eventually once the necessary infrastructure is built.
“There’s nothing for us to do,” said Ryan Sitton, a member of the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas operations. “If gas becomes a waste product, people will flare it.”
The Wall Street Journal reviewed data on the more than 20,000 permit requests that companies submitted to the Texas Railroad Commission to flare gas over the past five years. None was denied as of early August, the data show. Officials confirmed the figures were accurate.
A similar problem surfaced in another shale drilling hot spot, North Dakota, earlier this decade, prompting the state to tighten regulations.
The flaring is poised to worsen in coming years as companies rush in to pump more oil from the Permian. While oil fetches about $69 a barrel, natural gas currently sells for less than $3 a million British thermal units and has become a largely unwanted side effect of the region’s oil boom.
Permian daily production has soared to 3.3 million barrels of oil and nearly 11 billion cubic feet of natural gas in June, according to the Energy Information Administration.
With it, so has flaring, which topped 320 million cubic feet a day in the second quarter, according to an analysis of public data compiled by Rystad Energy, an energy consulting and research firm. The data combine the gas that was burned or released directly into the atmosphere—a practice known as venting, which is worse for the environment than flaring.
But flaring still produces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and causes air pollution. The resulting greenhouse gas emissions from burning that much gas in the Permian are equivalent to the exhaust from about 2 million cars, according to estimates from the World Bank and Environmental Protection Agency. An analysis of demand data from the EIA also shows that the gas burned in the Permian every day exceeds the daily consumption of many small states.
As Permian oil output continues to grow, Rystad Energy projects flaring will more than double in the next year, and won’t substantially drop until at least late 2019, when new gas pipelines are set to start operating.
In Texas, officials have thus far responded by permitting companies to flare as much as they want. New Mexico regulators, who in 2015 began requiring companies to spell out how much they are flaring, also have allowed companies to continue burning the gas. New Mexico officials didn’t respond to questions about the recent uptick in flaring.
Without stricter regulations, “the economic driver to do something with it is not strong,” said Martyn Howells, a consultant for the World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership, an effort to curb flaring world-wide.
Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A -0.45% PLC, which is a member of the World Bank’s initiative and has pledged to eliminate “routine” flaring by 2030, flared at among the highest rates of large Permian gas producers in the first half of the year. The company burned about 7% of the gas it produced in the basin during the second quarter, down from 9% during the first quarter, according to Rystad Energy.
Amir Gerges, Shell’s general manager for the Permian, said production had outpaced the construction of smaller pipelines that transport gas away from wells. Recent infrastructure investments, among other operational changes, helped lower the company’s flaring rate to 2.5% in July, he said.
Reducing flaring is “not just good for the environment. It’s also extremely good business,” Mr. Gerges said.
WPX Energy Inc., WPX -1.49% an Oklahoma-based driller, flared 10% of the Permian gas it produced in the first quarter, a rate spokesman Kelly Swan called “unacceptable.”
“That’s not the way we want to operate,” he said, attributing the flaring to insufficient infrastructure near wells to capture the gas. The company, whose rate of flaring dropped to 6% in the second quarter, has been building a facility to capture gas from nearby operations. The processing plant is set to begin operating this month and connects to pipelines leaving the Permian, Mr. Swan said.
Flares light up the sky in southwest Texas’ Reeves County, flames visible for miles as operators there burn more gas than anywhere else in the Permian. Venetta Seals, mayor of the town of Pecos, which depends heavily on oil and gas economically, said she views the combustion as inevitable.
“What other options are there?” she asked. “Without the infrastructure being here, the only other solution is what, they stop drilling? That would certainly turn things upside down out here if that were to stop happening.”
—Christopher M. Matthews contributed to this article.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-americas-hottest-drilling-spot-vast-volumes-of-gas-go-up-in-smoke-1535535001?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
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Cheniere Prepares for Flowing Feedgas to Fifth Train at Louisiana LNG Export Terminal
Aug 29, 2018 | Platts
By Harry Weber and Michael van Duinen
Cheniere Energy wants permission from the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by next week to begin flowing feedgas to its fifth liquefaction train at its Sabine Pass LNG export terminal, as it prepares to begin production on that unit and the first at its Corpus Christi, Texas, facility before the end of the year.
