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AM ACC Clips Report - September 11, 2018

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Wheeler's Calendar Sheds Light on Industry Meetings
Sep 10, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Kevin Bogardus and Corbin Hiar

Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler's private calendar shows a range of industry interests were scheduled to meet with him during his early months as deputy chief at the agency.
(ACC Mentioned) Plastics Go To Washington
Sep 11, 2018 | Plastics Technology (Blog)

September 11-12, the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS), American Chemistry Council (ACC), American Mold Builders Association (AMBA), Manufacturers Association for Plastic Processors (MAPP), and Plastic Pipe Institute (PPI) will host the Plastics Industry Fly-In.
(ACC Mentioned) A CEO's Reflections on the 17th Anniversary of 9/11
Sep 11, 2018 | Philadelphia Business Journal
By Stan Silverman

No one can ever forget where they were at 8:46 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.
Congress Agrees On FY19 Spending Bill, After Dropping Key Policy Riders
Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss

House and Senate negotiators have agreed on a bill funding several energy and environmental agencies after dropping a series of policy riders that would have curtailed EPA and other agencies' authorities, suggesting that upcoming legislation on EPA's fiscal year 2019 spending bill may also drop such riders.
EPA Staff Has Shrunk 8 Percent Under Trump Administration
Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA's workforce has shrunk by 8 percent since the start of the Trump administration, and a quarter of the agency's remaining 13,758 employees are eligible to retire, according to data reviewed by the Washington Post, underscoring multiple prior reports of staff discontent and departures from the agency.

LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) Us Environmental Groups Lobby Congress for Ban on New PFASs
Sep 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin

US environmental groups have told Congress that new per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) should be banned and are calling for a halt on continued use of existing ones.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) The Problem with All the Plastic That’s Leaching into Your Food
Sep 11, 2018 | Vox
By Julia Belluz and Radhika Viswanathan

Consider what you’ve eaten today. Perhaps you drank juice from a plastic bottle, and coffee from a Keurig pod. For breakfast you might have had fruit with yogurt. Your lunch salad may have been packed in a Tupperware.
(ACC Mentioned) Congress Pushes EPA on Fluoropolymer Water Risks
Sep 11, 2018 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken

Members of Congress are pushing hard on the Environmental Protection Agency to get tougher on regulating water contamination from fluorinated chemicals, including those used in making fluoropolymers.
(ACC Mentioned) Toxic Flame-Retardant Ban Heads to Governor for Signature
Sep 11, 2018 | L.A. Weekly
By Beige Luciano-Adams

The HBO documentary Toxic Hot Seat (2013) — a damning indictment of toxic fire-retardant chemicals in our furniture, environment and bodies (spoiler: It’s California’s fault) — ends on a triumphant note.
US, Canada Issue Chemical Assessment Collaboration Framework
Sep 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin

Canada and the US have released a framework to improve their collaboration on the risk assessment of chemicals.
TTC Approach Is Suitable for Organosilicon Substances, Industry Says
Sep 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) approach to risk assessment can be applied to organosilicon substances, according to a poster presented by Dow and P&G scientists at the Eurotox conference in Brussels last week.

Energy News

(ACC Mentioned) Turning Waste into Power: The Plastic to Fuel Projects
Sep 11, 2018 | Power Technology
By Scarlett Evans

Plastic to fuel projects are beginning to gain traction in the energy industry, with rising awareness of the prolific environmental damage caused by single-use plastics and people’s insufficient recycling habits leading researchers to turn to alternative disposal methods for our mounting plastic output.
(ACC Mentioned) Offshore, Not out of Mind
Sep 11, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Energy
By Kelsey Tamborrino

The prospect of offshore drilling rigs along U.S. coastlines has long been unpopular among coastal residents, who are loathe to give up their views and take on the risk of spills.
Trump Administration Wants to Make It Easier to Release Methane Into Air
Sep 10, 2018 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport

The Trump administration, taking its third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change, is preparing to make it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere.
EPA to Roll Back Obama-Era Methane Rules
Sep 10, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko

The Trump administration is about to propose its latest rollback of Obama-era climate rules, moving to ease requirements for oil and gas companies that were designed to limit leaks of the heat-trapping gas methane, administration officials said.
Shell's Plans to Build Cracker Plant Gets Boost from FERC Rate Approval
Sep 10, 2018 | Platts
By Jim Magill

Shell's plans to build a world-class ethane cracker in western Pennsylvania took a step forward Friday with the approval by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission of rate structures for the company's proposed Falcon Ethane Pipeline system.
PetroChina Inks Its Biggest Qatar LNG Deal as U.S. Trade at Risk
Sep 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Shaji Mathew and Stephen Stapczynski

PetroChina Co. Ltd. signed a deal with Qatargas Operating Co. Ltd. to purchase 3.4 million tons of liquefied natural gas annually, the Chinese company’s biggest supply deal, amid a brewing trade war with the U.S. that threatens to stifle the Asian nation’s purchases of American fuel.
Oil Demand Seen Peaking by 2023 While Climate Targets Missed
Sep 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kelly Gilblom

Within 20 years, oil use will have long since peaked, renewables and natural gas will account for about half of energy supply and the cost of keeping the lights on will plummet.
California Commits to 100 Percent Renewable Energy by 2045
Sep 10, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed into law Monday a bill that commits the state to achieving a 100 percent renewable energy power grid by 2045.
Plains All American Found Guilty in 2015 California Oil Spill
Sep 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Adams-Heard

Plains All American was found guilty Sept. 7 by a California jury on criminal charges related to the 2015 Refugio oil spill in Santa Barbara County.

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

Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

Carbon Tax Plan Would Exceed Obama's Paris GHG Target, Backers Say
Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan

A group pushing a carbon tax proposal spearheaded by two prominent Republicans is touting new projections that the plan would significantly exceed the Obama administration's 2025 greenhouse gas reduction pledge set under the Paris Agreement, while also signaling the need to craft key new provisions that aim to secure environmentalists' support.
Gov. Brown Signs 'Zero-Carbon' Power Bill By 2045 Ahead Of Climate Summit
Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Curt Barry

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has signed into law a landmark clean energy bill that accelerates the state's renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 60 percent by 2030 and requires 100 percent “carbon-free” power by 2045, ahead of a climate change summit the governor is hosting before he leaves office at the end of the year.
D.C. Circuit Slated To Hear Suit Over SO2 NAAQS Attainment Designations
Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral argument Sept. 11 in a case that consolidates suits filed by Colorado citizens, environmentalists and a Kansas public utility board over EPA's findings for which areas are either meeting or violating federal sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
ORD's PM Assessment Advances, Sidestepping Air Office Official's Influence
Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad

EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) is completing work on the scientific document that will form the basis of the agency's review of its air quality standards for particulate matter (PM) after brushing aside efforts by a top air office political appointee who sought to raise doubts about the science, a departure from the usual process, EPA and other sources say.
New York Targets Climate-Warming Coolants With Federal Plan in Limbo
Sep 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith

New York wants to become the second state to adopt Obama-era limits on climate-warming coolants.
Exxon Petitions Supreme Court Against Mass. Litigation
Sep 11, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Benjamin Hulac

Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. is pressing the Supreme Court to reverse the decision of a Massachusetts judge who ordered the firm to turn over company records on climate change.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Wheeler's Calendar Sheds Light on Industry Meetings

Sep 10, 2018 | E&E News PM

By Kevin Bogardus and Corbin Hiar

Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler's private calendar shows a range of industry interests were scheduled to meet with him during his early months as deputy chief at the agency.
The schedule, obtained by E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act, offers more detail than his public calendar posted on EPA's website about who met with Wheeler and what they discussed while he served as second in command.
The 330-page document starts at April 20, when Wheeler was sworn in at EPA, and ends at July 6, which was former Administrator Scott Pruitt's last day at the agency after he resigned under a crush of ethics allegations.
Wheeler's private calendar also discloses meetings that were not previously known.
On the morning of June 5, Wheeler had a meeting about emissions regulations for heavy-polluting glider kits — new truck cabs with refurbished diesel engines — that the Obama EPA had sought to limit.
Wheeler's private calendar shows that he met with former securities lawyer and Trump EPA transition official Steve Milloy and with Jon Toomey, a lobbyist for glider kit maker Fitzgerald Peterbilt. The subject listed was "Meeting with Steve Milloy," and Milloy's meeting request was similarly vague.
"Hi, Andrew, I'd like to request a meeting for next week," Milloy said.
Wheeler's public calendar for that day is less informative. The time slot from 11 to 11:30 a.m., when he met with Milloy and Toomey, says only that he was in a "General Discussion."
"Multiple topics pertaining to the Agency were discussed in this meeting, hence 'general discussion,'" EPA spokesman James Hewitt told E&E News.
Milloy, who has advocated for keeping glider kits on the market, confirmed in a brief phone interview this afternoon that glider kits were a focus of that meeting.
"I was helping out as a friend," Milloy told E&E News when asked about his connection to Fitzgerald. "It was pro bono work."
The following month, on Pruitt's last day, the agency said it wouldn't enforce a production cap on the high-emission trucks. Wheeler has since withdrawn that order, but EPA is moving forward with a proposed repeal of the glider kit rule (E&E News PM, July 18).
Wheeler's calendar while he was EPA's No. 2 show he was slated to meet with a number of lobbyists and trade group officials with business before the agency.
Some of those scheduled meetings include the American Forest & Paper Association, American Chemistry Council, National Ocean Industries Association and U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Energy Institute. Wheeler was also slated to meet or host calls with executives for oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips, engine maker Cummins Inc., and powerhouse utility Duke Energy.
On June 14, Wheeler was scheduled to meet with two well-known Clean Air Act attorneys, Bill Brownell and Joe Stanko of Hunton Andrews Kurth, for a "Meet and Greet."
Brownell was among the attorneys who argued in a federal appeals court that the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan should be overturned.
Before he became EPA's acting chief, Wheeler was scheduled for several meetings with staff throughout the agency. He also had time slated to connect with other Trump administration officials, including Francis Brooke, the White House energy adviser.
It wasn't all industry meetings for Wheeler. Some environmental groups made it onto the agenda.
Wheeler was also scheduled for a "Meet and Greet" with Collin O'Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, on June 21. In addition, he was slated to attend a Chesapeake Bay Commission meeting on May 3.
"Administrator Wheeler is open to meeting with all stakeholders," Hewitt said.
Wheeler also had meetings about the renewable fuel standard, including with organizations that had previously paid for his lobbying or consulting work.
E&E News first reported Wheeler's meetings with biofuel makers Darling Ingredients Inc. and Archer Daniels Midland, or ADM (Greenwire, July 26).
But his personal calendar shows more information on those meetings and reveals further contacts with past clients. EPA has defended the meetings, saying since Wheeler didn't work with those clients during the two years prior to his joining the agency, he is allowed to meet with them and remain in line with President Trump's ethics pledge (E&E News PM, July 27).
The previously reported May 24 meeting with ADM and two other biofuel groups was "regarding the current negotiations on the year round E-15 and RIN credits for ethanol exports deal," according to the calendar.
May also appears to have included two other scheduled biofuels-related meetings. One was to feature the head of the Renewable Fuels Association trade group. Another was scheduled with Frank Love, the CEO of Love's Travel Stops, to talk about how his 450 truck stops have made "considerable investment in biodiesel and renewable natural gas covered by the Renewable Fuel Standard," according to the personal calendar.
ADM had additional meetings slated with Wheeler, the calendar shows. On June 26, an executive from the agribusiness giant was slated to meet with the then-deputy administrator to "discuss the timing/importance of the 2019 renewable volume obligations." That meeting was to include the head of trade group Growth Energy, another former client.
Later that day, Wheeler had a previously reported meeting with former client Darling Ingredients about the "biomass-based diesel requirements under the Renewable Fuels Standard." The calendar says it included a top Darling official and Andy Ehrlich, a lobbyist at the firm Total Spectrum who previously represented Darling at Faegre Baker Daniels alongside Wheeler.
On June 22, Wheeler also met with Wayne Nastri, an EPA Region 9 administrator under President George W. Bush and executive officer for the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Wheeler had lobbied for the Southern California air pollution regulator in 2010.EPA officials cast as Senate Dems in mock hearing
Wheeler's schedule also shows EPA's internal workings as it faces scrutiny from Capitol Hill.
On June 15, Wheeler and his colleagues were asked to attend a nomination "mock hearing," in which Trump's political appointees would play members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, according to the calendar.
The meeting was organized by Tony Frye, a former Capitol Hill staffer who joined EPA's congressional affairs shop last year.
A notice sent to Wheeler and other top EPA staffers stipulated which agency officials would be playing which senators for the 90-minute session. The only Republican represented was to be committee Chairman John Barrasso of Wyoming. He was to be played by Christian Palich, who was president of the Ohio Coal Association before joining EPA's congressional affairs staff.
Byron Brown, EPA's then-deputy chief of staff for policy, would play the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware. EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson would play Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Frye would depict Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Deputy General Counsel Justin Schwab would play Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) would be portrayed by air official Mandy Gunasekara.
Others cast in the mock hearing were policy chief Brittany Bolen as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), congressional affairs aide Aaron Ringel as Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Deputy Assistant Administrator for Research and Development Richard Yamada as Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), enforcement chief Susan Bodine as Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and policy counsel Drew Feeley as Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
It's unclear whether the mock hearing took place and which nominees, if any, it was intended to benefit.
EPA's press office didn't respond to a request for comment about the June 15 meeting.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/09/10/stories/1060096435

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(ACC Mentioned) Plastics Go To Washington

Sep 11, 2018 | Plastics Technology (Blog)

