Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report - October 10, 2018
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House Democrats Protest EPA's Cost-Benefit Rule
Oct 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
House Democrats are protesting EPA's proposed rule to alter how the agency conducts cost-benefit analyses for its rules, arguing in a new letter to Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler and White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Neomi Rao that EPA's existing methods should not be revised. -
New EPA Chief Liked Racist Obama Memes, Retweeted Conspiracy Theorist
Oct 9, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a history of social media engagement that includes liking a racist meme of the Obamas and retweeting a renowned conspiracy theorist. -
Class Action Suit Seeks Nationwide PFAS Health Studies
Oct 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
A class action suit brought Oct. 4 against the manufacturers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is seeking industry-funded, independent nationwide health studies and testing to determine health effects caused by multiple PFAS -- including the newer replacement chemicals -- found in the blood of nearly all Americans. -
Firefighter Wants Study—Not Money—in Fluorinated Chemicals Suit
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
An Ohio firefighter suing DuPont, 3M, and other companies over exposure to contamination from fluorinated chemicals doesn’t want money—he wants those companies instead to study the chemicals’ risks. -
Chemical Helping Flame Retardants Work Better May Cause Cancer
Oct 10, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
BASF SE, DuPont, and ICC Chemicals Corp. are among the companies that have made a major industrial chemical that moved one step closer Oct. 9 to being classified in the U.S. as a possible human carcinogen. -
Bayer Seeks to Wipe Out Roundup Verdict as Trials Multiply
Oct 10, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joel Rosenblatt
Bayer AG is trying to undo a $289 million verdict over Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller that it blames on misinformation fed to a jury, while also seeking to avoid having its next test cases go to trial on an accelerated schedule. -
Blockbuster Drug Avastin May End Up on California Toxics List
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joyce E. Cutler
Genentech’s blockbuster drug Avastin (bevacizumab) may find itself on California’s Proposition 65 list of toxic chemicals, meaning more explaining to cancer patients about drugs used to combat their disease. -
EU Agencies Say HBM Guidance Values Open to Misunderstanding
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
EU agencies have raised concerns about how key outputs from the EU’s landmark human biomonitoring (HBM) project may be interpreted by the general public. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Faces Call To Include OLEM In 2019 Oil & Gas Wastewater Rule Decision
Oct 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lara Beaven
EPA's Office of Water (OW) plans to make a decision by the middle of next year on whether to amend its effluent rules for onshore oil and gas extraction to allow for increased discharge options, but environmentalists fear OW's decision may fail to coordinate with an upcoming waste office decision about the sector. -
Climate Bill Would Move D.C. to 100% Renewable Energy by 2032
Oct 9, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Peter Jamison
The District would adopt one of the nation’s most aggressive plans to cut carbon emissions, aiming to use entirely renewable sources of energy for the city’s power grid just 14 years from now, under new legislation proposed by five D.C. Council members. -
Industry Shrugs off U.N. Climate Warning
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
World economies must cut carbon dioxide emissions to zero in the next 30 years to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, according to the world's top climate scientists. -
‘Dream’ of Drinkable Fracking Wastewater a Topic of EPA Study
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
Drinking the wastewater from by hydraulic fracturing and other oil and gas drilling operations may be possible one day, but it is a long way off, according to senior EPA water officials. -
EPA Sends Obama-Era MATS Reconsideration Proposal For OMB Review
Oct 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA has sent for White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) pre-publication review its proposal to reconsider the Obama administration's landmark mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) rule for power plants, prompting fresh criticism from environmentalists who warn it will undo public health protections. -
Platts: U.S. oil exports expected to hit nearly 4 million barrels a day by 2020
Oct 9, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
U.S. crude oil exports are expected to hit nearly 4 million barrels a day by 2020. -
Surging U.S. Oil, Gas Dealmaking in 3Q2018 to Continue, Says DrillingInfo
Oct 9, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
U.S. oil and natural gas dealmaking during the third quarter surged 250% from the second quarter, breaking records... -
Colorado’s Drilling Referendum Is About Much More Than Drilling
Oct 10, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Catherine Traywick
A Colorado referendum to increase the setback requirement for oil and gas development would affect more than just where operators can drill. -
Okla. Company Scrimped Before Deadly Well Fire
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
The operator of the Oklahoma well that burned in January, killing five men, was trying to save money and impress investors with a risky drilling method, say attorneys for the dead men's families. -
Allow Technology and Competition to Solve America’s Infrastructure Problems
Oct 9, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Libby Szabo
As prospects fade for bipartisan national infrastructure legislation, it now falls to state and local leaders to make the best possible use of the resources at their disposal in confronting the myriad challenges facing our nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels, electricity grid, and water systems. -
Ominous UN Climate Report Could Be Good News for One Industry
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jeremy Hodges
A United Nations call to arms urging countries to spend trillions of dollars annually to avoid irreversible damage from climate change may be just the tonic for one moribund industry. -
U.N. Report Meets Deaf Ears but May Aid Push for Carbon Tax
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recent report may fall on some deaf ears in the halls of Congress, but others are hoping to capitalize on its dire warnings to infuse new energy behind carbon tax legislation. -
Exxon Puts Up $1 Million to Promote Carbon Tax
Oct 9, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko and Bradley Olson
Exxon Mobil Corp. , once a powerful skeptic of global warming, will now be among the first oil companies to put money into the fight to make climate change a political priority in Washington. -
Trump Says He’ll Review UN Climate Change Report
Oct 9, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
President Trump said he’ll “absolutely” review a new dire report on climate change from the United Nations, though he expressed some skepticism about its authors. -
High Court Won’t Hear Last-Ditch Effort to Save Obama Coolant Limits
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The Supreme Court won’t review Obama-era limits on climate-warming coolants, despite a strong push by major chemical and appliance makers. -
Kavanaugh To Face Recusal Pressure In High Court Suits Over Utility GHGs
Oct 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is expected to face pressure to recuse himself from any high court case addressing EPA greenhouse gas limits for power plants given his role hearing litigation over agency climate rules while serving as an appellate judge. -
Scientists’ Climate Optimism Sparse, Given Political Environment
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bobby Magill
The ability to avoid the worst effects of climate change—food and water shortages, inundated cities, poverty, and disease—may be technically within reach. -
Kavanaugh Casts Shadow over Kids' Climate Case
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
The confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court may have already had repercussions on a high-profile climate change lawsuit brought by a group of young Americans. -
Rhode Island Youth Will Sue for Stronger Climate Action
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
A Rhode Island youth group seeking stronger state action on climate change will sue over the state’s decision to deny its request.
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House Democrats Protest EPA's Cost-Benefit Rule
Oct 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
House Democrats are protesting EPA's proposed rule to alter how the agency conducts cost-benefit analyses for its rules, arguing in a new letter to Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler and White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Neomi Rao that EPA's existing methods should not be revised.
“Our constituents rely on EPA's regulations to protect their health and their environment. . . . In order to make rules strong enough to protect the public, EPA needs to carefully consider the many benefits these rules will have for our health, environment, and economy,” states the Oct. 3 letter from 33 House Democrats, led by Rep. Brenda Lawrence (MI).
“We are concerned that EPA is seeking to unfairly emphasize costs to industry and ignore benefits in its rulemakings. We urge EPA and all agencies to not make such damaging changes to cost-benefit analyses.”
EPA's June 7 advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) has the potential to usher in a sweeping overhaul of the agency's cost-benefit review process, including trimming the estimates of a rule's co-benefits, greater consideration of costs in a variety of settings and revisiting already-issued regulations.
The ANPR says that many of EPA's governing statutes -- the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act (CWA) and Safe Drinking Water Act, among others -- have a “significant variation” in language about how the agency should weigh the costs and benefits of its rules. While some laws directly require EPA to assess costs in some fashion, EPA notes that “Other provisions may only implicitly direct EPA to consider costs, alone or in conjunction with benefits and other factors, or be silent on whether costs should or may be considered.”
But the House Democrats argue that “If EPA changes its analyses to emphasize costs over benefits, the government may not be allowed to study how much an environmental safeguard could help people. . . . It will also set a dangerous precedent for all agencies, making it very difficult to set rules that enforce our nation's laws.”
Further, the Democrats argue the ANPR is “unnecessary and biased” because “EPA already has a clear set of principles for cost-benefit analysis, with consensus from economists on how to quantify benefits,” while “the rationale for changing cost-benefit analysis is faulty and in contrast to existing legal requirements.”
Specifically, the Democrats take issue with the Trump EPA's criticism of “counting indirect benefits, or additional benefits beyond the target of an agency action.” As an example, the Democrats cite EPA ozone standards, which also reduce particulate matter, thus lower asthma incidents and premature death. “In contrast to EPA's assertions, measuring indirect benefits is legally required and non-controversial,” they argue, before quoting an unspecified White House Office of Management and Budget guidance to state, “analysis should look beyond the direct benefits and direct costs of rulemaking and consider any important ancillary benefits.”
At an Oct. 1 press event, Wheeler told reporters in response to questions about the effects of expected rollbacks of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and auto emissions standards that, “If you look at the co-benefits, we believe the math the Obama administration used is a little bit suspect, as far as trying to double count.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/house-democrats-protest-epas-cost-benefit-rule
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New EPA Chief Liked Racist Obama Memes, Retweeted Conspiracy Theorist
Oct 9, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a history of social media engagement that includes liking a racist meme of the Obamas and retweeting a renowned conspiracy theorist.
A look back at Andrew Wheeler’s social media use across various platforms shows that the former energy lobbyist turned EPA administrator has for years engaged with and endorsed conservative-leaning and occasionally offensive material, HuffPost first reported on Tuesday.
Examples of his questionable social media use include a meme he liked from his personal Facebook account in 2013 that depicted then-President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama sitting at a sports game looking on intently while a white person’s hand holds up a banana in the foreground.
“Over the years, I have been a prolific social media user and liked and inadvertently liked countless social media posts. Specifically, I do not remember the post depicting President Obama and the First Lady. As for some of the other posts, I agreed with the content and was unaware of the sources,” Wheeler said in a statement provided to The Hill.
More recently, Wheeler liked a tweet from right-wing documentary filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza last month that cast doubt on Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault accusations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The tweet read: “Even if she told her psychiatrist the same thing--which she did not--one cannot corroborate one’s own story. That requires independent evidence entirely missing in this case. #KavanaughConfirmation.”
The same month, Wheeler also liked a tweet from Paul Joseph Watson, an editor at the conspiracy site InfoWars. His tweet said the blocking of Hollywood actor James Woods from Twitter was a result of the platform's biased views against conservatives.
And in February, Wheeler retweeted Jack Posobiec, who helped spread the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory.
Democratic advocacy group American Bridge 21st Century was the first to find and share the social media posts with HuffPost.
Wheeler replaced former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in July. Pruitt resigned amidst a number of controversies including his exclusive use of first-class travel, 24-hour security detail and other ethical concerns.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/410625-new-epa-chiefs-social-media-use-includes-liking-racist-obama-memes
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Class Action Suit Seeks Nationwide PFAS Health Studies
Oct 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
A class action suit brought Oct. 4 against the manufacturers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is seeking industry-funded, independent nationwide health studies and testing to determine health effects caused by multiple PFAS -- including the newer replacement chemicals -- found in the blood of nearly all Americans.
