Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 10/1/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Markets Rally as Trump Hails 'Biggest Ever' Trade Deal with Canada and Mexico - as It Happened
Oct 1, 2018 | The Guardian
By Graeme Wearden
...America’s chemicals industry doesn’t agree that Nafta was a disastrous trade deal. -
(ACC Mentioned) Some Business Economists Extend Recession ETA To 2021
Oct 1, 2018 | GlobeSt
By Erika Morphy
Forecasting when the next recession will begin has become the business community’s favorite parlor game. Many groups and individuals have pinpointed the year 2020 as the likeliest ETA for the next recession. -
(ACC Mentioned) NABE Survey More Optimistic on Us Economy, Employment Growth for Year
Oct 1, 2018 | Staffing Industry
Economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics raised slightly their growth projections for the US economy in 2018, the association announced today. -
(ACC Mentioned) Environmental Sustainability in the Performance Fabric Category
Oct 1, 2018 | Furniture Today
By Adelaide Elliott
At a time when demand for performance fabric continues to peak, consumer awareness and desire for environmentally friendly products across the board also continue to grow, pushing performance brands across the category to think and market “green.” -
The Search Is on for New Cosmetic Preservatives
Sep 30, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
In May, Bocchi Laboratories recalled its Medline Remedy Essentials No-Rinse Cleansing Foam, used to wash hospital patients. -
EPA Finalizes New TSCA User Fees
Oct 1, 2018 | JD Supra
A new framework of fees to cover the costs of implementing the provisions of the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) will go into effect October 1st, under a final rule issued yesterday by EPA. -
(ACC Mentioned) Flame Retardant Ban Signed into California Law
Oct 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
California governor Jerry Brown has signed into law a ban on the use of most flame retardants in residential upholstered furniture, children's products and mattress foam. -
N.Y. Watchdog Group Finds Harmful Chemicals Are Widespread
Oct 1, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
A new report in New York finds that many public drinking water systems around the state have elevated levels of potentially harmful industrial containments. -
Echa Publishes Critical Review Report on EU Nanomaterials
Oct 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa has published an analysis of issues pertinent to market studies of manufactured nanomaterials on the EU market. -
'No-Deal' Brexit Could Result in Duplicate Animal Tests – NGO
Oct 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
An animal rights NGO has expressed its concern that animal tests could be duplicated following Brexit. -
EU Releases Guide on Poison Centre Notifications
Oct 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa has published a guidance document for companies submitting online notifications to poison centres. -
Commission Advises on Post-Brexit Detergents Regulation
Oct 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has published guidance for companies on the EU’s detergents Regulation after Brexit. -
Natural Beauty Products Aren’t Always As Natural As You’d Think
Oct 1, 2018 | HuffPost (In Yahoo News)
By Julia Brucculieri
Natural beauty products have had quite the lasting moment. Everywhere you look, whether it’s on drugstore shelves or at fancy department store beauty counters, words like “natural,” “all-natural” and “organic” are everywhere. -
EIA: US Natural Gas Exports in 1H18 Double 2017 Average
Oct 1, 2018 | Hydrocarbon Engineering
By Nicholas Woodroof
New data released by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that from January through June of 2018, net natural gas exports from the US averaged 0.87 billion ft3/d, more than double the average daily net exports during all of 2017 (0.34 billion ft3/d). -
Enviros Sue over Downsized Methane Rule
Oct 1, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Environmentalists went to court Friday to try to halt the Trump administration's latest bid to loosen regulations for oil and gas producers on public lands. -
Landowners Eye Appeal After Judge Tosses Eminent Domain Case
Oct 1, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King and Ellen M. Gilmer
A district judge last week threw out a challenge to the use of eminent domain by two natural gas pipeline developers with federal permits. -
Colorado's Initiative 97 Unwisely Blocks Oil And Natural Gas Development
Oct 1, 2018 | Forbes (In Real Clear Energy)
By Jude Clemente
Thanks to a Rocky Mountain shale party, Colorado is an increasingly important oil and gas producer. Over the past decade, Colorado's oil production has surged 365% to 380,000 b/d and natural gas production is up 30% to ~5 Bcf/d. -
Chemical Plants Need Fair Safety Guidelines
Oct 1, 2018 | Beaumont Enterprise
The state response to the tragic explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, five years ago has been to mostly ignore it. -
Trump Unveils Deal That's Mum on Climate
Oct 1, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey and Geof Koss
President Trump last night reached a deal with Canada and Mexico to revamp a key free-trade agreement. Noticeably missing is any reference to climate change despite Canada's earlier push. -
Trump Moves to Target EPA Mercury Regulation
Oct 1, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration is advancing a proposal that could weaken the legal justification behind a major 2011 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule limiting mercury pollution. -
In Rollback of Mercury Rule, Trump Could Revamp How Government Values Human Health
Oct 1, 2018 | Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis
The Environmental Protection Agency has sent a proposal to the White House that would weaken existing curbs on power plants' emissions of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin, by changing the way it calculates the cost and benefits of curbing hazardous air pollutants. -
Tensions High at Public Hearing for Climate Rule
Oct 1, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Niina Heikkinen
EPA kicked off its only scheduled public hearing on its proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan to sharp condemnation and praise. -
Texas Oil Companies Pump More Than $17 Million into Fighting Washington Carbon Tax
Oct 1, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
Texas oil companies have pumped more than $17 million into a campaign opposing a carbon tax in Washington state.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
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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Oct 1, 2018 | The Guardian
By Graeme Wearden
...America’s chemicals industry doesn’t agree that Nafta was a disastrous trade deal.
According to the American Chemistry Council, around 46,000 chemicals jobsdepend on trade with Mexico and Canada, due to the free trade links created over the last few decades. Chemical exports to the two countries have more than tripled, from $13 billion in 1994, to $44 billion in 2018.
The ACC explains:
“The U.S. chemical sector has capitalized on duty-free trade under NAFTA ever since its inception, more than tripling U.S. chemicals exports to Canada and Mexico – from $13 billion in 1994, to $44 billion in 2018. Approximately 46,000 U.S. chemical jobs now depend on trade with Canada and Mexico. And due to the chemical industry’s early position in the supply chain, U.S. chemical manufacturers have exploited the cost savings from duty-free trade with Mexico and Canada in order to power growth throughout the supply chain and lower prices for manufacturers and consumers.”
The ACC is now studying USMCA, but has already commended the negotiators for updating Nafta (despite Trump claiming Nafta is toast)...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2018/oct/01/nafta-trade-deal-nikkei-manufacturing-uk-eurozone-business-live
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(ACC Mentioned) Some Business Economists Extend Recession ETA To 2021
Oct 1, 2018 | GlobeSt
By Erika Morphy
Forecasting when the next recession will begin has become the business community’s favorite parlor game. Many groups and individuals have pinpointed the year 2020 as the likeliest ETA for the next recession. Now the influential National Association for Business Economistshave weighed in to give us a bit more runway for positive growth.
Two-thirds of the business economists surveyed expect the next recession to begin at the end of 2020 while one-third expects that there will not be a recession until 2021 or later.Industrial Is Driving Current Growth
Another finding from the report that should come as no surprise to the CRE community: industrial is driving current growth. “Despite concerns over trade policy, NABE Outlook panelists are slightly more optimistic about the US economy in 2018 than they were three months ago, especially regarding prospects for the industrial sector of the economy,” said NABE Vice President Kevin Swift, chief economist, American Chemistry Council.Growing Trade Concerns
On the downside many of the economists do have trade concerns, as Swift noted. Half of survey respondents moderately increased their inflation forecasts as a result of trade policy changes and over half reduced their GDP growth forecasts for 2018 and nearly 80% did so for 2019.
Nearly half (47%) of the panelists report they lowered their forecasts for 2018 by 0.25 percentage points or less, while 4% of panelists reduced their forecasts between 0.26 and 0.5 percentage points. Only 4% of respondents lowered their forecasts in excess of 0.25 percentage points. On the other hand, 14% of panelists boosted their GDP growth forecasts for this year by 0.01 to 0.25 percentage points. The remaining 35% of panelists made no change to their 2018 GDP growth forecasts.
For 2019 GDP growth, more than three-fourths (78%) of panelists lowered their forecasts between 0.01 and 0.5 percentage points, while 8% of panelists raised their forecasts.
https://www.globest.com/2018/10/01/some-business-economists-extend-recession-eta-to-2021/?slreturn=20180901135829
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(ACC Mentioned) NABE Survey More Optimistic on Us Economy, Employment Growth for Year
Oct 1, 2018 | Staffing Industry
Economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics raised slightly their growth projections for the US economy in 2018, the association announced today. The median forecast calls for real GDP growth of 2.9% on an annual basis this year, up from the June 2018 estimate of 2.8%. Panelists also increased their forecast for nonfarm employment growth.
“Despite concerns over trade policy, NABE Outlook panelists are slightly more optimistic about the US economy in 2018 than they were three months ago, especially regarding prospects for the industrial sector of the economy,” said Kevin Swift, VP at NABE and chief economist at American Chemistry Council. “Other indicators of real economic activity show light vehicle sales remaining elevated and housing continuing to improve.”
