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AM ACC Clips Report - October 11, 2018

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Global Economic Outlook Out of Sync
Oct 11, 2018 | ICIS
By Joseph Chang

Headwinds are starting to throw the global economic upswing out of sync. After a meaningful uplift this year in US and European economies, especially on the manufacturing front, Europe is slowing down markedly while China is taking measures to stave off the negative impacts of US tariffs.
(ACC Mentioned) Plastics Boom in Appalachian Basin Will Need Truck Drivers
Oct 11, 2018 | Kallanish Energy

Plastics manufacturing is poised to take off in the Appalachian Basin because of the shale boom, but those plans could be hurt by a lack of trucks and drivers, Kallanish Energy reports.
Is Trade Deal Enough To Help Republicans?
Oct 11, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Bowlin

With slightly less than a month until Election Day, candidates across the country are scrambling to respond to the Trump administration's recent announcement of a new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.

LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) Ahead Of Argument, Guidance Sparks Fight In Suit Over EPA TSCA Policy
Oct 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds

Environmentalists and the chemical sector are sparring over whether decades-old agency guidance helps or hinders legal attacks on the EPA's final rule updating the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory of existing chemicals, ahead of Oct. 12 oral argument in a case challenging the TSCA regulation's data disclosure provisions.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Prop 65: Standing The Test of Time?
Oct 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer

California’s Proposition 65 is unique, says David Roe, public interest lawyer and the man who spearheaded the law more than 30 years ago. It directly counters the federal regulatory approach taken in the US by shifting the burden of proof to industry, essentially via the threat of a private lawsuit.
Amazon Policy Restricts Some Chemicals, Urges Safer Ones (2)
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

Amazon’s new chemicals policy includes a list of substances—such as formaldehyde, phthalates, and parabens—that the online retailer will not allow to be used in baby, household cleaning, personal care, and beauty products produced by companies that Amazon owns.
Amazon Announces New Policy To Restrict Toxic Chemicals
Oct 10, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.
By Mike Schade

On October 5, Amazon issued its first-ever public safer chemicals policy. The policy includes restrictions on dozens of toxic phthalates, parabens, formaldehyde releasers, nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), triclosan, and toluene in its private brand baby, household cleaning, personal care, and beauty products in the United States.
US Seeks Expertise For Committees On Lead And Trichloroethylene OELs
Oct 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology at the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine is seeking nominations for two study committees being formed to evaluate approaches to developing occupational exposure levels for lead and trichloroethylene (TCE) for the Department of Defense.
U.S. Class-Action Case Targets Nine PFAS Makers
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue

A firefighter is leading a class-action suitagainst nine manufacturers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs).
AP Exclusive: Toxic Metal Found in Chain Stores' Jewelry
Oct 11, 2018 | Associated Press (In The New York Times)

Jewelry with the toxic metal cadmium is showing up on the shelves of national retailers including Ross, Nordstrom Rack and Papaya, according to newly released test results.
Bayer Judge Favors New Trial in $289 Million Roundup Case (1)
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joel Rosenblatt

Bayer AG won a tentative ruling slashing the lion’s share of a $289 million verdict in the first trial over claims that Roundup weed killer causes cancer and a judge is considering a new trial on whether the company is at fault for an ex-school groundskeeper’s illness.
Bayer Could Win a New Trial for Roundup
Oct 11, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Jacob Bunge

Bayer AG BAYRY 9.20% could win a new trial to defend its Roundup weed killer.
Bayer Lifted by Likely New Trial In $250 Million Weedkiller Case
Oct 11, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Jim Christie and Tina Bellon

The prospect of a fresh trial that could overturn $250 million damages against Bayer's Monsanto unit lifted the German company's shares, after an August ruling that it failed to warn users of the alleged cancer risks of its weedkillers.
Justices Grill Machine Makers Over Asbestos-Containing Parts (1)
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes

Does a flashlight manufacturer have to warn consumers about the potential of leaking batteries it didn’t produce? Or does an ashtray maker have to flag smokers about the health dangers of tobacco?
First Round of Mercury Convention Funding Sees Five Projects Approved
Oct 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The Minamata Convention on Mercury's specific international programme has announced that in its first round of funding, five projects from around the globe have been given the go ahead.
Canadian Draft Assessment Provisionally Finds Base Oils Are Not Harmful
Oct 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley

The Canadian government has provisionally concluded that 39 base oil substances are not harmful to human health or the environment at current levels of exposure.
EU Adopts Restrictions On CMRs In Textiles
Oct 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The European Commission has adopted restrictions for 33 carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR) substances used in clothing, textiles and footwear.

Energy News

(ACC Mentioned) Kinzinger Introduces Bill To Promote Combined Heat, Power Technologies
Oct 11, 2018 | Ripon Advance

Bipartisan legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) would redesignate and reauthorize U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) programs that advance the deployment of combined heat and power, or CHP, technologies.
Chevron Eyes Houston Refinery
Oct 10, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum

Chevron said Wednesday it's interested in either buying or building an oil refinery in the Houston area to process its booming production from West Texas' Permian Basin.

Chemical Security News

(ACC Mentioned) Chemical-Safety Investigators Say Aggressiveness Has Waned
Oct 11, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
By Heidi Vogt

Three days after a Sunoco pipeline in Texas caught fire during welding work in 2016, a tiny government agency called the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board dispatched a team to investigate.
DHS Strategy Seeks Deeper Grasp Of Rare Grid Threats
Oct 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr and Blake Sobczak

Responding to a congressional directive, the Department of Homeland Security has claimed a leadership position in coordinating the defense of power grids and other critical infrastructure against damaging electromagnetic pulses from solar storms or crippling shock waves from an atmospheric nuclear explosion.
Pentagon Slow to Protect Weapon Systems From Cyber Threats: U.S. Agency
Oct 11, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Idrees Ali

The Pentagon has been slow to protect major weapon systems from cyber attacks and routinely found critical vulnerabilities that hackers could potentially exploit in those systems, a federal government report said on Tuesday.

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

Environment News

EPA Adds Science Advisers to Panel Reviewing Air Standards
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid

Five specialists in toxicology, ecology, medicine, and atmospheric science will join a committee charged with advising the EPA on air quality standards for ozone, fine particulates, and other pollutants.
Climate Change a ‘Very Serious’ Threat, DHS Secretary Says
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Michaela Ross

Major storms caused by climate change are posing a “very serious” threat, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told a Senate panel as Hurricane Michael made landfall in Florida.
How High Does Carbon Need to Be? Somewhere From $20-$27,000
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Mathew Carr

The idea that carbon markets can help rein in greenhouse gas emissions got fresh momentum this week from a panel of scientists convened by the United Nations.
Dirtier Air Expected if EPA Lets More Companies Duck Permitting
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid

Air pollution could hike under an EPA plan that would let power plants, steel manufacturers, and a host of other industries avoid installing new emissions controls when seeking permits.
U.N. Climate Report Uses 'Scare Tactics' — Republicans
Oct 11, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey and Nick Sobczyk

Senate Republicans today chipped away at a high-profile and dire report on climate change, as EPA offered its first response by touting the nation's historic emissions reductions.
Conn. Residents Deserve To Be Heard As EPA Seeks To Roll Back Clean Power Plan
Oct 10, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Dannel P. Malloy

In recent years, Connecticut has taken real and concrete steps to protect our environment and combat climate change. With the passage of the Global Warming Solutions Act, we set ambitious goals to curtail greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and because of steadfast efforts within state government, we met and exceeded those goals eight years early.
Bill Gates Backs Wash. Ballot Measure
Oct 11, 2018 | Associated Press (In E&E Climatewire)

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has endorsed a November ballot measure in Washington state that would charge a fee on carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Global Economic Outlook Out of Sync