The company is eager to stay ahead of schedule on its construction plans and maintain its growth trajectory as several other US developers are expected to start up their terminals in the months ahead and into 2019.
Cheniere is targeting first production at Sabine Pass Train 5 and Corpus Christi Train 1 for the fourth quarter, a similar timeframe for when Kinder Morgan expects initial in-service at its Elba Island export terminal in Georgia. Sempra Energy said earlier this month that it remains on track for all three trains at its Cameron LNG facility in Louisiana to produce LNG in 2019. Freeport LNG in Texas also is expecting to see service in 2019.
In a filing Monday afternoon, Cheniere asked FERC for feedgas and refrigerants authorization for the Sabine Pass unit by September 6. It was recently granted feedgas authorization for the Corpus Christi unit. A company spokesman declined Tuesday to provide a more precise update to timing of initial production from the two units.
Deliveries to Corpus Christi have averaged 4 MMcf/d since the beginning of August and have yet to go over 11 MMcf/d, suggesting that the facility is still flowing just fuel gas, S&P Global Platts Analytics data shows. Platts Analytics is forecasting Sabine Pass Train 5's first substantial feedgas delivery in November.
For comparison, Cheniere received authorization to begin flowing feedgas to Sabine Pass Train 1 on November 19, 2015. The first time over 100 MMcf/d of feedegas was delivered to the facility occurred on December 22, 2015, just days before the unit registered its first production.
As for cargoes, Platts Analytics assumes that initial feedgas deliveries begin four months before exports begin, and subsequent trains receive feedgas deliveries three months before exports begin. Cheniere exported its first cargo from Sabine Pass in February 2016, three months after feedgas approval for Train 1.
"Substantial completion" of Corpus Christ Train 1 and Sabine Pass Train 5 -- essentially the time when the contractor is ready to turn the units over to the owner -- is not expected until 2019. Sabine Pass Train 1 reached substantial completion on September 16, 2016, seven months after the first export.DEVELOPER DILEMMAS
Less clear is what happens with the next crop of US LNG export hopefuls that are part of the so-called second wave of developers. More than a dozen projects are being proposed as part of that group, with startups expected in the early to mid-2020s. Many have struggled to reach long-term contracts with buyers of their capacity to finance construction.
The escalation of international trade disputes has added pressure for the developers. China said on August 3 it may impose 25% tariffs on American cargoes of LNG if President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to expand tariffs on US imports of Chinese goods beyond duties he has already imposed.
LNG tariffs could have considerable short- and long-term implications for both countries, and for the broader market. China is forecast to overtake Japan as the world's biggest LNG importer within the next decade.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/082818-cheniere-prepares-for-flowing-feedgas-to-fifth-train-at-louisiana-lng-export-terminal
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Arctic Ice Melt Opens LNG Energy Trade Route near North Pole
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jeremy Hodges, Anna Shiryaevskaya and Dina Khrennikova
A new trade route for energy supplies is opening up north of the Arctic Circle as some of the warmest temperatures on record shrink ice caps that used to lock ships out of the area.
This year is likely to rank among the top 10 for the amount of sea ice melting in the Arctic Ocean after heat waves across the northern hemisphere this summer. While that’s alarming to environmentalists concerned about global warming, ship owners carrying liquefied natural gas and other goods see it as an opportunity. Their cargoes have traversed the region for the first time this year without icebreakers, shaving days off shipping times and unlocking supplies from difficult-to-reach fields in Siberia.
More navigable waters are a boost for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s effort to expand his nation’s reach in the gas market and for energy companies such as Total SA and Novatek PJSC, which are leading Arctic developments. They also help reduce shipping costs for LNG, benefiting buyers and traders of the fuel from PetroChina Co. to Gunvor Group Ltd.
“There is a growth trend for volumes transported via the Northern Sea Route this year,” said Sergey Balmasov, head of the Arctic Logistics Information Office, a consultancy in Murmansk, Russia. “The reason is an increase in LNG exports.”
While shorter shipping journeys reduce emissions, environmentalists are concerned that more traffic through the Arctic will add to the amount of black carbon—particles of pure carbon—settling in the snow from tanker smokestacks. When that soot darkens the surface of the ice, it speeds up the warming process by absorbing more of the Sun’s energy.