The suit, brought by an Ohio firefighter but representing all residents of the United States with a detectable level of PFAS in their blood, was filed against industry chemical giants 3M Company, E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., the Chemours Company as well as eight other manufacturers of the chemicals. Such a class could be huge, as the suit says testing by independent researchers and defendants has found that 99 percent of the U.S. population has PFAS in their blood.
Kevin D. Hardwick v. 3M Company, et al. was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
The Intercept first reported the litigation, saying it is targeting “the entire class of PFAS chemicals,” including newer chemicals such as GenX.
PFAS, used in a host of consumer and industrial applications including in firefighting foam, is a class of thousands of emerging contaminants that is increasingly drawing concerns due to its presence in drinking water systems.
The suit aims to build on findings from an independent C8 science panel created as part of an earlier settlement between DuPont and citizens, which considered the impact of one PFAS -- perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) -- in West Virginia and Ohio, tying the chemical to testicular cancer, kidney cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, preeclampsia and medically-diagnosed high cholesterol, according to attorney Rob Bilott in an Oct. 4 press release from his law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP. The attorney, who is representing the class in this case as well, successfully brought the C8 science panel litigation several years ago.
In that case, Bilott, who has long pushed EPA to address the threat of drinking water contaminated with PFAS, represented a class of approximately 70,000 plaintiffs whose drinking water supplies in West Virginia and Ohio had been contaminated with PFOA, also known as C8, from a manufacturing plant then-owned by DuPont. The settlement led to blood testing of approximately 69,000 people and the creation of the independent C8 science panel to confirm which diseases were linked to PFOA exposure, as well as treatment of the contaminated water and medical monitoring of the class for each disease linked to the chemical.
“With multiple PFAS chemicals now contaminating the blood of people all over this country, it should be possible to build upon and expand the C8 Science Panel model to encompass a comprehensive, nationwide investigation of the impact of multiple PFAS chemicals,” Bilott says in the release.
The class action suit is seeking injunctive, equitable and declaratory relief for injuries to class members arising from alleged intentional, reckless and negligent acts by defendants in connection with the contamination of class members' blood from a variety of PFAS -- both older, long-chain versions as well as GenX and other newer, shorter-chain chemicals in the class. The suit specifically seeks an injunction requiring the defendants to fund a PFAS science panel, while alleging negligence, battery, and conspiracy by the defendants.
The suit alleges the defendants are effectively using class members “as part of a massive, undisclosed human health experiment” without their knowledge or consent, and are denying the class any right to stop the PFAS exposures unless they can prove at their own cost such exposures resulted in a serious disease or killed them.
“[T]here is tremendous fear, anxiety, and uncertainty across the country as to the serious public health threat posed by PFAS contamination,” Bilott says in the release. “This lawsuit could provide a mechanism for addressing and resolving those concerns through a truly comprehensive and independent, science-based process paid for by those that actually created the problem -- and not by the American taxpayers."
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/class-action-suit-seeks-nationwide-pfas-health-studies
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Firefighter Wants Study—Not Money—in Fluorinated Chemicals Suit
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
An Ohio firefighter suing DuPont, 3M, and other companies over exposure to contamination from fluorinated chemicals doesn’t want money—he wants those companies instead to study the chemicals’ risks.
But DuPont is rejecting that idea. Instead, it wants to focus on what was known in decades past when it produced the chemicals.
The heart of the rare suit is an allegation that plaintiffs face an information hurdle when it comes to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Kevin Hardwick, a Cincinnati-area firefighter for 40 years, said in his lawsuit that manufacturers claim not enough research exists to prove people PFAS from their products will be harmed. But research should be doable with manufacturers’ data and $5 million from 10 different chemical makers, Hardwick argued.
The complaint, filed Oct. 4 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, seeks class status for everyone in the U.S. with PFAS in their blood. Hardwick claims he was exposed to PFAS through firefighting foams and gear coated with perfluorinated flame retardants.
Besides 3M, the suit seeks funds to establish a independent panel of scientists to study the issue from nine other companies Those companies include E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., Chemours Co., Archroma Management LLC, Arkema Inc., AGC Inc., Daikin Industries, Ltd., Solvay Specialty Polymers USA LLC, and some of these companies’ subsidiaries.
‘Without Merit’DuPont spokesperson Dan Turner told Bloomberg Environment in an Oct. 9 email that the accusations in the complaint are “without merit.”
“DuPont acted responsibly based on the health and environmental information that was available to the industry and regulators about PFOA at the time of its usage,” Turner said. “We will vigorously defend our record of safety, health and environmental stewardship.”
Robert Bilott, Hardwick’s attorney and a partner at the Cincinnati office of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, said the suit follows up on research funded by other litigation.
In an Oct. 4 statement, Bilott said the “C8 Science Panel” formed out of litigation in West Virginia and Ohio confirmed “probable links” with testicular and kidney cancer, as well as other diseases.
He added that it “should be possible to build upon and expand the C8 Science Panel model to encompass a comprehensive, nationwide investigation of the impact of multiple PFAS chemicals.
“We are aware of the lawsuit, but have not yet had an opportunity to review the allegations,” 3M spokesperson Fanna Haile-Selassie told Bloomberg Environment in an Oct. 9 email. “Nevertheless, 3M acted responsibly in connection with its manufacture and sale of PFAS and will vigorously defend its record of environmental stewardship.”
The case is: Hardwick v. 3M Co., S.D. Ohio, No. 2:18-cv-1185, complaint filed 10/4/18.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/firefighter-wants-studynot-moneyin-fluorinated-chemicals-suit
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Chemical Helping Flame Retardants Work Better May Cause Cancer
Oct 10, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
BASF SE, DuPont, and ICC Chemicals Corp. are among the companies that have made a major industrial chemical that moved one step closer Oct. 9 to being classified in the U.S. as a possible human carcinogen.
Antimony trioxide makes flame retardants work better in plastics, paints, adhesives, sealants, rubber, and textile back coatings, according to the European Flame Retardants Association.
Another major use is to make polyethylene terephthalate (PET), plastics that are used for bottled water containers and other beverages. Yet the way antimony trioxide is used to produce PET means the amount of it that’s in final consumer products is negligible, according to the National Toxicology Program’s draft analysis.
The recommended classification isn’t a surprise. A World Health Organization agency in 1989 also listed antimony trioxide as a possible human carcinogen.
Being listed has no immediate regulatory impacts, but it can trigger hazard warnings and other requirements that may lead other agencies to re-examine their rules, particularly as developmental, cardiovascular and other health effects are associated with sufficient exposures to the chemical.
Wait and SeeIndustry representatives aren’t anticipating big operational changes if the chemical is formally listed as reasonably anticipated to be carcinogenic.
“We do not expect the proposed classification of antimony trioxide will significantly impact our business operations,” Dan Turner, a spokesman for DowDuPont told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 9.
National Toxicology Program staff briefed its Board of Scientific Counselors Oct. 9 about a previous science panel’s recommendation that antimony trioxide be classified as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.”
The briefing is one of the final steps that precedes the recommendation being forwarded to the Health and Human Services secretary, who makes the final decision.
If Secretary Alex M. Azar II concurs with the recommendation, antimony trioxide—identified on many business forms as Chemical Abstracts Service No. 1309-64-4— would be included in the congressionally-mandated Report on Carcinogens, which lists anticipated and known human carcinogens.
NTP expects to forward all recommendations about the Report on Carcinogens to Azar next year, spokeswoman Ginger Guidry told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 9.
Worker HealthWorkers are the population that potentially has the greatest exposure, Amy Wang, a health scientist with the toxicology program, said during the board’s meeting.
If the department classifies antimony trioxide as recommended, “we will review our standards and protective equipment to ensure worker safety,” Dow DuPont’s Turner said by email.
But DuPont already uses internal safety standards, guidelines, controls, and personal protective equipment to protect workers, he said.
BASF SE, DuPont, and ICC Chemicals—joined by manufacturers of other products, such as Tyco Electronics Corp., and Nyacol Nano Technologies Inc.—produced or imported a total of 1 million to 10 million pounds of antimony trioxide in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015—the most recent years for which the information is available from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Lanxess AG, which formally produced antimony trioxide in the U.S. and Europe, stopped making it a few months ago, “due to the lack of growth opportunities,” spokesperson Rudolf Eickeler told Bloomberg Environment by email.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemical-helping-flame-retardants-work-better-may-cause-cancer
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Bayer Seeks to Wipe Out Roundup Verdict as Trials Multiply
Oct 10, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joel Rosenblatt
Bayer AG is trying to undo a $289 million verdict over Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller that it blames on misinformation fed to a jury, while also seeking to avoid having its next test cases go to trial on an accelerated schedule.
If the company can persuade a judge to erase or chip away at the nine-figure verdict—the first case to go to a jury among 8,700 people in the U.S. who blame the popular herbicide for their cancer—legal experts say some plaintiffs may be less eager to pursue their claims.
Bayer is also fighting to prevent a “rush to trial after trial” that it says will disrupt the orderly flow of litigation if a judge in California applies a rule that allows sick or old plaintiffs to jump to the head of the line.
$15 Billion ‘Discount’Jonas Oxgaard, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., estimates that Bayer’s market value is discounted by as much as $15 billion because the San Francisco verdict in August represents a large cloud of Roundup liability trailing the company after it acquired Monsanto this year. More trials are scheduled for February.
“Getting the first ruling overturned would be huge for Bayer—likely reversing most of the discount,” Oxgaard said in an email.
At a hearing Oct. 10 in San Francisco, Bayer will argue before a state court judge that the scientific studies that helped lawyers for an ex-school groundskeeper win his blockbuster award didn’t actually prove Roundup caused his cancer. The judge has the power to void the verdict or reduce the amount.
“The jury’s decision is wholly at odds with over 40 years of real-world use” of glyphosate-based herbicides, along with scientific data proving the chemical is safe that has been thoroughly reviewed by authorities around the world, Bayer said in a statement.
The $289 million award was the second-largest of the year for a product defect case in the U.S. and the ninth-largest verdict overall. The punitive part of the award is so “excessive” that it “shocks the conscience,” Monsanto argued in a court filing. If the verdict isn’t set aside, Monsanto wants the judge to order a new trial.
“The jury’s hard work should be celebrated, not swept aside,” lawyers for plaintiff Lee Johnson fired back in their own filing, casting Monsanto’s arguments as a “rehash.”
Does Weed Killer Cause Cancer?Jurors awarded Johnson $39 million to compensate for the cancer he contracted at age 42 and the resulting loss of work and enjoyment of life. His wife, Areceli, works two full-time jobs since Johnson stopped working, his lawyers argue.
The jury also awarded $250 million to punish Monsanto after finding it liable for a design defect and failing to warn of Roundup’s risks. Johnson argued at trial that Monsanto was well aware of the herbicide’s dangers, and hid them from consumers. He also testified that as he was getting scared about his exposure he called the company twice over his concerns and never got a call back.
At issue in a hearing held Oct. 9 in Oakland, Calif., was a request to hold a trial as early as December for an elderly couple who both blame their their non-Hodgkin lymphoma on exposure to Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate. Alva and Alberta Pilliod, in their mid-70s, claim they’re entitled to an expedited trial “before they die” under the same law that allowed Johnson to fast-track his case.