Oct 11, 2018 | ICIS

By Joseph Chang

Headwinds are starting to throw the global economic upswing out of sync. After a meaningful uplift this year in US and European economies, especially on the manufacturing front, Europe is slowing down markedly while China is taking measures to stave off the negative impacts of US tariffs.
On 10 October, the US equity markets plunged, with the benchmark S&P 500 Index finishing down 3.3%. This included major declines in chemical stocks.
The big risks going forward are trade and interest rates, with US policies causing the waves.
The latest manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) readings show continuing strength in the US, but a major slowdown in the eurozone. China’s manufacturing PMI as measured by the IHS Markit/Caixin index, having long lagged the US and Eurozone, is now at the neutral level.
In the latest China PMI report, new export orders declined at the quickest rate since February 2016 as the trade war with the US hit home.
The US-China trade war continues to escalate, with the third round of tariffs being implemented from both sides on 24 September. Chemicals, polymers and finished plastics are all impacted in the second and third rounds.
This latest US tariff round on $200bn in Chinese imports at a rate of 10% comes on top of 25% tariffs on a cumulative $50bn in imports in rounds one and two. Importantly, this rate jumps to 25% by 1 January 2019 unless there is some trade agreement.
Plus, US President Donald Trump has threatened tariffs on another $267bn in Chinese imports – essentially placing all imports from China under tariff.
China has likewise put 25% tariffs on $50bn in US imports in rounds one and two, and 5-10% on $60bn in imports in round three. It simply cannot match the US dollar for dollar, as it exports far more to the US than it imports, to the tune of around $375bn in 2017, according to the US Census Bureau.
For chemicals and finished plastics, the second round of tariffs impacted $2.0bn in US exports and $2.2bn in China exports. The third round ratchets this up to an additional $8.8bn in US exports and $13.2bn in China exports, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
China’s finished plastics exports to the US are hit particularly hard, with $1.4bn worth in the second round, and another $5.6bn in the third round, the ACC noted.
The US is hit harder in bulk chemicals, with notable volumes of polyethylene (PE), styrene, polypropylene (PP), ethylene dichloride (EDC), monoethylene glycol (MEG), paraxylene (PX) and ethylbenzene coming under tariff, according to an ICIS analysis.
And the US has opened up trade battles on multiple fronts – with the EU, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Brazil and India.
One positive development has been an agreement to revise NAFTA with the new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The US and South Korea have also agreed to revise their free trade agreement.
CHINA MITIGATION MOVES
Yet the headwinds from these battles are being felt worldwide, particularly in China, where financial markets and business confidence have plunged.
On 7 October, China’s central bank announced a plan to cut to its reserve requirement ratio – the amount of funds it requires banks to hold – by 1 percentage point by 15 October.
This move would spur lending to support economic growth, potentially injecting over $100bn of liquidity into the banking system.
However, this did little to inspire confidence in the short term, as the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index tumbled 3.7% on 8 October – the first day of trading after the Golden Week holidays. It is now down around 19% year to date.
In contrast, the US benchmark S&P 500 Index is up 3% this year, even after plummeting on 10 October. In late September, China also slightly eased air pollution reduction targets in a move to presumably provide relief to the industrial sector.
EUROPE CONFIDENCE FALLS
Europe is not immune to the US-China trade dispute, as many of its companies have manufacturing operations in the US that export to China. The EU is also battling with the US on trade, with the US threatening to impose tariffs on auto imports in particular.
The eurozone manufacturing PMI has steadily declined from a high of 60.6 in December 2017, to 53.2 in September 2018 – its weakest level since September 2016, although still in expansion territory above the 50 level.
Global trade concerns pushed business confidence down to a three-year low, and export-led slowdowns were evident in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Austria.
IMF OUTLOOK
On 9 October, in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) report, the IMF slashed its global annual GDP growth forecast to 3.7% for 2018-2019 versus its previous 3.9% target from April. Global growth, while still solid, has likely plateaued, it said.
“There are clouds on the horizon. Growth has proven to be less balanced than hoped. Not only have some downside risks that the last WEO identified been realised, the likelihood of further negative shocks to our growth forecast has risen,” said Maurice Obstfeld, economic counsellor and director of research at the IMF.
The IMF took down its GDP forecasts for the US and China in particular for 2019 because of negative impacts from the trade war. It expects US GDP growth to fall from 2.9% in 2018, to 2.5% in 2019.
For China, GDP is projected to decline from 6.6% in 2018, to 6.2% in 2019. And after growing by 2.4% in 2017, eurozone GDP is estimated to slow to 2.0% in 2018 and 1.9% in 2019.
RATES, EMERGING MARKETS
In addition to global trade tensions, the rising interest rate – also led by the US – is the other major threat to economic growth.
Already the series of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve has boosted the US dollar and drained liquidity from emerging markets in particular.
Argentina, Turkey, Brazil and South Africa have seen notable economic weakness and currency declines, although Brazil’s financial markets and currency have gotten a boost from right-wing and business-friendly candidate Jair Bolsonaro winning the first round of presidential elections.
“Amid the trade uncertainties, financial conditions are tightening for emerging-market and developing economies as they adjust to progressive interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and an impending end of asset purchases by the European Central Bank,” said Obstfeld from the IMF.
“Compared with 10 years ago, many of these economies have higher levels of corporate and sovereign debt, leaving them more vulnerable,” he added.
CRUDE PRESSURE
Also pressuring emerging markets is rising oil prices, as many countries such as China and India are major net importers.
With US sanctions on Iranian exports of crude oil set to kick in on 4 November, US President Trump has been imploring OPEC to boost production to get prices down as the US alone will not be able to make up the difference.
Meanwhile, Brent crude oil at around $83/bbl has surged to its highest level since late 2014.
US CHEMICAL STOCKS
While the US economy is “ripping” with robust manufacturing and services activity and record-low unemployment, the key housing and automotive sectors have been weak of late as higher interest rates start to bite.
And one would not be able to gauge the strength in the general manufacturing economy by looking at US chemical equity prices and valuations.
The sector has hit a rough patch since early September and is well off its highs of late January. This week, profit warnings by PPG and Trinseo triggered severe declines in their stock prices with Trinseo down over 21% on 10 October.
Shares of DowDuPont, the largest and most diverse company in the US chemical universe, are off by about 15% since September and 23% from their January high.
At around $59 as of 8 October, the stock trades for about 12.3x estimated 2019 earnings versus 15.6x for the S&P 500.
More severe valuation compression can be seen in commodity oriented chemical names, indicating that investors are discounting the risk of a major earnings downturn going forward.
For example, LyondellBasell at $98 trades at 8.7x estimated 2019 earnings while Westlake Chemical at $80 fetches a multiple of 9.2x.
But nowhere is investor scepticism more evident than in the titanium dioxide (TiO2) sector, where Chemours at $36 trades at just 5.6x estimated 2019 earnings, even as fluoroproducts and other chemicals make up a substantial and growing portion of the company.
Other purer play TiO2 companies Tronox and Venator trade at multiples of 6.6x and 5.5x, respectively. Interestingly, this beaten down sector was actually up on 10 October amid the overall market carnage.
On a fundamental basis, juiced by corporate and individual tax cuts and regulatory reforms implemented by the Trump administration, the US remains a beacon of strength in the world economy.
However, with other major economies and emerging markets faltering, this isolated strength will be harder to maintain.
The world economy is still very much interdependent on trade and financial systems, and the overall risks are rising.
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/10/10/10265022/global-economic-outlook-out-of-sync/

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(ACC Mentioned) Plastics Boom in Appalachian Basin Will Need Truck Drivers

Oct 11, 2018 | Kallanish Energy

NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Plastics manufacturing is poised to take off in the Appalachian Basin because of the shale boom, but those plans could be hurt by a lack of trucks and drivers, Kallanish Energy reports.
That assessment came from Heather Rose-Glowacki, director, Chemical and Industry Dynamics, at the American Chemistry Council.
She issued her warning Wednesday to roughly 100 people attending the Utica Summit VI conference at Walsh University, in North Canton, Ohio. The one-day program was presented by Shaledirectories.com and the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Trucks were used to transport 56% of all plastics in the U.S. in 2017, and 69% of all plastics resins, she said.
The U.S. plastics industry could need 723,000 truck shipments to meet estimated growing production volumes by 2020, and that could be a problem, Rose-Glowacki said.
A total of 1.8 million shipments will likely be needed in 2020, including those truck shipments and 270,000 rail shipments and 808,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) shipments, she said.
The Appalachian Basin could be getting tens of billions of dollars in ethane crackers and other petrochemical and chemical development. Ethane from natural gas produced from the Utica and Marcellus shales are fueling that growth. It can be turned into ethylene, a key component of many plastics.
The shale boom has created a “decisive competitive advantage for the U.S.,” she said.
Plastics manufacturing is growing in the U.S., Rose-Glowacki said. Her council has tracked 333 U.S. projects for new or expanded chemical facilities since 2010, with a total price tag of $200 billion. Half of those projects are completed or under way, and foreign capital is behind 68% of the projects, she said.
From 1997-2017, the industry averaged a 0.4% growth rate. In 2018, it is likely to be a 2.7% growth rate, 3.8% in 2019, 3.2% in 2020 and 2.3% in 2021, she said.
California is No. 1 in the U.S. for plastics employment with 77,000 jobs, said conference speaker Perc Pineda, chief economist with the Plastics Industry Association. Ohio is No. 2 with 72,200 jobs, followed by Texas, Michigan and Indiana. Pennsylvania is No. 7.
The biggest growth is in plastics packaging, followed by consumer products and appliances, and building/construction materials, he said.
In 2016, total U.S. plastics exports were $57.3 billion (mostly plastic resins) and plastic imports totaled $52.2 billion, Pineda said.
http://www.kallanishenergy.com/2018/10/11/plastics-boom-in-appalachian-basin-will-need-truck-drivers/

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Is Trade Deal Enough To Help Republicans?

