Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report - September 10, 2018
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Hearing to Examine the Role of U.S. LNG in Meeting European Energy Demand
Sep 13, 2018 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Location: 366 Dirksen Senate Office Building / 10:00 AM -
Evolving Threats to the Homeland
Sep 13, 2018 | Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs
Location: SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building / 2:30 PM -
The State of Positive Train Control Implementation in the United States
Sep 13, 2018 | Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials
Location: 2167 Rayburn House Office Building / 10:00 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) API welcomes Debra Phillips as Vice President of API's Global Industry Services division
Sep 10, 2018 | EE Online
The American Petroleum Institute today (9/7) announced that Debra M. Phillips will join API as Vice President of Global Industry Services (GIS), which is responsible for certification, standards-setting, training, events, publications and safety programs for onshore, offshore and refinery operations. -
(ACC Mentioned) Stalled Trade Talks With China Could Delay, Derail Key Methanol Project
Sep 7, 2018 | Watchdog.org
By John Haughey
With President Donald Trump set to impose tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, Louisiana could be among the casualties of a protracted, punitive trade war between the world’s two largest economies. -
China Chemical Supply Challenge Has Industry Asking for U.S. Government Help
Sep 10, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Cleaning, disinfectant, and other manufacturers want two federal agencies to help them resolve a choked supply chain resulting from a production shut down at several Chinese chemical plants. -
With a Shrinking EPA, Trump Delivers On His Promise To Cut Government
Sep 8, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Brady Dennis , Juliet Eilperin and Andrew Ba Tran
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump vowed to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency “in almost every form. We’re going to have little tidbits left, but we’re going to take a tremendous amount out.” -
Trump Says He’s Preparing Tariffs on Further $267 Billion in Chinese Imports
Sep 9, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Vivian Salama
Threatened third round of tariffs comes as administration finalizes details of levies on an earlier, $200 billion batch of imports -
Shimkus Eyes Plans For TSCA Hearing
Sep 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's environment panel appears to be backing Democrats' long-standing requests to hold a hearing on EPA's implementation of the revised toxics law, calling a hearing “doable” and expressing frustration that the landmark 2016 law has been bogged down in implementation. -
OMB Reviewing Final Rule Regarding TSCA User Fees
Sep 7, 2018 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
On August 31, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review a final rule regarding user fees for the administration of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) -
(ACC Mentioned) Correction: Congress-EPA-Hazardous Substances story
Sep 10, 2018 | AP (In CNBC)
By Ellen Knickmeyer
In a story Sept. 6 about lawmakers pressing the Environmental Protection Agency to act faster to bring more of the country's most hazardous industrial compounds under regulation, The Associated Press erroneously referred to Rep. Fred Upton as Rep. Tom Upton. -
(ACC Mentioned) Congress Pressures EPA to Establish PFAS Maximum Contaminant Level Standards
Sep 7, 2018 | Westword
By Conor McCormick-Cavanagh
Although the majority of Americans enjoy clean drinking water, some have for decades grappled with the side effects of water contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a family of chemicals that comes from waterproofing products and firefighting foam. -
Despite Bipartisan Pressure, EPA Punts On New PFAS Commitments
Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
EPA's top drinking water official made no new commitments to speed up or add to current agency pledges to address perfluorinated chemicals despite bipartisan pressure from lawmakers and state officials who urged the agency at a Sept. 6 hearing to quickly develop a regulatory standard and take other steps to address the growing public concern over the chemicals. -
The DDT Of This Generation Is Contaminating Water All Over The US and Australia
Sep 7, 2018 | Quartz
By Zoë Schlanger
Yesterday (Sept. 6), a US House of Representatives hearing convened to ask why federal authorities haven’t regulated PFAS, a little-known class of chemicals that has sparked one of the biggest drinking-water contamination revelations in recent decades. -
Democrat Reintroduces Perchlorate Deadline Bill
Sep 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
A California Democrat has re-introduced his bill that would require EPA to set a national drinking water standard for perchlorate within a year -- just days after EPA requested a six-month extension in its court-ordered deadlines for that rule-making process. -
Kansas Regulators Reject Challenge to Injection Well Permits
Sep 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Brown
Environmentalists in Kansas looking for help reining in fracking-related activity by the state’s oil and gas industry are turning to the Legislature after coming up empty Sept. 7 before the Kansas Corporation Commission. -
Spain's Repsol to buy U.S. LNG from Venture Global: statement
Sep 7, 2018 | Reuters
By Swati Verma
Venture Global LNG on Friday said that it has entered into a 20-year agreement with Spanish energy company Repsol SA (REP.MC) for the supply of one million tonnes per annum of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility in Louisiana. -
Pipeline Dumps 8,000 gallons Of Jet Fuel Into Indiana River
Sep 9, 2018 | AP
A Texas company says one of its pipelines has spilled more than 8,000 gallons of jet fuel into a river in the northeastern Indiana city of Decatur. -
Subcommittee To Review Status Of Positive Train Control Implementation
Sep 7, 2018 | American Journal of Transportation.
The status of implementing positive train control (PTC) technologies on the Nation’s rail network will be the subject of a Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials hearing next week. -
Plastic Bans Spawn Market for $375 Gold-Plated Tiffany Straws
Sep 10, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
From Starbucks to Disney World, San Francisco to the U.K., plastic straws bans are having a moment. -
Report: Shareholder Pledges Do Little To Curb Emissions
Sep 7, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Benjamin Hulac
Major American oil and gas companies have failed to set meaningful plans to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, despite years' worth of pledges to do so, according to a new report. -
EPA Schedules Public Hearing On Power Plant Rule
Sep 7, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Niina Heikkinen
EPA has announced it will host a single public hearing on its proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan. -
CASAC Panel Members Fault EPA Plan For NOx-SOx-PM Risk Assessment
Sep 10, 2018 | Insdie EPA
By Stuart Parker
Members of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) are faulting the agency's plan for assessing the environmental harms from emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx) and particulate matter (PM), warning it uses a confusing and narrow approach that echoes problems from a prior NOx-SOx combined review. -
The E.P.A.’s Review of Mercury Rules Could Remake Its Methods for Valuing Human Life and Health
Sep 7, 2018 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman
When writing environmental rules, one of the most important calculations involves weighing the financial costs against any gains in human life and health. The formulas are complex, but the bottom line is that reducing the emphasis on health makes it tougher to justify a rule.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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Hearing to Examine the Role of U.S. LNG in Meeting European Energy Demand
Sep 13, 2018 | Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
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Evolving Threats to the Homeland
Sep 13, 2018 | Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs
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The State of Positive Train Control Implementation in the United States
Sep 13, 2018 | Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials
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Sep 10, 2018 | EE Online
The American Petroleum Institute today (9/7) announced that Debra M. Phillips will join API as Vice President of Global Industry Services (GIS), which is responsible for certification, standards-setting, training, events, publications and safety programs for onshore, offshore and refinery operations. Phillips will join API on October 1st from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), where she serves as Vice President of Sustainability and Market Outreach.
"The safety and reliability of our operations are the cornerstone of our industry," said API President and CEO Mike Sommers. "We're thrilled to welcome Debra to API, where she'll continue to broaden our innovative safety and operational services to new markets around the world while maintaining the highest ethical practices that have made API the industry gold standard."
Phillips will lead a team of more than 100 safety and engineering professionals in Beijing, Dubai, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, Houston, and Washington, D.C. She will oversee the natural gas and oil industry's standards development and suite of programs that enable the industry to innovate and manufacture superior products consistently, provide critical services, ensure fairness in the marketplace for businesses and consumers alike, and promote the acceptance of products and practices globally.
"It's an exciting time to join API and a privilege to lead the team of dedicated and talented professionals working to ensure the safety and quality of the industry's operations around the world every day," said Phillips. "In the months and years ahead, GIS will continue to broaden the availability of world class programs and services tailored to meet companies' needs for today's marketplace."
Prior to joining API, Phillips served on the leadership team at the American Chemistry Council for nearly two decades. Phillips managed ACC's Responsible Care® initiative the association's mandatory environmental, health, safety, and security performance program implemented by its member companies. In recent years, she was the catalyst behind the chemical industry's sustainability strategy, developed through her leadership of a CEO Taskforce established in 2016. She also initiated ACC's value chain outreach initiative in 2013, leading to strategic relationships with members of the chemicals value chain to advance science and sustainability-based decision-making surrounding chemical selection and use in building and construction, retail and personal care applications.
Phillips has served as the global Secretariat for the International Council of Chemical Association's Responsible Care Leadership Group, which sets and carries out the programmatic direction of the global initiative within its more than 60 participating economies. Phillips previously worked as an environment, health, and safety professional in both the chemical and pulp and paper industries. She holds a master's degree in environmental toxicology from Duke University and an undergraduate degree in biology from Albright College. Debra lives in Virginia with her husband and their four children.
Today there are more than 700 industry safety and technical standards covering all segments of the natural gas and oil industry. These standards are the most widely cited by international regulators across the globe. Domestically, API standards are cited in state regulations more than 4,000 times and incorporated in the Code of Federal Regulations more than 430 times. The natural gas and oil industry looks to API standards and certification programs to enhance overall operational safety, assure quality, increase organizational efficiencies, and maintain a level of consistency in the marketplace.
API is the only national trade association representing all facets of the oil and natural gas industry, which supports 10.3 million U.S. jobs and nearly 8 percent of the U.S. economy. API's more than 600 members include large integrated companies, as well as exploration and production, refining, marketing, pipeline, and marine businesses, and service and supply firms. They provide most of the nation's energy and are backed by a growing grassroots movement of more than 47 million Americans.
http://www.electricenergyonline.com/article/energy/category/oil-gas/89/719185/api-welcomes-debra-phillips-as-vice-president-of-api-s-global-industry-services-division.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Stalled Trade Talks With China Could Delay, Derail Key Methanol Project
Sep 7, 2018 | Watchdog.org
By John Haughey
With President Donald Trump set to impose tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, Louisiana could be among the casualties of a protracted, punitive trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, more than 500,000 Louisiana jobs rely on international trade, including $5.7 billion in exports to China, meaning products exported to China from the state, such as grain, soybeans, crude oil and petrochemicals, could become too expensive to be competitive on the global market.