Monsanto is asking the judge in that case to block the couple’s request because it would undermine the process already established for 250 plaintiffs whose cases are grouped in that court. Allowing the Pilliods to expedite their case would open the floodgates for others to make the same request, as so many plaintiffs in the Oakland cases are older than 70, the company said in a filing.
“Fortunately, the Pilliods are both in remission, and there is no indication of any imminent cancer recurrence that would justify granting them a trial scheduling preference,” Bayer said in an emailed statement.
SchedulingJudge Ioana Petrou in Oakland sided with Monsanto in a tentative ruling last week, but indicated at the hearing that she may reverse herself. She said that if she does, a trial isn’t likely until January at the earliest. The judge told both sides she wants to review Alberta Pilliod’s updated medical records and scheduled another hearing for Nov. 7.
Steven Kazan, a plaintiffs’ lawyer who has litigated asbestos cases, said other states allow old or sick plaintiffs to request expedited trials. But California is the only state in which damages for pain and suffering are irretrievable when a plaintiff dies. That difference can motivate the state’s judges to grant the requests, he said.
“Monsanto would like for these cases to sit somewhere for years,” Kazan said. “Delay is their friend. It is not a friend for those who are aging, especially if they are sick.”
The San Francisco case is Johnson v. Monsanto Co., Cal. Super. Ct., CGC 16-550128, 10/10/18. The Oakland case is Pilliod v. Monsanto, Cal. Super. Ct., RG17862702, 10/9/18.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/bayer-seeks-to-wipe-out-roundup-verdict-as-trials-multiply
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Blockbuster Drug Avastin May End Up on California Toxics List
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joyce E. Cutler
Genentech’s blockbuster drug Avastin (bevacizumab) may find itself on California’s Proposition 65 list of toxic chemicals, meaning more explaining to cancer patients about drugs used to combat their disease.
The California Environmental Protection Agency is considering adding the drug bevacizumab to the list of chemicals known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity or cancer. The consideration comes from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved label indicating using bevacizumab has the potential to increase the risk of ovarian failure and may cause fetal harm.
“Avastin is almost always used in patients with advanced cancer. So we would love to worry about what would happen 10 years later. You’re lucky to buy them a few years, let alone 10 years” for other health issues to appear, said Dr. Alan Venook, a University of California San Francisco colorectal cancer specialist. No evidence indicates the drug, frequently used in combination with other drugs, causes cancer, he told Bloomberg Law.
“Clearly it’s indicated in a variety of uses and it does make a difference in some patients, and you don’t need to be putting up obstacles” to treatment, Venook said Oct. 5. Doctors use drugs with extreme toxicity that require “separate clarity” in explaining to cancer patients the risks and benefits. Adding the drug to a toxics lists would “really confuse patients a lot” and require even more discussion with patients, he said.
The indication on Avastin’s label didn’t prevent FDA from approving last June 13 using the drug for patients with stage III or IV epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer in combination with two other cancer drugs after surgery.
Cal/EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) opened the public comment period Oct. 5 for evaluating whether bevacizumab fits the description to be included in the Prop. 65 list and require warnings.
More than 900 chemicals are on the Prop. 65 list, OEHHA spokesman Sam Delson said in an email to Bloomberg Law. Examples of other chemotherapy drugs on the Prop. 65 list include Zidovudine (AZT), which was listed in 2009, and tamoxifen, which was listed in 1996.
‘Off-the-Wall’Adding the drug to the Prop. 65 list is an addition that Venook called “an off-the-wall change” because there’s no evidence Avastin causes cancer.
While some cancer drugs may cause other cancers when used over time, “I’m not aware of any evidence that Avastin does that,” Venook said.
Reproductive toxicity is a known risk of Avastin “that is well-documented in the medicine’s prescribing information,” Genentech spokeswoman Meghan Cox said in an Oct. 6 email to Bloomberg Law. “Patient safety is of highest importance and we continue to educate physicians and current and future patients on the seriousness of this adverse event and the steps that can be taken to minimize risks.”
Patients taking Avastin are informed of reproductive risks and advised to use appropriate contraception to avoid pregnancy. Patients or female partners of patients exposed to Avastin during pregnancy are encouraged to immediately report the exposure to Genentech, Cox said.
Declining SalesThe announcement comes as Roche-owned Genentech saw global sales of the best-selling intravenous cancer drug drop 2 percent last year and competition from copycat drugs increases. Genentech has filed patent lawsuits against competitors including Amgen Inc. to prevent further market erosion from competitors introducing cheaper biosimilar or copycat drugs.
A spokeswoman for Amgen, which is making a biosimilar, said in an Oct. 5 email to Bloomberg Law that the notice is specific to Genentech. A representative for Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is making a biosimilar, or copycat drug, couldn’t be reached for comment.
A biosimilar is a less expensive version of a complex, already FDA-approved drug. It’s a biological product that’s approved based on a showing that it is highly similar to an already approved biological product.
Comments can be filed until Nov. 5 through the state agency’s website.
If and when Avastin is added to the Prop. 65 list, there will be a one-year grace period, state spokesman Delson said. For prescription drugs, “the required package inserts and informed consent are sufficient – no additional Proposition 65 warnings are needed.”
TradeoffsThe state looked to the FDA labeling that Avastin (bevacizumab) “may cause fetal harm based on its mechanism of action and findings from animal studies.” The label recommends advising females of reproductive potential to use effective contraception during treatment with and for six months after the last dose of Avastin.
“Almost every drug we use to treat cancer has risks associated with it,” Venook said.
“Clearly there are tradeoffs when you treat cancer patients. The goal is to eradicate a population of cancer cells,” Venook said. While some of these cancer treatments are more dangerous than others, and longer term use may cause other cancers to develop, “I’m not aware of any evidence that Avastin does that.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/blockbuster-drug-avastin-may-end-up-on-california-toxics-list
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EU Agencies Say HBM Guidance Values Open to Misunderstanding
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
EU agencies have raised concerns about how key outputs from the EU’s landmark human biomonitoring (HBM) project may be interpreted by the general public.
Echa and the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) flagged up the matter, which relates to 'health based guidance values' (HBGVs) produced by the HBM4EU project.
Representatives of the two agencies spoke in Vienna at a 28 September meeting, called to highlight the benefits of HBM for policy making and present the first results of the project.
HBGVs correspond to internal concentrations, below which the exposure might be considered safe or at least low risk. However, they have no regulatory status, unlike related values produced by regulatory authorities, such as tolerable daily intakes (TDIs) by Efsa.
The project has produced HBGVs for phthalate DEHP and BASF’s phthalate alternative Hexamoll Dinch, two of HBM4EU's priority substances. Furthermore, the project team plans to do so for all of them.
However, Hans Verhagen, senior scientific adviser at Efsa, questioned their usefulness, given that the values did not have approval from EU regulatory authorities. There was a risk of complicating the issue with divergent views and wasting resources via duplicate processes, he said. To avert this, Efsa and the HBM4EU project team had agreed to "collaborate" on work packages relevant to Efsa activities, Dr Verhagen said.
Marike Kolossa-Gehring from the German Environment Agency (UBA), which is coordinating the HBM4EU project, said there had been a "long discussion" on the subject at the governing board meeting, held the day before. Dr Kolossa-Gehring was "astonished" the subject had received so much attention. "They are guidance values, not limit values," she said. Furthermore, they complement related values and had been approved by the national hubs of the project, she added.
Echa executive director Bjorn Hansen said that, "in an ideal world," regulatory authorities, such as Echa, would have a mandate to establish HBM HBGVs. But without that, "there’s a balancing act to be performed." Dr Hansen said that it was important to make their status clear via both name and how they are communicated.
The HBM4EU project was launched in 2016 with the aim of improving the collective understanding of human exposure to hazardous chemicals and developing HBM as an assessment method. It has €74m in funding and support from 28 participating countries – 24 EU member states plus Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Israel.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70852/eu-agencies-say-hbm-guidance-values-open-to-misunderstanding
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Faces Call To Include OLEM In 2019 Oil & Gas Wastewater Rule Decision
Oct 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lara Beaven
EPA's Office of Water (OW) plans to make a decision by the middle of next year on whether to amend its effluent rules for onshore oil and gas extraction to allow for increased discharge options, but environmentalists fear OW's decision may fail to coordinate with an upcoming waste office decision about the sector.
Addressing the questions of how to best manage both conventional and unconventional oil and gas extraction wastewater from onshore facilities, including maximizing the use of produced water in arid regions while facilitating energy production, is part of the Trump administration's priority to increase domestic energy production, Lee Forsgren, deputy assistant administrator for water, told participants at an Oct. 9 public meeting in Washington, D.C.
“We know the issues aren't easy,” he said.
Based on feedback from the public meeting and other discussions with stakeholders, the agency plans to develop by early 2019 a white paper discussing policy options, Forsgren said. EPA plans to gather additional input on the white paper, although the agency has not yet decided whether it will be through formal notice and comment, he said. And then by next summer, EPA will make a decision about regulation, he said.
Alison Kelly, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), urged EPA to conduct a formal notice-and-comment process.
And Aaron Mintzes, senior policy counsel at Earthworks, asked water office officials whether they were coordinating with the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM).
“Where is OLEM? They need to be at this table,” he said, noting that a 2016 consent decree requires the waste office by March 15 to either propose revisions to Resource Conservation and Recovery Act subtitle D criteria regulations pertaining to oil and gas wastes or sign a determination that revision of the regulations is not necessary following notice-and-comment rulemaking.
Forsgren and other EPA staff did not respond to any of the public comments, with Forsgren saying the agency was in listening mode.
EPA announced earlier this year, as part of the final 2016 effluent limitation guidelines (ELG) plan, that it was engaging with stakeholders to discuss the issues of oil and gas wastewater. While the agency has existing ELGs for oil and gas extraction and for centralized waste treatment (CWT), which is used to treat some produced water, it has not previously explored the issue holistically.
The agency notes that the volume of produced water nationally is increasing while the availability of underground injection wells for disposal in some areas is becoming limited and there is a growing call in the arid West to view produced water as a resource rather than a waste.
Produced water includes naturally occurring water that is trapped in rock formations and brought to the surface as a byproduct of oil and gas production as well as the intentional injection of water into a reservoir to aid in the energy recovery process.
EPA's Study
Jesse Pritts, an EPA engineer who is the project lead for the study, said one of the goals of the agency's study is to understand if support exists for potential regulations to allow for broader discharge of produced water, as well as to determine any potential conflicts with state requirements.
Earthworks Mintzes criticized the underlying philosophy behind the study, saying, “The scope and nature of the study don't match [the water office's] authority.”
Andrew Grinberg, Clean Water Action national campaigns special projects manager, raised similar concerns, saying the study's goals should be closing knowledge and data gaps, improving protections for surface water and groundwater and accounting for water limitations rather than facilitating the sector's expansion.
Based on discussions with states, some states are supportive of additional discharge options, Pritts said. These states cited the ability to add water to the hydrological cycle in order to ease downstream water allocations, increases in water availability, cost reductions to industry and the potential to alleviate disposal well capacity issues, he said.
Other states are less enthusiastic about allowing greater discharge of produced water, he said. These states raised concerns about water quality impacts and treatment residuals, said the existing options are working fine, noted the lack of technical data on treatment effectiveness, said better data about the chemical composition of the water is needed to address disposal concerns, and raised concerns about how to write the water quality part of discharge permits when they may lack water quality criteria for some of the constituents in the water.