September 11-12, the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS), American Chemistry Council (ACC), American Mold Builders Association (AMBA), Manufacturers Association for Plastic Processors (MAPP), and Plastic Pipe Institute (PPI) will host the Plastics Industry Fly-In.
According to PLASTICS, this year’s Fly-In attendees will hold a record number of meetings with elected officials and their staff on the Hill. These meetings will push policies that support U.S. plastics, an industry that employs nearly one million people and generates $418 billion for the U.S. economy each year. PLASTICS said featured issues for the 2018 Fly In include:Recycling and Waste Management InfrastructureTariffs and TradeOpen Competition for Plastic PipeWorkforce Development
Following a welcome reception at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on the evening of Sept. 11, the morning of September 12 will feature briefing sessions with meetings on Capitol Hill in the afternoon. On the evening of Sept. 12, there will be a Congressional Reception. Face-to-face meetings with elected officials can be an effective means to raise awareness of the U.S. plastics industry with the people in a position to affect change for processors. Per PLASTICS:
This is your opportunity to tell your story in D.C.. During your face-to-face meetings with lawmakers and key decision makers, you can tell your real-world stories to illustrate how legislative issues will impact the health and viability of your business, your employees and your customers. There is no better way to cut through the political noise.
https://www.ptonline.com/blog/post/plastics-go-to-washington

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(ACC Mentioned) A CEO's Reflections on the 17th Anniversary of 9/11

Sep 11, 2018 | Philadelphia Business Journal

By Stan Silverman

No one can ever forget where they were at 8:46 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. Two hijacked aircraft flown by terrorists destroyed both World Trade Center towers. A third aircraft caused significant damage to the Pentagon. A fourth aircraft was brought down by brave passengers and crew members in a field in central Pennsylvania before it could reach its target, possibly the White House or Capitol building.
As then CEO of PQ Corporation, I reflect on how that day impacted me and my employees. I was at the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, attending a board meeting of the American Chemistry Council. After a staffer entered the meeting and handed a note to the chairman, his face turned white as he announced that a plane had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
We all gathered around a TV just outside the meeting room and watched with horror as a second plane hit the South Tower. It was then immediately evident that the United States was under attack.
My first thought was for the safety of our employees and those traveling away from home. Our company operated in 19 countries, and it was not uncommon for many of our employees to be traveling within their respective countries and between countries around the world.
I called my executive assistant and asked that she find out if any of our employees were on those four flights or were visitors to the World Trade Center towers or the Pentagon that day. I also asked for a list of employees who were on trips to or from the United States, as well as employees on flights scheduled to pass over the continental U.S. I knew that it would be days before these employees could reach their business destinations or home.TRENDINGCOMMERCIAL REAL ESTATEAmazon hiring in cities it shortlisted. Guess who's last?COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATEGreystone Hall property Chesco sells; $450M development planned HIRING IN MEDIAAccounting Specialist
American City Business Journals
I wanted to return to corporate headquarters as soon as possible. Since all flights were grounded, my wife and I drove our rental car seven hours to Valley Forge. We stopped twice – once for gas and once to get something to eat.
The genuine concern and connection offered by the people who reached out to us at both stops was nothing like we have ever experienced. They wanted to know where we had started our trip and where we were heading. They provided advice on the route we should take, and long-haul truckers made recommendations on the best places to eat along the way.
I thought of this as a small slice of America at its best – strangers helping others.
People helping other people in need: It’s one of our country’s best cultural norms.
When I arrived home the night of 9/11, I learned that all PQ employees were safe. I received a report indicating the location of those employees in travel mode. Our travel department had already arranged hotel rooms for those who could not arrive at their destination.
Rental cars were reserved for those who could drive home. Two of our plant operations managers drove from Los Angeles to Chicago, where one lived, and the other continued on to Philadelphia. The administrative assistant of our purchasing manager was on her honeymoon in Europe. Our travel department was able to get her and her husband on a flight back to the U.S. a few days later.
What do I recall as the “best personal experience” of the horrible tragedy of 9/11 and the days that followed? It’s that we all pulled together as a nation and we had genuine concern for each other.
I recall the courage of first responders in New York and Washington D.C. – fire fighters and police who saved countless lives at their own peril. I recall those first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice and did not return home to their families.
I recall the two F-16 pilots who took off from Andrews Air Force Base with orders to intercept and ram hijacked United 93 flying towards Washington, D.C., to prevent the hijackers from destroying the White House or Capital building. There was insufficient time to arm the F-16s, so this was a suicide mission for these courageous pilots. I recall those 40 brave passengers and crew members on that aircraft who resisted the hijackers and brought the plane down themselves, preventing an additional catastrophe.
In the above paragraph, please imbed the following hyperlink under “two F-16 pilots.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/f-16-pilot-was-ready-to-give-her-life-on-sept-11/2015/09/06/7c8cddbc-d8ce-11e0-9dca-a4d231dfde50_story.html?utm_term=.ee58c8400e0d
I recall not having the American flag that I had proudly flown off the stern of my sailboat for 14 years, regretting not keeping it when I sold that boat in August 2001. Flying a new store-bought flag at my home a month later was not the same to me.
I recall the generosity of PQ employees who contributed funds to help the victims’ families. I recall attending the hockey season’s opening game of the Philadelphia Flyers in October, where there was not a dry eye in the house when our national anthem was sung.
I recall visiting the site of the World Trade Center a month after 9/11 to pay my respects, walking on hallowed ground with thousands of other visitors.
I will never forget. None of us will ever forget.
https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2018/09/11/17th-anniversary-911-alqaeda.html

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Congress Agrees On FY19 Spending Bill, After Dropping Key Policy Riders

Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA

By David LaRoss

House and Senate negotiators have agreed on a bill funding several energy and environmental agencies after dropping a series of policy riders that would have curtailed EPA and other agencies' authorities, suggesting that upcoming legislation on EPA's fiscal year 2019 spending bill may also drop such riders.
In a Sept. 10 announcement, the negotiators said they are proposing to boost spending for Army Corps of Engineers water infrastructure projects along with Department of Energy (DOE) site cleanups and its work on both fossil fuels and renewable energy as part of a newly unveiled fiscal year 2019 “minibus” bill that could also signal imminent action on EPA's FY19 budget.
While the full text of the bill agreed on by the conference committee has not yet been released, summaries from the House Appropriations Committee say it would raise funding for the Corps and DOE while avoiding new policy riders that were part of the GOP-backed House legislation -- leading Democrats on the panel to tout the committee's decision as a win.
“Although it is not the bill Democrats would have written on our own, this minibus supports clean energy and transformational science programs . . . This minibus is also a victory for what it does not include: the extreme anti-environment riders included in the House-passed bills,” reads a Sept. 10 statement from Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), ranking member on the full House Appropriations Committee.
The House energy and water bill in particular included new riders that would have repealed the Obama administration's Clean Water Act jurisdiction rule, and blocked funding for California projects that supplement stream flows, which Republicans have charged waste already-scarce water since the flows ultimately go into the Pacific Ocean.
The new minibus consolidates the energy and water development bill that funds the Corps and DOE with FY19 legislation for military construction and veterans affairs, and for the legislative branch.
According to committee statements it is planned as the first of three such bills, with the goal of completing the slate before FY18 ends on Sept. 30.
Funding legislation for EPA has already passed both chambers, but the Senate is backing level funding for the agency while the House would cut its budget by about $100 million -- setting up a potential fight when the conference committee meets.
If lawmakers can come to a consensus on all three FY19 minibus measures it would mark the first time since 2009 that Congress has passed the annual appropriations bills through “regular order” -- that is, by passing individual appropriations bills designed in committee, rather than an omnibus bill or continuing resolution.
“This Conference Report represents our strong commitment to returning to ‘regular order’ in government funding, and is a huge step toward completing all of our Appropriations bills as soon as possible while funding all aspects of government in a responsible way,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) said in a Sept. 10 statement.
Funding Levels
According to the House committee majority's summary of the conference bill, funding for DOE would rise $554 million from its current level of about $13 billion, and House Democrats' summary of the bill says it includes $2.38 billion for “Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,” which would be $57 million above FY18 levels and $1.68 billion more than President Donald Trump's budget request.
Both the Democratic summary and a statement from the Senate Appropriations Committee say the bill would fund the Advanced Research Projects Agency -- Energy (ARPA-E), at $366 million, which is $12.7 million above current levels, rejecting Trump's request to eliminate the program.
The bill also includes a boost to DOE's environmental management office that is responsible for cleaning up former nuclear research sites -- though the amount of the increase is unclear. The Republican bill summary says DOE's budget for “environmental management activities” would rise $53 million, up to $7.2 billion. However, the Democrats instead describe an increase to “environmental cleanup activities” of $23 million, up to $7.18 billion.
Both summaries say the Corps is slated to receive $7 billion in FY19, which would be a $172 million increase from FY18 levels. Republicans say that figure includes $2 billion for “flood and storm damage reduction activities.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/congress-agrees-fy19-spending-bill-after-dropping-key-policy-riders

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EPA Staff Has Shrunk 8 Percent Under Trump Administration

Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA's workforce has shrunk by 8 percent since the start of the Trump administration, and a quarter of the agency's remaining 13,758 employees are eligible to retire, according to data reviewed by the Washington Post, underscoring multiple prior reports of staff discontent and departures from the agency.
A Post report on the staff levels says the trend has continued despite Congress declining to embrace steep EPA budget cut proposals from the Trump White House.
Overall, nearly 1,600 EPA workers have left under Trump and fewer than 400 were hired.
The figures offer the latest indication that the scaling back of EPA's staff resources during the Trump era is exceeding cuts being imposed by lawmakers, including in the agency's regional offices.
And the shrinking workforce comes as House lawmakers -- but not the Senate -- are embracing another round of staff buyouts in fiscal year 2019 EPA spending plans that have yet to be reconciled in final legislation.
“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 Post writes. “The sheer number of departures also has prompted concerns over what sort of work is falling by wayside, from enforcement investigations to environmental research,” the article states.
The agency's enforcement office is particularly affected by the departures, with staff dropping 15.7 percent between January 2017 and 2018. Former enforcement chief Granta Nakayama told the publication that such a large reduction could not happen without curtailing some enforcement activities.
“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. . . . If you don't have boots on the ground it doesn't happen.”
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in comments to the paper appeared to downplay concerns over the impact of the departures, characterizing it as part of right-sizing the agency after overreaching under the Obama administration.
“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,” Wheeler said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-staff-has-shrunk-8-percent-under-trump-administration

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LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) Us Environmental Groups Lobby Congress for Ban on New PFASs

Sep 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Kelly Franklin

US environmental groups have told Congress that new per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) should be banned and are calling for a halt on continued use of existing ones.
The latest push on the controversial substances came in a 6 September House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing, 'Perfluorinated chemicals in the environment: An update on the response to contamination and challenges presented'.
Much of the multi-hour discussion focused on setting enforceable and sufficiently protective drinking water standards, especially in light of recent PFAS contamination events in some US states including New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Colorado.
Yet restricting the substances’ manufacture and use also arose as a potential method for controlling their presence in the environment.PFASs: the new PCBs?
In oral testimony and written comments submitted to the House subcommittee on the environment, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Eric Olson said that the EPA should use TSCA to ban new uses of existing PFASs, as well as all new PFASs.
And he called for a phase-out of all existing uses, with "extremely narrow exceptions for true national defense needs, emergencies, or similar urgent needs where there are no alternatives".
"The evidence has become clear that PFASs are our new PCBs [polychlorinated biphenyls] – but are possibly more widespread and dangerous," he said. The EPA "must step up to fix the problem".
Mr Olson also submitted a letter endorsed by more than 50 organisations, echoing the call to move away from the full class of substances.
"States are already stepping up to eliminate PFAS from key product sectors, including food packaging firefighting foam and textiles," wrote the groups, which included Earthjustice, Safer States and the Environmental Working Group (EWG). "Congress should phase out the use of these chemicals to avoid further contamination."
The American Chemistry Council, however, issued a statement saying that PFASs currently manufactured "have been well studied and undergone rigorous regulatory review", including under the TSCA new chemicals programme.
"Those chemistries play an essential role in many products we depend on in modern life," the trade group added.
The ACC said it supports the determination of maximum environmental contaminant levels grounded in "sound science". It pledged to continue being a "constructive partner to state and federal regulators and other stakeholders affected by this important issue".PFAS controversy
The public hearing comes amid a spike in consumer concern and political controversy surrounding the class of substances.
Even though the EPA has rolled out a PFAS action plan and held community engagement events, lawmakers expressed concern that the agency has lost the public’s confidence amid reports that it worked to suppress release of a PFAS toxicity profile for fear of a "public relations nightmare".
Others questioned whether theagency’s proposed ‘science transparency’ policy could undercut critical studies on the substances.
Recent weeks have seen the introduction of bills to address PFAS contamination in the environment. And in the absence of federal action, states and cities continue to act on their use in products.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70169/us-environmental-groups-lobby-congress-for-ban-on-new-pfass

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) The Problem with All the Plastic That’s Leaching into Your Food

