Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report - September 24, 2018
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Hearing on PFAS Chemical Crisis
Sep 26, 2018 | Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management
Location: 342 Dirksen / 2:30 PM. -
Hearing on Cybersecurity
Sep 27, 2018 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy
Location: 2322 Rayburn / 10:15 AM. -
Hearing on Environmental Litigation
Sep 27, 2018 | Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Interior, Energy and Environment
Location: 2154 Rayburn / 2:00 PM. -
Hearing on Economic And Business Growth
Sep 27, 2018 | Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management
Location: 342 Dirksen / 10:00 AM. -
(ACC Mentioned) Sources: U.S.-Mexico Deal Includes Rules On Chemicals Akin To Those In KORUS
Sep 24, 2018 | Inside US Trade
By Isabelle Hoagland
Rules of origin governing whether some chemicals will be eligible for benefits under a new U.S.-Mexico trade pact are more flexible than provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement, sources said, adding the new rules are akin to those included in the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. -
(ACC Mentioned) US-China Trade War Heightens As New Tariffs On $260bn Goods Hit
Sep 24, 2018 | ICIS
By Pearl Bantillo
The US-China trade war escalated as a third round of tariffs involving $260bn worth of goods was implemented on Monday, concerns for which have been rattling Asia’s equities and currency markets. -
(ACC Mentioned) Our Views: Danger Of Trade War Grows
Sep 22, 2018 | The Advocate
By Editorial
The president's policy of protectionism raises tariffs — essentially, taxes on American consumers of imported products — and threatens our trade relations with many countries, not just the Asian giant, China. -
(ACC Mentioned) ACC Calls For Global Cooperation To End Plastic Litter
Sep 24, 2018 | Recycling Tday
By Kelly Maile
Addressing an audience of key stakeholders at the G7 Meeting of Environment, Oceans and Energy Ministers, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), Washington, has shared its latest progress and commitments to help end plastic material in the environment. -
(ACC Mentioned) Unilever, Ikea, Other Major Consumer Firms Back Plastic Waste Pledge
Sep 21, 2018 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
Major consumer goods makers and retailers, including Unilever and Ikea, signed on to the G7 economic bloc's plastic charter targeting waste and ocean pollution at a Sept. 20 summit, as some business executives called for dramatically cutting back on single-use plastics. -
Plastic Straws Out, Compostables in for Californians
Sep 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joyce E. Cutler
Restaurants automatically handing out single-use plastic straws will face fines of up to $300 under a new California law. -
China Hikes Tariffs on US Imports as Trade Row Intensifies
Sep 24, 2018 | Associated Press (In The New York Times)
China raised tariffs Monday on thousands of U.S. goods in an escalation of its fight with President Donald Trump over technology policy and accused Washington of bullying Beijing and damaging the global economy. -
U.S. And China Clobber Each Other With Biggest Sets Of Tariffs Yet
Sep 24, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Danielle Paquette
The commercial battle between the United States and China heated up Monday as the economic powerhouses slapped each other with the largest rounds of tariffs yet, unleashing punitive duties now on roughly half of their traded goods. -
First Senate Hearing On PFAS This Week
Sep 24, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Courtney Columbus,
A Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee will hear from witnesses this week on what the federal government is doing about toxic chemicals known as PFAS that have shown up in drinking water in many states. -
Pennsylvania Takes on Perfluorinated Toxics, EPA, with Task Force
Sep 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Pennsylvania is striking out on its own with a task force to address widespread perfluorinated chemical contamination in drinking water, in the absence of EPA action, the state’s governor announced Sept. 21. -
Bipartisan House Bill Encourages Federal Facility PFAS Cleanups
Sep 21, 2018 | Inside EPA
A bipartisan group of Michigan lawmakers has introduced a bill that aims to accelerate the cleanup of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a ubiquitous class of chemicals, on active and former military bases, a measure that mirrors recent Senate legislation though the House bill also requires EPA to regulate PFAS under the Superfund law. -
BP, Republic Services Start $25 Million Trash-To-Gas Project
Sep 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Naureen S. Malik
BP Plc, Republic Services Inc. and a private equity-backed partner have started a $25 million plant in Oklahoma that will produce gas from a landfill as an alternative to fossil fuels for trucks and buses. -
Should Plastics Be A Source Of Energy?
Sep 24, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
In Rahway, N.J., near Route 1&9, looming cooling towers and a huge white smokestack dwarf the nearby car dealerships, fast-food joints, and motels. -
Keystone XL Gets Positive Report in Court-Ordered U.S. Review
Sep 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Adams-Heard
A more extensive environmental review for TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline echoes an earlier assessment in finding the project’s new route would have no significant environmental impacts. -
(ACC Mentioned) D.C. Circuit Again Grants Bid To Quickly Implement EPA Facility Safety Rule
Sep 21, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Appellate court judges have again granted environmentalists' request to force quick implementation of an Obama-era rule tightening facility safety requirements, expediting its ruling that struck down a Trump administration effort to delay the rule's effectiveness by almost two years while the agency considers whether to undo the stricter mandates. -
Send To Me Print Court Orders EPA To Reinstate Obama Chemical Safety Rule
Sep 21, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today ordered EPA to immediately reinstate an Obama-era chemical safety rule. -
Lawmakers To Trace Road Map For New DOE Cyber Office
Sep 24, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Blake Sobczak,
House lawmakers are set to hear from the head of a new cybersecurity office at the Department of Energy amid an uptick in hacking threats to the U.S. power grid. -
Oil Industry Gives $16M to Nix Washington State Carbon Initiative
Sep 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky
Some of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in Washington state—oil refinery owners like Phillips 66 Co., BP Plc, and Andeavor—have donated $16 million to defeat a ballot initiative that would impose fees on such emissions. -
News Four States Back EPA’s Quest to Ease Monitoring for Smog-Forming Pollution
Sep 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Four states are supportive of EPA’s proposal to relax monitoring requirements for smog-forming pollution released by manufacturers and other industrial facilities. -
Climate Summit Sparks Hope For Political Shift Amid Federal Inaction
Sep 24, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Curt Barry
California Gov. Jerry Brown's (D) Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) last week spurred a variety of pledges by countries, states and local governments to reduce greenhouse gases, though a report released at the summit shows the pledges are not likely to counter the impact of the Trump administration's inaction on climate issues. -
CPP Backers Aggressively Push For D.C. Circuit To Issue Merits Decision
Sep 24, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
States and environmental groups that support the Obama EPA's Clean Power Plan (CPP) are aggressively urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to rule on the merits of the power plant greenhouse gas rule in the long-pending lawsuit, strongly pushing back against EPA and other opponents' arguments that the case is moot.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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Hearing on PFAS Chemical Crisis
Sep 26, 2018 | Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management
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Sep 27, 2018 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy
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Hearing on Environmental Litigation
Sep 27, 2018 | Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Interior, Energy and Environment
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Hearing on Economic And Business Growth
Sep 27, 2018 | Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management
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(ACC Mentioned) Sources: U.S.-Mexico Deal Includes Rules On Chemicals Akin To Those In KORUS
Sep 24, 2018 | Inside US Trade
By Isabelle Hoagland
Rules of origin governing whether some chemicals will be eligible for benefits under a new U.S.-Mexico trade pact are more flexible than provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement, sources said, adding the new rules are akin to those included in the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement.
The new rules of origin are “more flexible” because options are provided for meeting the deal's obligations, one source said, adding that some “sensitive” chemicals would face more stringent regional value content requirements. Specifically, the proposed U.S.-Mexico text eliminates the regional value content requirement included in NAFTA -- except for chemicals that are deemed as sensitive -- and replaces it with what were described as flexibilities to determine the origin of chemical goods.
Many of the options were called for by the American Chemistry Council, the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada and the National Chemical Industry Association of Mexico in a Jan. 11 proposal on rules of origin changes for chemicals in a modernized NAFTA.
According to the text of KORUS, which went into effect in 2012, a chemical good that “satisfies” one or more of the deal's seven rules “shall be treated as an originating good, except other wise specified in those rules.”
Those rules cover things like goods that result from a chemical reaction “in the territory of one or both” of the parties; certain “purification” and “mixing or blending” methods; changes in particle size; the location of production of “standards materials”; and the location of “isolation or separation of isomers.”
Additionally, a product of the chemical “or allied industries” is an originating good only “if it meets the applicable change in tariff classification or satisfies the applicable value content requirement specified in the rules of origin in this Section,” the U.S.-Korea agreement states.
Several of the “technical tests” included in KORUS, another source said, are the basis for the chemical rules of origin in the U.S.-Mexico deal. The new provisions largely stemmed from a request made by Mexico that a regional value threshold for some chemicals not be mandatory.
For example, a chemical could qualify as an originating good if it met the regional value content requirement or if it met another ROO requirement, like a tariff shift or chemical reaction, the source added.
The U.S.-Mexico deal also includes what the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has claimed will be a much smoother origin certification process, the source continued. Instead of being required to use a NAFTA-specific origin certification form, organizations will be able to use any form that shows compliance with the new rules of origin.
The chemical associations from the U.S., Mexico and Canada made a similar request in their joint proposal.
“It should be the right of the importer and exporter of record to select from the non-hierarchical order outlined in this paper in providing proof of origin for trade transactions amongst the Parties,” the proposal states. “Should a change to the rules of origin disadvantage a particular product, the Parties should allow for a transitional period or other mitigation provisions.”
Ed Brzytwa, director of international trade at the American Chemistry Council, told Inside U.S. Trade that KORUS embodies the best chemical rules-of-origin language in any U.S. FTA and said a U.S.-Mexico deal should include similar provisions. Brzytwa formerly served at USTR as a director for industrial non-tariff barriers.
“The thrust of our proposal is that we want the rules of origin to be more transparent and less complex and to provide a menu of options instead of just being stuck with one rule for a specific product,” Brzywta said. “These are things we have been highlighting to [the administration] and we are hopeful the [U.S.-Mexico] outcome matches the thrust and ambition of our proposal."