Industry is committed to reuse of produced water where practical to offset the use of freshwater, wants its treatment options maximized, seeks equity with other industry sectors that are allowed to discharge wastewater, and wants treating water for discharge to be cost-competitive with other disposal options, such as trucking the produced water to a CWT plant, Pritts said.
Many in industry support additional flexibility for discharge, citing concerns about the limited availability of disposal wells, especially in the Permian Basin, changing state regulations, the reduced ability to recycle or reuse water in areas where production is decreasing, and the potential to generate additional revenue by selling the water and recovering salts for sale, Pritts said.
Environmental groups have told EPA they have concerns about the toxicity, human health and ecological risks of allowing discharge of produced water, noting the numerous unknowns, he said. These include a lack of analytical methods to assess the water, the lack of water quality criteria for many of constituents, the challenge of constantly changing chemistry of the produced water depending on the stage of production, limited data on treatment technology, and the fact that many of the discharges would occur to intermittent or ephemeral streams, eliminating the safety factor of dilution.
Academic stakeholders have noted many of the same data gaps cited by environmentalists and pointed to the challenges of determining effective treatment, determining the environmental impacts and the fact of produced water variability, he said.
'Constrained' Injection
During the public comment period, many industry representatives echoed the summary provided by Pritts about a commitment to reuse and a desire for multiple disposal options.
Amy Emmert, senior policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute, noted that underground injection is becoming “increasingly constrained” and said “it may be appropriate to amend the current regulatory framework.”
Bruce Thompson, president of the American Exploration and Production Council, said “conservation of water resources is a top priority,” but it is “hindered by regulations that date back to the 1970s.” While the regulations may have made sense when the industry appeared to be in decline, they don't make sense now, he said.
Steve Jester, senior principal environmental engineer, ConocoPhillips, said underground injection is likely to remain the principle disposal method for the sector, with the reuse of clean brine in operations another common approach for dealing with produced water.
Treatment of produced water to surface water standards should be an option, but it should not be mandated, Jester said.
“There should be a suite of options, said Kerry Harpole, water management supervisor at Marathon Oil, while also calling on EPA to remove the zero discharge standard for the sector.
Nichole Saunders, an attorney with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), said, “EDF understands the drivers” for EPA to conduct the study, but “greater optionality cannot come with greater risks.” She noted that current peer-reviewed data about produced water is limited to only a few geographical areas, making it impossible to develop a national discharge standard.
EDF is expecting to soon release research papers about some of the data gaps, she said.
Other environmental groups pressed EPA for stronger regulation, with Melissa Troutman, Earthworks research and policy analyst, saying any regulatory amendments need to be about closing loopholes, such as rolling back current exemptions to the zero discharge standard and requiring industry to disclose the chemicals it uses in extraction.
“Strong regulation is paramount,” NRDC's Kelly said.
Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said that due to a lack of toxicity data on the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, “it becomes a guessing game” to determine the environmental and human health effects.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-faces-call-include-olem-2019-oil-gas-wastewater-rule-decision
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Climate Bill Would Move D.C. to 100% Renewable Energy by 2032
Oct 9, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Peter Jamison
The District would adopt one of the nation’s most aggressive plans to cut carbon emissions, aiming to use entirely renewable sources of energy for the city’s power grid just 14 years from now, under new legislation proposed by five D.C. Council members.
The bill — which would also enhance the city’s green building standards and authorize the mayor to enter regional agreements with Virginia and Maryland to cut greenhouse gas emissions — comes at a moment of international reckoning with the problem of climate change.
A report released this week by the world’s top scientific panel studying global warming warned that time has almost run out for governments to prevent catastrophic changes to the environment. The report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that “there is no documented historic precedent” for government action of the kind needed to avert those changes.
Those findings arrive at a time when enthusiasm in the federal government for aggressive policies to combat climate change is at a low ebb. President Trump said last year that he would withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate accord, and he has consistently allied himself with the coal industry, whose activities are a major source of carbon emissions.
But if the outlook for an effective international response to climate change is dim, D.C. officials should still do what they can to reduce emissions at the local level, said council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), who drafted the bill and heads the council’s committee on transportation and the environment.
“What’s the alternative — to do nothing?” Cheh said in an interview. “We either do our best and encourage others to do their best and the national government to change their position on this, or we give in and accept catastrophe.”
More than 80 witnesses were scheduled to testify on the bill Tuesday at an initial public hearing by the transportation and environment committee. The bill must also pass through the committee on business and economic development before going before the full council, which supporters hope could happen this year.
Along with Cheh, the bill’s introducers were Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) and members Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1), Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) and Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8).
Many of the witnesses expressed support for the bill’s core tenets at the hearing, the result of what Cheh said was a long process of discussion and debate with activists and businesses. Some supporters noted that the District could be directly harmed by climate change, experiencing dangerously hot summers and floods from the Potomac and Anacostia, both tidal rivers that would be affected by sea-level rise.
Others sounded a cautious note about the cost to ratepayers for an aggressive push toward entirely renewable power sources by 2032. (Under its existing policy, the city is on track to get 50 percent of its energy from renewable sources by that year.)
Sandra Mattavous-Frye, who heads the D.C. Office of the People’s Counsel — which represents the interests of utility customers in the District — said that while her office “supports the bill’s clean-energy goals,” those targets should be balanced with the “equally important public policy goal of affordability” for consumers.
The bill includes an increase in across-the-board fees on electricity and natural gas consumption that Cheh’s office estimates would add $2.10 to D.C. residents’ average monthly gas bills and less than $1 to their average monthly electricity bills. About 20 percent of the money generated from those fees would be used to provide financial assistance to low-income ratepayers, while the rest would fund other local sustainability initiatives.
Other states and cities have adopted ambitious goals for using cleaner power, though many are not as aggressive as those in Cheh’s bill.
California is working to supply 50 percent of residents’ electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Beginning in 2019, San Francisco will offer consumers the option of receiving electricity from renewable sources but does not require it.
Virginia’s renewable energy goal, adopted in 2007, aims for 15 percent renewable sources by 2025. It’s a voluntary goal, intended to encourage utilities to switch to renewables.
In 2016, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation requiring the state to obtain 25 percent of its energy from wind, solar and other renewable sources by 2020.
Gov. Larry Hogan (R) vetoed the bill, saying it would lead to rate increases, but the Democratic-controlled legislature overrode his veto last year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/climate-bill-would-move-dc-to-100-percent-renewable-energy-by-2032/2018/10/09/4d06b8d0-cb40-11e8-a3e6-44daa3d35ede_story.html?utm_term=.9e72c4cd475b
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Industry Shrugs off U.N. Climate Warning
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
World economies must cut carbon dioxide emissions to zero in the next 30 years to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, according to the world's top climate scientists.
The oil and gas industry's response? "Whatever."
With oil prices climbing out of the doldrums to surpass $80 per barrel this month and forecasts showing an investment gap to meet the coming energy demand, companies across the industry are planning for the future.
Sunday's urgent warning by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the world is on a collision course with climate science is an inconvenient distraction for global oil producers. Few multinational drillers are changing plans that focus almost exclusively on developing more oil, gas and petroleum products that emit carbon when they're burned.
The IPCC study, authored by nearly 100 researchers and supported by more than 6,000 studies, says limiting average warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is critical to rein in the harms of climate change. Achieving that would require reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent from 2010 levels in the next 12 years and reducing emissions to net zero by 2050 (Climatewire, Oct. 9).
"It's obviously a huge problem in the world," said BP CEO Bob Dudley on the climate threat, in an interview with The New York Times published yesterday. "The reality is the world will need nearly a third more energy by 2040. The planet may have as many as two billion more people. And so all forms of energy are going to be needed."
Natural gas, Dudley said, "has got to be the most significant fuel," because it's already produced at scale. Renewables, he added, are "absolutely fantastic" but not yet ready to fill in the "base load of where the power industry is going to go."
BP joins its European counterparts Royal Dutch Shell, Eni SpA and Total SA in their willingness to acknowledge the role fossil fuels play in climate change. The four supermajors were among the first companies to join the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), an industry group formed in 2014 aimed at reducing carbon emissions through voluntary action.
But none of the companies are looking hard at a future where their products are unwelcome in core transportation and power markets.
"Shell's core business is, and will be for the foreseeable future, very much in oil and gas ... and particularly in natural gas," Shell CEO Ben van Beurden reportedly told listeners at the aptly named Oil & Money conference in London. Lest one think Shell's $1 billion to $2 billion in annual investments in clean energy lead observers to think the company has "gone soft on the future of oil and gas," he clarified, "they would be wrong."
Last month, U.S.-based Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. joined OGCI, and both of those companies have recently announced commitments to reduce emissions of methane in their operations. Yesterday Exxon announced it would spend $1 million over the next two years — about 4 percent of its annual lobbying budget — to support development of a U.S. carbon tax (Greenwire, Oct. 9).Changing entrenched industries
Still, the new IPCC report makes clear that this piecemeal approach to addressing climate change, led largely by voluntary industry efforts that lack a regulatory backstop, will not be enough to avert the worst effects of climate change.
The White House, which has rolled back climate-related regulations covering power plants, autos, and the oil and gas industry, has barely acknowledged the U.N. report, issuing a brief statement touting emissions reductions to date stemming largely from the shift from coal to natural gas (Greenwire, Oct. 9).
Asked about the IPCC report, the American Petroleum Institute similarly noted the drop in domestic carbon emissions in recent years.
"The natural gas and oil industry is actively addressing the complex global challenge of climate change through robust investments in technology innovation, efficiency improvements, and cleaner fuels," API said in a statement. "While global CO2 emissions have risen 50 percent since 1990, U.S. CO2 emissions are at 25-year lows due in large part to clean and abundant U.S. natural gas powering homes and businesses as the number one source of U.S. electricity generation today."
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a group representing energy exploration and production firms in the West, said she was traveling and could not review the IPCC report.
The IPCC report does not dodge the difficulty of totally transforming heavily entrenched industries and deploying cleaner forms of energy. "These options are technically proven at various scales but their large-scale deployment may be limited by economic, financial, human capacity and institutional constraints."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/10/stories/1060102153
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‘Dream’ of Drinkable Fracking Wastewater a Topic of EPA Study
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
Drinking the wastewater from by hydraulic fracturing and other oil and gas drilling operations may be possible one day, but it is a long way off, according to senior EPA water officials.
The Environmental Protection Agency is studying the best way to dispose of water that resurfaces after being shot down deep underground to break apart deposits of oil and gas, the process known as fracking.
Many arid Western states are dreaming of the day when they might be able to turn this wastewater into a precious potable resource, said Lee Forsgren, deputy assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Water.
“How far is the dream from the reality? We don’t know,” Forsgren said.
Even if it is never possible to make fracking wastewater drinkable, these states, as well as oil and gas drillers and even some environmentalists, would be happy if it were possible to discharge the wastewater into a river. Right now, this water is so polluted it has to be sequestered in tanks or sent back underground.
The EPA is planning to release a white paper early next year outlining lessons on reusing fracking wastewater and what still needs to happen to make it a reality, Forsgren told Bloomberg Environment. The agency then will determine what, if any, regulatory changes are needed to make in the summer of 2019, he said.
The EPA would have to set up a system of rules and regulations before companies could legally reuse fracking wastewater, which is often contaminated with metals and other pollutants.