Sep 11, 2018 | Vox

By Julia Belluz and Radhika Viswanathan

Consider what you’ve eaten today. Perhaps you drank juice from a plastic bottle, and coffee from a Keurig pod. For breakfast you might have had fruit with yogurt. Your lunch salad may have been packed in a Tupperware.
There’s a good chance much of what you ingested was packaged, stored, heated, lined, or served in plastic. And unfortunately, there’s mounting scientific evidence that these plastics are harming our health, from as early as our time in our mother’s womb.
Most of our food containers — from bottles, to the linings in aluminum cans, to plastic wraps and salad bins — are made using polycarbonate plastics, some of which have bioactive chemicals, like bisphenol a (BPA) and phthalates.
These man-made chemicals can leach from the containers or wrappings into the food and drinks they’re holding — especially when they’re heated. Research released earlier this yearfound that more than 90 percent of bottled water from the world’s leading brands was contaminated with microplastics, sparking a review of plastics in drinking water by the World Health Organization.
The main cause for concern is that these chemicals can mess with our hormones. Specifically, they can mimic hormones like estrogen, interfere with important hormone pathways in the thyroid gland, and inhibit the effects of testosterone.
Hormones are essential to our bodies’ ability to regulate itself; they function like little messengers, floating through the bloodstream and triggering different organs and systems to work together. Now imagine eating something that has a similar structure to your hormones and can act like hormones in your body. It can interfere with the delicate balance our bodies need to maintain. And that’s what ingesting even low doses of chemicals from plastic, over years, can do.
But because we’re exposed to these chemicals from many sources simultaneously, it’s tricky to measure their health impact. Even so, there’s compelling evidence that their “endocrine disrupting” capabilities have a range of disturbing health effects, from an increased risk of obesity and diabetes, to problems with reproductive development.
“Whatever organ or system under development in the fetus or child during an exposure could be altered in subtle yet significant ways, even at low doses,” Tom Neltner, the chemicals policy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, told Vox.
That’s why a major pediatricians’ group, the American Academy of Pediatrics, in July called on families to limit their use of plastic food containers, and demanded “urgently needed” oversight and reforms to the way these substances are regulated in the US.
But right now, that’s not happening. So, as pediatricians have suggested, you might want to rethink the plastics your food is stored in. Here’s what you need to know.The complicated — and disturbing — science of plastics and animal health
The impact of the chemicals in plastics we commonly use for food storage have been studied in both animals and humans. And depending on the type of plastic polymer, the health effects vary from inconclusive to disturbing.
First, let’s walk through some of the animal research since it’s important here. (Researchers running animal experiments can zero-in on which doses of which chemicals cause certain health effects — something they can’t do in human studies — more on that later.) And let’s start with the most feared plastic polymer: BPA.
In aquatic animals, which are important models for human disease, BPA disrupts hormones in a variety of ways: as an estrogen imitator, blocking other sex hormones, and disrupting the thyroid hormone system. Researchers have noted that BPS — a compound that is structurally very similar to BPA — has similar effects on aquatic animals, but using BPS means manufacturers can claim their products are BPA-free.
In 2012, Harvard researchers published a study showing the effect of BPA on oocyte development (oocytes are the precursors to female eggs) in Rhesus monkeys. By either directly feeding the monkeys BPA or giving them an implant that would release specific amounts of BPA, the scientists ensured BPA exposures in the monkeys were comparable to exposures in humans. They found disruption in two critical stages of egg development, which could lead to lower egg quality and decreased fertility.
A 2008 meta-analysis of existing literature looked specifically into the effect of phthalates and polyvinyl chloride (or PVC) on asthma and allergies. They brought together mouse studies, case studies, and epidemiological data. While the human data was inconclusive, the review concluded that certain phthalates can cause an inflammatory response in mice.
A review published in 2009 looked at the existing literature on how plastic ingestion affects people and animals. It reported a wide range of effects that have been observed over the years: For example, adult male rats orally fed phthalates in oil had dysfunctional sperm development. Mice and guinea pigs fed phthalates also had testicular damage.
One of the biggest problems with drawing conclusions from animal studies is that many of them involve very high doses — several orders of magnitude higher than anything humans are exposed to, explained Dr. Frederick Vom Saal, an endocrinologist and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri, and one of the authors of the 2009 review. And that’s because much of the early research into plastic consumption was conducted by toxicologists, rather than endocrinologists, such as himself.
“For toxins, the more you’re exposed to, the greater the effect. [But] that is not true of hormones,” he said. “Hormones aren’t toxins; they’re regulatory molecules that operate at a trillionth of a gram level.”
In fact, hormones — and plastics that mimic hormones — are part of complex feedback systems in our bodies and don’t have a linear effect that’s directly related to dose. Vom Saal and his colleagues published a study in 2012 that found DEHP, a phthalate found in food packaging, had adverse reproductive effects in doses up to 25,000 times lower than had been previously imagined. They also noticed reproductive tract malformations in the male offspring of mice that were fed DEHP in oil.
Altogether, the animal research suggests that plastics can be harmful, especially to animals’ reproductive systems, and can cause abnormal sperm, egg, and fetal development.The human data isn’t very reassuring
But again, not every health issue that arises in animals will arise in humans — since humans and animals are different. And definitive human studies of health effects from plastics exposure are hard to come by. That’s because the studies are mostly epidemiological — with epidemiological studies, researchers can only talk about associations between exposures and certain health outcomes. In other words, they can’t find causal relationships.
Another issue: It’s not always clear what compounds a package is made of because manufacturing plastic polymers also yields a lot of byproducts that aren’t necessarily tested for safety. Which means it’s hard to design studies to understand the effects of any single chemical.
Even so, Carl-Gustaf Bornehag, a researcher and professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, summed up, “Chemicals related to plastics — BPA in polycarbonates and phthalates in soft polyvinyl chloride — have been shown to be associated to human health effects in numerous studies, and effects have been shown in experimental cell and animal studies as well supporting the finding in humans.”
Reviews of the literature on the human health effects of chemicals in plastics have demonstrated links between exposures to BPA, phthalates, and other plastics additives and reduced fertility, reduced male sexual function and sperm quality, blunted immune function, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity. In fetuses, BPA exposure was correlated with an increased risk of miscarriage, low birth weight, and childhood obesity.
There are also potential cognitive effects. “Particularly strong are the associations between early BPA exposure and altered behavior and disrupted neurodevelopment in children, as well as increased probability of childhood wheeze and asthma,” the author of one of the reviews wrote. Indeed, children are at particular risk of health effects from these chemicals, AAP said: “Hormones act on all parts of the body, and even small disruptions at key moments in development can have permanent and lifelong consequences.”
A 2015 systematic review on children’s neurodevelopment and phthalate exposure concluded that prenatal exposure to phthalates was associated with “cognitive and behavioral outcomes in children, including lower IQ, and problems with attention, hyperactivity, and poorer social communication.”
While it’s true that many companies are now manufacturing phthalate- or BPA-free products, scientists are concerned about substitute chemicals, too. Again, many of them are functionally similar to the chemicals of concern, like BPA and BPS.
“The weight of the human evidence [on BPA] continues to mount,” Sheela Sathyanarayana, an associate professor of pediatrics in the department of environmental and occupational health at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Research Institute, summed up. “For phthalates, I do not see any controversies related to male reproductive toxicity and the weight of the evidence is extremely strong. I now consistently say phthalates ‘cause’ male reproductive abnormalities because the weight of the evidence supports it.”The regulation of chemicals in food containers is weak
Right now, it’s up to consumers to manage their exposures to the chemicals in plastics because of a surprising lack of regulatory oversight over the plastic packaging industry.
In 1997 the FDA established the Packaging and Food Contact Substance program — a regulatory system to determine what packaging products were safe. So anyone who manufactures a “food contact substance,” which includes chemical additives, coatings, paper, or polymers, must first get the okay from the FDA before putting it on the market.
The exception to this rule is substances considered “Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS)”— a category that was created for food items with a long history of use, like caffeine or sugar, and no evidence of harmful side effects.
But the list of GRAS-accepted polymers in packaging is long — some say too long. And it’s been criticized, most recently by the AAP. In August, members of the AAP’s Council on Environmental Health noted just how easy it is to get into the GRAS category due to very little oversight and significant conflict of interest. It’s one of the “critical problems within the food regulatory system,” they said, and it means these potentially harmful chemicals can be used in food packaging.
That’s because the FDA doesn’t actually test things that get put on this list. They leave the decision up to the manufacturing companies themselves. Consumer Reports noted that these companies don’t need to show any peer-reviewed evidence before placing their products on the GRAS list.
The US Government Accountability Office has reported that regulations for Generally Recognized as Safe products need to be tightened. An article published in PLOS Biology last year also criticized GRAS as part of the larger issue of “sluggish” federal regulatory policy that has failed in “considering scientific knowledge about the impact of exposures —particularly at low levels and during susceptible developmental stages.”
And last year, a group made of the Center for Food Safety, Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Environmental Defense Fund, and Environmental Working Group sued the FDA over the “secret GRAS system,” calling it “a regulatory scheme in which potentially unsafe chemical substances can be added to food based on conclusions by self-interested food and chemical manufacturers.”
In addition to the GRAS list, the AAP called out lack of proper assessment of controversial plastic packaging products like BPA and phthalates. “Of the nearly 4,000 food additives listed on the FDA’s Substances Added to Food website, data for effects on reproductive organs are available for less than 300, and only two have information about effects on development,” the group said in a statement.
One reason for this uncertainty is that our manufacturing abilities have whizzed past the slow nature of evidence-based research. Again, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get the kind of evidence that would guarantee complete safety on these products, so the burden of proof is on regulators instead of manufacturers.
Another more insidious reason regulators may have been dismissive of scientists’ concerns is lobbying by the chemical industry. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit organization that tracks lobbying efforts, Dow Chemical, a plastics manufacturer, spent close to $14 million dollars in 2016 on lobbying Congress and federal agencies. And the American Chemistry Council — a large umbrella organization that lobbies on behalf of plastic manufacturers, among other groups — has spent between $5 and $13 million dollars on lobbying annually since 2009.
Regulators have also been criticized for their research into BPA’s health risks. The FDA-led CLARITY-BPA study, which began in 2012 and was released in the form of a draft report in February, gave BPA the green light, with a press announcement calling it “safe for the currently authorized uses in food containers and packaging.”
The final study is slated to come out sometime in September, and will be considered with results from other government-sponsored BPA studies at universities. This initial report’s early, positive conclusions were alarming to scientists who have been studying the chemical. In April, the Endocrine Society released a statement saying they “have significant concerns with the conclusions of the [report]” and criticized the methods and design of the CLARITY study.What you can do to limit your exposure
In the absence of stronger regulations, there are things you can do to limit your exposure to chemicals in food:Eat fresh fruits and vegetables when possible, so that you avoid plasticized storage containers with chemicals that can leach into your foods.Don’t microwave food or drinks (including infant formula and pumped human milk) in plastic since heating up food containers increases the release of chemicals into food. Use glassware instead.Opt for glass or stainless steel to store your food.Avoid plastics with recycling codes 3 (which means it contains phthalates), 6 (styrene) and 7 (bisphenols).
But even if you do all these things, it’s impossible to totally avoid these common chemicals. BPA can be found on sales receipts and in plastic utensils. As a recent story in GQ, about the declining sperm count in men, points out phthalates are even more ubiquitous:
They are in the coatings of pills and nutritional supplements; they’re used in gelling agents, lubricants, binders, emulsifying agents, and suspending agents. Not to mention medical devices, detergents and packaging, paint and modeling clay, pharmaceuticals and textiles and sex toys and nail polish and liquid soap and hair spray.
And the plastics that we may not directly consume end up in landfills, break down into microplastics, and can absorb harmful pollutants — all of which can enter our oceans, water, and food supply. So it’s no surprise that just about every American has measurable amounts of phthalates and BPA in their bodies. Still, any effort to reduce your exposure is probably worth it.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/9/11/17614540/plastic-food-containers-contamination-health-risks

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(ACC Mentioned) Congress Pushes EPA on Fluoropolymer Water Risks

Sep 11, 2018 | Plastics News

By Steve Toloken

Members of Congress are pushing hard on the Environmental Protection Agency to get tougher on regulating water contamination from fluorinated chemicals, including those used in making fluoropolymers.
At a Sept. 6 hearing in Washington, one of the first held by Congress on the issue, a bipartisan collection of lawmakers pressed the EPA on its plans, and a panel of state regulators urged Washington to set national standards and beef up funding for cleanups.
While the chemicals can enter the environment through many sources — including from use in firefighting foams, fabrics and as coating for paper food packaging — lawmakers and witnesses also touched on cases of water contamination involving plastics firms like Saint-Gobain, DuPont and Chemours.
"I think you can tell that Republicans and Democrats are pretty unified here on the concern about PFAS chemicals," said Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.). "The Flint water crisis is something that every member on this dais has in their head and every American across the country is worried about. PFAS in Michigan is scaring people more than the Flint water did."
One theme of the testimony before the House environment subcommittee was the need to expand federal regulations beyond two of the most prominent fluorinated chemicals, perfluorooactanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfate (PFOS), and develop regulatory standards for others in the class, broadly called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
A community group from North Carolina, Clean Cape Fear, for example, urged lawmakers to set standards for a newer type of PFAS, the fluorochemical compound GenX, used by Chemours as a PFOA replacement at manufacturing plants in the fluoropolymer supply chain in Fayetteville, N.C., and in Europe.
Emily Donovan, a cofounder of the group, said community concern mushroomed since last year when GenX and more than 20 other PFAS chemicals were found in its drinking water pulled from the Cape Fear River. The group blames it at least partly on discharges from the Chemours plant 80 miles upriver.
DuPont and Chemours in early 2017 paid $670 million to settle 3,500 separate lawsuits over PFOA drinking contamination and harm to human health from leakage from a fluoropolymer manufacturing plant in West Virginia.
Donovan said her community was very worried similar contamination could be happening in North Carolina.
"We need you to act swiftly now," she told the lawmakers. "We want a nationwide PFAS human exposure study that includes all known PFAS, not just the well documented PFOA and PFOS. We need to move beyond GenX, PFOA and PFOS... and regulate all PFAS as a class of highly toxic chemicals."
Other witnesses added that they believe state action remains equally important. Natural Resources Defense Council Senior Director Erik Olson said EPA has known about problems with PFAS chemicals for more than a decade but has yet to develop a legally enforceable drinking water standard for any of them.
"We need states to be taking action because EPA is not going to be doing anything very quickly," Olson told lawmakers. "States need to be stepping into the void."
In 2016, EPA lowered its drinking water safety level to 70 parts per trillion for PFOS and PFOA combined, down from 200 and 400 ppt separately that it set in 2009. That remains an advisory level.
A few states have set their own standards at much lower levels, often below 20 ppt for PFOA. A June study from the Centers for Disease Control suggested a federal standard up to 10 times lower than the current EPA rules.
States are also setting new, low standards for other PFAS chemicals used in plastics.
New Jersey regulators on Sept. 4 adopted a drinking water standard of 13 parts per trillion for perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), a processing aide in manufacturing some high-performance plastics.
A news release from the state's Department of Environmental Quality noted Solvay Polymers had used PFNA at its West Deptford, N.J., facility until 2010, where it makes poly-vinilidene fluoride engineering plastic and its Tecnoflon fluorinated elastomer.
DEP said that under its direction, Solvay put in a treatment system for PFNA groundwater contamination on its property and paid to install a treatment system for the nearby town of Paulsboro.
New Jersey said it started studying PFOA when problems began to emerge from the DuPont plant in West Virginia, and in 2006 became the first state to test for PFOA in its drinking water systems. It set a PFOA level of 14 ppt and is the first state to establish PFNA standards.
Some of the characteristics that have made fluorinated chemicals sought after in manufacturing, such as their resistance to high temperatures and harsh chemicals, also mean they stick around and can become persistent in the environment.
The health effects for people are still being examined, but a committee staff report said studies have found links with kidney and testicular cancer, low birth weight and liver tissue damage from PFOA and PFOS exposure.
As well, the New Jersey DEP said PFNA has its strongest links to liver damage and high cholesterol in people. It said the chemical's cancer potential has not been evaluated.
The American Chemistry Council put out a statement after the hearing saying that "the PFAS currently manufactured have been well studied and undergone rigorous regulatory review."U.S. Rep. Paul TonkoTonko
It added that major PFAS manufacturers in the U.S., Europe and Japan have phased out PFOA and PFOS manufacturing, in voluntary action with regulators, and that as a result levels of those compounds were declining.
"Our industry supports a process based on the best available science to determine, as appropriate, maximum contaminant levels and contaminated site clean-up levels for PFOS and PFOA," ACC said.
One member of Congress said the emerging regulations around PFAS chemicals are much stricter than for other drinking water contaminants.
"When we discuss other serious drinking water contaminants, we often deal in parts per billion, [for] lead and perchlorate and other dangerous contaminants," said Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee. "This is parts per trillion. That gives you a sense of how toxic this class of chemicals is."
At the hearing, the director of the EPA's Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water Peter Grevatt testified that EPA will complete a comprehensive national PFAS management plan by the end of the year and plans to finish a toxicity assessment for GenX in the next few weeks.
The EPA held a national summit meeting on PFAS chemicals in May, where then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said PFAS would be a "national priority." EPA is looking at legally-binding standards for PFOA and PFOS and whether it should declare them hazardous substances under federal Superfund cleanup laws.
That last step, according to state regulators from Michigan and Minnesota, could give state governments much more authority to force companies and others to help pay for cleanup.
"If we had this new tool it would be more effective, we might not need to go to court often," said Carol Isaacs, director of the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team, which was formed by Gov. Rick Snyder in November 2017 to coordinate faster contamination response among 10 state agencies.
Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), the vice chairman of the environment subcommittee, raised concerns about how communities would be able to pay for upgrades to remove PFAS chemicals from water systems, particularly if the drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS are lowered from 70 ppt to 10 ppt and more communities are determined to be at risk.
"We, at least in West Virginia, we had a company that was on the hook to pay for this, but there are going to be some communities that the companies will be long gone and how are they going to do this?" he asked, adding that the government only has funding to clean up about 1,000 of the estimated 480,000 brownfield contaminated sites in the U.S. each year.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180910/NEWS/180919990/congress-pushes-epa-on-fluoropolymer-water-risks

