Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 13/09/18
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(ACC Mentioned) Atlantic Hurricanes Prompting Uncertainty for US Chemical Industry - ACC
Sep 12, 2018 | ICIS
The 2018 Atlantic hurricane season has brought what the American Chemistry Council (ACC) described on Wednesday as an uncomfortable amount of uncertainty in regards to predicting the severity of each developing storm, including Hurricane Florence. -
EPA Seeks Experts to Support Chemical Advisory Group
Sep 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is issuing a public call for nominees for ad hoc participation and possible membership in its Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) to peer review the agency's analysis of the first 10 existing chemicals slated for review under the revised toxics law, and to fulfill other short-term needs when a vacancy opens on the chartered committee. -
US EPA Calls for TSCA Science Board Nominations
Sep 13, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has called for the nomination of scientific experts to participate in its TSCA Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC). -
(ACC Mentioned) Homespun Terrorism
Sep 12, 2018 | DissidentVoice.org
By Robert Hunziker
For years now NSA and the Pentagon have feared foreign terrorists poisoning aquifers and municipal water supplies. -
(ACC Mentioned) In A Scientific First, Researchers Gave People BPA — and Saw a Link to Precursor of Type 2 Diabetes
Sep 12, 2018 | Environmental Health News
By Lynne Peeples
A first-of-its-kind study of a small group of people exposed to a very small amount of bisphenol-A (BPA) is raising questions about the federal government's stance that low doses of the common chemical are safe — as well as the ethics of conducting such an experiment on humans. -
NY’s Expanded Ingredient Disclosure Requirements for Household Cleaning Products
Sep 12, 2018 | Law.com
By Michael B. Gerrard
In New York, the requirement that manufacturers disclose chemical ingredients contained in cleaning products can be traced to 1970 when the Environmental Conservation Law (ECL) was amended to grant the newly formed Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) authority to regulate certain household products, ECL § 35-0107. -
One-Third of American Schools Still Contain Asbestos. That's Unconscionable
Sep 13, 2018 | The Los Angeles Times
By Linda Reinstein
As we send our kids back to school, we do our best to prepare them for the new academic year. -
EPA Urges Law Enforcement To Use Regulated Incinerators For Waste Drugs
Sep 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lara Beaven
As concern about the opioid epidemic mounts, EPA is urging law enforcement to destroy household waste pharmaceuticals in Clean Air Act-permitted solid or hazardous waste incinerators, warning that open burning or the use of “burn barrels” could release harmful emissions and may not meet federal destruction standards. -
Chemical Contamination Plagues Area in Crosshairs of Hurricane Florence
Sep 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
Flooding from Hurricane Florence could exacerbate chemical contamination in communities along the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. -
Firefighters Excluded From Granite State Fluorochemicals Study
Sep 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The people who face the greatest potential health risks from a group of chemicals spurring lawsuits and million-dollar cleanups would be left out of the first part of a proposed national study on whether those chemicals harm people. -
Germany Submits Classification and Labelling Proposal for BPA
Sep 13, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Germany has submitted a proposal to Echa to harmonise the classification and labelling (CLH) of bisphenol A under CLP. -
(ACC Mentioned) Plethora of U.S. Chemical Investments Linked to Shale, Tight Natural Gas Reserves
Sep 12, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
The overflowing basket of investments since 2010 by the U.S. chemical and plastics industry now surpasses $200 billion, nearly all of it tied to plentiful natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) supply, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said Tuesday. -
Senate Approves Energy and Water Bill
Sep 13, 2018 | E&E Daily
By George Cahlink
Congress is expected to send the president a fiscal 2019 Energy-Water spending bill that's part of a bipartisan, $147.5 billion funding package after the House approves it today. -
Administration Announces Plan to Streamline Oil and Gas Extraction in National Forests
Sep 12, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
The Forest Service plans to submit a rule that would make it easier to explore oil and gas drilling, as well as mineral mining, in National Forests. -
Energy Dept: U.S. Likely Surpassed Russia as World's Top Oil Producer
Sep 12, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
The United States likely surpassed Russia this summer to stake its claim as the world's top oil producer, the U.S. Energy Department said Wednesday. -
US 'Likely' Has Taken Over as the World's Top Oil Producer
Sep 12, 2018 | AP (In The New York Times)
The United States may have reclaimed the title of the world's biggest oil producer sooner than expected. -
Texas Pipeline Bottlenecks Weigh on U.S. Oil Production Outlook
Sep 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jessica Summers
Growing pains in the biggest U.S. oil region are starting to dim the rosy outlook for American oil production. -
Worker Exposure to Hazardous Chemicals is a 'Global Health Crisis'
Sep 12, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
A UN expert has proposed 15 principles that aim to help governments and businesses better protect workers from exposure to hazardous chemicals – an issue he calls a "global health crisis". -
Environmentalists Renew Call for Swift RMP Implementation
Sep 13, 2018 | Inside EPA
State and environmentalist petitioners are reiterating their request for an appellate court to compel the agency to quickly implement an Obama-era update to the agency's facility accident prevention rule, arguing that accidents are occurring regularly, and that the court already found the Trump administration's delay causes harm. -
Attorney Warns ACE Rule Could Lead To 'Severely Potent' GHG Limits
Sep 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
EPA's proposal to exclude emissions trading as a means of complying with its Clean Power Plan replacement could ultimately backfire on the power sector, opening the door to a future White House imposing strict greenhouse gas controls, according to a prominent industry attorney. -
States' Cumulative GHG Efforts Fall Short Of Obama Paris Goal, Group Says
Sep 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
A group backing climate mitigation efforts by states, cities and other “sub-national” entities is outlining first-time projections of the cumulative effect of such efforts, finding they likely will fall short of meeting Obama officials' 2025 greenhouse gas reduction target but could come close under a scenario based on “enhanced engagement.” -
Reopening Debate, EPA To Seek Input On Power Sector GHG Risk Finding
Sep 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
EPA is signaling that it will seek input on whether to reconsider its threshold finding that power sector greenhouse gases pose enough of an endangerment to warrant regulation, and is expected to raise the issue in its forthcoming proposal to replace the Obama administration's GHG rules for new plants in a new source performance standard (NSPS). -
An Insurance Executive Explains Why We Need a Carbon Tax
Sep 13, 2018 | The New York Times - Opinion
By Edward B. Rust Jr.
In the past few years, we have seen substantial damage from storms and flooding in the United States. -
Willfully Ignoring Climate Change
Sep 13, 2018 | The New York Times - Opinion
By Dennis Haseley
In July the Environmental Protection Agency proposed weakening rules on carbon dioxide pollution from vehicles. -
NYC Pension Funds to Double Green Investments
Sep 13, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Katie Honan
New York City will invest $4 billion of its pension funds into climate-change solutions like renewable energy and clean water over the next three years, more than doubling its current investment, according to city officials. -
Climate vs. Business is Rarely a Fair Fight. Trump is Ensuring That It Isn’t.
Sep 13, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Philip Bump
It starts with sunlight. -
Virginia to Establish Regulations Limiting Leaks of Methane
Sep 13, 2018 | The Washington Post
Virginia officials say the state plans to develop regulations for limiting leaks of climate-changing methane from natural gas infrastructure and landfills. -
Will a Big Storm Bring Congressional Climate Converts?
Sep 13, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
Hurricane Florence is set to make landfall this week in the Southeast in what could be a historic storm event that portends a new coastal reality, as a warmer planet feeds wetter, more intense storms. -
Carbon Traders Beware: Here Are Four Risks as Prices Triple
Sep 12, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Mathew Carr and Jeremy Hodges
European carbon futures could be trading at decade highs and outperforming every other major commodity, but the rally has its pitfalls.
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(ACC Mentioned) Atlantic Hurricanes Prompting Uncertainty for US Chemical Industry - ACC
Sep 12, 2018 | ICIS
The 2018 Atlantic hurricane season has brought what the American Chemistry Council (ACC) described on Wednesday as an uncomfortable amount of uncertainty in regards to predicting the severity of each developing storm, including Hurricane Florence.
Hurricane Florence is expected to hit between South Carolina and North Carolina between Thursday and Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.
Florence is moving toward the northwest near 16 miles/hour (26 km/hour), with maximum sustained winds near 120 miles/hour (195 km/hour) with higher gusts.The combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline.
Petrochemical plants and refineries can go offline during storms due to power outages, lack of feedstocks or general damage.
Saltwater was the largest contributor of damage to plants and facilities, according to a 2008 report by the US Economic Development Administration (EDA).
Hurricane conditions are expected to reach the coast within the hurricane warning area late Thursday or Friday.
Tornadoes are possible in eastern North Carolina beginning late Thursday morning.
BP said it is evacuating all non-essential personnel at its Cooper River petrochemical facility near Charleston, South accordance with the state’s evacuation order.
“A small number of essential staff will remain in place to ensure continued safe operations,” BP’s US director for media affairs Micheal Abendhoff said.
Colonial Pipeline - which has a pipeline running between Houston, Texas and Linden, New Jersey - issued a statement repeating information from the American Petroleum Institute (API) on hurricane preparedness. The statement included shutdown and evacuation procedures for refiners and pipeline companies.
The port of Virginia said on Tuesday it would begin to shut down channels and offices, but recently left status for Thursday and Friday to still be determined. The South Carolina Ports made a similar announcement.
The motorist group AAA warned of gasoline prices spiking during the week as a result of drivers stocking up on fuel.
Hurricanes can disrupt the North American petrochemical industry by shutting down production plants and disrupting the operations of customers. Flooding can shut down highways and rail lines, and storms can close ports for days.
North and South Carolina have a number of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plants.
Meanwhile, in the US Gulf coast, the Port of Corpus Christi in Texas said on Wednesday it is monitoring the tropical system projected to head northwestward from the Gulf of Mexico.
The port said it has increased its readiness status to Hurricane Condition 4, meaning the expectation of tropical hazards within 72 hours.
The Atlantic hurricane season began on 1 June and will end on 30 November.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/09/12/10259025/atlantic-hurricanes-prompting-uncertainty-for-us-chemical-industry-acc/
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EPA Seeks Experts to Support Chemical Advisory Group
Sep 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is issuing a public call for nominees for ad hoc participation and possible membership in its Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) to peer review the agency's analysis of the first 10 existing chemicals slated for review under the revised toxics law, and to fulfill other short-term needs when a vacancy opens on the chartered committee.
In a notice scheduled for publication in the Federal Register Sept. 13, EPA says it anticipates forming a pool of experts to select as needed to support the committee's reviews, including of the first 10 chemicals the agency is slated to review under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
“All nominees will be considered for ad hoc participation in the TSCA SACC’s peer reviews of the EPA’s risk evaluations for the first 10 chemical substances addressed under the TSCA,” the notice says.
“In addition, all nominees may be considered for TSCA SACC membership to fulfill short term needs when a vacancy occurs on the chartered Committee.”
EPA will seek nominees for 45 days, or roughly through late October.
The SACC is mandated under the June 2016 revised TSCA and has 29 chartered members. Before its work has begun, the committee has seen controversy, as several scientists with prominent environmental groups have declined membership, citing objections to the Trump administration's handling of the committee.
In April, one scientist who declined membership, cited former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's directive barring EPA grantees from serving on agency advisory committees, and the agency's proposed rule barring use of scientific studies in rulemaking if the underlying data is not publicly available.
In its final days, the Obama EPA appointed 18 members of the committee, which the Trump administration has since expanded to 26.
In the request for nominees to serve as ad hoc members, EPA asks for nominees with scientific expertise in a variety of fields, including women's or children's health, genetic variability, human health risk assessment, disproportionately exposed populations, and occupational, consumer, and general exposure assessment.
“[S]election decisions involve carefully weighing a number of factors including the candidates’ areas of expertise and professional qualifications and achieving an overall balance of different scientific perspectives on the Committee,” the notice says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-seeks-experts-support-chemical-advisory-group
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US EPA Calls for TSCA Science Board Nominations
Sep 13, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has called for the nomination of scientific experts to participate in its TSCA Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC).
Successful nominees will take part on an ad hoc basis in the committee's peer reviews of the agency's risk evaluations of the first ten chemical substances addressed under the amended TSCA.
A notice in the Federal Register says that nominees should be scientists with sufficient professional qualifications to be "capable of providing expert comments on the scientific issues for a TSCA SACC meeting".
The aim is to create a pool of experts the committee can draw on.
The selection of appropriate candidates will involve weighing several factors, including a candidate's areas of expertise and professional qualifications; and creating a balance of different scientific perspectives on the Committee.