In addition, the Port of South Louisiana, near New Orleans – the nation’s largest tonnage port, shipping more than 280 million metric tons of cargo to more than 90 countries with China among the top five destinations – could see a slowdown, affecting the 67 companies that employ 30,000 people there.
Only Texas would be affected more should trade talks between China and the Trump Administration fail to reach an accord, a 2017 Bloomberg report calculated.
On July 6, the U.S. imposed tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports. China responded by matching those sanctions to the penny.
On Aug. 23, the Trump Administration placed a 25 percent tariff on $16 billion in Chinese-made goods spanning 279 product lines, prompting China to retaliate by slapping levies on $16 billion in American goods.
The U.S. Commerce Department on Aug. 28 concluded six days of public hearings on the Trump Administration’s proposal to impose tariffs on an additional $200 billion of Chinese goods. The proposed tariff originally was set at 10 percent, but it was raised to 25 percent at the president’s insistence.
Those tariffs could be enacted now that the comment period expired Thursday.
There is no timetable for resuming formal trade talks, although behind-the-scenes discussions continue with some optimism that negotiations could produce a pact before November’s mid-term elections.
Until then, however, the uncertainty has Louisiana officials and industry leaders concerned about the short-term fallout of stalled negotiations and the long-term consequences should the trade war intensify.
In a July letter to President Trump, Gov. John Bel Edwards said if the talks don’t "strike the right balance," one in six jobs in the state that depend on international commerce could be at risk.
The American Chemistry Council, which strongly opposes tariffs and is aggressively lobbying against extending the 25 percent levy to an additional $200 billion in Chinese products, has asked the Trump Administration to exempt chemicals and plastics from the tariffs.
In a series of statements, letters and public hearings testimony dating to the March tariffs on steel and aluminum, the council argues the uncertainty fostered by the pending trade war could imperil, if not derail, planned projects and investments by chemical manufacturers.
“For a chemical manufacturing industry that has invested $185 billion in new factories, expansions, and restarts of facilities around the country, President Trump’s announcement comes at the worst possible time,” ACC said. “More than half of these investment projects are still in the planning stage, and market shifts caused by tariff increases may convince investors to do business elsewhere.”
Among those projects is Houston-based IGP’s $3.8 billion Lake Charles Methanol project, which is slated to create 1,500 jobs (including 300 oil industry jobs), increase domestic oil production by 12,500 barrels per day, and generate between $70 million to $100 million in taxes a year.
The Lake Charles Methanol project will be the first in the U.S. to use petroleum coke to make methanol, a key component in plastics, paint, and glue, among other products. It will also be the first in the world to use carbon-capture technology by injecting the carbon dioxide it generates underground to boost oil production.
However, in July, Dallas-based Fluor, a global engineering and construction firm tabbed by IGP to build the plant, warned steel tariffs could delay the project and requested that components in a critical piece of equipment for the plant, which is manufactured only in China, be exempted from further levies.
Fluor's Global Director of Trade Compliance, Kathalina Canaan, warned in a July 23 letter that a tariff on machinery that liquefies air and gas should be removed from the list of products targeted for tariffs. Otherwise, Canaan wrote, the project could be delayed or canceled "due to increased costs and uncertainty.”
The specific machinery is a made-to-order air separation unit (ASU) that feeds gaseous high-pressure oxygen to a gasifier unit, which will be the plant’s main processing unit. The ASU also will provide nitrogen and instrument air to the entire facility, the letter said.
While the ASU is designed and supplied by a U.S, company, Canaan noted in the letter that certain components for it "are only available from China.”
"The ASU and its accompanying proprietary technology are critical to Fluor's ability to meet its contractual price and schedule obligations," the letter said. "This situation creates a serious risk that this project – which would create 1,000 US construction jobs, 200 US permanent plant operations jobs and 300 US associated manufacturing jobs – will not move forward."
https://www.watchdog.org/louisiana/stalled-trade-talks-with-china-could-delay-derail-key-methanol/article_e2ea4b0a-b04c-11e8-bad0-43d8e1e83fa1.html
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China Chemical Supply Challenge Has Industry Asking for U.S. Government Help
Sep 10, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Trade group appeals to State, Commerce Departments for help
Case highlights global nature of intertwined chemical supply chains
Cleaning, disinfectant, and other manufacturers want two federal agencies to help them resolve a choked supply chain resulting from a production shut down at several Chinese chemical plants.
The Household & Commercial Products Association asked the State and Commercedepartments in Sept. 4 letters to reach out to the Chinese government regarding some manufacturing plants in that country that apparently have been required to shut down their production of a chemical used to make a preservative, called BIT or 1,2-benzisothiazolin-3-one.
BIT helps keep cleaning products and other chemical mixtures free of bacteria during the months they sit on retail shelves or in homes and other buildings before they are used.
Biocide manufacturers that have used BIT and now need new suppliers or preservatives would need to inform the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about any changes to their ingredients or new suppliers, the agency told Bloomberg Environment in a Sept. 6 email.
Green LabelsCompanies that use BIT in cleaning or other products that qualify for the EPA’s voluntary Safer Choice labeling program, which recognizes products meeting strict health and environmental criteria, also would need to provide new formulation data to program officials. This would allow them to ensure their new “recipe” meets the Safer Choice program’s standards, the agency said.Trade group appeals to State, Commerce Departments for helpCase highlights global nature of intertwined chemical supply chains
China is the near exclusive source of a chemical, called o-nitrochlorobenzene, that is used to make BIT, HCPA said in its letters. The Chinese manufacturers of that critical chemical have been shut down as a result of recent enforcement actions, according to the association. HCPA doesn’t release the names of its member companies, but represents disinfectant, cleaning, air freshener, and other manufacturers.
Ideally, the State and Commerce departments could encourage the Chinese government to work with its manufacturers to quickly mitigate any immediate environmental concerns that prompted the shut down, so the plants could reopen, Steven Bennett, a senior vice president with the association, told Bloomberg Environment Sept. 7.
The Chinese government and manufacturers could meanwhile develop a long-term plan to ensure the plants continue to meet government requirements, he said by email.
Neither the State nor Commerce Departments replied to email requests from Bloomberg Environment for comment.
Procter & Gamble Co. and Unilever PLC, which make a variety of household products, also did not reply to Bloomberg Environment’s requests for comment.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/china-chemical-supply-challenge-has-industry-asking-for-us-government-help
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With a Shrinking EPA, Trump Delivers On His Promise To Cut Government
Sep 8, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Brady Dennis , Juliet Eilperin and Andrew Ba Tran
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump vowed to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency “in almost every form. We’re going to have little tidbits left, but we’re going to take a tremendous amount out.”
As president, he is making headway on that promise.
During the first 18 months of the Trump administration, records show, nearly 1,600 workers left the EPA, while fewer than 400 were hired. The exodus has shrunk the agency’s workforce by 8 percent, to levels not seen since the Reagan administration. The trend has continued even after a major round of buyouts last year and despite the fact that the EPA’s budget has remained stable.
Those who have resigned or retired include some of the agency’s most experienced veterans, as well as young environmental experts who traditionally would have replaced them — stirring fears about brain drain at the EPA. The sheer number of departures also has prompted concerns over what sort of work is falling by the wayside, from enforcement investigations to environmental research.
According to data released under the Freedom of Information Act and analyzed by The Washington Post, at least 260 scientists, 185 “environmental protection specialists” and 106 engineers are gone.
Several veteran EPA employees, who have worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations, said the agency’s profound policy shifts under Trump hastened their departure.
“I felt it was time to leave given the irresponsible, ongoing diminishment of agency resources, which has recklessly endangered our ability to execute our responsibilities as public servants,” said Ann Williamson, a scientist and longtime supervisor in the EPA’s Region 10 Seattle office.
She left in March after 33 years at the agency, exasperated by having to plan how her office would implement President Trump’s proposed cuts and weary of what she viewed as the administration’s refusal to make policy decisions based on evidence. “I did not want to any longer be any part of this administration’s nonsense,” she said.
In a statement Friday, Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said he was focused on right-sizing the EPA, which Republicans have argued overreached under President Barack Obama, burdening industry with regulations such as those focused on climate change.
“With nearly half of our employees eligible to retire in the next five years, my priority is recruiting and maintaining the right staff, the right people for our mission, rather than total full-time employees,” he said.
Congress has so far maintained the EPA’s budget at just more than $8 billion, and while current proposals could shrink that amount, any cuts are likely to be modest.
“The Trump administration comes in and goes way, way beyond what the budget requires,” said Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee and whose district is home to a major EPA research center. Price said multiple constituents have told him that working at the EPA has become “intolerable” after seeing their findings sidelined.
“It is profoundly demoralizing, and I think, profoundly damaging in terms of the agency’s mission,” he said.
The EPA is not alone in shedding personnel under Trump, despite the fact that Congress passed a $1.3 trillion budget bill in March that boosted both military and domestic spending.
The State Department’s total number of permanent employees, for instance, fell 6.4 percent between Trump’s inauguration and March 2018, according to federal records, while the Education Department declined 9.4 percent during that time.
Part of the drop stems from a government-wide hiring freeze Trump imposed after his inauguration, which lasted nearly three months. The president has continued to press for a leaner federal payroll, asking Congress recently to withhold pay raises for federal workers in 2019.
In a few instances, Trump’s deputies are trying to fill the widespread vacancies in their department’s ranks. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently began trying to staff the many senior positions that remained empty under his predecessor, Rex Tillerson. Meanwhile, Veterans Affairs is eager to hire doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to fill thousands of vacancies.
But at the EPA, it is largely a case of career staff members headed for the exits. Hundreds of employees accepted buyouts last summer, and records show that nearly a quarter of the agency’s remaining 13,758 employees are now eligible to retire. At its peak in the late 1990s, the EPA employed more than 18,000 people.
Christopher Zarba, who retired in February after serving as director of the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board, disagreed with former administrator Scott Pruitt’s decision last year to overhaul the board’s membership. Zarba, a 38-year EPA veteran, said that for many staff members, a belief in the agency’s mission had compensated for less-than-ideal working conditions.
“That is the crazy glue that holds the place together, the idea, ‘This is important. We’re making a difference,’ ” he said. “And when that crazy glue begins to fall apart, things change.”