“Trade issues are clearly influencing panelists’ views,” added Survey Chair David Altig, executive VP and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Half of survey respondents have moderately increased their inflation forecasts as a result of trade policy changes. More than half of the survey respondents indicated they had reduced their GDP growth forecasts for 2018 and nearly 80% did so for 2019. “Nonetheless, the percentage of panelists expecting a recession in 2019 fell relative to that in the June survey,” Altig said. “One-third of respondents expect that we will not see a recession until 2021 or later.”
Panelists also now forecast nonfarm payroll growth to average 210,000 jobs per month in 2018, up from 192,000 in the June survey. However, panelists forecast a decline to 162,000 jobs per month in 2019.
The average unemployment rate for 2018 as a whole is expected to be at its current 3.9% level, unchanged from two prior forecasts. On a quarterly basis, the median forecast reflects a slight decline to 3.8% in the third quarter of 2018 and 3.7% in the fourth quarter, before settling at 3.6% in the last three quarters of 2019.
The median forecast for hourly compensation growth in 2018 rose to 3.0% from 2.8% in the June survey, but remains lower than the 3.4% actual increase in 2017. Wage compensation is expected to firm further in 2019 to a 3.2% annual average growth rate in 2019, 0.2 percentage points higher than the projection in the June survey.
NABE is a professional association for business economists and others who use economics in the workplace. The survey included 51 professional forecasters and was conducted between Aug. 28 and Sept. 17, 2018.
https://www2.staffingindustry.com/site/Editorial/Daily-News/NABE-survey-more-optimistic-on-US-economy-employment-growth-for-year-47590
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(ACC Mentioned) Environmental Sustainability in the Performance Fabric Category
Oct 1, 2018 | Furniture Today
By Adelaide Elliott
At a time when demand for performance fabric continues to peak, consumer awareness and desire for environmentally friendly products across the board also continue to grow, pushing performance brands across the category to think and market “green.”
“Everyone is trying to be conscious when it comes to environmental issues,” said Chari Voehl, Covington Fabric & Design’s vice president of design. “So that is translating into the general consumer trends toward natural, recyclable products that use less materials and less energy. It’s a demand, so it is something that performance fabrics can’t ignore.”
Reduce, reuse, recycle
The Sunbrella brand was introduced to its parent company, Glen Raven Inc., with an extended life-cycle story, making the brand initially “green back when green was just a color” before even beginning sustainability movements within the company in the 1960s, according to several representatives with the company.
“When we stopped dying natural fibers and yarns and started using the Sunbrella fiber, the raw material costs were significantly higher,” said Randy Blackston, vice president of operations at Glen Raven. “Our operational focus was to increase first quality yield and minimize waste.”
Nowadays, Sunbrella is looking to further reduce waste, power and water consumption through a variety of programs in all its manufacturing facilities.
For power, Sunbrella has looked to solar energy to meet new demands, building solutions such as a 1-megawatt solar array at its Anderson, S.C., plant, which supplies enough energy to power 105 homes and is designed to power 100% of the lights at the 1 million-square-foot facility.
In the water reduction category, Glen Raven Asia has reduced processing water consumption by 12,500 tons annually and recycles 60% of wastewater with its onsite wastewater treatment system.
“We track everything — energy, water consumption, waste density — and we are constantly looking at efficiency and minimizing our impact,” said Kelsey Herring, an environmental and sustainability engineer with Glen Raven.
To combat waste, Sunbrella has actively sought new ways to reduce initial created waste, and the company has been successful in going landfill free in many facilities.
“Sustainability is not just about recycling more,” said Blackston. “It’s about using less, which is why we are removing cardboard from our stream, even though it’s a recyclable product, and looking at using returnable plastic containers to minimize the amount of cardboard we’re recycling.”
In addition to its traditional material reducing programs, five years ago, the company also began a program called “Recycle My Sunbrella,” which provides homeowners and business customers with a path to recycle their acrylic materials. To obtain recyclable materials, Sunbrella developed a partnership with the South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation organization, which receives and sorts mailed and shipped returned materials for recycling. From there, Sunbrella uses in-house processes to upgrade reclaimed fibers so it can produce high-quality fabric again.
Sunbrella’s processes for waste-free production have been streamlined after years of implementation, and the company is now able to bring facilities up to the company’s standards within months, as the company did when it acquired Sunbury, whose facilities were landfill free within a few months.
Vertical strategy
At Revolution Fabrics, waste reduction has been a key part of the company’s environmentally friendly movement, too.
“We’re about 95% landfill free. It’s a part of the company’s ethos, so we have worked to grow that, and continue to try and make that a bigger part of the company.”
To do so, the company has made moves to recycle and repurpose vertically. Fabric cones are recycled, salvage waste fabrics are sold to the noise control and insulation industry, and the company has even purchased a custom bagging machine that molds bags closer to the product, to help cut down on plastic waste by almost 35%.
The 5% of leftover waste at the company, Gibbons said, comes from things such as food scraps from their cafeteria, and even that they are looking to minimize.
“We are always looking for new technology to help us further our environmentally sustainable goals,” Gibbons said. “We start with an upcycled yarn, so it’s important to be transparent about our environmental practices.”
The “green product” Revolution Fabrics starts with, according to Gibbons, is the company’s material of choice: polypropylene fabrics.
“Revolution fabrics use polypropylene, which is a byproduct of oil refining and natural gas processing, and before it began being used in fabrics and other products in the 1960s, it was burned off and discarded,” Gibbons said. “So by using it now, we’re starting with a low-impact product because we’re essentially upcycling something that would otherwise have been thrown away.”
Polypropylene fabrics, which are sometimes called olefin fabrics, according to Gibbons, also require less energy and water to make because it is not grown somewhere and then shipped like a natural fiber and it produces little waste. The fabrics also do not require chemical washes to achieve their performance cleaning abilities and durability, so Revolution Fabrics do not come in contact with PFC chemicals, which, according to Gibbons, have been linked to harmful health effects.
Upcycled durability
Covington Fabric & Design makes use of polypropylene materials, too, according to Voehl and the company’s senior vice president of sales and marketing, Tom Bruno.
“Olefin is an indoor/outdoor product that we’ve been using longer than some of our other kinds of performance fabrics, so we have been taking advantage of a green material that has no added chemicals for awhile,” said Voehl.
In addition to the polypropylene fabrics, Bruno said, Covington also uses immersion dyes on natural fibers that meet a variety of quality standards, and he credits much of the company’s sustainable message to the durability of both of those products.
“We’ve created the Covington Easy Clean brand to address the needs of a highly active lifestyle at home that will remain easy to clean and durable, extending the life of the product. That is a big part of our environmentally friendly story.”
Crypton Fabrics also puts an emphasis on its product durability as a key part of its environmental impact.
“When it comes to sustainability, one of the things we’re most proud of is extending the useful life of fabric, which can be quantified based on manufacturers’ data on greenhouse gas emissions avoided, less landfill and less water consumption,” said Jack Eger, Crypton Fabrics’ senior vice president.
Third-party certifications are also a key part of Crypton Fabrics’ environmentally friendly practices, as Eger said the company “actively seeks out” vetting through standards such as its Greenguard Gold certification, its NSF/ANSI 336 Facility Validation from SCS Global Services and its membership with the Sustainable Furnishings Council.
All of Crypton Fabrics’ certifications come through its manufacturing processes, which feature things like Crypton C-Zero, developed to meet no-fleurotechnology requirements for the contract market, and programs like its ongoing recycling program for manufacturing remnants.
‘Clean chemistry’
Richloom Fabrics Group bases its environmentally friendly practices on a “plant-based clean chemistry performance story,” according to Nolan Mitchell, Richloom Fabrics Group’s vice president of upholstery sales and merchandising, relying on clean chemicals and clean products as a large part of their environmentally friendly practices.
“In addition to being plant based, this chemistry is PFC Free, PFOA Free and PFOS Free,” Mitchell said. “We have adopted best environmental practices as set forth by the American Chemistry Council while meeting the most stringent standards of restricted substance lists.”
Al Fresco Functional Fabrics keeps things local, and green, by keeping its production in the United States.
“We base all of our production in the Carolinas, from the actual yarn to the weaving process,” said Al Fresco Functional Fabrics’ President Todd Nifong. “We don’t outsource, so we lessen our impact with things like carbon emissions.”
In addition to keeping shipping impact low, Nifong said keeping production of the fabric nearby geographically also allows the company to manage more closely everything that goes into manufacturing.
“There are some inherent environmental impacts with any kind of production, but by keeping our process close, we are able to work with our suppliers through the whole process to reduce our environmental impact along the way.”
Into the future
Looking at the future of environmentally friendly and sustainable practices in the performance fabrics industry, the suppliers agree that consumer demand for it will remain, so they are all looking to increase in-house practices and marketing.
“We are not hiding anything in our process,” Gibbons said about Revolution Fabrics’ marketing. “We want people to find our product and realize it is the most environmentally friendly upholstery fabric on the market through research, so we try to provide a jumping-off point through videos and explanations of our processes and through links to outside research and other information.”
For Revolution Fabrics, consumer awareness has grown, and the company has received positive feedback on its efforts to educate and plans to grow that initiative alongside its other, direct environmental efforts.