The SACC was established in 2016 under the Frank R Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. It provides independent scientific advice and makes recommendations to the EPA on the scientific and technical aspects of chemicals regulated under TSCA for:risk assessments;methodologies; andpollution prevention measures and approaches.
The closing date for nominations is 29 October.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70275/us-epa-calls-for-tsca-science-board-nominations
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(ACC Mentioned) Homespun Terrorism
Sep 12, 2018 | DissidentVoice.org
By Robert Hunziker
For years now NSA and the Pentagon have feared foreign terrorists poisoning aquifers and municipal water supplies.
Come to find out, forget those foreign terrorists! The poisoning is already happening, internally, homespun! ISIS and al Qaeda are not needed. We’re poisoning our own people without the assistance of professional terrorists.
It’s homespun terrorism, right here in the good ole US-of-A, and the Trump administration is turbo-charging that terrorism by hacking apart the EPA.
Want proof: Ask any long-standing EPA employee about it: They’re aghast!
Trump’s motto: “Make EPA Ineffective Again.”
The Trump administration, after heavy lobbying by the chemical industry, is scaling back the way the federal government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals on the market.1
Here’s what citizens need to know about Trump’s EPA Wrecking Crew: The new mandate at EPA is to focus on “possible harm caused by direct contact with a chemical in the workplace or elsewhere,” meaning that once disposal of chemicals takes place there is no longer a cause for restricting or banning the toxic chemical.
According to the New York Times’ article:
The E.P.A. has in most cases decided to exclude from its calculations any potential exposure caused by the substances’ presence in the air, the ground or water.
Or, here’s another way to look at it: If toxic chemicals happen to show up in your drinking water, well, too bad!
In that regard, it just so happens that a North Carolina resident named Emily Donovan recently appeared before a congressional subcommittee EPA hearing and asked this revealing question: “Who in authority can tell me if the 16 mystery PFASs I found in the tap water at my children’s public school are safe to drink?”2
The answer to Ms Donovan’s question: Nobody knows for sure if the water at her child’s school is safe to drink, but it does contain 16 different alliterations of base chemicals PFAS.
Wow! “Sixteen mystery PFAS chemical compounds,” and nobody knows if that drinking water is safe for children… It’s not!
Emily Donovan lives near Cape Fear, NC where discharges from chemical plants are responsible for high levels of PFAS or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluorralkyl chemical substances. Recent government testing shows PFAS to be dangerous to health “at much lower doses than previously thought,” as well as linked to cancer. But not to worry, Trump (cough, cough) is in charge now.
In point of fact, PFAS is one of the biggest emerging health threats to public water systems throughout America. Whew, not to worry, Trump is in charge now! And because of its pervasiveness, it’s now a bipartisan issue in Congress. That’s an unbelievable accomplishment!
For example, in a Congressional subcommittee meeting about the EPA’s handling of toxic chemicals, the following was said by a representative: “What is the timeline?’ asked Republican Rep. Tom Upton of Michigan, who spoke of one community in his state ordered not to drink its contaminated water for nearly a month this summer.”3
Imagine no faucet water for a month… think about it! Who’d want to drink it thereafter, forever thereafter?
Republican Congressman Upton also released a report showing groundwater at the military base in Battle Creek, Michigan with PFAS levels “up to 757 xs higher” than EPA safety standards. That’s enormous: Multiply 757 times a salary of $25,000; it equals $19 million in salary; 757xs anything is big, especially when it comes to toxic chemicals! That’s a disaster-plus-plus scenario!
Not only that, peer-reviewed studies of tens of thousands (10s of 1,000s) of people in the Ohio River Valley exposed to PFAS found “probable links to kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, hypertension and high cholesterol.”3
But not to worry, Trump’s (ahem!) in charge now.
According to Peter Grevatt, head of the EPA’s water division, the EPA is considering formal declaration that the specific PFAS, although no longer manufactured, be classified as hazardous substances. Really?
That’s the good news!
Here’s the bad news: Mr. Grevatt claims the aforementioned PFAS compounds are not… “the no. 1 challenge we face.”
A much bigger problem exists: Tens of thousands (10s of 1,000s) of versions of PFAS exist actively today, widespread throughout the country. In other words, the toxic chemical juggernaut is totally out of control, dispersed throughout the USA, similar to turning armies of ISIS lose on American communities, but in this case Made in America.
Not only, but according to the Environmental Working Group, the EPA itself, on an internal basis, piles danger upon danger: “The Scariest Trump Appointee You’ve Never Heard Of” is Nancy Beck straight out of the American Chemistry Council ($9 million lobbying, mostly to Republicans) to serve as Deputy Assistant Administrator of the EPA to: “Protect you, your family, and the environment from potential risks from pesticides and toxic chemicals.”4 You’ve gotta be kidding!
Ms Toxicity Nancy’s career includes: (1) crafting political agendas for the chemical industry for years; (2) reprimanded by a congressional committee for “very disturbing attempts to undermine EPA science”; (3) serving as a vocal critic of EPA safety findings in the face of “her own fundamentally flawed approach to chemical safety issues.”3
During the G.W. Bush administration, she was criticized by the National Academy of Sciences for her “fundamentally flawed approach to chemical science.” Now, she’s in charge!
“Beck has been described as a “powerful critic” of EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS program, which researches chemical toxicity. IRIS assessments have traditionally played a big role in informing the rules that EPA and state governments adopt to protect people from toxic chemicals.”3
Well, well, well… now that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have finally started to wise-up as to the depth and breadth of America’s toxic chemical problems, poisoning its own citizens, the Trump administration installs the archenemy of the “strongest and best EPA rulings.”
Good gracious! People should assemble in the streets and demand a recall! After all, it is known that EPA career-employees have expressed “concern,” actually “deep concern” about changes in implementation rules since Beck arrived.5
Not only is Toxic Nancy in charge but also timeliness now becomes a critical issue as school officials wonder about toxic water at fountains in school hallways. The new school year just started.
“How do we create that sense of urgency?” Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, asked Peter Grevatt, head of the EPA’s office of drinking water. ‘PFAS in Michigan is scaring people more than the Flint water crisis.”3
Maybe Trump should hold one of his infamous political rallies in Flint. He could have those life-sized poster boards of supporters in the background standing behind him (many of the supporters standing behind him are cutout poster boards of people) hold up signs saying, “Trump for Clean Water.”
Wonder if Michael Moore could be convinced to stand amongst the cutout poster boards of people in the background behind Trump? That would be special and, of course, very convincing of Trump’s sincerity.
A smiling Michael Moore (maybe a poster board cutout of him, maybe not) standing behind Trump, holding up a sign: “Trump for Clean Water.”
Postscript:
Unacceptable levels is powerful. It tells the story of toxic chemicals in just about every aspect of our lives, and the egregious lack of regulation. Our ability to protect our families is at stake.
— Joan Blades, Progressive Political Activist
https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/09/homespun-terrorism/
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Sep 12, 2018 | Environmental Health News
By Lynne Peeples
A first-of-its-kind study of a small group of people exposed to a very small amount of bisphenol-A (BPA) is raising questions about the federal government's stance that low doses of the common chemical are safe — as well as the ethics of conducting such an experiment on humans.
The authors say their findings, which they emphasize need to be repeated, build on growing evidence that continued exposures over time to BPA — widely used in plastics, canned food linings and receipt paper — might increase a person's risk of developing insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
"We're living in an age where type 2 diabetes is rampant. Here is a signal of a new path to explore for what is causing it," said Pete Myers, founder, CEO and chief scientist of Environmental Health Sciences and a co-author on the study published today in theJournal of the Endocrine Society. (Editor's note: Myers is also the founder of Environmental Health News, though the publication is editorially independent).
More than 9 percent of the U.S. population has diabetes — predominantly type 2 diabetes, which means the body struggles to make or use insulin. Multiple factors can raise a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes including poor diet and lack of exercise.
To this point BPA research has been confined to animal testing and epidemiological studies that compared the health of different populations of people — without purposefully exposing any of them to the chemical. This is the first time researchers have tested BPA on humans, who are exposed daily to the chemicals when they eat, drink and shop."We found an effect with a dose of BPA that shouldn't produce an effect"
In the two-part experiment, the researchers tested production of insulin — the hormone that keeps blood sugar levels from getting too high or too low — in response to glucose hitting the bloodstream. Blood samples were taken from each of the 16 participants both after they drank a cocktail containing BPA and at a separate visit, after they drank an identical cocktail that did not contain BPA.
In both cases, the cocktail followed administration of glucose — via a drink for the eight participants in part one of the experiment and via an IV for the eight participants in part two.
The amount of insulin released, on average, differed significantly between the visits — higher with BPA exposure in the first experiment, which focused on the early release of the hormone, and lower with the exposure in the second, which focused on the later phase of insulin response. And participants who already had relatively poor blood sugar control seemed more sensitive to BPA's effects.
"We found an effect with a dose of BPA that shouldn't produce an effect," said Angel Nadal, a professor of physiology at the Miguel Hernandez University of Leche in Spain, and study co-author. The dose his team used — 0.05 milligrams of BPA per kilogram of body weight — is presumed safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The fact that they found any physiological response in people at that dose, the authors concluded, "would indicate that key assumptions in the regulatory process are incorrect."
Dr. Robert Sargis, an endocrinologist at The University of Chicago who was not involved in the study, said that, while the experiment confirms what has been seen in earlier studies linking BPA to diabetes, "the results are not a slam dunk."
"They are not saying that BPA causes diabetes in a single dose," he said.
BPA is among chemicals capable of mimicking or blocking the natural messages of insulin, estrogen and other hormones in the body. In late pregnancy, hormonal changes are believed to push a woman into a temporary state of insulin resistance in order to ensure enough sugar gets across the placenta to her rapidly growing fetus. The authors posed the possibility that BPA, if mistaken for a steroid by the body, could trigger similar effects.
The chemical has been linked to a variety of health problems including reproductive disorders, behavioral problems, heart disease and obesity.Related: Is the FDA short-circuiting a large effort to understand BPA risk?
An association between exposure to BPA and diabetes had been previously found in animal studies and epidemiological studies. However, the FDA and EPA "would not pay attention" to those studies, said Frederick vom Saal, a professor of biology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and another co-author of the new study.
"So we figured we had to look in people."
Vom Saal and several other scientists have been working with the FDA on another first-of-its kind study to tease out the true impacts of BPA. The project, called Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on BPA Toxicity, or CLARITY-BPA, was launched with intent of helping government regulators and academic researchers reach a consensus on BPA's potential health harms.
However, that effort has stirred up its own controversy in recent months. Academic researchers have voiced concerns that government regulators are again discounting their findings in favor of the FDA's own conclusions, which remain that BPA is safe.
Ethics of dosing people
Thermal paper receipts are a source of BPA exposure. (Credit: Chris Phan/flickr)
The American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical manufacturers, called the new human exposure study "speculative" and underscored the point that the results do not demonstrate that the effects of BPA are related to disease.
The Council also questioned the ethics of dosing a group of human volunteers, given "the expectation that effects would occur," said Steven G. Hentges, senior director of the Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group at the ACC.
Sheldon Krimsky, a professor at Tufts University who studies ethics in science and technology, expressed similar concern. "It's the first study of its kind, but it makes me uncomfortable," he said.
"It's a little ironic that they are trying to show very low levels of BPA might be dangerous but using the criteria of agencies that say it's not dangerous," he said. "One of the justifications for doing the test is that the levels they administered were within the federal guidelines."
Study participants were instructed on ways to reduce their exposure to BPA for two days prior to the experiment. The researchers then administered the low dose, which Americans are thought to experience several times a day. "No one thinks that one pulse in isolation is harmful," said vom Saal. "It's that we're getting pulsed repeatedly with this chemical."
The experimental exposure "just moved their levels back up into the range they would've been," Myers added. "This study needs to be replicated. The implications are too important."
Still, rather than replicating the experiment on more people, Krimsky suggested that researchers seek alternative avenues for collecting human data such as monitoring people who are already exposed to relatively high doses of BPA. Store cashiers who regularly handle receipts could be one target group, as the hormone-scrambling chemical has been shown to leach out of the paper and penetrate the skin — especially in the presence of hand sanitizer or other skin care products.
Sargis, meanwhile, questioned the need for any further study in humans. "How much of a smoking gun do we need before we actually do something about [BPA]?" he said.