That sentiment played a role in Betsy Smith’s decision to retire in June after 20 years with the EPA’s Office of Research and Development — a department singled out for massive cuts in Trump’s first budget proposal. She said officials largely shelved a project she was leading that aimed to help port communities deal with climate change and other environmental challenges.
“It’s really awful to feel like you don’t have any role to play, that there’s not any interest in the work you’re doing,” said Smith, 62. “My feeling was I could do better work to protect the environment outside the EPA.”
Troy Hottle, 32, arrived at the EPA in early 2016 as a research fellow after getting his doctorate in sustainable engineering at Arizona State University. He expected to forge a career there, as others like him had historically done.
“I really felt good about what I was doing and who I was working with,” Hottle said.
But a year and a half into his time at the EPA, the future hiring prospects within the Office of Research and Development seemed uncertain at best. The career path he had “spent half a lifetime” pursuing, he said, no longer looked so appealing.
Last September, when he got a job offer from a national environmental consulting firm, he decided to make the leap.
After his arrival, Pruitt quickly gained a reputation for excluding career officials from key decisions and showing little regard for the agency’s own research. He also took the president’s desire to scale back the EPA to heart, repeatedly boasting about how a buyout and early retirement push last year reduced the agency workforce.
Other conservatives also have cheered the whittling down of EPA’s size and reach as appropriate and overdue.
“It doesn’t take a bigger bureaucracy to clean our environment,” Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who chairs the House subcommittee overseeing the EPA’s budget, said in a statement. “A lean and efficient workforce at the EPA is a win for taxpayers and the environment by allowing more funding to go towards efforts to clean our water and air.” The agency also underwent buyouts during the Obama administration, but EPA still had about 15,000 employees when he left office.
EPA officials last year launched a reorganization aimed at streamlining the agency, and Wheeler has struck a more measured tone as he has pursued it. A former EPA staff member himself, he praised career employees in a speech after his appointment, saying his “instincts” would be to defend their work and sympathizing about the stress that comes with the changes the agency is undergoing.
On Thursday, he sent an agencywide email announcing that regional offices would be redesigned to mirror the structure at headquarters.
As the departures continue, some EPA workers have voiced worries that the administration’s refusal to fill vacancies with younger employees has effectively blocked the pipeline of new talent.
Dan Costa, 70, joined the EPA 34 years ago as a staff scientist, rising through the ranks to direct its national air, climate and energy research program in 2011. He stepped down from that post in January, and he said he spent part of the last year counseling younger researchers who saw no possibility of replicating his career path.
“I had young people come into my office, close the door and say, ‘What should I do? Should I be looking for a job somewhere else?’ ” he said. He said he advised one young man to “test the waters” given the current regime. “These people are like termites, gnawing at the foundation.”
Multiple current and former employees also say that the exodus at the EPA has left important work falling through the cracks. In Chicago, for instance, a civil investigator responsible for probing who is responsible for Superfund sites left earlier this year and has yet to be replaced, said Mike Mikulka, president of the local union that represents EPA employees.
“You can talk all you want, but your actions speak far louder,” he said, noting that Pruitt had held up Superfund as a top priority during his tenure. “What’s happening is that the lowest priority work just doesn’t get done. And some of that work is really critical.”
One of the EPA divisions hardest hit by staff cuts is the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, whose numbers dipped 15.7 percent between January 2017 and August 2018. Several experts said that any cuts to that division have a major impact because the vast majority of its budget comes from personnel costs rather than grants or other expenditures.
Granta Nakayama, who headed the office from 2005 to 2009, said that it couldn’t sustain that deep a staffing cut without curtailing some of its operations.
“If you don’t have people to enforce the regulations, you’re not going to get enforcement, and you’re not going to get compliance,” said Nakayama, now a partner at the law firm King & Spalding. “If you don’t have boots on the ground, it doesn’t happen.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/with-a-shrinking-epa-trump-delivers-on-his-promise-to-cut-government/2018/09/08/6b058f9e-b143-11e8-a20b-5f4f84429666_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5b0a99dcf324
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Trump Says He’s Preparing Tariffs on Further $267 Billion in Chinese Imports
Sep 9, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Vivian Salama
Threatened third round of tariffs comes as administration finalizes details of levies on an earlier, $200 billion batch of imports
President Trump said Friday that tariffs on another $267 billion in Chinese goods are ready to go and could be rolled out on short notice, reinforcing earlier threats and signaling no end in sight for the growing trade dispute.
Speaking aboard Air Force One en route to Fargo, N.D., Mr. Trump said the tariffs would be in addition to the tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods the administration has been preparing, which he said will “take place very soon, depending on what happens.”
“I hate to say this, but behind that there is another $267 billion ready to go on short notice if I want,” he added. “That changes the equation.”
The White House has been gearing up to hit China with tariffs of 25% on as much as $200 billion in Chinese goods, on top of the $50 billion of Chinese exports already facing 25% levies.
Mr. Trump’s latest threats echo comments he made in June, when he said the U.S. would impose a third round of tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese goods should Beijing retaliate to the tariffs imposed so far.
The Chinese have matched them dollar for dollar, and trade talks between Washington and Beijing have failed to produce any visible sign of progress.
If enacted, a third round of tariffs that covered an additional $267 billion of imports from China would bring the total amount of goods subject to tariffs to more than the $505 billion the U.S. imported from China in 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The public comment period on the second, $200 billion round of tariffs ended Thursday, the last step before a decision. Trade associations, which oppose tariffs, were gearing up for an announcement as early as Friday.
A senior administration official told The Wall Street Journal on Friday that China tariffs “are coming,” but said that the timing remains unclear.
Mr. Trump later signaled that the timing of the $200 billion is not finalized, saying that it “could take place very soon depending on them—to a certain extent it depends on China.”
The Trump administration has proposed successive rounds of tariffs on U.S. imports from China. Here’s where each stands:Round One: The U.S. weighed tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese imports and split the levies into two tranches. Tariffs on $34 billion in imports went into effect on July 6, including auto parts, electronic components, jet engine parts, compressors and other machinery. Tariffs on $16 billion in imports, mainly chemicals and electronic parts, went into effect Aug. 23.Round Two: The U.S. is finalizing plans for tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports, including for the first time a substantial number of consumer goods. The public comment period ended Thursday, the last step before a decision.Round Three: President Trump in June, and again Friday, threatened to impose tariffs on another $200 billion or more in Chinese goods. At $267 billion in goods, the figure Mr. Trump gave Friday, that would bring the total amount of goods subject to tariffs to more than the $505 billion the U.S. imported from China last year.
Corrections & Amplifications
The Trump administration is already preparing tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated it was preparing $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods. (Sept. 8, 2018)https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-says-hes-preparing-tariffs-on-further-267-billion-in-chinese-imports-1536340041?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=4
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Shimkus Eyes Plans For TSCA Hearing
Sep 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's environment panel appears to be backing Democrats' long-standing requests to hold a hearing on EPA's implementation of the revised toxics law, calling a hearing “doable” and expressing frustration that the landmark 2016 law has been bogged down in implementation.
During a Sept. 6 hearing, subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-IL) told Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the full committee's ranking Democrat, that he would seek to find a time to hold a hearing on EPA's implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that Democrats have long sought.
“I think that's going to be doable. We'll try to figure out time,” Shimkus said, in response to Pallone's renewed request for a hearing on TSCA during the panel's Sept. 6 hearing on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Shimkus also expressed frustration with TSCA implementation generally, though he did not detail his concerns. “I think both sides are kind of frustrated with the process,” Shimkus said. “So I think we'll do our best to try to find time to” hold a hearing. “As one of our signature legislative accomplishments, we hate to see it bogged down in implementation.”
EPA's implementation of the June 2016 law has faced numerous lawsuits stemming from environmentalists' claims that Trump administration appointees have inappropriately narrowed the scope of chemical reviews that will be conducted under the revised law.
At the same time, industry groups are concerned that EPA is sometimes slow to review their requests to approve new chemical uses and other issues.
Shimkus' plan to make time for a hearing appears to grant Democratic lawmakers' repeated requests for a hearing on EPA's TSCA implementation.
Most recently, in an Aug. 29 letter, Pallone led the subcommittee Democrats in asking Republicans to grant their fourth request for a hearing on EPA's TSCA implementation.
The letter to Shimkus, the chairman of the subcommittee, and full Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) raised a litany of concerns with the administration's TSCA implementation, including that political officials are allowing for chemical risks over the advice of agency staff in violation of the June 2016 rewrite, and endangering public health.
Days after the letter, the Trump administration announced its intent to nominate EPA Region I Administrator Alexandra Dunn to lead EPA's toxics office -- which oversees TSCA implementation -- a move that could delay any hearing.
Democrats first requested a hearing in June and August of last year, and were told a hearing would be held in September 2017. When that date passed, the lawmakers lodged a third request in November 2017.
“It is now well over a year since our original request and two years since [TSCA] reform legislation was signed into law, and it is completely unacceptable that the Committee has yet to hold a single hearing on implementation of this critically important public health program,” the letter said.
“The law made substantial revisions to TSCA to strengthen public health protections, but we remain concerned that EPA’s implementation of the reformed TSCA program contradicts the new law’s language and intent and undermines public confidence in the program.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/shimkus-eyes-plans-tsca-hearing
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OMB Reviewing Final Rule Regarding TSCA User Fees
Sep 7, 2018 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
On August 31, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review a final rule regarding user fees for the administration of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). As reported in our February 9, 2018, memorandum, “Administrator Pruitt Signs TSCA User Fee Proposal,” as amended by the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, TSCA provides EPA the authority to levy fees on certain chemical manufacturers, including importers and processors, to “provide a sustainable source of funding to defray resources that are available for implementation of new responsibilities under the amended law.” Under the amendments to TSCA, EPA has authority to require payment from manufacturers and processors who:
Are required to submit information by test rule, test order, or enforceable consent agreement (ECA) (TSCA Section 4);
Submit notification of or information related to intent to manufacture a new chemical or significant new use of a chemical (TSCA Section 5); or
Manufacture or process a chemical substance that is subject to a risk evaluation, including a risk evaluation conducted at the request of a manufacturer (TSCA Section 6(b)).