What Do People Think?States, drillers, environmentalists, and others who have a stake in this issue have been providing feedback to the EPA, which held a meeting at its Washington headquarters Oct. 9 to summarize what it has learned so far and to solicit more ideas from the public.
Jesse Pritts, a civil engineer in the Office of Water, said states that are concerned about water shortages are enthusiastic about the possibility of reusing wastewater, even if it isn’t potable. Being able to discharge the waste back into water bodies could alleviate some of the drought stress on their regions.
The drilling industry also believes that it is possible to reuse this wastewater and wants the agency to move forward on setting up a framework that would it.
It is an especially large concern in the Permian Basin of West Texas, where underground wells that store wastewater are nearing their capacity, Pritts said.
Environmentalists and academics are warning the agency to proceed with caution. Many scientists believe the technology to measure the contaminants in fracking wastewater isn’t mature enough to allow the EPA to devise a plan to regulate its reuse, according to Pritts. They also warned that the chemical composition of the wastewater can vary widely from region to region.
Publicly owned wastewater treatment plants also weighed in with the EPA. The plants almost unanimously said they don’t want to be responsible for treating fracking wastewater and would prefer that responsibility to remain on the drillers themselves, Pritts said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/dream-of-drinkable-fracking-wastewater-a-topic-of-epa-study
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EPA Sends Obama-Era MATS Reconsideration Proposal For OMB Review
Oct 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA has sent for White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) pre-publication review its proposal to reconsider the Obama administration's landmark mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) rule for power plants, prompting fresh criticism from environmentalists who warn it will undo public health protections.
OMB received the proposal Oct. 5 for mandatory review, according to its website. OMB review typically takes up to 90 days, but can be faster or slower according to the circumstances.
EPA air policy chief Bill Wehrum told reporters Sept. 26 the proposal will focus on the Obama-era revised finding that it is still “appropriate and necessary” to regulate power plants' air toxics under Clean Air Act section 112, even after consideration of costs of meeting the rule's emissions limits.
The proposal will also address the provisions of the MATS rule itself, possibly offering industry implementation flexibilities in the context of a review of “residual” risks. Under the air law, EPA is mandated to review its air toxics rules eight years after their implementation to determine whether residual health risks from a sector's emissions remain, or whether new emissions control technologies exist. The agency has used these reviews to sometimes tighten regulations, but environmentalists warn they cannot be used to soften a rule like MATS.
Environmentalists fear EPA in the proposal will scrap the “appropriate and necessary” finding, which is a legal prerequisite for the rule itself. Scrapping the finding would undermine the legal basis for the rule and open the door to fresh legal challenges seeking to vacate MATS, sources say.
After the Supreme Court in 2015 remanded the original finding to EPA for the agency's failure to consider implementation costs, EPA revised the finding in 2016 to include a cost estimate.
However, critics of the MATS rule say it is based on a flawed justification that cites “co-benefits” derived from regulating pollutants that are not themselves the subject of air toxics regulation under section 112. Hence the Trump EPA is expected to chart a new course that will exclude consideration of co-benefits.
“The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards are among the most important protections we have to keep our children safe, and the Trump administration is attacking their foundation,” said the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in an Oct. 9 statement. “The steps the administration is taking will allow it to eviscerate the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and our children will pay the price. EDF will fight to keep these critical protections in place."
EDF notes in its statement that many utility sector groups are opposed to scrapping the MATS emissions limits themselves, because power companies have already invested billions in compliance with the MATS rule.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-sends-obama-era-mats-reconsideration-proposal-omb-review
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Platts: U.S. oil exports expected to hit nearly 4 million barrels a day by 2020
Oct 9, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
U.S. crude oil exports are expected to hit nearly 4 million barrels a day by 2020.
The export volumes are expected to rise to 2.2 million barrels a day in 2019 and hit 3.9 million barrels a day by 2020, according to a new report by research firm S&P Global Platts.Recommended Video
The increasing crude oil exports will be linked to continued oil production growth in U.S. shale oil fields, particularly the Permian Basin in West Texas, which is currently producing around 3.4 million barrels of oil a day.
The report estimates that the Permian -- which stretches from West Texas into New Mexico -- accounted for more than a quarter of U.S. oil production in 2017.
The Platts report said current ship borne export capacity out of the U.S. is around 4.8 million barrels per day, with Texas accounting for the vast majority of the total, 3.9 million barrels a day. Houston is said to have the lions share of export capacity -- more than 2 million barrels a day -- while the Corpus Christi and Brownsville region has more than 1.1 million barrels a day of oil export capacity.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/S-P-U-S-oil-exports-expected-to-hit-nearly-4-13292189.php
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Surging U.S. Oil, Gas Dealmaking in 3Q2018 to Continue, Says DrillingInfo
Oct 9, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
U.S. oil and natural gas dealmaking during the third quarter surged 250% from the second quarter, breaking records...
Access to full text unavailable – subscription required.
Story can be found here: http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116058-surging-us-oil-gas-dealmaking-in-3q2018-to-continue-says-drillinginfo
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Colorado’s Drilling Referendum Is About Much More Than Drilling
Oct 10, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Catherine Traywick
A Colorado referendum to increase the setback requirement for oil and gas development would affect more than just where operators can drill.
Proposition 112 also would apply to oil and natural gas processing, placement of pipelines carrying oil and gas from the fields and the treatment of associated waste, according to ballot guidance issued by the state legislature. Any new such development would have to be located at a minimum of 2,500 feet (760 meters) from occupied structures and any areas deemed “vulnerable” by the state or by local governments. That means that cities or towns could effectively bar any new infrastructure by giving public areas a “vulnerable” designation.
If the measure passes on Nov. 6, it would become law. The state legislature, which is back in session in January, could introduce a bill to amend the new law, but that bill would have to pass both chambers before heading to the governor for signing.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/colorados-drilling-referendum-is-about-much-more-than-drilling
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Okla. Company Scrimped Before Deadly Well Fire
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
The operator of the Oklahoma well that burned in January, killing five men, was trying to save money and impress investors with a risky drilling method, say attorneys for the dead men's families.
Red Mountain Energy LLC of Oklahoma City and its representatives, they say, ignored warnings that using cheaper, lighter "drilling mud" risked losing control of the well.
"It's error after error after error," said David Rumley, a Corpus Christi, Texas, attorney representing the families of two of the men who died in the fire. "This entire thing could have been prevented if these companies had done what they were supposed to do."
Lighter drilling mud, in addition to being cheaper, created a bigger flare at the site, which was used to persuade investors that the well was more productive, Rumley said.
And a control room door was broken and blocked, he said. It could have let them escape to safety, but instead, the bodies of the workers were found stacked up against it.
The accusations, based on more than a dozen depositions taken by the plaintiff attorneys, are included in amended lawsuits filed this week in Pittsburg County, Okla., against Red Mountain, rig owner Patterson-UTI Energy Inc. and other companies.
The filings contain the most cohesive explanation yet for the blaze, which was the deadliest oil disaster since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico and one of the worst oil field accidents in U.S. history (Energywire, Jan. 24).
A federal workplace safety investigation led the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to seek penalties against employers involved, but the agency did not offer a cause for the accident. OSHA did not issue any citations for a blocked control room door. State regulators finished their investigation without pointing to a cause or taking any punitive action.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has issued an update of its investigation, detailing what happened the day of the fire, but it hasn't made any findings about the cause. The agency plans to issue a final report by the middle of next year (Energywire, Aug. 17).
An attorney for Red Mountain Energy declined comment. A representative of Patterson-UTI did not respond to a request for comment. Rumley said the two companies are each blaming the other as the case heads toward a mediation session within the month.
Drilling "mud" is thick fluid used to cool the drill bit and control pressure inside the well. Other companies drilling in the same area used significantly heavier mud, according to the suit, which lists the names of about 30 nearby wells where heavier mud was used.
As Red Mountain planned the well, service companies sent proposals that involved using heavier mud, which also involved spending more money, according to the suits. Once drilling was underway, the drilling engineer shot drone footage of the 40-foot flare and put it to music ("Thunder," by Imagine Dragons) to market to investors. Lighter mud created a bigger flare, and a bigger flare implied more production.
The night before the fire, a Patterson crew member asked Red Mountain's on-site manager to use heavier mud, according to the suit, urging him to "mud up."
Red Mountain instructed its company men to "keep the mud weight in their back pocket," the suit says.
The next day was Jan. 22. Red Mountain's well site was in Pittsburg County, near Quinton, Okla., about 100 miles southeast of Tulsa.
The crew pumped the oil-based mud into the bore as it withdrew the long string of drill pipe, according to the CSB report. As the bit assembly came out of the hole, gas and mud began flowing out of the well, and it ignited in less than a minute. The rig burned for about eight hours.
Rig workers are trained to head to the control room, or "doghouse," as a safe place when things go wrong, Rumley said. The doghouse is supposed have a purging system to remove gases, and the back door is supposed to be a path to safety. But the purge system wasn't working in Patterson's doghouse, and the "non-operational" door hadn't been fixed. Patterson has long had a troubled worker safety record.
Killed were Josh Ray, 35, of Fort Worth, Texas; Matt Smith, 29, of McAlester, Okla.; Cody Risk, 26, of Wellington, Colo.; Parker Waldridge, 60, of Crescent, Okla.; and Roger Cunningham, 55, of Seminole, Okla.
The CSB reported that two other workers tried to activate the well's blowout preventer after the fire started, using another set of controls, but it didn't fully close.
Red Mountain went back and completed the well after the fire using heavier drill mud, Rumley said (Energywire, May 18).
Beyond damages, the lawsuits seek punitive damages in the form of 25 percent of the net worth of Patterson, Red Mountain and other companies named.
"The only way you can punish a company is to hit it in the pocketbook," said Rumley, who also disputes Patterson's assurance to investors that the company has adequate insurance to cover losses from the fire.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/10/stories/1060102139
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Allow Technology and Competition to Solve America’s Infrastructure Problems
Oct 9, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Libby Szabo
As prospects fade for bipartisan national infrastructure legislation, it now falls to state and local leaders to make the best possible use of the resources at their disposal in confronting the myriad challenges facing our nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels, electricity grid, and water systems.
Of those challenges, none is more pressing than ensuring that our drinking water is both safe and affordable. Water systems are primarily the responsibility of local officials. We are the ones who have to get it right lest, through our negligence, we saddle the communities we serve with the kind of water-contamination crisis that, in 2015, struck the residents of Flint, Mich.
In addition to providing sufficient funding for water utilities, we must ensure that system operators and engineers have unimpeded access to the technologies and materials that are essential to maintaining public health and safety. This is particularly critical in addressing the pervasive problem of leaking, corroding underground iron water pipes.
A report issued earlier this year by Utah State University’s acclaimed Buried Structures Laboratory concluded that local governments must replace rapidly deteriorating underground water pipes, or face dire consequences. “Maintaining an obsolete system can cause severe financial hardships for cities as well as increase public health risks,” the report pointed out.
Removing barriers to competition
This is why we should welcome initiatives to remove barriers to competitive bidding on vital water infrastructure projects. In Congress, no fewer than five bills have been introduced this year promoting open competition among suppliers of pipe materials and technologies in federally-funded projects. For example, the “Water infrastructure Transparency Act,” sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), would require maximum open and free competition in procurement of projects receiving financial assistance under federal laws covering water infrastructure.