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(ACC Mentioned) Toxic Flame-Retardant Ban Heads to Governor for Signature

Sep 11, 2018 | L.A. Weekly

By Beige Luciano-Adams

The HBO documentary Toxic Hot Seat (2013) — a damning indictment of toxic fire-retardant chemicals in our furniture, environment and bodies (spoiler: It’s California’s fault) — ends on a triumphant note. It’s 2013 and Gov. Jerry Brown is talking, vaguely, about how “every reform needs a reform,” pledging to support regulatory updates that will end the state’s de facto fire-retardant requirement in furniture manufacturing (the original regulation, Technical Bulletin 117, was implemented during his first term in the 1970s).
Pulitzer-winning investigative reporters and the original scientists behind TB 177 handily deflate the chemical industry’s claims that its products are indispensable to fire safety. A firefighter who survived cancer — one of a disproportionate number afflicted from exposure to toxic fumes worsened by burning fire retardants — smiles and rides his bike through a slice of California sunshine. It feels like progress.
But five years later, at a time when more than two-thirds of furniture manufacturers have phased out the chemicals, activists are still struggling to pry the industry’s necrotic grip from the market. Last month, they scored an historic victory when AB 2998(sponsored by Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica) passed out of the Assembly with bipartisan support. With some exemptions and compromises (leveraged to tame opposition from the mattress industry), the bill bans the sale of toxic flame-retardant chemicals in furniture, mattresses and juvenile products.
“Getting it through the Legislature is a significant victory,” said Alvaro Casanova, California policy manager at the Center for Environmental Health, a co-sponsor of the bill. “We’re fighting a very wealthy industry that has a demonstrated record of intimidating lawmakers, lying to committees of the Legislature and intimidating furniture stores that wanted to display information.”
That may help answer the question: Why has California, a progressive leader in environmental policy, taken so long to address reform?
Over the past decade, efforts to ban or even restrict or label toxic fire retardants — usually led by indefatigable State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) — have repeatedly failed. This despite the fact that state and federal governments acknowledge the causal link with a grim raft of afflictions — including cancer, endocrine and thyroid disruption, adverse fetal and child development, and neurological damage. These chemicals marinate our couches, beds and baby products by the pound, not parts-per-million. They easily escape and collect in the dust we breathe. They bio-accumulate, working their way up the food chain, showing up in far-flung ecosystems — and in our breast milk. (That’s just the conservative view, from the National Institutes of Health). Of course, babies are particularly susceptible, and California children have some of the highest exposure levels in the world.
Implemented in 1975, TB 117 came at a time when most Americans smoked and fire deaths were rampant. Under pressure to create self-extinguishing cigarettes, the tobacco industry deflected attention to furniture manufacturers. TB 117 was ground zero for the commercial proliferation of toxic flame retardants, setting a standard that would be adopted nationwide, in the continuing absence of laws to regulate chemicals in consumer products. (The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission last year published non-binding recommendations to discourage consumers from buying furniture with organohalogen flame retardants.)
Since TB 117, reformers argue, fire-related deaths have decreased significantly because of other factors such as improved sprinkler systems and self-extinguishing cigarettes. Moreover, research by state and federal bodies has shown that fire retardants, when tested properly for real-world conditions (which include upholstery fabric and fire barriers in addition to just the underlying foam) are ineffective — and, reform advocates argue, unnecessary.
An unprecedented fire season, in which Cal Fire spent a quarter of its annual budget in July alone to fight rampant wildfires, may be an inopportune time to pass legislation that opponents characterize as a threat to fire safety. It also comes when the Trump administration is on a deregulation binge, rolling back environmental and consumer protections.
Casanova attributes AB 2998’s success to a combination of “the science being on the side of public health and safety and a coalition that included firefighters, consumer groups, parents, environmental, public health leaders and courageous lawmakers. And the exposé of the really rotten tactics this industry has used to turn things around.”
Those tactics — including a preposterously shallow industry front group, now disbanded — were exposed in 2013 by a Chicago Tribuneinvestigative series.
Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, described AB 2998 as the culmination of a decade of incremental gains — including an exemption several years ago for juvenile products (e.g., cribs, nursing pillows, baby mattresses) led by Sen. Leno following a Consumer Product Safety Commission investigation finding zero deaths attributed to fires originating in that product category.
“Getting juvenile products exempted from this legislation that allowed toxic saturation … it was a very huge, hard-fought battle to win that one. It was not conceivable at that time to pass something bigger in scale,” Holober said.
“The industry hired big lobbying firms, created a front group, they scared lawmakers,” Holober said. “At the time, I lived in San Mateo County and my state senator was thinking about voting the right way on the bill, and I got what looked like campaign mail — a picture of a firefighter with a crying infant in his arms racing out of a house. It said, “Your senator is about to make a tragic mistake and children will die, contact him now….’”
AB 2998 proponents say the chemical industry been lobbying hard this time, flying out representatives from D.C., albeit without the same theatrics. The bill passed with bipartisan support (Assembly by 52-12 and the Senate by 29-9). Among Democrats who abstained, representatives offered explanations: Sen. Ben Hueso “would have likely supported the legislation if he had been on the Senate floor at the time the vote was taken”; Rep. Tom Daly “voted for the bill when it first came up for a vote in late May”; and Rep. Susan Eggman voted in favor the first time but happened to miss the vote on concurrence. An inquiry to Rep. Blanca Rubio was not returned.
In response to an inquiry for a phone interview, a spokesperson for the American Chemical Council sent an opposition letter and a statement calling flame retardants an important fire-safety tool that “help save lives, reduce fires and limit property damage,” and that laws like AB 2998 “arguably increase fire risk” and rely on “outdated or inaccurate claims.”
Opponents interrogate the bill for equating the presence of chemicals with harm, offering such a broad definition as to restrict future innovation, and for bypassing existing regulatory frameworks.
“That a product contains a ‘flame-retardant chemical’ does not necessarily mean that the product is harmful to human health or the environment or that there is any violation of existing safety standards or laws. Risks associated with a chemical in a product are dependent upon the potency of the chemical and the magnitude, duration and frequency of exposure to the chemical,” the letter reads.
A rather tepid challenge, even if this were not a state expected to err on the side of caution when considering human and environmental health.
“The thing is, they’ve had 30 to 40 years to innovate a green fire retardant,” Casanova said, responding to the claim that AB 2998’s overly broad prohibitions will kill innovation. “Seventy percent of manufacturers don’t use them already because consumers don’t want them. So we’re just trying to move the rest of the market to a level playing field. … It will be good for business.”
Responding to a request for a phone interview, the California Chamber of Commerce, which joined the chemical industry, toy and mattress manufacturers in opposition to AB 2998, deferred to the American Chemistry Council.
Production won’t cost any more without fire retardants, which will still be used in products such as plastic and circuit boards, Casanova said. “So it’s not like the fire-retardant industry will be obliterated overnight. But in terms of exposing millions of people to these chemicals unnecessarily, that will stop, and that’s a good thing for public health and for business.”
In its opposition letter, the American Chemical Council argues that California legislation should be contingent on the results of ongoing federal studies, including by the CPSC, and that the bill ignores efforts by California’s existing Safer Consumer Products program.
Casanova counters that CPS looks at more narrow product categories (like sofas) and considers alternatives for hazardous chemicals. “There are already alternatives because 75 percent of the market is already not using fire retardants. We know they’re harmful, we don’t need an alternative analysis. Industry will always say we’re sidestepping that program. We’re not.”
The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the pending legislation. Brown has until the end of this month to sign or veto the bill.
If AB 2998 becomes law, proponents are hoping the decision will be a landmark for states’ rights in setting environmental and health policy, and trickle down — much the same as TB 117 did — to other markets across the country.
As burn survivor and activist Andrew McGuire put it in Toxic Hot Seat, “California in a sense has caused the poisoning of the country, and Canada — and maybe the world. We should stop it here.”
https://www.laweekly.com/news/camp-aims-to-introduce-african-american-and-latina-girls-to-stem-9732236

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US, Canada Issue Chemical Assessment Collaboration Framework

Sep 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Kelly Franklin

Canada and the US have released a framework to improve their collaboration on the risk assessment of chemicals.
A joint product from the US EPA, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and Health Canada (HC), the ‘assessment collaboration framework’ will enable "enhanced alignment" on the risk-based assessment of chemicals, including on identifying priorities, information gathering, comparing assessment methodologies and work sharing.
According to the document, the EPA, ECCC and HC have common policy objectives under TSCA and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (Cepa) to reduce the risk of chemicals to human health and the environment. And they share "similar principles" regarding the assessment of chemicals.
The framework, therefore, aims to "facilitate and enhance collaboration" between the three agencies on risk assessment efforts, working within their respective statutory requirements.
The document reflects plans for collaboration on science and practices, and also to engage stakeholders and the public. This may include the use of a stakeholder advisory group, as well as the development of ad hoc or specialised groups focused on specific issues.
Information sharing between the governments, while protecting confidential business information (CBI), is also a named priority.Rolling workplan
The framework is intended to be flexible and remain valid for an "indeterminate period". But alongside it, the agencies appended a rolling 'workplan' of current collaborative activities. These cover:risk assessment methodologies for new and existing chemicals, including alternatives to animal testing and sharing guidance and tools;data evaluation activities, with plans for Canada to give the US more information on robust study summaries; priority setting, with a focus on lessons learned from previously used prioritisation approaches; andinformation sharing, including comparing data gathering approaches and exchanging environmental monitoring data for certain substances.
The workplan also highlights plans to share work on the solvents N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) and 1-bromopropane, which are both among the first ten substances being evaluated under the amended TSCA.
And it indicates ‘ongoing’ inter-agency peer review of Canada’s nanotechnology framework, and of the US’s strategic plan on alternatives to animal testing.
A timeline for inter-agency review of individual risk assessments remains undetermined.
The work comes under 'stream B' of the US-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC) chemicals management workplan, which centres on risk assessment.
'Stream A' focuses on significant new activity (Snac) provisions and significant new use rules (Snurs) – Canada and America’s respective instruments for controlling risks that may result from new chemicals or new applications of existing chemicals.
Last year, the two governments committed to "continue their dialogue on regulatory issues and pursue shared regulatory outcomes that reduce trade impediments, reduce costs, increase economic efficiency, and streamline regulations without compromising health, safety, and environmental standards," according to the framework document.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70170/us-canada-issue-chemical-assessment-collaboration-framework

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TTC Approach Is Suitable for Organosilicon Substances, Industry Says

Sep 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) approach to risk assessment can be applied to organosilicon substances, according to a poster presented by Dow and P&G scientists at the Eurotox conference in Brussels last week.
The approach is used for prioritisation when there is little toxicological data about a substance or group of substances.
It assumes that for any given substance there exists an exposure level – or threshold – below which the substance can be considered of negligible concern. A risk assessor can use this to differentiate quickly between substances that require more comprehensive assessment and those that do not.
Regulators in multiple sectors have, to varying degrees, accepted the approach, which was created by industry in the 1990s. For example, a 2016 joint report from the European Food Safety Authority and the World Health Organization concluded that it was a "valid, science-based screening tool".
In some sectors, however, industry is looking for regulators to embrace the approach more fully. Cosmetics Europe, for example, wants the European Commission to broaden its applicability in its guidance on safety assessment of cosmetics ingredients.
The Dow and P&G scientists said in their poster that some regulators, such as Efsa and Health Canada, explicitly exclude organosilicon substances from the TTC applicability domain. They do this because the Munro database – a cornerstone of the conceptual foundation – contains no such compounds.
The group analysed oral, repeated dose toxicity data from REACH registration dossiers and identified 44 organosilicon substances. Alkoxysilanes accounted for more than 50% of them; and siloxanes more than 25%. The set also included some silanols and one alkoxylated ortho-silicate.
None of the 44 substances was associated with a reference dose below the strictest threshold for the TTC approach. This shows that it provides a conservative value for the protection of human health, the group said.
The lead author of the poster was Barbara Schmitt at Dow Silicones Belgium.Increasing regulation
Organosilcon substances, particularly siloxanes, are increasingly facing regulation at both international and national level.
In the EU, for example, the use of D4 and D5 in cosmetics will be restricted under REACH from February 2020. This will apply to wash-out cosmetics, such as shampoos, containing them in concentrations equal to or greater than 0.1% by weight.
Additionally, in June, Echa added three siloxanes – D6, D5, and D6 – to the REACH candidate list of substances of very high concern because of their potential to persist and bioaccumulate in the environment, as well as their toxicity.
Listing prioritises the substances for inclusion in Annex XIV, the authorisation list, and thereby opens the door to strict risk management measures via the REACH authorisation mechanism.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70167/ttc-approach-is-suitable-for-organosilicon-substances-industry-says