EPA’s February 26, 2018, proposed rule described the proposed TSCA fees and fee categories for fiscal years (FY) 2019, 2020, and 2021, and explained the methodology by which the proposed TSCA user fees were determined and would be determined for subsequent FYs. In proposing the new TSCA user fees, EPA also proposed amending long-standing user fee regulations governing the review of Section 5 premanufacture notices (PMN), exemption applications and notices, and significant new use notices (SNUN). Under the proposed rule, after implementation of final TSCA user fees regulations, certain manufacturers and processors would be required to pay a prescribed fee for each Section 5 notice or exemption application, Section 4 testing action, or Section 6 risk evaluation for EPA to recover certain costs associated with carrying out certain work under TSCA. EPA did not propose specific fees for submission of confidential business information (CBI).
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/omb-reviewing-final-rule-regarding-tsca-user-fees
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(ACC Mentioned) Correction: Congress-EPA-Hazardous Substances story
Sep 10, 2018 | AP (In CNBC)
By Ellen Knickmeyer
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a story Sept. 6 about lawmakers pressing the Environmental Protection Agency to act faster to bring more of the country's most hazardous industrial compounds under regulation, The Associated Press erroneously referred to Rep. Fred Upton as Rep. Tom Upton.
A corrected version of the story is below:
Congress wants EPA to more quickly regulate unsafe chemicals
Republican and Democratic lawmakers pressed the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to act faster to bring more of the country's most hazardous industrial chemicals and substances under tighter regulation, saying agency action on the health risks was "bogged down."
The hearing by a House environment subcommittee focused on one of the biggest rapidly emerging health threats to public water systems, a family of widely used industrial coatings now linked to some cancers and to development problems in children, among other health risks.
House members told an EPA official at the hearing about constituents, towns and states scrambling to deal with the discovery of dangerous amounts of the compounds, called perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
A federal toxicology agency's finding that some of the compounds were dangerous at much lower doses than previously thought led the Trump administration's EPA to schedule public hearings. But the EPA has declined to say when it might make a decision on whether to declare some of the substances hazardous or otherwise regulate them.
"What is the timeline?" asked Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, who spoke of one community in his state ordered not to drink its contaminated water for nearly a month this summer.
Upton also held up a previously unreleased report on water tests showing groundwater from a military base at another Michigan city, Battle Creek, bore PFAS levels up to 757 times higher than the EPA's current, advisory-only health maximum.
"How do we create that sense of urgency?" Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, asked Peter Grevatt, head of the EPA's office of drinking water. "PFAS in Michigan is scaring people more than the Flint water crisis."
Industries have used the compounds for decades to make nonstick and grease- and water-repellent items.
Testing and peer-reviewed studies of tens of thousands of people in the Ohio River Valley exposed to high levels of a PFAS once used in making Teflon found a probable link with kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, hypertension in pregnant women and high cholesterol.
Other recent studies point to immune problems in children, among other problems.
Two varieties of the compounds are no longer in active production in the United States, and the EPA says it will have a proposal ready by the end of the year on how the agency might deal with those.
Grevatt outlined some of the steps under consideration, such as formally declaring the two versions of the compounds as hazardous substances. But he said he did not consider the compounds "the No. 1 challenge we face."
Tens of thousands of other versions of PFAS exist, some of them in wide use.
Jon Corley of the American Chemistry Council said in a statement Thursday that those versions have been "well studied and undergone rigorous regulatory review." However, Andrew Gillespie, associate director of the EPA's National Exposure Research Laboratory, told The Associated Press earlier this year that the agency had not yet carried out adequate reviews to be able to provide "any strong guidance" on risks of the PFAS that U.S. companies are using now.
Who in authority "can tell me if the 16 mystery PFAS I found in the tap water at my children's public school are safe to drink?" North Carolina resident Emily Donovan asked lawmakers at the hearing Thursday. She lives near Cape Fear, where discharges from chemical plants are blamed for high levels of a PFAS known as GenX.
The EPA has said it expects to complete some toxicology work on GenX this month.
More broadly, the subcommittee's Republican chairman, Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, joined Democrats in faulting the EPA for its handling of 2016 legislation that lawmakers had intended to speed up the agency's long-stalled action on countless other hazardous substances.
Environmental groups, Democratic lawmakers and others accuse Trump's EPA, which includes a former executive of the American Chemistry Council trade group at the agency's chemicals office and which has sought to curb regulation that it sees as burdensome to business, of undermining the 2016 act.
EPA action on it was "bogged down," Shimkus said, saying he would try to arrange a subcommittee hearing on it.
"The whole intent was to get through a process where you don't have things like this," Shimkus said after the hearing, referring to the emerging PFAS crisis.
"We have a brand-new law that we want administered," he said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/the-associated-press-correction-congress-epa-hazardous-substances-story.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Congress Pressures EPA to Establish PFAS Maximum Contaminant Level Standards
Sep 7, 2018 | Westword
By Conor McCormick-Cavanagh
Although the majority of Americans enjoy clean drinking water, some have for decades grappled with the side effects of water contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a family of chemicals that comes from waterproofing products and firefighting foam. PFAS contamination has plagued communities across the U.S., including in El Paso County.
Despite outcry about the PFAS crisis, the Environmental Protection Agencyhas yet to set a legally binding maximum contaminant level for the chemicals. That might change soon.
On Thursday, September 6, the House Energy Subcommittee on Environment and Economy hosted a three-hour hearing on PFAS contamination and exposure. Democrats on the subcommittee, part of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, are pressuring the EPA to establish a maximum contaminant level. If the EPA does not act, subcommittee members say they will propose legislation that would address contamination issues.
"There can be no more kicking the can down the road," said Democrat Congressman Paul Tonko of New York during the hearing.
PFAS chemicals have been seeping into groundwater in El Paso County for decades, likely as the result of firefighting foam used by Peterson Air Force Base. A C8 Science Panel study from 2013, which came from a class action lawsuit against chemical companies, linked PFAS exposure to multiple diseases, including ulcerative colitis, pregnancy-induced hypertension, thyroid disease, testicular cancer and kidney cancer.
"Every family deserves to know the truth about what is going on regarding PFAS. It has been in the news and there is too little information about the health risks and ways to address it in the environment," wrote Illinois Republican Congressman John Shimkus, chairman of the subcommittee, in a press release before the hearing.
The day before the hearing, Congresswoman Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado, told Westword that she hoped the subcommittee would receive more testimony from witnesses that pointed to how harmful PFAS exposure can be. DeGette is the only Colorado legislator on the subcommittee.
"What I’m hoping we can get from the hearing is just how serious this risk is," she said. "That would give us evidence to push for the EPA to declare a clear maximum contaminant level or for us to do legislation."
The EPA advisory level is currently set at 70 parts per trillion, but that's just a suggestion. Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, where the state's legally binding maximum contaminant level is fourteen parts per trillion, wants the EPA to mandate a much lower level. (The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry published a report in June that showed PFAS exposure was detrimental even at levels well below 70 parts per trillion.)
"We know this level is too high to protect public health. It's another outrageous example of the Trump administration ignoring the health needs of the American people," Pallone said during the hearing.
Another solution is to pressure the EPA to list PFAS as a hazardous substance, which would make available an EPA superfund to pay for PFAS cleanup.
But Democratic representatives are concerned that the chemical industry will strong-arm the EPA, something it may have done this past year when it allegedly blocked the release of a chemical-hazard study by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry that further illustrated the negative effects of PFAS.
A May 21 letter sent to former EPA head Scott Pruitt from four Democratic environment subcommittee members, including DeGette, points to January 2018 emails that appear to show some of Pruitt's subordinates talking about a "potential public relations nightmare" for the EPA and the Department of Defense if the study was released. On January 31, the day after that email exchange, one of the participants in the email chain, Dr. Richard Yamada, deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development at the EPA, may have attended a meeting with American Chemistry Council representatives; the title of the meeting on his calendar was "ACC Cross-Agency PFAS Effort."
DeGette and her colleagues have questioned whether Yamada and other EPA officials gathered with chemical-company executives to possibly discuss suppressing the report.
"It’s always a concern, especially with this EPA, that they’ll be pressured by the industry," says DeGette.
Those same industry pressures may be the reason that El Paso County residents unwittingly ingested PFAS-contaminated water for years.
The U.S. military has known since well before 2016 that PFAS exposure was linked to illness. The Army Corp of Engineers even told the Army base in Fort Carson to stop using PFAS products in 1991, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette. But that didn't stop Peterson Air Force Base from continuing to use firefighting foam that was contaminating the nearby groundwater.
It wasn't until May 2016, when the EPA lowered its advisory level from 400 to 70 parts per trillion, that El Paso County residents started to panic. Local water districts tested their water and found that some of it had higher levels of PFAS contamination than what the EPA recommends. The Widefield aquifer, a water source for 70,000 El Paso County residents, was one of the contaminated areas.
Residents of the affected municipalities have joined a class action lawsuit against PFAS manufacturers, formed a coalition to demand justice for the years they spent drinking the contaminated water, and hope that their aquifer will be fully decontaminated.
In response to complaints from El Paso county residents, EPA officials hosted a PFAS listening session in Colorado Springs on August 7 and 8. Residents testified about how family members have suffered from illnesses linked to PFAS exposure and demanded faster action and more attention from the EPA. Doug Benevento, EPA administrator for the Mountains and Plains region, says that since the meetings, the EPA has assigned a liaison to the community who will collect their concerns.
Residents in PFAS-contaminated areas are hopeful that the EPA will honor their requests, especially because the issue has brought together politicians from opposing sides in Congress.
"I think you can tell that Republicans and Democrats are pretty unified here on the concern about the PFAS chemicals," said Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, during the hearing.
https://www.westword.com/news/op-ed-denver-land-trade-on-fairfax-street-is-no-walk-in-the-park-10763669
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Despite Bipartisan Pressure, EPA Punts On New PFAS Commitments
Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
EPA's top drinking water official made no new commitments to speed up or add to current agency pledges to address perfluorinated chemicals despite bipartisan pressure from lawmakers and state officials who urged the agency at a Sept. 6 hearing to quickly develop a regulatory standard and take other steps to address the growing public concern over the chemicals.
“I think you can tell that Republicans and Democrats are pretty unified here on the concern about” per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) said at a Sept. 6 hearing focused on PFAS contamination and challenges held by the House Energy & Commerce Committee's environment subcommittee.
“I know we all keep asking the same question, but I think what's really got everybody worried is we need to change the national standard for what is a safe level,” she told Peter Grevatt, director of EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, who is leading the agency's PFAS policy efforts.