Oct 11, 2018 | E&E Daily

By Nick Bowlin

With slightly less than a month until Election Day, candidates across the country are scrambling to respond to the Trump administration's recent announcement of a new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.
While questions remain regarding the new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the deal is already emerging in key races where commodities affected by President Trump's tariff wars stand as political issues.
The president and his allies are claiming the deal — known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA — as a victory for American workers and a fulfillment of campaign promises to renegotiate trade deals that helped Trump win key states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin in 2016.
The trade battles fought since NAFTA was enacted during the Clinton administration have come down hardest on the manufacturing and farming states in the Rust Belt and Midwest that propelled Trump to the White House.
The accord allows Trump and Republicans to claim a promise fulfilled by the White House, said Terry Madonna, political science professor at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania.
The president's appeal to manufacturing workers and industry was "extraordinarily helpful," Madonna said.
Trump played this card right away.
"I have long contended that NAFTA was perhaps the worst trade deal ever made," he said in a speech in the White House Rose Garden last week. "Throughout the campaign, I promised to renegotiate NAFTA, and today we have kept that promise."
Republicans, desperate to pick up a few Senate seats and facing a possible Democratic wave that would flip the House, have already begun to frame it as a political win.
Rep. Kevin Cramer, the North Dakota Republican Senate candidate, called the deal a "significant victory for American farmers and manufacturers" and praised the president for "getting results."
Tariffs, gutting the Trans-Pacific Partnership, restoring manufacturing, helping farmers and reviving coal were some of the key issues that helped Trump win the presidency.
The question now is whether Republican candidates can recreate the president's success next month, even as issues such as Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation and Trump's own questionable business dealings continue to dominate the news cycle.
The GOP will need to "make the case" for the new trade pact while keeping "the controversial nature of his presidency out of the picture," Madonna said.Dairy industry uncowed
The Trump administration kicked off the trade fight by using a clause in a decades-old law widely referred to as "Section 232," targeting steel and aluminum tariffs that were immediately controversial in battleground states such as North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Canada and Mexico hit back with tariffs of their own, aimed at key commodities in politically important states.
In Wisconsin, its powerful dairy industry suffered under retaliatory levees. It was seen as a political problem for Gov. Scott Walker (R), an ally of Trump who faces the toughest re-election campaign of his career. Democrats and greens see a real chance at unseating him — a longtime bogeyman to both (E&E Daily, Sept. 26).
Republicans jumped on the new deal as a boon for Walker. The USMCA won concessions from Canada on dairy specifically, giving American farmers greater access to Canadian markets.
During the news conference, Trump called dairy a "deal breaker," hailing it as a win for farmers — and for Walker, who has consistently run behind in polls.
"And we've opened it up to our farmers," Trump said, "so the folks up in Wisconsin — I'll tell you what, I went to Wisconsin. ... Scott Walker, who I think is a fantastic governor, talks about it all the time that our farmers were not treated properly by Canada."
Walker was quick to praise the decision.
"Thank you for keeping your word and helping Wisconsin dairy farmers!!!" read a tweet from Walker's Twitter account after the announcement was made.
Also on the ballot next month is Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D). During a debate Monday night, both she and her Republican challenger Leah Vukmir praised the accord.
Baldwin called it a step in the right direction, agreeing with Trump that the old NAFTA needed to be redone. But she pressed the administration to end the steel and aluminum tariffs and criticized the impact of the dairy tariffs on state farmers.
"Our dairy community is in crisis; our manufacturing sector needs help," she said.
Vukmir praised the deal as a promise kept by Trump, calling it evidence of his negotiating prowess.
"We have had unfair trade practices going on for quite some time," she said.What about steel and aluminum?
Beyond dairy, the issues are less clear-cut in other key midterm states where commodities have been hurt by Trump's trade policies.
In North Dakota, incumbent Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D) has used the tariff fights for months as a means to attack Cramer.
Wary of taking on Trump directly in the deeply red state, Heitkamp has tried to frame herself as the defender of North Dakota's energy, agriculture and manufacturing sectors, which trade heavily with both Mexico and Canada. She called the tariff battles a "self-inflicted wound" and pushed hard for a quick resolution to the trade disputes.
Responding to the deal, Heitkamp's office praised it for helping wheat farmers but said it neglected potato farmers and ranchers.
North Dakota is one of Republicans' best chances of flipping a blue Senate seat during the midterm elections. The Cook Political Report rates the race a "toss-up."
Cramer, who has backed Trump's hard line on trade deals, told E&E News the new NAFTA would go a long way to solving concerns raised by many farmers about losing market share.
He noted 88 percent of the state's agriculture exports go to either Canada or Mexico and would be covered under the new proposed accord.
Cramer also predicted the deal would help Trump in negotiations with China. "The president's success on all these other trade deals has isolated China a bit," he said.
North Dakota energy producers fear the enduring import tariffs on steel and aluminum, which industry needs for building pipelines.
In a statement, Heitkamp slammed these tariffs, "which are still putting North Dakota's energy industry and agriculture manufacturing equipment companies in jeopardy."
Members of both parties criticized the deal for allowing the United States' steel and aluminum tariffs to continue (E&E Daily, Oct. 2).
And the energy industry is not pleased either.
"The tariffs on imports of Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum — and related retaliation — must end," said Christopher Guith, senior vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Energy Institute. "They are a brake on the build-out of the North American energy juggernaut."Democrats hedge their bets
Like Heitkamp, other Democrats in purple and red states up for re-election took measured approaches, noting the enormous size of the deal.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said it would be a positive for dairy and auto industries. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), often an administration critic, aligns at times with the administration on protectionist trade policy.
"This is an important first step forward, and I'm glad all three countries worked together to reach an agreement," Brown said in a statement. "My No. 1 priority is to stop Ohio jobs from moving overseas, and that's what I'll be looking for as I carefully review the text."
His Republican challenger, Rep. Jim Renacci, praised the deal and Trump — who urged Renacci into the race against Brown.
"The President upheld his promise to reach a new, better, and fairer trade agreement with Canada and Mexico," his office said in a statement.
It's unclear, though, whether the positive impacts of the deal will manifest in time to give Republicans a legitimate boost. The deal is expected to be finalized Nov. 30, and then Congress must give it final approval.
Wisconsin dairy farmers will not feel the trade pressures ease until after the midterms, even while Walker and Trump claim victory. And there is no end in sight for energy-rich states such as North Dakota of the increased steel prices that make building pipelines and other infrastructure more expensive.
But there is one guarantee: Candidates on both sides will keep trying to spin the new NAFTA to their benefit.
"The dirty secret of close races is that everything matters when a contest is decided by a few votes," said Nathan Gonzales of Inside Elections.
Reporter George Cahlink contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/10/11/stories/1060102263

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LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) Ahead Of Argument, Guidance Sparks Fight In Suit Over EPA TSCA Policy

Oct 10, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Dave Reynolds

Environmentalists and the chemical sector are sparring over whether decades-old agency guidance helps or hinders legal attacks on the EPA's final rule updating the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory of existing chemicals, ahead of Oct. 12 oral argument in a case challenging the TSCA regulation's data disclosure provisions.
In an Oct. 9 letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a chemical sector attorney faults environmentalists' recently lodged claim that decades-old EPA guidance backs their arguments the rule's protections for confidential business information (CBI) are overly-broad, arguing that the guidance applied to the initial creation of a chemical inventory rather than the inventory reset rule's protections for existing CBI claims.
“Here, Congress directed EPA to address in the Reset Rule a different situation -- existing confidentiality claims that persons have long relied upon and are seeking to maintain,” the industry intervenors say.
“In following Congress’ direction, EPA is recognizing the settled commercial practice of maintaining confidentiality beyond the initial submitter through contractual protections."
The industry intervenors, including the American Chemistry Council, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, fault the EDF filing as an inappropriate second shot at raising an issue it failed to include initial briefing.
While suggesting EDF's recent filing is procedurally inappropriate and should not be considered, the industry intervenors also contend that EPA's old guidance supports their position.
“Moreover, the 1986 Document in fact confirms Intervenors’ argument that EPA did not expect manufacturers to reassert confidentiality claims over chemicals already on the confidential Inventory,” intervenors say.
“The 1986 Document directs those with a bona fide intent to manufacture a substance to ask EPA if a specific chemical identity is already on the confidential portion of the Inventory. If it is, then the process is complete, as the chemical identity does not need to be added to the Inventory,” the letter adds.
Such questions over the scope of exemptions for protecting against disclosure of CBI submitted under the revised TSCA will likely be the focus of argument later this week in environmentalists' challenge to EPA's August 2017 rule resetting the TSCA chemical inventory.
The case, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) v. EPA, is the first to reach oral argument of several environmentalist challenges to Trump administration rules that establish a framework for reviewing existing chemicals, or those that have been on the market for decades and were largely grandfathered under the old version of TSCA.
In another lawsuit, environmentalists contend that Trump administration officials weakened proposed rules for prioritizing and evaluating existing chemicals, in part by narrowing the conditions of use of a chemical that the agency will consider in risk evaluation, such as excluding exposures from legacy uses, among other concerns.
Inventory Rule
In the inventory rule suit, EDF is faulting Trump administration changes to an Obama-era proposed version of the rule that environmentalists argue weakened criteria for determining whether chemical information is exempt from the law's disclosure provisions.
A three-judge panel of Harry Edwards, Merrick Garland, and Patricia Millett will hear the inventory rule case on Oct. 12. The panelists were appointed by Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, respectively.
The lawsuit urges the D.C. Circuit to partially vacate and remand EPA's Aug. 11, 2017 TSCA inventory rule to the agency with instructions to issue a regulation that broadens disclosure by precluding companies from seeking to maintain CBI claims based on claims made by other companies prior to the TSCA overhaul, among other revisions.
Other changes environmentalists are seeking would incorporate additional disclosure requirements included in the revised law and scrap an exemption for chemicals produced solely for export.
In briefing, EDF has targeted Trump administration changes to the final rule, arguing that the Obama-era proposed version included upward of two dozen questions for evaluating claims to keep a chemical identity or other data confidential. The final version narrowed the criteria to roughly a half dozen more general questions.
“In promulgating the final rule, EPA repeatedly violated the statutory text and erred in favor of concealment instead of disclosure,” petitioners have said. “The resulting rule will not disclose some information that EDF would otherwise use to learn more about chemicals and their uses, exposures, and health and environmental effects.”
But EPA, in its reply brief filed last May, argues that EDF lacks standing to sue, because it will not be injured by the inventory rule, and that the update is “reasonable” and within the statute.
On the eve of oral argument, industry is faulting EDF's claim in an Oct. 2 filing that 1985 EPA guidance on listing substances on the original TSCA inventory backs advocates' claims that the new rule's data protections are overly-broad.
“That early practice supports the argument that EDF made that 'when one person ceases to treat information as confidential, then the information ceases to be secret and its protection for other persons can no longer be justified,'” petitioners said in the Oct. 2 notice of supplemental authority.

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Prop 65: Standing The Test of Time?

