Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - September 10, 2018
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(ACC Blog) EPA + Asbestos SNUR process = Prohibiting the use of Asbestos in Building Materials
Sep 10, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters
By Todd Sims
Given some recent, and understandably, confusing news coverage of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ongoing actions on asbestos, we recognize we need to do a better job of explaining a complicated federal regulatory process. -
Members of Congress from Both Sides of the Aisle Show Concern About PFAS Water Contamination Crisis at Hearing
Sep 7, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Liz Hitchcock
This week the House Energy and Commerce Environment Subcommittee held a hearing on perfluorinated (PFAS) chemicals in the environment. Millions of people across the United States are exposed to drinking water contaminated by toxic PFAS chemicals. -
Bayer Officials Vague on How They'll Handle Monsanto Suits
Sep 10, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
By Christopher Walljasper
It's been three weeks since the merger between Bayer AG and Monsanto Co. officially began its integration, about two months since the deal closed, and nearly two years since the planned deal was announced. -
(ACC Mentioned) Pasadena’s Parsons Selected as Engineering Partner for $3.4 Billion Appalachia Underground Storage Facility
Sep 10, 2018 | Pasadena Now
Pasadena-based engineering giant Parsons Corporation has been selected as the engineering, procurement and construction partner of Appalachia Development Group, based in Charleston, Virginia, for $3.4 billion build-out of the proposed Appalachia Storage and Trading Hub, a regional underground storage facility for highly valuable natural gas liquids and intermediates. -
Small-Scale LNG Export Bill Passes House With Bipartisan Support
Sep 10, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
A bill that calls for expedited small-scale exports of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) on Thursday passed the House with bipartisan support. -
Offshore Crude Oil Terminal Could Cost Corpus Christi Port Millions
Sep 10, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
The Port of Corpus Christi is resisting a proposed offshore crude oil loading and export terminal that could cost the port millions of dollars of revenue. -
Calif. Will Test for Air Pollutants Near Petroleum Wells
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Anne C. Mulkern
California will test for air pollution around oil and gas drilling sites in four communities and post the results. -
North Dakota Geologists Dig Into Mysteries of Fracking Sand
Sep 10, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Acknowledging that it is somewhat of a long shot, North Dakota energy and geologic officials are re-evaluating whether sands in the state could be used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which has fueled the oil and natural gas boom in the Bakken Shale. -
The Biggest Challenge Facing Shale Oil Could Be Overcoming Its Own Success
Sep 10, 2018 | Forbes
By Dan Eberhart
If you follow energy markets at all, you know that prices on the Brent global oil benchmark have traded within a robust band of $70 to $80 a barrel for the last five months. -
Attempt to Hasten Compliance with Chemical Safety Law Overruled
Sep 10, 2018 | The Chemical Engineer
By Amanda Doyle
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not have to comply with the Chemical Disaster Rule until at least October, after an attempt to enforce the rule immediately was blocked. -
House Railroad Subcommittee to Hold PTC Hearing
Sep 10, 2018 | Progressive Rail Roading
The House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials on Thursday will review the status of the railroad industry's implementation of positive train control (PTC). -
House Judiciary Panel Approves Environmental Permitting Efficiency Bill
Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
The House Judiciary Committee has approved legislation that supporters say is necessary to stop unreasonable delays in environmental permitting that prevent infrastructure projects from moving forward, but which critics say is an attempt to chill public engagement and undermine principles of good government. -
Kavanaugh Shortchanges 'People on the Other Side' — Witness
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Senators and legal experts spent much of Friday afternoon unpacking Brett Kavanaugh's administrative law record, touching on everything from judicial deference to cost-benefit analyses. -
Kavanaugh’s Views on EPA’s Climate Authority Are Dangerous and Wrong
Sep 10, 2018 | The Guardian
By Dana Nuccitelli
Donald Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh accepts that humans are causing global warming and we need to take action to stop it. The problem is that he doesn’t trust the experts at EPA to do so and wants to erode their authority to regulate carbon pollution. -
EPA to Scrap 4 Obama-Era Haze Plans
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
EPA, signaling at least a symbolic step back from the Obama administration's approach, will end federal implementation plans (FIPs) for four states promulgated in 2012 under the umbrella of the regional haze program. -
Conservative Carbon Plan Could Top Paris Goals — Analysis
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Nick Sobczyk
The Climate Leadership Council thinks its carbon tax proposal could put the U.S. on track to exceed its goals under the Paris climate agreement. -
Yellen Touts Carbon Tax as ‘Textbook Solution’ to Climate Change
Sep 10, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Jennifer A Dlouhy
Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen says a tax on carbon dioxide emissions would do more to combat climate change than a slew of federal environmental regulations being undone by the Trump administration. -
Poll Finds Support for Business-Backed Carbon Tax Plan
Sep 10, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A carbon tax backed by some big businesses and former Republican officials has the support of most voters, a survey commissioned by the group backing it found. -
Moniz Group Launches 'Substantial' CO2 Air Capture Project
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
A think tank led by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced today it was developing a federal plan to promote technologies for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. -
U.N. Head Aims to Create 'Sense of Urgency' Among Nations
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
The United Nations' top official will call on world leaders today to ready new commitments and step up action on climate change ahead of his high-level summit in New York in 12 months' time.
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(ACC Blog) EPA + Asbestos SNUR process = Prohibiting the use of Asbestos in Building Materials
Sep 10, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters
By Todd Sims
Given some recent, and understandably, confusing news coverage of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ongoing actions on asbestos, we recognize we need to do a better job of explaining a complicated federal regulatory process.
There has been a lot of inaccurate, and often times conflicting, news coverage of EPA’s ongoing actions on asbestos. Federal regulatory processes are complex and their implications can often be misunderstood or misinterpreted.
So let us give clarity a try: ACC is in synch with the building, design and construction industry that asbestos should continue to be restricted from use in the modern built environment and ACC supports EPA’s proposed regulatory path to continue to restrict uses.
EPA’s Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) on asbestos authorizes two key agency actions. First, it cements the restriction of asbestos in building and construction products that haven’t appeared in decades. Second, it requires manufacturers to make the EPA aware of any potential new uses of asbestos, further enabling EPA to regulate and restrict any proposed new uses based on a rigorous safety review.
Without this robust federal regulatory process, manufacturers could bring asbestos back into building materials without EPA approval.
The SNUR empowers EPA to conduct a rigorous safety review of any such new uses.
While concerns about the potential new uses of asbestos in building materials are understandable, opposition to the EPA asbestos SNUR is misplaced.
In order to be AGAINST using asbestos in building and construction materials, you have to be FOR what EPA is trying to do in the SNUR process. ACC supports EPA’s efforts.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2018/09/epa-asbestos-snur-process-prohibiting-the-use-of-asbestos-in-building-materials/
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Sep 7, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Liz Hitchcock
This week the House Energy and Commerce Environment Subcommittee held a hearing on perfluorinated (PFAS) chemicals in the environment. Millions of people across the United States are exposed to drinking water contaminated by toxic PFAS chemicals.
PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, is a family of more than four thousand chemicals that are used as grease-proofing and waterproofing agents. They are used in firefighting foam, food packaging, non-stick pans, clothing, building materials and manufacturing processes. While the most notorious of these “forever” chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, have been phased out of manufacturing in the U.S., their legacy of contamination persists. The chemical industry, meanwhile, has introduced thousands of newer chemicals in the same toxic “family,” such as a chemical known as GenX, continuing to put public health at risk.
In an oversight hearing, the committee heard from Dr. Peter Grevatt from the U.S. EPA’s Office of Water, and Maureen Sullivan, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment from the U.S. Department of Defense. Concerns were raised on both sides of the aisle about how much the federal government is doing to mitigate the contamination of water systems.