Another source said the intellectual property provisions of the U.S.-Mexico deal mirrored those in KORUS, adding it would “certainly make sense” to build on the Korea deal's chemicals rules of origin because the deal is the “most comprehensive agreement that we have” in such areas.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's Aug. 27 fact sheet on the deal says the U.S. and Mexico agreed to strong rules of origin for chemicals “that exceed those of both NAFTA 1.0 and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland was in Washington, DC, this week to continue discussions with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on NAFTA 2.0. Canada to date has not agreed to a trilateral NAFTA replacement. As outlined in the 2015 Trade Promotion Authority law, USTR must send the text of a final deal -- which could include Canada -- by Sept. 30.
One source said Canada still had some “asks” on rules for individual chemicals, but did not elaborate on which ones such requests pertained to. Freeland left Washington on Thursday after saying she and Lighthizer had were continuing to discuss “tough issues.” -- Isabelle Hoagland (ihoagland@iwpnews.com)
https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/sources-us-mexico-deal-includes-rules-chemicals-akin-those-korus
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(ACC Mentioned) US-China Trade War Heightens As New Tariffs On $260bn Goods Hit
Sep 24, 2018 | ICIS
By Pearl Bantillo
SINGAPORE (ICIS)--The US-China trade war escalated as a third round of tariffs involving $260bn worth of goods was implemented on Monday, concerns for which have been rattling Asia’s equities and currency markets.
The US’ 10% tariffs on $200bn Chinese goods and China’s retaliatory 5-10% tariffs on $60bn US goods took effect at 04:01 GMT, barely three months since the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies officially started.
The US will raise the tariff rate on the products covered by the latest round to 25% by 1 January 2019.
In the first two rounds – on 6 July and 23 August – 25% tariffs were slapped on a total of $50bn worth of goods on each side.
The final list of products in the third round of US tariffs, however, removed a total of 142 chemical and plastics products, compared with the preliminary list, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
In a statement dated 18 September, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said that among the products removed from its tariff list are “certain consumer electronics products such as smart watches and Bluetooth devices; certain chemical inputs for manufactured goods, textiles and agriculture; certain health and safety products such as bicycle helmets, and child safety furniture such as car seats and playpens”.
The US is threatening to impose tariffs on a further $267bn worth of Chinese goods, covering all of its imports from the Asian economic giant.
In 2017, China’s total imports from the US stood at $130bn, while US’ imports of Chinese goods and services totaled around $500bn, based on US data.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/09/24/10261456/us-china-trade-war-heightens-as-new-tariffs-on-260bn-goods-hit/
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(ACC Mentioned) Our Views: Danger Of Trade War Grows
Sep 22, 2018 | The Advocate
By Editorial
Donald Trump's trade policy in a sentence: "None of this stuff is good."
That's from the economist and LSU professor emeritus Loren Scott. He's right.
The president's policy of protectionism raises tariffs — essentially, taxes on American consumers of imported products — and threatens our trade relations with many countries, not just the Asian giant, China.
The government in Beijing is imposing 10 percent duties on a host of U.S. products, including liquefied natural gas, threatening a booming Louisiana industry, and chemicals, Louisiana’s third-largest export to China and a major industry statewide.
None of this is good.
The Chinese were once again aggravated by the presidential decision to raise tariffs, starting recently with some $200 billion worth of Chinese-made goods.
So now it is not only Louisiana soybean farmers and ranchers, both exporters to Asian countries, whose livelihoods are threatened by the Trump policies. Of course, the oil and gas industry vital to Louisiana has already been hurt by Trump tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, because costs of construction for pipelines and petrochemical facilities were increased.
Now, the American Chemistry Council said China's retaliatory tariffs apply to $11 billion worth of U.S. chemicals and plastics exports, putting nearly 55,000 American jobs and $18 billion in domestic activity in question.
The tariffs from China ratchet up pressure on developers trying to build multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas export facilities, particularly in southwest Louisiana. More than $90 billion in potential investments are planned for Louisiana alone from about a dozen companies. Those firms are competing for long-term contracts from overseas buyers, including from China.
This tariff war is "going to continue to stall the development of LNG facilities in Louisiana until there’s more clarity on the issue,” said David Dismukes, head of LSU’s Center for Energy Studies.
China is an important growing market for imported natural gas. In 2017, when LNG exports ramped up at Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal, China was the third-largest destination, behind Mexico and South Korea, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
George Swift, head of the Southwest Louisiana Economic Development Alliance, said none of the projects eyeing the region have dropped out yet, and rising global demand from places other than China will continue to fuel the industry here.
We, too, believe the long-term outlook for energy exports, both oil and LNG, are positive. But the destabilizing impact of Trump policies is clearly bad for business, here and in farms and pastures as well as petrochemical manufacturing plants.
Further, the president is exercising a lot of presidential authority on the flimsy pretext of "national security," based on an expansive reading of a 1963 law passed at the height of the Cold War. Had President Barack Obama acted in this way, the Republicans in Louisiana's delegation in Congress would have reacted explosively. Because the party label at the White House has changed, we hear little from our GOP members.
We urge the president to reconsider and de-escalate the trade wars before things get out of hand, and Louisiana members of Congress should speak up to this effect.
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_cd6e68dc-bd04-11e8-a76a-2fdbcb58b3da.html
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Calls For Global Cooperation To End Plastic Litter
Sep 24, 2018 | Recycling Tday
By Kelly Maile
Addressing an audience of key stakeholders at the G7 Meeting of Environment, Oceans and Energy Ministers, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), Washington, has shared its latest progress and commitments to help end plastic material in the environment.
Keith Christman, ACC managing director of plastics markets, says U.S. plastics producers have committed to all plastic packaging being re-used, recycled or recovered by 2040 with an interim goal of all plastic packaging being recyclable or recoverable by 2030. Plastics makers in Canada and Europe have set similar goals, helping to provide a consistent framework for a more circular, global plastics economy.
“U.S. plastics makers share a deep commitment to ending plastic waste and are working swiftly with our global partners to drive meaningful change,” Christman says. “Success will require innovations in design, new business models and developing the technology and infrastructure that will capture the full value of the plastics we use today so they provide our resources and raw materials for tomorrow.”
He emphasizes the urgent need for all stakeholders to find new ways to work together to stop the flow of trash into the ocean, citing multiple studies that point to expansion of waste management systems as the fastest and most effective way to solve this problem.
“Leading plastics producers are working together to facilitate investments and accelerate deployment of solutions where gaps in waste management are currently the greatest,” Christman says. “We are committed to driving positive and lasting changes in how we source, capture, use and reuse plastics to help protect our planet, clean up our oceans and enable people to live better.”
Since 2011, ACC has helped lead the implementation of a global declaration on solutions for plastic litter. Today, more than 75 plastics associations in 40 countries have signed on to the declaration and cumulatively they have undertaken 355 projects to help solve this problem.
http://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/acc-drives-to-change-plastic-litter-environment/
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(ACC Mentioned) Unilever, Ikea, Other Major Consumer Firms Back Plastic Waste Pledge
Sep 21, 2018 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
Major consumer goods makers and retailers, including Unilever and Ikea, signed on to the G7 economic bloc's plastic charter targeting waste and ocean pollution at a Sept. 20 summit, as some business executives called for dramatically cutting back on single-use plastics.
Unilever CEO Paul Polman, for example, said the consumer products industry could reduce its plastics use by 30 percent with better design.
Speaking at a forum of G7 environment ministers meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he told the government leaders that "consumer goods industries are starting to challenge really the use of single-use plastics."
"I think the whole industry can reduce its plastics by 30 or 40 percent, just with technologies that are available," Polman said. "Reuse or recycling alone is not enough."
Other companies endorsed the charter in Halifax, including Coca Cola Co., Ikea, Walmart Stores Inc., Dow Chemical Co. and BASF Canada. The non-binding charter had been signed in June by top leaders of five of the seven countries in the economic bloc during a summit in Quebec.
As a followup, G7 environment ministers met in Nova Scotia Sept. 18-20 to flesh out more details.
Governments announced some new commitments, among them Canada — which pledged $65 million — and Norway, which announced an investment fund. Both countries targeted the funds to combat plastic pollution in developing countries.
Business executives also talked about working with their supply chains to rethink use of plastics.
"Single-use plastic items pollute ecosystems such as oceans and waterways and harm wildlife if not disposed of responsibly," said Marsha Smith, president of Ikea Canada. "This is a complex problem with no single solution."
She noted in an address to the ministers that Ikea has previously announced it would eliminate single-use plastic products from home furnishings by 2020, and phase out virgin plastics in Ikea products by 2030. Smith framed it as moving toward more environmental business models.
"Our relentless pursuit of economic growth in the post war period combined with the externalization of environmental costs from balance sheets has resulted in rapid degradation of the natural environment," she said.
Polman said Unilever is working with other companies to unveil plastic pollution commitments that go beyond the G7 charter at the upcoming Oceans Conference in Bali, Indonesia, in late October. He said the group has about 60 companies signed up and hopes to have about 500.
"I hope that soon we will be able to discuss more aggressive commitments," he said. "No question that that goes well beyond the Ocean Plastics Charter. I think [G7] just put a stake in the ground that is the minimum that the whole world should adhere to."New public attention
Polman said public attitudes toward plastics are "drastically changing" because of media coverage like the BBC's Blue Planet documentary series, National Geographic's report on plastic waste worries and articles about whales and other marine life dying from eating too much plastic.
"We have an issue that I've never seen in my 40 years that [I've been] in consumer goods, if I may be honest," Polman said. "This is an issue where the consumer for the first time is way ahead of us.
"One of the fastest growing aisles in supermarkets is plastic free aisles," Polman said.
He noted that only 14 percent of plastics are recycled and called it "absolutely ridiculous" that so much of the value of plastics is lost because of poor waste management, collection and recycling.
"Who is designing a system where 95 percent of its value gets lost after one use?" Polman said. "Yet that is what we are doing with plastics."
The government of Canada, which holds the rotating G7 presidency this year, plans to push the plastics charter in other forums.
Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna told Canadian journalists she plans to bring the charter to both the United Nations and the G20 economic bloc.