And with the shipping season through the Arctic starting earlier and ending later, tankers will spend more time in the area and spew more of their pollution onto the ice.
Turbulent weather in the area also churns the seas, making it almost impossible to clean up anything that’s spilled. The International Maritime Organization is considering rules that would ban burning heavy fuel oil in Arctic waters, extending restrictions already in place in the Antarctic.
“It’s a major concern for us because as the ice melts we are seeing more and more shipping,” said Sian Prior, lead adviser for the Clean Arctic Alliance, an environmental group.
Scientists are seeing a rapid change in the Arctic. The Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia lost about half its ice coverage during a two-week period in February, while the most northern weather station in Greenland recorded temperatures above freezing for 60 hours that month. The previous record was 16 hours by the end of April 2011. The mercury topped an unprecedented 86 degrees Fahrenheit north of the Arctic Circle on July 30 in Banak, Norway.
Ice begins melting in the Arctic as spring approaches in the northern hemisphere, and then it usually starts building again toward the end of September as the days grow shorter and cooler. A total of 2.2 million square miles of ice covered the Arctic in July, according to the Colorado-based National Snow & Ice Data Center. Through the first two weeks of August, ice extent declined by 65,000 square kilometers each day, according to the NSIDC.
“The ice has been retreating by about 10 percent every decade during the last 30 years,” said Miguel Angel Morales Maqueda, senior lecturer in Oceanography at Newcastle University in northern England. “There is no other known explanation than climatic change. If it isn’t climactic change, then we don’t know what it is.”
This season is likely headed for the the ninth biggest retreat since satellite measurements began, not as extreme as bigger melting seasons in 2012 and 2007, according to Julienne Stroeve, Professor of Polar Observation & Modelling, University College London.
“The total ice extent loss is being slowed by winds pushing the ice southwards,” Stroeve said in a message sent from an Arctic research trip. “We likely still have a month of sea ice retreat. The ocean is still warm enough to melt some ice even if air temperatures cool.”
LNG exporters are taking advantage of the open waters, most notably around the Yamal LNG gas liquefaction plant in northern Siberia. The project owned by Total, Novatek and their Chinese partners has custom-built ARC 7 tankers rugged enough to cut through whatever ice remains in the area. That enables them to sail without help from icebreakers west to Europe year round and east to Asia during the summer months. In the coming years, more routes will open for ships to sail without an icebreaker.
The Yamal venture’s Christophe de Margerie was the world’s first ice-breaking LNG tanker built and collected Yamal’s first cargo to make the the trip westward through the Northern Sea Route.
In early 2018 though, the Eduard Toll, became the first LNG tanker to ever use the full Northern Sea Route in the winter. It traveled from a South Korean shipyard to Sabetta and collected a cargo there from the Yamal LNG plant, then delivered it to France. That shaved about 3,000 nautical miles off the traditional route through the Suez Canal.
In July, China received two cargoes from Yamal from the first LNG ships to cross the Arctic without help from ice breakers. The net voyage time from the port of Sabetta through the Northern Sea Route to the destination the Chinese port of Jiangsu Rudong was completed in 19 days, compared with 35 days for the traditional eastern route via the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca.
Routes like that may save Yamal $46 million in shipping costs for the remainder of the year, those savings could quadruple by 2023, Bloomberg NEF said in a note.
Traffic is picking up. The Northern Sea Route saw 9.7 million tons of cargo shipped through it in 2017, according to the Russian Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport. There were 615 voyages along the Northern Sea Route this year through July 15, about the same as in 2017, said Balmasov at Arctic Logistics. The Russian government is targeting cargo traffic through that route totaling 80 million tons by 2024.
“The main difference to 2017 is LNG deliveries from the port of Sabetta,” Balmasov said. “Our data show that as of early July, 34 tankers were dispatched from Sabetta towards European ports, and one voyage was east-bound.”
Since then, two more ships have moved from Yamal to Asian markets in the east, though the most icy part of the Northern Sea Route.
—With assistance from Hayley Warren.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/arctic-ice-melt-opens-lng-energy-trade-route-near-north-pole?context=landing&limit=30&tab=news
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(ACC Mentioned) Critics Vow Suit Over EPA's RMP Rollback Plan, Citing Scrapped Delay Rule
Aug 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Environmentalists and Democratic-led states are threatening to sue EPA if the agency does not drop its plan to roll back the Obama-era rule strengthening the agency's facility accident prevention program, citing the recent appellate ruling vacating EPA's measure delaying the rule's implementation.