Our partner Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council testified about the dangers of PFAS and asked that a letter to the committee organized by Safer Chemicals Healthy Families and endorsed by 51 local, state, and national organizations be entered into the hearing record. His testimony began by stating the breadth of the problem:
PFAS are the new PCBs—but they may be more widespread and dangerous. They are toxic at extremely low, parts per trillion levels. They don’t break down and have become ubiquitous in the environment. Just two of them (PFOA and PFOS) are present in more than 6 million Americans’ tap water at unsafe levels, according to a Harvard study. Considering recent data showing that extremely low levels of these compounds and an array of other PFAS are harmful, it is likely that tens of millions of U.S. residents may have unsafe PFAS levels in their tap water. Indeed, PFAS are now found in the bodies of more than 98% of Americans—probably in every one of you, your families, and your constituents.
Members on both sides of the aisle recounted stories of contamination in their own communities – from Michigan Reps. Fred Upton (R) and Debbie Dingell (D) to New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone (D), and North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson (R) whose district includes Fayetteville where the residents have been affected by the PFAS chemical GenX in their drinking water.
One southeastern North Carolina resident, Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, gave heart-wrenching testimony about how the presence of perflourinated chemicals in her local drinking water may already be impacting her family and friends:
I am here to testify that Wilmington and Fayetteville area residents are already showing signs of obscure and rare cancers, immune disorders and diseases in populations far too young to pass off as normal.
How many of your friends are battling cancer? I’m 41 and my friend Sarah is battling stage three colon cancer. My friend Tom has terminal brain and bone cancer. My friend Kara, an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, has stage three breast cancer and had her gallbladder stop working. My friend Margaret has a rare bone cancer. And my friend Robert has leukemia and bladder cancer. And my own husband had a benign brain tumor and almost lost his eyesight. I’m frightened.
“It’s time to figure out what can be done right now and what needs to be done to respond appropriately to legitimate risks created by PFAS contamination in the environment,” said Subcommittee Chairman John Shimkus (R-IL).
Carol Isaacs, who directs the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team, began by reminding the committee that PFAS is not just a Michigan problem, but a national issue. Ms. Isaacs made a very compelling case for federal agency coordination and assistance for all states, including funding for Department of Defense for remediation of contamination from military installations.
Safer Chemicals Healthy Families looks forward to further work with our coalition partners and with Congressional offices to identify and support solutions to address the PFAS crisis.
https://saferchemicals.org/2018/09/07/members-of-congress-from-both-sides-of-the-aisle-show-concern-about-pfas-water-contamination-crisis-at-hearing/
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Bayer Officials Vague on How They'll Handle Monsanto Suits
Sep 10, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
By Christopher Walljasper
It's been three weeks since the merger between Bayer AG and Monsanto Co. officially began its integration, about two months since the deal closed, and nearly two years since the planned deal was announced.
Despite that, newly appointed Bayer officials are vague on how they plan to handle the mountain of lawsuits inherited from Monsanto over pesticides such as glyphosate and dicamba.
These lawsuits have plagued Monsanto, most recently in an Aug. 10 court decision that ordered the company to pay $289 million in damages (Greenwire, Aug. 13).
But at the recent Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, Brett Begemann, Bayer's new chief operating officer and former Monsanto executive, was noncommittal on the newly integrated company's approach.
Begemann highlighted that the companies had only been together for a short time because of the mandate by the Department of Justice that disallowed the two companies from making any plans until Aug. 16.
"We continue to learn, just like any company, from feedback from our customers," he said. "We'll continue to listen to that feedback, engage in that conversation, look at additional research and move on from there."
Of the recent verdict over glyphosate, Begemann said it doesn't change the way the company plans to move forward.
"I would look at that as one case — doesn't change 800 scientific studies, it doesn't change 40 years of use, it doesn't change the incredible value that products brought to agriculture and consumers worldwide. We're thoroughly supportive of the product and will continue through the legal process that's available to us," said Begemann.
After the Aug. 10 decision against Monsanto, Bayer's stock prices dipped 10 percent. That doesn't bode well for future litigation against the newly merged company.
While Roundup, the commercial name for the chemical glyphosate, is the subject of more than 8,000 lawsuits against Monsanto, dicamba has only been in use for soybeans for three years. But in that time, it's attracted 37 lawsuits over damage to crops.
Dicamba has been hailed as Monsanto's solution to weeds that have become resistant to glyphosate in recent years, wreaking havoc on soybean fields across the Midwest. But as effective as it was on weeds, dicamba also has the ability to damage soybeans, cotton and specialty crops that are not genetically modified to withstand the chemical.
By July of last year, university weed scientists estimated more than 2.5 million acres of soybeans had been damaged by dicamba, according to Kevin Bradley, professor of plant sciences at the University of Missouri. By the end of 2017, that estimate would jump to 3.6 million acres. One dispute over damage in northern Arkansas led to a man's murder.
As a result, EPA placed greater restrictions on the chemical in early 2018, and eight states added further safety measures and training requirements. Monsanto cautioned against the application of reactionary restrictions.
"We sympathize with any farmers experiencing crop injury, but the decision to ban dicamba in Arkansas was premature since the causes of any crop injury have not been fully investigated. While we do not sell dicamba products in Arkansas, we are concerned this abrupt decision in the middle of a growing season will negatively impact many farmers in Arkansas," Monsanto said in a 2017 statement.
The company argues that any damage was due to a failure by operators to follow the extensive label, which outlines proper use of the chemical, and not the fault of the company.
But a lawsuit filed by the National Family Farm Coalition in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals claims EPA's two-year approval of dicamba in 2016 was unlawful, stating Monsanto influenced the registration process and EPA didn't follow the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act and the Endangered Species Act.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/09/10/stories/1060096355
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Sep 10, 2018 | Pasadena Now
Pasadena-based engineering giant Parsons Corporation has been selected as the engineering, procurement and construction partner of Appalachia Development Group, based in Charleston, Virginia, for $3.4 billion build-out of the proposed Appalachia Storage and Trading Hub, a regional underground storage facility for highly valuable natural gas liquids and intermediates.
Under the agreement with the Group, Parsons will initially focus on the project’s front-end engineering and design, including project management and execution planning, according to an Appalachia Development Group statement.
Subsequently, Parsons will build and operate the project.
“After a rigorous review process of some of the most widely known and respected EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) companies in the country, we are pleased to announce the selection of Parsons as our EPC partner,” Steven B. Hedrick, ADG President and CEO, said in a company statement. “Parsons has proven and successful experience with complex infrastructure projects. I have confidence in Parsons’s ability to support the development and completion of the Hub safely, effectively and efficiently.”
Carey Smith, President of Parsons’ federal business unit, said the Pasadena corporation is honored to have been selected as a partner on this “critically important project that will ultimately support the economic and energy security needs of so many communities and citizens, including economic revitalization of the Ohio River Valley states.”
The ASTH, as a built-for-purpose facility, is expected to bring significant commercial activity and creates jobs in the Appalachian region. A statement from the American Chemistry Council said the project would serve as a catalyst for an estimated $36 billion in follow-on petrochemical investments and more than 100,000 new long-term jobs.
The ASTH is also expected to increase the probability of American energy dominance by releasing the potential of the Marcellus, Utica and Rogersville Shale methane deposits for both domestic consumption and international consumption by America’s allies, the ADG statement said.
Early this year, ADG said it has applied for a $1.9 billion loan guarantee with the U.S. Department of Energy to support the development of infrastructure for the ASTH. The company said it continues to work to secure some $1.4 billion in equity investment for the project.
Parsons Corporation, whose headquarters are at 100 W. Walnut Street in Pasadena, has nearly 75 years of experience serving federal, regional and local government agencies, focusing on the defense, security and infrastructure markets. The company is qualified to deliver cyber-physical security, advanced technology solutions, and other innovative services to customers, which includes private industries worldwide.
For over seven decades, Parsons has been a trusted partner on over 700 oil and gas infrastructure projects.
http://www.pasadenanow.com/main/pasadenas-parsons-selected-as-engineering-partner-for-3-4-billion-appalachia-underground-storage-facility/
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Small-Scale LNG Export Bill Passes House With Bipartisan Support
Sep 10, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
A bill that calls for expedited small-scale exports of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) on Thursday passed the House with bipartisan support.