At the summit, she suggested she's building links with businesses. She told a public session on plastics that she's had "wide-ranging conversations" with Polman and argued that there's significant economic opportunity in finding solutions to plastic waste problems.
"We do need business leaders who are going to step up, who are going to bring folks together, who are going to overcome sometimes old school mentalities that you can't tackle these problems or there isn't a huge economic opportunity moving forward," McKenna said.
Plastics industry groups were also in Halifax. Keith Christman, director of plastics markets for the American Chemistry Council, told the summit that the U.S. industry has committed to having all plastics packaging re-used, recyclable or recoverable by 2040.
A trio of polystyrene companies unveiled a depolymerization technology at the summit they said can significantly boost PS recycling, and Nova Chemicals repeated a $2 million commitment to help fund plastic waste cleanup in Indonesia.
Attendees noted the positive roles of plastics in society. Erik Solheim, head of the U.N. Environment Program — which declared "war" on ocean plastics last year — said plastics in automobiles reduce fuel consumption and plastic packaging can reduce food waste.
"Those are good purposes," he said, "but it goes without saying that we can be a lot more innovative."
Solheim called for much better use of plastics, including phasing out applications like straws or plastic bags that are only used for a very short time but can remain in the environment for many years, and urged companies to pursue better design.
Polman believes public concern will continue to grow, and he made a veiled criticism of the two G7 governments that did not sign the plastics charter, Japan and the United States, without naming them.
"Even though I realize there are some countries here still hesitating to sign I can only tell you, you are out of line with where the consumers are and you're out of line with where the bulk of the industry is," Polman said.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180921/NEWS/180929980/unilever-ikea-other-major-consumer-firms-back-plastic-waste-pledge
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Plastic Straws Out, Compostables in for Californians
Sep 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joyce E. Cutler
Restaurants that hand out straws face fines under new plastic law
Packaging sold on state property must be reusable, recyclable, or compostable
Restaurants automatically handing out single-use plastic straws will face fines of up to $300 under a new California law.
Two other measures ban the use of non-recyclable or non-compostable packaging on state property and promote research on ocean plastics.
The bills signed Sept. 20 are part of a continuing statewide effort seeking to reduce plastics and materials that end up in California landfills and waterways. An estimated 35 million tons of waste is disposed of in California’s landfills annually.
Ask for StrawsDine-in restaurants under Assembly Bill 1884 could get $25 per day fines for handing out unasked-for straws, but the fines would be capped at $300 for violations.
“It is a very small step to make a customer who wants a plastic straw ask for it. And it might make them want to pause and think again about an alternative,” Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said in a signing message for A.B. 1884. “But one thing is clear, we must find ways to reduce and eventually eliminate single-use plastic products.”
Concession RulesReducing single-use plastic is also the focus of a bill Brown signed that requires concessionaires at California parks, beaches, and state properties to only sell packaging that’s reusable, recyclable, or compostable.
Senate Bill 1335 builds on the state’s years-long effort to reduce waste through diverting recyclable and compostable materials.
The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery—known as CalRecycle—must divert at least 75 percent of solid waste from landfills statewide by 2020, a Senate Environmental Quality Committee analysis said.
CalRecycle under S.B. 1335 will work with industry and local governments to devise regulations on acceptable packaging for sandwiches and salads sold or distributed at state properties starting in 2021.
OceansPlastics comprise an estimated 60 percent to 80 percent of all marine debris and 90 percent of all floating debris, a California Assembly floor analysis said.
Brown also signed SB 1263, which requires the Ocean Protection Council to create a statewide microplastics strategy, contingent on available funding.
The bill allows the state to fund research studies to examine whether microplastics pose a threat to ocean health. The strategy must be completed by the end of 2021.
—With assistance from Emily Dooley
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/plastic-straws-out-compostables-in-for-californians
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China Hikes Tariffs on US Imports as Trade Row Intensifies
Sep 24, 2018 | Associated Press (In The New York Times)
BEIJING — China raised tariffs Monday on thousands of U.S. goods in an escalation of its fight with President Donald Trump over technology policy and accused Washington of bullying Beijing and damaging the global economy.
The General Administration of Customs said it started collecting additional taxes of 5 and 10 percent on $60 billion of goods at noon. That coincided with the time for Trump's planned tariff hike on $200 billion of Chinese imports to take effect, but there was no immediate U.S. government confirmation it was collecting the higher charges.
The two governments imposed 25 percent penalty taxes on $50 billion of each other's goods in July in their first round of their fight over U.S. complaints about Beijing's plans for state-led creation of robotics and other technology industries.
The United States, Europe and other trading partners say Beijing's industry plans violate its free-trade obligations. American officials complain they are based on stealing foreign know-how and worry they might erode U.S. industrial leadership.
Monday's tariff increase followed a report by The Wall Street Journal that Chinese officials pulled out of a meeting to discuss arrangements for a new round of talks proposed by Washington. The Chinese government had given no public indication whether it would accept the invitation.
Also Monday, the Chinese government accused the Trump administration in a report of "trade bullyism" and said its "improper practices" are damaging the global economy.
The report accused the Trump administration of abandoning "mutual respect" and mechanisms set up to address trade disputes.
"It has brazenly preached unilateralism, protectionism and economic hegemony, making false accusations against many countries and regions, particularly China, intimidating other countries through economic measures such as imposing tariffs, and attempting to impose its own interests on China through extreme pressure," the report said.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/24/world/asia/ap-us-us-china-tariffs.html
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U.S. And China Clobber Each Other With Biggest Sets Of Tariffs Yet
Sep 24, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Danielle Paquette
BEIJING — The commercial battle between the United States and China heated up Monday as the economic powerhouses slapped each other with the largest rounds of tariffs yet, unleashing punitive duties now on roughly half of their traded goods.
President Trump imposed fresh levies on $200 billion in Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to respond with tariffs on $60 billion in American goods, approaching the point of running out of U.S. products to target.
Neither of the world’s two largest economies showed signs of backing down, and there are no further trade talks scheduled to resolve the dispute.
As the new tariffs hit, the Chinese government released a report accusing the Trump administration of a foreign policy based on “trade bullying” and “attempting to impose its own interests on China through extreme pressure,” according to state media.
“It has brazenly preached unilateralism, protectionism and economic hegemony, making false accusations against many countries and regions, particularly China,” the paper said.
Thousands of goods now face border taxes of up to 10 percent, including grocery store staples, household objects and industrial equipment. Economists expect the cost of food, clothing, furniture, toys and cars to swell, triggering layoffs across industries in both countries.
Trump warned this month that retaliation from Beijing would spark another set of tariffs on $267 billion in Chinese goods, erecting financial barriers on virtually everything the United States buys from the nation. (In 2017, that order reached $505 billion.)
Beijing cannot match Washington dollar for dollar in a full-blown trade war — the Asian nation imported $130 billion in U.S. goods last year — but officials have said China will keep fighting back with “qualitative” measures. American business groups have taken that to mean an array of regulatory headaches: stalled visas, delayed licenses and spikes in port inspections.
The latest levies from Beijing affect more than 5,200 kinds of American imports, including chemicals, industrial wares and medical instruments.
The United States started imposing levies in July on $50 billion in Chinese industrial imports as Trump sought to confront trade practices he deems unfair. The White House has accused Beijing of stealing American intellectual property and propping up Chinese firms with subsidies that disadvantage manufacturers on U.S. soil.
“We’ve taxed them $50 billion — that’s on technology,” the president recently told reporters on Air Force One. “Now we’ve added another $200 billion. And I hate to say that, but behind that, there’s another $267 billion ready to go on short notice if I want. That totally changes the equation.”
China has refused to cave amid Trump’s escalating threats. Officials on Friday canceled trade negotiations that were scheduled this week in Washington and then scrapped military talks with the United States that were supposed to start in Beijing on Tuesday. (Beijing abandoned the defense-related conversations in response to American sanctions imposed last week on Chinese military personnel for buying combat aircraft and missile supplies from Russia.)
Analysts say Chinese President Xi Jinping is trying to show strength on the world stage as the Chinese public, whose respect is crucial to his sustained power, increasingly bashes Trump online for picking on China.
Beijing has launched efforts to influence the conversation in the Midwest, as well.
State media purchased a four-page advertisement in Iowa’s largest newspaper this week warning American soybean farmers that Trump’s trade war would shift business to South America.
“As the largest importer of U.S. soybeans, China is a vital and robust market we cannot afford to lose,” the advertisement in the Des Moines Register said, quoting Davie Stephens, vice president of the American Soybean Association.
A coalition of more than 80 industry and agricultural groups in the United States, meanwhile, also protested on Monday the intensifying economic conflict.
“Americans are waking up today to a tax increase on the things they rely on to provide for their families,” Brian Kuehl, spokesman for Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, said in a statement. “From furniture to pet food, lightbulbs to baby cribs, even groceries and toilet paper will be taxed by these tariffs.”
Chinese officials have acknowledged the trade war could hinder their country’s economic progress. Heftier price tags on household goods would represent an especially precarious development in a country where consumer spending drives the bulk of growth. (Shopping is already waning, China watchers say.)
China’s central bank has let its currency slide about 5 percent this year, boosting Chinese exports in overseas markets while making imports more expensive.
And the months-long storm of tariffs has apparently rattled investors: The Shanghai Composite Index, the country’s main stock gauge, has dropped more than 20 percent since January.
Still, extracting concessions from Xi probably won’t happen anytime soon, said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.
“I personally believe that the Chinese government will refuse to bend to Trump in spite of the sure damages to China’s economy,” he said.
More likely on the horizon are tax cuts to boost Chinese businesses, he said, and a sense of urgency in building new trade alliances with other countries.
Some academics painted the rift Monday as an opportunity.
China must “turn America’s pressure to impetus,” said Shen Dingli, professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, and focus on improving public education and the development of domestic technology.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-and-china-clobber-each-other-with-biggest-sets-of-tariffs-yet/2018/09/24/1df4cee2-bf8d-11e8-9f4f-a1b7af255aa5_story.html?utm_term=.03fec230e512
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First Senate Hearing On PFAS This Week
Sep 24, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Courtney Columbus,
A Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee will hear from witnesses this week on what the federal government is doing about toxic chemicals known as PFAS that have shown up in drinking water in many states.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have been widely used in military firefighting foam, at airports and in consumer products for decades.