Oct 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Leigh Stringer

California’s Proposition 65 is unique, says David Roe, public interest lawyer and the man who spearheaded the law more than 30 years ago. It directly counters the federal regulatory approach taken in the US by shifting the burden of proof to industry, essentially via the threat of a private lawsuit.
Prop 65 was passed by a majority vote of Californian citizens in 1986 and came into force two years later. "It would never have passed at a federal level; it had to be a ballot initiative because it was so unconventional," says Mr Roe.
The law requires businesses to provide warnings, typically in the form of labels or signs, for exposures to chemicals that cause cancer or reproductive harm. Under the law, California must maintain a list of chemicals it has determined to present these effects. The current list is approximately 900 entries long. The aim is that, by requiring the disclosure of this information, California’s citizens can make informed decisions about their exposure.
Proposition 65 does not ban or restrict the sale of any product, according to the state agency that oversees the law, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha). Instead, it "simply provides information to consumers about significant exposures to harmful chemicals". ‘Fundamental problem’
When it was introduced, US federal law, largely in the form of a pre-update Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), was widely seen as unfit for purpose. In Mr Roe’s view, the modern federal approach to regulating toxic chemicals has been first to identify the chemicals of concern, then "figure out how much of them is too much".
This approach has failed, he says, because industry has been able to stall the process of setting thresholds. For example, in the original version of the US Clean Air Act, specifically the toxic air contaminants section, which was in force from 1970 to 1990, Congress provided the EPA with a list of 189 chemicals. It then requested the agency to set individual limits for the substances based on scientific risk assessment.
Twenty years later, in 1990, only six limits had been set. "This was the fundamental problem that Proposition 65 was designed to overcome," Mr Roe says. "By shifting the burden of proof, it meant that, under the law, if a business is accused of exposing people in California to a carcinogen, and it doesn’t know the safety limits of that substance, it is going to lose in court and this approach has seen great progress in setting limits."
In the first two years of Prop 65, both industry and California’s regulators agreed on, and published limits for, 282 cancer-causing chemicals. "Not a single one was challenged by industry in court," Mr Roe says.‘Inappropriately applied’
Since then, however, the law has been a subject of controversy. Some recent legal cases have made headlines, the most recent of which concerned coffee. Earlier this year, a Californian judge ruled that coffee should come with a Prop 65 warning because it contains acrylamide, a known carcinogen.
Shortly after the decision, Oehha proposed a new regulation clarifying that cancer warnings would not be required for coffee. Just this month, however, natural background levels for inorganic arsenic in white and brown rice were introduced.
Industry has expressed its concerns, claiming that the law is being inappropriately applied and resulting in significant legal costs for businesses fighting to justify the safety of their products. In a scathing attack at a recent Chemical Watch conference in Boston, the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) senior director of regulatory and technical affairs, Karyn Schmidt, labelled the law an "unmitigated disaster".
"It was designed to create pain for industry and to act as a hammer to try to force deselection," said Ms Schmidt. "It portrayed no knowledge of byproducts, ongoing chemical reactions or the presence of chemicals in foods. There are numerous cases where you can’t just design out a chemical, it can be inherent to the product."
There was some low-hanging fruit in the early days of Prop 65, such as lead in jewellery, Ms Schmidt added. This created some pressure on industry to reformulate but "that time has passed and we’re now dealing with the statute that is inappropriately being applied to baby food, to infant formula, to coffee. Basic minerals that plants uptake in their roots have got caught up into this – rice and arsenic is a great example."
The coffee industry, she said, had to spend millions of dollars trying to defend its product. "They had to slug through court before Oehha was embarrassed into having to propose a regulation to fix the problem. I would posit that California, because it looked bad in front of the rest of the country, felt they needed to do something and that’s no way to run a regulatory programme," she said. "The problems are rife and it’s time to put it to bed ... It was a 30-year experiment, it’s run its course and quite frankly I think it’s a failure," she said.
An ACC spokesperson says that, in 2018, "it’s time to ask whether Prop 65 is now providing meaningful, actionable, and helpful information to consumers so they can make informed choices. Do consumers understand what the "warning" they are getting means, and what they should do about it? Prop 65 actually forces businesses to do the equivalent of crying wolf. This hurts consumers."
However, according to Oehha, the law continues to do its job. Proposition 65, it says, has led to the reformulation of numerous products to remove or reduce exposures to hazardous chemicals. Lead from children’s products, cadmium from jewellery and acrylamide in crisps are just a few examples.
The visible cases are "just the tip of the iceberg", says Mr Roe, and companies rarely publicise the fact when they have voluntarily phased out a cancer-causing chemical. Because Prop 65 does not require companies to reduce chemical concentrations, the many reformulations that have occurred have been "easy and voluntary", in his view.
"They were all quite doable, without hurting any products functionally or economically – no company has ever claimed otherwise," Mr Roe says. "In other words, those were all unnecessary exposures in the first place, which could be eliminated easily once the threat of a spotlight on them was raised."
If it had been too expensive or difficult to eliminate or reduce them, companies always had the legal option to keep them the same, and comply with Prop 65 with a warning, he adds.
In many cases, Oehha notes, the safer reformulations have been implemented nationwide.However, the ACC’s spokesperson argues that proponents of Prop 65 "like to point to historic product reformulations as a claimed success story". But this, he says, is "unsubstantiated assertion and feel-good opinion. There’s no credible evidence showing that products are actually safer, better or cheaper as a specific result of Prop 65." Under fire
For businesses, however, the burden of proof is exactly that: a burden, and a costly one if taken through the courts. Indeed, according to Aidan Turnbull of BOMCheck, this is very lucrative work for ‘bounty hunter’ attorneys, who get to keep most of the settlement fees. The total paid out has increased from about $10 m/year before 2002 to $25-30 m/year since 2014. In 2017, the single most prolific law firm in the field, the Chanler Group, reached 147 settlements and kept 84% of the nearly $4m awarded to its clients.
Adding to this, the ACC’s spokesperson says the law "punishes responsible businesses" that have made risk calculations and comply with federal law because it "exposes businesses to bounty hunter enforcement and expensive litigation anyway. Again and again, the programme lacks certainty for businesses that if they meet a regulatory standard, they’re in compliance and won’t face expensive court battles brought by bounty hunters seeking a payday."
The law has taken steps to address industry concerns by introducing some updates, after it was agreed that there was a need to make warnings more meaningful to the public and give businesses clearer guidelines on how and where to provide them. One month after their introduction, businesses are still grappling withthe changes and a new wave of private enforcement litigation looms, according to lawyers in the field.
Highlighting the law’s impact further, major US retailer BJ’s Wholesale has made the decision to stop selling its merchandise into the state. This is an interesting move, considering that California has recently been ranked the fifth largest economy in the world, ahead of the UK’s.
The concerns expressed by business have provoked industry lobbying, something the law has survived since its inception. Some NGOs are unsettled over the introduction of an industry-supported bill, known as the Accurate Labels Act, that would block product labelling schemes that are not "risk-based" or grounded in "the best available science".
One of the senators who introduced the bill, Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, argued that "due to various state laws, items are incorrectly labelled with warnings about harms that do not exist. This inaccuracy creates confusion and fear for the consumers; desensitises the public from heeding serious warnings on health risks; and imposes unnecessary and costly regulatory burdens for producers," Mr Kinzinger said.
ACC president and CEO Cal Dooley said, at the time it was introduced, that the bill "offers a solution to this labelling chaos and misinformation that is creating consumer confusion, driving up costs and creating unreasonable regulatory burdens".
According to Mr Roe, however, the aim of this bill is to "kill Proposition 65". For now, however, he is confident that the law will continue to "do its job of helping protect the people of California from exposure to toxic chemicals".
https://chemicalwatch.com/70913/prop-65-standing-the-test-of-time

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Amazon Policy Restricts Some Chemicals, Urges Safer Ones (2)

Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

Online retailer issues new chemicals policy, calls for ingredient disclosure
Advocates describe policy as good first step but say more needed
Amazon’s new chemicals policy includes a list of substances—such as formaldehyde, phthalates, and parabens—that the online retailer will not allow to be used in baby, household cleaning, personal care, and beauty products produced by companies that Amazon owns.
The policy is a good first step, but should be expanded, Mike Schade, director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families’ Mind the Store Campaign told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 10.
Amazon also encourages other manufacturers to phase out potentially hazardous chemicals—such as those in its restricted substances list—in articles sold on its website.
Instead, manufacturers should strive to replace hazardous chemicals with ones that meet strict environmental and health criteria such as those the Environmental Protection Agency includes on its Safer Choice Chemicals Ingredients List, Amazon’s policy said.
Schade, whose organization has been working with Amazon on chemical issues, discussed a policy that Amazon posted online Oct. 5.
Amazon declined to comment on the new policy. However, the policy said the company is committed to offering customers high-quality, affordable products.
“Part of our commitment to quality is avoiding chemicals of concern in our products that can affect human health and/or the environment,” Amazon said.
Trends
Brian T. Sansoni, a vice president at the American Cleaning Institute, told Bloomberg Environment Amazon’s policy is part of a larger trend in which retailers restrict chemicals in brands they manufacture.
Many of the chemicals Amazon is targeting already appear on similar restricted substances lists other companies have issued, he said.
People will pay attention to Amazon’s policy, but it’s unclear how large an impact it will have in light of its focus on Amazon’s own products, Sansoni said.
Amazon should expand its policy, initially, to cover any baby, household cleaning, personal care, or beauty products it sells, not just articles its own companies manufacture, said Schade from Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.
The online retailer also should join retailers such as Walmart, Lowe’s, Sherwin-Williams, and the Home Depot by ceasing sales of paint strippers containing methylene chloride and n-methylpyrrolidone, he said. Bathtub refinishers are among the workers who have died following their exposure to methylene chloride in poorly ventilated spaces.
Other actions Amazon could take is to limit harmful chemicals in electronics, apparel, and food it sells, and to use its formidable online presence to require that companies disclose information about the chemicals in products it sells, Schade said.
(Adds information in fifth and sixth paragraphs.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/amazon-policy-restricts-some-chemicals-urges-safer-ones-2

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Amazon Announces New Policy To Restrict Toxic Chemicals

Oct 10, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.