“We will work to decrease our already low numbers,” Gibbons said. “We’ll get that 5% of waste down to 1% and then maybe find new transportation methods that cut down even further on our use of power and fuel when we ship our domestic product. During all of that, we’ll continue to update our customers because transparency will continue to be the most important thing in the future.”
Sunbrella has similar goals and has plans in place to continue to shrink its energy and water use as well as bring all of its facilities up to new standards. In the next three years, Glen Ravens plans to reduce total energy consumption by 10%.
At Crypton Fabrics, exploring new and experimental fabrics is the trend Eger sees moving forward with environmental awareness and sustainable practices.
“The high-end fashion textile industry is currently experimenting in interesting ways with textile technologies,” Eger said. “Fascinating things are happening globally including experimental use of a wearable ‘paper’ and applying synthetic biology to the use of plant root structures as potential fibers. The finishing of many of these new-age textiles is also eco-conscious, using natural dyes, laser surfacing and efficient ultrasonic construction.”
Ultimately, most suppliers predict, any changes made in the future will need to be done with customer awareness and an ethos of responsibility at the forefront.
“There is a pressure on suppliers to push information down to consumers about how the product was created, so we are now providing more product information than eveer before and testing our product more and more. That will continue to be important,” Nifong said.
“We see eco-friendly products on the rise across the board, from the foods we eat to the clothes we wear,” said Mitchell about Richloom Fabrics Group’s goals. “So, we will work with the belief that what you sit on should be no different.”
http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/557898-environmental-sustainability-performance-fabric-category/
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The Search Is on for New Cosmetic Preservatives
Sep 30, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
In May, Bocchi Laboratories recalled its Medline Remedy Essentials No-Rinse Cleansing Foam, used to wash hospital patients. Burkholderia cepacia, a Gram-negative bacteria complex that can lead to serious respiratory infections in immune-compromised individuals, had contaminated the preparation. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration warned of a possible life-threatening infection, and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention confirmed 15 illnesses in hospitalized patients.
FDA’s cosmetic recall database lists a half-dozen other cases of contaminated cosmetics since June. The recalls involved batches of baby wash, body care products, and tattoo inks with high levels of potentially harmful microbial organisms. Among the contaminants were infection-causing Enterobacter aerogenes and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
FDA doesn’t disclose the reasons for the contamination, but faulty preservatives could be involved. Without preservatives, many personal care products would be hospitable breeding grounds for bacteria, fungi, and mold. At a minimum, these bad actors can make shampoos and skin creams look unappealing and smell bad. More seriously, they can cause eye, skin, and respiratory infections.
However, many of the preservatives that prevent the growth of harmful microorganisms in personal care products are themselves accused of irritating skin, causing allergic reactions, and disrupting the human endocrine system. Last year, European authorities banned the use of methylisothiazolinone in cosmetics, such as lotions that remain on the skin, because the ingredient can be irritating.
European regulators also put restrictions on paraben preservatives such as propylparaben, fearing they might be endocrine disruptors. Though the government-sanctioned body reviewing parabens did not come to a definitive conclusion on their endocrine disruption potential, it agreed to cut back how much formulators could use in a product.
Separately, environmental groups are lobbying against formaldehyde-releasing agents, such as DMDM hydantoin, because they might evoke an allergic response.
Large personal care product makers take the criticisms seriously. In recent years, for example, Johnson & Johnson has removed formaldehyde donors and parabens from its baby products. Yet a J&J advertorial in the Sept. 9 issue of the New York Times Magazine points out that personal care preservatives are not necessarily harmful and that synthetic chemicals are not automatically inferior to natural ingredients.
Caught in a similar bind, traditional preservative suppliers such as Lonza and Clariant are turning to food preservatives and to naturally derived synergists to make a little bit of a preservative go a long way. They are also pursuing new technology and seeking out academic and government experts who can help them find biobased alternatives to dependable, low-cost synthetic preservatives. But making the change isn’t easy.
Some food preservatives have always found use in personal care products, but the current brouhaha means makers of food preservatives are experiencing an uptick in demand. Edward Gotch, CEO of Emerald Kalama Chemical, a maker of benzoates—including benzoic acid, sodium benzoate, and benzyl alcohol—says the number of personal care products launched containing benzoates is rising 7% annually. Benzoates have been used safely for years in foods and beverages, he points out.
They are a readily available alternative to those biocides now under fire, Gotch says. Benzoic acid produced via toluene oxidation is no different than the benzoic acid found in cranberries, he notes. What’s more, certification agencies such as Ecocert accept benzoic acid in products labeled organic, he says. The firm recently completed an expansion of benzoic acid capacity in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and it plans to add more sodium benzoate capacity at the site within the next two years.
Another food preservative, cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), is also expanding its presence in personal care. CPC “has been a trusted ingredient for over 50 years,” says Jessica Byrd, a marketing manager for CPC maker Vertellus. CPC prevents bacteria growth in meat and poultry processing plants, she says. In addition, many mouthwash makers use CPC as their active ingredient.
CPC still awaits a listing on Annex V, the European list of approved cosmetic preservatives. The ingredient is effective against most microbial contaminants, with the exception of some types of Aspergillus fungi in some types of cosmetic formulations, Byrd says. For those formulations, Vertellus offers a blend of CPC with benzoic acid to give broad-spectrum coverage.
Nicolas Lasbistes, a personal care technical marketing manager for Clariant, calls the growing use of food preservatives in cosmetics the “skin-food trend.” The idea is that “if it’s good to eat, it should be good for my skin,” he says. That way of thinking cuts across cultural differences and is attractive to consumers across the globe, he notes.
That wide appeal is partly the reason Clariant incorporates food preservatives into its Nipaguard range of preservatives intended to replace parabens. Benzoic acid and benzyl alcohol are among the ingredients used. The line also includes potassium sorbate, a food preservative widely used to inhibit mold and yeast in foods such as cheese, yogurt, and apple cider.
Key to the effectiveness of the Nipaguard line, Lasbistes says, is the inclusion of the preservative booster sorbitan caprylate, which is made by reacting sorbitan from wheat or corn with caprylic acid derived from palm or coconut oil. Sorbitan caprylate acts like a surfactant to crack open bacteria and cell membranes. The preservatives can then penetrate the microorganisms and kill them.
Other preservative suppliers are also using boosters to enhance the effectiveness of both traditional and newer preservatives. Phil Hindley, marketing head for preservation at Lonza, says his firm is working with booster technology to keep an effective traditional preservative, phenoxyethanol, in the formulator’s toolbox. Critics now attack phenoxyethanol, which has been in use since the 1950s, as a skin irritant.
Even though European authorities reviewed phenoxyethanol two years ago and reaffirmed that cosmetic formulators can safely use it at 1% concentration, Hindley thinks questions raised by critics about the preservative have damaged its long-term prospects. One way to allay consumer and regulatory concerns, he says, is to add a booster that allows phenoxyethanol to work effectively at concentrations below 1%.
Lonza offers a blend of phenoxyethanol and chlorphenesin with the booster caprylyl glycol. But formulating some of the new blends can be tricky. Traditional preservatives such as parabens “were built as biocides and had minimal impact on formulation properties,” Hindley says.
Cosmetic makers typically need to add a higher percentage of the alternative blends to do the work of a traditional preservative. The larger preservative load can affect cosmetic properties such as skin feel. “As we move away from the era of traditional chemical preservatives, the art of preservation can no longer be an afterthought,” Hindley says.
As formulators make the move, they should think long and hard about the alternatives, says Nava Dayan, a skin research consultant to personal care and pharmaceutical firms. “You can’t just assume that if you can safely swallow a preservative it will also be safe on your skin,” she says.
A person’s gastrointestinal system is well equipped to break down chemicals in food that the liver then neutralizes, Dayan explains. “This doesn’t happen when you apply preservative-containing cosmetics on your skin,” she says.
And Dayan says she can understand why some people may be concerned about traditional preservatives as well. “We are limited in our ability to understand long-term cumulative exposure to preservatives,” she says. “Are they absorbed in the blood? Are they metabolized or excreted? Or do they accumulate in the body, and could they be harmful, and to what extent?”
Questions like these apply to new preservatives under development too. A competition under the aegis of the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) turned up a few new preservative options this summer. Consumer product companies, major retailers, and preservative makers including Lonza and Dow Chemical backed the challenge, in which winners shared $175,000 in prize money.
Among the winners was the Safer Preservation Project, led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Project members William Hart-Cooper, a USDA research chemist; Heather Buckley, a University of Victoria assistant professor; Kaj Johnson, a product development director at cleaning products maker Method, and others developed what Hart-Cooper calls a nonirritating, low eco-toxic, broad-spectrum preservative made from two nontoxic components. When diluted in water treatment plants, the preservative molecule dissociates into benign biodegradable components, he says.
Because USDA hasn’t received a patent yet, Hart-Cooper won’t reveal details, other than to say that the ingredients are mostly from common agricultural products.
But formulators will want to know a whole lot more about the new preservatives before they consider putting them into a product. When they use a preservative, formulators are essentially investing in an insurance policy, Dayan says.