“If acting EPA Administrator Wheeler won’t scrap this reckless erosion of New Yorkers’ health and safety protections, we’re prepared to take legal action yet again to ensure a court does,” New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood (D) said in a statement announcing comments from a dozen states, including Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Washington.
EPA sought public input through Aug. 23 on a May 17 proposed rule that would largely scrap the Obama-era update to EPA's Risk Management Plan (RMP) program.
The deadline comes after a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Aug. 19 that EPA's delay of the Obama-era rule “made a mockery” of the Clean Air Act. In an unusual filing, environmentalists Aug. 24 asked the court to expedite issuance of its mandate.
The ruling set a high bar for EPA's ongoing effort to revise the regulation, environmentalists and industry attorneys say, given the judges' emphasis on EPA's Clean Air Act duty to prevent disasters and failure to show the delay was consistent with increased safety.
As such, critics like Underwood are now arguing that the court's ruling that EPA's delay ignored past agency risk findings and an air law mandate to prevent disasters showed that the proposed revision rule is unfounded.
“In throwing out the unlawful delay, the court concluded, 'EPA had found, and the record shows, that there was a need for improvements to protect worker and community safety, and to reduce fatalities, injuries, life disruption, and other harm,'” she added.
In separate comments, Earthjustice argues that the D.C. Circuit ruling shows the core foundations of the proposed rollback are “unlawful and arbitrary,” and says that EPA rejected a last minute request for a brief extension of the comment deadline to allow the public to fully consider the court ruling's implications on the agency's proposal.
Echoing the court's ruling that EPA's delay rule undercuts the agency's past findings supporting the Obama-era rule, Earthjustice argues that the Trump administration's revision rule seeks to scrap new requirements that EPA considered for several years and promulgated after finding a “regulatory need” for improved protections.
But petrochemical industry groups, whose members would be subject to the Obama-era requirements, are backing EPA's authority to revise the RMP update rule, and arguing that the Obama administration's January 2017 rule also countered past agency findings, namely a 1996 conclusion that requiring consideration of safer alternatives would not bring safety benefits.
Although the American Chemistry Council (ACC) does not specifically cite the D.C. Circuit's decision, the group backs EPA's authority to revise standards through rulemaking and argues that a downward trend in facility accidents supports the Trump administration's plan for targeted enforcement over new federal mandates. “Agencies are free to change their existing policies as long as they provide a reasoned explanation for the change,” ACC says, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's 2009 decision in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.
ACC adds that an agency need not show its new approach is better than existing policy, only that “the new policy is permissible under the statute, that there are good reasons for it, and that the agency believes it to be better, which the conscious change of course adequately indicates.”
RMP Update
Shortly before the end of the Obama administration, EPA issued a rule strengthening the RMP program, requiring facilities to conduct third-party audits, analyze safer alternatives, and streamline data disclosure to first responders and the public, among other requirements.
In response to petitions from industry and some GOP-led states, the Trump administration began a two-step reconsideration process. The agency issued a final rule delaying the Obama-era RMP update for nearly two years, until February 2019, and then proposed the May 17 rule seeking to rescind most requirements of the 2017 Obama update rule.
But a two-judge panel earlier this month ruled in Air Alliance Houston, et al., v. EPA and Andrew Wheeler to vacate the delay rule, finding that the Clean Air Act caps delays for revision at three months, and that the delay failed to counter agency findings that the update was needed to reduce harm.
Even before the ruling, roughly a dozen House and Senate Democrats last month faulted the revision rule, arguing that the rollback would increase facility risks that disproportionately harm minority and low-income communities, and that the revisions' reduction in compliance costs was minor for the massive petrochemical industry.
“[W]e are extremely disturbed that the EPA chose to move forward with issuing this proposed rule despite the agency's finding that 'there is evidence that risks from RMP facilities fall on minority and low-income populations, to a significantly greater degree than those risks affect other populations,'” 11 Senate Democrats, led by Tom Carper (DE), ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a July 19 letter.