By Mike Schade

On October 5, Amazon issued its first-ever public safer chemicals policy. The policy includes restrictions on dozens of toxic phthalates, parabens, formaldehyde releasers, nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), triclosan, and toluene in its private brand baby, household cleaning, personal care, and beauty products in the United States. Consumers are increasingly clamoring for products free of these chemicals of concern. The company states that “Amazon encourages manufacturers to phase out potentially hazardous chemistries and adopt green chemistry alternatives.” A growing trend in the retail sector
Amazon’s policy commitment is a notable first step, particularly as the company continues to build out, expand, and increasingly market its assortment of private brand products. The company joins a growing universe of companies that are leveraging their market power to drive toxic chemicals out of global supply chains and transition to safer alternatives. Just last month, Rite Aid announced a chemicals policy that restricted many of the same chemicals in its private brand products. It’s no coincidence that these policy announcements come just one month before the release of our 2018 retailer report card.Key elements of Amazon’s chemical policy
Amazon’s new policy is a significant improvement compared to our first evaluation of the company nearly two years ago. Let’s take a look at five significant elements of the company’s new policy, much of which is aligned with the criteria in our Who’s Minding the Store? annual retailer report card:Chemicals that can cause cancer and build up in our bodies. The company identifies chemicals it is working to phase out as those that “1) meet the criteria for classification as a carcinogen, mutagen, reproductive, or other systemic toxicant; or 2) are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic.” In other words, chemicals that can cause cancer, reproductive or other serious harm, or that can persist or build up in our bodies and the environment. These are important categories of chemicals for the company to tackle as it implements its policy and expands the list of restricted chemicals.Amazon’s list of restricted chemicals. Amazon has publicly disclosed the company’s new Restricted Substance List, a list of 54 chemicals, which have been linked to some of these very same health concerns. This list is well aligned with many of the same chemicals other retailers like Walmart, Target, CVS Health, and Rite Aid are restricting. It is valuable for retailers to send similar market signals on chemicals of concern they are challenging suppliers to eliminate.Preference for safer alternatives. The company states it wants suppliers to not only restrict harmful chemicals but move to safer alternatives, such as those that are on the EPA Safer Chemical Ingredients List under the Safer Choice program. This is good news.Making it easier for customers to buy safer products. The company says “Amazon has begun work on features that will make it easier for customers to discover, identify, and purchase products with safer formulations and sustainable attributes. This work will include making safer chemistry third-party product sustainability certifications such as Safer Choice, Made Safe, Green Seal, and Cradle to Cradle more prominent.” We applaud Amazon’s support of these credible third-party safer chemicals standards, which can help their customers purchase safer products and spur more companies to seek these certifications. We look forward to seeing how Amazon will make products that meet these standards more prevalent.Increasing the transparency of products. The policy includes a commitment to transparency and states that its “ We hope that making this information more readily available for customers will encourage additional brands to move away from potentially hazardous chemistries in their products and adopt safer chemistries.” While the commitment currently lacks details or deadlines, it could be very significant over time given the power and popularity of the Amazon.com platform.
We salute Amazon for taking its first step with this new policy that can help drive harmful chemicals out of global supply chains. Over time their actions will help consumers buy safer products and drive green chemistry solutions.Five opportunities for improvement
While the policy is a strong framework, as the third largest retailer in the U.S. and one of the largest that is growing globally at a massive pace, the company still has a way to go to address the chemical footprint from the hundreds of millions of products it sells.
Amazon previews its plans for 2019:“The policy will be expanded to additional brands, product categories, and geographies over time…To further our commitment to transparency, in 2019 Amazon will continue to work on additional product category RSLs under this Chemicals Policy, and work to achieve fuller ingredient disclosure on its Private Brand product detail pages.”
We are glad to see the company’s commitment to expanding the policy to address other chemicals, product categories, and increase transparency for private brand products going forward. Here are five key ways Amazon should build on that commitment, implement and continuously improve its policy in the year ahead:Expand the policy to brand name products, like toxic paint strippers. The policy addresses a relatively limited array of private brand products, compared to the seemingly infinite number of other products it sells. The company should expand the policy to address key chemically intensive brand name products. As a first step, it should join Walmart and other retailers in banning the sale of paint strippers containing methylene chloride and NMP by the end of 2018. This is a low hanging fruit opportunity for the company to demonstrate it is seriously committed to having the policy also address brand name products containing dangerous chemicals. It could leverage its Restricted Products program to address products such as these. Next, the company should extend its restrictions on private label formulated products to those same categories of formulated brand name products on Amazon.com by the end of 2019, just as other retailers have done.Tackle electronics, apparel, and food. Amazon is on track to be the biggest retailer of apparel and electronics in America, and one of the largest online retailers of food. In recent years the company has been unveiling new private brand apparel, electronics, and food products. Chemicals of concern such as PFAS, flame retardants, and phthalates are commonly found in these types of products, and Amazon should expand its policy to address them to ensure that these product categories are free of such chemicals.Set clear timeframes, goals, and metrics. Other retailers such as Target and Walmart have announced clear timeframes for reducing and eliminating chemicals of concern over the past year. In contrast, Amazon’s policy does not include any clear public metrics. The company should set public quantifiable goals going forward to measure progress.Make online ingredient transparency mandatory. Amazon should require online ingredient disclosure (including fragrance ingredients) for all products sold on Amazon.com, beginning with private label and brand name baby, household cleaning, personal care, and beauty products.Publicly reporting on progress annually. Amazon should publicly report metrics on an annual basis, sharing both its progress and challenges, as it implements its chemicals policy.
These five improvements could help Amazon make its chemicals policy truly Amazonian. As a famously “customer-obsessed” company, in the year ahead the company should expand its chemicals policy to meet the rising consumer demand for safer products.
We hope their new policy signals a real commitment to getting tough on toxic chemicals, and look forward to its implementation and expansion in the year ahead. As one of the world’s largest retailers, Amazon has the power to drive transformative change to get toxic chemicals out of commerce.
https://saferchemicals.org/2018/10/10/amazon-announces-new-policy-to-restrict-toxic-chemicals/

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US Seeks Expertise For Committees On Lead And Trichloroethylene OELs

Oct 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology at the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine is seeking nominations for two study committees being formed to evaluate approaches to developing occupational exposure levels for lead and trichloroethylene (TCE) for the Department of Defense.
For TCE, an ad hoc committee will review the scientific and technical basis of DoD's proposed approach to developing an OEL and cancer slope factor for settings in which vapour intrusion is the pathway of exposure. Important elements of the review will be the data selection process, evidence synthesis, dose-response assessments, the use of physiologically-based pharmacokinetic models, and other factors associated with calculating an OEL, says the call for nominees.
With regard to lead, a committee will evaluate whether the physiologically-based pharmacokinetic model used to derive OELs for airborne lead exposure was appropriate.
Expertise is sought in: solvent or lead toxicology; neurotoxicology; immunotoxicology; reproductive and developmental toxicology; carcinogenesis; pharmacokinetic modelling; occupational health/medicine; industrial hygiene; risk assessment; and systematic review methods.
Nominations are due 19 October.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70945/us-seeks-expertise-for-committees-on-lead-and-trichloroethylene-oels

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U.S. Class-Action Case Targets Nine PFAS Makers

Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Cheryl Hogue

A firefighter is leading a class-action suitagainst nine manufacturers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs).
The defendants named in the suit are 3M, Archroma, Arkema, Asahi Glass, Chemours, Daikin, Dyneon, DuPont (now officially DowDuPont), and Solvay.
The proposed class encompasses residents of the U.S. who have a detectable level of PFASs in their blood serum and claim they are injured from this exposure. The companies did not get plaintiffs’ permission before exposing them to PFASs, the suit says.
Lead plaintiff Kevin D. Hardwick has worked as firefighter for more than 40 years, according to the complaint. Hardwick’s exposure stems in part from his firefighting gear, which is coated or treated with PFASs, as well as his use of firefighting foams containing these substances.
The suit, filed Oct. 4 in federal trial court in Ohio, seeks the creation of a panel of scientific experts that would evaluate evidence and determine any probable link between PFAS exposure and human health problems.
This request is fashioned after one in a 2004 class-action settlement with DuPont regarding exposure to one PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), that was released from a plant near Parkersburg, W.Va. That science panel found probable links between PFOA and several health problems.
In 2017, DuPont and its spin-off Chemours agreed to pay $670 million to settle 3,550 PFOA-related personal injury suits in Ohio and West Virginia.
https://cen.acs.org/policy/litigation/US-class-action-case-targets/96/i41

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AP Exclusive: Toxic Metal Found in Chain Stores' Jewelry

Oct 11, 2018 | Associated Press (In The New York Times)