But Grevatt told Dingell and other lawmakers that the agency's development of a PFAS national management plan, to be issued by the end of the year, will provide a comprehensive look into more immediate steps EPA can take.
Late last month, he also raised doubts to state officials about a drinking water standard that many lawmakers and state officials are seeking, saying a single standard may not be appropriate to address the contaminants given their relatively limited distribution in drinking water systems.
EPA currently has no enforceable drinking water standard, but issued non-binding drinking water health advisories for two PFAS in 2016. Those advisories, however, are derived from risk values seven and 10 times less strict than ones the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) endorsed earlier this year in a much-anticipated draft toxicological profile.
But Dingell said she believes all of the subcommittee members “have seen enough in scientific studies that we've got a problem.” She added, “So are we talking about another two, three, four, five-year bureaucracy, or are we looking at something that's really going to get at this quickly to keep the American people drinking safe water?”
Grevatt responded that making sure drinking water is safe is a top priority for the agency, and noted that the PFAS management plan will be a comprehensive review across all statutory authorities about steps the agency can take to ensure Americans are protected.
But in response to questioning from Rep. David McKinley (R-WV), Grevatt conceded that PFAS compounds are not nationally EPA's top challenge, although they present significant challenges for communities where they are a contaminant in drinking water. Rather, he noted there are important issues the agency is facing related to drinking water treatment, especially disinfection and disinfection byproducts.
Legislative Timeline
While calls among lawmakers and states at the hearing continued for EPA to develop an enforceable drinking water standard, Grevatt made no new commitments other than to continue to weigh whether to develop such a standard.
“We need a binding, enforceable, and strong drinking water standard,” Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) said in his opening statement, noting that Democrats on the Energy & Commerce Committee have long pushed to set a deadline for EPA to issue a stringent drinking water PFAS standard.
He said Congress should set a timeline for it, and require that the standard be protective.
Later, Pallone stressed the importance of a national drinking water standard because the Defense Department is not bound by state standards. Rather, he said, in such cleanups, DOD considers state levels as a factor. Witness Maureen Sullivan, DOD deputy assistant secretary for environment, conceded during questioning that state standards are rolled into the risk assessment process DOD conducts for a cleanup as a consideration.
Erik Olson, who testified on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Inside EPA afterward that with EPA's lack of commitments on setting a drinking water standard or other actions, “states have to step into the vacuum.”
He added that “it would be a major mistake for states to step back” and assume EPA will do it. In line with other environmental groups, he is calling for them to be treated as a class, rather than individually.
Nonetheless, witnesses who testified on behalf of state organizations called for EPA to address PFAS holistically -- not just in drinking water -- but also in other media and through other authorities.
Pennsylvania drinking water chief Lisa Daniels, testifying on behalf of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA), in written testimony said the chemical compounds should be addressed nationally, “using a holistic approach” with Congress directing federal agencies to develop a unified message on the chemicals' risks, EPA listing the chemicals as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation & Liability Act (CERCLA), EPA requiring PFAS reporting under the Toxic Release Inventory, and the agency taking other measures to limit PFAS contamination.
And Sandeep Burman, a Minnesota regulator speaking on behalf of the Association of State & Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials, told the panel that differing state standards for PFAS chemicals -- some of which have adopted EPA's 2016 non-binding drinking water health advisory of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for two PFAS -- cause “questions and confusion for the public, as well as for regulated parties and regulators themselves."
He said national groundwater standards are “urgently needed” for PFAS “to promote consistent and comprehensive cleanups across the country.” EPA recently sent to the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) for review draft recommendations for addressing two PFAS in groundwater.
“The current absence of established federal regulatory standards for these compounds is creating uncertainty as public drinking water and wastewater treatment systems, regulatory agencies, responsible parties, and others are responding to put in place appropriate measures to ensure that public health is protected,” Burman said in his written testimony. “There is an urgent need for federal standards including reference doses, drinking water protection standards, surface water quality standards, and remediation standards that can be used to reliably address on-going public health concerns."
On listing PFAS as hazardous substances -- something EPA has previously said it is considering -- Grevatt told Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) that there are a number of ways in which EPA could achieve a hazardous substance listing. In addition to CERCLA, it could be done through the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act. He noted that the agency is currently looking at various authorities to list PFAS as hazardous substances.
Tonko later asked the state witnesses at the hearing about the impact such a listing would have, particularly if perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), two more commonly found PFAS, were listed.
Burman responded such a measure would allow states to bring the full weight of CERCLA to bear on PFAS, noting very few potentially responsible parties (PRPs) would otherwise voluntarily apply CERCLA. And Carol Isaacs, who heads Michigan's PFAS action response team, told the panel it would give states and EPA another tool to hold PRPs responsible for cleanup, potentially prompting less litigation by the state.
Olson added that without these chemicals listed under CERCLA, there is a real chance a PRP will simply refuse to conduct a cleanup. He added that just listing two chemicals may help at some sites, but the designation should cover a broader array of PFAS.
ATSDR Profile
Grevatt also faced questions over ATSDR's draft tox profile for several PFAS.The document has attracted much attention in recent months due to the discovery of efforts by some in the Trump administration to block its release because of a feared “public relations nightmare” since the profile adopts risk values more conservative than EPA's.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) reiterated a query he and other Michigan lawmakers sent to EPA last month urging the agency to consider the tox profile and asking EPA to act quickly if it believes its 70 ppt advisory level should be adjusted due to the profile's findings. “Is that happening? What can we do to expedite the process?” he asked Grevatt.
Grevatt responded that the agency is carefully examining all the scientific data coming forward on PFOA and PFOS but said, “At this time, EPA does not have plans to change the drinking water health advisory” for the two chemicals.
Upton responded that he is the co-sponsor of upcoming legislation that will encourage EPA to look at that profile. The lawmaker noted at the hearing that he, along with other Michigan lawmakers, next week plan to introduce a bill that in part addresses federal facilities dealing with PFAS. He said he would like to see the legislation move this Congress.
The administration's handling of the ATSDR report also drew questions from other lawmakers. Rep. Gene Green (D-TX) asked Grevatt how EPA can reconcile the differences between ATSDR's much stricter toxicity values, compared to those EPA used for its 2016 health advisories.
Grevatt defended EPA by saying the purpose of ATSDR's document -- used for screening values -- differs from EPA's health advisories. In addition, he said ATSDR “chose to view the science somewhat differently than we did. We’re working very closely with them on these issues to make sure we are sharing the best information we have as we go forward.”
And Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) pressed DOD's Sullivan on whether she knew of the concerns by DOD officials cited in the emails earlier this year from executive branch officials that release of the ATSDR study could prompt a “potential public relations nightmare.” Sullivan said she did not. She said at the time her communications with OMB “were solely to ask when it was going to happen and what the communication plans would be."
Sarbanes said he is worried that “concerns over public relations could lean on the scale in a way that undermines scientific conclusions” and assessments.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/despite-bipartisan-pressure-epa-punts-new-pfas-commitments
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The DDT Of This Generation Is Contaminating Water All Over The US and Australia
Sep 7, 2018 | Quartz
By Zoë Schlanger
Yesterday (Sept. 6), a US House of Representatives hearing convened to ask why federal authorities haven’t regulated PFAS, a little-known class of chemicals that has sparked one of the biggest drinking-water contamination revelations in recent decades. The US Environmental Protection Agency has known for decades it could have a PFAS problem on its hands, and now hundreds of communities across the US are finding the chemicals in their water.
“How do we create that sense of urgency?” representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, asked the head of the EPA’s office of drinking water. “PFAS in Michigan is scaring people more than the Flint water crisis.” In Battle Creek, Michigan, PFAS levels in the groundwater were recently found to be up to 757 times higher than the recommended limit—and the recommended limit was found to be as much as 10 times higher than what could really be considered safe. That’s just one case; Department of Defense and Northeastern University data tally 172 known contaminated sites, and those numbers do not account for contaminated public water systems, which the Environmental Working Group estimates could add up to over 1,500 additional sites.
The situation contains shades of a now-famous disaster: In the 1950s and 1960s, nearly everyone on the planet was exposed to the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. DDT is a household name, synonymous with chemical dangers at first ignored and then revealed to be damaging generations of life, both human and animal.
DDT is still ubiquitous, showing up in food, water, and nearly everyone’s blood, even though it was banned in most countries more than 40 years ago. Today, studies link elevated exposure to it to heightened cancer risks, infertility, developmental delays, and most recently, to autism.
Now a similar scenario is playing out with PFAS, a class of widely used chemicals that should also be a household name by now. They’re the compounds that give us nonstick pans, waterproof shoes, firefighting foams, and a long list of other products. And they are likely contaminating the water supplies of tens of millions of people in the US. PFAS contamination cases outside the US—particularly in Australia—are also beginning to emerge.The health risks of PFAS exposure
At this point, most people in the US have been exposed to chemicals in the PFAS family. The most common are PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid, an ingredient in Teflon, the chemical used to make non-stick cookware) and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate, often used as a firefighting foam, especially at airports and on military bases). The compounds leach into the water supply from sites where PFAS industries dumped their manufacturing waste, or where firefighting foam is allowed to seep into the ground.
The number of PFAS contamination discoveries keep piling up. Just last month, news broke that the residents of Flint, Michigan weren’t just exposed to elevated lead levels from the Flint River—they were likely also exposed to hightened levels of PFAS, too, and the state of Michigan knew about it before the city began using the river as its water source in the first place.
PFAS chemicals have been linked to a range of health risks including cancer, immune-system issues, and developmental problems in fetuses. Communities in states as far-flung as West Virginia, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have already dealt with water-contamination emergencies from the chemicals. The crisis isn’t contained to the US; at least 90 sites across Australia are contaminated with PFAS, mostly due to use of firefighting foam, and reports emerged last month that new PFAS contamination sites were identified in Western Australia.
Outside of affected communities, PFAS is still little-known. But that is no accident; for years, the US government and industry leaders obscured and downplayed evidence of the compounds’ harm and ubiquity in the environment. For example, Sharon Lerner at the Intercept recently reported that 3M, makers of Scotchguard and firefighting foam made from PFOS and PFOA, knew by the 1970s that the compounds were harmful to people’s health and accumulating in people’s blood, and yet continued manufacturing the compounds and withheld the information from the US Environmental Protection Agency until turning over documents and ceasing production in 2000. In turn, EPA fined 3M $1.5 million for violating toxic-substance regulations, yet did nothing further to stop the spread of PFAS in the environment.