Another measure, the “Municipal Infrastructure Savings and Transparency Act,” introduced by Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), would allow state and local agencies receiving federal funding to have maximum flexibility to select appropriate construction materials that meet the performance requirements of the contract while allowing open and free competition among suppliers of construction materials.
These bills and similar legislation pending on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures are a reflection of growing concern over the state of our water infrastructure and the urgency of doing something about it. Thus, it was puzzling to read Tony Hyde’s recent article op-ed in The Hill, which, I believe, mischaracterized efforts to bring about procurement reform for water infrastructure projects. Mr. Hyde cites a recently passed resolution by the National Association of Counties (NACo) saying it “supports local control of water infrastructure decisions” and “opposes federal legislation that sets mandatory state requirements.”
I know of no such federal legislation, certainly not the five bills currently before Congress. Likewise, there is no legislation pending in state legislatures that would mandate piping materials or remove decision-making authority on such matters from local officials and on-site engineers. The issue is not local control; no one is advocating for government at any level to mandate a particular technology or material. This is about saving money, and potentially saving lives, by allowing project engineers to select from the best products our nation’s most creative companies have to offer.
County Officials Joined by State Legislators
In fact, many of my fellow NACo members support open pipe selection as a means to reduce infrastructure costs and improve water system performance through innovative and more resilient materials that are available when free-market policies are permitted.
Joining us in the call for open competition are state legislators affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC has recently adopted two resolutions, one urging open and fair competition for materials used in wastewater projects. The other calls for fair and competitive bidding in the selection of pipe materials in infrastructure projects involving state grants. Such steps are crucial because, as noted in an ALEC White Paper released earlier this year, underground piping “represents 60% of total spending for water and wastewater infrastructure, according to the EPA.”
County officials and state legislators are acutely aware of their responsibility to provide the people they serve with safe drinking water. Instead of being advocates for certain technologies or materials, we should let water infrastructure decisions be settled in a competitive bidding process that is devoid of barriers that limit the options of local decision makers.
Libby Szabo is a member of the Jefferson County, Colorado Board of Commissioners, the National Association of County Officials, and a former member of the Colorado House of Representatives.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/410612-allow-technology-and-competition-to-solve-americas
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Ominous UN Climate Report Could Be Good News for One Industry
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jeremy Hodges
A United Nations call to arms urging countries to spend trillions of dollars annually to avoid irreversible damage from climate change may be just the tonic for one moribund industry.
Carbon capture and storage, which siphons atmosphere-damaging pollutants from industrial smokestacks and sticks them underground permanently, has long been touted as the answer to the world’s climate woes. So far, exorbitant costs and a lack of government support have limited the industry’s expansion.
Yet CCS, as it is know for short, will be needed for “all pathways” to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), a panel of scientists convened by the United Nations said in a report Oct. 8. Their conclusion is welcome news for big energy companies led by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Statoil ASA, and Total SA, which are studying how to deploy CCS to safeguard the emissions they produce from oil and gas reservoirs.
“The report provides important scientific information but deployment and financing of future CCS projects also requires strong support, political will and ambition,” said John Scowcroft, executive adviser for Europe for the Global CCS Institute. “Long-term policy stability and finance frameworks are also needed to drive investment.”
Shell said earlier this year that carbon capture and storage must exceed global emissions and that there needs to be 10,000 active projects to attain that goal. BP Plc Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said in April that CCS needs government subsidies to get going.
That is a huge leap from where the industry is today. There are currently 18 large-scale CCS facilities operating worldwide, with five more under construction and four more in advanced development, according to the Global CCS Institute, a body that promotes the technology.
Yet carbon capture and storage is a crucial piece of all equations for containing emissions, partly because the world remains so dependent on fossil fuels and will probably do so for decades to come. The International Energy Agency estimates that carbon capture and storage plants need to account for 14 percent of all emissions cuts by 2060 to keep global warming to just 2 degrees Celsius.
The report this week from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change looked at how to reach a more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees and recommended that the world reduce coal’s share of the power generation market to less than 2 percent by 2050. Under that scenario, the fuel could only feed power plants if its emissions were sequestered by CCS plants.
There needs to be a 10-fold increase in carbon capture by 2025 to put it on the right path to restrict global warming, which translates to a $60 billion investment, the International Energy Age said.
A few plants are moving ahead. In August China established the world’s 18th large-scale carbon capture and storage facility at the China National Petroleum Corp.’s Jilin Oil Field with a storage capacity of 600,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year.
China has two other large projects due to come online in the next two years at Sinopec Qilu Petrochemical Corp.’s refinery and the Yanchang CCS facility in Shaanxi Province at two coal-to-chemicals plants. Both facilities are slated to capture around 400,000 tons of carbon each, according to the Global CCS Institute.
Another factor slowing deployment down is the penalty for burning fossil fuels is still too low. While the cost of emitting one ton of carbon dioxide in Europe has more than doubled this year, it is still less than half the 50 euros ($57) a ton needed to stimulate investment in green technologies, according to analysts at the International Energy Agency and researcher Carbon Tracker.
“Whilst new CCS projects are slowly coming on-stream every year, we need to scale up the rate of deployment dramatically,” said Luke Warren, CEO of the CCS Association. “Projects will go ahead in those countries that have favorable policies and incentive frameworks. In Europe, the U.K., Norway, and the Netherlands are all well-placed to take the lead on this critical technology.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/ominous-un-climate-report-could-be-good-news-for-one-industry
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U.N. Report Meets Deaf Ears but May Aid Push for Carbon Tax
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recent report may fall on some deaf ears in the halls of Congress, but others are hoping to capitalize on its dire warnings to infuse new energy behind carbon tax legislation.
The report issued over the weekend from the IPCC — a consortium of experts from 40 countries — offers a bleak outlook if greenhouse gas emissions aren't curbed in the next decade.
The document, which incorporated findings from 6,000 scientific studies aimed at assessing the difference between a 1.5-degree Celsius increase and a 2 C increase, calls on global leaders to hold warming to no more than 1 C above preindustrial levels or abandon billions of people to the social and natural dangers of runaway warming (Greenwire, Oct. 8).
But Congress is controlled by a Republican leadership generally skeptical of climate science. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) predicted the report wouldn't do much to move the needle — at least until the midterm elections.
"It should," Schatz told reporters yesterday. "It's a stark, well-researched, impeccable piece of science, but nothing will move congressional Republicans other than voters punishing them."
Indeed, the climate skeptic wing of the Republican Party is still dug in.
Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Center for Energy and Environment, issued a statement saying that the rate of warming since the 1980s is actually lower than the IPCC's models have predicted.
"The IPCC's report is the latest in a series of dire warnings of tipping points and last chances dating back to the 1980s," Ebell said.
And Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) — the Senate's pre-eminent climate skeptic, a prominent promoter of the 2009 "climategate" email controversy and a big critic of EPA's 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health — yesterday dismissed the IPCC's latest report.
"I'm not surprised," Inhofe said. "It's the same old IPCC."
After a tepid response to the report early yesterday, President Trump — who has famously called climate change a "hoax" — told reporters he would "be looking at it." But he still appeared to cast doubt on its authorship.
"It was given to me. And I want to look at who drew it. You know, which group drew it," Trump said. "Because I can give you reports that are fabulous, and I can give you reports that aren't so good."Momentum for a carbon tax?
Still, others see movement in the Republican Party toward acknowledgement of the need to address climate change, though the open question is what combination of policies will bring the kind of large-scale changes that the IPCC says are necessary.
The report suggests the world would have to move toward sharp emissions reductions by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050 to meet the 1.5 C target.
"For those of us who respect science, the report makes clear the urgency of acting quickly and significantly to address climate change," said Alex Flint, executive director of the Alliance for Market Solutions and a former member of Trump's transition team.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) took to the floor yesterday to urge other lawmakers to read the report, noting that most in the Senate — Republican and Democrat — can at least agree that climate change is happening.
"There may not be agreement on what we should do about it, but there better be soon," she said.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), meanwhile, said the report highlights the pressing need for a price on carbon, perhaps the most popular option for curbing emissions among climate hawks.
"The IPCC report makes it clear we need to act quickly to head off climate catastrophe," Whitehouse said in a statement. "And the findings bolster what we are hearing from economists: that climate change puts us on course for an implosion of coastal property values as well as trillions in stranded fossil fuel assets. Those are systemic risks to the economy."
Whitehouse and Schatz have a bill, the "American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act," that would impose a fee of $50 per metric ton of emissions in 2019.
On the other side of Capitol Hill, Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) introduced a bill in July — with two Republican co-sponsors — to put a $24-per-ton tax on carbon, with 70 percent of the revenue going to the Highway Trust Fund, as a replacement for the federal gasoline tax.
There are also other proposals floating around in the advocacy world. The Climate Leadership Council and Americans for Carbon Dividends, for instance, push a plan that would tax carbon starting at $40 per ton, an effort that has garnered $1 million in support from Exxon Mobil Corp. (Greenwire, Oct. 9).'We can do this'
The IPCC report could give a boost to carbon tax efforts in meetings with congressional Republicans, said Flint, whose group pushes a revenue-neutral tax.
"In our conversations with Republicans, almost all acknowledge man-made climate change," Flint said. "They are comfortable discussing the science. The challenge is, what policies should conservatives embrace to address climate change?"
Flint's group — and other conservative climate advocates — favors eliminating EPA regulations as part of any carbon pricing proposal.
If any policy eventually takes hold in Congress — whether next year or after 2020 — there will likely be debate about whether a carbon price alone can achieve the reductions the IPCC recommends.
David Yarnold, president of the National Audubon Society, said he has "serious concerns about curtailing EPA authority" but is happy to see any jumping-off point, particularly on the Republican side.
And the report itself could provide a sense of urgency that's long been missing from the climate debate, he said.
"I do believe that this is going to create a greater sense of urgency," Yarnold said. "I think that report is going to have staying power, and I think that the timing around the midterm elections couldn't be better. It says, 'Pay attention.'"
Klobuchar, too, sounded a modest note of optimism on the floor yesterday.
"You know what? We can do this," Klobuchar said. "But if we don't do anything, we are going to face those dire consequences."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/10/10/stories/1060102149
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Exxon Puts Up $1 Million to Promote Carbon Tax
Oct 9, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko and Bradley Olson
Exxon Mobil Corp. , once a powerful skeptic of global warming, will now be among the first oil companies to put money into the fight to make climate change a political priority in Washington.
The U.S.’s largest energy producer will commit $1 million over two years to promote a national tax on carbon as a way to address the environmental issue. The funding will back an initiative designed to appeal to the Republicans who now control Washington, and may open the door for Exxon’s peers in the oil industry to follow.
As warnings over the dangers of climate change have grown, governments around the world have pursued increasingly stringent regulation of fossil-fuel companies. Exxon’s move is an attempt to manage such pressure in the U.S. in ways it hopes will simplify requirements on the oil industry, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking.
Exxon sees a carbon tax as an alternative to patchwork regulations, putting one cost on all carbon emitters nationwide and eliminating regulatory uncertainty hovering over Exxon’s business in states that might seek to target oil companies, the person said.
Exxon’s contribution will go to Americans for Carbon Dividends, a new group, one of whose co-chairmen is former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. It is promoting a carbon tax-plus-dividend policy first proposed by two former U.S. secretaries of state, James Baker III and George Shultz, last year. All three men are Republicans.