LOS ANGELES — Jewelry with the toxic metal cadmium is showing up on the shelves of national retailers including Ross, Nordstrom Rack and Papaya, according to newly released test results.
Analysis done for the nonprofit Center for Environmental Health revealed some jewelry sold with women's dresses and shirts was nearly pure cadmium, which can cause cancer and reproductive harm after prolonged exposure.
Consumer advocates were hopeful cadmium had disappeared from the U.S. jewelry market following changes prompted by a 2010 Associated Press investigation that found Chinese manufacturers were using the metal to make kids' jewelry. States including California outlawed cadmium in children's jewelry, and testing by the center found the chemical had virtually disappeared from jewelry by 2012.
No laws address cadmium in adult jewelry, however, and last year the center decided to check those products. Lab testing found 31 adult jewelry items purchased from retail stores were at least 40 percent cadmium, and most were more than 90 percent, according to results shared exclusively with the AP.
California's law allows no more than 0.03 percent cadmium in children's jewelry. The precise health risk from the tested jewelry is unclear because researchers did not assess whether small amounts shed when the jewelry is handled and worn.
Over time, cadmium accumulates in the body and can damage the kidneys and bones. Most exposure happens by ingesting small amounts or by breathing it, most commonly through tobacco, which can contain cadmium. Researchers also have documented some absorption through skin contact, though the phenomenon is not well-studied.
Michael Harbut, a practicing doctor who as a university professor has researched cadmium's cancer-causing properties, noted that contact can trigger skin rashes including psoriasis.
"Cadmium is bad," said Harbut, who teaches at Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine. "Given a choice between wearing something with cadmium in it, or wearing something without cadmium in it, I would take the product without cadmium."
The Oakland-based nonprofit bought all the test samples in the San Francisco Bay Area this year or last. The extent to which contaminated jewelry is in stores elsewhere isn't clear, though a national retailer would not typically limit a product to just one region.
The center said the problem should not be underestimated because of the limited market sampling.
"If you're the person that buys and is wearing that jewelry, you don't really care whether it's a common problem or a rare problem," said Caroline Cox, senior scientist at the center. "You have a problem."
Brent Cleaveland, executive director of the Fashion Jewelry and Accessories Trade Association, said he does not believe the test results suggest a larger problem. Most major retailers have a stringent system for testing and analyzing what they sell, he said.
Most of the tainted items were sold at Ross, which operates more than 1,400 stores in 38 states. One pendant from a necklace chain was 100 percent cadmium, according to the testing.
In a written statement, Ross said it is committed to protecting its customers and has "addressed this issue with our supplier." The retailer would not say whether it pulled suspect jewelry from stores.
The brands found with high cadmium levels in Ross stores include Tacera and Vibe Sportswear.
Xinwei Xie, chief executive officer at Trend Textile Inc., which owns Tacera, declined to comment when reached by phone. The Skate Group Inc., which owns Vibe Sportswear, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Papaya said it considers cadmium in its products a serious problem. It operates more than 100 retail locations nationwide.
Steven Kim, an attorney representing Papaya, said the company has recalled the products where contamination was found and stopped buying from the manufacturer in China.Sign Up for On Politics With Lisa Lerer
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"Our manufacturers are required to represent and warrant that their products are in legal compliance," Kim said. "Papaya is very strict and stops doing business with any manufacturer which fails to comply."
Nordstrom spokeswoman Emily Sterken said the company is "reaching out to these vendors to make them aware of the situation and get more information on these items."
The Center for Environmental Health has long used California law to force companies to reduce levels of harmful materials in consumer products, including cadmium and lead in jewelry.
Under the state's Proposition 65, businesses must inform consumers about significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer or other reproductive harm. The nonprofit has settled Proposition 65 claims against 36 companies, including Gap Inc. and Target Corp., which agreed to not sell jewelry with more than 0.03 percent cadmium.
That limit for children's jewelry took effect after the AP reported in 2010 that some Chinese jewelry manufacturers were substituting cadmium for lead, the use of which Congress clamped down on following a string of imported-product safety scandals.
The jewelry industry helped write voluntary U.S. standards following the AP investigation, but the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission did not mandate any cadmium limits.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/10/11/us/ap-us-toxic-jewelry.html

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Bayer Judge Favors New Trial in $289 Million Roundup Case (1)

Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Joel Rosenblatt

Tentative ruling wipes out $250 million from jury’s verdict
Reversing momentum will help company facing thousands of cases
Bayer AG won a tentative ruling slashing the lion’s share of a $289 million verdict in the first trial over claims that Roundup weed killer causes cancer and a judge is considering a new trial on whether the company is at fault for an ex-school groundskeeper’s illness.
A San Francisco state judge indicated ahead of an Oct. 10 hearing on the company’s challenge to the August verdict that she’s inclined to set aside the $250 million in punitive damages against Monsanto, which Bayer acquired this year.
The ruling could shift momentum in the company’s favor as it defends against thousands of U.S. lawsuits.
Superior Court Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos said that even if she doesn’t vacate the punishment damages, she “would grant a new trial on grounds of insufficiency of the evidence to justify the award for punitive damages.”
She also questioned whether the evidence introduced at trial supports the jury’s conclusion that Bayer was liable for plaintiff Lee Johnson’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma based on his exposure to the key ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate.
If the company can persuade the judge to erase or slash 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—attorneys say some plaintiffs may be less eager to pursue their claims.
Lawyers for the plaintiff and the company declined to comment on the tentative ruling ahead of the Oct. 10 hearing.
Jonas Oxgaard, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., estimated that Bayer’s market value was discounted by as much as $15 billion because the San Francisco verdict represents the larger cloud of Roundup liability trailing the company after it acquired Monsanto. 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 a recent email.
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.
In her tentative ruling, Bolanos said the punitive damages aren’t justified because Johnson’s lawyers didn’t present “clear and convincing evidence of malice and oppression by Monsanto.”
The case is Johnson v. Monsanto Co., Cal. Super. Ct., CGC 16-550128, 10/10/18.

https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/bayer-judge-favors-new-trial-in-289-million-roundup-case-1

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Bayer Could Win a New Trial for Roundup

Oct 11, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal

By Jacob Bunge

Bayer AG BAYRY 9.20% could win a new trial to defend its Roundup weed killer.
A California judge on Wednesday issued a tentative ruling for a new trial on the $250 million in punitive damages awarded to a groundskeeper, who sought to hold the Roundup maker liable for his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
If finalized, Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos’s ruling would grant a motion by Bayer arguing that sum wasn’t justified and that the evidence didn’t prove the company intended to harm the plaintiff. It isn’t clear when the judge may finalize the ruling, issued ahead of a court hearing Wednesday.
The ruling calls into question the bulk of the $289 million judgment, the first in thousands of cases alleging that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Bayer’s Roundup herbicide, causes cancer.
Bayer shares were up more than 4% in early trading Thursday in response to the news.
The jury verdict rocked Bayer weeks after the German company completed its takeover of Monsanto, the U.S. seed and pesticide giant that manufactures Roundup and crop seeds engineered to withstand the spray. Bayer’s stock has fallen about 20% since the verdict, as investors priced in the potential for hundreds of millions of dollars more in court judgments ahead.
The plaintiff, Dewayne Johnson, is likely to appeal the ruling if it is finalized.
Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world, prized for its ability to knock down scores of different weeds. Monsanto pioneered the genetic engineering of corn, soybeans and other crops to survive the chemical, helping simplify farming and turning the “Roundup Ready” franchise into a multibillion-dollar brand. Most of the nearly $11 billion in crop seeds sold annually by Monsanto are genetically modified to resist glyphosate.
The chemical’s safety came under global scrutiny after the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a unit of the World Health Organization, in 2015 classified glyphosate as likely having the potential to cause cancer. Monsanto and other agricultural groups pushed back, but the classification prompted a wave of lawsuits and regulatory challenges in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.
Mr. Johnson’s attorneys, Judge Bolanos wrote in the order, didn’t provide “clear and convincing evidence of malice or oppression by Monsanto.”
A Bayer spokesman said the judge is considering its motions for a new trial on the liability verdicts and reduction of the $39 million in compensatory damages the jury awarded. Bayer “continues to believe that the evidence at trial does not support the verdict and the damage awards,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman PC, the law firm representing Mr. Johnson, declined to comment.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bayer-could-win-a-new-trial-for-roundup-1539213818?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=5

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Bayer Lifted by Likely New Trial In $250 Million Weedkiller Case

Oct 11, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)