The hearing, titled "The Federal Role in the Toxic PFAS Chemical Crisis," is scheduled for Wednesday. It's the Senate's first hearing on PFAS, which have been used since the 1940s (E&E Daily, Aug. 24). The House held a hearing on the issue earlier this month (E&E Daily, Sept. 7).
"The prevalence of PFAS contamination in communities across Michigan and the country is truly alarming. We have to get to the bottom of how these chemicals are being used and monitored, what long-term effects they may have on human health and the necessary steps for cleanup," Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, ranking member of the Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management Subcommittee, said in a news release.
"I look forward to hearing from federal officials and advocates about what more can be done to address this crisis and help Michigan families and veterans who are dealing with the impacts of being unknowingly exposed to PFAS chemicals," he added.
Peters' goals for the hearing include examining the oversight of federal agencies' PFAS cleanup efforts, looking for next steps, and getting a better grasp of the scope of the problem and its potential impacts on health and the environment, a spokeswoman said.
"They've phased out different [PFAS] variations," she said. "Now they're using ones with fewer carbon atoms, and we don't really know the full impact that those will have on people's health. But I think we've also seen that we know enough to be concerned about it, and so we need to be asking questions."
Peters co-sponsored two bills on PFAS that Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) introduced last month (Greenwire, Aug. 24).
Maureen Sullivan, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for environment, and Peter Grevatt, director of EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, will testify. Both were also witnesses at the House hearing.
Another witness, Andrea Amico, co-founded the community action group Testing for Pease. In her biography on the group's website, Amico writes that her husband and two children have been affected by polluted water.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry plans to test a research protocol at the Pease International Tradeport that will inform its national, Department of Defense-funded study of the health effects of PFAS and look for links between the chemicals and health outcomes. The 2018 defense authorization bill called for the study.
Firefighting foam was used at Pease Air Force Base from the 1970s to the early 1990s, when the base closed. It then had a second life as the Pease International Tradeport, a business and aviation industrial park, according to ATSDR's proposal for the study.
Tests in 2014 showed that two of the most widely known and widely studied PFAS chemicals, perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid, showed up in local drinking water at levels far exceeding the lifetime health advisory level set by EPA in 2016, the proposal states.
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, Sept. 26, at 2:30 p.m. in 342 Dirksen.
Witnesses:Peter Grevatt, director, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, EPA.Maureen Sullivan, deputy assistant secretary of Defense.Linda Birnbaum, director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program.Brian Lepore, director of defense capabilities and management, U.S. Government Accountability Office.Andrea Amico, co-founder, Testing for Pease.Arnold Leriche, community co-chairman, Wurtsmith Restoration Advisory Board.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/09/24/stories/1060099313
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Pennsylvania Takes on Perfluorinated Toxics, EPA, with Task Force
Sep 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Pennsylvania forming new action team to address perfluorinated chemicals
State calls for national drinking water standard
Pennsylvania is striking out on its own with a task force to address widespread perfluorinated chemical contamination in drinking water, in the absence of EPA action, the state’s governor announced Sept. 21.
The state is one of few to create a specialized task force to address a family of contaminants being discovered in drinking water supplies across the country. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) also is urging the Environmental Protection Agency to create an enforceable drinking water standard for two of the most ubiquitous chemicals.
“In the absence of federal action, [Pennsylvania] will move forward aggressively to protect residents,” Wolf said in a tweet Sept. 21.
Wolf signed an executive order Sept. 19 creating an action team tasked with ensuring drinking water is safe, managing per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) compound contamination in the environment, addressing potential exposure from firefighting foam, and other responsibilities. The team includes members of Wolf’s cabinet.
Seeks Drinking Water LimitIn a Sept. 20 letter to EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, Wolf urged the agency to set a standard for two compounds in the family, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). A drinking water standard also would become a mandatory clean up target under EPA’s waste and Superfund programs.
The EPA recommends consuming no more than 70 parts per trillion of both chemicals in drinking water over one’s lifetime, but that number isn’t legally enforceable.
The EPA didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg Environment’s emailed request for comment.
States—especially those on the East Coast—are seeking progressively stricter limits on PFAS compounds. The compounds may cause adverse health effects, including developmental effects to fetuses, testicular and kidney cancer, liver tissue damage, immune system or thyroid effects, and changes in cholesterol, according to the EPA.
Michigan started a response team for PFAS compound contamination in 2017.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/pennsylvania-takes-on-perfluorinated-toxics-epa-with-task-force
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Bipartisan House Bill Encourages Federal Facility PFAS Cleanups
Sep 21, 2018 | Inside EPA
A bipartisan group of Michigan lawmakers has introduced a bill that aims to accelerate the cleanup of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a ubiquitous class of chemicals, on active and former military bases, a measure that mirrors recent Senate legislation though the House bill also requires EPA to regulate PFAS under the Superfund law.
Led by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), Michigan Reps. Dan Kildee (D), Debbie Dingell (D) and Tim Walberg (R) Sept. 17 introduced H.R. 6835, a bill known as the PFAS Federal Facility Accountability Act.
The legislation encourages federal agencies to sign cooperative agreements with states to test, monitor, remove and remediate PFAS when detected in water or soil, according to a Sept. 17 press release from Kildee's office. PFAS is a class of emerging contaminants that is increasingly raising concerns among the public due to findings in drinking water systems.
The bill would require federal agencies to develop a plan of action with states within a year of a governor's request or report to relevant congressional committees and federal lawmakers from that state on why the cooperative agreement has not been entered into and when such an agreement will be reached.
The legislation generally mirrors S. 3381, introduced by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and several other senators in late August.
The House bill, however, differs from the Senate version in that it would also require EPA within one year of the bill's enactment to “make a determination whether to designate perfluorinated compounds, for which the risks are well characterized, as hazardous substances” under the Superfund law. EPA is currently weighing designation of two of the more commonly found PFAS -- perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) -- as hazardous substances under the Superfund law's section 102.
Such a designation would give EPA the authority to issue orders against responsible parties and seek contribution for PFAS contamination.
Michigan has in recent months placed a higher emphasis on addressing PFAS in its state -- including at Defense Department (DOD) sites where contamination has been found linked to use of firefighting foam containing the chemicals. The chemicals, some of which have been linked to adverse health effects including certain cancers, ulcerative colitis and thyroid disease, have been used in a variety of industrial and consumer goods.
“This bipartisan effort will help Michigan continue our rapid response to the PFAS contamination issue,” Upton says in the press release. “We must increase cooperation between the states and the federal government so that everyone is on the same page.”
Kildee adds in the release, “We cannot underestimate the seriousness of PFAS contamination in Michigan and across the country,” noting that he has repeatedly pressed DOD to speed cleanup of PFAS contamination at the former Wurtsmith Air Force base in his district. “Families and veterans deserve to have their government held accountable for the contamination they have caused."
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/bipartisan-house-bill-encourages-federal-facility-pfas-cleanups
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BP, Republic Services Start $25 Million Trash-To-Gas Project
Sep 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Naureen S. Malik
Garbage-to-energy plant comes online
Will generate equivalent of 22,000 gallons per day
BP Plc, Republic Services Inc. and a private equity-backed partner have started a $25 million plant in Oklahoma that will produce gas from a landfill as an alternative to fossil fuels for trucks and buses.
The Southeast Oklahoma City project will make the equivalent of about 22,280 gallons of gasoline per day, Republic Services said in a Sept. 21, emailed statement. Aria Energy, funded by Ares Management LP, will produce the so-called renewable natural gas and BP will transport it via interstate pipelines.
Harnessing methane that’s naturally released from trash dumps and animal waste is a small but growing industry. Utility owners Duke Energy Corp., Sempra Energy and CenterPoint Energy Inc. are among the companies investing in renewable gas, driven by state energy mandates and consumer demand for lower-carbon fuels.
Methane is the second-biggest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide and is 80 times more potent over a 20-year period, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.
By capturing methane, the Southeast Oklahoma City project will eliminate a quantity of greenhouse gases equal to removing about 1,800 passenger vehicles from the road each year, Republic Services said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/bp-republic-services-start-25-million-trash-to-gas-project
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Should Plastics Be A Source Of Energy?
Sep 24, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
The plastics crisis has some asking if we should burn more plastic waste and at least get energy out of it
In Rahway, N.J., near Route 1&9, looming cooling towers and a huge white smokestack dwarf the nearby car dealerships, fast-food joints, and motels. The installation is visible for miles and is a familiar landmark to the highway’s regulars, but likely few of them know what is going on inside.
The structure is the Union County Resource Recovery Facility, a waste-to-energy facility that Covanta operates on behalf of the local government. Instead of the usual coal or natural gas, it burns garbage to make electricity.
Inside, a parade of garbage trucks from all around the county tilt their loads onto the facility’s floor. What comes in is the assorted dross the local citizenry throws out that isn’t suited for paper, metal, and plastics recycling bins. Workers bulldoze unwanted toys, old pillows, broken furniture, and heaps of plastic garbage bags into a 10-meter-deep pit. Two steel claws the size of delivery vans mix the pile like two gigantic hands tossing a salad.
“The person running the cranes is critical,” says Michael Van Brunt, senior director of sustainability at Covanta. “Coal comes in at a certain spec. You know what you are buying has consistent thermal properties. For us, it can vary by load, so we mix it for consistency.”
After the operator has sufficiently homogenized the mass, the claws grab heaps of the stuff and drop it into a hopper feeding three furnaces that incinerate the trash at 1,100 °C. They can process 1,400 metric tons of waste daily. The boilers generate steam heated to 450 °C, powering turbines with a capacity of 42 MW, enough for 30,000 homes.
The plant extracts more than just energy from the garbage. Its magnets and eddy current separators recover the ferrous and nonferrous metals that end up in household trash. At the end of the process, the resulting ash, about 10% of the garbage’s original volume, heads for landfills.