In comments to EPA, the Democratic-led states and environmental and community groups are reiterating those arguments, detailing the hundreds of facility accidents in recent years, including releases that occurred during EPA's delay, such as those near Houston, TX, caused by the rising flood waters of Hurricane Harvey last summer.
“When developing the rule, the EPA determined that prior protections failed to prevent over 2,200 chemical accidents around the country during a 10-year period, including about 150 per year that caused reportable harm,” groups, including Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, Air Alliance Houston, and Union of Concerned Scientists said in a statement announcing comments submitted by Eartjustice.
“During the delay, public reporting has shown over 61 chemical releases, fires, and explosions have occurred at covered facilities,” the groups add. “So far EPA has ignored all recent incidents and still says it wants to 'reconsider' the rule.”
'Infected With Bias'
Other groups are also urging the revision rule be withdrawn because it is “infected with bias,” arguing that former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt opposed the Obama-era rule during his tenure as Oklahoma's AG, and then proposed rescinding much of the rule after he was appointed EPA administer.
“EPA should withdraw the proposed Rollback Rule because finalizing it would violate Constitutional due process and deny communities the safety protections to which they have a legal right,” the groups add.
The groups also note that former DowDupont General Counsel Peter Wright, President Donald Trump's nominee to head the waste office, is already working at EPA, and that his former company owns over 50 RMP-regulated facilities and has been responsible for at least 99 RMP chemical releases.
But industry groups ACC, the American Petroleum Institute (API), and the Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA)support the Trump administration's revision rule, arguing that the Obama-era changes are costly and unnecessary because the existing RMP has successfully reduced accidents.
Additionally, the industry groups also fault the Obama administration's rulemaking process supporting the January 2017 rule. They note that the rulemaking was prompted by an April 2013 explosion at a West, TX, fertilizer facility, which federal investigators later deemed arson, and argue that the crime should not support revising an accident prevention rule.
For example, API notes in its comments that the Obama EPA's decision to require facilities to conduct safer technology alternatives assessments countered the agency's conclusion in advancing the original 1996 RMP rule that such analysis failed to improve safety beyond the process analysis of facility hazards that the original requires.
The groups also say that EPA failed to adequately coordinate with OSHA, which manages a companion process safety management rule, and that scrapping new RMP process safety requirements will ensure the two programs remain harmonized.
“Not only has compliance with the RMP Rule of 1996 reduced the frequency of incidents but investigations conducted by the [Chemical Safety Board] and others have indicated that when there are serious incidents, they are often the result of a failure to adhere completely with the existing regulation,” API says.
“In its rush to regulate before the change in administration, EPA promulgated a rule that imposed significant costs and provided few, if any, measurable benefits,” the group adds. “This proposal corrects that mistake.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/critics-vow-suit-over-epas-rmp-rollback-plan-citing-scrapped-delay-rule
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Senate Confirms Head of New Energy Department Cybersecurity Office
Aug 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern and Patrick Ambrosio
The Senate Aug. 28 confirmed Karen Evans to lead a new Energy Department office devoted to protecting the nation’s electric grid.
Evans, one of several nominees confirmed by voice vote before the Senate adjourned for the evening, will bring significant cybersecurity and information technology experience to her role as assistant secretary of energy for cybersecurity, energy security, and emergency response. Evans has led the U.S. Cyber Challenge, a public-private program designed to increase the cybersecurity workforce through recruitment and training.
Evans also previously worked at the Office of Management and Budget and the Energy Department in information technology roles.
James Hubbard, nominee to serve as undersecretary of agricultural for natural resources and environment, also earned Senate approval Aug. 28. Hubbard worked for the Colorado Forest Service for 35 years and also served as director of the U.S. Interior Department’s Office of Wildland Fire Coordination and deputy chief for state and private forestry at the U.S. Forest Service, according to the White House.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/senate-confirms-head-of-new-energy-department-cybersecurity-office?context=landing&limit=10&tab=news
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Updated: FRA Releases Latest Railroad Progress Report as PTC Deadline Looms
Aug 28, 2018 | Lexology
By Justin Marks
The Federal Railroad Administration (“FRA”) has released its latest Positive Train Control (“PTC”) implementation progress report for the 2nd quarter of 2018. The FRA’s latest report indicates that railroads are making steady progress toward PTC compliance.