House Resolution (HR) 4606, aka the Ensuring Small Scale LNG Certainty and Access Act, calls for amending the Natural Gas Act by allowing the Department of Energy (DOE) to issue an export authorization for any complete application that proposes exports of up to 140 MMcf/d, and which does not require an environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act.
HR 4606, which passed on a 26-146 vote, with 37 Democrats and 223 Republicans voting in favor, now moves on to the Senate. Three Republicans and 143 Democrats were opposed.
DOE proposed a rule one year ago for quicker approval of small-scale LNG exports, especially to countries in the Caribbean, Central America and South America. Last October, DOE's Regulatory Reform Task Force issued a final report reaffirming the proposed rule. A final rule was published in July in the Federal Register and took effect on Aug. 24.
"This legislation would ensure that the DOE rule will become law and not subject to the whims of future presidential administrations and policies," said Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH), the bill's co-sponsor. "The Senate needs to take the baton from us and pass this legislation so it can be signed into law."
Before the final vote, the House rejected amendments proposed by Reps. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Diana DeGette (D-CO). Lawmakers also turned back a motion to recommit by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ).
"Our neighbors in South America, Central America and the Caribbean are praying for American LNG instead of fuel oil from unstable and collapsing Venezuela," Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) said before the vote against the Coleman motion. "Let's answer those prayers today."
Johnson introduced the bill last December. It passed the muster of the House Subcommittee on Energy in April.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/115718-small-scale-lng-export-bill-passes-house-with-bipartisan-support
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Offshore Crude Oil Terminal Could Cost Corpus Christi Port Millions
Sep 10, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
The Port of Corpus Christi is resisting a proposed offshore crude oil loading and export terminal that could cost the port millions of dollars of revenue.
The offshore Texas Gulf Terminals project being proposed by Swiss-based commodities trader Trafigura would be able to fill some of the largest crude oil tankers, called Very Large Crude Carriers or VLCCs, at a rate of 500,000 barrels a day some 13 miles offshore.
The move comes as the Port of Corpus Christi examines its own VLCC-capable crude oil export terminal at Harbor Island, which is situated just 2 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico across from the tourist town of Port Aransas.
If constructed and completed the terminal could threaten some of the Port of Corpus Christi's core business, crude oil exports, impacting the amount of crude tonnage leaving the port and the associated revenues. A report by Morningstar, Inc., a independent investment research firm, says the port could stand to lose $11.8 million or 12 percent of its operating revenue a year if the Trafigura terminal is put into operation.
RELATED: Oil exports exceed imports for first time on Texas Gulf Coast
The Port of Corpus Christi has filed two objections to Trafigura's permit application, which is being made through its subsidiary Texas Gulf Terminals, according to Morningstar
The first objection, filed with the U.S. Maritime Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, pointed to the omission of Trafigura's federal conviction for 2001 breaches of sanctions related to the United Nations' oil for food program in Iraq. The port also claims there are details missing in the application related to Trafigura's ownership of Texas Gulf Terminals.
In the second objection the port brings issue with the designation of the corporate and project data contained in Texas Gulf Terminals' application as confidential.
A Trafigura spokesperson said the company has provided the required regulatory information to governmental authorities.
The spokesperson said the company sees "enormous economic opportunity" from U.S. crude oil exports, and that it expects U.S. exports overall to surge to 4.8 million barrels a day by 2022. The Texas Gulf Terminal project would handle around 10 percent of this flow and "will complement, not replace, exports from the Port of Corpus Christi."
Oil companies and traders have taken an increasing interest to exporting U.S. crude oil over the last year, as U.S. crude production has continued to grow and exports have skyrocketed. Multiple offshore projects have been announced including one by Enterprise Products Partners offshore of Galveston.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Offshore-crude-oil-terminal-could-cost-Corpus-13217825.php
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Calif. Will Test for Air Pollutants Near Petroleum Wells
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Anne C. Mulkern
California will test for air pollution around oil and gas drilling sites in four communities and post the results.
The state said it is part of an effort to clean the air in what it called the most impacted areas.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) will run the analyses in two locations in Kern County, located in the state's Central Valley, and two in Los Angeles County. Those counties have some of the highest levels of oil and gas drilling in the state.
Monitoring will start near the Lost Hills Oil Field in Kern County. It was picked to go first because there is "very high well density and oil production volume in the adjacent oil field," CARB said in a statement.
Many local community groups are available for potential partnerships, and community members who attended earlier public meetings wanted testing, CARB added.
The other site chosen in Kern County is McKittrick and Derby Acres near the McKittrick Oil Field and Midway-Sunset Oil Field. Those communities "are surrounded by a high density of wells and are also located near oil and gas produced water pond systems," CARB said.
The locations in Los Angeles County are in the community of Baldwin Hills near the Inglewood Oil Field and South Los Angeles near the Las Cienegas Oil Field.
The air agency picked South Los Angeles because of "localized well pads that might make monitoring site selection more straightforward," CARB said. As well, the area has lower-income and disadvantaged residents, and there's "the potential for partnerships with community groups representing the area."
It selected Baldwin Hills because of "the very high well density and production volume in the nearby field (Inglewood Oil Field); significant offers of support and coordination from local government, community groups, and a school district"; and data from a previous study on methane exposures "suggesting potential air pollution impacts."
The four sites were chosen out of a possible 56 locations.
Rock Zierman, CEO with the California Independent Petroleum Association, criticized the study. The trade group represents petroleum producers, royalty owners, and service and supply companies.
"Science based data is always good to have to properly evaluate any adjustments to regulations," he said in an email. "Unfortunately, this study is starting out skewed since it is only looking at one possible source of emissions, oil production, which we already know is small compared to other sources, particularly mobile sources."
Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the oil trade group Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), also found fault with the studies.
"The community selection process should be standardized, data-driven and consistent across all air districts and not skewed to disproportionately examine just one source of emissions," she said.
Under the program, CARB will put stationary trailers with monitoring equipment in communities for up to four months. Equipment on the trailers can measure toxic air contaminants, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, metals and criteria pollutants.
CARB plans to then analyze the data to see how much the communities are exposed to the pollutants.
If needed, the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment will conduct more in-depth tests.
Some air monitoring data will be posted in real-time, CARB said. It plans to publish an analysis of results for each site.
Click here to see the testing sites.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/09/10/stories/1060096323
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North Dakota Geologists Dig Into Mysteries of Fracking Sand
Sep 10, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Acknowledging that it is somewhat of a long shot, North Dakota energy and geologic officials are re-evaluating whether sands in the state could be used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which has fueled the oil and natural gas boom in the Bakken Shale.
As oil and gas operators continue to advance various drilling efficiencies, the role of fracking keeps evolving, including the use of ever-greater volumes of sand in the proppant for the process -- now about 5,000 tons per frack job. In turn, operators are looking for new and more local sources of sand.
"It has been estimated that demand for proppants will be in the millions of tons and potentially billions of dollars in order to fully develop all of the Bakken/Three Forks reservoirs," state officials concluded.
In North Dakota, the state Geological Survey is studying various potential sources in the state for "Eolian" (i.e. windblown) sand. Fred Anderson, a state geologist, has been re-evaluating studies conducted in 2011 that concluded if local sand were used "it would likely require several mechanical processing and chemical refinement steps."
After completing some of the current re-evaluation work in response to requests from North Dakota Petroleum Council (NDPC) members, Anderson told NGI's Shale Daily that it is "likely that the equation to make this work in North Dakota will include the need for an adequate sized sand deposit that is close to the heart of the Bakken activity."
Anderson said local sand would have to be "processed to produce viable quantities of quartz and sand proppant...significant process and material refinement are likely to be needed in order to make [North Dakota's] deposits work." The 2011 studies confirmed that quartz percentages in the North Dakota sand supplies range from 45-68% -- not high enough for good proppant.