Their goal is to protect cosmetic formulas from contamination and shield users from harm. “So they must do a thorough assessment of the preservatives they use,” Dayan says, to be sure they choose the right insurance vehicle.
https://cen.acs.org/business/consumer-products/search-new-cosmetic-preservatives/96/i39
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EPA Finalizes New TSCA User Fees
Oct 1, 2018 | JD Supra
A new framework of fees to cover the costs of implementing the provisions of the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) will go into effect October 1st, under a final rule issued yesterday by EPA. The fees are designed to collect $20 million annually from chemical manufacturers, importers, and processors, or about 25% of the expected agency costs of implementing the new mandates of TSCA, including chemical prioritization and risk evaluation tasks, as well as review of toxicity and exposure data submitted under an EPA test order.
These fees are intended to achieve the goals articulated by Congress by providing a sustainable source of funds for EPA to fulfill its legal obligations to conduct activities such as designating applicable substances as High- and Low-Priority, conducting risk evaluations to determine whether a chemical substance presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, requiring testing of chemical substances and mixtures, and evaluating and reviewing new chemical submissions, as required under TSCA sections 4, 5 and 6, as well as and collecting, processing, reviewing, and providing access to and protecting information about chemical substances from
disclosure as appropriate under TSCA section 14.Examples of some of the fees manufacturers (and sometimes processors) would pay include:
• $1.3 million for agency-initiated chemical risk evaluations;
• $2.5 million for manufacturer-requested risk evaluations for chemicals not on EPA’s 2014 TSCA Work Plan list, and $1.25 million for chemicals on the list;
• Between $9,800 and $22,800 for EPA review of toxicity, exposure, and other information companies submit in response to an EPA order, regulation, or negotiated agreement;
• $16,000 for EPA review of new chemicals (or certain new uses).
The final rule largely adopts the user fee program as proposed in February, with certain modifications to the procedures for identifying manufacturers subject to the fees, the fee calculation for chemical reviews requested by manufacturers (which are substantially higher than the fees for agency-initiated reviews), and the standard for identifying “small businesses” subject to fee reductions of approximately 80%.
The fee rule is the fourth and final of EPA’s “framework rules” for implementing the 2016 TSCA amendments. The first three rules addressed chemical prioritization for risk assessment; the process for conducting risk evaluation; and update of the TSCA existing chemical inventory.
Further details and background information on the fee rule is available from EPA’s website: www.epa.gov/tsca-fees.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/epa-finalizes-new-tsca-user-fees-80041/
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(ACC Mentioned) Flame Retardant Ban Signed into California Law
Oct 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
California governor Jerry Brown has signed into law a ban on the use of most flame retardants in residential upholstered furniture, children's products and mattress foam.
The US state – which recently overtook the UK to become the world's fifth-largest economy – will bar the sale of covered products containing, or with constituent parts containing, flame retardants at levels above 1,000 parts per million, beginning in 2020.
California lawmakers have cited concern with the widespread exposure to the substances, and such potential adverse health effects as endocrine disruption and cancer. According to the bill's analysis document, flame retardants "do not provide a meaningful fire safety benefit," and it is "senseless to allow these toxic chemical to continue being used".
The requirements extend to new upholstered furniture, the interior foam of mattresses and children's products such as bassinets, playmats, highchairs, infant carriers and strollers. Replacement parts used in the repair or restoration of reupholstered furniture are also covered.
Covered substances
As originally introduced, the bill (AB 2998) applied to all substances with a functional use to resist or inhibit the spread of a fire. But amendments in the Senate resulted in a more refined definition that will allow for the use of certain inorganic, non-halogenated substances.
In this way, the law cover a slightly narrower collection of substances than a sweeping flame retardant ban, set to take effect in Maine in 2019. That law, however, does not extend to children's products or mattress components.
The California law also stops short of a flame retardant ordinance passed by one of its most populous cities, San Francisco, in that it does not apply to electronic components of covered products.
Existing California law requires furniture to bear a label indicating whether or not it contains added chemical flame retardants. And the state has banned the flame retardants pentaBDE and octaBDE from any product above a 0.1% threshold.
These requirements will remain in place despite the new law.
'Science over propaganda'
The American Chemistry Council (ACC), the California Chamber of Commerce, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA), the Toy Association and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (Rila) all registered their opposition to the measure.
The ACC's North American Flame Retardant Alliance (Nafra) has defended that the substances' use in consumer products serves as an "important fire safety tool".
But a variety of NGOs, firefighter groups and architectural, healthcare and furniture organisations support the measure.
NGO the Center for Environmental Health's Alvaro Casanova said the law represents a public health victory, and is a "testament to what is possible when lawmakers follow sound science over chemical industry propaganda".
https://chemicalwatch.com/70521/flame-retardant-ban-signed-into-california-law
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N.Y. Watchdog Group Finds Harmful Chemicals Are Widespread
Oct 1, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
A new report in New York finds that many public drinking water systems around the state have elevated levels of potentially harmful industrial containments.
The New York Public Interest Research Group looked at federal data on water systems around the state. It found eight with varying levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) or perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), chemicals that have contaminated drinking water in Rensselaer County and Newburgh.
Another 49 systems had levels of an industrial solvent known as dioxane, which has contaminated water supplies on Long Island.
The review was published today, a day before a state drinking water council is due to release its first recommendations on whether New York should set maximum levels for the substances
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/10/01/stories/1060100179
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Echa Publishes Critical Review Report on EU Nanomaterials
Oct 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa has published an analysis of issues pertinent to market studies of manufactured nanomaterials on the EU market.
The report is entitled: Critical review of the relevance and reliability of data sources, methods, parameters and determining factors to produce market studies on manufactured nanomaterials on the EU market.
Available as a free download in English via the EU online bookshop, it serves as a basis for conducting and producing new studies on the European nanomaterials market.
Earlier this month, the EU Observatory for Nanomaterials released a report that said companies should share 'sensitive' data on how they produce and use nano-sized pigments to help build exposure scenarios for risk assessments.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70647/echa-publishes-critical-review-report-on-eu-nanomaterials
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'No-Deal' Brexit Could Result in Duplicate Animal Tests – NGO
Oct 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
An animal rights NGO has expressed its concern that animal tests could be duplicated following Brexit.
The UK may need to repeat tests conducted on animals for EU market substances if it leaves without a trade deal and is not allowed access to Echa's data, Cruelty Free International has said.
Its comments come after the recent publication of UK government guidance on REACH in the eventuality that Britain leaves without a deal on 29 March. The document "fails to include any mention" of animal testing, CFI said.
Although a 'no-deal' scenario could mean no new animal tests in the short-term, CFI added, once an initial transition phase is over, tests would be required from Echa and the UK for the same chemicals.
The government's guidance says that Britain would establish a national regulatory framework and build domestic capacity to deliver functions currently performed by Echa. The legislation would preserve REACH "as far as possible", while making technical changes as a result of the UK’s departure.
CFI urged the government to "strengthen" its policies and use Brexit as an opportunity to make a "real impact" in reducing the numbers of animals used in experiments.
However, it said, junior environment minister Thérèse Coffey did not rule out the possibility of more animal testing under a no-deal Brexit, in her July address to a House of Lords select committee.
Last year, the National Anti-Vivisection Society (Navs) issued a similar warning on Brexit and urged the government to give a clear commitment that EU regulations aimed at phasing out animal testing will not be dismantled.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70645/no-deal-brexit-could-result-in-duplicate-animal-tests-ngo
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EU Releases Guide on Poison Centre Notifications
Oct 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa has published a guidance document for companies submitting online notifications to poison centres.
The report, entitled: How to prepare and submit information to poison centres, is available in English as a free download via the EU’s online bookshop.
Information submitted for the purposes of making an emergency health response may vary between EU member states. From 1 January 2020 a new Poison Centres (PCN) portal format will harmonise and reduce inconsistencies in the information made available to medical personnel in different states.
In August, Cefic said delays and unresolved issues mean it will be "impossible" for the European Commission to deliver IT tools needed for the 2020 deadline for harmonised information relating to emergency health response (poison centres).
https://chemicalwatch.com/70650/eu-releases-guide-on-poison-centre-notifications
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Commission Advises on Post-Brexit Detergents Regulation
Oct 1, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has published guidance for companies on the EU’s detergents Regulation after Brexit.
Subject to any transitional arrangement, EU rules on detergents will no longer apply in Britain from 30 March 2019.
A report, entitled: Brexit – guidance to stakeholders on impact in the field of detergents, gives information on:
· responsibilities for importers;
· labelling; and
· approved laboratories.
More information published by the European Commission on Brexit can be found on the website of the European Commission's Task Force for Article 50 negotiations with the UK.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70649/commission-advises-on-post-brexit-detergents-regulation
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Natural Beauty Products Aren’t Always As Natural As You’d Think
Oct 1, 2018 | HuffPost (In Yahoo News)
By Julia Brucculieri
Natural beauty products have had quite the lasting moment. Everywhere you look, whether it’s on drugstore shelves or at fancy department store beauty counters, words like “natural,” “all-natural” and “organic” are everywhere. We see the words printed on moisturizers, serums, face masks and scrubs, seemingly there to convince us that natural and organic equals better.
And we’re buying it. A 2016 survey of over 1,000 women by Statista found that 73 percent of women between ages 18 and 34 said the term “all-natural” was important to them when purchasing beauty products. And the majority of women in all age groups surveyed agreed. The organic personal care market is also expected to be worth more than $25 billion by 2025, according to a report by Grand View Research, Inc.