Two-thirds of the carbon in the trash is derived from biomass such as food and wood. Plastics compose the other third. In the U.S., discarded plastic is far more likely to end up in a landfill or a facility like Covanta’s than it is to be recycled.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans recycled only 9.1% of their plastics in 2015. Waste-to-energy facilities combusted 15.5%. But the most likely destination for the plastics discarded in the U.S. is the landfill. It is the final resting place for three-quarters of it.
The public is fed up with plastic waste. It’s haunted by pictures of tropical beaches littered with plastic bags and tortoises entangled in six-pack rings. And most people realize that we are growing more and more dependent on plastics, especially hard-to-recycle varieties such as single-use flexible food packaging.
Adding to the crisis, the Chinese government has shut down imports of waste plastics, breaking the U.S. and Europe of their habit of baling up garbage and sending it out of sight and out of mind across the sea. The plastic is piling up.
In response, municipalities are installing equipment to sort waste better. Industry is trying to improve the recycling system to handle more plastic and fold the results into more new products. Desperate to look responsive, politicians are resorting to bans of single-use plastics such as straws, cutlery, and polystyrene foam containers.
Yet despite good intentions, recycling and banning won’t keep enough plastic out of the landfill to solve the plastic waste problem. Some people involved argue that extracting energy from plastic—in both waste-to-energy facilities and plastics-fed fuel refineries—will need to be part of a solution that keeps our old plastics out of the landfill.
Marco Castaldi, director of the Earth Engineering Center at the City College of New York, says improving recycling will be tough and probably can’t address all the plastic waste piling up. He points out that the U.S. municipalities leading the pack are still achieving only a 30% recycling rate. Waste-to-energy furnaces, pyrolysis plants, and other energy extraction schemes are needed to finish the job. “Thermal conversion processes are going to have to be engaged,” Castaldi says.
Even some environmental activists agree that supplementing mechanical recycling with such technologies is worth considering. The Ocean Conservancy, for example, recommends energy recovery as part of a strategy for tackling ocean waste in Southeast Asia. And the Ocean Plastics Charter that five G7 leaders signed earlier this year calls for “working with industry towards 100% reusable, recyclable, or, where viable alternatives do not exist, recoverable, plastics by 2030.”
But just burning plastic isn’t as easy as it might sound. Waste to energy might be up to the task technologically; the economics are a different story.
The waste-to-energy facilities that dot the U.S. are already processing as much plastics as they can. Building new facilities—at least in the U.S.—is fraught with challenges. Technologies that make fuels from plastics hold promise, but they still must be proved and scaled up further before they can make a difference.CHINA SHUTS THE DOOR TO PLASTIC
The Chinese government forced the world to rethink how it manages plastics when it adopted its National Sword policy earlier this year. China banned 24 categories of scrap materials, including plastics.
Many U.S. municipalities leaned heavily on China to handle their plastic waste. This was especially true for towns that told residents to toss all their plastics into recycle bins. In reality, municipal materials recovery facilities (MRFs) want only three of these plastics: rigid polyethylene terephthalate, high-density polyethylene, and polypropylene containers—plastics number 1, 2, and 5, respectively, according to recycling coding that consumers may be familiar with. The other plastics that end up in the recycling stream—multilayer pouches, vinyl pipe, polystyrene cups, and the like—are seen as contaminants.
Some municipalities didn’t even bother sorting. They just baled up all the unsorted plastics and tried to sell it. Chinese recyclers were ready buyers. In China, they would mostly pluck out the same three valuable plastics and then discard the rest—not always in a proper landfill.
The West Coast, with its cheap freight rates to China, was particularly addicted to this system. In a letter to local officials this May, Scott Smithline, director of California’s Department of Resources Recycling & Recovery, acknowledged that two-thirds of the recyclables collected in California were being sent abroad, more than 60% of that to China.
“All they were doing was transferring the landfill from their state to a foreign country,” says Scott Saunders, general manager of KW Plastics, based in Troy, Ala. KW calls itself the largest high-density polyethylene and polypropylene recycler in the world, processing about 450,000 metric tons of material annually.
For Saunders, the Chinese buyers were a bad influence on recycling in the U.S. Because they were willing to buy anything, the quality of plastic bales was low; half of them could be contaminants. But U.S. buyers like KW felt forced to take the bales because the plastics would otherwise slip through their fingers and get sold overseas.
Over the next two years, Saunders predicts, MRFs will increasingly do the sorting themselves. But for now, the ban has created a backlog.
Some jurisdictions have temporarily suspended recycling programs. In other places, recyclables are piling up and even being landfilled. And even if MRFs eventually manage to do a better job of sorting, residuals such as plastic film will still need a home.
The effect of the new Chinese policy may add up. According to a study led by Amy L. Brooks at the University of Georgia’s College of Engineering, the Chinese policy will displace 111 million metric tons of plastic worldwide by 2030 (Sci. Adv. 2018, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aat0131). China had been getting about 10% of its recycled plastics, about 700,000 metric tons per year, from the U.S.JUST BURN IT
It might seem that this is waste to energy’s moment to shine—to charge in and solve the plastic waste problem. The industry does see itself as an environmentally friendly alternative to landfilling. Covanta says waste-to-energy facilities reduce CO2 emissions by about a ton for every ton of waste that’s not landfilled. This is because fossil fuels aren’t being burned for energy, methane isn’t being generated in a landfill, and metals are being collected for recycling.
But the sober reality is that today’s waste-to-energy plants simply can’t start burning all the plastics that are piling up. The plants have the capacity to make only the amount of energy per day that they were designed to produce. Plastics have a higher energy content than most trash. If a waste-to-energy facility processes more plastics, it has to take in less waste overall.
That’s a problem because the facilities generate most of their revenues from the so-called tipping fees that they get from municipalities for getting rid of waste. Covanta, which operates two-thirds of the waste-to-energy facilities in the U.S., generated 70% of its income in 2017 from such fees. Only 19% came from the electricity it sold. Another 5% came from the metals it recovered. Energy and metals alone would cover only a third of the operating expenses of Covanta’s plants.
Jeremy O’Brien, director of applied research for the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), says waste-to-energy plants exist to dispose of waste. Sanitation is their first job. “Materials and energy recovery are secondary benefits,” he says.
To incinerate more plastics, the U.S. would need to build more waste-to-energy plants so they could process more trash overall. But it has yet to embrace the technology as some countries do. Only about 13% of U.S. garbage is burned for energy. In the European Union, the figure is double. Germany incinerates about a third of its waste for power; Norway and Sweden, more than half.
“The biggest impediment for us is cheap landfilling, particularly in the middle part of the country,” Covanta’s Van Brunt says. Tipping fees can be as low as $20 per metric ton in land-rich states like Oklahoma. More densely populated coastal regions tend to have more waste-to-energy facilities because of their landfills’ relatively high tipping fees—more than $70 in parts of New Jersey, for instance.
In Europe, the incentives line up against landfills. For 20 years, the European Union has lived under the Landfill Directive, which requires that biodegradable waste be treated so it is biologically and chemically stable before it is disposed. “That is what drove the implementation of waste-to-energy facilities,” O’Brien says.
European officials favor waste-to-energy methods because they are more likely than their North American counterparts to see it as a way of making waste safer, O’Brien notes. It gets rid of hazardous materials and pathogens while yielding energy and metals.
EU countries levy high taxes on landfills. Belgium, for instance, charges a tax of more than $100 per metric ton of waste landfilled. Germany, Sweden, and some other nations have landfill bans on the books.NOT EVERYONE IS ON BOARD
The European embrace of waste to energy doesn’t sway some activists, who consider the technology a step backward. Ahmina Maxey, U.S. and Canada regional coordinator for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, opposes new waste-to-energy facilities and wants to see existing ones close.
Atop her list of grievances is emissions. “We are really just converting waste from solid garbage into air pollution and creating a landfill in the sky,” she says.
Moreover, waste-to-energy technology is expensive, she says, and a burden to the communities that plunge into it. Detroit sunk $1.2 billion into its incinerator, she points out. Harrisburg, Pa., spent more than $360 million upgrading its plant. This kind of spending locks communities into waste to energy, Maxey argues, and prevents them from pursuing other types of waste reduction, composting, and recycling.RELATIVELY CLEAN
Clarissa Morawski, managing director of Reloop, a Brussels-based nonprofit that promotes a circular economy, says she understands why people might want to burn plastics. “One wonders to what extent you are going to recycle these plastics,” she says, paraphrasing what she often hears. “Why don’t you take them all and burn them and get some good energy out of them?”
But the approach isn’t a reasonable solution long term, Morawski argues. “While the world is getting off fossil fuels, it seems counterproductive to be saying ‘Let’s just burn all plastics.’ ”
Even Europe, Morawski says, is shifting away from waste to energy as a plastics strategy, focusing instead on boosting recycling. This can mean forgoing multilayer packaging or flame retardants where they aren’t needed, so the resulting stream is simpler to recycle. It can also mean redesigning packages to incorporate more recycled resin.
“If we can get plastic into a state where it is more recyclable, then we can achieve tremendous gains,” she says.
Proponents of waste to energy say the technology is cleaner than other power sources. According to SWANA’s O’Brien, waste-to-energy plants emit less CO2, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides than coal-fired power plants do per unit of power.
And waste-to-energy plants have cleaned up their act over the years, Covanta’s Van Brunt says. “Arguably, one of the best things that happened to our industry is the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990,” he notes.
The law forced the industry to install advanced pollution control equipment. For example, to clean up the flue gases coming out of its Rahway plant, Covanta uses a baghouse to remove particulates, calcium hydroxide to neutralize acids, ammonia to reduce nitrogen oxides, and activated carbon to adsorb mercury, dioxins, and other contaminants.
From 1990 through 2005, the U.S. waste-to-energy industry lowered its own SO2 emissions by 88% and NOx by 24%, according to EPA. It has reduced emissions of lead, cadmium, mercury, and particulates by 96%. The industry went from emitting 58% of the dioxins in the U.S. in 1986 to less than 0.1% in 2012, according to a study by the Earth Engineering Center at Columbia University.