FRA says that 15 railroads have installed 100% and 12 railroads have installed between 95 and 99% of the mandated PTC system hardware. In addition, all but one railroad has acquired sufficient spectrum required for PTC Implementation.
FRA states that railroad implementation of PTC has improved since December 2016, “where freight railroads had PTC active on just 16 percent of required tracks, while passenger railroads were at 24 percent[1].” FRA did note, however, that nine railroads are “at-risk.” FRA labels these railroads as at-risk because they have installed less than 90% of their PTC system hardware as of the reporting date. FRA further cautions that installation of all PTC hardware is only an initial phase of PTC implementation and would not merit consideration for an extension to the pending deadline.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c6e8a245-bbfa-4361-9199-d51f607f4faa
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Texas Challenges Adding San Antonio to List of Ozone Violators
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Karn Dhingra
Texas is challenging the EPA’s recent decision that San Antonio’s air contains unhealthy levels of ozone pollution.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Environmental Protection Agency Aug. 28 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit over its decision to designate Bexar County, the home of San Antonio, for exceeding national ambient air quality standard for ground-level ozone set in 2015. Ozone is a lung irritant that can exacerbate breathing conditions like asthma and bronchitis.
Abbot has asked the EPA to designate Bexar County as meeting the ozone standards. Regions that don’t meet the ozone limits are subject to stricter permitting requirements for new and expanded industrial facilities and are required to identify ways to reduce pollution by enough to come into compliance.
“If allowed to stand, the EPA’s designation would impose an unwarranted financial burden on the Texas economy with minimal, if any, public health benefit,” Abbot and Paxton said in a joint press release.
The EPA didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
The Alamo Area Council of Governments, an association of San Antonio-area governments, estimated the EPA’s ruling would cost the region $173 million per year.
“The ozone levels in our air have decreased over 20 percent the past 14 years despite our region’s population increasing 600,000 people,” Diane Rath, executive director of the council, said in an email to Bloomberg Environment.
Rath said much of the region’s ozone problems are caused by naturally occurring pollution or pollutants blown in from elsewhere.
The agency anticipates Bexar County will reach attainment status by 2021.
The case is Texas v. EPA, 5th Cir., docket number unavailable, 8/28/18.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/texas-challenges-adding-san-antonio-to-list-of-ozone-violators?context=landing&limit=10&tab=news
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Exxon Sets Canada Emissions Goal, Heeding Climate Concerns
Aug 28, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kevin Crowley
Exxon Mobil Corp. set a goal for reducing emissions from its Canadian oil sands, the second time this year the world’s biggest oil explorer by market value published a greenhouse-gas target.
Imperial Oil Ltd., a Calgary-based subsidiary 69 percent owned by Exxon, will reduce the intensity of emissions by 10 percent over the next five years, compared with 2016 levels, the company said in a statement Aug. 28. Oil sands are among the industry’s dirtiest assets.
The improvements come from new technology at Imperial’s Cold Lake operations, better reliability at the Kearl mine, and greater energy efficiency, Imperial said. Kearl, in particular, has been a major drag on Exxon’s returns relative to peers in recent years.
Exxon has been a lightning rod for environmental activists since at least the infamous 1989 Valdez tanker spill off the Alaskan coast. Now in his second year as chief executive officer, Darren Woods was keen to stress at the company’s annual meeting in May that Exxon can only succeed by meeting the twin goals of economic growth and reducing emissions.
Earlier this year, Exxon set targets for lowering methane emissions. The company also has been looking to buy renewable energy in Texas, according to people familiar with the matter.
“It’s the mission of this company, your company, to create value for our shareholders by creating value for society,” Woods said at the annual meeting in Dallas. “And we do so by responding to society’s changing needs for energy, economic growth and environmental protection.”
—With assistance from Kevin Orland.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/exxonsetscanadaemissions-goal-heeding-climate-concerns?context=landing&limit=10&tab=news
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California Lawmakers Set Goal for Carbon-Free Energy by 2045
Aug 28, 2018 | New York Times
By Ivan Penn
California took some of the most aggressive steps yet to counter the effects of climate change as legislators voted Tuesday to require that 100 percent of the state’s electricity come from carbon-free sources.