The initiative’s goal is to discourage companies from emitting carbon through the tax, while minimizing additional cost to consumers. Funds raised by the tax would be channeled to Americans through what the group calls a “carbon dividend” that it estimates could be as much as $2,000 annually per family. Monthly payments would go directly to the recipients. The tax would be “revenue-neutral,” having no net effect on government receipts.
Exxon’s move places it among global corporations that are promoting policies and business strategies to fight climate change. That list includes Apple Inc., Nike Inc. and McDonald’s Corp., all of which have pledged to embrace renewable power and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
General Motors Co. , Johnson & Johnson , and other oil companies, including BP PLC, are founding members of the Climate Leadership Council, the organization fine-tuning the Baker-Shultz plan. “This is a real turning point in U.S. climate policy and politics,” the council’s leader, Ted Halstead, said of Exxon’s commitment. “Corporations are leading us to a solution.”
Exxon’s decision to lobby for a carbon tax represents a remarkable shift from the company’s stance roughly two decades ago. At the time, Exxon was at the center of industry efforts questioning the validity of global-warming claims and policy proposals—tactics that critics say contributed to the political polarization that has impeded legislative consensus on the issue to this day.
As early as 1997, Exxon took out newspaper advertisements, titled “Unsettled Science,” that asserted “scientists remain unable to confirm” whether humans are causing “global warming.” That same year, in a speech just months before a multination agreement to reduce emissions was reached in Kyoto, Japan, Lee Raymond, then Exxon’s CEO, said proposals to cut emissions “are neither prudent nor practical.”
In the ensuing years, Exxon and a number of its peers spent tens of millions of dollars supporting such bodies as the Global Climate Coalition, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council, all of which highlighted scientific uncertainty about rising global temperatures. As it did, Exxon also supported climate research, including a $100 million contribution to Stanford University to promote climate science and emissions reduction.
‘ This is a real turning point in U.S. climate policy and politics. Corporations are leading us to a solution. ’—Ted Halstead
By all accounts, the company’s stance softened after Rex Tillerson took over from Mr. Raymond in 2006. Exxon executives began affirming climate change in public statements, saying the problem “warrants action.” The company also began supporting the idea of a “revenue-neutral carbon tax.”
That change coincided with investor pressure to disclose the impact of climate regulations on its business—and accusations from environmental advocates that while Exxon recognized the dangers of rising temperatures, it ignored the issue or even sowed doubt on the science.
Exxon’s support for a carbon tax stems in part from a desire to alleviate some of these pressures. The proposal Exxon is promoting would include legal provisions to shield companies from liability for any connection between historical emissions and the effects of climate change, though not for fraud.
Exxon has pushed back on the accusation that it sowed doubt on climate change, emphasizing its contribution to more than 100 peer-reviewed research papers on the issue. A number of the lawsuits have been dismissed in federal court, and while the New York and Massachusetts investigations continue, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently dropped an inquiry into how the company accounts for the impact of climate change on its business and values its oil and gas assets
Its support for a carbon tax puts Exxon in rare opposition to allies in the Republican Party, at a time the GOP holds the White House and majorities in Congress. Republican leaders there have often derided the idea of global warming and disdained taxes as a solution.
Many Republicans influential in the Trump era believe a carbon tax of any kind would likely add to consumers’ costs and thus view the proposition as simply too unpopular with voters. One Republican, Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, proposed a carbon tax bill earlier this year. But while the Baker-Shultz plan is designed to be revenue-neutral by channeling all of the tax receipts directly to Americans, critics say it is too complicated to gain much traction politically.
“Not only are you asking the base to support climate policy, but you’re asking them to support a tax. You’re asking them to support a double whammy,” said George David Banks, a former adviser to Mr. Trump on climate issues.
Exxon’s push to make environmentalism part of its brand has accelerated. This year it pledged to cut its methane emissions 15% by 2020 and has touted its research to make fuels from algae. Also, its chief executive, Darren Woods, met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in June to affirm that the company wants to be “part of the solution” on climate change.
Last month Exxon joined Chevron Corp. and Occidental Petroleum to commit $100 million each to the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative’s investment arm. The organization supports developing and using new technology to lower carbon emissions.
Exxon’s promotion of a carbon tax marks “an interesting and important signal shift,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.). “For years, Exxon’s political effort was all on the side of climate denial and obstruction,” he said. “At least Exxon money is now on both sides of the fight.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-puts-up-1-million-to-campaign-for-a-carbon-tax-1539079200
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Trump Says He’ll Review UN Climate Change Report
Oct 9, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
President Trump said he’ll “absolutely” review a new dire report on climate change from the United Nations, though he expressed some skepticism about its authors.
“It was given to me and I want to look at who drew it, which group drew it,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday just before leaving for an Iowa campaign rally.
“Because I can give you reports that are fabulous and I can give you reports that aren’t so good,” he said. “But I’ll be looking at it, absolutely.”
The remarks were the president’s first comments on the report since it was released by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) late Sunday.
Among its warnings were that the world ought to dramatically cut emissions in an unprecedented way by 2030 or face grave consequences such as coral reef die-offs and lower crop yields. Scientists predicted some of those impacts even with just 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) of global warming.
The report was commissioned in 2015 as part of the Paris agreement. Its authors came from dozens of countries and major institutions like the University of Oxford, Duke University and Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies.
Trump has been dismissive of climate change science in the past, calling it a hoax previously, though he and his administration have acknowledged that pollution from human activity plays some role in global warming. The scientific consensus is that human activity, via greenhouse gas emissions, is far and away the main cause of the changing climate.
Until Trump’s statement, the White House’s official word on the report was to highlight how much the United States has led the world in carbon dioxide emissions reductions.
“From 2005 to 2017, U.S. CO2-related emissions declined by 14 percent while global energy-related CO2 emissions rose by 21 percent during the same time,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walter said. “This has been possible through the development and large-scale deployment of new, affordable, and cleaner technologies to capitalize on our energy abundance.”
Trump has taken numerous steps to undo or weaken climate change regulations on the books, like repealing the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, rolling back greenhouse gas rules for cars and easing methane pollution standards for oil and natural gas drillers.
He has also pledged to pull the United States out of the Paris agreement.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/410642-trump-says-hell-review-un-climate-change-report
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High Court Won’t Hear Last-Ditch Effort to Save Obama Coolant Limits
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The Supreme Court won’t review Obama-era limits on climate-warming coolants, despite a strong push by major chemical and appliance makers.
The high court announced Oct. 9 it won’t hear litigation over an Environmental Protection Agency regulation banning certain hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, chemicals used as refrigerants that are greenhouse gases hundreds of times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Major chemical makers Honeywell International Inc. and Chemours Co.—alongside the Natural Resources Defense Council—had urged the Supreme Court to reinstate the rule, which was struck down in large portions last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Several large appliance companies including Daikin Inc. and Carrier Inc.—as well as more than a dozen states—also had lent support for the Obama-era rules.
The Supreme Court’s decision gives the EPA a relatively blank slate to rewrite HFC limits. The agency in April guidance said it wouldn’t enforce the Obama-era rules and would rewrite them, though it hasn’t offered a timeline for that effort.
Global DealChemical and appliance makers have long urged the Trump administration to back a 2016 global deal limiting HFCs, known as the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. The Obama-era HFC limits laid the groundwork for the United States to meet initial requirements of the Kigali measure, which takes effect in 2019.
But neither the White House nor the EPA hasn’t taken a public stance on the Kigali deal, which would need Senate ratification.
The Trump administration initially defended the HFC limits in court, but it reversed course in June, saying it agreed with the D.C. Circuit’s opinion. Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice, wrote the August 2017 D.C. Circuit opinion, which said the EPA overstepped the bounds of its Clean Air Act authority.
The cases are Honeywell Int’l v. Mexichem Fluor, U.S., No. 17-1703, cert denied 10/9/18 and Nat. Res. Def. Council v. Mexichem Fluor, U.S., No. 18-2, cert denied 10/9/18
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/high-court-wont-hear-last-ditch-effort-to-save-obama-coolant-limits
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Kavanaugh To Face Recusal Pressure In High Court Suits Over Utility GHGs
Oct 9, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is expected to face pressure to recuse himself from any high court case addressing EPA greenhouse gas limits for power plants given his role hearing litigation over agency climate rules while serving as an appellate judge.
While the justices are not required to follow any specific recusal rules, many of the recently confirmed justices have gone to extraordinary lengths in their first term to recuse themselves from any cases in which they had any connection, to avoid the appearance of conflict.
Justice Elena Kagan, who was solicitor general in the Obama administration, recused herself from any issue she worked on during her time with the Justice Department when she joined the court in 2010. Also, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, recused herself not only from cases on which she had been an appellate panelist, but also from cases where she weighed in on rehearing requests after she joined the court in 2009.
The pair recused themselves 117 times during the 2016 term, years after each joined the court, according to the American Bar Association.
Kavanaugh, who served 12 years on the D.C. Circuit, almost certainly would have recused himself if the Supreme Court had agreed to review a Kavanaugh-authored split D.C. Circuit ruling that largely vacated Obama EPA rules limiting hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants that act as potent GHGs. However, the court Oct. 9 declined to review the ruling, letting it stand.
The matter is somewhat less clear regarding any future high court consideration of EPA's power sector GHG rules. But industry attorneys are already expressing concern that Kavanaugh might recuse himself from participating in such a case -- because he sat on the court for oral arguments over a paused challenge to the Clean Power Plan (CPP). If he were to recuse himself, that could result in a 4-4 Supreme Court decision that would allow the D.C. Circuit ruling to stand.
The full D.C. Circuit in September 2016 heard oral arguments in West Virginia v. EPA, challenging the CPP, but it has never issued a merits ruling. Instead it has kept that case in abeyance for nearly two years as the Trump administration seeks to replace the CPP with a narrow measure known as the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule.
The appellate court is now facing pressure from CPP supporters to issue a decision, but most experts believe it is unlikely to do so.
"If the CPP goes up, he will have to recuse himself," one industry source says, noting that the historic practice in that situation is “iron clad.”
“That would leave climate policy up to the D.C. Circuit. There is no worse recipe than that," the source adds, echoing widespread expectations that the court was poised to uphold the CPP.
ACE Lawsuit 'Fuzzier'
When the Trump EPA finalizes its ACE rule, environmentalists, some states and others will file suit, arguing it is unlawfully weak and too deferential to states. Should that case -- as expected -- reach the Supreme Court, the need for Kavanaugh to recuse himself is “fuzzier,” the industry source and others say.
Kavanaugh's ability to consider that case “depends on what it looks like,” says one legal expert. “It will probably be a different case with different legal issues. But if there is a huge amount of overlap, then perhaps. We will not know until we see the final replacement and what the D.C. Circuit says. And that won't be finished before we have a new administration and we all go back to square one.”
This source agrees with the industry attorney that if West Virginia wound up at the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh would have to recuse himself.
"There is no rule, but you cannot have engaged in deliberation at a lower court and hear that case again in the Supreme Court. He's a Donald Trump appointee, so he might try to do that . . . but the answer is no, his colleagues won't let him.”
Chief Justice John Roberts and other justices would insist he recuse himself, the source argues. “You cannot allow a judge, even if there was no decision in the case but there was argument and internal deliberation -- you can't engage in all that and then hear the case as a Supreme Court justice.”