NDPC President Ron Ness told local news media that the council's operators are serious about finding an in-state source of sand to save on transportation costs. Current supplies from Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin have the spherical and close-to-pure quartz supplies the industry needs. But as the demand for sand continues to grow, the industry has indicated willingness to accept lesser quality supplies than they would have a decade earlier.
Part of the state geologists' analysis has been to study gradations of samples from 20 selected sand areas in western, north-central and eastern North Dakota. The samples have been 91% sand, with the remainder silt (5%) and clay (4%), Anderson noted in his latest report for the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR).
If a viable sand source were identified in the state, DMR would regulate the mining operations under its subsurface minerals program, according to state geologist Edward Murphy.
Samples have been tested against three recommended standards for proppant sand -- International Organization for Standards, American National Standards Institute, and the American Petroleum Institute (API). The standards look at grain size distribution determinations, crush resistance, HCL-HF acid solubility, density and apparent (specific gravity) densities.
In 2014, the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources said a study completed by the University of South Dakota found the state's grains did not meet API specifications for proppant sand. South Dakota officials had been hoping to cash in on the oil and natural gas boom in the Williston Basin.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/115723-north-dakota-geologists-dig-into-mysteries-of-fracking-sand
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The Biggest Challenge Facing Shale Oil Could Be Overcoming Its Own Success
Sep 10, 2018 | Forbes
By Dan Eberhart
If you follow energy markets at all, you know that prices on the Brent global oil benchmark have traded within a robust band of $70 to $80 a barrel for the last five months. But such prices are a pipe dream – literally – for U.S. shale producers, particularly those in the prolific Permian Basin which accounts for more than a third of all domestic production at nearly 3.4 million barrels a day.
Permian producers are fetching closer to $50 a barrel due to the lack of takeaway capacity – pipelines and associated infrastructure – that would allow them to efficiently export oil from the Gulf of Mexico coast to global markets. Producers are instead being forced to use less efficient railways and trucks or worse put it in storage. With prices for oil in future months cheaper than prompt or “spot” crude orders – a situation known as “backwardation” – this play is a money loser for producers who must also pay storage fees.
Meanwhile, production costs are on the rise. Prices for oil services, for drilling and fracking wells, were not going to stay depressed forever, and with the massive job cuts in response to the oil price collapse of 2014, the industry now finds itself in a tight and increasingly expensive labor market. The upshot is a glut of Permian crude at Midland, Texas and a record number of drilled-but-uncompleted (DUC) wells in the region – estimated around 3,500 DUCs. The Trump administration’s tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, materials the industry uses to drill wells and build pipelines and other infrastructure, are adding further cost pressure.
Despite all this, domestic crude oil production – driven by the prolific Permian – is expected to grow by 1.3 million barrels-a-day this year, effectively satisfying growth in global oil demand. But such explosive growth rates can no longer be taken for granted in future years, and there’s a genuine risk that the great shale machine could bog down, a victim of its success in many ways. A growing number of oil industry executives have spoken out about the potential for transportation bottlenecks to derail America’s energy boom.
Schlumberger CEO Paal Kibsgaard recently warned that bottlenecks in the Permian, which have pushed the local price of oil to four-year lows, could have a “dampening effect” on production growth and investment levels in the coming year. Kibsgaard, head of the world’s largest oilfield services provider, also said the market consensus that Permian output will continue to grow by nearly 1.5 million barrels a day is “starting to be called into question.”
The good news is that additional pipeline capacity of nearly 2 million barrels a day is expected to come online by the end of 2019. However, this does not necessarily mean that the days of heavily discounted Permian oil will end. Refiners along the Gulf Coast have no use for more light, sweet shale oil, which means these incremental barrels must be exported. Additional pipeline capacity helps, but port facilities also play a huge role in the efficient movement of America’s current oil output.
Most Gulf Coast ports are in inland waterways that lack access to the open ocean. This reality means they can’t handle the new class of large tankers that are the most efficient and preferred method for shipping the growing volumes of shale export oil. Presently, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) is the only facility deep enough to load the biggest tankers. A massive undertaking of building out the port at Corpus Christi is needed but efforts there have been slow.
Shale oil production also comes with large amounts of associated natural gas. Associated gas often does not have a commercial market. Some of it is flared but environmental regulations dictate that only a small portion can be burned off at the wellhead. The issue of associated gas is already emerging as a problem for shale players, particularly in North Dakota’s Bakken. Shale operators in the Bakken have started to shut down rigs and scale back well completions to avoid violating the state’s 85% gas-capture target. In the Permian, an estimated $1 million of gas is burned off every day because there aren’t enough pipelines to get it to market.
Global crude oil prices, OPEC and investor demand for greater capital efficiency were once seen as the biggest threats to continued growth in the shale fields. No more. The sector has managed to clear all of those hurdles. With the upstream resource proven to be of world-class quality, the most significant challenges lie further “downstream” with pipelines, ports, infrastructure and in dealing with associated gas efficiently and in an environmentally responsible manner.
Given the scale of these challenges, it’s no surprise to see major oil companies seizing bigger positions in shale fields, most recently with BP’s $10 billion acquisition of BHP-Billiton’s U.S. onshore assets. Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell are also moving more aggressively into American shale. The independents who pioneered shale production will always have a place in the sector, but it may take the financial strength and integrated solutions that only the big majors can offer to keep shale on the long-term growth path.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daneberhart/2018/09/10/shales-latest-challenge-is-overcoming-its-own-success/#549297c72261
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Attempt to Hasten Compliance with Chemical Safety Law Overruled
Sep 10, 2018 | The Chemical Engineer
By Amanda Doyle
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not have to comply with the Chemical Disaster Rule until at least October, after an attempt to enforce the rule immediately was blocked.
The Chemical Disaster Rule aims to improve safety at chemical facilities and ensure that the public and first responders are informed of hazardous materials or health risks. The EPA has been delaying the Obama-era law since January 2017, however a federal court ruling on 17 August deemed the delay unlawful. On 24 August, environmental groups and Democrat state attorneys general called on the court to skip the traditional 52-day waiting period to enforce the ruling and to issue an expedited mandate to bring the law into effect straight away.
“Petitioners and the public have a strong interest in the court’s mandate issuing promptly, due to the serious and irreparable harm and imminent threats to public health and safety that the EPA’s Delay Rule is causing,” the petitioners said in their motion for an expedited mandate. They emphasised that oil refineries and chemical facilities along the Gulf Coast should be immediately subjected to the Chemical Disaster Rule now that hurricane season has arrived.
On 31 August the DC Circuit Court granted the motion and issued the mandate, requiring the EPA to put the rule into effect immediately. However, business groups and Republican state attorneys general argued that a federal rule states that parties should have ten days to oppose motions, and therefore they were given insufficient time to oppose the motion. “The court never gave industry intervenors notice of its decision to grant petitioners’ motion,” they wrote in their emergency filings. “The court should accordingly rescind the order and recall its mandate to give industry intervenors the opportunity to exercise their right to respond.”
On 4 September, the court backtracked on its 31 August decision and the mandate was recalled. The court said that the decision had been made “inadvertently” before the opponents had a chance to respond. The original ruling from 17 August is still in place, but the mandate will now not be issued until 8 October.
https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/attempt-to-hasten-compliance-with-chemical-safety-law-overruled/
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House Railroad Subcommittee to Hold PTC Hearing
Sep 10, 2018 | Progressive Rail Roading
The House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials on Thursday will review the status of the railroad industry's implementation of positive train control (PTC).
The subcommittee hearing will examine the progress railroads have made and the "remaining challenges" to meeting the federal Dec. 31 deadline to implement PTC.
The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 initially required that certain freight, commuter and passenger railroads implement PTC by Dec. 31, 2015. However, the railroad industry sought an extension of the deadline due to the new — and in some cases nonexistent — components of PTC technologies.