"I don't think we should be at point where we have to deliberately do these studies in humans to prove these chemicals are harmful, when really it should be incumbent on manufacturers to actually prove they are safe."
https://www.ehn.org/bpa-linked-to-diabetes-2604258226.html
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NY’s Expanded Ingredient Disclosure Requirements for Household Cleaning Products
Sep 12, 2018 | Law.com
By Michael B. Gerrard
In New York, the requirement that manufacturers disclose chemical ingredients contained in cleaning products can be traced to 1970 when the Environmental Conservation Law (ECL) was amended to grant the newly formed Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) authority to regulate certain household products, ECL § 35-0107. This legislation was primarily directed to protecting water quality by prohibiting phosphorus in consumer laundry detergents and dishwasher products, but it also prohibited the sale of household cleaning products unless the manufacturer “furnish[ed]” to the DEC “information regarding such products in a form prescribed by [DEC].” Two years later, the DEC adopted regulations which parroted the language of the ECL, 6 N.Y.C.R.R. Part 659. These rules, which have been modified only once since the 1970s, mandate that manufacturers furnish lists of ingredients to DEC. For several decades, the DEC’s activity in this area was limited to intermittent attempts to produce ingredient disclosure forms.
All that changed in early 2017 when, during his annual State of the State address, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the DEC would soon require manufacturers of household cleaning products to disclose chemical ingredients on their websites.
In response to the governor’s instructions, on April 25, 2017, the DEC released its “Draft 2017 Household Cleansing Product Information Disclosure Program Certification Form and Guidance Document.” Although the ECL 35-0105(1) requires that the DEC proceed “by regulation,” the “Household Cleansing Product Information Disclosure Program” was not formally proposed as a rule. Nevertheless, the DEC did solicit public comment. The due date for such comments was July 14, 2017. On Oct. 15, 2017, while the DEC was reviewing comments and considering how best to refine its disclosure requirements, California adopted the Cleaning Product Right to Know Act. Then, on June 6, 2018, the DEC announced new product and ingredient disclosure requirements applicable to manufactures of household cleaning products sold in New York. This article examines the new DEC requirements for disclosure of the contents of, and risks associated with, chemicals used in household cleaning products and also compares some of the key features of New York’s requirements with those in California.
The New York ECL defines “household cleansing products” to include, but not be limited to, “soaps and detergents, containing a surfactant as a wetting or dirt emulsifying agent and used primarily for domestic or commercial cleaning purposes,” ECL § 35-0103(1). “Foods, drugs and cosmetics, including personal care items such as toothpaste, shampoo and hand soap” are excluded. See 6 N.Y.C.R.R. § 659.1(a)(1). Regulated pesticides and products “used primarily in industrial manufacturing, production and assembling processes” are also excluded from coverage.
The DEC presented the “program requirements” announced in 2018 as essentially the “disclosure forms” that had been required by the ECL and the existing rules at 6 N.Y.C.R.R. Part 659 at all times since the mid-1970s. However, the DEC’s 2018 guidance document goes far beyond either the ECL or DEC’s present regulations by requiring that manufacturers: establish and maintain a website listing each ingredient; provide annual certifications from senior corporate officials; disclose where the manufacturer draws its water supply; provide notice of the presence of any chemicals of concern; and establish on the manufacturer’s website a unique page titled “Effects on Human Health and the Environment” where all investigations and research are posted.
The DEC’s updated Household Cleansing Product Information Disclosure Program requires that manufacturers disclose each ingredient by weight. The functional “role” of each intentionally added ingredient must be identified. To avoid doubt about the possible roles of ingredients, the guidance document provides the following nonexhaustive list of possible functions: surfactant, colorant, fragrance or preservative.
One of the most far-reaching duties which the DEC imposed upon manufacturers is the requirement to post information on their websites regarding the nature and extent of investigations and research concerning potential effects of ingredients on human health or the environment. This requirement applies to information and research “performed directly by or at the direction of the manufacturer.” The DEC’s guidance document makes it clear that merely posting a hazard communication safety data sheet will never be sufficient. Manufacturers must post or provide links to the actual health or environmental studies.
Although the 1970 ECL provision speaks in terms of DEC regulating the “wrapper or container” of household cleaning products, ECL § 35-0105(1), the DEC’s 2018 guidance document focuses on detailed “posting parameters” for web-based disclosures. The posting parameters include both mandatory requirements and prohibitions. For example “all required information must be posted on the manufacturer’s main website, domain name or URL used to communicate with consumers” or on a separate website provided it is no more than “one “click” away” from the manufacturer’s main webpage. Indeed, the DEC specifically mandates that manufacturers adopt otherwise nonbinding international standards for web accessibility. Conversely, “information disclosed under this program must not be restricted from indexing by search engines, such as Google and Bing” and “technologies that prevent data from being machine read or browsed are not acceptable.”
The DEC’s 2018 guidance document also explains how manufacturers can seek to protect certain information as confidential as either a trade secret or confidential commercial information (CBI). However, even when information about an ingredient is protected, the presence of the ingredient apparently needs to be disclosed. This is true regardless of whether or not the ingredient is present above trace quantities and regardless of whether the ingredient is a functional additive or a byproduct. The rules are slightly different for intentionally added trace ingredients and nonfunctional trace materials. Manufacturers will need to carefully parse these various categories in order to develop both their required disclosures and any CBI requests. Notably, one of the disclosure thresholds which the DEC has incorporated by reference is the concentration of a chemical that triggers a product warning under California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act program (commonly known as Proposition 65).
The DEC’s Household Cleansing Product Information Disclosure Program includes a complex rolling compliance schedule that includes several exceptions as well as exceptions to the exceptions. As a general matter, large manufacturers must post required information concerning intentionally added ingredients (other than fragrances) and nonfunctional ingredients known to be present above trace quantities by July 1, 2019. Manufacturers with less than 100 employees have until July 1, 2020. However, by July 1, 2020, all manufacturers must post required information concerning fragrance ingredients and nonfunctional ingredients. The full program, including disclosures concerning nonfunctional byproducts and contaminants, takes effect for all ingredients on July 1, 2023. In New York, all disclosed information must be reviewed and updated every two years.
A common requirement of both the New York and California disclosure programs is that manufacturers screen their ingredients against lists established by international, federal and state authorities which designate chemicals as carcinogens, mutagens, endocrine disrupters or toxic. However, New York’s approach is more expansive and requires that manufacturers disclose ingredients exhibiting certain hazardous characteristics—even if they are not listed anywhere.
Despite many similarities, there are several other critical differences between the requirements for disclosing cleaning product ingredients in New York and California. California’s new law requires disclosure of “intentionally added ingredients.” By contrast, New York requires that manufacturers disclose both all chemicals known and chemicals which the manufacturer reasonably should have known would be present, including breakdown products and chemicals present as an unintended consequence of the manufacturing process. As a result, manufacturers may find it much more challenging to comply with New York’s requirements.
New York and California are both moving beyond merely testing the safety and efficacy of consumer products. By pressing what are almost certainly the outer limits of its 1970s era authority to mandate ingredient disclosure, DEC appears to be attempting to provide consumers with unprecedented access to chemical product safety information. At the same time, California has moved beyond its traditional regulatory regimes and even its novel Proposition 65 program in an attempt to force similar disclosures. Moreover, both states appear to be intent on using the relative size of their in-state markets to fill perceived gaps in federal programs governing environmental protection and chemical safety. Unless Congress acts and preempt the states, or something happens to cause these states to reconsider, manufacturers of cleaning products may soon find themselves subjected to a patchwork of state-level disclosure requirements intended to drive wholesale reformulation of cleaning products by activating consumers.
https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2018/09/12/nys-expanded-ingredient-disclosure-requirements-for-household-cleaning-products/?slreturn=20180813082645
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One-Third of American Schools Still Contain Asbestos. That's Unconscionable
Sep 13, 2018 | The Los Angeles Times
By Linda Reinstein
As we send our kids back to school, we do our best to prepare them for the new academic year. We buy their school supplies, make their lunches, sort out secure routes to and from campus and attempt to curb bullying. But there is a truly lethal threat that we scarcely discuss: asbestos poisoning.
Roughly one-third of American schools contain asbestos, the dangerous mineral once heralded for its fire-resistant properties, but which we now know causes cancer and a host of other diseases, even at very low levels of exposure.
Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach was confronted with this reality in August, when contractors moved around asbestos-covered tiles in a storage room attached to the library — while students and their parents were registering for classes. After an investigation, the South Coast Air Quality District cited the school for 27 violations, finding that it had not even surveyed for asbestos.
Asbestos-related illnesses are not anomalies that pop up every once in a while: About 40,000 Americans die from them each year. My daughter graduated from Mira Costa High School in 2011, and her father, my husband, died in 2005 from an aggressive cancer caused by asbestos.
Asbestos-related illnesses are not anomalies that pop up every once in a while: About 40,000 Americans die from them each year.Share quote & link
There are regulations in place to prevent the kind of blunder we saw at Mira Costa. Public and nonprivate schools around the country are supposed to comply with the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, which requires that schools take many measures, including conducting asbestos inspections, having management plans and communicating with maintenance staff.
In a letter to parents, Huntington Beach Superintendent Michael Matthews claimed the contractor was installing carpet on tile that was known to contain asbestos as a “preventative measure intended to protect the tile from damage to avoid potential asbestos exposure.” So, yes, the school district took preventive measures. But why was asbestos present in Mira Costa High School in the first place?
One reason so many American schools still contain asbestos is clear: The Environmental Protection Agency continues to appease industry lobbyists by refusing to ban asbestos. The agency once tried to enforce an existing ban on the mineral decades ago, but in 1991 the industry used technicalities to force the courts to overturn the ban.
Decades later, in 2016, Congress overhauled the Toxic Substances Control Act and developed a plan to remove obstacles to regulation, making asbestos one of the first materials to be assessed for safety. But President Trump’s EPA appointees, many of whom are former lobbyists for polluting industries, have since distorted the law to favor polluters over public health.
Trump himself has professed a love for asbestos in the past, claiming its removal from the World Trade Center was the reason the towers fell. “If we didn't remove incredibly powerful fire retardant asbestos & replace it with junk that doesn't work, the World Trade Center would never have burned down,” he wrote on Twitter in 2012.
Unbelievably, the EPA’s new assessment suggests the agency will not even require that the risk of asbestos be evaluated in homes, workplaces, existing infrastructure or schools. This is unfathomable.
We already know there is asbestos in schools. The EPA reported to Congress in 1984 that “most” of the country’s approximately 107,000 primary and secondary schools, as well as 733,000 public and commercial buildings, contained asbestos. That was 34 years ago, and nothing has improved since then. A more recent investigation commissioned by U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) found that more than two-thirds of the country’s state education agencies reported having schools that contain asbestos.Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion »
Here in Southern California, the Ocean View School District had to close three Huntington Beach elementary schools over asbestos concerns in 2014, displacing more than 1,000 students for years and costing the district an estimated $18 million. Although the district did the right thing by closing the schools, serious damage may already have been done. It can take 10 to 50 years for an asbestos-related illness to show up.
It’s unthinkable that this even needs to be said, but children deserve safe and healthy learning environments that foster education and creativity, not old buildings that harbor deadly substances. Countless other industries have outlawed asbestos because it’s too dangerous. Yet we allow nearly 34% of our school children to be exposed to it.
We need to do more to protect ourselves — and especially our kids — from asbestos. Local communities cannot manage the risk on their own. We need strong federal laws to do that.
Until the EPA finds its backbone and institutes a ban, companies will continue to import contaminated products, industry workers will endure deadly risks and our kids will be one disturbed floor tile away from a substance that has killed millions.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-reinstein-asbestos-in-schools-20180913-story.html
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EPA Urges Law Enforcement To Use Regulated Incinerators For Waste Drugs
Sep 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lara Beaven
As concern about the opioid epidemic mounts, EPA is urging law enforcement to destroy household waste pharmaceuticals in Clean Air Act-permitted solid or hazardous waste incinerators, warning that open burning or the use of “burn barrels” could release harmful emissions and may not meet federal destruction standards.
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler delivered the message in a Sept. 11 letter to law enforcement officials.
The letter includes a Sept. 11 memorandum from Barnes Johnson, director of the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, to EPA regional Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) division directors that also outlines options for sending collected pharmaceuticals to incinerators or reverse distributers.
Wheeler released the letter and memorandum Sept. 12 at the National Narcotics Officers’ Associations’ Coalition Drug Enforcement Forum.