But here’s the thing: When it comes to beauty and personal care products, the term “natural” doesn’t really hold much weight. In other words, your favorite bottle of coconut milk shampoo didn’t grow on a coconut tree, and it most definitely contains more than coconut milk. So if you’ve been spending your money ― sometimes premium dollars ― on products claiming to be “natural” or “made with all-natural ingredients,” just know that you might not be getting what you paid for.
What does “natural” mean, then?
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a concrete answer, perhaps because the United States Food and Drug Administration has no regulations in place for the terms “natural” or “all-natural.”
The FDA website states that the “FDA has not defined the term ‘natural’ and has not established a regulatory definition for this term in cosmetic labeling.”
As a result, “Really, the term ‘natural’ could refer to almost any product,” Perry Romanowski, president of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists and co-founder of The Beauty Brains website, told HuffPost.
“However,” he added, “the [Federal Trade Commission] has said that if companies are going to make the claims ‘all natural’ or ‘100 percent natural,’ they can’t use synthetic ingredients. Of course, there is still a lot of wiggle room because they don’t define what qualifies as a ‘synthetic’ ingredient.”
Really, the term ‘natural’ could refer to almost any product. Perry Romanowski, president of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists
The Oxford Dictionary defines natural as “existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind.” In that sense, natural ingredients would be ingredients that come from nature and/or living (or once-living) organisms. Water and coconut oil, for example, are common natural ingredients found in products like moisturizers and shampoos. But ingredients derived from nature can also be mixed with synthetic chemicals, or even processed into new things. You can see why the term is so hard to define.
Nneka Leiba, director of Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) healthy living science program, proposed some thought-provoking questions on the subject in an interview with HuffPost.
“If something is naturally derived, but then synthesized with chemicals of concern, does that still make it natural? Or, at that point, has it been synthesized so much it’s no longer natural, and you’ve added chemicals of concern?” she asked.
Finding truly natural products isn’t as easy as reading a label.
According to Romanowski, “cosmetics are not actually natural.”
“Unlike food, there does not exist a shampoo shrub, a body wash bush, or a lipstick plant,” he said via email. “For food, plants produce the finished product. Cosmetics are not like this. ALL cosmetics must be processed in some way.”
If you’re ever worried whether the products you’re buying are natural, you should look at the ingredients and research the ones you don’t recognize. As Leiba pointed out, it can be difficult to understand what’s in a product, especially when you see extremely long and hard-to-pronounce chemical names.
Even natural or naturally derived ingredients can be hard to identify. For example, maranta arundinacea root is more commonly known as arrowroot powder, and montmorillonite is a type of clay.
“You shouldn’t have to be a toxicologist or a chemist to know which product to carry home,” she said. “Natural” doesn’t always mean better for you.
According to Leiba, there’s a misconception among many consumers that natural means safe or better for you. That isn’t always the case.
“I like to say that poison ivy is natural, but I definitely don’t want it in my daily face cream. I would not be able to leave my house,” Leiba said. “There are other ingredients that are natural ― lead, arsenic, are all-natural ― so just because a product says it’s natural does not indicate that it’s safe.”
She also explained that many beauty and personal care products need to contain some preservatives and that it’s hard ― though not impossible ― to find natural options that will work well enough. However, parabens and methylisothiazolinone are two preservatives to avoid in general, Leiba said, as they have been linked to endocrine disruption and contact dermatitis, respectively.
“I would just urge that whoever is looking for an all-natural product to make sure that their product is adequately preserved,” Leiba said. “A great public health risk would be if all of our product lost preservatives and the bacteria grew and you could get an eye infection, or worse, lose sight, or worse.
”What about “organic”? Does that mean anything?
While the FDA does not have a definition or regulations for “organic” beauty products, the USDA does.
There are four labeling categories the USDA uses to define organic products. The first is “100 percent organic,” which means the product must contain only organically sourced ingredients, that is, ingredients gown in soil that hasn’t been treated with “prohibited” fertilizers and pesticides for at least three years prior to harvest. The second is “organic,” which means a product must contain 95 percent organically sourced ingredients. The third is “made with organic ingredients,” which means products must be made with 70 percent organically sourced ingredients. Finally, products containing less than 70 percent of organic ingredients, but still containing some organic ingredients, can identify the ingredients that are organic on the labels.
Organic products do come with benefits, Leiba said: “Those ingredients wouldn’t have pesticide residue on them, and also, being organic definitely has positive impact on the environment and workers’ health.”
“Looking for an organic product is not a bad thing,” she said, “but it’s not the only thing that you should be looking for.”
What should you be looking for, then?
For those who prefer to buy natural products, Romanowski suggested looking for products that are certified organic by the USDA or even the Natural Products Association. Whole Foods, he noted, also has a fairly strict code when it comes to selling natural products on its shelves, which may be helpful to consumers.
There are also databases to help consumers make more informed decisions about their beauty product purchases. Leiba pointed to EWG’s Skin Deep Database, which provides scores for over 74,000 products based on their ingredients and potential health risks. EWG also has its own mark of verification for products that are free from chemicals the organization identifies as harmful.
Beautypedia, which features skin care and beauty product reviews based on medical and scientific research, is another great resource for consumers, as is The Good Guide, an online database with ratings for over 75,000 products. There are also apps like Think Dirty, which helps consumers find information about any potentially harmful ingredients in their favorite beauty products.
Romanowski suggested that if people want to buy natural products, they may have to lower their expectations for how well those products will work. In his opinion, natural cosmetic products “do not work as well as standard cosmetics.”
At the end of the day, do what’s right for you.
Whether to use natural skin care and beauty products is up to you. But whenever you’re introducing new products into your routine, you should always do your research. Look up the ingredients, figure out if they are natural or organic (if that’s important to you) and, most importantly, consult a dermatologist if you’re at all concerned about what’s in your products.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/natural-beauty-products-aren-t-001035979.html
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EIA: US Natural Gas Exports in 1H18 Double 2017 Average
Oct 1, 2018 | Hydrocarbon Engineering
By Nicholas Woodroof
New data released by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that from January through June of 2018, net natural gas exports from the US averaged 0.87 billion ft3/d, more than double the average daily net exports during all of 2017 (0.34 billion ft3/d).
The US, which became a net natural gas exporter on an annual basis in 2017 for the first time in almost 60 years, has continued to export more natural gas than it imports for five of the first six months in 2018.
US natural gas exports have increased primarily with the addition of new LNG export facilities in the Lower 48 states. US exports of LNG through the first half of 2018 rose 58% compared with the same period in 2017, averaging 2.72 billion ft3/d.
Total US LNG export capacity reached 3.6 billion ft3/d in March 2018. The LNG facility at Sabine Pass in Louisiana has an export capacity of 2.8 billion ft3/d, which includes the recently completed Train 4. Cove Point LNG in Maryland, which has an export capacity of 0.8 billion ft3/d, delivered its first cargo in March 2018 and entered full commercial service in April. In the first two full months of operation after the capacity additions (May and June), Cove Point exported an average of 0.57 billion ft3/d (76%) of its nameplate capacity. Another four LNG facilities are under construction and planned to enter into service by the end of 2019, ultimately increasing US LNG export capacity to 9.6 billion ft3/d.
While US LNG exports have continued to grow in 2018, US natural gas pipeline import and export volumes have either remained relatively flat or declined from 2017 levels. Exports of natural gas by pipeline to Mexico grew by just 4%, while exports of natural gas by pipeline to Canada declined 14%. Most of this decline occurred in deliveries from St. Clair, Michigan, to the Dawn hub in Ontario, Canada. Although US exports into eastern Canada declined, eastbound flows on the TransCanada Mainline from western Canada increased by 0.26 billion ft3/d from 2017 as tolls on the pipeline were lowered this year, according to data from Canada’s National Energy Board.
January was the only month so far in 2018 in which the US was not a net exporter of natural gas. In that month, extreme and prolonged low temperatures led to record demand for natural gas. US natural gas imports from Canada during January averaged 9.25 billion ft3/d, its highest level since January 2014.
Monthly average US LNG imports, which peaked at 0.53 billion ft3/d in January, were also higher this winter than in the previous two winters. Although most LNG cargos are contracted too far in advance to respond to weather events, one cargo containing 3.1 ft3/d of LNG was purchased on the spot market and delivered to the LNG import terminal in Everett, Massachusetts, on January 28 to meet increased demand. This one cargo was enough to shift the US from being a net exporter to a net importer of natural gas for that month.
According to EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook, net natural gas exports are expected to continue rising through the end of 2018 as additional LNG export capacity comes online and as natural gas infrastructure in Mexico is placed into service. Overall net natural gas exports are expected to average 2.0 billion ft3/d in 2018 and 5.8 billion ft3/d in 2019.
https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/01102018/eia-us-natural-gas-imports-in-1h18-double-2017-average/
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Enviros Sue over Downsized Methane Rule
Oct 1, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Environmentalists went to court Friday to try to halt the Trump administration's latest bid to loosen regulations for oil and gas producers on public lands.
Eighteen environmental groups are urging the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to scrap the Interior Department's new methane rule — a steeply curtailed replacement of the Obama-era effort to decrease waste and greenhouse gas emissions on public and tribal lands.
"We are going to court on behalf of American taxpayers, public health, and the planet," Earthjustice lawyer Robin Cooley, who is representing the coalition, said in a statement.