By Jim Christie and Tina Bellon

SAN FRANCISCO/FRANKFURT — The prospect of a fresh trial that could overturn $250 million damages against Bayer's Monsanto unit lifted the German company's shares, after an August ruling that it failed to warn users of the alleged cancer risks of its weedkillers.
The original verdict wiped 10 percent off the value of the company and marked the first such decision against Monsanto and its glyphosate-containing weedkillers Roundup and Ranger Pro.
Bayer, which bought Monsanto this year for $63 billion, faces more than 8,000 similar lawsuits in the United States.
On Wednesday, in San Francisco's Superior Court of California, Judge Suzanne Bolanos gave a tentative ruling to grant the company's motion for a new trial.
Such decisions are usually finalised after a second hearing with few major changes.
The case was brought by groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson and the August 10 verdict included an additional $39 million in compensatory damages. Johnson, whose doctors say he is likely to die within the next two years, attended Wednesday's hearing.
Bayer's shares jumped as much as 6.4 percent on Thursday, boosted by the prospect of the initial jury verdict being overturned or reduced without Bayer having to go through a more lengthy appeals process. The STOXX Europe 600 index, meanwhile, was down 1.7 percent.
"The presiding Judge Bolanos may indeed be inclined to deliver some better news, with yesterday's hearing indicating a willingness to allow a new trial altogether on the $250m punitive damages awarded in the trial," Barclays analysts said in a note.
The litigation has cast a pall over the stock, with Bayer shares still trading some 16 percent below the level prior to the original verdict.
Judge Bolanos, at the close of the two-hour hearing in front of a packed courtroom, said the parties had until Friday to make submissions in response to her ruling.EDITORS’ PICKSHow Do You Find an Alien Ocean? Margaret Kivelson Figured It OutTracy K. Smith, America’s Poet Laureate, Is a Woman With a MissionWhere in the World Is Denmark’s $2 Billion?
Bayer reiterated that the original jury verdict was "wholly at odds with over 40 years of real-world use, an extensive body of scientific data and analysis, including in-depth reviews by regulatory authorities."
In September 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concluded a decades-long assessment of glyphosate risks and found that the chemical was not a likely carcinogen to humans. However, in 2015 the cancer unit of the World Health Organisation classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans."
On Wednesday, the judge said that Johnson had failed to meet his burden of producing clear and convincing evidence of malice or oppression by Monsanto, a requirement for allowing a jury to award punitive damages.
Michael Miller, a lawyer for Johnson, told the court that the jury had reached a unanimous verdict after careful deliberations, supported by sufficient science.
"We have a jury that got it right," he added.
Monsanto had asked Bolanos in court filings on Sept. 18 to set aside the entire verdict or, in the alternative, reduce the award or grant a new trial.
Monsanto's lawyers said a comment made by Johnson's lawyers during the original trial that company executives would be "popping champagne bottles" if Johnson loses, were prejudicial and aimed at inciting jurors.
Johnson's case, filed in 2016, was fast-tracked for trial due to the severity of his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/10/11/business/11reuters-bayer-glyphosate-lawsuit.html

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Justices Grill Machine Makers Over Asbestos-Containing Parts (1)

Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Peter Hayes

Supreme Court questions machine makers on liability for injuries
Duty to warn is focus of questioning by Kavanaugh, other justices during oral arguments
Does a flashlight manufacturer have to warn consumers about the potential of leaking batteries it didn’t produce? Or does an ashtray maker have to flag smokers about the health dangers of tobacco?
Those were questions posed by Supreme Court justices Oct. 10 to manufacturers fighting claims they’re liable for asbestos-containing parts that they didn’t make but are used in their products.
“Why are too many warnings bad?” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh asked Shay Dvoretzky of Jones Day in Washington.
Dvoretzky represents manufacturers Air & Liquid Systems Corp., CBS Corp., and Foster Wheeler LLC, who are seeking to overturn a lower court that found a former U.S. Navy seaman could sue a ship’s engine pump maker and others.
The case arises under federal maritime law, which makes up a relatively small percentage of the asbestos-exposure caseload.
But the ruling, sometime before the end of June, will likely prove persuasive to state courts, and federal courts interpreting state law.
Kavanaugh’s question underscored a line of inquiry focusing on the duty of the manufacturers to warn of the dangers of asbestos components.
“What costs or downsides are there in expanding the duty to warn—why is that bad?” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch asked.
Dvoretzky responded that over-warning dilutes the value of the warning and can lead to inconsistencies.
And the manufacturers were not in the best position to control the harm, he argued.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked, “How is your product not the cause of the injury?”
“What causes it to degrade is your product, which causes it to heat up to a degree that it degenerates,” she said.
Counsel for the manufacturers responded that the asbestos “naturally degrades with use.”
Justices also queried Thomas C. Goldstein, counsel for the estate of the deceased seaman, about the reach of the duty to warn.
“How far up the supply chain does this go?” Justice Samuel Alito asked.
And Gorsuch asked whether an ashtray manufacturer who knew its product would be used with tobacco products has a duty to warn.
Goldstein, of Goldstein & Russell PC in Bethesda, Md., responded that an ashtray maker would not have a duty.
But in this case, Goldstein said, “the machine creates a special and distinct risk.”
On another hypothetical, Goldstein reversed argument midstream.
In response to Sotomator’s question whether a flashlight maker has a duty to warn of the dangers of leaking batteries, Goldstein said “the mere fact that the batteries are dangerous doesn’t create a duty to warn.”
But when pressed by Gorsuch, Goldstein conceded “If you have a flashlight and know batteries can leak out, I think you would want to warn people.”
“You just changed your answer,” Kavanaugh said.
The case is Air and Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries, U.S., No. 17-1104, oral argument 10/10/18.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/justices-grill-machine-makers-over-asbestos-containing-parts-1

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First Round of Mercury Convention Funding Sees Five Projects Approved

Oct 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The Minamata Convention on Mercury's specific international programme has announced that in its first round of funding, five projects from around the globe have been given the go ahead.
The total funding of $1m will be split between projects in Argentina, Armenia, Benin, Iran and Lesotho, it was revealed this week.
The specific international programme was set up under the Convention’s Article 13 to support capacity building and technical assistance. Its aim is to improve the capacity of developing countries and those with economies in transition to implement their obligations under the Convention.
There were 19 applications from 18 parties to the Convention for funding. The programme’s governing board said it was "particularly heartened that applications were received from all regions, including from least developed countries and from small island developing states".
The Convention requires parties that have signed it to implement measures to control human-made mercury pollution. These include phasing out existing – and banning new – mercury mines, reducing emissions and use. The treaty also sets conditions for interim storage and disposal of mercury waste and regulating artisanal and small-scale gold mining.
The Convention entered into force in August last year after 50 countries ratified it. As of today, 98 countries have fully signed up to it.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70934/first-round-of-mercury-convention-funding-sees-five-projects-approved

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Canadian Draft Assessment Provisionally Finds Base Oils Are Not Harmful

Oct 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Andrew Turley

The Canadian government has provisionally concluded that 39 base oil substances are not harmful to human health or the environment at current levels of exposure.
The substances are hydrocarbon mixtures produced by crude oil refining and qualifying as "substances of unknown or variable composition, complex reaction products or biological materials" (UVCBs). The term "base" in the name does not relate to acid-base chemistry.
Base oils typically contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are compounds of concern owing to evidence of carcinogenicity.
Of the 39 base oil substances included in the assessment, nine had category 1A carcinogenicity classifications under EU CLP on the basis of their PAH content. A further 29 had category 1B classifications on the same basis.
Therefore, the assessment treated carcinogenicity as the critical human health effect.
Base oils are widely used in industrial processes and in products available to consumers, primarily lubricants for use in, for example, car engines.
People may be exposed through skin contact to low levels of base oils from the use of products available to consumers. As part of the assessment, the Canadian authorities tested some consumer products for the presence of PAHs and found residual to low levels, primarily in soft rubber and plastic products.
The assessment concluded that the risk to human health was low.
For evaluation of the environmental risk, the assessment focused on potential release of base oils from wastewater treatment and production of lubricants, pulp, paper and printing inks.
It concluded that the environment risk was also low.
Overall, the substances did not meet any of the criteria in paragraph 64 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (Cepa), the assessment found. The government has launched a 60-day public comment period ending on 5 December 2018.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70962/canadian-draft-assessment-provisionally-finds-base-oils-are-not-harmful

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EU Adopts Restrictions On CMRs In Textiles

Oct 11, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The European Commission has adopted restrictions for 33 carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR) substances used in clothing, textiles and footwear.
The restrictions place maximum concentration limits on the substances and ban certain textiles that exceed the thresholds from being placed on the EU market. Product exemptions apply, including for natural leather and second-hand clothing.
NGOs have expressed disappointment with the "limited scope" of the restriction. The Commission initiallyconsidered 286 substances, which were narrowed down to 33. Industry groups, meanwhile, have opposedthe 'fast-track' restriction proposal.
The restrictions will come into force 24 months after they are published in the EU’s Official Journal.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70970/eu-adopts-restrictions-on-cmrs-in-textiles

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Energy News

(ACC Mentioned) Kinzinger Introduces Bill To Promote Combined Heat, Power Technologies

Oct 11, 2018 | Ripon Advance

Bipartisan legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) would redesignate and reauthorize U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) programs that advance the deployment of combined heat and power, or CHP, technologies.
The CHP Support Act, H.R. 6949, which Rep. Kinzinger sponsored on Sept. 27, would amend the Energy Policy and Conservation Act and reauthorize funding at $12 million for fiscal years 2018 through 2022 for the Clean Energy Application Centers of the DOE, which would be redesignated as the CHP Technical Assistance Partnership Program (CHP TAP). H.R. 6949 is the companion bill to the same-named S. 2142, introduced on Nov. 16, 2017 by U.S. Sen. Angus King (I-ME).
“I’m proud to introduce this bipartisan legislation with my colleagues to reaffirm our commitment to the CHP TAPs and encourage greater use of these technologies that bring economic and environmental benefits to America’s energy and innovation in our technologies,” Rep. Kinzinger said on Oct. 5.
The CHP TAP promotes the use of energy-efficient technologies that generate electricity and secure what would be wasted heat to provide thermal energy, according to a statement from Rep. Kinzinger’s office.
“Energy independence is critically important to our national security, and in order to reach our goal, we must have diverse sources of energy and the proper infrastructures to deliver safe, reliable, and clean resources,” the congressman said.
If enacted, H.R. 6949 would support the DOE program’s existing 10 regional CHP Technical Assistance Partnerships and any additional regional partnerships that would be authorized by DOE, according to the text of the bill.
Additionally, under the CHP TAP, education and outreach programs would be offered to myriad stakeholders – including state and local policymakers, as well as building, industrial and electric and natural gas utility professionals – that would promote deployment of CHP technologies, according to the bill’s text.
If enacted, H.R. 6949 also would make funds available for research, development and distribution of informational materials on CHP and microgrid technologies. Funds for the CHP TAP would be made available for a five-year period under the bill.
“Investing in energy efficiency saves money, creates jobs, and improves the environment,” said U.S. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), an original cosponsor of H.R. 6949. “This bipartisan legislation will save Vermonters money on energy bills, reduce harmful carbon emissions, and increase the economic competitiveness of our forest products industry.”
H.R. 6949 also is supported by the Alliance for Industrial Efficiency, the Alliance to Save Energy, the American Chemistry Council, and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
The organizations collectively sent an Oct. 5 letter to leaders on the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is reviewing the bill, urging them to schedule “a hearing to shine a spotlight on this valuable program.”
“The TAPs and supporting activities at DOE have long received bipartisan support and continued funding since 2001,” according to the groups’ letter. “Unfortunately, the underlying authorization for this program was inadvertently allowed to expire in 2012.”
By proposing to reauthorize the CHP TAP, according to their letter, H.R. 6949 would “encourage the use of technologies that reduce energy use, save consumers money, increase economic competitiveness, enhance electric reliability, and reduce emissions at the nation’s hospitals, universities, and manufacturing sites,” all of which they consider to be national priorities.
H.R. 6949 is also under consideration by the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. S. 2142 is being reviewed by the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
https://riponadvance.com/featured/kinzinger-introduces-bill-to-promote-combined-heat-power-technologies/