“Efforts by law enforcement agencies across the country to collect unwanted drugs from households is a critical tool in fighting the opioid crisis,” Wheeler said in a Sept. 12 statement. “EPA strongly supports these efforts and is working to ensure that drugs collected in take-back programs are transported and destroyed in a manner that is protective of public health and the environment, including the health of law enforcement officers.”
EPA says it has received inquiries from law enforcement about whether open burning of pharmaceuticals collected in take-back events, such as the Drug Enforcement Agency's (DEA) twice-yearly national events, is allowed.
The agency notes in the memorandum that open burning is generally prohibited under RCRA and can be limited or prohibited under state laws and local ordinances. Additionally, EPA says, such burning poses a health risk to law enforcement officers and the public because emissions from open burning are generally not controlled.
“This is due to the potential formation, release and exposure to pollutants formed as byproducts during open burning of the pharmaceuticals and their plastic, glass, multi-laminate films, and cardboard packaging,” EPA says. “These pollutants, such as dioxins, furans, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, lead, mercury, and hexachlorobenzene may cause immediate and longterm adverse health effects such as cancer, respiratory illness and reproductive disorders.”
In a footnote, the agency says it does not have emissions data from the open burning of collected household pharmaceuticals specifically. “But a study by EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory and others, concluded that 'the emissions from open burning [household trash] are several orders of magnitude higher than for controlled combustion in a modern, clean-operating MWC [municipal waste combustor]'” the footnote says.
EPA says it is possible that barrels with fans, sometimes referred to as burn barrels, may pose similar risks for emissions.
Further, given the comparatively low combustion temperature, and the difficulty in controlling the combustion temperature, it is not evident that open burning or burn barrels would achieve the DEA’s non-retrievable standard for the destruction of controlled substances, EPA says. And the ash residue from open burning can contain toxic metals, such as mercury, lead, chromium, and arsenic and must be managed in accordance with applicable solid and hazardous waste regulations, the agency says.
EPA says that in addition to having law enforcement drive collected pharmaceuticals directly to an incinerator, there is also the option to ship the pharmaceuticals in special packaging using a carrier such as UPS, FedEx or the U.S. Postal Service to an incinerator or reverse distributor.
“We encourage law enforcement to contact multiple vendors and compare pricing for liners/outer packaging and for handling and destruction,” EPA says, adding that “to help minimize costs, law enforcement is encouraged to participate in the twice-a-year DEA-sponsored National Prescription Drug Take Back Days. The DEA pays for the transportation and destruction of the household pharmaceuticals collected during those events.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-urges-law-enforcement-use-regulated-incinerators-waste-drugs
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Chemical Contamination Plagues Area in Crosshairs of Hurricane Florence
Sep 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
Flooding from Hurricane Florence could exacerbate chemical contamination in communities along the Cape Fear River in North Carolina.
A local water authority and researchers will monitor whether the poly- and perfluorinated chemicals, or PFAS, concentrations in local aquifers rise as the hurricane drives up the water table. These chemicals, used in nonstick coatings and water repellents, are long-lasting in the environment and have been linked to numerous long-term health problems.
“It’s very unfortunate that at a time like this when we’re working with our community during and after a hurricane that we’re also worried about what’s coming downstream,” Jim Flechtner, head of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, told Bloomberg Environment Sept. 11.
The storm is expected to make landfall this week in southeastern North Carolina, one of the parts of the country most acutely affected by the chemicals.
Tracking Chemours
Some of the highest test results for PFAS chemicals have come from the Cape Fear River, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean just south of Wilmington, N.C. The city of more than 100,000 people is about 75 miles downstream from a Chemours Co. manufacturing plant in Fayetteville, N.C., that produces PFAS chemicals.
Flechtner’s agency and others affected by PFAS contamination are suing Chemours in federal court. The company didn’t return multiple requests for comment from Bloomberg Environment.
The storm will provide scientists a valuable opportunity to learn how contaminants move through the watershed during and after an extreme weather event like this, said Detlef Knappe, an environmental engineering professor at North Carolina State University who is working with Flechtner.
“I’m excited to study this,” he told Bloomberg Environment.
There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty about what might happen during the storm with contaminated ground water, according to Knappe.
On one hand, it could mix with rivers and streams, he said, but on the other, it is possible that the opposite could happen and overflowing rivers and streams could instead deposit into the aquifer.
“We don’t necessarily understand very well how the groundwater and surface water communicate under different hydrologic conditions,” Knappe told Bloomberg Environment.
None of this information will be available in real time, however, because these tests take a few weeks to complete, Flechtner said.
“These tests are so we can understand future events like this in the future, what that means for our treatment, and potentially where those contaminants are coming from,” he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemical-contamination-plagues-area-in-crosshairs-of-hurricane-Florence
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Firefighters Excluded From Granite State Fluorochemicals Study
Sep 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The people who face the greatest potential health risks from a group of chemicals spurring lawsuits and million-dollar cleanups would be left out of the first part of a proposed national study on whether those chemicals harm people.
Firefighters, military personnel, and workers whose jobs expose them to fluorochemicals would be excluded from the launch of a study on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) at Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth, N.H., the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry told Bloomberg Environment in a Sept. 11 email.
Congress gave ATSDR, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, $10 million for fiscal year 2018 to launch a national study on human exposure to PFAS. No Meaningful Data?
The study appears to be designed in “such a way that it can never actually generate the data ATSDR previously indicated it needs to properly assess and draw meaningful conclusions” about the human health impacts of the chemicals Congress has told it to examine, Robert A. Bilott, a partner with the Cincinnati office of Stettinius & Hollister LLP, said in a Sept. 12 letter to ATSDR.
According to the ATSDR’s own guidance documents, collecting blood samples from firefighters should be part of any PFAS community exposure, Bilott, who has sued chemical companies in the past, told Bloomberg Environment.
While the study won’t look at exposures that occurred during the production or use of a specialized firefighting foam that is among the sources of those chemicals, it will examine people who have been exposed to the chemicals in their drinking water, the agency told Bloomberg Environment.
The ATSDR focuses on community exposures rather than occupational ones, therefore, “it is understandable that they are excluding fire fighters for these specific studies,” Racquel Segall, an occupational health specialist with the International Association of Fire Fighters, told Bloomberg Environment by email Sept. 11.
“We are pushing for studies to evaluate fire fighters’ occupational exposures,” Segall said. Pease Testing Study Protocols
About 8,000 people work at the Pease International Tradeport business center, which also has two on-site day care centers. Drinking water wells that supply Pease were tested in May 2014 and found to be “well above” the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended limit, the ATSDR said in an Aug. 27 description, of its proposed study.
The toxic substances agency selected Pease to test out forms, resident-outreach efforts, and other materials and procedures it would use for the proposed national study that would involve at least eight sites where drinking water, groundwater, or other water has been contaminated with PFAS.People exposed to two specific chemicals in that large group, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), have higher cholesterol, increasing their risk of heart disease. They might also have an increased risk of cancer, thyroid problems, and a weakened immune system, according to previous studies.
The expense of treating water to reduce PFAS contamination combined with health concerns have caused at least one state and thousands of people to sue companies that have made or used the fluorochemicals including 3M Co., the Chemours Co., DowDuPont Inc., and footwear manufacturer Wolverine World Wide Inc.
The Pease study, which would be a one-time analysis of 1,625 participants, also would provide insight into whether the fluorochemicals have harmed local residents’ health.
There may be a good reason to exclude occupationally exposed individuals in the Pease study, but the ATSDR should explain at an upcoming Sept. 20 meeting, Andrea Amico, a co-founder of Testing for Pease, a community organization, told Bloomberg Environment Sept. 11.
Local residents want to know whether PFAS exposure is contributing to increased cancer rates being found in men and women who served at the former Pease Air Force base or now serve at the Pease Air National Guard Base, Amico said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/firefighters-excluded-from-granite-state-fluorochemicals-study
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Germany Submits Classification and Labelling Proposal for BPA
Sep 13, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Germany has submitted a proposal to Echa to harmonise the classification and labelling (CLH) of bisphenol A under CLP.
In its entry in the agency's registry of CLH intentions, Germany proposes classifications for the substance of:serious eye damage, category 1;skin sensitisation, category 1 – may cause an allergic reaction;reprotoxicity, category 1B – may damage fertility;specific target organ toxicity (single exposure), category 3 – may cause respiratory irritation; andhazardous to the aquatic environment: aquatic acute, category 1 and M-factor=1– very toxic to aquatic life;andaquatic chronic, category 1 and M-factor=10– very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects.
Germany notified Echa in the summer of 2017 that it intended to identify BPA as an SVHC because of its endocrine disrupting properties causing probable serious effects in the environment.
Last December the agency's Member State Committee (MSC) unanimously supported the German proposal.
The move came in the face of protests from the plastics industry which called the decision unjustified. While most member states backed the proposal, the industry used a consultation to strongly dispute the decision.
BPA is already on the REACH candidate list of SVHCs on two counts: as toxic to reproduction and for endocrine-disrupting properties that cause probable serious effects to human health. The chemical is considered an endocrine disruptor under REACH Article 57f (equivalent level of concern to carcinogens, mutagens and reproductive toxicants).
There is no specific classification for endocrine disruption under CLP, or GHS upon which the EU legislation is based.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70264/germany-submits-classification-and-labelling-proposal-for-bpa
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(ACC Mentioned) Plethora of U.S. Chemical Investments Linked to Shale, Tight Natural Gas Reserves
Sep 12, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
The overflowing basket of investments since 2010 by the U.S. chemical and plastics industry now surpasses $200 billion, nearly all of it tied to plentiful natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) supply, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said Tuesday.
In the past eight years, 333 projects, including new or expanded facilities, have been launched that are cumulatively valued at $202.4 billion. More than half (53%) are completed or under construction and 41% are in the planning phase. More than two-thirds (68%) is foreign-direct investment or includes a foreign partner, ACC said.
The industry council linked the growth in projects to onshore gas supply.
“This is an exciting milestone for American chemistry and further evidence that shale gas is a powerful engine of manufacturing growth,” said CEO Cal Dooley. “The U.S. remains the most attractive place in the world to invest in chemical manufacturing,” which in turn creates more jobs.
The analysis indicated that $202.4 billion in capital spending could lead to $292 billion a year in new chemical and plastics industry output, which in turn would support up to 786,000 jobs by 2025.
Investments of that magnitude could lead to 79,000 chemical industry jobs, 352,000 jobs in supplier industries and 355,000 jobs in U.S. communities.
Robust supplies of NGLs, particularly ethane, are considered key to the domestic chemical industry resurgence. NGLs are the main feedstock for basic U.S. petrochemicals and plastics, while companies overseas mostly use naphtha, which is oil-based. Since feedstock comprises about 75% of the cost of ethylene production, lower prices favor U.S. chemical makers in global markets.
There was a note of caution, however.
Because U.S. manufacturers often rely on inputs that are not domestically available or manufactured, the ACC said “protectionist trade policies such as tariffs and quotas unnecessarily raise the costs of those inputs, deter innovation and economic growth, and could ultimately weaken our country’s competitive advantage.”
The Trump administration in March imposed a 25% tariff on steel imports and a 10% tax on aluminum imports, which the oil and gas industry, as well as its allies, has opposed.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/115757-plethora-of-us-chemical-investments-linked-to-shale-tight-natural-gas-reserves?v=preview
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Senate Approves Energy and Water Bill
Sep 13, 2018 | E&E Daily
By George Cahlink
Congress is expected to send the president a fiscal 2019 Energy-Water spending bill that's part of a bipartisan, $147.5 billion funding package after the House approves it today.
Last night, the Senate passed the three-bill spending minibus 92-5, the wide margin signaling support for averting a government shutdown when the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.
The package contains the fiscal 2019 Energy-Water, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs and Legislative Branch bills (E&E Daily, Sept. 12).
The White House has not objected to the package, although there is uncertainty over whether President Trump will support any new spending without a guarantee of border wall funding.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said it was his expectation that the minibus would quickly become law.
That would validate the push by congressional leaders to move multiple bills in packages to get as many signed into law before the new fiscal year. The approach has required both parties to control their desire for partisan policy riders and hold off on funding fights.
House and Senate appropriators are set to conference today on two more minibus packages. One would combine the Interior-EPA bill with funding for Agriculture, Transportation-Housing and Urban Development, and Financial Services.
The other would marry up the annual Defense bill with the largest domestic measure, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.
Shelby said negotiations over the Labor-HHS-Defense bill could be finalized and the bill could be on the Senate floor next week.
Asked about the Interior-EPA bill, Shelby was more circumspect about when it might reach the floor, saying "stay tuned."