"The Trump administration is not above the law," she added. "Interior Secretary [Ryan] Zinke cannot yank away a common-sense rule that was the product of years of careful deliberation simply to appease his friends in the oil and gas industry."
Interior's Bureau of Land Management unveiled its scaled-back methane regulation last month, maintaining that the Obama administration's version overstepped the agency's legal authority.
New Mexico and California have already sued over the new rule (Energywire, Sept. 19).
A key issue in the dispute over BLM's authority involves the Mineral Leasing Act, which requires the agency to ensure that developers working on public lands do not waste oil or gas. The venting, flaring or leaking of methane — the main component of natural gas — costs taxpayers money in the form of lost revenue and contributes to climate change.
The new environmental lawsuit alleges that Interior reworked the definition of "waste" to ensure maximum benefit to oil and gas companies, at the expense of taxpayers and public welfare.
"Pursuant to the new definition, the agency now considers only the profits of individual oil and gas companies — not economic losses or other impacts to the public — when deciding what constitutes waste," the complaint says.
The groups also contend that BLM failed to justify its decision to downsize the rule and relied on a faulty cost-benefit analysis and a shoddy environmental review to complete the rulemaking.
The coalition includes the Sierra Club, Los Padres ForestWatch, the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Wilderness Society, the National Wildlife Federation, Citizens for a Healthy Community, Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, Fort Berthold Protectors of Water and Earth Rights, the Montana Environmental Information Center, the San Juan Citizens Alliance, the Western Organization of Resource Councils, Wilderness Workshop, WildEarth Guardians, and the Wyoming Outdoor Council.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/01/stories/1060100117
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Landowners Eye Appeal After Judge Tosses Eminent Domain Case
Oct 1, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King and Ellen M. Gilmer
A district judge last week threw out a challenge to the use of eminent domain by two natural gas pipeline developers with federal permits.
In an opinion Friday, Senior Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia cited Federal Energy Regulatory Commission permitting authority under the Natural Gas Act, and the court's role in adjudicating challenges to FERC pipeline certificates.
Fifty landowners and Bold Alliance, known for its opposition to the Keystone XL oil pipeline, brought the lawsuit against FERC last year, targeting both the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley natural gas pipelines. Both projects, which are under construction, would move gas from West Virginia to East Coast hubs.
Carolyn Elefant, a lawyer for the landowners group, said her team is weighing all of its options, including a possible appeal.
"Needless to say, we are disappointed by the federal district court's ruling," she wrote in an email. "The court's failure to entertain a statutory and constitutional challenge to the eminent domain powers granted under conditioned and overbroad certificates means that landowners are without a forum to timely address these claims that FERC has said it lacks the power to address."
Pipeline developers have argued that the groups chose the wrong venue for the case. A U.S. appeals court is the appropriate court under federal law, they argued.
The court's ruling is the latest defeat for a set of ambitious lawsuits challenging FERC's practice of delegating eminent domain authority to pipeline developers (Energywire, Sept. 13, 2017).
According to Bold Alliance and other critics, the agency's system violates the Natural Gas Act and the Constitution because it does not afford due process to landowners and does not ensure that pipelines actually serve a public use.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a district court's rejection of a similar challenge focused on the Mountain Valley pipeline.
The question of jurisdiction has dogged the legal efforts. Under the NGA, challenges to pipeline certificates must first be raised with FERC. Then, after the commission completes an internal rehearing process, opponents can file lawsuits in a federal appeals courts.
The landowners in both recent cases filed their lawsuits in district court, not an appeals court, and before FERC's rehearing process was complete. They argued that the approach was permissible because their challenges raised broad constitutional issues, not specific complaints about pipeline certificates.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/01/stories/1060100115
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Colorado's Initiative 97 Unwisely Blocks Oil And Natural Gas Development
Oct 1, 2018 | Forbes (In Real Clear Energy)
By Jude Clemente
Thanks to a Rocky Mountain shale party, Colorado is an increasingly important oil and gas producer. Over the past decade, Colorado's oil production has surged 365% to 380,000 b/d and natural gas production is up 30% to ~5 Bcf/d. The future shines bright: "Western Colorado's Mancos Shale formation holds an estimated 66.3 Tcf of natural gas, way up from the 1.6 Tcf estimate in its 2003 appraisal. puts the Mancos basin 2nd only to the Marcellus Shale in terms of the largest gas reserves in the U.S."
But now unfortunately, Colorado has been thrown in the oil and gas news for all the wrong reasons.
Initiative 97 would push all new oil and gas development to at least 2,500 feet from "occupied structures" such as homes, schools, business, and hospitals and "vulnerable areas" such as lakes, rivers, and parks. This is 2.5 to 5 times greater than current rules, and would cause a major problem for the fracking and horizontal drilling techniques used to develop shale rock formations. Some 50-60% of the state’s total land mass would suddenly be off-limits.
Initiative 97 is a bad idea.
Colorado's oil and gas business generates billions of dollars in revenues that families, governments, communities, and businesses depend on. The negative economic effects of Initiative 97 cannot be overstated. With some 6-8% of Colorado's jobs supported by oil and gas development, the repercussions would ripple across the entire state - and beyond. Namely, it would wipe out critically important taxes and fees for the state: "Anti-energy Initiative 97 threatens Colorado’s public schools."
Common Sense Policy Roundtable, "a non-profit free-enterprise think tank," has commissioned a study that concludes Initiative 97 could cost the state nearly 150,000 jobs and cut GDP by a staggering $218 billion. Absolute destruction for a state where 600,000 people already struggle in poverty.
All Colorado has to do is look at Pennsylvania for an example of what could. A U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics study details the economic boon of shale development in The Keystone State.
Yet the wider impacts of Initiative 97 are even worse. For example, as the U.S. increasingly turns to natural gas as the main source of power, an essential way to cut CO2 emissions, and the primary way to back up wind and solar, other states should also be supporting shale development in Colorado. Heavily-resourced Colorado exports over 70% of the gas that it produces, perfectly located to supply a region that has booming gas use.
Supporters of Initiative 97 first need to get enough signatures to qualify it for November’s state ballot.
I implore Coloradans to not fall victim to fringe groups that ultimately simply seek to ban fracking and oil and gas development.
Some might not know that many Democratic leaders are pro-fracking, President Obama being one. As former Colorado Democratic Governor Bill Ritter notes, Colorado already has “the strongest set of state regulations of any state in the country where oil and gas extraction is concerned and where hydraulic fracturing is concerned." Current Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper has been a "strong supporter" of fracking as well.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only thing that can derail the constant surge of U.S. energy dominance is overregulation and bad policy decisions. The anti-fracking movement epitomizes this problem. You should know that fracking, overwhelmingly so, is the main extraction technique we will be using to get new oil and gas supply in this country, two energy sources that are STILL projected by the U.S. Department of Energy to supply the bulk of our energy through at least 2050.
This reality means that, without strong support for fracking and oil and gas development overall, we will increasingly be forced to turn to Russia, OPEC, and the other key global suppliers. Imports will be dangerously forced upon us, like they have been for high-cost New England, where anti-pipeline, anti-oil, and anti-gas extremism forced Boston to non-sensically import natural gas from Mr. Putin this past winter.
It's an erosion of self-sufficiency that simply cannot be allowed to occur, especially as our partners in Europe, Asia, and Latin America in particular are asking us to supply them with more oil and gas to to advance their energy security.
Initiative 97 is the ultimate triple whammy: bad for Colorado, bad for America, bad for U.S. energy buyers....but, you guessed it, perfect for Russia and OPEC.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2018/09/30/colorados-initiative-97-unwisely-blocks-oil-and-natural-gas-development/#2e48ef18799d
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Chemical Plants Need Fair Safety Guidelines
Oct 1, 2018 | Beaumont Enterprise
The state response to the tragic explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, five years ago has been to mostly ignore it. The last thing this industry needs now is a similar attitude from the federal government. But a provision in the current farm bill in Congress could exempt the entire chemical manufacturing industry from some basic safety rules. Members of Congress from Texas should be particularly aware of that folly and make sure it is removed from the bill.
The provision in question would create a broad exemption from Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards for managing hazardous chemicals. Worst of all, it could have “the unintended consequence” of allowing a large chemical plant to evade the rules by claiming to be a retail store.
After the explosion in West, which killed 15 people (including many first-responders) and injured more than 200, OSHA tried to clarify existing rules to make it clear that chemical plants would face tighter scrutiny. An investigation by the Dallas Morning News in 2013 found more than 70 plants in Texas that were similar to the West Fertilizer Co.
But a lawsuit by the fertilizer industry slowed OSHA’s effort, the election of Donald Trump as president basically stopped it. Trump wants to slash regulations, not increase them. No one supports unnecessary red tape, but certain facilities should have high safety requirements — like a fertilizer plant that could explode if it were mismanaged.
The $430 billion farm bill is headed toward final vote soon, with November elections looming and a congressional adjournment preceding them. This issue needs action soon or it could become law almost by default.
Regardless of what happens in Congress, the Texas Legislature should consider better safety regulations in the upcoming session that begins in January. After the West explosion, the state fire marshal’s office still lacked authority to carry out basic safety inspections at some facilities.