It has still not enacted any rule to regulate the compounds. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, the EPA is responsible for determining when a chemical needs to be regulated in the US water supply. Despite tens of thousands of new chemicals arriving on the market, the EPA hasn’t added a new toxin to its list since 1996. (Even the Government Office of Accountability thinks that’s a sign of a broken system.)
But the news around PFAS is reaching a critical mass that is impossible to ignore.Why isn’t the government doing anything about PFAS?
In 2013, in an effort to decide whether to regulate certain PFAS compounds, the EPA ordered nationwide testing. It hired three labs to do the job. Based on those results, the EPA estimated that PFAS only contaminates about 1% of the US water supply—too low an amount to make an urgent case for new regulations. But last year, a reanalysis by one of those labs found that if the EPA had used more granular verification methods, they would have found PFOA in 20% of the national water supply.
This year, in January, EPA and White House staffers attempted to block publication of a US Department of Health and Human Services study that showed PFAS could harm human health at exposure levels far below EPA’s current recommended thresholds. In emails obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists under the Freedom of Information Act, a Trump administration aide warned other staffers that the study would cause a “public relations nightmare.”
“The public, media, and Congressional reaction to these numbers is going to be huge,” one unidentified White House aide said in an email forwarded to another federal staffer on Jan. 30. “The impact to EPA and [the Department of Defense] is going to be extremely painful.”
The staffer was likely referring to the defense department because PFOS is used to make a firefighting foam widely used on military bases during training and ammunition testing. Water supplies near at least 126 military bases across the US have been found to be highly contaminated with PFAS.
The US government made headlines in May by initially keeping journalists out of a meeting about its findings on public water contaminated with the compounds. In June, the stalled Health and Human Services report was finally released. It concluded that the EPA’s recommended threshold for PFAS weren’t even close to being adequate to protect human health—they should be set at levels seven to 10 times lower than they currently are, the HHS wrote.
It may be no accident that most people still don’t know what PFAS are—but as more and more communities begin finding it in their water supplies, and as our scientific understanding of its impact matures, PFAS could emerge as the chemical tragedy of this generation.
https://qz.com/1381593/the-ddt-of-this-generation-is-contaminating-water-all-over-the-us-and-australia/
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Democrat Reintroduces Perchlorate Deadline Bill
Sep 7, 2018 | Inside EPA
A California Democrat has re-introduced his bill that would require EPA to set a national drinking water standard for perchlorate within a year -- just days after EPA requested a six-month extension in its court-ordered deadlines for that rule-making process.
Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-CA) Sept. 5 introduced H.R. 6705, which if passed into law would require EPA “not later than 12 months after the date of enactment [to] publish a maximum contaminant level goal [(MCLG)] and promulgate a national primary drinking water regulation [(NPDWR)] for perchlorate.”
A congressional source notes that during a Sept. 6 hearing before the Energy & Commerce Committee's environment subpanel, one of the witnesses, Peter Grevatt, director of EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, “mentioned that there would be EPA rulemaking in the coming months on perchlorate national standard.”
But the source adds, “while it is promising to hear from long-time career staff that this is happening, I am not confident that the politicals at this EPA will take actions to actually improve human health and environmental health,” and so Cardenas reintroduced his bill, adding that California has already set a state-wide standard for perchlorate “and it's time for the country to follow suit."
Cárdenas' re-introduction of his 2016 bill -- which never moved out of committee -- follows by just days EPA's request to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to extend by six months its current Oct. 31 deadline to propose a draft MCLG and NPDWR.
That deadline was set by court order as part of a settlement with environmentalists in October 2016. Judge Edgardo Ramos has yet to rule on EPA's request. The agency has acknowledged in its briefs that the Natural Resources Defense Council “has not consented” to the extension.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/democrat-reintroduces-perchlorate-deadline-bill
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Kansas Regulators Reject Challenge to Injection Well Permits
Sep 8, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Brown
Commission rejects challenge to permits for 2,100 fracking-related injection wells
Environmentalists concerned with earthquake increases now look to lawmakers
Environmentalists in Kansas looking for help reining in fracking-related activity by the state’s oil and gas industry are turning to the Legislature after coming up empty Sept. 7 before the Kansas Corporation Commission.
The commission had to decide whether to revoke 2,100 permits for fracking-related injection wells issued by the KCC during the past 10 years. Environmentalists concerned about an increase in earthquakes in the state said the permits were issued without enough opportunities for public comment, but KCC upheld the permits.
The KCC ruled in a 19-page order that the public hadn’t been denied a chance to participate and wasn’t harmed.
The dispute before the commission is part of the still-unsettled debate about how stringently to regulate the injection wells that have been developed in parts of Kansas as a means of disposing wastewater from hydraulic fracturing.
Doubts about whether state regulators were doing enough to regulate the wells began to grow in 2013, when a historically unprecedented surge in earthquakes began to take place both in Kansas and neighboring Oklahoma, which also has become dotted with injection wells.
Scientists in both states suspect that induced seismicity from the wells is the cause of the increased earthquake activity.
`Running Protection’ for IndustryCindy Hoedel, an environmental activist who first filed objections with KCC over the permits, told Bloomberg Environment that the commission was “running protection for a corrupt oil industry.”
Hoedel, along with the Sierra Club, argued to the commission that the permits should be revoked because the applicants incorrectly stated in public notices that the public had 15 days to object or comment, rather than the 30-day period allowed under state law. In nearly 30 cases, the commission granted the permit before the 30-day period had expired. The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Environment is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.
The commission, which in other contexts tends to strictly enforce regulatory requirements, is “quite lax” when it comes to the oil and gas industry, she said.
The effect, Hoedel said in comments to the commission, was to “shake public confidence in KCC’s ability to regulate an industry which since 2014 has been causing increasing harm through large-volume injection disposal wells that cumulatively have ushered in a new era of earthquakes in Kansas at levels never before seen in history.”
But industry representatives disputed the contention that there were significant problems with the way the commission handled the permit process.
“The law is clear that such discrepancies were not fatal defects to the KCC’s jurisdiction or authority to approve the injection applications, and there is no evidence that any person’s due process rights were affected by the publications,” said Edward Cross, president of the Kansas Independent Oil & Gas Association.
Legislative ProposalsThe fight over regulation of the wells will now shift back to the Legislature, where several bills aimed at reforming the commission were introduced last session, Hoedel said.
Twenty-one lawmakers—of a total of 165 in both Kansas houses—signed on to Hoedel’s comment letter to the commission, a list that included one Republican.
Reform proposals include creation of a risk pool to compensate property owners suffering earthquake damages, forcing the KCC to consider potential seismicity in issuing permits for injection wells, and imposing a volume cap on wells throughout the state.
“I’m optimistic for the 2019 session,” Hoedel told Bloomberg Environment. “I think a lot of lawmakers, Republicans included, are fed up with the commission. It’s not right that an industry should be allowed to damage other peoples’ property as part of its business model. It’s time to act.”
But Cross denied that injection wells are dangerous or underregulated.
“State regulators, in conjunction with the U.S. EPA, carefully oversee injection wells with tight regulations and high operating standards,” he told Bloomberg Environment. “Neither fear-mongering nor unproven anecdotes can conceal or deny that injection wells are safe and well-regulated.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/kansas-regulators-reject-challenge-to-injection-well-permits
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Spain's Repsol to buy U.S. LNG from Venture Global: statement
Sep 7, 2018 | Reuters
By Swati Verma
(Reuters) - Venture Global LNG on Friday said that it has entered into a 20-year agreement with Spanish energy company Repsol SA (REP.MC) for the supply of one million tonnes per annum of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility in Louisiana.
Repsol will purchase LNG on a free on board (FOB) basis from the commercial operation date of the Venture Global Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility, under development in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, the company said in a statement.
The commercial operation date of the 10 million tonnes per annum Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility, located at the intersection of the Calcasieu Ship Channel and the Gulf of Mexico, is expected in 2022, Venture Global said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venture-global-lng-repsol/spains-repsol-to-buy-u-s-lng-from-venture-global-statement-idUSKCN1LN2FR
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Pipeline Dumps 8,000 gallons Of Jet Fuel Into Indiana River
Sep 9, 2018 | AP
DECATUR, Ind. (AP) — A Texas company says one of its pipelines has spilled more than 8,000 gallons of jet fuel into a river in the northeastern Indiana city of Decatur.
Houston-based Buckeye Pipe Line says it immediately shut down the line Friday evening when it detected a pressure problem.
The fuel spilled into the St. Marys River in Decatur, a community of about 9,500 people roughly 100 miles northeast of Indianapolis.
Local officials say booms were placed in the river to contain the fuel, which was being vacuumed off the water’s surface.
Decatur Mayor Kenneth L. Meyer says the cleanup could take weeks.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it is monitoring air in neighborhoods and businesses near the river. The EPA said it is also monitoring water quality at several locations downstream.
https://apnews.com/14c8dd4bc6f94830896e5f5634245c7c?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=APCentralRegion&utm_source=Twitter
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Subcommittee To Review Status Of Positive Train Control Implementation
Sep 7, 2018 | American Journal of Transportation.
The status of implementing positive train control (PTC) technologies on the Nation’s rail network will be the subject of a Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials hearing next week.
PTC technologies are designed to automatically stop or slow a train before certain accidents occur — specifically, train-to-train collisions, derailments caused by excessive speed, unauthorized incursions by trains onto sections of track where maintenance activities are taking place, and movements of trains through track switches left in the wrong position.
The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 initially required that certain freight, commuter, and passenger rail lines in the United States install PTC by December 31, 2015. The development and installation of new, and in some cases non-existent, components of PTC technologies led to various challenges. Subsequently, after both the Federal Railroad Administration and the Government Accountability Office identified the need for an extension of the 2015 deadline, Congress unanimously approved to extend the deadline to December 31, 2018. Congress has also provided for significant funding, through grants and loan programs, to further assist railroads in implementing PTC.
Next week, the Subcommittee will examine the progress railroads have made and the remaining challenges to meeting the December 2018 PTC implementation deadline.