He noted that if only the first two spending minibuses were approved by Oct. 1, they would still cover about 80 percent of all federal discretionary spending.
Both Republican and Democratic aides say the Interior-EPA funding measure might not be wrapped before the new fiscal year, in part because lawmakers are haggling over various environmental provisions.
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), the ranking member on the Senate Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, was more optimistic yesterday that a deal would soon emerge. He said negotiators were "making good progress" and that he thought the riders could be resolved.
Any agencies not receiving fresh dollars by Oct. 1 are expected to be funded under a stopgap spending measure, known as a continuing resolution, that would guarantee them level funding until after the elections.
Lawmakers are eager to move a CR rather than risk a shutdown before the elections — even as Trump has not entirely ruled one out.
The House's No. 4 Democrat, Rep. Joe Crowley of New York, told reporters yesterday that his party opposes a shutdown and made clear it would blame the GOP if one were to occur under Trump's watch.
"We don't believe that's in the interest of our constituents or of the country to see that happen. And our hope is that our Republican colleagues will see that as well, work with us. But certainly, the responsibility is upon them," he said.
Reporter Geof Koss contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/09/13/stories/1060096875
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Administration Announces Plan to Streamline Oil and Gas Extraction in National Forests
Sep 12, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
The Forest Service plans to submit a rule that would make it easier to explore oil and gas drilling, as well as mineral mining, in National Forests.
The Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the Forest Service, is planning to revise the contents of the agency's oil and gas resources regulations, according to one advance notice of proposed rule-making submitted to the Federal Register on Wednesday.
The new rule would aim to "streamline" procedural requirements for oil and gas leasing and extraction from the 154 national forests and 20 grasslands managed by the Forest Service. Oil and gas is currently being developed on 44 national forests and grasslands.
"It is in the national interest to promote clean and safe development of our Nation’s vast energy resources, while at the same time avoiding regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production, constrain economic growth, and prevent job creation," the rule notice reads.
The rule follows an earlier Trump executive order labelled: “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth." Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke similarly referenced the executive order in a previous announcement that the agency is looking to expand offshore drilling lease sales.
The USDA rule clearly states that by eliminating the regulatory burdens, fossil fuel extraction could be done more quickly.
"The intent of these potential changes would be to decrease permitting times by removing regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production. These potential changes would promote domestic oil and gas production by allowing industry to begin production more quickly," the notice reads.
Also Wednesday, USDA submitted another advance rule notice on mineral extraction in Forest Service land that aims to make it easier to process requests to mine key minerals including gold, zinc and uranium.
The changes closely follows recommendations from a 1999 National Research Council report and 2016 Government Accountability Report that suggested ways to streamline communications across the agency.
"Increasing the consistency of the agencies’ procedures and rules would benefit persons who conduct locatable mineral operations on the public lands managed by the [Bureau of Land Management] as well as on National Forest System lands managed by the Forest Service," the notice reads.
The aim of the change, according to the notice, is to increase mineral prospectors' interests in mining on forest land.
"This change should enhance operators’ interest in, and willingness to, conduct exploratory operations on National Forest System lands and ultimately increase the production of critical minerals, consistent with both of these sections of the Executive Order," the notice reads.
Republicans and administration officials have supported increased mineral extraction on public lands, arguing that U.S. could strengthen its reserves of key minerals — including the highly controversial uranium.
House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) wrote a letter to Zinke and USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue last September urging them to consider expanding mineral extraction on public lands and national forests, writing, "Unfortunately, under the prior administration, mineral access on Federal land was regularly and systematically blocked, harming our nation's economic and strategic potential."
But environmentalists and conservationists have pushed back on the administration's plans to make it easier to extract natural resources on federal lands.
Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the planned rule changes "appalling."
“These appalling Trump administration proposals would ramp up fracking and mining damage to public lands and wildlife,” McKinnon said in a statement. “Our national forests matter more than private industry profits. But the Forest Service is abdicating its mission to protect these wild places to ram through whatever industries want. Both rules will meet fierce fights.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/406349-administration-announces-plan-to-streamline-oil-and-gas-extraction
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Energy Dept: U.S. Likely Surpassed Russia as World's Top Oil Producer
Sep 12, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
The United States likely surpassed Russia this summer to stake its claim as the world's top oil producer, the U.S. Energy Department said Wednesday.
The Energy Department estimates that the United States churned out 10.9 million barrels a day in August compared to about 10.8 million barrels a day for Russia. It would be the first time the U.S. has led the world in crude oil production in decades.
Driven by the shale drilling boom, especially in West Texas' Permian Basin, U.S. producers are pumping record volumes of oil and natural gas. In fact, the U.S. has led the world in combined oil and gas production since 2012.
In terms of crude oil production, the United States moved past Saudi Arabia a few months ago to claim second place behind Russia. The Energy Department expects U.S. crude production to exceed Russia's and Saudi Arabia's through the rest of this year and into next year..
RELATED: Permian surge on oil hedging shows fear of pipeline shortages
Russia estimates its volumes at 11.2 million barrels daily, but that includes condensate, which is produced along with the crude oil.
The Energy Department has long projected that it was just a matter of time before United States passed Russia in oil output. Despite pipeline shortages slowing growth in the Permian — at least temporarily — the Energy Department projects that the United States. will average 11.5 million barrels of oil production a day next year.
The growth has come quickly since prices rebounded following the recent oil bust, rising above $70 a barrel. Just last year, U.S. production averaged 9.4 million barrels a day.
U.S. crude oil exports are also growing quickly, averaging almost 2 million barrels a day.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Energy-Dept-U-S-likely-surpassed-Russia-as-13225105.php
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US 'Likely' Has Taken Over as the World's Top Oil Producer
Sep 12, 2018 | AP (In The New York Times)
The United States may have reclaimed the title of the world's biggest oil producer sooner than expected.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Wednesday that, based on preliminary estimates, America "likely surpassed" Russia in June and August after jumping over Saudi Arabia earlier this year.
If those estimates are right, it would mark the first time since 1973 that the U.S. has led the world in output, according to government figures.
The energy information administration and the International Energy Agency, a global group of oil-consuming nations, had predicted that the U.S. would eventually pass Russia and Saudi Arabia but possibly not until 2019.
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U.S. production jumped in recent years because of techniques including hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," which is the use of chemicals, sand, water and high pressure to crack rock formations deep below ground, releasing more oil and natural gas.
Fracking is driving a drilling boom in the Permian Basin under Texas and New Mexico. The practice is controversial, however. Opponents say that fracking results in toxic contamination of groundwater and increases the number of earthquakes in places like Oklahoma and Texas.
The U.S. energy agency estimated that the United States produced an average of 10.9 million barrels a day in August, compared with about 10.8 million barrels a day by Russia and around 10.4 million from Saudi Arabia. It said the U.S. passed Saudi Arabia in February for the first time in more than two decades, and this summer it topped Russia for the first time since 1999.
The agency expects the U.S. will continue to top Russia and Saudi Arabia for the rest of this year and through 2019.
U.S. production has soared since 2011, led by output from the Permian Basin, North Dakota and the Gulf of Mexico. The pace of drilling slowed after oil prices tumbled starting in 2014, but roared back as operators learned to produce oil more efficiently and crude prices rebounded.EDITORS’ PICKSNaomi Osaka’s Breakthrough GameThe Super Bowl of BeekeepingKremlin Sources Go Quiet, Leaving C.I.A. in the Dark About Putin’s Plans for Midterms
Production has been relatively steady in Russia and Saudi Arabia, both of which took part in an OPEC agreement to limit output beginning in 2016 to drive up prices.
The U.S. agency said its data on Russian production comes mainly from the Russian Ministry of Oil but also oil companies and industry publications. The agency said figures on Saudi output are based on its own internal estimates.
The U.S. led the world in oil production for much of the last century until the Soviet Union and later Saudi Arabia passed it during the 1970s. Until the last few years, it seemed far-fetched that the U.S. would ever regain the No. 1 spot.
Daniel Yergin, author of "The Prize," a history of the oil industry, said the rebound of U.S. production helped avert a severe shortage of world oil that would have sent prices far higher.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/12/us/ap-us-oil-production-us.html
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Texas Pipeline Bottlenecks Weigh on U.S. Oil Production Outlook
Sep 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jessica Summers
Growing pains in the biggest U.S. oil region are starting to dim the rosy outlook for American oil production.
Pipeline bottlenecks are proving to be an increasing risk to crude production growth, according to the government. The Energy Information Administration sees domestic oil output averaging 11.5 million barrels a day next year, down from a previous estimate of 11.7 million a day. The agency also lowered its forecast for this year.
The lowered forecast reflects “more severe constraints in Permian region pipeline takeaway capacity than previously expected, which results in slower expected crude oil production growth in that region,” as well as a reevaluation of projects in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, according to the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook released on Sept. 11.
Oil explorers idled rigs last week amid bottlenecks in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico that have trapped production in the region. As producers face pipeline constraints, companies such as Magellan Midstream Partners LP, Energy Transfer Partners LP, MPLX LP, and Delek U.S. Holdings Inc. said this month that they had enough commitments to sanction a new pipeline to carry crude from the Permian Basin to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Meanwhile, Schlumberger Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Paal Kibsgaard said maxed-out pipelines in the area will force output growth, wellhead prices, and investment levels to cool in the coming year.
The EIA sees domestic crude output averaging 10.66 million barrels a day this year, lower than the previous estimate of 10.68 million a day, yet still above the 1970 record of 9.6 million a day, according to the report.
The agency lowered its global crude production forecast for next year to 101.65 million barrels a day from 101.94 million previously. It also sliced its world demand growth estimate for 2019 to 101.57 million barrels a day from 101.66 million.
©2018 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/texas-pipeline-bottlenecks-weigh-on-us-oil-production-outlook
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Worker Exposure to Hazardous Chemicals is a 'Global Health Crisis'
Sep 12, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
A UN expert has proposed 15 principles that aim to help governments and businesses better protect workers from exposure to hazardous chemicals – an issue he calls a "global health crisis".
The principles feature in a report by Baskut Tuncak, UN special rapporteur on human rights and toxics. The report, which will be presented to 39th session of the UN's Human Rights Council, sets out findings from his four years of monitoring the issue in industries and countries around the world.
The report argues that many companies and national governments are not meeting their duty to uphold the rights of workers under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These stipulate the right to safe and healthy working conditions.
The principles broadly cover:the responsibilities and duties of businesses and governments;worker access to information; and'remedies' to hold those accountable who violate workers rights.Exploitation?
The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that one worker dies every 30 seconds from exposure to toxic chemicals, pesticides, radiation and other hazardous substances.
Speaking to Chemical Watch following the release of the report, Mr Tuncak said this lack of worker protection must be seen as exploitation and possibly modern slavery.
'I'm sure it is expensive for companies to trace chemicals through the tiers of their supply chains but it's a cost of doing business. This a responsibility and moral obligation – and in some jurisdictions a legal obligation' Baskut Tuncak
"I'm sure it is expensive for companies to trace chemicals through the tiers of their supply chains but it's a cost of doing business. This a responsibility and moral obligation – and in some jurisdictions a legal obligation."
Mr Tuncak says in his report that the "importance of the issue has been largely forgotten and deprioritised in relevant international forums, resulting in a lack of global progress in confronting this growing concern".
Some of his principles call on businesses and states to ensure that information about worker exposure to hazardous substances is available and accessible and is never made confidential.
"Employers and suppliers of chemical substances should clearly state in their policies that they will not keep such information secret," the report adds.Criminal liability
One principle calls for governments to criminalise the practice of allowing worker exposure to hazardous chemicals.
States, the report says, should ensure that national legislation includes the criminal liability of employers and others responsible for exposing workers to substances that are or should be known to be hazardous.
They should investigate and prosecute such cases, ensuring that heads of businesses bear responsibility along with other actors knowingly or negligently involved, it says.
Prosecuting cases will 'motivate businesses to develop and adopt safer practices that engage their responsibility, ranging from substituting to less hazardous alternatives to adopting engineering controls to reduce exposure'
This will "motivate businesses to develop and adopt safer practices that engage their responsibility, ranging from substituting to less hazardous alternatives to adopting engineering controls to reduce exposure".
In the next few months, Mr Tuncak will gather input from states and other stakeholders on how these principles are reflected in their laws, policies and procedures.