The bill gives the state until 2045 to meet the goal. California had already imposed a mandate to generate 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030; the bill increased the amount to 60 percent.
The move highlights California’s determination to be a leader on climate issues. In May, state regulators revised the building code to require newly built homes to be equipped for solar power.
The state’s aggressiveness comes as the Trump administration is moving to loosen or abandon environmental regulations and promoting a revival of the coal industry. And it follows a year in which catastrophic wildfires that many attribute to climate change have been responsible for dozens of deaths in the state, destroyed homes and businesses and cost billions of dollars.
“This is a pivotal moment for California, for the country and the world,” said Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club.
California joins Hawaii, which passed legislation in 2015 calling for 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045. Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C., are also considering such a mandate, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Maryland and Colorado had considered bills but have not passed the requirement.
The California bill passed the State Assembly on Tuesday by a vote of 44 to 33. The Senate passed a version of the measure in May 2017. The two chambers still must agree on amendments, but it is expected to be made final by the close of the legislative session on Friday.
Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat in his final months in office, has not weighed in on the bill but is expected to sign it. Its passage comes ahead of a Global Climate Summit next month in San Francisco, where he will serve as a co-chairman.
The governor’s own signature energy initiative, to create a single authority to manage the electric grid for most or all of the West, also awaits the legislature’s action. The plan is meant to increase efficiencies across the region, lowering the cost of generation, and could give rise to a single entity that could apply clean-energy policies across more territory.
In the days before the vote, the bill on carbon-free electricity got a prominent bipartisan push with separate letters to legislators from former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and former Vice President Al Gore, a Democrat.
The measure was put forward by State Senator Kevin de León, who is seeking to unseat Senator Dianne Feinstein, a fellow Democrat, in the November general election. “Because of the fires, because of the extreme drought, because of the anti-environmental edicts coming from this president, there’s a huge ground swell of support,” Mr. de León has said about the legislation, designated Senate Bill 100.
Opponents said the mandate was an example of legislative overreaching — poorly thought out, potentially costly and not provably achievable. “One fact you cannot dispute: this does increase the cost,” said Bill Brough, a Republican assemblyman from Orange County. “You cannot dispute that this is going to be passed on to the ratepayers.”
The mandate for carbon-free electricity also faced strong criticism from investor-owned utilities, partly because they say it focused on only one source of greenhouse-gas emissions. In California, the transportation sector produces more than two-thirds of those emissions.
“You need to make sure you’re looking at the underlying cause,” said Pedro J. Pizarro, president and chief executive of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, one of the country’s largest investor-owned utilities.
Edison and the state’s two other investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric Company and San Diego Gas and Electric Company, said the mandate could prove expensive for consumers.
In 2016, California’s investor-owned utilities used carbon-free sources to deliver almost 35 percent of their electricity to retail consumers. But Mr. Pizarro said that because solar and wind power were intermittent power sources, there remained a need for power plants burning fossil fuels, at least until energy storage became more affordable.
“Natural gas will be part of the solution, for sure,” he said.
Environmentalists and proponents of solar and wind power say carbon-free sources have served as economic engines for California in addition to addressing electricity needs.
“California embraces renewable energy for economic and job creation reasons as much as for environmental reasons,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association, a trade group.
And backers said even the latest milestone in the state’s efforts left a long way to go.
“Decarbonizing our grid is low-hanging fruit,” Wendy Carrillo, a Democratic assemblywoman from Los Angeles, said before Tuesday’s vote. “We need to make our cutting-edge innovation our standard. We have an opportunity to create amazing change in our state.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/business/energy-environment/california-clean-energy.html
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How California Can Save the Amazon
Aug 29, 2018 | New York Times
By Michael Oppenheimer and Steve Schwartzman
Next month, when Gov. Jerry Brown convenes the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, it will be a chance to mark the huge strides he has made on behalf of the climate, and measure how much remains to be done. Under his leadership, California has cut greenhouse gas emission swell ahead of its own ambitious targets while adding a million jobs and growing into the world’s fifth largest economy.
Even as the federal government has abdicated its responsibilities, the state has set environmental standards, including for cleaner cars, that have redounded far beyond its borders. But Governor Brown has the opportunity to make his biggest impact yet by harnessing the power of forests to reduce carbon dioxide pollution, the principal cause of global warming.