Subsequently, Congress extended the deadline to Dec. 31, 2018, with an additional two years' extension for railroads that meet certain criteria.
Among those scheduled to testify at Thursday's hearing are Federal Railroad Administrator Ronald Batory; Association of American Railroads President and CEO Ed Hamberger; Amtrak Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Scot Naperstek; Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority General Manager Jeffrey Knueppel; Altamont Corridor Express Executive Director Stacy Mortensen; and National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt.
The hearing will be broadcast live on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's website.
https://www.progressiverailroading.com/federal_legislation_regulation/news/House-railroad-subcommittee-to-hold-hearing-on-PTC-status--55573
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House Judiciary Panel Approves Environmental Permitting Efficiency Bill
Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
The House Judiciary Committee has approved legislation that supporters say is necessary to stop unreasonable delays in environmental permitting that prevent infrastructure projects from moving forward, but which critics say is an attempt to chill public engagement and undermine principles of good government.
The bill, H.R. 5468, requires federal agencies to finalize their permitting decisions within two years of a completed application, requires courts considering preliminary injunction requests for challenges to permitting decisions to weigh the potential economic and environmental harms of delaying project construction, and requires that challenges to unreasonable delays of agency action be filed within 60 days of the failure to act.
“The federal permitting process must be streamlined in order to grow our economy and continue to create more American jobs,” Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said in a Sept. 6 statement.
Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law Subcommittee Chairman Tom Marino (R-PA), the bill's sponsor, said an April hearing on the legislation showed it is clear that there is a pressing need to address the red tape and ongoing litigation that is needlessly standing in the way of economic development and job growth by delaying permit approvals for vital projects.
“My legislation ensures there is an effective environmental review, but it sets a mandate that the review is timely and streamlined,” Marino said.
At the April 12 hearing, William Kovacs noted that while Congress has previously enacted permit streamlining provisions and shortened time periods for parties seeking review of agency actions, H.R. 5468, “is the first attempt by Congress to extend its permit streamlining efforts to the judicial review of all federal agency permitting activities.” Kovacs is the former senior vice president for the environment, technology & regulatory affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The legislation builds on provisions contained in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act by making the permit streamlining conditions permanent and by addressing judicial review, he said.
But Emily Hammond of George Washington University Law School and the Center for Progressive Reform testified the bill is a “thinly veiled attempt[] to tamper with well-established procedural systems on behalf of anti-environmental interests.” It would “undermine the integrity and predictability of both the administrative state and the judicial system, to the detriment of all interests,” she said.
Hammond said if the bill is enacted, there will likely be “confusion in the courts as they grapple with poor drafting, a perplexing method of amending the [Administrative Procedure Act], and a tacit amendment of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” Additionally, “expect unintended consequences, as the new language can also limit access to the courts for the very same big-business beneficiaries for whom these bills are ostensibly drafted. Third -- and most importantly -- expect deterioration of the rule of law,” she said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/house-judiciary-panel-approves-environmental-permitting-efficiency-bill
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Kavanaugh Shortchanges 'People on the Other Side' — Witness
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Senators and legal experts spent much of Friday afternoon unpacking Brett Kavanaugh's administrative law record, touching on everything from judicial deference to cost-benefit analyses.
It was a wonky discussion to cap off a week of fiery debate over President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh has spent 12 years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a court with a particularly heavy caseload of administrative litigation.
Many of those cases involve energy and environmental policy, and critics are concerned Kavanaugh favors big businesses over environmental protections. His record includes a number of big opinions questioning EPA's authority to enact regulations.
Georgetown University law professor Lisa Heinzerling, a witness called by Judiciary Committee Democrats, framed the issue as a question of Kavanaugh's views of liberty. His opinions striking down regulations focus more on the liberty of regulated industries than on the individuals that regulations are designed to protect, she said.
"The people who are protected by those rules are the ones who are left unprotected when Judge Kavanaugh says that Congress has no authority to grant that broader power or to give the power, for example, to an independent agency," she said during an exchange with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). "And we don't hear about that in his opinions at all. We only hear about the liberty of the regulated groups, so I wonder to what extent he thinks about the people on the other side."
Earlier in the week, Kavanaugh defended his environmental record with a list of cases in which he sided with EPA (Greenwire, Sept. 5).
Heinzerling pushed back Friday, saying Kavanaugh's examples were small decisions that are overshadowed by his more sweeping rulings against environmental protections in other cases.
"He's issued a number of major decisions narrowing the environmental laws, requiring a cost-benefit balancing in the face of either clear or arguably ambiguous language, and he has forwarded this message from case after case — in the big cases," she said.
"In the little easy cases, it's no surprise if an agency might win some of them, or if the environmentalists might win some of them if it's an easy case on a procedural matter," she added. "But in the big cases, the big environmental cases, he has been all on the other side. And I'll just say, the Supreme Court only takes big cases."
George Mason University's Adam White, a witness called by Republicans, framed Kavanaugh's administrative law record differently.
"A real challenge is to see administrative law through the eyes of those who are regulated as much as through the eyes of the regulator," he said.
White is executive director of the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason's Antonin Scalia Law School. He praised Kavanaugh for recognizing the burdens regulations can impose on regular people.
"Knowing that regulatory power has significant impacts on, not just big corporations, but on landowners, homeowners, farmers, that's important as well," he said.
Kavanaugh returned to that theme often throughout the week, touting cases in which he struck down protections for an endangered shrimp in favor of landowners and affirmed a lumber company's right to challenge protections for another species.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said his record appeared lopsided on the issue of legal standing. She argued that Kavanaugh took a broad view of standing when it came to manufacturers concerned about an EPA regulation but a narrow one when a consumer advocacy group pushed for stricter auto safety standards.
Heinzerling said the pattern makes it harder for environmental groups to get to court than industry litigants.Cross-state air pollution
One Friday witness also took aim at Kavanaugh's approach to litigation over an EPA rule for cross-state air pollution. In 2012, he authored the decision finding that part of the rule exceeded the agency's authority.
Hunter Lachance, a 15-year-old from Maine who has asthma, testified that Kavanaugh's approach would contribute to worse air pollution in downwind states like his.
"I am deeply concerned that if Judge Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court, he would vote to weaken laws that protect my health — because he already has," he said.
Friday's witness testimony marked the end of Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings. Senate Republicans hope to confirm the judge to the bench before the Supreme Court's term begins Oct. 1.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/09/10/stories/1060096325
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Kavanaugh’s Views on EPA’s Climate Authority Are Dangerous and Wrong
Sep 10, 2018 | The Guardian
By Dana Nuccitelli
Donald Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh accepts that humans are causing global warming and we need to take action to stop it. The problem is that he doesn’t trust the experts at EPA to do so and wants to erode their authority to regulate carbon pollution.
Chevron is the key
When discussing Chevron and climate change, we usually focus on the company’s legal liability. However, in Kavanaugh’s context, ‘Chevron deference’ is even more important. The term refers to the fact that courts will generally defer to government agency interpretations of laws as long as Congress hasn’t spoken directly to the issue at hand.
David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council noted that Kavanaugh doesn’t believe Chevron deference applies on issues of major importance. In a recent net neutrality case, Kavanaugh argued, “While the Chevron doctrine allows an agency to rely on statutory ambiguity to issue ordinary rules, the major rules doctrine prevents an agency from relying on statutory ambiguity to issue major rules.”
That’s Kavanaugh’s position on climate change. In oral arguments before his DC Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2016 Clean Power Plan case, Kavanaugh said:
This is huge case … it has huge economic and political significance … it’s fundamentally transforming an industry by telling existing units you in essence have to pay a penalty, a huge financial penalty in order to continue to exist, in order to shift from coal plants to solar and wind plants, at the same time the coal mining industry is in essence greatly harmed, as well.