The hearing of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials, chaired by U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), is entitled “The State of Positive Train Control Implementation in the United States.” The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, September 13, 2018, in 2167 Rayburn House Office Building.
Witnesses:
The Honorable Ronald L. Batory, Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration
The Honorable Robert Sumwalt, Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board
Ms. Susan A. Fleming, Director, Physical Infrastructure Team, Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Mr. Scot Naparstek, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Amtrak
The Honorable Edward Hamberger, President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of American Railroads
Mr. Jeffrey D. Knueppel, P.E., General Manager, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority; on behalf of American Public Transportation Association
Ms. Stacey Mortensen, Executive Director, Altamont Corridor Expresshttps://www.ajot.com/news/subcommittee-to-review-status-of-positive-train-control-implementation
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Plastic Bans Spawn Market for $375 Gold-Plated Tiffany Straws
Sep 10, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
Drinking straw bans grow as cities, companies move to curb single-use plastic
Movement spawns reusable, eco-friendly replacements
From Starbucks to Disney World, San Francisco to the U.K., plastic straws bans are having a moment.
In short order, straws have gone from a relatively accepted part of everyday existence to a global symbol of the plastic pollution crisis.
Into this mix hundreds of companies are rushing to fill the straw-shaped void with sustainable straw options. There are handmade designer straws, edible straws, bamboo straws, glass straws, and straws made from actual straw.
The luxury brand Tiffany & Co. even released a $375 sterling silver bendy straw with gold plating.
Straws That Don’t SuckWhile plastic straws represent a relatively small part of the 8 million metric tons of plastic entering the ocean every year, environmental activists claim they are also entirely superfluous, which makes them a good symbol for the problems caused by a throwaway culture.
One company seeking to cash in on the backlash is the startup FinalStraw, which has developed a collapsible, reusable, stainless-steel straw. Founders Emma Cohen and Miles Pepper set out April 19 to raise $12,000 in funding on Kickstarter.
“We were praying to sell 5,000 straws,” Cohen told Bloomberg Environment. As of Sept. 6, the company had raised nearly $1.9 million and had preorders for 150,000 straws at $20 a piece. The company said it expects to begin deliveries in November.
In addition to a growing list of companies shunning plastic straws—including Ikea and American Airlines—Cohen said the viral success of social media campaigns such as #StopSucking showed consumers eager to align with the broader trend, even if it means paying for something they used to get for free.
I just purchased metal straws i have never been so happy about a purchase. so excited to use them and say no to plastic straws, next is a bamboo toothbrush! #savetheocean #stopsucking— Melanie Pico (@butterflyluna96) September 5, 2018
“Our timing was just impeccable,” said Cohen. “Had we launched the Kickstarter six months earlier it probably wouldn’t have worked out like this.”
‘Sipping in Style’While there are no shortage of under-$10 reusable straws to be found at Amazon.com, luxury brands also are making a bid for the high-end shopper.
“Luxury doesn’t always mean formality, only limited to special occasions,” said Anisa Kamadoli Costa, chief sustainability officer at Tiffany & Co., whose company is selling the $375 gold vermeil straw.
“As plastic waste continues to pose a serious threat to our oceans, we’re proud to offer these enduring and finely crafted precious metal straws as an ocean-friendly alternative for sipping in style,” Kamadoli Costa told Bloomberg Environment.
Plastic straws comprise a very small amount of plastic in the ocean, as little as .03 percent by mass, according to Adam Minter, a Bloomberg columnist and author of the book, “Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade.”
A much bigger problem is discarded fishing gear and nets, which account for the largest amount of plastic in the floating Pacific garbage patch, writes Minter.
Proper DisposalThe issue isn’t straws, it’s what’s done with them, the plastics industry said.
“The problem isn’t that straws exist; it’s that they aren’t disposed of properly,” said Scott DeFife, vice president of government affairs for the Plastics Industry Association.
“We need to make it easier for people to dispose of every plastic product properly,” he told Bloomberg Environment. “If it makes you feel good not to use a straw, that’s fine. But it’s okay to use that plastic straw, as long as you dispose of it properly.”
But some environmental groups claim the damage caused by straws is greater than their weight by volume.
“The fact that you can walk down almost any beach and find them littered all over is a problem,” said George Leonard, chief scientist for Ocean Conservancy, a Washington-based environmental nonprofit.
Leonard points out that plastic straws and stirrers pose a particular threat to birds and fish, which can mistake straws and plastic bags for food.
“These straw bans we’re seeing now aren’t just about straws,” he said. “It think it’s a good stepping stone, one that offers insight into how we engage with our environment.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/plastic-bans-spawn-market-for-375-gold-plated-tiffany-straws
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Report: Shareholder Pledges Do Little To Curb Emissions
Sep 7, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Benjamin Hulac
Major American oil and gas companies have failed to set meaningful plans to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, despite years' worth of pledges to do so, according to a new report.
Since 2012, investors have submitted 160 resolutions on climate change to 24 U.S. oil and gas firms with varying success, As You Sow, an environmental and investor advocacy group, said in a report released today.
But these overtures have failed to trigger any significant change within the American oil and gas industry, said Andrew Behar, one of the report authors and CEO of As You Sow.
"Other sectors respond to their shareholders with action," Behar said in a statement. "But oil and gas, even with majority votes, have not stepped up to address the growing risks to their companies, the broader economy, and our planet."
The research raises questions about the efficacy of stockholder resolutions in pushing fossil energy companies to change their corporate behavior, whether to address climate change or other socioeconomic issues. And the report makes a damning argument that industry has simply chugged along without heeding stockholders' demands.
Of the 24 companies analyzed, not one has a "life cycle" plan to address emissions.
"Instead, the vast majority of these companies are continuing business as usual investments to maintain or expand production," the summary reads. "Specifically, there has been no material progress in reducing" emissions attributable to consumers of oil and gas products downstream.
Resolutions, which investors must draw up well ahead of a company's annual meeting to get a vote before the broader stockholder pool, can deliver powerful symbolic messages to a company but are generally not legally binding.
Interest in climate and environmental topics among stockholders has surged since the Paris Agreement of 2015 (Climatewire, July 31).
"The fact that global greenhouse gas emissions and oil and gas company capital expenditures on exploration and production keep rising signals a fundamental limitation of the current shareholder engagement strategy," the report reads.
In their resolutions, stockholders urged the companies to tackle climate change in dozens of ways, including by limiting their releases of methane gas, meeting the goals of international climate treaties and studying the benefits of investing in low-carbon energy alternatives.
Behar said stockholders should change their approach, which is not working.
"We are at a crossroads," he said. "It's time to look at our progress objectively and chart a new course."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/09/07/stories/1060096313
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EPA Schedules Public Hearing On Power Plant Rule
Sep 7, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Niina Heikkinen
EPA has announced it will host a single public hearing on its proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan.
The all-day hearing will be held Oct. 1 at the Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building in Chicago, the home of EPA's Region 5 headquarters, according to a Federal Register notice published this week.
At issue is the proposed Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule that's meant to cut carbon emissions from power plants and provide guidelines on improving the plants' efficiency.
Unlike the rule it would replace, the Trump administration proposal doesn't provide specific emission targets but gives states broad authority to decide what degree of emissions reductions to seek.
EPA also said it's extending the comment period by a day to give the public 30 days to provide comment.
The single hearing contrasts to three public hearings EPA held in West Virginia, San Francisco and Wyoming to comment on the repeal of the Clean Power Plan.
The Sierra Club's director of climate policy, Liz Perera, blasted President Trump and acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler for planning just one public hearing.
"Given that Trump and Wheeler's proposal will result in upwards of 1,400 more premature deaths every year, it is quite clear that Trump and Wheeler are scared of the feedback they will get on their unpopular and illegal proposal from the American public," she said in a press release.
Speakers interested in preregistering for the event have until Sept. 24.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/09/07/stories/1060096319
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CASAC Panel Members Fault EPA Plan For NOx-SOx-PM Risk Assessment
Sep 10, 2018 | Insdie EPA
By Stuart Parker
Members of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) are faulting the agency's plan for assessing the environmental harms from emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx) and particulate matter (PM), warning it uses a confusing and narrow approach that echoes problems from a prior NOx-SOx combined review.
“This approach doesn't seem cogent, I can't grasp it. It just doesn't seem convincing,” said CASAC panelist and environmental consultant Praveen Amar. He was discussing the agency's proposed quantitative risk and exposure assessment (REA) to support its review of the “secondary” national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for the three criteria pollutants. Secondary standards are designed to protect the environment, unlike “primary” health-based NAAQS.
Amar was one of several members of a CASAC panel at a Sept. 5-6 meeting in Durham, NC, to address the REA plan. Panelists offered broad support for EPA's goal to evaluate risks of the three air pollutants using a metric based on deposition of air pollution in waterbodies -- but raised doubts about the viability of the agency's chosen approach.
EPA is trying to measure risk to the environment from the three criteria pollutants by using the concept of “critical loads” of pollution in the ecosystem, which are levels of pollution above which adverse effects are deemed to occur. Canada and the European Union have used critical loads for environmental regulatory purposes, but EPA has not adopted the approach for air standards, CASAC panelists said. And CASAC's input suggests concerns about the practicality of the agency being able to do so.
The REA revives an approach to setting the air standards that relies not on their concentrations in ambient air, but on the pollution deposited in waterbodies that causes environmental harm. In the last NOx-SOx review, concluded in 2012, the agency floated a novel concept known as the aquatic acidification index (AAI) to provide an “indicator” for the NAAQS. EPA has now included consideration of PM to the NOx-SOx secondary standards review for the first time.
But in 2012, then-Obama EPA chief Lisa Jackson instead opted to use conventional indicators based on concentrations of pollutants in ambient air, citing concerns over implementing the complex AAI concept.
EPA in a document outlining its REA approach says it will develop case studies based on areas 100 square kilometers in size, within which it will model pollution impacts at levels of air pollution “just meeting” the current NAAQS. But this approach involves a lot of work to determine what those pollution levels are, and how they equate to deposition of air pollution in water, panelists warned, which will complicate the agency's approach.
Amar said, “I don't know how one calculates backwards from critical loads to what needs to be done,” urging EPA to develop an alternative method that is “more direct, more policy-friendly.”