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Energy News

(ACC Mentioned) Turning Waste into Power: The Plastic to Fuel Projects

Sep 11, 2018 | Power Technology

By Scarlett Evans

Plastic to fuel projects are beginning to gain traction in the energy industry, with rising awareness of the prolific environmental damage caused by single-use plastics and people’s insufficient recycling habits leading researchers to turn to alternative disposal methods for our mounting plastic output.
Such projects use the chemical energy stored in the material’s hydrocarbon structure to create fuel, a method praised for its economic and environmental benefits, yet which has for the most part remained in its developmental stage.
Now, these schemes are beginning to take off. Here Future Power looks at some of the most innovative examples.
Why turn plastic to fuel?
Estimates show that less than 5% of the plastic manufactured each year is recycled, with production of the material set to increase by 3.8% every year until 2030, adding to the 6.3 billion tonnes churned out since production began 60 years ago. The majority ends up in our oceans, posing a disruption to marine ecosystems, which researchers predict would take a minimum of 450 years to biodegrade, if ever.
The solution of plastics-to-fuel holds promise in not only curbing such pervasive pollution but also providing a significant economic benefit to regions. The American Chemistry Council estimates plastic-to-fuel facilities in the US alone would create nearly 39,000 jobs and almost $9bn in economic output, making the global market potential of such an industry huge.
Plastic-derived fuels are also capable of producing a cleaner burning fuel than traditional sources due to their low sulphur content, considering the majority of developing nations use sulphur-heavy diesel.Plastic to hydrogen
Most recently, researchers from Swansea University have discovered a means of converting plastic waste into hydrogen fuel, which they say could one day be used to power cars.
The team added a light-absorbing photo catalyst to plastic products, a material that absorbs sunlight and transforms it into chemical energy in a process called ‘photoreforming’. The plastic and catalyst combination was then left in an alkaline solution exposed to sunlight, breaking down the material and producing bubbles of hydrogen gas in the process.
The new method would be a cheaper than current recycling options, as any plastic can be used without needing to be cleaned. According to The Balance Small Business, it currently costs around $4,000 to recycle a tonne of plastic bags, which often leads to plastic waste being burned or thrown in landfill to avoid expenses.
Dr Moritz Kuehnel, from the university’s chemistry department, said: “There’s a lot of plastic used every year – billions of tonnes – and only a fraction of it is being recycled. We are trying to find a use for what is not being recycled.
The beauty of this process is that it’s not very picky. It can degrade all sorts of waste.”
The team is now looking to scale up the process from current milligrams of plastic to use the photoreforming process on more sizeable pieces.
While it may be years before this plastic-to-fuel process can be rolled out on an industrial level, its development would work well in tandem with the advent of hydrogen vehicles. Currently, no such cars exist on our roads, though a number of companies have big plans in the pipeline. For instance, Toyota has stated its aim to sell one million electric and fuel cars worldwide by 2030, while it is also due to launch a fuel cell-powered bus in 2020.Plastic to diesel
Chemists from the University of California, Irvine (UC), in collaboration with researchers from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, have devised a plastic recycling method that allows them to dissolve the bonds of polyethylene plastic to create petroleum and other fuel products.
While untreated polyethylene can be broken down, it requires either a significant amount of heat or reactive, toxic chemicals, and results in the atomic bonds breaking in an unusable way. By contrast, the process developed by the researchers uses far less heat and allows the final product to be transformed into a new fuel source.
The team, led by UC Irvine chemist Zhibin Guan, used a type of hydrocarbon molecule known as alkanes, which are typically used to produce polymers, though they were here harnessed to break down polymers. In a gradual process of removing and adding bonds between the carbon and hydrogen atoms within the material, the team were able to restructure the polyethylene into a liquid fuel that can be used in cars or other industrial purposes.
The catalysts used are also compatible with various types of polyolefin additives, meaning plastic waste such as bottles, bags and film can all be converted into chemical feedstocks without the need for any pre-treatment.Plastic to crude oil
In 2016, Illinois Sustainable Technology Center researchers B.K. Sharma and Kishore Rajagopalan, in collaboration with the US Department of Agriculture, successfully converted plastic bags into fuel.
The team used high-density polyethylene bags sourced from local retailers and fed them into a pyrolysis unit, creating plastic crude oil (PCO) in the process. They then distilled the PCO to make gasoline and two types of diesel. Following the addition of antioxidants, the resulting materials proved superior to conventional diesel fuels in terms of lubricity and derived cetane number, which demonstrates ignition quality.Plastic to sulphur
US firm Plastic2Oil works to turn waste plastic into sulphur fuel, using the discarded material as feedstock to create an ‘ultra-low sulphur diesel’ that contains 15ppm or lower sulphur content.
Currently, ultra-low sulphur diesel is primarily produced from petroleum, though Plastic2Oil provides a viable alternative with its plastic-derived fuel. The firm’s processor accepts unwashed and unsorted plastic, generating around one gallon of fuel from 8.3 pounds of the material. The processor uses its own off-gases as fuel (approximately 10%-12% of process output), meaning minimal energy is required to run the machine. The fuel produced can also be refined and separated without the cost of a distillation tower.Are there any negatives?
The waste-to-fuel industry has received some opposition from environmental organisations, with protests causing the halting of a planned waste-to-fuel facility in Lancashire last year, and investigations launched into such sites in Canberra, Australia following environmentalists’ complaints.
Larry O’Loughlin, executive director of the ACT Conservation Council, spoke to The Guardian about the environmental threat he says waste-to-plastic sites pose. He rejected the notion that the industry is a form of recycling, as the plastics may only be used once before being turned into fuel. He also argued that widespread adoption of the method could slow efforts to find fuel alternatives, saying: “At a time of reducing carbon emissions, they are introducing another fossil fuel. The ACT is trying to move to zero emissions by 2050. How are we going to do that by setting up a refinery here?”
https://www.power-technology.com/comment/plastic-to-fuel/

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(ACC Mentioned) Offshore, Not out of Mind

Sep 11, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Energy

By Kelsey Tamborrino

The prospect of offshore drilling rigs along U.S. coastlines has long been unpopular among coastal residents, who are loathe to give up their views and take on the risk of spills. Now, with the Trump administration looking to expand oil and gas drilling along the coastline, Democrats have tuned in to the issue and are using it to drive a wedge among voters in the upcoming November midterm elections, Pro's Anthony Adragna reports this morning.
The dynamic is playing out on both coasts, even flaring up in deeply red states like South Carolina. “The issue is pretty cut and dry. I’ve always been against it,” Joe Cunningham, Democratic nominee in South Carolina’s coastal 1st District, told POLITICO. “And I think it’s one that shapes the decision of voters here in the Lowcountry.” Cunningham’s opponent, Katie Arrington, first backed President Donald Trump’s proposal to expand offshore drilling during her successful primary challenge to Rep. Mark Sanford, Anthony reports, but now opposes drilling off the state's coast.
While electoral watchers don't think the issue will decide any particularly close races, they do say it could fit into Democrats' larger argument that Republicans are too devoted to their party rather than their districts. Trump's "obsession with opening vast new waters to unneeded drilling is politically tone deaf, and is leaving Republicans in swing districts vulnerable to attack by opportunistic Democrats," said Paul Bledsoe, energy fellow at Progressive Policy Institute. Read the story here.
GOOD TUESDAY MORNING! I'm your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. The House Natural Resources Committee’s Marc Alberts was first to name former Sen. Ted Kennedy as the owner of the first congressional website, which was hosted by MIT in 1994. Today’s question: Which pair of siblings holds the record for serving together in Congress the longest? Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com, or follow us on Twitter @kelseytam, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
WRDA UP: The House and Senate late last night unveiled the text of its bicameral America’s Water Infrastructure Act, authorizing funding for water infrastructure programs and projects. In a statement, EPW ranking member Tom Carper said the bill would “help coastal communities prepare for the growing risks of climate change and help communities across America invest in local water infrastructure needs,” among other points. Read the text here.
WHAT WHEELER WAS DOING BEFORE PRUITT RESIGNED: ME snagged a copy of Andrew Wheeler’s calendar from his confirmation as EPA deputy in mid-April until Scott Pruitt’s resignation in July, and it shows Wheeler shared the former EPA chief’s habit of meeting regularly with fossil fuel industry representatives. One of Wheeler’s first calls was with Andrew Lundquist, vice president of government affairs at ConocoPhillips. Wheeler met with a National Ocean Industries Association legislative group on May 11 for breakfast. “This is a great opportunity for you to share your thoughts and introduce yourself in your new role to the offshore oil and gas industry folks here in town,” the invitation reads. “We keep it very informal and conversational, and strictly off‐the‐record.” Attendees at that session included representatives from the American Petroleum Institute, Independent Petroleum Association of America, National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Chemistry Council and International Association of Drilling Contractors.
A mock hearing: EPA’s senior political leadership huddled on June 15 for a mock confirmation hearing, presumably a dry run for this hearing a few days laterfor two EPA assistant administrators. Among the roles for the mock hearing: deputy chief of staff Byron Brown played Carper; senior policy adviser Mandy Gunasekara, who brought Sen. Jim Inhofe’s infamous snowball to the Senate floor in 2015, played Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse; another senior policy adviser, Brittany Bolen, played Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand; chief of staff Ryan Jackson handled Sen. Jeff Merkley; former Lamar Smith aide Richard Yamada played Sen. Ed Markey; and enforcement chief Susan Bodine was Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Chairman John Barrasso was played by Christian Palich, the former Ohio Coal Association president who is now deputy associate administrator for congressional and intergovernmental affairs.
Pruitt’s last days: The calendar shows that in the hours before Pruitt announced his resignation on July 5, Wheeler lunched with Mary Neumayr, the acting head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality who was later nominated to lead it. The rest of Wheeler’s afternoon was apparently unstructured time. On July 6, Pruitt’s final day, Wheeler met with Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley and other White House officials, then held a teleconference with EPA's 10 regional administrators.
Roll call: A few names stood out in the previously undisclosed meetings on Wheeler’s calendar:
— Steve Milloy, the “Junk Science” blogger who served on the Trump EPA transition team.
— Charlie Grizzle, a top EPA official in the George H.W. Bush administration who currently lobbies EPA for the Eastern Kentucky Power Cooperative, chemical maker Hexion, the Organic Arsenical Products Task Force, and the International Council of Shopping Centers (which opposes WOTUS).
— Frank Love, CEO of Love’s Travel Stops, who met with Wheeler on May 15 to discuss biodiesel and RFS issues. Love is a big Republican donor nationally and based in Oklahoma.
— Chad Bradley, a native Oklahoman and former staffer to Inhofe whose lobbying clients at SBL Strategies now include Chesapeake Energy, Exelon, the Williams Companies, the Portland Cement Association and the American Concrete Pipe Association.
— Jeff Holmstead, former EPA air chief under George W. Bush and now an attorney at Bracewell, along with fellow Bracewell attorney Scott Segal, the director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council.
— Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation.
— Brian Mormino, executive director for environmental strategy and compliance for engine-maker Cummins. The records show Wheeler and Mormino meeting or talking by phone four times in a six-week period. Mormino described the discussions to ME as mostly "brief" and related to emissions standards, like the future NOx standards for heavy duty vehicles.
STATES PREPARE FOR POTENTIAL FLORENCE DEVASTATION: Hurricane Florence is quickly hurdling toward the East Coast, after rapidly increasing in intensity to Category 4 on Monday. The impending and potentially devastating storm is expected to cause major flooding along the coast, mostly along the Carolinas. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster ordered mandatory evacuations along the state's coast beginning today — where one million residents are expected to evacuate. While the storm's path is still in flux, forecasters are expecting Florence to come ashore on Thursday somewhere in the Carolinas, where it could pummel a half dozen nuclear power plants as well as coal ash pits and industrial waste sites, The Associated Press points out.
The Energy Information Administration is marking real-time energy disruptions here, and one company, Duke Energy, told ME it was positioning crews from its Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Florida utilities so they're staged in the Carolinas. "We’re pre-staging field staff and equipment to sites closest to the coast, including Cape Fear, HF Lee, Sutton and Weatherspoon in North Carolina and Robinson in South Carolina," a Duke spokeswoman said of the company's coal ash basins. "These sites already have lower levels of water in the ash basins due to our basin closure work and can hold significant rainfall. We’re also working to lower leachate levels at our landfills to prepare them for the storm."
THE NEW DEAL: Conference negotiators unveiled details of a final deal reached for the first "minibus" package, H.R. 5895 (115) that will come up for a vote later this week. The three-bill package that includes the Energy-Water title is expected to easily clear both chambers and reach the president's desk before the Sept. 30 deadline, Pro's Sarah Ferris reports. Lawmakers are expected to vote on the measure when they return Wednesday, although Hurricane Florence could affect that timing.
So, what's inside the roughly $147 billion measure? Negotiators rejected some of Trump's cuts and agreed to boost funding for nuclear security efforts and energy research. The Energy-Water portion of the bill contains $44.6 billion — $1.4 billion above current levels and $8.1 billion above the president’s budget request, Sarah reports. Democrats mostly fought off partisan policy provisions that House Republicans had put forth, such as allowing firearms to be used on Army Corps of Engineers lands.
Specifically, Pro's Annie Snider reports, negotiators blocked GOP efforts to overturn a court decision requiring hydropower dams to be operated for the benefit of endangered salmon, but they also denied immediate funding for green groups’ ultimate goal of removing the dams. Elsewhere in the bill, Congress avoided Trump's call to nix the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy program and instead gave the popular program $366 million, $12.7 million more than it got fiscal 2018, Pro's Darius Dixon reports. The bill's conference report does not include funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project yet again, which House Republicans have been pushing. Read the Energy-Water summaryand the one-pager.
EXXON TAKES APPEAL TO SCOTUS: Exxon Mobil wants the Supreme Court to weigh in on its appeal against Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. The company on Monday asked the high court to intervene to block Healey’s demand that it hand over company documents as part of her years-long investigation into Exxon’s research into climate change science, Pro’s Alex Guillén reports. Exxon’s petition is an appeal of an April decision from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which rejected Exxon’s argument that Healey has no jurisdiction over the company.
IN THE AIR TONIGHT: The Trump administration is readying changes to an Obama-era methane rule, The New York Times reports. According to documents reviewed by the newspaper, EPA is planning to unveil a proposal to weaken an Obama-era requirement for oil and gas wells to monitor and repair methane leaks. The proposal follows a similar one finalized in March that allows oil and gas companies to wait up to two years to fix methane leaks from future wells or other production facilities. The Wall Street Journal separately reports EPA will release the proposal Wednesday. It will allow drillers a year for leak inspections instead of six months, and 60 days to make repairs instead of 30, according to a draft summary seen by the Journal. The Times also reports the Interior Department is expected to release the final version of its February draft rule on venting and flaring from drilling operations in the coming days.
ZINKE, TRUMP TO HONOR 9/11: The president will honor the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by attending a memorial service in Shanksville, Pa., today — the site of the United Airlines Flight 93 crash that killed 40 passengers and crew members. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will join Trump and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf at the Flight 93 National Memorial — part of the National Park Service system — where he will also speak.
ENERGY CHIEFS ON THE MOVE: The Energy Department confirmed Monday that Secretary Rick Perry will travel to Russia this week to meet with Alexander Novak, the Russian Federation’s minister of energy. The face-to-face comes just two months before renewed sanctions on Iranian crude exports are set to kick in. Perry will also travel to Vienna for the 2018 International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference, and to Bucharest, Romania, for the Three Seas Initiative Summit 2018, both later this month.
Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette will be in Berlin from Wednesday to Saturday to promote U.S. energy resources and opportunities to bring U.S. liquefied natural gas to Germany. Brouillette was invited to Berlin by U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell, who will host a roundtable with the energy industry, according to DOE. Brouillette will also speak about the importance of trans-Atlantic energy security at a German Institute for International and Security Affairs event.
With both trips planned for this week, ME expects a larger conversation about the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to play out. The president has previously described Germany as “totally controlled by Russia” and specifically called out the pipeline project. Trump is pushing the nascent U.S. LNG exports into Europe as a way for countries there to wean themselves off Russian gas.
INSIDE THE TRUMP-NAM RELATIONSHIP: With escalating trade tensions, the National Association of Manufacturers and its president Jay Timmons have kept a relatively close relationship with the president, POLITICO's Lorraine Woellert and Marianne LeVine report. In an interview, Timmons said: “You can scream and yell all you want. I’ve never particularly found that to be effective. We have somebody who is in office who has had a very specific view of the world when it comes to trade — for four decades — so he’s going to do what he’s going to do.” But that doesn't mean the relationship hasn't been rocky. Read the details here.
TRIBES SUE OVER KEYSTONE: Two Native American tribes in Montana and South Dakota are suing the Trump administration over its approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, arguing the State Department approved the pipeline without weighing the potential damage that spills and construction could pose to cultural sites. The Fort Belknap and Rosebud Sioux tribes brought the suit Monday against the State Department in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/newsletters/morning-energy/2018/09/offshore-not-out-of-mind-335584