Backers of waste to energy will be the first to say they don’t want to interfere with recycling. They point out that the mantra in waste management is “reduce, reuse, and recycle”—in that order.
“The only ton of waste that doesn’t have an impact is the ton that you don’t generate,” Covanta’s Van Brunt says. “But then the next best thing is to recover energy to the extent that we can, and that is where we fit, right below recycling.”
According to EPA, recycling metals, paper, and plastics recovers roughly 16 billion J of energy per metric ton of material. Burning that same ton for energy saves about 7 billion J.JUST BURN IT, SORT OF
Companies developing pyrolysis, another technology to extract energy from plastic waste, hope that their processes will evolve into something better than waste to energy for those plastics that can’t be recycled.
Pyrolysis takes mixed plastic waste and treats it at 350 to 800 °C in a low-oxygen environment so it breaks into shorter-chain hydrocarbons. Small companies have been operating demonstration plants for years to make crude-oil-like fuels. Pyrolysis also has the potential to make chemical feedstocks that could be fashioned back into polymers, creating a closed loop.
“Neither of these options would be available if all the trash were sent to a waste-to-energy facility,” says Jeff Wooster, global sustainability leader for Dow Chemical’s packaging business.
A backer of pyrolysis, Dow partnered with Reynolds Consumer Products on the Hefty EnergyBag program. The companies set up the first pilot for the program in Citrus Heights, Calif., in 2014. There, residents throw hard-to-recycle plastics like disposable forks, potato chip bags, and drink pouches into special orange Hefty bags.
Sanitation trucks collect the bags and send them for energy recovery. Most of the plastic goes to pyrolysis plants, but it’s burned to fuel facilities such as cement plants when capacity is unavailable. Over the past four years the program has collected more than 150 metric tons of plastics, Dow says.
The partnership subsequently nabbed Omaha as the first major metropolitan area to participate in the program at a large scale. Dow has also awarded grants to establish programs in Boise, Idaho, and Cobb County, Ga. Salt Lake City-based pyrolysis company Renewlogy is Dow’s partner for the Boise program.
EnergyBag isn’t without controversy. The National Recycling Coalition last year wrote a letter to Dow asking it not to refer to the program as recycling.
“We agree. It is not recycling,” Wooster says, but he notes that it is a step on the way to a sustainable plastics system. “Our long-term goal is to expand the use and acceptance of energy recovery technologies to the point where they are able to produce a chemical feedstock at the scale and quality that would allow us to create new plastics.”
This is Agilyx’s goal, too. The Tigard, Ore.-based company has been involved with pyrolysis of hard-to-recycle plastics since it started up 14 years ago with backing from the trash collection firm Waste Management.
For a while, Agilyx converted mixed plastics at its plant in Tigard into an oil that was further refined into jet fuel. The company has processed plastics into about 19,000 barrels of the product.
In 2015, Agilyx had to switch gears when oil prices fell below $40 per barrel. “We had a little bit of an issue when the commodity markets fell,” CEO Joe Vaillancourt recalls.
Pondering their next step, Agilyx managers struck on polystyrene. It was easier for their process to make styrene from polystyrene than to make the oil from mixed plastics. Styrene is more valuable. And polystyrene is extremely difficult to sort and clean in a mechanical recycling process.
Agilyx retrofitted its plant to produce 10 metric tons per day of styrene monomer to be sold to the polystyrene makers Americas Styrenics and Ineos Styrolution. The latter firm is considering using Agilyx technology to build a styrene plant near one of its facilities.
Though Agilyx converted its plant, it hasn’t abandoned the plastics-to-oil approach. Vaillancourt notes growing interest in the technology because of the plastic waste problem and because oil prices are rising again. Even under the best of circumstances, he says, 60% of plastics—notably films—will end up in the landfill because they are not recoverable. “We can take 90% of that and put it through a chemical recycling process,” he says.
City College’s Castaldi says it makes sense that pyrolysis is getting more attention now as municipalities look for ways to manage the overflow of plastic waste. “Pyrolysis is something that can handle it,” he says.
Pyrolysis companies are already working toward the longer-term dream of making plastic from plastic. Agilyx announced last month it will use pyrolysis to produce naphtha, which chemical plants crack to make polymer building blocks such as ethylene and propylene.
Another pyrolysis firm, RES Polyflow, is hitting on the same idea. It is planning a facility in Ashley, Ind., that will process 100,000 metric tons of plastic per year into 380,000 barrels of diesel and naphtha. In March, BP signed a deal to buy the plant’s output when it opens next year.THE FUTURE IS ... CEMENT?
Other schemes for dealing with the plastics problem abound. Cement kilns—which power cement manufacture and burn at more than 1,400 °C—might offer the quickest fix, SWANA’s O’Brien says. “Cement kilns are always needing energy resources,” he says. “If I had to get rid of a million tons of nonmarketable recyclables this next year, they would be the first on my list.”
Related: New ventures try again to recycle polystyrene
Castaldi agrees that cement kilns are intriguing. “Cement kilns, they love those plastics,” he says. He notes that plastic has a high heating value and doesn’t produce as much ash or sulfur as coal, the most common kiln fuel, does.
A $25 million project, dubbed Entsorga West Virginia, seeks to capitalize on cement kilns’ need for fuel. Its plant, nearing completion in Martinsburg, W.Va., will take municipal waste and lay it down in rows for up to 14 days. This composts some of the food waste in the mixture.
When that step is finished, Entsorga will take out the metals, rocks, and other materials that don’t belong. It will shred the rest into an EPA-approved fuel called solid recovered fuel. “It is basically dried-out municipal waste,” says Emily Dyson, R&D director at BioHiTech Global, one of the partners in the project.
When the plant starts running early next year, it will process about 100,000 metric tons of material per year. A nearby cement kiln will substitute this plastic-rich fuel for 30% of the coal it has been using.
The more solutions, the merrier, Agilyx’s Vaillancourt says. There is plenty of plastic waste to go around because recycling, and even processes like his, won’t be able to dispose of everything. “There is no one silver bullet that will deal with all of this,” he says.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/sustainability/Should-plastics-source-energy/96/i38
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Keystone XL Gets Positive Report in Court-Ordered U.S. Review
Sep 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Adams-Heard
State Department issued draft review that looks at new route
Preliminary report finds no significant environmental impacts
A more extensive environmental review for TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline echoes an earlier assessment in finding the project’s new route would have no significant environmental impacts.
The U.S. State Department on Sept. 21 published a draft environmental impact statement that supplements its original review to take into account an alternate route that Nebraska regulators approved for the line. The agency was already conducting an environmental assessment for the approved route when a federal judge ordered a more extensive review last month.
The State Department will hold a public meeting in Lincoln, Neb., on Oct. 9 to hear comments on the preliminary review. The agency expects to publish a final version in December, according to a court filing earlier this month.
The 1,200-mile pipeline, which would help carry 830,000 barrels of crude a day from Alberta’s oil sands to U.S. Gulf Coast refiners, has been in the works for a decade. TransCanada has yet to formally declare that it will build the conduit.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/keystone-xl-gets-positive-report-in-court-ordered-us-review
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(ACC Mentioned) D.C. Circuit Again Grants Bid To Quickly Implement EPA Facility Safety Rule
Sep 21, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Appellate court judges have again granted environmentalists' request to force quick implementation of an Obama-era rule tightening facility safety requirements, expediting its ruling that struck down a Trump administration effort to delay the rule's effectiveness by almost two years while the agency considers whether to undo the stricter mandates.
In a pair of Sept. 21 filings, two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit grant the novel request by critics of the delay to expedite issuance of its mandate. The move is a procedural step that implements the court's Aug. 17 ruling vacating the Trump administration's rule delaying by nearly two-years the Obama EPA's update to the Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program.
The decision was not unexpected, as the court initially granted the request for expedited mandate Aug. 31, but withdrew that decision days later, saying it was issued “inadvertently.”
EPA and industry groups supportive of the delay rule argued that the court never gave them time to file motions in opposition of expediting the mandate. The court then undid its decision and set a swift filing schedule to hear those arguments, but has still decided to undo the delay rule by expediting the mandate.
The decision appears to put the Obama-era revisions that tightened the RMP back into effect, though the agency could potentially appeal the decision to the full D.C. Circuit or Supreme Court.
The court's granting of the request for expedited mandate in the case, Air Alliance Houston, et al., v. EPA and Andrew Wheeler, ends the Trump administration's bid to delay the effective dates of the January 2017 final rule, even as the administration is seeking comments on a revision rule that would rescind most new compliance obligations. Former Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt doubted the need for the Obama-era changes to the program, and was expected to pursue a rulemaking to undo some, or all, of the more-stringent requirements.
The decision to expedite the mandate was issued by Judges Judith Rogers and Robert Wilkins. The two judges and fellow Judge Brett Kavanaugh heard the March 16 oral argument in Air Alliance Houston, but Kavanaugh took no part in the decision on expediting the mandate while his nomination to be the next Supreme Court justice is pending.
Late last month, environmentalist and community group petitioners urged the court to take the rare step of expediting the mandate to force implementation of the Obama-era RMP revisions. They argued the rule is needed to prevent future accidents and further delay rewards the Trump administration's postponing of the rule, which the court deemed violated the Clean Air Act.
The court then quickly granted the motion, but reversed it and recalled the mandate after EPA and industry groups protested that they had not been given time to file counter-motions.
The court's reversal came after industry intervenors and EPA in Aug. 31 filings, argued that the court's decision violated a provision in the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure that sets a 10-day period for responding to petitioners' Aug 24 request. The coalition includes the American Chemistry Council, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others.
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.
Petitioners challenged the Trump administration's delay of the Obama-era rule as unlawful, saying it was procedurally flawed and would expose communities and facility workers to risks from future accidents.
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-news/dc-circuit-again-grants-bid-quickly-implement-epa-facility-safety-rule
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Send To Me Print Court Orders EPA To Reinstate Obama Chemical Safety Rule
Sep 21, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today ordered EPA to immediately reinstate an Obama-era chemical safety rule.