The chemical industry in Texas has a good safety record overall. But that very fact argues for reasonable regulations. If plants are already operating as they should, they won’t have to change anything or worry about inspections.
In so many cases like this, whether at chemical plants or oil refineries, companies do what they have been doing for years, and fortunately nothing goes wrong. But when a tragic accident or explosion occurs, it only makes sense to review what happened and why. Instead of waiting for the next disaster, let’s try to prevent it.
https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/opinions/editorials/article/Chemical-plants-need-fair-safety-guidelines-13267499.php
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Trump Unveils Deal That's Mum on Climate
Oct 1, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey and Geof Koss
President Trump last night reached a deal with Canada and Mexico to revamp a key free-trade agreement. Noticeably missing is any reference to climate change despite Canada's earlier push.
Trump at a news conference in the Rose Garden today hailed the new accord, which terminates the North American Free Trade Agreement and lays out renegotiated points as part of a "United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement," or USMCA.
"It's the most important trade deal we've made by far," Trump said after thanking a host of Republican lawmakers in the crowd. "It means more than anything else, far more American jobs."
The president touted the deal's treatment of U.S. farmers and provision to ensure "rules of origin," including language that could prompt billions of dollars in purchases of domestic automobiles. He also said the agreement could usher in a "new dawn" for the U.S. auto industry and workers.
The president said he plans to sign the deal by the end of November and send it to Congress, where, "in theory, there should be no trouble."
When asked about potential Democratic opposition, Trump said it's possible members will oppose the deal or try to derail to score political points ahead of November.
Environment
According to a summary provided by the U.S. trade representative's office, the three nations have agreed to "the most advanced, most comprehensive, highest-standard chapter on the environment of any trade agreement."
The environment chapter "brings all environmental provisions into the core of the agreement and makes them enforceable." It includes obligations to combat trafficking in wildlife, timber and fish, while boosting law enforcement networks to fight such trafficking.
Additionally, the deal contains first-time provisions that address air quality and marine litter, support "sustainable forest management" and ensure appropriate procedures for environmental impact assessments.
Specifically, the accord includes limits on "some of the most harmful fisheries subsidies," including those that benefit operators involved in unlawful fishing. It contains new protections for marine species, including whales and sea turtles, while prohibiting shark finning.
According to the summary, the deal also includes "robust and modernized mechanisms for public participation and environmental cooperation."
Dispute settlement
The agreement phases out the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process, provisions of NAFTA with respect to Canada, a senior administration official told reporters last night.
The United States and Mexico have agreed to "a reformed model for ISDS, which will mean that all investors will have a limited form of ISDS," said the official.
The "full fleet" of ISDS procedures will continue to be available to investors in a few industry sectors that face "high fixed costs and a high degree of political sensitivity," including oil and gas, as well as transportation and infrastructure companies.
Environmentalists strongly oppose ISDS, which allows private companies to challenge government regulations. In one famous case, TransCanada Corp. brought a $15 billion claim against the United States over President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline (Energywire, June 27, 2016).
In a statement, American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers cited "eligibility" for ISDS for U.S. oil and gas companies in Mexico as one reason Congress should approve the deal.
"Having Canada as a trading partner and a party to this agreement is critical for North American energy security and U.S. consumers," Sommers said. "Retaining a trade agreement for North America will help ensure the U.S. energy revolution continues into the future."
However, the deal retains steel and aluminum tariffs that have annoyed many members of Congress and companies. The administration is pushing for this issue to be resolved separately.
Additionally, it is said to include a "sunset" clause under which the deal would automatically expire after 16 years but would be reviewed every six years, after which it could be extended. That provision was included in the earlier U.S.-Mexico accord (E&E Daily, Aug. 28).
Under fast-track trade promotion authority, Congress must still ratify the deal. That vote is not expected until next year, raising the possibility that Trump would have to win over a Democratic-led House or Senate.
In a statement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made clear that Democrats will closely scrutinize environmental impacts of the deal.
"Fixing NAFTA means increasing the paychecks of American workers, delivering real, enforceable labor standards, ensuring fairness for American agriculture, and recognizing the connection between economic growth and environmental protections," she said.
Climate
Trump provided some insight into his relationship with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which he said got "testy" over the past couple of months but is now in good standing. The president also said he would preserve the right to impose tariffs, namely on the European Union, should it be necessary.
Last summer, the Canadian administration laid out objectives for any NAFTA revisions, including a closer focus on climate change, according to The New York Times.
Canada's foreign affairs minister, Chrystia Freeland, did not immediately respond to a question about why climate was not addressed.
Silence on the issue triggered pushback from green groups, while industry sources quietly acknowledged it wasn't a top priority for the negotiating countries.
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune in a statement said the proposal not only is silent on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions but could worsen their effects.
"The proposal not only fails to mention climate change — it would prolong NAFTA's contribution to the climate crisis. The proposal as a whole falls far short of the minimum changes that are essential to halt NAFTA's threats to our air, water, and climate," Brune said.
"If this proposal — hastily sealed to score political points — remains as is, the Sierra Club will vigorously oppose it, while continuing to fight for a genuine replacement of NAFTA that puts people and the planet first."
But an industry source who asked not to be named said environmental issues as a whole simply aren't a top priority for the Trump administration, especially when it comes to trade.
"Obviously, Canada was more worried about dealing with a significant auto tariff and willing to give up quite a bit on dairy," said the source. "Those are major concerns and issues versus residual issues related to the environment or climate change."
Tough spot for Trudeau
Dale Marshall, the national program manager for climate change and energy at Environmental Defence, a Canadian group, said this morning that he was still absorbing the document but that it appeared to be largely silent on climate.
"There's not much there that really moves that forward in any way," he said, adding that it was no surprise, given the Trump administration's climate positions.
"We're negotiating a trade deal with someone who has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement and made it perfectly clear that action on climate change is not only not something that he wants to move forward on, he wants to roll back on," he said.
"So it's not terrible surprising those positions are there on behalf of the U.S. It's probably more disappointing that my country decided that that was fine."
Marshall said Trudeau will face pushback for the deal's lack of climate focus but may escape serious political consequences given low expectations set by Trump on the matter.
"He'll face criticism, for sure," he said. "Whether it will hurt him electorally, I really have no idea. I wouldn't be surprised if there was backlash on a number of fronts because of some of the changes from NAFTA to this agreement. I don't know that climate change will rise to the top."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/10/01/stories/1060100209
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Trump Moves to Target EPA Mercury Regulation
Oct 1, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Trump administration is advancing a proposal that could weaken the legal justification behind a major 2011 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule limiting mercury pollution.
EPA spokesman John Konkus on Monday said that the proposed change was sent to the White House on Friday for review by Office of Management and Budget, as the New York Times first reported Sunday.
It is the final step before the rule change can be released to the public for comment.
The rule would be yet another in a string of regulatory changes that could greatly benefit the coal industry.
The proposal wouldn’t repeal the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule, which at an estimated compliance cost of $9.6 billion, is the most costly rule in the EPA’s history. It has been blamed for shutting down scores of coal-fired power plants.
Instead, it would change the cost-benefit analysis by removing “co-benefits,” or benefits that the regulation brought from reducing air pollutants that were not directly regulated.
The Trump administration believes it is improper to count those benefits in the cost-benefit analysis. The Obama administration estimated the rule would bring more than $80 billion in benefits, but the mercury-related gains were only a small part of that at about $4 million.
“The draft proposed rule sent to OMB is aimed at correcting the agency’s approach to weighing costs and benefits consistent with the [Supreme] Court’s direction,” Konkus said.
“It is not intended to roll-back or reduce important health protections associated with the continued reduction of mercury.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the EPA broke the law because it did not do a cost-benefit analysis before it decided to write the mercury regulation. But the high court let the rule stay in place.
The change to the co-benefit calculation would have reverberations throughout the EPA’s entire air pollution regulatory regime, since past rule frequently relied on those benefits. Such a shift could make it harder to impose new regulations and easier to justify rolling back existing ones.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/409230-trump-moves-to-target-epa-mercury-regulation
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In Rollback of Mercury Rule, Trump Could Revamp How Government Values Human Health
Oct 1, 2018 | Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis
The Environmental Protection Agency has sent a proposal to the White House that would weaken existing curbs on power plants' emissions of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin, by changing the way it calculates the cost and benefits of curbing hazardous air pollutants.
The proposed rule, according to two senior administration officials who have reviewed the document but spoke on the condition of anonymity because it has not been finalized, would reverse a 2011 Obama administration finding that the agency must factor in any additional health benefits that arise from lowering toxic pollutants from coal plants when evaluating the rule’s costs and benefits. These “co-benefits,” which include soot and smog-forming pollutants, help underpin the justification for the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) that the EPA issued seven years ago.
If enacted, the rollback — which was sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget on Friday — would not eliminate existing mercury emissions limits altogether. But it could severely weaken the underlying public health justification that the previous administration used to restrict the release of that and other harmful pollutants into the air.
Details of the rule were first reported by the New York Times Sunday.
Coal-fired power plants are the single biggest emitter of mercury, which can cause brain damage in young children. Over time, these emissions build up in fish, whose elevated levels of mercury are absorbed by people who eat it.