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Trump Administration Wants to Make It Easier to Release Methane Into Air

Sep 10, 2018 | The New York Times

By Coral Davenport

The Trump administration, taking its third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change, is preparing to make it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere.
Methane, which is among the most powerful greenhouse gases, routinely leaks from oil and gas wells, and energy companies have long said that the rules requiring them to test for emissions were costly and burdensome.
The Environmental Protection Agency, perhaps as soon as this week, plans to make public a proposal to weaken an Obama-era requirement that companies monitor and repair methane leaks, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. In a related move, the Interior Department is also expected in coming days to release its final version of a draft rule, proposed in February, that essentially repeals a restriction on the intentional venting and “flaring,” or burning, of methane from drilling operations.
The new rules follow two regulatory rollbacks this year that, taken together, represent the foundation of the United States’ effort to rein in global warming. In July, the E.P.A. proposed weakening a rule on carbon dioxide pollution from vehicle tailpipes. And in August, the agency proposed replacing the rule on carbon dioxide pollution from coal-fired power plants with a weaker one that would allow far more global-warming emissions to flow unchecked from the nation’s smokestacks.
“They’re taking them down, one by one,” said Janet McCabe, the E.P.A.’s top climate and clean-air regulator in the Obama administration.
Officials from the E.P.A., the Interior Department and the White House did not respond to emails and telephone calls seeking comment.
Industry groups praised the expected changes. “It’s a neat pair” of proposals on methane, said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, an association of independent oil and gas companies that is based in Denver. The Obama-era E.P.A. methane rule, she said, “was the definition of red tape. It was a record-keeping nightmare that was technically impossible to execute in the field.”
Ms. Sgamma praised the Trump administration for turning the oil companies’ requests into policy, noting that the Obama administration frequently turned proposals from environmental groups into policy. “It all depends on who you trust,” she said. “That administration trusted environmentalists. This one trusts industry.”
The regulation of methane, while not as widely discussed as emissions from cars and coal plants, was nonetheless a major component of Mr. Obama’s efforts to combat climate change. Methane makes up only about nine percent of greenhouse gases, but it is around 25 times more effective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere. About one-third of methane pollution is estimated to come from oil and gas operations.
The forthcoming proposals from the E.P.A. and Interior Department would allow far more methane to leak from oil and gas drilling operations, environmentalists say. “These leaks can pop up any time, anywhere, up and down the oil and gas supply chain,” said Matt Watson, a specialist in methane pollution with the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group. “The longer you go in between inspections, the longer leaks will go undetected and unrepaired.”
The proposals exemplify President Trump’s policy quest to roll back regulations on businesses, particularly oil, gas and coal companies. While significant aspects of the president’s broader agenda — including immigration and trade policy, and the proposed border wall with Mexico — remain mired in confusion, and as the administration struggles under the investigation into the presidential campaign’s ties with Russia, the E.P.A. and Interior Department have steadily pressed forward with rollbacks of environmental regulations.
“In other areas of policymaking, like immigration and health care, they appear to have brought into the administration ideologues who don’t know a lot about policymaking,” said Cecilia Muñoz, who directed the White House Domestic Policy Council in the Obama administration. “But in climate change and energy, they appear to have brought in people who know exactly what they’re doing, and know exactly where the levers are.”
The pace of the proposals has not been slowed by the resignation in July of Scott Pruitt, who left the top job at the E.P.A. under a cloud of ethics scandals. Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist who worked in the E.P.A. under the first President George Bush, is now the agency’s acting chief.
The E.P.A.’s new methane proposal, according to the draft seen by The Times, would loosen a 2016 rule that required oil and gas drillers to perform leak inspections as frequently as every six months on their drilling equipment, and to repair leaks within 30 days. The proposed amendment would lengthen that to once a year in most cases, and to as infrequently as once every two years for low-producing wells. It would also double the amount of time a company could wait before repairing a methane leak from 30 to 60 days.
It would also double the amount of time required between inspections of the equipment that traps and compresses the natural gas, from once every three months to once every six months. On the Alaskan North Slope, where oil and gas companies contend that harsh weather makes it difficult to conduct inspections, such equipment would only have to be monitored annually.
In addition, the E.P.A. proposal would let energy companies operating in states that have their own state-level methane standards follow those standards instead of the federal ones. That would include states such as Texas, where the pollution standards have been more lax than federal standards.
If implemented, the proposal would recoup nearly all the costs to the oil and gas industry that would have been imposed by the Obama-era regulation. The E.P.A. estimated that rule would have cost companies about $530 million by 2025. The E.P.A. estimates that the proposed changes would save the oil and gas industry $484 million by the same year.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/climate/methane-emissions-epa.html

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EPA to Roll Back Obama-Era Methane Rules

Sep 10, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal

By Timothy Puko

The Trump administration is about to propose its latest rollback of Obama-era climate rules, moving to ease requirements for oil and gas companies that were designed to limit leaks of the heat-trapping gas methane, administration officials said.
The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to release on Wednesday a proposal that would make it easier for oil and gas companies to comply with rules designed to limit the amount of methane released into the atmosphere.
The EPA proposal aims to ensure oil and gas companies have more time to assess and safely repair infrastructure, often in remote locations, according to a draft summary of the proposal.
The proposed changes, among other measures, would give drillers a year to do leak inspections instead of just six months, and 60 days to make repairs instead of 30, the document said.
Environmentalists are likely to oppose the plan, asserting the delayed inspections and repair schedules are likely to increase the amount of harmful gases released into the environment, and that the proposal opens the door to further rollbacks of climate regulations.
The proposal follows other moves by the EPA earlier this year to ease climate rules, including measures to roll back restrictions on carbon emissions from both power plants and automobiles.
Carbon and methane are considered to be two big drivers of climate change. Methane, however, is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon over the short term and frequently leaks from oil and gas wells, storage tanks and processing plants.
Former President Barack Obama’s administration set more stringent rules to address methane leaks. The rules were supposed to be a fundamental part of its effort to slow climate change, alongside the rules to lower carbon emissions in the power and transportation sectors.
The energy industry has long complained those rules amounted to regulatory overreach, claims adopted by the Trump administration, which includes among its ranks many former employees and allies of the energy industry.
The rollback is also an effort to fulfill the campaign promises of Mr. Trump, who has called global warming a hoax and blamed environmental rules for impeding economic growth.
The EPA plan is coming as the Interior Department also pushes its own proposal that would virtually eliminate its Obama-era rules aimed at cutting emissions of methane from drilling operations on federal lands.
EPA and Interior officials have discussed doing a joint announcement. But Interior is at a much different point in its rollback, near completing a proposal it made in February, according to a senior administration official.
News of the impending release of the methane proposal was reported on Monday in the New York Times.
“We welcome EPA’s efforts to get this right and the proposed changes could ensure that the rule is based on best engineering practices and cost-effective,” Howard Feldman, senior director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the oil-and-gas industry’s lobbying powerhouse, the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement.
While many of the proposal’s details are incremental, and relatively technical, more wide-sweeping changes are still under consideration. The draft summary says the agency will issue a separate proposal later on its regulation of the oil-and-gas sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentalists are concerned that foreshadows an ultimate effort to gut the agency’s oversight over methane from oil and gas operations.
“The net effect would be a fig leaf of a rule that does almost nothing to reduce emissions in the long run,” said Matt Watson, associate vice president for the climate and energy program at the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit environmental group that has been coordinating some of the country’s most extensive research on methane leaks.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/epa-to-roll-back-obama-era-methane-rules-1536628368

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Shell's Plans to Build Cracker Plant Gets Boost from FERC Rate Approval

Sep 10, 2018 | Platts

By Jim Magill

Shell's plans to build a world-class ethane cracker in western Pennsylvania took a step forward Friday with the approval by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission of rate structures for the company's proposed Falcon Ethane Pipeline system.
The approval allows Shell to move forward in its plans to build the 97-mile pipeline designed to carry ethane extracted from Marcellus and Utica gas produced in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.
The Falcon Pipeline, with a proposed capacity of about 107,000 b/d, will originate at two ethane supply points in Ohio and one ethane supply point in Pennsylvania and will transport the ethane to delivery points in Ohio and Pennsylvania, including the 86,000 b/d ethane cracker that Shell proposes to build near Monaca, Pennsylvania.
Shell Pipeline had filed July 3 a petition requesting that FERC approve Shell's proposed rate structures, service priority rights, prorationing provisions and various aspects of the transportation service agreement.
In its order, FERC found that Shell conducted the open season for the project, which ran from October 17, 2016, through November 18, 2016, appropriately.
Shell has said construction of the Falcon Pipeline is a key component of its plan to build the cracker, the first large-scale polyethylene production facility in the Northeastern US.
The Falcon Pipeline and the ethane cracker will be located in the heart of the market for the plant's output. The surrounding region is home to more than 70% of the North American polyethylene market, Shell said.
The company plans to transport polyethylene produced at the plant by rail and truck to industrial facilities in Pennsylvania and surrounding states and Canadian provinces for consumption in a wide range of plastics-related uses.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/petrochemicals/091018-shells-plans-to-build-cracker-plant-gets-boost-from-ferc-rate-approval

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PetroChina Inks Its Biggest Qatar LNG Deal as U.S. Trade at Risk

Sep 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Shaji Mathew and Stephen Stapczynski

PetroChina Co. Ltd. signed a deal with Qatargas Operating Co. Ltd. to purchase 3.4 million tons of liquefied natural gas annually, the Chinese company’s biggest supply deal, amid a brewing trade war with the U.S. that threatens to stifle the Asian nation’s purchases of American fuel.
Under the 22-year agreement, Qatargas will supply LNG from the Qatargas 2 project, a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum, Exxon Mobil Corp., and Total SA, state-controlled Qatargas said in a Sept. 10 statement. The first cargo will be delivered later this month. The contract is PetroChina’s largest by annual volume, according to data compiled by Bloomberg NEF.
China’s LNG imports have surged 35 percent in the first eight months of this year, helping it overtake Japan as the world’s biggest buyer of natural gas, amid a drive by President Xi Jinping’s government to boost use of the fuel.
Trade War Threat?
The deal comes as President Donald Trump’s trade war threatens to snuff out the budding energy relationship between the U.S. and China. Just last year, U.S. officials were courting Chinese companies to invest in new export projects. Now, the Asian nation is poised to hit American supplies with a 25 percent retaliatory duty, a move that’s pushed PetroChina to consider a temporary halt to U.S. spot purchases and increased buying from other nations.
The new long-term Qatar agreement also could help insulate China from volatility in the spot market this winter. Regional spot prices this month topped last winter’s peak, which was reached in January when they hit the highest since 2014 as the government’s campaign sent domestic demand soaring.
The Qatar agreement announced Sept. 10 allows cargoes to be delivered to several receiving terminals around China, including in Dalian, Jiangsu, Tangshan, and Shenzhen.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/petrochina-inks-its-biggest-qatar-lng-deal-as-us-trade-at-risk