The court in August struck down the Trump administration's attempt to delay the rule, known as the Risk Management Program update or the Chemical Disaster Rule. Environmental groups asked the judges to immediately issue their formal order EPA to reinstate the rule, rather than let it remain on ice for nearly two months while EPA mulls whether to appeal the ruling, a request EPA and industry groups opposed.
The judges granted that request this afternoon in a one-page order that did not further explain the decision.
The court had accidentally issued that order in late August, but quickly reversed it following complaints from EPA and industry. The judges have not explained how the order was issued inadvertantly.
WHAT’S NEXT: EPA must reinstate the rule, although it still has time to decide whether to appeal the case.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy
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Lawmakers To Trace Road Map For New DOE Cyber Office
Sep 24, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Blake Sobczak,
House lawmakers are set to hear from the head of a new cybersecurity office at the Department of Energy amid an uptick in hacking threats to the U.S. power grid.
Karen Evans, assistant secretary for DOE's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response (CESER), is expected to lay out her priorities for the office and update House Energy and Commerce Committee members on the federal response to Hurricane Florence.
"The Department of Energy plays an essential role in ensuring the reliable and uninterrupted supply of fuels and electricity and facilitating recovery from energy supply disruptions," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the E&C Subcommittee on Energy, which is hosting the Thursday morning hearing.
"I look forward to hearing from Assistant Secretary Evans on the agency's cybersecurity and energy emergency efforts, and CESER's role in coordinating energy-sector security."
Evans offered a glimpse at some of her plans for the new office in a conference call with reporters last week, suggesting she would focus on links between electricity and other critical infrastructure sectors, while working closely with a nascent risk management initiative at the Department of Homeland Security (Energywire, Sept. 19).
Thursday's hearing marks the sixth installment of the subcommittee's "DOE Modernization" hearing series, and the first time Evans has testified before the House in her current capacity leading CESER.
Evans' appearance also comes on the heels of a series of strategic cybersecurity documents released last week by the Trump administration, which keyed in on emerging threats to critical infrastructure networks (Energywire, Sept. 21).
"I would be gobsmacked if DOE was not heavily involved" in carrying out Trump's new National Cyber Strategy, said Emily Miller, director of national security and critical infrastructure programs at cybersecurity firm Mocana Corp.
Miller said she would be watching for how the strategy's "consequence-driven" approach to cyberthreats plays out at agencies like DOE and the Department of Homeland Security.
"They're going to be looking at: 'What are the bad things that can happen?' And then backing into the solutions from there."
Evans has said she is interested in working with DHS to explore "where these different risk points would be" in critical U.S. systems.
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, Sept. 27, at 10:15 a.m. in 2322 Rayburn.
Witness: Karen Evans, assistant secretary of cybersecurity, energy security and emergency response, Department of Energy.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/09/24/stories/1060099301
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Oil Industry Gives $16M to Nix Washington State Carbon Initiative
Sep 21, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky
Phillips 66 donates $7.2 million to kill ballot measure
Environmental, labor, tribal coalition raises $5.3 million to pass it
Some of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in Washington state—oil refinery owners like Phillips 66 Co., BP Plc, and Andeavor—have donated $16 million to defeat a ballot initiative that would impose fees on such emissions.
If I-1631 passes, Washington would be the first state to put a price on carbon through the ballot box. The measure would levy a fee of $15 per metric ton of carbon content beginning in 2020, increasing $2 per ton annually, plus inflation. It would be imposed on the carbon content of fossil fuels sold or used in the state and electricity generated in or imported into Washington.
An estimated $2.3 billion in revenue would be generated over the first five fiscal years, according to the state Office of Financial Management’s fiscal impact statement.
The measure is backed by a broad coalition seeking to address climate change, including the state’s politically powerful treaty tribes; organized labor such as the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO; and environmental groups like the Nature Conservancy. The coalition wrote I-1631 to ensure the revenue benefits its various constituencies by conserving tribal treaty resources like forests and fish and creating jobs in a post-carbon economy. Social justice groups would also get funding to help offset regressive impacts on low-income communities.
Tracking the DollarsPhillips 66 is leading the pack of donors to the No on 1631 campaign, with a total of $7.2 million donated through Sept. 20, according to Washington Public Disclosure Commission data. BP is next at $3.4 million. Andeavor, formerly called Tesoro Corp., has donated $3.2 million; the trade association American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers $1 million; U.S. Oil & Refining Co. $558,531; and Chevron U.S.A. Inc. $500,000.
Backers of the initiative have donated $5.3 million to date with the only million-dollar-plus donor being the Nature Conservancy, at $1.2 million. Several conservation groups have donated smaller sums. Unlike the No on 1631 campaign, in which corporate donors contributed the overwhelming majority of dollars, there are hundreds of individual donors to the Yes on 1631 campaign.
The Yes campaign, in addition to proclaiming the environmental and health benefits of slowing climate change, has pointed to it as being a battle against the oil companies. “Big oil recognizes Washington state represents that tipping point,” Fawn Sharp, president of the Quinault Indian Nation, said in a Sept. 21 posting on the Yes website. Once we take practical action other states are going to follow,” said Sharp, who played a major role in brokering the creation of the 1631 coalition.
The No campaign asserts that passage would “force Washington families, small businesses and consumers to pay billions more for gasoline, electricity, and natural gas,” according to the No website. Opponents of the measure cite as unfair provisions in the initiative that exempt certain sectors that are energy intensive and exposed to foreign trade.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/oil-industry-gives-16m-to-nix-washington-state-carbon-initiative
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News Four States Back EPA’s Quest to Ease Monitoring for Smog-Forming Pollution
Sep 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Ohio and Alabama plan to rewrite plans to allow less costly monitoring
Critics say erratic monitoring will lead to less-reliable data and less compliance
Four states are supportive of EPA’s proposal to relax monitoring requirements for smog-forming pollution released by manufacturers and other industrial facilities.
Officials from Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio told Bloomberg Environment they are on board with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Sept. 13 proposal (RIN:2060-AU08) to let states write air pollution cleanup plans that give about 310 large industrial plants the option to choose lower-cost monitoring for nitrogen oxides. Nitrogen oxides contribute to ground-level ozone, a lung irritant that can exacerbate breathing conditions like asthma.
Alabama and Ohio officials queried by Bloomberg Environment said the current monitoring requirements are cumbersome, costly, and of little value. Indiana officials said they had been seeking similar flexibility through their own regulations.
Those states are among the 20 states and the District of Columbia that are part of a regional air pollution trading program known as NOx SIP Call. The trading program lets power plants buy allowances to emit nitrogen oxides in lieu of installing costly controls to meet federal pollution limits.
Right now, all participating major coal-fired power plants and large manufacturing plants must monitor their emissions continuously. Operating and maintaining those monitors and auditing the data they collect cost around $100,000 each year, according to Ron Gore, air quality division director for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
Power plants would be required to keep the continuous monitoring systems, but the EPA’s proposal would give other industries less costly options.
“When the program started we had 10 manufacturing plants,” Gore told Bloomberg Environment. “Now we only have five and they all are emitting below the limits so there is no need to require them to monitor continuously.”
States Still DigestingSeventeen states and the District of Columbia responded to questions by Bloomberg Environment about the proposal.
Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and District of Columbia said they had no intention of modifying their plans to allow relaxed monitoring requirements. Rhode Island and Missouri said they aren’t affected. Tennessee said its rules already allow industrial facilities to request alternative forms of monitoring in some instances.
Kentucky and Indiana said they would amend their pollution control plans to track with federal requirements, such as alternative monitoring. Indiana officials said the EPA’s position is consistent with what manufacturing plants asked the state to do when it was seeking similar flexibility.
Ohio floated a proposal in January that tracks with the federal proposal. Michigan wants to know how the proposal would affect its rulemaking to align its regulations with federal programs, while Virginia, Connecticut, and Illinois remain on the fence about how they will respond.
Manufacturing plants and electricity-generating plants under this federal program released just shy of 200,000 tons of nitrogen oxides of emissions in 2017, which is below the 528,453 tons allowed under their state budgets, according to EPA Clean Air Markets data. Of the total emissions, about 7.5 percent were released by plants that would be covered by the EPA proposal.Less Monitoring Means Weak Enforcement: Critics
Critics of the proposal, notably the American Lung Association and the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it will mean less monitoring data collected and weaker enforcement as a result.
“It means that you are less certain you are complying continuously with pollution limits for nitrogen oxide that forms smog in the atmosphere. It also makes pollution limits less certain, less enforceable, and less likely to produce continuous compliance with clean air health standards,” John Walke, NRDC’s senior attorney and clean air programs director, said.
Paul Billings, the lung association’s senior vice president for advocacy, is concerned about what alternative forms of monitoring would be allowed. The EPA said it would leave it up to the states to decide what alternative forms of monitoring they could allow, Billings said.
Billings worries that lack of monitoring will allow these sources to increase their emissions.
Monitoring IntermittentlyThe sources could monitor intermittently, “that’s a possibility,” said Gale Hoffnagle, senior vice president and technical director at TRC Environmental Corp. in Windsor, Conn., an engineering and consulting firm.
But Hoffnagle said the Clean Air Act requires states to indicate in their implementation plans how many tons of emissions they reduce, and they can achieve that through less-costly forms of monitoring.
This proposal would allow states to give manufacturing plants the flexibility to choose a cost-effective monitoring method to demonstrate compliance. This could range from a paper exercise where plants merely calculate nitrogen oxides reductions based on how much fuel they use to grabbing air samples from smokestacks intermittently.
Hoffnagle doesn’t believe emissions will increase under the proposal.
“Nobody turns off their control devices,” he said. “If they do so, they do at their own peril.”(Updated story with graphic showing nitrogen emissions from participating facilities.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/four-states-back-epas-quest-to-ease-monitoring-for-smog-forming-pollution-1
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Climate Summit Sparks Hope For Political Shift Amid Federal Inaction
Sep 24, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Curt Barry
California Gov. Jerry Brown's (D) Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) last week spurred a variety of pledges by countries, states and local governments to reduce greenhouse gases, though a report released at the summit shows the pledges are not likely to counter the impact of the Trump administration's inaction on climate issues.