Following this, he plans to present a more elaborated set of principles at a future session of the Human Rights Council, with the aim of it developing into a framework that states, businesses and other actors can implement.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70252/worker-exposure-to-hazardous-chemicals-is-a-global-health-crisis
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Environmentalists Renew Call for Swift RMP Implementation
Sep 13, 2018 | Inside EPA
State and environmentalist petitioners are reiterating their request for an appellate court to compel the agency to quickly implement an Obama-era update to the agency's facility accident prevention rule, arguing that accidents are occurring regularly, and that the court already found the Trump administration's delay causes harm.
In a Sept. 12 filing, supporting their prior request for expedited issuance of the court's mandate in its recent ruling striking down the Trump administration's nearly two year delay of the Obama EPA's update to its Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility safety rule, petitioners fault EPA and industry intervenors' requests that the court follow normal procedure to give them time to appeal the court's ruling.
“Even one month of delay would likely allow approximately a dozen incidents to occur without, at least, the implementation of requirements for emergency response coordination and more prompt and thorough incident investigation,” petitioners, including Earthjustice and Democratic-led states including New York say.
“The record before this Court demonstrates harm is highly likely because the rule, once in effect, will prevent and reduce fatalities, injuries, evacuations, shelter-in-place-orders, toxic exposure, and other harms from ongoing and frequent chemical releases,” the petitioners add.
In reiterating their request for an expedited mandate in the case, petitioners argue that a two-judge panel's Aug. 17 ruling in the case Air Alliance Houston, et al., v. EPA and Andrew Wheeler, found that the Trump administration's delay of the RMP rule poses risks to communities.
Petitioners also say that the court's past decision to grant a request for expedited hearing of the case supports the current request to expedite the court's final mandate.
The request comes after a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Aug. 31, issued and then quickly withdrew its mandate, a procedural step that would require the agency to begin implementing the rule.
The court withdrew the mandate days later, calling the original issuance “inadvertent,” after EPA and state intervenors argued that judges' granting the request without giving litigants a chance to weigh in violated rules of appellate procedure, which allows for a 10-day response period.
In Sept. 5 filings, EPA, chemical manufacturers, and GOP-led states urged the court to reject the request for expedited issuance of the mandate, arguing they needed time to consider an appeal, that the existing 1990s-era RMP rule provides protections for communities, and that many of the update rule's compliance dates are years away.
EPA issued the final rule updating RMP with new requirements shortly before the Obama administration left office in 2017, imposing new requirements for certain facilities, and including provisions aimed at streamlining disclosure of facility data, and improving coordination between facilities and first responders.
The delay rule sought to postpone by nearly 20 months, from June 19, 2017, to Feb. 19, 2019, the effective date of the revisions. The delay was to allow the Trump administration time to revise the regulation after it accepted an industry petition for reconsideration.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/environmentalists-renew-call-swift-rmp-implementation
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Attorney Warns ACE Rule Could Lead To 'Severely Potent' GHG Limits
Sep 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
EPA's proposal to exclude emissions trading as a means of complying with its Clean Power Plan replacement could ultimately backfire on the power sector, opening the door to a future White House imposing strict greenhouse gas controls, according to a prominent industry attorney.
These hypothetical scenarios come despite the conventional wisdom among legal experts that EPA's “Affordable Clean Energy” rule is designed to prevent future strict GHG standards by arguing that the agency can only impose limits based on actions taken “within the fenceline” of a regulated plant.
“You could either have a very defanged, or . . . a severely potent program,” Van Ness Feldman attorney Kyle Danish told a Sept. 6 forum hosted by the United States Energy Association (USEA).
Under one scenario Danish outlined, EPA would finalize its bar on trading in the ACE rule, and the courts would uphold its prohibition on “beyond the fence” standards -- but a future EPA nevertheless takes another run at tough GHG limits for power plants.
“One possibility is that a future president says, 'OK, you know what I think is inside the fence? Carbon capture and sequestration, or converting every coal plant to gas.' . . . It could happen,” Danish said. “And then, by the way, you are sort of regretting the idea that you don't have trading,” he added, outlining a “worst possible” scenario for the industry.
The possible dynamic hinges on the possibility that Trump officials succeed in their argument that GHG limits under Clean Air Act section 111(d) are limited to “inside the fenceline” strategies, rather than broader efforts such as shifting of generation to cleaner facilities, including natural gas or renewables, that were the basis of the CPP.
Even in this context, observers say the administration faces an important choice in how it frames the argument. One option would be to claim its new legal interpretation is “reasonable” and thus should be upheld under court deference standards. It could also take a more aggressive tactic and argue that the air law unambiguously prohibits “beyond the fence” standards.
“If the agency goes for broke and tries to persuade the court that there is only one interpretation, and if the court agrees, then that will all but close off the path for a future administration to look at a system-wide approach,” said former Obama EPA air attorney Joe Goffman, during a Sept. 4 podcast hosted by the University of Pennsylvania's Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.
However, environmentalists have warned that such an argument is riskier for the agency because it would face a higher legal bar compared with traditional arguments about court deference to “reasonable” interpretations of statutes.
Trading 'Surprise'
The Aug. 21 proposed ACE rule includes a narrow definition of what can be included in section 111(d)'s “best system of emissions reduction,” which forms the basis of the rule's emission limits. The plan gives states wide discretion on implementing coal plant efficiency upgrades, pushing aside stronger targets that were based in part on shifting of generation to natural gas or renewables.
However, Danish told the USEA event that the proposal's bar on emissions trading for compliance “could be a surprise to some states” and the power sector.
“I am interested in whether there is some pushback” on that restriction, he said, noting that industry for many years has advocated for market-based programs as a more flexible alternative to command-and-control regulation.
The restriction might not matter to industry in the current context, given that EPA appears poised to finalize a lax regulation, Danish said, but it could be an unwelcome “irritant” to states that are already implementing trading programs for power plant GHGs.
Separately, Danish warned that even if ACE were to succeed in creating legal and regulatory roadblocks to stricter GHG controls under section 111, other “hypothetical” avenues for GHG limits remain open to future regulatory and legal battles.
Those include calls to implement standards under section 115 of the air law -- a little-used provision that addresses domestic emissions that harm other countries. Danish suggested that authority could be “harnessed” to section 110 provisions, which states have used to implement emissions trading for a range of pollutants.
Also, future court rulings affirming a narrow ACE rule could help spark renewed attention to climate legislation by a future, more amenable, Congress.
“We are only in the realm of hypotheticals here, but who knows what the next Congress will look like?” he said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/attorney-warns-ace-rule-could-lead-severely-potent-ghg-limits
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States' Cumulative GHG Efforts Fall Short Of Obama Paris Goal, Group Says
Sep 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
A group backing climate mitigation efforts by states, cities and other “sub-national” entities is outlining first-time projections of the cumulative effect of such efforts, finding they likely will fall short of meeting Obama officials' 2025 greenhouse gas reduction target but could come close under a scenario based on “enhanced engagement.”
The projections were released Sept. 12 by a group known as America's Pledge, which includes a coalition of states, cities, businesses and others that are trying to achieve the prior administration's GHG target under the Paris Agreement, even though President Donald Trump is rejecting the Paris deal and rolling back many federal climate policies.
Overall, the report finds that the set of “current measures” that sub-national entities are implementing could lead to a 17 percent cut in national GHG emissions below 2005 levels by 2025. This would be well short of Obama's Paris pledge of a 26-28 percent cut in the same timeframe.
However, the new report says that implementing several “high-impact, near-term and readily available” strategies could achieve a 21 percent reduction by 2025, and that a 24 percent cut is achievable under “enhanced engagement” by states, cities and others.
An executive summary of the report adds that its “most ambitious” scenario highlights “what can plausibly be achieved through state, city, and business actions, prior to federal reengagement, taking into consideration limitations, including legal barriers to scaling specific policies and the political unwillingness of local government in certain regions of the United States to take up climate policies.”
The report aligns with prior analysis that state-level climate efforts would help counterbalance Trump administration rollbacks, though they likely will not fully offset the impact of relaxed federal policies. America's Pledge previously released a report with suggestions for implementing new policies, though the latest document is the first to model the cumulative impact of state and other efforts.
Release of the report coincided with the start of the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, which was organized by California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) to highlight ongoing efforts to cut GHGs despite the Trump administration's retrenchment on the issue.
At the summit, some states have begun announcing new steps to reduce GHGs in a range of sectors. For instance, Maryland environment officials said Sept. 11 that they would craft a rule limiting refrigerants known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that act as potent GHGs.
Maryland environment secretary Ben Grumbles said in a press release that the state is acting in concert with the U.S. Climate Alliance -- a separate group of states supporting the Paris deal. “These fast-acting super-pollutants are a major threat to our climate progress and deserve to be phased out at the state and federal level,” he said.
The state rule would generally mirror EPA regulations that were largely vacated by an appellate court ruling. It also represents increasing pushback to EPA climate rollbacks from Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who has recently opposed the agency's planned rollbacks of power plant and vehicle GHG standards.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) also recently announced that his state would adopt HFC rules by the end of next year, and California air officials have already codified parts of the HFC standards into state regulation.
Methane and Transportation
Additionally, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced Sept. 12 that his state would develop rules to limit methane leaks from natural gas equipment and landfills. He cited EPA's just-issued proposal to weaken federal oil and gas methane standards, arguing that “Virginia must take action to limit methane pollution within its borders.”
The effort will be led by the Department of Environmental Quality, which will establish a work group within the next 120 days to inform a regulation.
Virginia officials also told a separate panel at the climate summit that the state will become the 13th to join the Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI), which is an effort to establish a market-based program to lower transportation GHGs, similar to an existing cap-and-trade program to cut power sector emissions in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
“We agree that a regional solution that reflects the regional nature of the transportation system will be more beneficial to residents and businesses,” Virginia Department of Natural Resources Secretary Matt Strickler told the event.
The state is also planning to start participating in auctions under the power sector trading program, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, by 2020.
'Near-Term' Strategies
These announcements appear to fall under the mix of strategies the new America's Pledge report identifies as “near-term” efforts that states and cities could adopt.
Such “climate action strategies,” according to the report, fall under 10 categories: enhancing renewable energy targets, accelerating coal plant retirements, encouraging energy efficiency retrofits, electrifying building energy use, accelerating electric vehicle deployment, phasing down HFCs, stopping methane leaks at production sites, limiting methane leaks in distribution networks, crafting regional plans for land-based carbon sequestration, and forming state carbon pricing coalitions.
These strategies were outlined because they could begin to be implemented by 2020, the report says, and achieve “significant” GHG cuts by 2025, the end year of the Obama administration's Paris target.
“Broader engagement” by states and other sub-national entities, the report says, could achieve a 24 percent cut, which is “within striking distance” of the Obama 2025 target and could allow it to be reached “shortly thereafter.”
The sectors with the largest potential for emissions cuts -- beyond those covered by “current measures” -- are additional power sector reductions, emissions cuts in buildings and industry, and sequestration tied to natural lands and agriculture.
In this sense, the report underscores prior findings that achieving major GHG cuts in transportation could be very difficult, a task made even harder by the Trump administration's plan to freeze vehicle GHG and fuel economy limits.
Further, the report highlights the fact that state-level action by itself likely cannot meet the Obama climate targets and would also be insufficient for longer-term goals to achieve very deep carbon cuts in multiple sectors by mid century.
“Federal reengagement undertaken as rapidly as possible will be essential in sustaining and accelerating the needed breadth and depth of emissions reductions across all sectors of the U.S. economy, both to close any remaining gap in 2025 and for long-term decarbonization,” the report says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-cumulative-ghg-efforts-fall-short-obama-paris-goal-group-says
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Reopening Debate, EPA To Seek Input On Power Sector GHG Risk Finding
Sep 12, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
EPA is signaling that it will seek input on whether to reconsider its threshold finding that power sector greenhouse gases pose enough of an endangerment to warrant regulation, and is expected to raise the issue in its forthcoming proposal to replace the Obama administration's GHG rules for new plants in a new source performance standard (NSPS).
The issue divides major industry groups -- who favor retaining the finding and associated EPA rules as a way to create regulatory certainty and preempt common law suits -- from free-market organizations and some Trump administration officials -- who have long called for scrapping EPA's endangerment finding in an effort to remove all of the agency's climate regulations.
EPA's Aug. 21 “Affordable Clean Energy” (ACE) proposal to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) for existing plants says that if the agency reconsiders the endangerment issue -- likely not the broad underlying 2009 finding but rather a separate decision it made in the original NSPS to extend the finding to the power sector -- the issue “would be more appropriately addressed to the docket on EPA's intended forthcoming proposal with regard to the new source rule.”