The legal expert distinguishes the situation from a prior high court fight over whether former Justice Antonin Scalia had to recuse himself during a case that reached the court in the Bush administration over a suit seeking information about an energy task force run by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, after it became public that Scalia and Cheney had gone hunting together. That situation is different from the Kavanaugh matter because it was “a social function with Cheney outside [Scalia's] work as a judge.”
Even so, a second industry source argues that even if the CPP were to go to the high court, Kavanaugh would not necessarily have to recuse himself because the D.C. Circuit did not issue a ruling when he was a member. “If you haven't ruled, I don't see why there would be a conflict," the source says. "That sounds like a standardless, subjective viewpoint" to say that he would have to recuse himself.
A second legal experts adds only that the Supreme Court gives each of the justices a “fair amount of leeway to make their own decisions” on recusal.
The recusal questions are key because Kavanaugh's confirmation now gives the Supreme Court a conservative majority, particularly on climate and environmental issues.
In his 12 years on the D.C. Circuit, Kavanaugh only twice issued rulings in support of an EPA regulation: one backing a prohibition on mountaintop removal and a second upholding EPA's approval of a California non-road emissions rule, according to SCOTUS blog.
During his confirmation hearing last month, Kavanaugh hinted he would vote to strike down the CPP without specifically naming the rule and without addressing the recusal issue. Instead, he attacked agencies for relying on ambiguities in "old law" to justify novel new policymaking efforts after they fail to persuade Congress to approve legislation to authorize the policies.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/kavanaugh-face-recusal-pressure-high-court-suits-over-utility-ghgs
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Scientists’ Climate Optimism Sparse, Given Political Environment
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bobby Magill
The ability to avoid the worst effects of climate change—food and water shortages, inundated cities, poverty, and disease—may be technically within reach.
But scientists aren’t optimistic that the necessary changes to fully decarbonize the global economy are politically or socially feasible.
With an “unprecedented” effort to radically transform the energy system and cut climate pollution globally, humanity can limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to prevent the worst effects of climate change, according to a United Nations report published Oct. 8.
“All we need to do is stop producing things that have tailpipes or smokestacks and start taking out of service the things that we have already built with tailpipes and smokestacks,” Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, told Bloomberg Environment. “Similarly, we can end all war today. All everyone has to do is put down their guns.”
The report says failing to limit temperature rise will mean rising seas will swallow coastal islands and low-lying cities. There will be more drought, extreme rainfall, intense heat waves, severe hurricanes, vanishing Arctic sea ice, widespread poverty, food insecurity, disease, and death.
Global carbon dioxide emissions would have to be effectively cut to zero by 2050 in order to avoid those effects. Humanity also would have to begin sucking carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and sequestering it forever—something that has never been proven to work at a big enough scale to make a difference for global warming.
Industry groups representing oil and gas, nuclear, and solar companies are using the report to validate their role in addressing climate change.
Quick Action NeededThe report illustrates the difference between the two goals of the Paris climate agreement: Aim to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius but prevent it from going past 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the point at which scientists say climate change will become a global catastrophe.
The 2 degree target pushes the need to cut carbon emissions to zero out to 2075, according to the report. But climate change will be less catastrophic if it is halted at 1.5 degrees Celsius than if it reaches or exceeds 2 degrees Celsius, the report concludes.
“Action in the next 10 years is important to keeping climate change impacts as small as possible, and costs of mitigation as low as possible. The lower we keep temperatures, the less impacts there are,” report co-author Natalie Mahowald, a Cornell University atmospheric scientist, told Bloomberg Environment.
The report, written by more than 60 scientists, was published by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ahead of December’s international climate talks in Poland. It is expected to add new urgency to the talks, which will focus on implementation of the Paris climate accord and the possibility of countries promising additional emissions cuts.
‘Not at All Realistic’Preventing climate change from becoming a true existential crisis is technically within reach, but optimism that humanity can pull off such an unprecedented global effort is sparse.
“It’s plausible and possible to radically transform the energy system, but very improbable given the lack of political will,” report co-author Drew Shindell, a Duke University climate scientist, told Bloomberg Environment.
“States like California and Hawaii are making the transformation at the required pace, showing it’s achievable, but getting everyone to do that is hard to imagine.”
Countries with aggressive climate policies such as Denmark, Norway, and Portugal show it can be done, Dan Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California-Berkeley, told Bloomberg Environment.
But with the U.S.—the world’s second-largest carbon emitter—pulling out of the Paris pact, there is too little policy support and leadership to meet the 1.5 degree target, he said.
“It is going to be exceedingly hard to get anywhere near this target given our propensity for inaction,” Kammen said.
The target is “not at all realistic,” Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Bloomberg Environment.
The technology to decarbonize the energy sector—such as electric vehicles, widespread renewables, and battery storage—is within reach, but most countries have an “abysmal” record of following through on climate pledges, Trenberth said.
Urgency HighDecarbonization of the energy system can be within reach, but the “urgency is high,” Jan Vrins, global energy practice leader for Navigant Consulting in Coral Gables, Fla., told Bloomberg Environment.
Renewable energy technologies exist today and new technnology is being developed to even more rapidly decarbonize, he said.
“Solar and wind have now become so cheap that they already take the lion’s share of investments in new power generation capacity in the U.S.,” Vrins said.
“Although we haven’t seen a comprehensive energy policy in the U.S. in decades, the country has actually made more progress in reducing emissions than Europe or other regions in the world.”
Industry Claims SolutionsMany energy industry groups said the IPCC report validates the kinds of energy they are promoting.
That includes the American Petroleum Institute, which represents Exxon Mobil Corp., BP America Inc., and other major fossil fuel companies. The trade group highlighted the role of natural gas in reducing carbon emissions and investments the oil and gas sector is making in technology, efficiency, and cleaner fuels.
The nuclear industry—which is shutting down reactors in the U.S. in part because they are less competitive on cost than natural gas—also touted its role in mitigating climate change.
“If you think we have a carbon problem, then value the existing nuclear for its carbon abatement potential,” Matthew Wald, communications adviser for the Nuclear Energy Institute, told Bloomberg Environment. “One of the steps [toward decarbonization] is preserving the carbon-free assets you already have.”
The IPCC report gives the solar industry a new sense of urgency, Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, told Bloomberg Environment.
“Solar is now cost-competitive with all other forms of energy and reduces emissions instead of emitting them,” Ross Hopper said. “The demand is there.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/scientists-climate-optimism-sparse-given-political-environment
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Kavanaugh Casts Shadow over Kids' Climate Case
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
The confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court may have already had repercussions on a high-profile climate change lawsuit brought by a group of young Americans.
Late last week, the Trump administration requested that a federal district court in Oregon halt trial proceedings in the lawsuit so the high court could consider whether the case is the "appropriate means" to address global warming.
Lawyers for the government made no significant new arguments in their motion. The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Supreme Court have all already greenlighted the trial, repeatedly ruling against Department of Justice requests to stay the case.
But that sequence of denials came before Kavanaugh joined the court this weekend, replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy, who in July — in his last action on the high court — denied the administration's most recent attempt to halt the case (E&E News PM, July 30).
Holly Doremus, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the government's lawyers appear to think they may have a chance at waylaying the lawsuit with Kavanaugh on the court.
"I think they're looking at Justice Kavanaugh," Doremus, who reviewed the latest stay request, said in an interview.
"There doesn't seem to me to be anything new," she said. "The only new context is that there's a new member of the Supreme Court."
The plaintiffs in the case, Juliana v. United States, are 21 children and young adults. They say the government has abdicated its legal duty to protect the environment, them and future generations, despite decades' worth of research documenting the dangers of climate change.
Trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 29 in Eugene, Ore.
Pat Parenteau, an environmental law professor teaching this fall at Ireland's University College Cork, said the government's request filed Friday, when Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation seemed to be a lock, was unlikely to get a different response from the Supreme Court.
"SCOTUS has already denied a similar attempt and nothing has changed other than Kavanaugh is now on the bench," Parenteau said by email, adding that he thought the government's move seemed desperate.
"I doubt the Court is going to intervene at this point just to save the [government] the trouble of putting on a defense," he said.
He added: "I think this is a last gasp desperation move by [the DOJ] to avoid the trouble of what promises to be a long and embarrassing trial."
In the court papers submitted Friday, government attorneys said the plaintiffs do not have "fundamental" rights protected under U.S. law related to safe climate conditions and that their arguments are appropriate for political advocacy — not court (Greenwire, Oct. 8).
The plaintiffs are suing for a court order saying the government has violated their rights to a safe climate and to trigger a court-ordered plan to phase out fossil fuels nationwide (Climatewire, Oct. 5).
"It is clear the Trump administration is frightened to allow the climate science to be presented in the courtroom," Philip Gregory, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement Friday.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/10/10/stories/1060102129
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Rhode Island Youth Will Sue for Stronger Climate Action
Oct 9, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
A Rhode Island youth group seeking stronger state action on climate change will sue over the state’s decision to deny its request.
Nature’s Trust Rhode Island, a youth group with national ties, will take the state to court after the group voted unanimously Oct. 9 to appeal.
The group—together with Mercy Ecology Inc., an environmental organization run by the Rhode Island Sisters of Mercy, an order of Catholic nuns—initially filed a petitionSept. 5 to the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. The petition requested an emergency rule leading to swift and aggressive action against the impacts of climate change on the coastal state.
The Department of Environmental Management denied the appeal Oct. 5. The department disagreed with the petitioners’ argument that the state was not moving quickly enough to lower greenhouse gases and to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Nature’s Trust voted unanimously Oct. 9 to appeal the decision in court, Peter Nightingale, president of the group and a physics professor at the University of Rhode Island, told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 9.
Nature’s Trust Rhode Island will appeal the petition denial to Rhode Island Superior Court, in Providence. The group will file as soon as possible and has 30 days to do so, Nightingale said.
The state’s dismissal comes just days after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced its findings that global warming was occurring more rapidly than previously thought and that immediate, worldwide action would be needed to avert the worst impacts of climate change, Nightingale said in an Oct. 9 statement.
‘Not the Best Approach’The petitioners proposed a specific schedule for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions in Rhode Island and a method for tracking emissions out of state due to Rhode Island products, Mary Kay, an attorney for the Department of Environmental Management, said in her letter denying the petition. But that may not be the best or only approach for addressing climate change, Kay said.
“This type of rulemaking would be unprecedented,” Kay said.
Rhode Island under Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) is taking a comprehensive approach to lowering greenhouse gas emissions, Kay said. In 2016, the state adopted a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. It will increase energy from renewable sources from 100 megawatts to 1,000 megawatts by 2020, she said.
In July, Rhode Island filed suit in state Superior Court against 21 oil, gas, and coal companies, including BP Plc, Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell Plc for damages from the costs the state will incur to fortify itself against climate change.
Petition: Need to Do MoreThe petition claimed the state is violating its constitutional obligation to preserve the public trust by protecting land and air, including from the impacts of climate change.
The state has acted to reduce greenhouse gases, but it isn’t moving quickly enough, the petition argued.
The state’s dismissal of the petition “ignores the need for change to happen in Rhode Island and is dismissive of our constitutional rights,” Chloe Moers, a 16-year old member of the Nature’s Trust board, said in the Oct. 9 statement.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/rhode-island-youth-will-sue-for-stronger-climate-action-1
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