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Oil Demand Seen Peaking by 2023 While Climate Targets Missed

Sep 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Kelly Gilblom

Within 20 years, oil use will have long since peaked, renewables and natural gas will account for about half of energy supply and the cost of keeping the lights on will plummet.
But that still won’t be enough to meet climate goals, according to a forecast from energy and maritime services company DNV GL Group AS.
Even with crude oil demand expected to fall from 2023 and total energy consumption over the globe to peak 12 years after that, the world will probably warm 2.6 degrees Celsius, DNV said. That is 0.6 degrees above the level a consensus of scientists say the world will have to stay beneath to avoid catastrophic climate change, which could affect the Earth’s habitability.
To achieve climate targets, regional and national governments would have to implement programs that make greenhouse gas pollution more expensive, among other measures. That would improve the profitability of ventures like carbon capture and storage and hasten the uptake of renewables, DNV GL Chief Executive Officer Remi Eriksen said in a phone interview.
“Even with this rapid transition with quite a rapid pace, some would say, it’s not enough,” Erikson said from the company’s headquarters in Hovik, Norway. “So more is needed.”
It isn’t all bleak. The electrification of the energy system is happening faster than DNV previously forecast. Power use is set to more than double by the middle of the century, meeting 45 percent of global energy demand. Most of that power will be generated by wind and solar energy, where technological advances are rapidly reducing installation costs.
Additionally, energy spending will shrink as a percentage of gross domestic product over the same period. In 2050, only 3.1 percent of GDP will be spent on energy, down from 5.5 percent in 2016. Gains in efficiency will account for most of the decline, as an electricity-based system inherently has less waste than ones built on coal or wood.
Efficiency is improving at such a rapid rate, even billions of additional people won’t keep overall energy usage from peaking in 2035. The DNV model assumes there will be 9.2 billion people on the planet in 2050, up from 7.2 billion now.
Opportunity to Profit
While no sector will be left unaffected by the shift, there is still opportunity for even the most-polluting industries to profit in the new system. Big oil companies, which make up the sector that sends the most carbon into the atmosphere, will benefit from the near-term dominance of natural gas.
Gas will likely become the largest source of energy from 2026 and will account for a large portion of demand for at least another three decades. Integrated oil companies also could apply their ability to manage large, complex projects to offshore wind farms.
“These are competencies that are very good in the oil companies,” said Eriksen. “And this muscle I think is needed to actually make the energy transition.”
One of the largest obstacles in the way of reducing carbon emissions more aggressively is “short-term thinking,” such as governments implementing populist policies or companies focusing on quarterly results.
There is no solution to that, but as the effects of climate change, such as extreme weather, become more visible, demands on governments to reduce pollution will intensify, Eriksen said.
DNV forecasts that 2090 will be the world’s first year free of carbon emissions, 102 years after climate scientist James Hansen first warned a U.S. congressional panel about human-caused global warming.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/oil-demand-seen-peaking-by-2023-while-climate-targets-missed

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California Commits to 100 Percent Renewable Energy by 2045

Sep 10, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Miranda Green

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed into law Monday a bill that commits the state to achieving a 100 percent renewable energy power grid by 2045.
The clean energy bill sponsored by state Sen. Kevin de León (D), who is challenging Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) for her seat this fall, makes California the world's largest economy to commit to relying completely on renewable energy generated from solar, wind and water.
The bill additionally increases the state's clean energy goals from 50 percent by 2030 to 60 percent.
At the signing ceremony, Brown called the bill part of the state's commitment to achieve the benchmarks laid out in the Paris climate accord.
President Trump announced he was pulling the U.S. out of the agreement last year, making the U.S. the only nation on Earth not part of it.
"This bill and the executive order I am going to sign will put California on the path to meet the Paris agreement and beyond. It's not going to be easy, and it won't be immediate, but it must be done," Brown said.
De León called the legislation a "labor of love" and called climate change a real, dangerous and expensive threat. The bill aims to address both the scientific and economic setbacks of a warming globe, he said.
"Today California sends an unmistakable message to the nation and the world, regardless of who occupies the White House, California will always lead on climate change," he said at the presser.
"Californians have made their voices heard loudly about the future they want for their state and the world. ... As Californians we are going to shape and drive that future."
The law comes as California is set to host the first Global Climate Summit in San Francisco this week, where big names in climate change and environmental science are anticipated to speak. Speakers include former Vice President Al Gore and former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy.
The state legislature has passed a number of bills this summer with an environment focus, including legislation to limit the use of plastic straws at full service restaurants, and on Monday Brown signed a bill as a premeditative measure to block offshore oil drilling on California's coastline.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/405903-california-passes-law-committing-state-to-100-renewable-energy-use

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Plains All American Found Guilty in 2015 California Oil Spill

Sep 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Rachel Adams-Heard

Plains All American was found guilty Sept. 7 by a California jury on criminal charges related to the 2015 Refugio oil spill in Santa Barbara County.
The company was convicted of “failing to properly maintain its dangerous, highly-pressurized pipeline, which led to the discharge of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
Plains was found guilty of eight misdemeanor charges, including one count of failing to call emergency response in a timely manner; six counts of killing marine mammals, protected sea birds, and other marine life; and one count of violating county ordinance prohibiting oil spills.
Plains’ high-pressure pipeline transporting crude oil ruptured May 19, 2015, on shore just north of Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County. Over 140,000 gallons of crude oil were released from the pipeline, spilling the oil into the Pacific Ocean and across beaches. During the trial, it was revealed that 100,000 of those gallons were never recovered, according to the attorney general office’s statement.
After the spill, the state attorney general and Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office initiated a criminal investigation. And on May 16, 2016, a grand jury indicted the company on several felony and misdemeanor charges.
Operations at the the company met or exceeded legal and industry standards, the company said in an emailed statement.
“Accordingly, we believe that the jury erred in its verdict on one count where applicable California laws allowed a conviction under a negligence standard,” the company said. “We intend to fully evaluate and consider all of our legal options with respect to the trial and resulting jury decision announced today.”
Plains is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 13.
The case is California v. Plains All Am. Pipeline, L.P., Cal. Super. Ct., 9/7/18.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/plains-all-american-found-guilty-in-2015-california-oil-spill

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Carbon Tax Plan Would Exceed Obama's Paris GHG Target, Backers Say

Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Lee Logan

A group pushing a carbon tax proposal spearheaded by two prominent Republicans is touting new projections that the plan would significantly exceed the Obama administration's 2025 greenhouse gas reduction pledge set under the Paris Agreement, while also signaling the need to craft key new provisions that aim to secure environmentalists' support.
The Climate Leadership Council (CLC), which is backed by a range of big-name officials as well as several major corporations, is advancing one of multiple carbon tax plans even as the issue remains moribund in the current GOP-controlled Congress.
Nevertheless, the group's Sept. 10 analysis of its proposal's GHG effects, “Exceeding Paris,” reflects ongoing behind-the-scenes work on the topic as carbon tax supporters try to navigate tricky policy hurdles and hope for some kind of political opening for climate legislation.
Part of that effort is convincing environmental groups that a carbon tax would secure enough GHG cuts to achieve long-term emissions goals while simultaneously scrapping major GHG regulatory authority at EPA and other agencies.
CLC says its proposal includes a “series of grand bargains,” including trading a “robust and rising carbon price for regulatory relief,” while also returning all revenue to households to offset higher energy costs.
The plan's “environmental ambition” is key, the paper says, arguing its effectiveness at cutting GHGs “substantially raises the environmental bar,” while its market-based design represents the “most cost-effective climate solution.”
The paper outlines modeling of the proposal showing that it could result in nationwide GHG emissions of around 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 -- well beyond the high end of the Obama administration's Paris pledge, which aimed for a 26-28 percent cut in the same time period.
The CLC proposal -- if implemented starting in 2021 -- would exceed the Obama target “by a wide margin and would continue to generate substantial reductions beyond 2025,” the paper says.
While President Donald Trump has pledged to leave the Paris Agreement and is not taking steps to meet the Obama target, the paper says the goal “remains the initial benchmark by which any U.S. climate plan is judged.”
A separate carbon tax proposal floated in July by Reps. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) would similarly meet the Obama GHG target, and groups such as the Citizens' Climate Lobby have also floated competing carbon tax plans.
Underscoring that the policy faces steep hurdles on all sides, however, is the fact that major environmental groups continue to be skeptical of carbon tax plans and most Republican lawmakers are not ready to jump on board with a carbon tax, even an industry-backed plan such as CLC's.
'Environmental Assurance'
Of note, CLC's analysis says the group “may” add an “Environmental Assurance Mechanism” to the plan to help ensure its intended GHG cuts are met. Under this provision, the tax “would increase faster if key emissions reductions benchmarks are not met.”
Such a component could be critical to winning environmental groups' support, given fears that CLC's plan would preempt major GHG rules -- a key request of industry -- while doing little to cut emissions.
The new CLC paper also suggests new details regarding the stringency of the tax. For instance, it says the starting rate would be $43 per ton of carbon dioxide, reflecting the plan's original $40 price when it was unveiled in 2017 and an inflation adjustment.
The paper says that while CLC “has not yet settled on a final escalation rate” for the tax, it commissioned modeling to show the effects of increasing the tax rate by 3-5 percent each year plus inflation.
In addition, the paper acknowledges findings from others that a much higher carbon tax would be needed to secure major GHG cuts from transportation -- signaling that its preemption provisions likely would preserve federal fuel economy and GHG emissions rules.
Lastly, CLC says it “expects eventually to propose measures to cover other” GHGs, including methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases. “The nature of those proposals, whether tax, regulation or other means, has not yet been decided, and it is possible that they might not be implemented in time to have much impact in 2025,” the paper says.
The chief principals behind the CLC plan are former top Cabinet officials in Republican administrations: Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz, and James Baker, former Secretary of State for President George H.W. Bush. Baker also served as Treasury Secretary during the Reagan administration.
The group has also attracted several prominent supporters from both parties. Former Sens. Trent Lott (R-MS) and John Breaux (D-LA) are co-chairing a political action committee supporting the proposal, and it is backed by two former Federal Reserve chairs, Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, as well as former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other former Cabinet members.
Several oil and gas majors support the CLC proposal, as do a nuclear-heavy utility, a major automaker and several other large corporations.
Emissions Analysis
CLC's emissions analysis relies on data from the Energy Information Administration, EPA's annual inventory of national GHG emissions, as well as modeling from Resources for the Future and the Rhodium Group.
It compares two possible implementation scenarios for the CLC proposal against a baseline assuming the Trump administration successfully scraps many Obama-era climate policies, as well as a counterfactual scenario assuming all such policies were fully implemented.
Broadly, it finds the Trump baseline would result in emissions falling 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, a small cut from current levels, while the Obama scenario would lead to an 18 percent cut.
By contrast, the CLC plan would result in a 31-33 percent reduction, depending on the escalation rate of the tax and “what will happen to non-energy CO2 emissions and to the emissions of other GHGs.”
The three “main effects” of the carbon tax, according to the paper, are that it would encourage more efficient use of energy, spur fuel switching from higher-carbon sources to lower- or zero-carbon sources and drive “increased investments” in energy efficiency and low-carbon technology.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/carbon-tax-plan-would-exceed-obamas-paris-ghg-target-backers-say

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Gov. Brown Signs 'Zero-Carbon' Power Bill By 2045 Ahead Of Climate Summit

Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Curt Barry

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has signed into law a landmark clean energy bill that accelerates the state's renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 60 percent by 2030 and requires 100 percent “carbon-free” power by 2045, ahead of a climate change summit the governor is hosting before he leaves office at the end of the year.
In addition to the bill, Brown also issued an executive order directing the state to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and net negative greenhouse gas emissions after that.
The signing of the RPS legislation, SB 100, authored by state Sen. Kevin de Leon (D) -- and the executive ordercome two days before Brown kicks off his Sept. 12-14 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, which he began planning last year after President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
“SB 100 is sending a message to California and to the world that we're going to meet the Paris Agreement, and we're going to continue down that path to transition our economy to zero-carbon emissions and to have the resiliency and sustainability that science tells us we must achieve,” Brown said during a Sept. 10 press conference.
SB 100 accelerates California's RPS obligations for utilities from 40 to 44 percent by 2024; 45 to 52 percent by 2027; and 50 to 60 percent by 2030. The bill also sets a goal of achieving 100 percent RPS-eligible and "zero-carbon" power by the end of 2045.
Up to now, Brown had withheld his public support for SB 100 to try to persuade lawmakers to pass his own priority legislation, including a measure -- AB 813 -- to expand the Western power grid and market. However, that bill ultimately died in the waning hours of the state legislative session, which ended Aug. 31.
Nevertheless, Brown noted the importance of grid regionalization in his signing message for SB 100. “We must join our neighbors in a power system that integrates utilities across the West,” the message states. “A regionalized electric grid would enhance California's low-carbon grid by allowing us to share renewable resources with our neighboring states, while reducing costs and increasing resiliency of our grid. By doing so, we could improve reliability, reduce climate pollution and enable better integration of wind, solar, and other clean energy technologies throughout the region.”
Supporters of SB 100, which cleared the state Assembly by only five votes, say it represents another milestone in California's leadership on clean energy and climate change, while opponents have said it will increase ratepayer costs amid substantial uncertainty about how power will be generated and sold in the state as investor-owned utilities lose more of their customer base to community choice aggregators.
In setting a goal of achieving 100 percent RPS-eligible and "zero-carbon" power by the end of 2045, the bill specifies that the effort shall not increase carbon emissions elsewhere in the Western grid and shall not allow resource shuffling. While the bill does not define "zero-carbon" power, experts expect lawmakers or state officials to include carbon-capture plants, hydropower, nuclear and possibly even biomass in the definition.
Carbon Neutrality Target
Also during the Sept. 10 press conference, Brown signed an executive order directing the state to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and net negative GHG emissions afterward, “to further ensure California is combating global warming beyond the electric sector,” according to a press release. “This will ensure California removes as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it emits -- the first step to reversing the potentially disastrous impacts of climate change.”
With the executive order, “California establishes the most ambitious carbon neutrality commitment of any major economic jurisdiction in the world -- of more than 20 countries and at least 40 cities, states and provinces planning to go carbon neutral by mid-century or sooner,” the governor's office claims in the release.
The new target appears to accelerate and strengthen the state's long-time 2050 emissions target of 80 percent below 1990 levels.
Brown cautioned during the press conference that it will be very difficult to achieve the new goals. “Have no illusions -- California and the rest of the world have miles to go before we achieve zero-carbon emissions,” he said. “But you have to begin. You have to get something done. California's been doing stuff that most of the world is just hoping that [they] might get to some day.”
The signing of SB 100 and the executive order are part of a “series of actions that are leading California in the right direction,” he added. “Are we in the promised land? By no means. Do we have a long way to go? Yes. The investments [are] needed across broad sectors -- the industrial sector, transportation, commercial, residential buildings, agriculture, and ultimately sequestration of carbon and efficient and low-cost battery technology.”
Tom Steyer, the billionaire California entrepreneur and major donor to Democrats across the country, said during the press conference that SB 100 is a “gigantic step forward by the fifth-largest economy in the world. And it's a statement of really where our state stands in terms of world leadership.”
Further, Steyer said the actions being taken by California leaders are serving to “reframe the way the world thinks about what's going on in terms of energy and climate, what's possible, and what's necessary and what's just.”
Brown's action comes ahead of his two-day climate summit in San Francisco, which the governor's office says was organized “for the express purpose of mobilizing climate action.”
The Global Action Climate Summit will “bring leaders and people together from around the world to 'Take Ambition to the Next Level,'” the summit's website says. “It will be a moment to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of states, regions, cities, companies, investors and citizens with respect to climate action.”
The Brown administration expects the event will also be a “launchpad for deeper worldwide commitments and accelerated action from countries -- supported by all sectors of society -- that can put the globe on track to prevent dangerous climate change and realize the historic Paris Agreement.”
Some of the summit's major announcements are expected on Sept. 14, including those focusing on “the most significant and ambitious commitments brought” to the event. “This will include actions pledged toward immediate decarbonization -- striving to achieve global peaking of emissions by 2020 -- and a purposeful step toward the goal of carbon neutrality by mid-century.”
In addition, sessions on the afternoon of Sept. 14 will “highlight the action of leading companies, cities, and states actively committing themselves to climate actions and racing toward a decarbonized future,” the website says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/gov-brown-signs-zero-carbon-power-bill-2045-ahead-climate-summit

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D.C. Circuit Slated To Hear Suit Over SO2 NAAQS Attainment Designations

Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Stuart Parker

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral argument Sept. 11 in a case that consolidates suits filed by Colorado citizens, environmentalists and a Kansas public utility board over EPA's findings for which areas are either meeting or violating federal sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
In Samuel Masias, et al. v. EPA, et al., the environmentalists and Colorado citizens are pressing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to force EPA to issue tougher SO2 NAAQS designations in two areas of Colorado and Ohio, by changing their status from “unclassifiable” to “nonattainment."
In the same litigation, a Kansas City, KS, public utility board is pushing to shift a Kansas county from an "unclassifiable" designation to a more-certain "unclassifiable/attainment" finding.
The three-judge panel that will hear the case over the long-delayed designations consists of David Tatel, Patricia Millett and Stephen Williams. The court in a Sept. 7 per curiam order says petitioners should be prepared to answer questions relating to their standing to sue.
The suit consolidates challenges to EPA's second round of designations for its 2010 SO2 NAAQS, which the Obama EPA set at 75 parts per billion (ppb) over a novel one-hour averaging time. Designation of which parts of the country meet or exceed the standard has been delayed by years beyond Clean Air Act deadlines while states establish a new air monitoring network to measure compliance. The schedule, set under a settlement agreement with environmentalists, requires designations to be complete in 2020.
Sierra Club in the suit argues that a "simple mathematical fix" to a flaw in Ohio's calculations with respect to Gallia County, OH, "demonstrates nonattainment." The group says EPA unlawfully designated the county "unclassifiable" when it was aware of the data flaws. Areas designated "unclassifiable" are in effect treated the same way as areas in "attainment," and avoid the tough pollution control requirements that apply in nonattainment zones.
Meanwhile, Colorado residents led by Samuel Masias in their brief argue that EPA unlawfully designated the Colorado Springs area "unclassifiable," when in fact emissions from the Martin Drake coal-fired power plant in the state push the area into "nonattainment." The citizens say EPA irrationally found conditions at the Colorado Springs airport unrepresentative of those at the power plant.
EPA rejects the environmentalists' and citizens' arguments, citing its discretion on technical matters such as air quality modeling.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities (BPU) is pressing for EPA to designate Wyandotte County, KS, as “unclassifiable/attainment,” rather than “unclassifiable,” a move that BPU claims would provide regulatory certainty that it need not plan for possible additional controls on a Kansas power plant.
However, EPA claims the board lacks standing to sue because it cannot show injury, as its "unclassifiable" designation in effect does not produce any more onerous requirements than a designation of "unclassifiable/attainment" that the state recommended.
Separately, litigation brought by Texas and industry in the 5th Circuit against EPA's designations for several Texas counties remains in abeyance, pending EPA's reconsideration of those designations, in State of Texas, et al. v. EPA, et al. Texas claims the designations of Freestone, Anderson, Milam County, Rusk, Panola and Titus Counties were too stringent.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/dc-circuit-slated-hear-suit-over-so2-naaqs-attainment-designations

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ORD's PM Assessment Advances, Sidestepping Air Office Official's Influence

Sep 10, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Maria Hegstad

EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) is completing work on the scientific document that will form the basis of the agency's review of its air quality standards for particulate matter (PM) after brushing aside efforts by a top air office political appointee who sought to raise doubts about the science, a departure from the usual process, EPA and other sources say.
During a briefing on the Integrated Science Assessment (ISA) for air office appointees, the official questioned whether ORD authors had sufficiently elucidated scientific uncertainties in some of the studies discussed in the ISA.
The official “didn't understand the ISA is an ORD document, not something that” air office appointees review, an agency source says.
By that point, ORD is “not looking for technical comments from policy people,” a fact that was clarified, the source adds.
The dust up telegraphs the looming fight over EPA's pending review of its PM standards -- which are currently responsible for the bulk of federal regulatory benefits and which Trump administration officials and its supporters have long sought to scale back.
For example, many environmentalists are concerned that EPA's proposed science transparency rule, which bars the use of scientific research where the underlying data is not publicly available, would be used to target the science underlying PM standards.
They fear that mandating the use of such science would bar EPA from using studies like the Harvard Six Cities study, that have long been used (/node/212783) to justify strict PM standards but would now be barred from use because the study participants' data is private medical data and not available for public review.
An EPA spokeswoman did not deny the claims but told Inside EPA that the agency, including the air and research offices, “is working to develop and assess the latest scientific and air quality information to facilitate meaningful feedback” by science advisors.
She said this process “is being conducted in a manner consistent with the Clean Air Act and the Agency’s back-to-basics process” for reviewing air quality standards, and noted that the draft ISA and other documents related to the next review of the PM standard “have not been finalized or provided to EPA’s advisors.”
The Clean Air Act requires EPA to review its national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for criteria pollutants every five years and, based on a review of new science, ensure they are protective of human health and the environment with an “adequate margin of safety.”
In a sign that the agency is anticipating a heated debate over its PM review, Clint Woods, the deputy air office chief, told a conference last month to expect a “robust” debate over the future of the fine PM (PM2.5) standard, which the agency last tightened in 2012 down to 12 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) from the 2006 standard of 15 ug/m3.
Speaking at the Texas Environmental Superconference, Woods predicted some stakeholders will push for further ramping down the PM2.5 standard to as low as 5 ug/m3 as part of EPA's ongoing review of the limit, though he suggested such a limit might be technically impossible.
“I think there's a lot of those who think that science that has been developed since 2012 suggests that that standard needs to be in the single digits, and maybe as low as 5 [ug/m3], which is well below what any current monitor can measure,” he said.
PM review
While the agency has long missed its statutory deadlines, EPA is on a fast track to complete separate rulemakings addressing PM and ozone by 2020 after then-Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a memo in May that accelerated the agency's previously planned schedules.
While Pruitt did not prescribe the scientific review and other steps the agency would take to meet that rulemaking deadline, in the case of the ozone review, he suggested a series of steps that could provide efficiencies for other reviews.
He also opened the door to changes in how some reviews are conducted, saying that the Integrated Science Assessments (ISA), Risk and Exposure Assessments (REA), and Policy Assessments (PA) “should focus on policy-relevant science and on studies, causal determinations, or analysis that address key questions related to the adequacy of primary and secondary NAAQS.”
Nevertheless, the PM review appears to be following the past process, in which staff prepare separate scientific and policy reviews for consideration by agency advisers, who use them to provide recommendations to the administrator.
In accord with past practice, ORD has been preparing its ISA for peer review by the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC).
“The air office [is] not involved in the [ISA] document before it goes to review. That's been the precedent,” says a knowledgeable source outside the agency.
But now, the source says, “It appears clear that the air office political leadership is doing that now. I'm not totally surprised. I've had the sense that staff is reviewing the 1,900 new studies since the last one and concluding that there are strong effects.”
The appointees' requested changes to the draft PM ISA were not related to Pruitt's proposal last spring to bar the use of any scientific research where the underlying raw data are not publicly available, the source tells Inside EPA. Though environmentalists have indicated that EPA's toxics office has taken steps to begin to implement this draft rule in its assessments of chemicals' human health risks, the source says that is not the appointees' concern with the PM ISA.
Rather, their questions suggested, for example, in the case of a study using a large Medicare database and showing health effects associated with air pollution below the current standard, that “there's not enough comment surrounding the uncertainty,” the source adds.
Agency sources corroborated the account, though one source indicates there is a way forward to address the appointees' concern, and the ISA remains on schedule for release.
Still, the source outside the agency has heard that “ORD is not happy about the contravention for the way that this is normally done. … Every impression I've got, they're not pushing to change the PM side, not to relax it because most places are in attainment. But they may be worried about interest in tightening it.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/ords-pm-assessment-advances-sidestepping-air-office-officials-influence

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New York Targets Climate-Warming Coolants With Federal Plan in Limbo

Sep 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Abby Smith

New York wants to become the second state to adopt Obama-era limits on climate-warming coolants.
The Department of Environmental Conservation will develop regulations mirroring 2015 and 2016 Environmental Protection Agency rules banning certain hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Sept. 10. Those chemicals, often used as refrigerants, are greenhouse gases that are hundreds of times more potent than carbon dioxide.
California earlier this year adopted the rules through a combination of regulation and legislation.
The push from the Empire State comes after the EPA in April said it wouldn’t enforce the Obama-era limits, which were struck down in part in July 2017 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The agency has said it will rewrite the regulations, but it is largely unclear what timeline or approach the EPA will take.
“Getting a state like New York to follow suit is getting us that much closer to a national market that is moving forward away from HFCs,” Alex Hillbrand, an energy efficiency and climate advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Bloomberg Environment.
State-by-state regulation creates a patchwork that appliance and chemical makers say they want to avoid.
Industry groups back a 2016 global deal to limit HFCs, known as the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, but U.S. participation in that agreement hangs in limbo because it would need to be ratified by the Senate.
The Trump administration has remained largely silent on the Kigali deal, despite growing public support from industry, Republican lawmakers, and some conservative groups.
"[W]ith a global agreement, the manufacturing and distribution chains are predictable and understood by all, leading to greater economic certainty and reducing cost for consumers,” Francis Dietz, vice president of public affairs for the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, told Bloomberg Environment in an emailed statement. “There would be no costly state-by-state, region-by-region, or country-by-country variations.”
The industry group represents a number of major appliance makers, including Ingersoll-Rand Plc and Lennox International Inc., and chemcial manufacturers, such as Honeywell International Inc. and the Chemours Co.
Honeywell and Chemours—along with several appliance makers including Ingersoll-Rand, Lennox, Daikin U.S. Corp., Carrier Corp.—also are asking the Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. Circuit’s opinion and preserve the Obama-era HFC limits. The Natural Resources Defense Council also is seeking high court review of the case, and justices could decide as soon as this fall whether to take it up.
The EPA, however, recently told the Supreme Court it agrees with the D.C. Circuit’s ruling that the agency overstepped its bounds—even though the Trump administration initially had defended the Obama-era approach.
State Climate Goals
But states such as New York are looking to codify the Obama-era rules, because they were banking on those reductions to help meet their long-term climate goals, Hillbrand said.
New York’s environment regulators plan to adopt the deadlines set in the Obama-era rules to phase out certain HFCs, according to a draft proposal. The state is estimating a 2020-2024 phaseout would cut statewide HFC emissions by more than 20 percent below projected levels by 2030.
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation will seek input on its HFC limits, with the aim of issuing final regulations in 2019.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/new-york-targets-climate-warming-coolants-with-federal-plan-in-limbo

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Exxon Petitions Supreme Court Against Mass. Litigation

Sep 11, 2018 | E&E News PM

By Benjamin Hulac

Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. is pressing the Supreme Court to reverse the decision of a Massachusetts judge who ordered the firm to turn over company records on climate change.
In a petition to the high court, the company's attorneys said justices should review an April ruling in litigation between Exxon and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D).
The appeal is the latest maneuver in years' worth of legal head-butting between Exxon, Healey and the office of the New York attorney general, which has a similar open investigation against Exxon. Both states demanded the company turn over climate records dating back to the 1970s.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered Exxon to turn over company papers to Healey's office, two years after her team sent requests for the documents.
Healey has said Exxon may have deceived or misled the public about its knowledge of and involvement in the scientific phenomenon of man-made climate change (Climatewire, April 16).
Justice Stephen Breyer extended the deadline for parties to petition the court until today. Four justices must agree to hear a case for it to come before the Supreme Court, and it is exceedingly rare for them to grant such petitions.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/09/10/stories/1060096429

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