EPA sent its draft proposed NSPS to the White House for interagency review Sept. 10, and there are indications the review could be on a fast track.
The agency specifically rejected calls for it to seek comment about the endangerment finding in the ACE proposal, with conservative groups making that request during a preliminary rule that informed the proposal.
However, EPA did consider, but later rejected, soliciting comment in the ACE proposal on not regulating the sector's carbon dioxide emissions at all, according to an Aug. 16 red-line version. “EPA is soliciting comment on whether it would be appropriate -- as an alternative to replacing the CPP (once repealed) -- to decline to regulate CO2 emissions at this time,” the now-deleted sentence says.
In the same red-line version, which was recently added to the regulatory docket, another sentence was suggested for addition: “However, based on the potential reconsideration of revision [to the NSPS] within [Clean Air Act (CAA)] section 111(b), EPA requests comment on whether EPA has appropriately made the 'endangerment finding' under section 111 for [power plants] and whether it would be appropriate to reconsider that finding with respect to any potential future revisions to section 111(b).”
In response, EPA said the suggested language is “out of scope for the rulemaking as the edits somewhat indicate.” The agency added that the endangerment finding can lead to an NSPS rule under section 111(b), which then would lead to a 111(d) rule such as ACE or the CPP.
Because the 2015 NSPS remains in effect, the issue is not a topic for the ACE rulemaking. “If we want to make this statement, we will need additional elevation and agreement across multiple offices at EPA,” the response notes.
However, EPA also responded that it is planning to include language in its upcoming plan to replace the NSPS -- widely expected to be a weaker version that drops a coal plant standard based on carbon capture technology -- requesting comment on reconsidering the endangerment finding.
Regulatory Certainty
The ACE proposal outlines the history of the endangerment finding, including that the Obama EPA determined it did not need to craft a sector-specific finding for power plants because it long ago issued an endangerment finding for the sector based on other pollutants.
Rather, the Obama EPA said it only needed to offer a “rational basis” for extending the decades-old finding to GHGs -- and that it could easily do so based on the 2009 GHG risk finding and the fact that power plants are one of the country's largest sources of GHG emissions.
The prospect that EPA would now reopen these issues -- which were included in litigation over the NSPS that has been put on hold -- is prompting debate about whether the agency would seriously consider revoking the finding while it is seeking to provide industry with much-sought regulatory certainty under ACE.
Industry sources who favor a power sector GHG rule in part as a way to preempt common law nuisance claims suggest that EPA is only seeking to appease some of the free-market groups that have long sought to overturn the endangerment finding.
Others say the agency may only be delaying a decision and buying time, but none believe it will ultimately try to revoke the finding as it applies to power plants, given the additional science that has been developed on climate change since 2009.
One coal mining source agrees “with the EPA comment writer who says any decision to seek comment on revoking the finding would require greater elevation across multiple offices. Even Scott Pruitt was not willing to take on the endangerment finding. I assume this is because as a former attorney general, he recognized it was too embedded in Supreme Court precedent to consider taking on, and that is certainly the case.”
Even so, taking comment on the issue runs counter to the notion that the agency has fully closed the door on reconsidering the endangerment finding, with the deleted red-line language showing an explicit intent to reconsider whether power plant GHG rules are proper under the air law.
If EPA were to ultimately finalize a rule that revokes the sector-specific finding, that would prompt massive litigation and upend the ACE rule entirely -- an outcome the utility industry opposes because that could make them vulnerable to common law nuisance suits.
One utility industry source believes the possible consideration of revoking the finding is little more than a gesture to appease “a segment of what we call the base” that supports “a fringe position. . . . The bulk of the electric utilities and most of industry do not agree with” efforts to revoke it. “There are reasons why they want the rule to be put in place,” and some of them “involve public relations.”
This source believes that when the NSPS revision proposal is released, it will seek comment on the endangerment issues, but EPA will “not act on it. They might throw it out as, 'Do you have any comments on this?' and what will likely happen is most of industry will say, 'Don't do it,' and they'll rely on that” to reject a revocation.
“They may pay it some lip service,” but in the end they will not revoke it because “all of the ACE work would be wasted,” the source predicts.
'Proper Endangerment Finding'
In a theoretical revocation, EPA could argue -- as some conservative groups do -- that the 2009 finding only applies to vehicles and not stationary sources such as power plants.
Ted Hadzi-Antich of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a free-market group, tells Inside EPA that EPA must issue a “proper endangerment finding” to have a “valid” section 111(d) rule. He argues the agency cannot rely on the 2009 finding for mobile sources nor the historical finding for power plants because there was no consideration of CO2 emissions in that prior finding.
Hadzi-Antich adds that because CO2 is ubiquitous, the “only logical option for regulating the substance under the Clean Air Act is as a criteria pollutant under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), which EPA has not considered to date. NAAQS standards require their own pollutant-specific endangerment finding.”
Asked if he would support power plant climate rules under section 111 if EPA issued a sector-specific endangerment finding or if he would prefer no climate rules at all, he said, “I'm saying that if EPA wants to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act it must proceed under the NAAQS program or not at all.”
One environmentalist notes, however, that there are factions within the Trump administration that believe anthropogenic climate change is a hoax and would want to attempt to revoke all climate rules, suggesting the arguments extend beyond conservative groups outside the administration.
However, as a sign that any endangerment reconsideration is not likely to be serious, this source notes that EPA is not reopening the issue in its recent proposal to freeze vehicle GHG standards, even though the agency first issued its endangerment finding under the air law's mobile source provisions.
This source adds that if EPA were to decide it must issue a sector-specific risk finding, it would be “an open and shut case” because it is clear that power plants contribute significantly to GHG emissions. Yet, the source also suggests that EPA could try to make an “extreme argument” that domestic plants are not significant to global GHGs -- an argument that could be more difficult given the fact that Trump officials have already rejected consideration of the global climate benefits in regulatory cost-benefit analysis.
Another environmentalist says the specter of EPA seeking comment on reconsidering endangerment under the NSPS “does bring uncertainty, and it is hard to know where it is coming from and who is calling the shots.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/reopening-debate-epa-seek-input-power-sector-ghg-risk-finding
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An Insurance Executive Explains Why We Need a Carbon Tax
Sep 13, 2018 | The New York Times - Opinion
By Edward B. Rust Jr.
In the past few years, we have seen substantial damage from storms and flooding in the United States. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, which hit in August and September of last year, cost a combined $265 billion in what was a “historic” year for weather and climate-related disasters, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Now we’re once again in the peak of hurricane season, with Hurricane Florence bearing down on the Southeast coast with frightening ferocity and two other storms, Issac and Helene, behind it.
Increasingly, extreme weather events are being influenced by the warming of the planet. Not every hot summer day or winter snowstorm can be chalked up to climate change, of course. But that doesn’t mean the atmosphere is immune from the effects of carbon dioxide emissions from cars, industrial smokestacks and other sources.
For the insurance industry, which focuses on protecting against large events that we expect to happen but don’t expect to happen to us, the trend lines are not encouraging.
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As an insurance professional with over 40 years of experience, I learned quickly that when actuaries warn about risks, you listen. Consider then the Actuaries Climate Index, which tracks the frequency of extreme weather and the extent of sea level change relative to a reference period of 1961 to 1990. The five-year moving average of climate extremes across the United States and Canada reached a record high in the fall 2017, according to the most recent index, released Aug. 1.
What this reflects, according to the index, is a “continued deviation of climate and sea level extremes from historically expected patterns.” Increased precipitation and rising sea levels were the leading factors driving the latest result, a fact that should be particularly concerning to coastal states from Texas to Maine.
With history as a guide and with a clear understanding of trend lines, insurance markets can work well and protect consumers efficiently. What the data tells us is that the greater losses we can expect from climate-related events, combined with greater uncertainty about where and when they will take place, will create substantial volatility in insurance payouts. For consumers, this will mean more costly premiums.
While new building standards have reduced losses for owners of new homes in some areas, most homes are older and more vulnerable, and improved building standards can do only so much to protect our housing stock. In the end, while robust building codes can help to mitigate losses, they do not reduce the risk of catastrophes. As sea levels rise, insuring against property losses will become more difficult and more expensive.
We must work to reduce these risks, and one key element of a long-term solution should be a revenue-neutral tax on emissions of carbon dioxide. This approach can spur the same reduction in carbon emissions that regulations can achieve, but without the unintended consequences that regulations inevitably bring.EDITORS’ PICKSArizona Lawmakers Cut Education Budgets. Then Teachers Got Angry.How to Retire in Your 30s With $1 Million in the BankA Teacher Made a Hitler Joke in the Classroom. It Tore the School Apart.
A revenue-neutral carbon tax will encourage manufacturers to develop new ways to reduce their emissions and prompt consumers to be more environmentally responsible. The market will stimulate these choices, not the government. And the revenue raised from a carbon tax could be used to lower tax rates on work and savings.
We need to move away from the politically charged rhetoric about climate change and talk about its real, tangible consequences that threaten the lives and livelihoods of the people that insurance seeks to protect.
Edward B. Rust Jr. was the chief executive of State Farm from 1985 to 2015. He is an adviser to the Alliance for Market Solutions, a group of conservative business leaders advocating a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/opinion/hurricane-greenhouse-gas-carbon-tax.html
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Willfully Ignoring Climate Change
Sep 13, 2018 | The New York Times - Opinion
By Dennis Haseley
To the Editor:
Re “White House Set to Weaken Rules Curbing Methane” (front page, Sept. 11):
In July the Environmental Protection Agency proposed weakening rules on carbon dioxide pollution from vehicles. Last month you reported that the E.P.A. wants to allow more mercury from coal burning. Now President Trump wants to weaken rules requiring companies to monitor and repair methane leaks.
When will people wake up and realize that there is no Planet B? The planet is getting hotter, the weather is getting more extreme and we keep stoking the fires that can end the human race. For what, for money?
We can take small but measurable steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to produce clean energy, to save ourselves from ourselves. But we don’t. We have the money, we have the technology, we have the ability, but we lack the will to act to save our own lives. Instead the Trump administration wants to prop up failing industries like coal by subsidizing them and removing regulations that are aimed at saving us.
We should be investing in cleaner, greener energies like solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric and tidal. For those who claim that legacy industries would lose jobs, you are correct. They would be replaced by more jobs in the new industries.
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For those who claim this will be expensive, again, I say you are probably correct. But we can use the money we spend subsidizing the oil, gas and coal industries to fund these new industries.
In the end, isn’t it worth the hardships, the money and the effort to save our lives, the lives of our children and our entire species?
Gregory Foster
Grand Junction, Colo.To the Editor:
As another potential superstorm bears down on the East Coast, following a summer of record-breaking worldwide heat, the Trump administration proposes the relaxation of rules on methane leaks, to the pleasure of energy companies. Much has been written of late regarding President Trump’s detachment from reality, the threat this poses to national security and the intercession by anxious White House officials.
What to do, however, when the president’s detachment from reality matches that of the energy sector, its lobbyists and certain federal officials who willfully ignore the enormous and proven threat to national security (and planet habitability) of climate change?
Dennis Haseley
Brooklynhttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/opinion/letters/climate-change.html
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NYC Pension Funds to Double Green Investments
Sep 13, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Katie Honan
New York City will invest $4 billion of its pension funds into climate-change solutions like renewable energy and clean water over the next three years, more than doubling its current investment, according to city officials.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer, who oversees the city’s more than $195 billion pension fund, are set to announce the reinvestment plan on Thursday.
“We believe the market will respond, leading to greater access and lower cost for green technologies that will help us build a cleaner, safer and fairer city,” Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Mr. Stringer said the pledge to double the city’s holdings is good for the environment, but also retired city workers receiving a pension.
“Today we’re showing that New York City will continue to lead the way in investing in sustainable investments that offer strong returns for New York City beneficiaries,” he said in a statement.
Earlier this year, Mr. de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced they would divest billions of dollars from fossil-fuel companies. The mayor has also agreed to commit New York City to the principles of the Paris Agreement, a 2016 global accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr. de Blasio co-authored on Monday an op-ed in the Guardian with Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, England, to encourage other cities to divest from fossil fuels as well.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nyc-pension-funds-to-double-green-investments-1536793665?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
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Climate vs. Business is Rarely a Fair Fight. Trump is Ensuring That It Isn’t.
Sep 13, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Philip Bump
It starts with sunlight.