In an email Sunday, EPA spokesman John Konkus said the administration is seeking to address flaws in the previous administration’s approach to calculating the burden federal regulations place on industry.
“The MATS Rule was an egregious example of the Obama administration’s indifference toward required cost benefit analysis,” Konkus said. “EPA knows these issues are of importance to the regulated community and the public at large and is committed to a thoughtful and transparent regulatory process in addressing them.”
Konkus declined to discuss the rule’s specifics, adding, “Any proposal remains being considered internally at this time.”
Although the industry is now fully in compliance with federal mercury standards, which were subject to litigation for years, coal companies have lobbied the Trump administration to revisit the issue to set a precedent for future pollution rules. Murray Energy Corp. chief executive Robert E. Murray, who retained now-Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler as a lobbyist for years, requested the rollback in a memo to Energy Secretary Rick Perry last year.
John Walke, a clean air lawyer at the advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an email that Wheeler and Bill Wehrum, the head of the EPA’s air office, are seeking to exclude legitimate health benefits that stem from curbing air toxins.
“What Wheeler and Wehrum are pursuing — the fraudulent denial of real-world benefits from clean air and climate safeguards — is the unholy grail of EPA haters and polluting industry lobbyists for decades,” he said.
Congress gave the EPA the authority in the 1990s to regulate the toxic metals that are the byproduct of burning coal — a list that also includes arsenic, nickel and selenium — but it took the agency years to develop a standard. At the time the regulation came out, the EPA estimated that it would prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks a year when fully implemented and would cost the industry $9.6 billion in compliance that year. It projected that reducing these emissions would save $37 billion to $90 billion in 2016 in annual health costs and lost workdays.
Although the Supreme Court initially required the EPA to do a more thorough cost-benefit analysis of the measure, it allowed the new standards to take effect in 2012 as litigation continued. Under the rule, coal- and oil-fired utilities had to install pollution controls that put them on par with among the cleanest facilities in their sector.
In 2015, the Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the Obama administration’s efforts regulate mercury from power plants, saying U.S. officials failed to properly consider economic costs when they imposed expensive pollution controls on coal-burning power plants.
The court, in a 5-to-4 decision, remanded the rule back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit with instructions that it should be sent back to EPA in light of this cost-benefit analysis.
In response, the EPA assembled an analysis that considered the costs of the regulation, and in April 2016 issued a final finding that showed the rule’s benefits outweighed its costs. That finding itself became the subject of litigation.
The decision by the Supreme Court in 2015 to require the EPA to weigh the costs and benefits of the rule came after Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh — President Trump’s current Supreme Court nominee — had made the same argument the previous year.
In a 2014 dissent from his colleagues on the D.C. Circuit, Kavanaugh had argued that it was “unreasonable” for the EPA not to consider the economic effect of the regulation before proceeding with it.
“Suppose you were the EPA Administrator. You have to decide whether to go forward with a proposed air quality regulation,” Kavanaugh wrote at the time. “Before making that decision, what information would you want to know? You would certainly want to understand the benefits from the regulations. And you would surely ask how much the regulations would cost. ... That’s just common sense and sound government practice.”
Last spring, the EPA asked a federal court to delay an oral argument in a case challenging the rule. Although the power sector already had largely already complied with the regulation by modernizing pollution controls, several companies and 15 states sought to overturn it.
At the time, the Trump administration said it would seek the delay “to give the time to fully review” the case “after the change in administration.” In its court filing Tuesday, officials argued that the delay was warranted, in part, because “agencies have inherent authority to reconsider past decisions and to revise, replace or repeal a decision to the extent permitted by law and supported by a reasoned explanation.”
Industry groups such as the National Mining Association have long opposed the rule, saying that it has been responsible for shutting down numerous coal-fired power plants and eliminating jobs.
“The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards has already had far-reaching and costly impacts not only on our industry but on many states and their citizens whose assurance of reliable electricity supply has been cast in doubt by this rule,” the group argued several years ago. “EPA’s rule reflects a stunningly unbalanced approach to regulation. The agency decided to impose expensive standards for certain emissions that it never found posed a threat to public health.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/01/rollback-mercury-rule-trump-could-revamp-how-government-values-human-health/?utm_term=.fa4d8cdeddc2
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Tensions High at Public Hearing for Climate Rule
Oct 1, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Niina Heikkinen
EPA kicked off its only scheduled public hearing on its proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan to sharp condemnation and praise.
Opponents of the proposed Affordable Clean Energy rule critiqued the plan for allowing increases in carbon emissions and harmful pollutants.
One after another, witnesses pointed to EPA's own estimates that it would increase the risk of premature death and lead to higher risk of asthma attacks and other health problems.
Supporters praised the proposal for shifting greater authority to states, preserving jobs and keeping EPA within the authority given to it by Congress.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) called the proposal "morally reprehensible" and "economically short-sighted."
"Curbing carbon pollution is essential for climate change. For many people, it's a threat to their existence. I wish we were talking about a bold American plan to move forward, but it's not," he said.
"The risk to my grandchildren is so profound, I'd hitchhike here if necessary," Inslee said immediately after his testimony.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) echoed Inslee's testimony, calling the rule neither affordable nor clean. She noted that climate change was contributing to wide swings in water levels in Lake Michigan and was causing harm to the state's farmers.
"Our planet is frying, and the ACE proposal does nothing to stop it," she said. Her testimony was met with loud applause in the hearing room.
State Sen. Dale Fowler (R-Ill.) told EPA he "strongly supported" the ACE rule, saying it would create jobs while lowering emissions. He noted his district is home to six coal mines and 58 percent of coal mined in the state.
"Illinois and my district will be major benefactors from this plan," he said.
Industry groups also praised the rule for focusing on efficiency improvements at the facility level. The American Petroleum Institute representative noted the trade organization was pleased with the new rule changes.
The proposed ACE rule, which EPA released Aug. 21, is a marked departure from the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.
Under the replacement rule, EPA would offer guidelines to states on how they could require power plants to cut carbon emissions by making various efficiency improvements at their facilities.
This "best system of emissions reductions" differs from the Obama administration's rule, which allowed states to take a systemic approach to cutting carbon from the power sector.
EPA would offer a suggested list of different technologies plants could use to reduce their carbon footprint, but states would maintain wide discretion to decide whether plants under their jurisdiction require further controls.
Unlike in the Clean Power Plan, there are no explicit targets for how much states must slash carbon emissions from power plants.
Another controversial component of the rule is its planned revisions to the New Source Review, a pre-construction permitting program.
EPA is reconsidering when changes to a plant would be considered "major modifications," which would require plants to comply with NSR permitting standards. The agency is considering allowing states to test emissions over an hourly, rather than an annual, basis.
Less than an hour into EPA's all-day public hearing, nearly two dozen protesters from People's Action who oppose the change forced proceedings to an abrupt halt for more than 10 minutes.
The group vocally rejected ACE. Led by one protester at a time, they instead yelled their objections to the rule in unison until security appeared to escort them out of the federal building.
People's Action referred to EPA's own analysis of the proposal, which found the ACE rule would lead to increased risk of premature death each year. The agency also found the rule would lead to 140,000 additional asthma attacks and more than 60,000 additional school absences each year.
Sonny Garcia, community organizer with the Illinois chapter of People's Action, was among those leading the protest chants.
"We are veterans at this," Garcia said of the protests.
Public comments on the rule will remain open on the Federal Register until Oct. 31.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/10/01/stories/1060100207
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Texas Oil Companies Pump More Than $17 Million into Fighting Washington Carbon Tax
Oct 1, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
Texas oil companies have pumped more than $17 million into a campaign opposing a carbon tax in Washington state.
The refiners Phillips 66 of Houston and Andeavor of San Antonio, and the U.S. subsidiary of the British oil major BP have poured more than $17 million into "No on 1631" campaign, which seeks to defeat the carbon tax initiative in the Nov. 6 election. If passed, the initiative would create the the first carbon tax in the United States.
Those opposed to the initiative have raised more than $20 million, according to state campaign finance records.
Those supporting Initiative 1631 have raised more than $6.1 million, with The Nature Conservancy donating the largest amount at $1 million.
Initiative 1631 would impose a fee of $15 per metric ton of carbon on large emitters that would increase by $2 each subsequent year and adjust for inflation. The fee would be imposed on fossil fuels sold or used within the state and electricity generated within or imported for consumption in Washington.
Supporters say the initiative would raise $2.3 billion during the first five years, and the funds would be collected in a "clean up pollution fund" in the state treasury. Seventy percent of the funds would be used on clean air and energy investments, with another 25 percent used for clean water and healthy forest investment. The remainder would be spent on what the initiative calls "healthy communities investments."
Other oil and gas companies that have spent money opposing the initiative include Chevron Corp., headquartered in San Ramon, Calif,. the Dallas refiner HollyFrontier, and oil and gas industry group American Fuel, and Petrochemical Manufacturers.
Andeavor, which is being bought by Ohio-based Marathon Petroleum Corp., and another company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2017 in a failed attempt to support a Vancouver, Wash. port commissioner. Andeavor and Savage Cos. had been attempting to develop a $210 million crude oil-by-rail terminal in the Port of Vancouver, a project that was voted down by port commissioners in early 2018.
https://www.chron.com/business/article/Texas-oil-companies-pump-more-than-17-million-13267260.php
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