But while regulating carbon pollution would have a major impact on the fossil fuel industry, the same is true of most pollutant regulations. It’s nevertheless EPA’s job to regulate pollutants, and the agency has been doing exactly that since its inception.Is Kavanaugh right? You be the judge
In the 2016 oral arguments, Kavanaugh said that the Clean Air Act is “a thin statute, it wasn’t designed with [greenhouse gases and climate change] specifically in mind.” But EPA was created to address various types of pollution, and the Clean Air Act gave it that legal authority. As the Act’s text notes:
the growth in the amount and complexity of air pollution brought about by urbanization, industrial development, and the increasing use of motor vehicles, has resulted in mounting dangers to the public health and welfareAdvertisement
The Clean Air act also defined the term “air pollutant” very broadly to allow EPA the flexibility to regulate any new sources of pollution that the agency might identify in the future:
The term “air pollutant” means any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, biological, radioactive (including source material, special nuclear material, and byproduct material) substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.
And it gave the EPA Administrator the authority to regulate any pollutants that threaten public health and welfare:
For the purpose of establishing national primary and secondary ambient air quality standards, the Administrator shall within 30 days after December 31, 1970, publish, and shall from time to time thereafter revise, a list which includes each air pollutant … emissions of which, in his judgment, cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare
The Clean Air Act even envisioned EPA’s regulatory authority extending to impacts on the climate:
All language referring to effects on welfare includes, but is not limited to, effects on soils, water, crops, vegetation, manmade materials, animals, wildlife, weather, visibility, and climate…
In the landmark 2007 case Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court affirmed that greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants, and EPA therefore has authority to regulate them if the agency determines that they may endanger public health or welfare. In its 2009 Endangerment Finding, that was indeed EPA’s conclusion:
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger public welfare .... The major assessments by the U.S. Global Climate Research Program (USGCRP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the National Research Council (NRC) serve as the primary scientific basis supporting the Administrator’s endangerment finding.
In a key 2014 case Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that EPA can continue to treat greenhouse gases as pollutants subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act and can apply those regulations to power plants. Justices Scalia, Roberts, and Kennedy joined the majority decision. The good news is that Scalia’s position in this case was modeled after a prior Kavanaugh opinion.Advertisement
But generally speaking, Kavanaugh doesn’t trust the EPA experts to regulate carbon pollution.Kavanaugh thinks Congress should act. He’s right about that
In the 2016 oral arguments before his court, Kavanaugh laid out his case for why Congress, not the EPA should tackle climate change:
Earth is warming, and humans are contributing, and I understand the international collective action problem here, I understand that very well, and I understand the frustration with Congress, I live that, too, everyone understands that. But under our system of separation of powers, and this is why it’s so important that we maintain that, Congress is supposed to make the decision. You might say, you know, this Congress is not going to, they’re not going to do anything, but that’s not how we get to make decisions … for a big question like this Congress can do things like job training programs, and community college assistance, and welfare assistance, and drug programs for the people who are out of work, and that becomes more of a problem, that’s why the separation of powers principle matters, because Congress can look at something like this in a well-rounded approach, and that was the difficulty obviously that happened in the Senate. But for us to do it, for you to do it, all the people who are left behind are just left behind.
Kavanaugh is right that Congress could and should do a better job tackling carbon pollution than EPA. For example, Hillary Clinton developed plans to both tackle climate change and help coal communities adapt. But Republicans in the White House and Congress are owned by the fossil fuel industry, and thus unwilling to advance serious climate legislation.
However, the fact that Congress won’t act as long as Republicans are in charge doesn’t lessen EPA’s authority to regulate carbon pollution. Kavanaugh’s unwillingness to defer to EPA’s legal authority is wrong. The Clean Air Act is very clear that EPA should regulate pollutants that may endanger public health and welfare, and greenhouse gases certainly qualify.
If Kavanaugh is seated on the Supreme Court, he’ll join the other conservative justices in eroding EPA’s ability to regulate carbon pollution. EPA won’t take serious action until there’s a Democrat in the White House anyway; nor will Congress act unless Democrats are in charge of that branch of government. Kavanaugh just represents one more Republican obstruction to climate action.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/10/kavanaughs-views-on-epas-climate-authority-are-dangerous-and-wrong
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EPA to Scrap 4 Obama-Era Haze Plans
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
EPA, signaling at least a symbolic step back from the Obama administration's approach, will end federal implementation plans (FIPs) for four states promulgated in 2012 under the umbrella of the regional haze program.
To replace the FIPs, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia will soon get approval for state implementation plans, the agency said in a news release today.
"Current data show that state efforts have achieved considerable improvements in visibility throughout the country," acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in the release. "The heavy-handed approach of the previous administration resulted in the imposition of federal implementation plans and billions of dollars in costs that produced only minimal benefits."
The practical consequences of today's announcement, however, were not immediately clear. In June 2012, EPA published a rule promulgating regional haze FIPs for a dozen states — including the four mentioned in today's release — that incorporated the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule intended to reduce coal-fired power plants' emissions of nitrogen oxides that waft across state lines.
While an EPA spokesman could not immediately confirm that the rule is the one referenced in the release, Janet McCabe, who served as acting air chief during part of the Obama administration, said in a phone interview that the shift to state implementation plans "should not be super-substantive."
The regional haze program, dating back to 1999 in its current form, aims to completely clear the air at 156 national parks and wilderness areas.
Under the Obama administration, EPA repeatedly clashed with Republican-run states over the scope of cleanup requirements for coal-fired plants that are a major source of haze-forming pollution.
While state officials and utilities often objected to federal efforts to require new pollution controls as costly and largely pointless, those measures were welcomed by environmental groups who viewed state plans as inadequate.
Since President Trump took office last year, EPA has moved to roll back or delay implementation of Obama-era haze plans for several states, including Texas and Arkansas.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/09/10/stories/1060096411
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Conservative Carbon Plan Could Top Paris Goals — Analysis
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Nick Sobczyk
The Climate Leadership Council thinks its carbon tax proposal could put the U.S. on track to exceed its goals under the Paris climate agreement.
In an analysis released today, the group says the Baker-Shultz Carbon Dividends Plan could reduce greenhouse gas emissions 32 percent by 2025 compared to 2005 levels.
That would go beyond the 26 to 28 percent goal set under the Paris Agreement, and it would far outpace the reductions once expected under the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, according to the analysis.
Named after former Republican secretaries of State James Baker and George Shultz, the plan would put a tax on carbon, starting at $40 per ton and gradually increasing over time. The tax would be returned to the public through monthly or quarterly dividend checks.
The Climate Leadership Council began pushing the idea last year, and an offshoot group — Americans for Carbon Dividends — hired Squire Patton Boggs to lobby on the plan in July (Greenwire, July 26).
The analysis provides an optimistic outlook for an idea conservatives in the advocacy world are hoping can convince reluctant Republicans on Capitol Hill to act on climate change.
Still, the group acknowledges Congress is slow to change, said Greg Bertelsen, senior vice president at the Climate Leadership Council.
"We've always viewed this as something that wasn't ripe for this Congress," he said. "But we see a tremendous amount of momentum moving toward this policy solution. We see members on both sides increasingly interested in having these conversations."
The analysis assumes Congress considers the plan next year and implements it starting in 2021. Building on data and modeling from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Resources for the Future and the Rhodium Group, it suggests emissions reductions would come quickly as a result of fuel switching, increased investments in zero-carbon sources and more efficient use of fossil fuels.
The report includes a forward authored by several political big names, including Shultz, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, former Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and former EPA Administrator and New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.
The Climate Leadership Council also released polling showing 2 to 1 — 56 percent to 26 percent — support for a carbon dividend plan.
But as lobbying efforts for carbon pricing shape up into the next Congress, the plan will likely face criticism from the left.
Some environmental groups don't like the rollback of EPA greenhouse gas regulations included in the proposal. And they're also not fans of the so-called liability waiver for fossil fuel companies, particularly given that the Climate Leadership Council gets funding from several major oil companies.