He also noted that senior government officials, and courts in any legal challenge, might struggle to understand the logic of the AAI and critical loads, should these serve as the basis for a new NAAQS rule.
'Tough Row To Hoe'
Donna Kenski, of the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium, called EPA's approach “a tough row to hoe,” but expressed confidence in EPA staff to accomplish the job. Other panelists were less sure.
Panelist Elizabeth Boyer, an environmental sciences professor at Pennsylvania State University, said EPA has crafted “a particularly weak conceptual model.” The model “seems very rural,” she said, because it is focused on impacts to national parks and wilderness areas, and requires greater explanation of why this is so. Also, equating changes in deposition to air emissions from industry might be “very hard, say in a court of law.”
Fellow panelist Lauraine Chestnut, an independent consultant, also cautioned the agency against exclusive focus on such wilderness areas. “We don't want to go down a path that is too narrow.”
One criticism leveled against the aquatic deposition-based approach in the prior review was that it would have determined NAAQS compliance on a regional basis, accounting for the different regional properties of waterbodies. Industry critics said this would result in de facto different regional standards, not a single national standard.
Panelist Richard Poirot, another independent consultant and a supporter of the deposition approach, also noted the problems inherent in modeling small areas, which is not necessarily a rational approach for the whole country, he said.
EPA is preparing the REA to support its review of “secondary” NAAQS for NOx, SOx and PM. Secondary NAAQS are intended to protect the environment, unlike primary NAAQS that are intended to protect public health. The agency hopes to publish the REA at the end of 2019, to coincide with the agency's policy assessment (PA) document outlining policy options for EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, EPA officials said.
CASAC members pressed EPA staff on why the REA is being released in parallel with the PA document, which would not give them time to review the REA that would then inform the PA.
EPA staff said that developing the two at once reflects past practice, and that if CASAC finds problems with the REA, then EPA will make fixes that would “ripple through” to the PA.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/casac-panel-members-fault-epa-plan-nox-sox-pm-risk-assessment
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The E.P.A.’s Review of Mercury Rules Could Remake Its Methods for Valuing Human Life and Health
Sep 7, 2018 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman
WASHINGTON — When writing environmental rules, one of the most important calculations involves weighing the financial costs against any gains in human life and health. The formulas are complex, but the bottom line is that reducing the emphasis on health makes it tougher to justify a rule.
Last week the Trump administration took a crucial step toward de-emphasizing the life and health benefits in this calculus when the Environmental Protection Agency said it would rethink a major regulation that restricts mercury emissions by coal-burning power plants.
The 2011 mercury rule — based on decades of research showing that mercury damages the brain, lungs and fetal health — is among the costliest but most effective clean-air policies put forth by the Environmental Protection Agency. Utilities estimate they have spent $18 billion installing clean-air technology, and mercury pollution has fallen by nearly 70 percent.
Modifying the rule could have an impact far beyond any immediate concerns about the release of toxic mercury into the air and water. In fact, the re-evaluation fits into a far-reaching administration strategy to loosen environmental rules affecting countless other industries for years to come by adjusting the factors used to judge the benefits to human health that the rule has brought.
“This goes way beyond just weakening the mercury rule,” said Alan Krupnick, an economist at Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan Washington research organization. “This is part of a change that would give the Trump administration a way to more easily justify loosening many other pollution regulations, such as rules on smog, and rules on climate-change pollution.”
For example, Mr. Krupnick and other experts said, tweaking the formulas could also make it easier for the E.P.A. to justify its separate proposal last month to replace the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era rule that was designed to cut global-warming emissions from power plants.
The electric utilities that operate the nation’s coal-fired plants, and thus are heavily affected by the mercury rule, are urging the administration to leave the rule alone. They have already spent billions of dollars to become compliant, the utilities say, so changes are of little benefit to them.
“It’s in our rearview mirror, so we want to stick with what we’ve done,” said Shannon Brushe, a spokeswoman for Duke Energy, one of the nation’s largest utilities. “We want to be able to plan our investments for the future, but if they change the rules, that becomes difficult.”
The E.P.A. has said it is reviewing whether the rule is “appropriate and necessary.” That’s legal shorthand, based on a 2015 Supreme Court decision, for assessing whether the costs of compliance outweigh the benefits: The court found that the agency must assess industry’s compliance costs in determining whether a regulation is appropriate and necessary, but kept the rule in place. The. E.P.A. under the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to delay the rule while it decides whether to continue to defend it in court.
Because of that, according to conservative groups that have welcomed the review, a loosening of the mercury rule would fit into a broader effort to fundamentally change the agency’s formulas for its cost-benefit reviews.
This past June, Scott Pruitt, who was the E.P.A.’s administrator at the time, called for a new way of calculating the costs and benefits of environmental regulations. “Many have complained that the previous administration inflated the benefits and underestimated the costs of its regulations through questionable cost-benefit analysis,” he said at the time. Under Andrew L. Wheeler, who became the E.P.A.’s acting administrator when Mr. Pruitt stepped down in July amid scandals, the agency is still considering an overhaul.
Nicolas Loris, an economist with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has championed President Trump’s environmental deregulatory agenda, said that rewriting the mercury rule by placing different values on the health costs of mercury pollution could help end what he called the E.P.A.’s “egregious abuse” of the way it measures winners and losers. “This could be part of a broader approach,” he said.
Public health advocates say that the reformulation of the mercury rule, along with efforts to limit the type of scientific studies the E.P.A. will allow to inform its understanding of how pollution affects human health, will weaken the agency’s ability to write new pollution standards in the future. “All of this is leading up to a real sea change in the way this agency, which is supposed to be a public health and environment agency, thinks about the value of reducing air pollution from coal plants,” said Ann Weeks, senior counsel for the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group.
The mercury rule, she said, “is where the rubber hits the road.”
John Konkus, a spokesman for the E.P.A., said that the agency “knows these issues are of importance to the regulated community and the public at large and is committed to a thoughtful and transparent regulatory process in addressing them.”
The calculations that the E.P.A. conducts for every major new air or water regulation lie at the philosophical heart of the agency’s work. And its process for that analysis has long been in industry’s cross hairs.What on Earth Is Going On?
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That’s because the agency has long counted not just the direct health benefits of pulling a certain pollutant out of the atmosphere, but also what are called the “co-benefits” that occur when, as a result, other toxins are also reduced.
For example, in the case of the mercury rule, the Obama administration found between $4 million to $6 million in health benefits directly from curbing mercury. But it further justified the regulation by citing an additional $80 billion in health benefits a year by, among other things, preventing as many as 11,000 premature deaths. Those savings come from a reduction in particulate matter linked to heart and lung disease that also occurs when cutting mercury emissions.
Mr. Konkus, the E.P.A. spokesman, said last week, “One of a number of issues E.P.A. is assessing in the context of the appropriate and necessary analysis is whether and how to account for co-benefits.”
A powerful array of business groups including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Home Builders and leaders in the coal industry say the E.P.A. has for too long ignored or downplayed in its formulas the costs of regulations to their businesses.
One of the fiercest critics is Robert E. Murray, the C.E.O. of Murray Energy Corp., who has donated to Mr. Trump’s inauguration fund, and has served as a chief counselor to the president on his efforts to revive the nation’s flagging coal industry. Mr. Murray helped underwrite lawsuits that Republican attorneys general and industry groups brought against the mercury rule. He cited its repeal as one of his top priorities in letters last year to cabinet heads.
Mr. Murray is also a former lobbying client of Mr. Wheeler, the current acting administrator of the E.P.A. who joined the agency after spending nearly a decade as the coal executive’s top attorney.
Mr. Konkus said that Mr. Wheeler did not work on the mercury issue when he served a lobbyist for Mr. Murray, and said Mr. Wheeler did not lobby the agency at all in the two years before joining in April. Mr. Wheeler signed a statement in which he recused himself from working with former clients, including Murray Energy, until April 2020.
“For years E.P.A. has inconsistently analyzed the costs and benefits of its regulations, adding speculative and ill-defined benefits while ignoring important costs,” Mr. Murray’s company argued this year to the agency, asking for the E.P.A. to “avoid overstating the benefits of its regulations and understating their costs.”
For Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers, reworking the E.P.A.’s formula is far from academic. He blames the mercury rule’s high costs for the loss of about 2,000 jobs in the coal industry and criticized the cost-benefit metrics used by the E.P.A. for not giving enough weight to the real-world costs of miners losing jobs.
“People have lost their health care benefits, people have lost their dental benefits and there’s a cost to that too,” Mr. Smith said.
But in Evansville, Ind., where President Trump campaigned Thursday and relayed that he ran into nine coal miners “crying out of happiness” over his aid to the industry, there is also deep fear that E.P.A.’s changes will make health consequences worse. Evansville is within 30 miles of four particularly large plants that produce millions of tons of toxic air pollution annually.
“Everywhere you look it’s just coal-fired power plants,” said Mary Lyn Stoll, an environmental activist and philosophy professor at University of Southern Indiana. “They want to stop doing something the government was doing to protect people.”
Utilities, meanwhile, are expressing concern that they spent millions of dollars unnecessarily, hurting their bottom lines and costing customers higher electric bills.
“The lion’s share of the cost was one-time investments to technology to capture mercury pollution,” said Dallas Burtraw, an expert in the electric utility industry at Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan Washington research organization. “Now the money has been spent. Companies aren’t going to get it back.”
While Duke Energy initially opposed the mercury regulation before it was put into effect in 2011, the company has since complied with it at plants like the Cayuga station, a coal-fired power generator in west Indiana that lights up about one million homes. In 2013, Duke spent about $400 million and hired about 300 construction workers to install a 200-foot tall unit made of chemical-coated steel plates, which captures mercury and converts it into a different substance, which is then removed by chemical “scrubbers” already present in the plant.
American Electric Power, an Ohio-based electric utility that generates power in 11 states, spent $388.4 million to install similar technology at a plant in Cason, Tex. Mercury pollution at the plant has since gone down 90 percent, said Melissa McHenry, a spokeswoman for the company, in an email.
“Although we disagreed with provisions of the rule when it was being promulgated, our controls are in place and compliance is being achieved,” Ms. McHenry wrote. “We have worked with our state regulatory commissions to recover costs for the investments made for compliance. We believe a disruption in the mercury program at this point is not needed.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/07/climate/epa-mercury-life-cost-benefit.html
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