Broadly, supporters of the Sept. 12-14 conference in San Francisco say it provided a needed jolt into climate politics as the midterm elections approach and as experts look further ahead toward the United Nations' annual climate meeting in 2020, where countries are expected to offer their second round of GHG mitigation targets under the Paris Agreement.
The summit “provided California and hundreds of businesses and other subnational actors an important opportunity to demonstrate a strong, unified commitment to driving the global economy towards decarbonization in the shadow of a U.S. federal government moving in the opposite direction,” says Noel Perry, founder of the clean energy group Next 10.
He adds that while binding international climate targets are important, “unity and energy are also needed to help maintain momentum and drive progress on climate change. I think the legacy of the summit will be a new-found sense of empowerment – affirming that subnational actors can and will play a critical role in moving the world forward towards a decarbonized global economy.”
Announcements during the summit by major corporations such as Walmart and Unilever to provide billions of dollars toward projects and programs to address climate change in different ways could have major political implications, according to one source with a major environmental group.
“I think the summit will make a difference on politics, [election] results and on giving both businesses and members of both parties that feel like they really have a higher bar for speaking out,” the source says. “This gives them a lot of ammunition and evidence that there's really a lot going on and that getting on the train – as opposed to staying on the platform – is an increasingly desirable place to be.”
The summit also showed that “that there are fewer and fewer places that aren't represented by strong climate leadership – either at the state or city level,” the source adds. “There are few places you could go and walk down the street and not see the logo of a corporation taking strong climate action. This is making a huge political difference . . . and continues to drive public sentiment for change.”
Craig Ebert, president of the carbon offset registry Climate Action Reserve, says in a Sept. 17 statement that the summit “served as a launchpad for deeper worldwide commitments and accelerated action from countries and companies to prevent dangerous climate change, realize the historic Paris Agreement, and move beyond Paris to a low/no carbon economy.”
Former Vice President Al Gore (D) added that he has “been to a lot of gatherings and conferences related to the climate crisis for many years now, and this is really top-notch,” according to the Washington Post. “The nature of the commitments being announced is extremely heartening."
GHG Commitments
A key event at the summit was the release of a report by Brown and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that found that efforts by states, cities and businesses to reduce GHGs fell short of the GHG reduction goals set by the Obama administration.
The Sept. 12 report, released by a coalition of subnational entities committed to achieving the Obama administration's Paris GHG target, finds that non-federal climate action will cut economy-wide emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, roughly two-thirds of the way to the Obama goal.
The report adds that “enhanced engagement” could achieve a 24 percent cut, which is within “striking” distance of Obama's 26-28 percent target. “In the absence of federal leadership, the report’s findings provide a roadmap for increased climate ambition from all levels of society,” Brown said in a press release.
The report aligns with prior analysis showing that while state-level climate efforts would help counterbalance Trump administration rollbacks, they likely will not fully offset the impact of relaxed federal policies.
Brown and European Union climate leaders also announced Sept. 13 that they would discuss “the potential for greater alignment” between the jurisdictions' cap-and-trade programs. Sources said the effort is not aimed at linking the two cap-and-trade programs anytime soon, but represents “higher-level agreement focused on working together on program alignment and information exchange” with the EU's carbon market.
In addition, leaders of Canada and Mexico said they will work toward achieving the goals of several major climate programs in a host of U.S. states, including those requiring clean cars, clean power, a reduction in potent greenhouse gases and the use of the social cost of carbon in policymaking.
The commitments were announced Sept. 13 by Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D), who is one of 17 governors in the U.S. Climate Alliance, which Brown, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) formed in response to Trump's pledge to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement.
Leaders of California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia set a regional goal of halving food waste by 2030 that they expect will reduce GHG emissions associated with food disposal. The states are part of the Pacific Coast Collaborative, which also includes the cities of Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles.
ZEVs And HFCs
Bolstering the sale of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) and building thousands of new charging stations was another highlight of the summit. Brown signed a host of new bills into state law to advance ZEVs, including SB 1014 which directs the state to develop GHG reduction targets for ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft.
“This bill will help ensure that work the governor has set into motion to increase adoption of ZEVs in public and private fleets throughout the state continues,” Brown's office says, referring to a recently launched effort by the state to consider new ZEV mandates for public and private light- and heavy-duty fleets.
More broadly, ChargePoint, a leading EV charging infrastructure company, committed to accelerate its efforts and deliver 2.5 million charging units by 2025. In addition, EVBox committed to building 1 million new chargers by 2025.
The Hydrogen Council announced a new goal of ensuring that 100 percent of hydrogen fuel used in transportation is decarbonized by 2030.
Other commitments included National Grid planning to enable 10,000 public charging ports by 2025 in Maine, New York and Rhode Island. Overall, 26 states, cities, regions and businesses announced 100 ZEV targets, according to a summit press release.
In addition, the GCAS saw significant state movement on limiting hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants that act as potent GHGs. Brown signed a bill codifying recently overturned EPA rules targeting HFCs, and three other states – New York, Maryland and Connecticut – pledged to craft similar rules.
Environmentalists have said the state rules could help ensure the refrigeration sector remains “on track” in their plans to transition away from HFCs to more climate-friendly chemicals. The rules are aimed to prevent “backsliding” by the sector in the face of an adverse court ruling against the EPA rules and the agency's recent reversal of its interpretation of its Clean Air Act authority regarding HFCs.
Both industry and environmentalists also hope the state rules could help persuade the Trump administration to embrace a 2016 international agreement to limit HFCs – an issue on which Trump officials have largely remained mum.
GHG Emissions Satellite
Brown said at the close of the summit that the state's eventual launch of a satellite to track emissions of climate-warming gases including methane will offer “an important complement” to the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) “MethaneSAT” satellite, which was announced last spring.
An initiative of the California Air Resources Board in partnership with San Francisco-based Earth imaging company Planet Labs, California's new satellite is intended to detect concentrated “point sources” of climate pollutants, monitoring leaks and other anomalies at specific locations where emissions are known to occur. Planet Labs was founded by ex-NASA scientists in 2010 and operates the world’s largest constellation of satellites, according to a Sept. 14 release by Brown's office.
EDF’s MethaneSAT, on the other hand, will provide broader, more frequent coverage, quantifying emissions from oil and gas fields producing at least 80 percent of global output roughly once every four days, according to EDF.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/climate-summit-sparks-hope-political-shift-amid-federal-inaction
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CPP Backers Aggressively Push For D.C. Circuit To Issue Merits Decision
Sep 24, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
States and environmental groups that support the Obama EPA's Clean Power Plan (CPP) are aggressively urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to rule on the merits of the power plant greenhouse gas rule in the long-pending lawsuit, strongly pushing back against EPA and other opponents' arguments that the case is moot.
In a Sept. 21 filing in West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, et al., states led by New York and environmental groups led by the Environmental Defense Fund argue that the reasons outlined last week by EPA and CPP opponents to continue to hold the case in abeyance all fail.
“The responses identify no constitutional principle, statute, rule, or judicial precedent that prevents the Court from deciding the merits,” the filing says. “And while both EPA and Petitioners admonish the Court to avoid an 'advisory opinion,' they do not dispute that the case presents a substantial, live controversy and that climate change harms will only worsen with inaction.”
The filing responds to Sept. 14 briefs from the Department of Justice on EPA's behalf, as well as state and industry intervenors, urging the court to reject the CPP supporters' earlier request to issue a merits ruling.
The Trump EPA has proposed to repeal the CPP and replace it with a proposal called the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule that would achieve negligible GHG cuts by requiring only efficiency improvements at coal plants.
"The finish line of EPA's further regulatory efforts is now in sight," EPA told the court, adding that it plans to finalize ACE early next year. The brief was submitted in response to the same coalition of CPP proponents -- which includes 17 states, several cities and environmental groups -- which in both filings -- the original and the new reply -- urge the D.C. Circuit to lift its 18-month hold on the case.
The court held oral arguments two year ago, just months before the 2016 election.
But even before the arguments, the CPP's implementation was stayed by the Supreme Court in early 2016 -- a stay that will remain in place until the case goes back to the high court or is otherwise resolved.
The rule proponents argued that EPA has taken "undue advantage" of the abeyance and high court stay to avoid imposing GHG limits on the power sector, in violation of EPA's Clean Air Act duty.
But EPA said it was neither "flouting" a mandatory duty nor engaging in a "perpetual dodging" of judicial review.
'Uncertainty and Inefficiency'
The new filing says EPA's argument for continued abeyance is "founded on uncertainty and inefficiency: uncertainty because EPA's replacement proposal lacks even an approximate date certain for finalization, and inefficiency because they seek to delay an inevitable ruling on the fundamental statutory authority question for which EPA's proposal assumes an answer (one that greatly disserves public health and welfare).”
The legal question is whether EPA can issue GHG targets based on actions taken “beyond the fence” of regulated power plants under section 111(d) of the air law -- a hotly contested issue. EPA in its ACE rule finds that it is limited to targets based on “inside-the-fence” actions.
The new filing adds: "The Court should decline further abeyance and decide the merits, consistent with its 'virtually unflagging' obligation to hear and decide cases within its jurisdiction."
Whether or how the court may reply is unclear. The case has been on hold in 60-day increments but the court has let several of those time periods lapse. Several of the D.C. Circuit judges have expressed unease with the continued abeyance, prompting environmentalists to file a request with the Supreme Court to require CPP opponents to justify why the stay should remain in place.
The high court has no obligation to respond to the filing and to date has not done so.
The D.C. Circuit should soon decide whether to continue its abeyance or pursue another action, which could include a merits ruling, or a decision to dismiss the case and remand the rule back to EPA. That would have the effect of immediately implementing the CPP requirements -- something the agency and its supporters oppose.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/cpp-backers-aggressively-push-dc-circuit-issue-merits-decision
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