Still, Bertelsen said their approach has been a hit with lawmakers and the public so far, especially the idea of distributing dividends back to Americans. The group is hoping to see a real push for the policy in the next Congress, he added.
"It's hard to speculate at this stage of the game exactly when that would take place," Bertelsen said. "But we think that the tide is turning faster than most think and that we'll be having a serious conversation about this policy in Congress sooner rather than later."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/09/10/stories/1060096403
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Yellen Touts Carbon Tax as ‘Textbook Solution’ to Climate Change
Sep 10, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Jennifer A Dlouhy
Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen says a tax on carbon dioxide emissions would do more to combat climate change than a slew of federal environmental regulations being undone by the Trump administration.
Yellen joins former Walmart Inc. Chairman Rob Walton, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former Secretary of State George Shultz in delivering a pitch for the carbon tax-and-dividend plan, released Mondayalong with an analysis of its potential emissions reductions.
“From the standpoint of an economist, the most efficient way to tackle climate change is to tax emissions -- to create a disincentive to emit carbon dioxide,” Yellen said in an interview before the report’s release. “It’s the right solution to a problem, and it’s collected in a way that is practical and feasible.”
The proposal has the backing of a broad coalition of prominent conservatives, economists and corporations that have united as the Climate Leadership Council and developed a multiyear strategy for advancing the initiative on Capitol Hill. Corporate supporters, which have a roughly $2.4 trillion market cap, include Exxon Mobil Corp. and three other oil giants as well as the largest U.S. automaker, General Motors Co.; utility, Exelon Corp., and telecommunications firm, AT&T Inc.
The campaign is the broadest, most serious effort in years to put a price on the carbon dioxide emissions that drive climate change. The proposed tax aims to increase the cost of energy derived from oil, natural gas and coal, thereby discouraging the use of those fossil fuels and encouraging the free market to develop low-carbon power alternatives.
The tax would result in slashing more heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions than could be pared under Obama-era environmental regulations, and the resulting cuts would exceed reductions the U.S. promised as part of the Paris climate accord according to an assessment by the non-partisan think tank Resources for the Future.
Still, Yellen and other proponents face significant political opposition. President Donald Trump said he opposed taxing greenhouse gas emissions while campaigning for the White House. And the House voted in July to condemn the very idea of a carbon tax as “detrimental” to the U.S. economy, with only six Republicans breaking ranks to vote against the measure.
But that House vote on a carbon tax concept is not a reliable indicator of support for the more nuanced tax-and-dividend plan, said Ted Halstead, founder of the Climate Leadership Council. The group also released a poll it commissioned that shows 56 percent of respondents supported the idea, compared to just 26 percent who opposed it.
Under the Climate Leadership Council’s blueprint, every ton of carbon dioxide would be hit with a tax, potentially starting at $40 per ton and rising over time, with revenue redistributed to households in the form of quarterly dividend checks. In exchange, regulations aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions -- and much of the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate them -- would be eliminated.
In the essay released Monday, Shultz, Summers, Yellen and other supporters call the effort a grand bargain that’s “not only the most environmentally ambitious plan but also the most politically viable.”
U.S. energy-related emissions would be cut about 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 under the proposed tax-and-dividend plan, according to an analysis, released Monday, by the Climate Leadership Council.
That’s far beyond the commitment the U.S. made in signing the Paris climate deal Trump has said he will abandon: to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26 percent of 2005 levels by 2025. And it dwarfs the 18 percent reduction the council says could be accomplished through Obama-era climate regulations, many of which are already being whittled down or repealed by the Trump administration.
The tax would achieve those emission cuts without costly “command-and-control regulations” some businesses loathe, Yellen said. “The tax is set in a way to achieve a very ambitious goal,” and is “probably least costly from businesses’ point of view.”
The effort is aimed at amassing broad support for throttling carbon dioxide emissions among Republicans wary of big government, businesses eager for a cheaper and predictable, environmental activists concerned about climate change and American consumers who would relish the promised dividend checks.
“It’s been so difficult to make any progress on this issue,” said Yellen, now a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t know that this will succeed, but it seems to me that this is a plan that can command a lot of support, and I’m encouraged by the degree of support it has.”
Critics say a U.S. tax would do little to arrest climate change or curb global greenhouse gas emissions. And they question the long-term durability of any “grand bargain,” since a future congress still could impose new environmental regulations on top of a carbon tax -- or decide to spend some of the revenue, instead of rebating it to consumers.
“The whole notion that there’s going to be some grand bargain with respect to regulations is a pipe dream,” said Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a free-market advocacy group. “The EPA is not going to remain in the hands of Donald Trump forever. You can’t bind future congresses to some kind of no-regulation deal.”
“You can dress it up and put fancy clothes on it, but it’s still a massive tax on American motorists and families, which will hit the poorest among us the hardest no matter what they claim they can do to make them whole,” Pyle said.
Advocates say a carbon tax would ensure the negative costs of climate change are embedded in the price of goods -- externalities that generally aren’t factored in to the cost of coal-fired electricity and gasoline today. Alternative approaches to clamping down on carbon dioxide, such as federal climate regulations or cap-and-trade regimes, have been criticized for failing to cover the full landscape of emissions or being potential administrative nightmares.
“It is compensating in a completely appropriate and targeted way for the externality that is associated with any emissions of carbon dioxide,” Yellen said. “And that’s why almost all economists love it. You’d be hard pressed to find an economist who would not be supportive of a carbon tax because it is exactly the textbook solution to the problem of climate change.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-10/yellen-touts-carbon-tax-as-textbook-solution-to-climate-change
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Poll Finds Support for Business-Backed Carbon Tax Plan
Sep 10, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A carbon tax backed by some big businesses and former Republican officials has the support of most voters, a survey commissioned by the group backing it found.
The Climate Leadership Council’s survey found that its proposal for taxing carbon dioxide emissions — a plan it calls “carbon dividends” — has the support of 56 percent of voters, including 55 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of Democrats.
Twenty-six percent of respondents oppose the plan, the group said.
Poll-takers didn’t tell respondents the amount of the tax the group is proposing, which would be $43 per metric ton starting in 2021.
But nonetheless, the coalition launched by GOP elder statesmen including former secretaries of State James Baker and George Schultz is touting the survey to demonstrate support for its plan.
“This shows that the Baker-Schultz carbon dividend plan is the most popular, ambitious and — most of all — politically viable plan to solve climate change,” said Ted Halstead, the council’s CEO.
Halstead chalked up the support to the fact that taxpayers would get the money collected back, likely through regular payments.
“This not your old carbon tax. This is carbon dividends, and the vast majority of American families would win.”
The group’s goal is to present a climate plan that Republicans can get behind, even if it can’t be enacted in the immediate future. It faces significant headwinds, including that the GOP has consistently rejected policies that directly target greenhouse gas emissions, and the House voted this summer to denounce carbon taxes.
As part of the plan, federal agencies would be mostly blocked from writing greenhouse gas regulations, a provision that is designed to help attract GOP support.
In addition to the support from former GOP statesmen, a broad array of businesses like BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Pepsi Co., Unilever and General Motors support it.
The council is making a major push for its climate plan this week to coincide with the Global Climate Action Summit in California.
In addition to the poll, the group is releasing an internal analysis showing that their plan would reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 32 percent by 2025.
That would exceed the U.S. pledge in the Paris agreement, which President Trump has committed to pulling out of. It would also exceed the reductions that would have been accomplished if all of former President Barack Obama’s climate policies would have been implemented, like the Clean Power Plan and methane regulations.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/405808-poll-finds-support-for-business-backed-carbon-tax-plan
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Moniz Group Launches 'Substantial' CO2 Air Capture Project
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
A think tank led by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced today it was developing a federal plan to promote technologies for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The Energy Futures Initiative's air-capture project aims to bring new focus and dollars to an idea that proponents say is necessary to hit long-term climate targets. Supporters say carbon-removal strategies are an important step toward decarbonizing the energy sector by the end of the century.