The sun shines on Earth, meaning that it sends radiation that passes through the atmosphere and provides warmth and light to the planet. Some of that energy is reflected back from the surface of Earth and up toward the atmosphere. Sometimes that energy passes through the atmosphere and heads back into space. Sometimes that energy encounters a gas molecule in the atmosphere, where it is absorbed. And sometimes those molecules end up expelling that energy in a random direction, including at another molecule or back toward Earth.
Understandably, the more molecules there are in the atmosphere that can absorb that energy, the more likely it is that the energy hits a molecule and is absorbed and potentially radiated back toward Earth. Also understandably, the more likely a molecule is to absorb that heat, the more likely it is to do so. So the more molecules floating in the atmosphere and the more of those molecules that are good at absorbing heat, the less likely it is that heat will escape into space. And, by extension, the more likely it will remain in the atmosphere.
This is the essence of global warming: More molecules in the atmosphere, thanks to extracting and burning fossil fuels or from decomposing organic material, means more heat trapped in the atmosphere. Which means a warmer planet. That warming leads to a number of changes in the global climate.
We can see one effect of that right now. Hurricane Florence is spinning toward the Mid-Atlantic coast, quickly gaining energy as it approaches. That energy comes from warm ocean waters, a function, in part, of the oceans absorbing more heat than in the past, thanks to a warmer climate.
Our Chris Mooney explains the science behind the increase in gigantic, powerful storms:
There are many relatively weak [hurricanes] — Category 1 and 2 — but also many dangerous and intense storms with winds that exceed 130 mph.
The difference between the two groups, prior research has found, is often a difficult-to-forecast process in which the hurricane rapidly strengthens, usually in the presence of highly favorable environmental conditions, such as extra warm seas to considerable depths, lots of available humidity in the air and slack winds around the storm.
Because warmer ocean conditions are exactly what climate change is expected to produce, it has been natural to wonder whether more fast-intensifying storms will be in the offing. Now, the new research has suggested that this will indeed be the case.
Most of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, and most of the greenhouse gas produced in the United States comes from burning gasoline in cars and trucks (28 percent of emissions in 2016) and burning fossil fuels for electricity (an additional 28 percent).
This week, the New York Times reported on a new proposal expected shortly from the Trump administration. President Trump's team has already announced plans to scale back higher fuel efficiency standards and rescinded a plan by President Barack Obama that would have cut back on greenhouse gas emissions at existing coal-burning power plants. The new change would roll back regulations mandating that fossil-fuel extractors — that is, oil and gas companies — have to track and contain methane that escapes during the extraction process.
Scientists have a metric to evaluate the extent to which molecules will play a role in absorbing heat called “global warming potential.” A molecule's GWP is a measure of how effective it is at absorbing heat and how long it lasts in the atmosphere before breaking down. Molecules are measured against carbon dioxide, which is assigned a GWP of 1. Methane is assigned a GWP of 28 to 36 by the EPA — meaning it has 28 to 36 times the global warming effect of carbon dioxide over the span of a century. Methane is much better at absorbing radiation than carbon dioxide. It also breaks down faster than carbon dioxide, so over a shorter period of time, its GWP is even higher since less of it hangs around for 100 years.
On Wednesday, the Energy Information Administration announced that the United States became the world's largest producer of crude oil earlier this year. You'll notice on the graph below that American production surged not under Trump but under Obama, in about 2012 or so.
(EIA.gov)Why? Fracking. Technically known as hydraulic fracturing, the fracking process involves drilling long, horizontal channels in shale formations. A water-based mixture is forced in and the rock cracks, releasing oil and gas. The technology that allowed this to work effectively was developed relatively recently — it began to expand and developed here, so we've seen a boom where other countries haven't.
That boom in extraction has meant a boom in methane production in the form of natural gas. Some portion of that gas escapes into the atmosphere at the drilling site, where it gets to work being 28 to 36 times as effective at capturing heat as its more numerous carbon dioxide neighbors.
Natural gas production in the United States began to rise thanks to the fracking boom in about 2006. That's about the time period when atmospheric methane levels began to increase after remaining flat for about a decade.
Obama, worried about climate change, wanted to ensure that as little methane as possible was escaping. Trump, not worried about climate change, is acquiescing to the industry's argument that the methane rules were unduly burdensome. Those burdens haven't kept the United States from seeing an explosion in production, certainly, but Trump promised to aid the energy industry on the campaign trail and he has kept that promise since arriving in Washington.
"That administration trusted environmentalists,” one energy industry official told the Times about Obama. “This one trusts industry."
That's a formulation that's both hard to debate and which will be interpreted in different ways by different people.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/12/climate-vs-business-is-rarely-fair-fight-trumps-ensuring-that-it-isnt/?utm_term=.73fa2ee82414
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Virginia to Establish Regulations Limiting Leaks of Methane
Sep 13, 2018 | The Washington Post
Virginia officials say the state plans to develop regulations for limiting leaks of climate-changing methane from natural gas infrastructure and landfills.
Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration announced Wednesday that the Department of Environmental Quality would begin working on the methane-control framework.
The move comes as the Trump administration is moving to roll back Obama-era rules on finding and stopping methane leaks from oil and gas sites. Methane is one of the most potent agents of climate change.
Officials also announced Wednesday that the state will join the Transportation and Climate Initiative, a collaborative effort to reduce carbon pollution from the transportation sector, and the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification.
Environmental groups praised the moves.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-to-establish-regulations-limiting-leaks-of-methane/2018/09/12/5881fe34-b6de-11e8-ae4f-2c1439c96d79_story.html?utm_term=.fd4f273f8ec2
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Will a Big Storm Bring Congressional Climate Converts?
Sep 13, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
Hurricane Florence is set to make landfall this week in the Southeast in what could be a historic storm event that portends a new coastal reality, as a warmer planet feeds wetter, more intense storms.
The current reality: Some coastal Republicans still don't acknowledge — or outright deny — climate change.
And while scientists are generally hesitant to tie specific weather events to global warming, some in the advocacy world hope storms like Florence will eventually spell a political epiphany for Republicans in Congress.
"I think we're seeing the breaking point now," said Steve Valk, spokesman for Citizens' Climate Lobby, the group behind the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus. "With the three storms we had last fall — $300 billion worth of damage, thousands of lives lost — I think people are connecting the dots."
Already, groups like CCL and Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker organization that works on the issue, say they've had success behind the scenes, even if lawmakers don't always want to talk about climate change publicly.
That has played out in the form of groups like the Climate Solutions Caucus and in a gradual rhetorical evolution, particularly among younger Republicans, both on and off Capitol Hill.
It has also taken the shape of a carbon tax bill from Republican Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo, but minds — or congressional seats — would likely have to change before it even gets a shot at a hearing.
"I think you already see how the rhetoric is evolving," said Emily Wirzba, a legislative representative with the Friends Committee. "It's pretty rare to find a member of Congress that denies that climate change is happening."
Instead, they'll often focus on the effects of climate change — such as increasingly bad extreme weather and sea-level rise — while deflecting questions about the greenhouse gases that cause it.
House Natural Resources ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said he increasingly sees Republican members "living that duality."
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, for instance, has long pushed for coastal restoration funds and flood protection measures for his district in the Louisiana marshland. He touted those efforts in a Times-Picayune op-ed last month in which he warned Louisianians to "stay vigilant" during the peak of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season.
But Scalise also was the lead sponsor of an anti-carbon-tax resolution that passed the House this summer.
"They're trying to walk that really fine line between wanting to protect their district and still be in the denier camp," Grijalva said. "That's not sustainable."'More polarizing than abortion'
Maybe it is, though.
While political scientists who study opinions on climate change are seeing "Americans increasingly connecting the dots between global climate change and extreme weather," polarization remains the overwhelming driver of climate opinion, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
In the Yale Program's most recent biannual survey in March, researchers asked registered voters how important climate change would be to their vote in the 2018 midterms among a list of 28 issues.
Climate change now is more politically polarizing than any other issue in America. It's more polarizing than abortion.Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
Overall, the issue ranked 15th. But among liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans — the two groups that most drive the results of primary elections — climate change ranked fourth and dead last, respectively.
"Climate change now is more politically polarizing than any other issue in America," Leiserowitz said. "It's more polarizing than abortion."
Still, storms and other extreme weather can provide what Leiserowitz termed "teachable moments" — rare times when people collectively focus on a story with direct connections to climate change.
Curbelo, perhaps the most outspoken congressional Republican on climate change, said that's where he sees political value.
"In terms of just psychology and politics, it certainly elevates the issue of the environment," Curbelo told E&E News. "Environmental challenges are oftentimes invisible to the average citizen. For example, sea-level rise — it happens very gradually, so no one's really thinking about it as they go about their business every day."
But he's also careful not to put too fine a point on the issue. Both Curbelo and Leiserowitz noted that climate advocates often stretch the boundaries of attribution science and attempt to frame individual disasters as a direct result of climate change.
"I think sometimes people make the mistake of overstating some of the issues," Curbelo said. "We don't have hurricanes here in Florida due to climate change. We have had hurricanes for hundreds of years here at least."'We need to make this an issue'
There may still be room for Congress to legislate on climate change in smaller ways, particularly when it comes to natural disasters, sometimes without even mentioning climate change.
For example, the "Preparedness and Risk Management for Extreme Weather Patterns Assuring Resilience and Effectiveness (PREPARE) Act," a bipartisan extreme weather bill, has passed the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and is awaiting a vote on the House floor.
H.R. 4177, from Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.), does not mention climate change, but lawmakers in the Climate Solutions Caucus see it as an example of a small, bipartisan step to address climate effects (E&E Daily, May 17).
"Legislators can't ignore the damage that's already been done to communities across the country," Wirzba said.
But bigger steps such as carbon pricing may have to wait for more vocal leadership, in Congress and in the White House.
While the Republican Party platform in 2008, when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was the presidential nominee, included an entire section acknowledging the human impact on climate change, the 2016 document barely mentions it, except to say that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change "is a political mechanism."
Leiserowitz said the party's voters have been gradually working back to the center on the issue, but their opinion still relies in part on the voice of their elected leaders.
"Partisans tend to look to their trusted leaders to guide them about issues, especially issues like climate change that seem abstract," Leiserowitz said.
Right now, for Republicans, that means President Trump, who has moved to roll back the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and pull out of the Paris climate agreement.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), co-sponsor of Curbelo's carbon tax bill, nodded to that idea last week at a policy discussion sponsored by The Hill and the Bipartisan Policy Center.
"Even if it is not a top issue in the polls, true leaders lead the polls, they don't follow them," he said. "We need to make this an issue."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/09/13/stories/1060096871
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Carbon Traders Beware: Here Are Four Risks as Prices Triple
Sep 12, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Mathew Carr and Jeremy Hodges
European carbon futures could be trading at decade highs and outperforming every other major commodity, but the rally has its pitfalls.
The rights to pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide have tripled this year to more than 25 euros ($29) a ton, buoyed by incoming regulatory measures to cut the permits in circulation. With that kind of fundamental market overhaul, many analysts and traders see further gains to come, though cracks remain. Here are four:
Speculative Fervor
While volumes have soared, open interest, or the amount of outstanding contracts, is the lowest in at least five years on ICE Futures Europe, the dominant exchange for carbon trading. This can signal more short-term interest than hedging or industry business.
Prices could drop back to 15 euros a ton should speculators exit simultaneously, according to Ingo Ramming, head of corporate and investor solutions at Commerzbank AG in London. The picture is different on ICE’s rival the European Energy Exchange, where interest in the market has jumped in the past year.
Reform Really Hurts
Coal use in German power generation is holding up despite carbon’s surge, but at some point rising costs could mean utilities decide enough is enough and stop burning the fuel.
While that would be good for the climate, it would kill demand for permits. According to UBS Group AG, this risk mostly applies after 2020, after which prices could crash back to 5 euros ($6) a ton.
Options market
A portion of carbon’s rise has been driven by sellers of calls as they buy futures to hedge their positions.
On Sept. 19, a batch of options expire, which could mean some selling as trades are unwound. A bigger expiry lies at year-end.
Put option volumes are also on the rise, signaling an increased appetite for downside protection.
Market reserve
One brake on runaway prices could rest in the European Union’s very own reform of its market.
While the focus on the so-called Market Stability Reserve has been on its ability to withdraw permits when prices are low, it also can put allowances back in circulation under preset conditions. That can occur if, “for more than six consecutive months,” prices are more than three times the average of the preceding two years.
The European Commission is monitoring the surge, but prices are yet to meet the criteria for an intervention, the regulator said Sept. 12.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/carbontradersbeware-here-are-four-risks-as-prices-triple
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