Without protecting these forests, the world can’t cut emissions quickly enough to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change. Trees photosynthesize carbon dioxide, using it to build their wood and leaves, and then lock this carbon safely away — so long as they remain standing. If burned or cut, trees become a major source of the pollution that threatens the world. Though California is far away from the world’s vast tropical rain forests, the state is in a position to protect these rich carbon storehouses through its cap and trade market. This market allows companies to meet some of their legal obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by buying verified reductions that others have made, thereby offsetting their pollution.
California should create credits for saving whole forest landscapes, across entire states or nations. The credits would be calculated based on the tons of carbon banked in trees in these protected regions, and could be purchased by companies to offset up to 2 percent of their emissions. The money generated would be returned to forest communities to pay for these protections, to create sustainable livelihoods that are in harmony with their forest homes, and to strengthen cultural traditions.
Governor Brown should direct the California Air Resources Board, 12 of whose 14 voting members he appoints, to include a rain forest standard in proposed regulations the board is expected to release soon, updating the state’s cap and trade program. This would be an enormously important step toward stabilizing the global climate, fortifying indigenous communities and their cultures and protecting the fragile and incredible biodiversity of these forests.
Slowing deforestation and restoring damaged forests could deliver a quarter or more of the carbon reductions needed by 2030 to avert dangerous climate change. In the Amazon, the largest aboveground carbon stock on earth, Brazil has shown what’s possible. The country was able to cut greenhouse gas emissions more than any other countrybetween 2005 and 2013, while also increasing cattle and soy production. The governments of Britain, Germany and Norway provided critical support for this effort by paying rain forest states for the emissions avoided by reducing deforestation. But expanding this success across the tropics and reversing a recent uptick in cutting and burning in Brazil will require the larger, longer-term infusions of capital that only a private market can provide.
A California standard for forest credits could unlock such a market, establishing a framework for companies and investors to use to meet a growing demand for these pollution allowances that will only accelerate in January 2020, when a new global aviation agreement will require international flights to reduce or offset their emissions.
California’s climate is directly affected by the Amazon, all the more reason for Governor Brown to act. One recent study found that deforestation in South America affects rainfall and snowpack across the Pacific states. The recent droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires reveal how acutely vulnerable California is to climate change. The effects of extreme heat fall particularly hard on low-income communities of color, which in cities like Los Angeles tend to be where temperatures climb highest. Those same neighborhoods often have the worst air pollution, so any market to preserve tropical rain forests should be paired with local clean air protections.
Achieving climate stability will involve real trade-offs for countries and communities with these forests, including forgoing development built on more large-scale clearing of forests for crops, cattle and timber. But this can be done. The state of Acre in Brazil’s western Amazon has kept its forests both protected and productive; 87 percent remain intact. The economy is centered on small businesses that collect Brazil nuts, tap rubber and grow acai and other high-value fruits. They bring these goods by animal or bicycle to cooperatives where they are processed and marketed, often for export.
At an aquaculture farm funded by carbon credits outside the Acre capital of Rio Branco, native Amazon River fish are raised on land cleared before the state ended the destruction of its forests. Local farmers produce eight tons of fish per hectare; that same hectare would support but a single cow on the poor grass that typically grows in these cleared soils. Local youth are trained to filet the fish, returning all waste to the farm as fertilizer (even the skin is tanned into leather for Hermès purses). Others restore land by planting banana and rubber trees, avocados, pineapples, cashew and cacao to provide food and income all year. By maximizing production of both animal protein and export crops, these innovations reduce the demands for land that drive deforestation. Income from carbon credits is also fortifying indigenous cultures.
Preserving biodiversity is the other imperative for creating these credits. As many as half of the world’s species of plants and animals live in tropical rain forests, one in 10 in the Amazon. Many are found only there and many are endangered. Their survival depends on keeping these forests standing.
Governor Brown is already a climate hero. Leading the fight to save global forests would be a crowning achievement and fitting final chapter for his time as governor.
Michael Oppenheimer is a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton and science adviser to the Environmental Defense Fund. Steve Schwartzman is an anthropologist and director of tropical forest policy at the Environmental Defense Fund.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/opinion/california-climate-save-amazon.html
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