The goal, EFI said, is development of a proposal "that is housed at the federal level and includes a research portfolio, organization and management arrangement and budget planning to implement a robust multi-agency technological CDR [carbon dioxide removal] initiative that can develop and demonstrate new technological options and lead to a significant reduction in atmosphere concentrations."
The initiative won project funding to study CO2-removal technologies from the Linden Trust for Conservation and the ClimateWorks Foundation. The organization said it plans to hold several workshops on the issue and release a final report in 2019. It's not yet disclosing the cost of the project, although EFI said funding is "substantial."
The International Energy Agency says negative emission technologies may be required to hold global temperatures at 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by century's end.
Researchers are looking at an array of carbon-removal solutions, including machines that suck CO2 directly out of the air, reforestation and biochar that helps soil soak up more carbon.
Direct air capture with machines and carbon capture from ethanol and biomass plants — which can lead to negative emissions — have received much of the attention, partly because of ongoing debates about cost. Last year, Climeworks AG opened the world's first commercial plant capturing CO2 directly from the air (Greenwire, May 31, 2017).
There are critics of the idea who say research dollars should be spent on cheaper low-carbon options.
Two years ago, European scientists wrote in the journal Science that air capture and other "negative emissions" technologies are an "unjust gamble," distracting the world from viable climate solutions (Greenwire, Oct. 14, 2016).
Yet researchers from the company Carbon Engineering published an analysis in Joule last year finding that the cost of captured CO2 from the atmosphere could range from about $232 to below $100 a ton.
"Climate models say you need to do both [air capture and other strategies]. It's really as simple as that," Carbon Engineering Ltd. CEO Steve Oldham said last week.
EFI said it wouldn't be looking at land management issues as part of its project but focusing on direct air capture, bioenergy CCS, direct ocean capture, accelerated weathering, utilization of captured CO2 and CO2 to fuels. Moniz launched EFI last year and announced plans to produce reports on technologies that could enhance energy security and slash carbon emissions (Greenwire, June 21, 2017).
Accelerated weathering, or enhanced weathering, envisions reacting minerals with atmospheric CO2 to form mineral carbonates that sequester carbon, perhaps via powder from pulverized rocks spread over landscapes.
Separately, the World Resources Institute today released a series of working papers on a range of carbon-removal strategies. The studies examine carbon removal in forests and farms, technological options for carbon removal, and "foundational questions" on the subject.
"To prevent the worst impacts of climate change, the world will need to reach net-negative emissions, a point at which we're actually removing and storing more carbon from the air than we're putting into the atmosphere," WRI said in a statement.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/09/10/stories/1060096409
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U.N. Head Aims to Create 'Sense of Urgency' Among Nations
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
The United Nations' top official will call on world leaders today to ready new commitments and step up action on climate change ahead of his high-level summit in New York in 12 months' time.
In remarks at U.N. headquarters, António Guterres will commit the full resources of his organization to helping galvanize ambition ahead of the gathering of national leaders next year. The New York summit aims to ensure that countries turn in more stringent nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement by 2020.
The U.N. leader's remarks come as nations like the United States are stepping back from climate action and as U.N. negotiations on a set of Paris guidelines are stuck on a variety of hotly contested issues.
"What is missing — still, even after Paris — is leadership, a sense of urgency and a true commitment to a decisive multilateral response," the secretary-general will say, according to excerpts of prepared remarks obtained by E&E News. "The time has come for our leaders to show they care about the people whose fate they hold in their hands. We need them to show they care about the future — and the present."
The secretary-general's remarks also come a few days before the start of a Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco focusing on the role of non-state actors in confronting climate change.
The three-day conference, which is hosted by Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown and counts U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa among its co-chairs, will draw both non-federal governments and the private sector to the Bay Area.
Guterres plans to send a recorded message to the gathering instead of attending, but in today's remarks he will tout the ability of non-state actors to "significantly enhance climate action and influence ambition at the national level."
The San Francisco summit will end with a "call to action" for negotiators who will gather in Katowice, Poland, in December to conclude talks on implementing guidelines for the Paris accord. That message will be fortified in October when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change puts out a report calling on governments to avoid letting temperatures rise above 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Guterres has increasingly raised climate change while engaging with heads of state on other issues and has stepped up his engagement as this month's summit grows closer, his advisers say.
The United Nations will also offer itself as a matchmaker between public and private capital and projects that meet climate mitigation and humanitarian goals, like renewable energy deployment in developing countries.
The secretary-general's message to world leaders: "The world is counting on you to rise to the challenge before it's too late."
It almost is too late for negotiators still sorting through nearly 300 pages of proposals for how the Paris deal should work. Issues range from the communication of future NDCs, commitments of aid, and monitoring and reporting of emissions.
An extra round of climate talks concluded in Bangkok yesterday, and while participants pointed to progress in some areas, they acknowledged that the road to Katowice will be long and hard.
"The texts are definitely advancing, but there's an awful long way to go," said Jo Tyndall, the New Zealand diplomat co-chairing the working group on Paris rules, in an email to E&E News a day before the conclusion of the talks.
On the one hand, she said, the task ahead of the nearly 200 countries negotiating the Paris rulebook is technical and complex, warranting extensive discussion.
"On the other, Parties want to see how the overall package is shaping up before they're ready to 'show a bit of leg' on their strongly held positions," she said, adding that the process's multifaceted nature has made it harder for technical discussions to advance.Bridging the political divide
In Bangkok and at earlier talks this year in Bonn, Germany, poor nations have been frustrated to see rich ones hang together on issues like finance and differentiation.
The State Department team representing the United States, not surprisingly, brought no new assurances of aid. But the European Union, Norway, Australia and other wealthy nations have also proved resistant to offering any new promises, leading to charges that they were hiding behind U.S. intransigence.
How donor nations might communicate aid promises in advance and increase their collective pledge of $100 billion a year in 2020 to a new, high level after 2025 were among the issues that made the least progress in these talks.
On the second question, in particular, "they've taken a very hard line, saying it's not even a legitimate subject for discussion," said Alden Meyer, director of policy and strategy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Neither the numerous bilateral talks planned over the coming weeks nor the work of the co-chairs ahead of Katowice are likely to settle particularly delicate political issues, Meyer said.
They'll be left until the higher-level second week of the talks in December, he said, when ministers converge on the Polish coal town.
"Until the political divide is bridged, they're not going to get very far," Meyer said.
The same will likely go for developed countries' insistence that major developing emitters provide detailed information on their NDCs. Developing countries are concerned that the process focuses on mitigation at the expense of helping them build capacity or cope with climate change that is already baked into the system.
Gebru Jember Endalew of Ethiopia, the chairman of the least-developed countries negotiating group within the talks, said that "while there was a greater sense of urgency from countries coming into Bangkok, progress has been slow."
He also singled out finance as a particular stumbling block going into Katowice. He said the Paris guidelines cannot progress if poorer participants don't see movement from rich nations on issues vital to them.
"The failure of rich countries to deliver adequate resources has severe ramifications for people and communities in the least-developed countries and around the world that are already bearing the brunt of climate change on a daily basis," he said.
But Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, said rich countries spent the talks defending against efforts by some developing countries to revive the old model of engagement, in which rich nations accept firm obligations while poor countries make only voluntary pledges based on support.
"Some developing countries are still pushing to retain strong bifurcation a la Kyoto, while the United States and other developed countries read Paris as requiring a more common approach," he said in an email from Bangkok, referring to the first agreement among nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But Diringer said it was encouraging that the talks concluded with instructions to the co-chairs, including Tyndall, allowing them to make progress before Katowice.
"Between the hard lines, parties seem very committed to keeping Paris intact and making it operational," he said. "Even under the best case, some of the more technical work will have to be done after Katowice.
"But if the California summit and the 1.5 degree report help strengthen political momentum going into Katowice, they should be able to hammer out the fundamentals of the Paris rulebook."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/09/10/stories/1060096349
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