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Chevron Eyes Houston Refinery

Oct 10, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By Jordan Blum

Chevron said Wednesday it's interested in either buying or building an oil refinery in the Houston area to process its booming production from West Texas' Permian Basin.
Chevron is the nation's second-largest energy company, but it doesn't have any Texas refineries. Outside of the West Coast, California-based Chevron only has its Pascagoula refinery in Mississippi.
Spokesman Braden Reddall said a strong refining portfolio is a critical focus for the company."An expansion of our Gulf Coast presence could be considered if the right opportunity presents itself at the right price," Reddall said.
As first reported by Reuters, Chevron's head of downstream and chemicals, Pierre Breber, said at an energy conference in London that the company is highly interested in gaining a strong oil refining presence along the Houston Ship Channel to take advantage of the company's increasing presence in the Permian.
"Something on the ship channel side could make a lot of sense for our company," Reuters reported Breber as saying.
There's a slew of new pipelines under construction to carry Permian crude to refining and export hubs near Houston and Corpus Christi.
The Houston area is the nation's largest refining hub. If Chevron decides to buy in Houston, both LyondellBasell's Houston refinery and Petrobras' Pasadena refinery have been considered for sale in recent years, although Chevron could consider other possibilities. Building new refineries from scratch if rare because domestic fuel demand is relatively flat. Instead companies have opted to acquire or expand.
Chevron does already have a major petrochemical footprint in the Houston area through its joint venture with Phillips 66 called Chevron Phillips Chemical, especially in Baytown, Pasadena and Sweeny.
Chevron's refineries are mostly configured to process heavier oils from countries like Canada and Venezuela. But more companies, including rival Exxon Mobil, are investing in processing more of the lighter crude from the Permian. Exxon Mobil is eyeing a major expansion to do just that at its Beaumont refinery.
Both of Chevron's and Exxon Mobil's new chief executives have strong refining backgrounds and are keen to invest in Gulf Coast refining.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Chevron-eyes-Houston-refinery-13295888.php

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Chemical Security News

(ACC Mentioned) Chemical-Safety Investigators Say Aggressiveness Has Waned

Oct 11, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal

By Heidi Vogt

U.S. agency is cutting back on regulatory recommendations under the Trump administration, staff say
WASHINGTON—Three days after a Sunoco pipeline in Texas caught fire during welding work in 2016, a tiny government agency called the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board dispatched a team to investigate.
But its findings about the incident—in which seven workers suffered severe burns—are shaping up differently under President Trump than under President Obama, according to people familiar with the agency under both administrations.
The team originally drafted a report recommending mandatory safety standards for any company that does pipeline welding. But early this year, agency leadership removed the regulatory recommendation and told the research team instead to recommend voluntary changes to Sunoco LP, an agency investigator said. The final report has yet to be issued.
Insiders at the board, including current and former investigators, say they have been encouraged to cut back on regulatory recommendations in the Trump era, and they point to the Sunoco incident as one example.
“The drivers for doing investigations changed in 2017 with the new administration coming on,” said Johnnie Banks, a former investigator who retired in December. Mr. Banks said his reports started receiving more scrutiny and he received more pushback on his recommendations. Others, speaking anonymously, expressed similar concerns.
“They never hung (Mr. Trump’s) picture but you always felt his presence there,” Mr. Banks said.
The White House declined to comment for this article.
Chemical safety board member Kristen Kulinowski, the interim head of the agency, said it hasn’t been in communication with the White House and hasn’t felt pressure to change its approach.
“The independence of the agency is incredibly important,” Ms. Kulinowski said. “We need to maintain that same level of technical rigor and same approach to our investigations no matter who’s in the White House. And we’ve done that.”
In the Sunoco case, CSB Senior Adviser Tom Zoeller said it is common for recommendations to change as various investigators respond to drafts and said the draft hasn’t yet been submitted to the board for a formal review. Sunoco didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board investigates incidents ranging from chemical plant accidents to oil spills, such as the one caused by the deadly 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off Louisiana.
The board doesn’t issue any regulations, but it makes suggestions to larger agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. Among dozens of Obama-era rules Mr. Trump is trying to repeal is an EPA requirement, which is based on a chemical safety board recommendation, that chemical plants institute more safeguards to protect against explosions.
President Trump has twice sought to abolish the chemical safety board, arguing it has been too ready to call for new rules, and duplicates the work of other agencies.
Congress has blocked the White House effort. This year, a House committee proposed increasing the board’s budget, and the Senate also moved to keep the agency.
Industry groups say the work of the chemical safety board is essential. The American Chemistry Council said its members “find considerable value in the CSB’s work—especially the reports and materials generated by the board as part of its investigations.”
Yet the agency, insiders and watchdogs say, is suffering under the Trump administration. “It’s more sort of malign neglect rather than active hostility,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an advocacy group that has filed lawsuits against the safety board. He said the agency was trying to “lay low” to avoid further antagonizing the administration.
About half of the board’s investigators have quit since Mr. Trump took office, leaving it with 10 official investigators as of early September, according to the agency. Some of those who stayed say they are having to take time more time away from investigations to talk to lawmakers to make sure funding continues.
“Budget uncertainty impedes the CSB’s ability to attract, hire and retain staff,” the EPA inspector general, which also provide oversight for the agency, said in a June report.
Ms. Kulinowski said congressional support has improved the situation. She cited a 2017 employee survey that showed employee satisfaction jumped 21% from the previous year.
However, staff members say managers pressured them to give positive responses because the board’s future was at risk. An internal survey conducted anonymously in February and obtained by The Wall Street Journal was filled with negative feedback. Staff said management didn’t communicate with them, that proposed elimination was still a major issue and that key work was being sidelined.
“Staff is intimidated and does not raise concerns to management,” one respondent wrote. “Investigations are also less important to the board than outreach and advocacy,” one respondent wrote.
Ms. Kulinowski said she has told staff that they shouldn’t shy away from large-scale investigations or from regulatory recommendations. “In my first all hands meeting after I was named the interim executive, I communicated to staff my vision,” she said. “I talked about big investigations not being off the table.”
Ms. Kulinowski is a placeholder leader for the agency, as Mr. Trump hasn’t named a chairman or nominated any board members. Two of five board seats are vacant. Terms for two of the remaining board members, both Obama appointees, expire in 2019. If Mr. Trump doesn’t nominate anyone, the expiring terms could leave the board nearly empty.
Meanwhile, staff say more investigations appear to be getting a softer treatment.
Staff say an investigation into an Oklahoma gas-well blowout in January that killed five workers is addressing technical safety failures but ignoring broader issues—such as safety training for contract workers—which would be more likely to prompt regulatory recommendations.
“I don’t know if we have the political will to do it, and we definitely don’t have the capacity to do that now,” one staffer said. Mr. Zoeller said the safety board conducts these types of broader investigations regularly, including any time there is a question of worker training. Red Mountain Energy LLC, the well operator, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chemical-safety-investigators-say-aggressiveness-has-waned-1539250201

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DHS Strategy Seeks Deeper Grasp Of Rare Grid Threats

Oct 11, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Peter Behr and Blake Sobczak

Responding to a congressional directive, the Department of Homeland Security has claimed a leadership position in coordinating the defense of power grids and other critical infrastructure against damaging electromagnetic pulses from solar storms or crippling shock waves from an atmospheric nuclear explosion.
In the policy, issued Tuesday, DHS assumed responsibility for identifying the parts of critical sectors — energy, transportation, communications and more — that must be protected against rampaging electromagnetic currents from the sun or from enemy attack. DHS would then determine whether existing defenses and recovery plans were adequate.
"We need to do much greater depth of modeling to understand what the actual cascading effects would be," Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said yesterday at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on threats to the U.S.
She told committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) that the agency has plans in place for responding and recovering to a long-duration power outage, regardless of cause.
"But the cause is very important, and understanding exactly how that will emanate is important," she said, summing up the 23-page strategic document's main finding: "We need to do more."
The strategy won praise from former defense officials and grid security specialists who suggested it would spur welcomed conversations around a rare but potentially devastating threat.
"The DHS strategy is timely and represents a crucial step forward to strengthen resilience against electromagnetic threats," said Paul Stockton, former assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense.
The policy looks beyond the defense of the power sector, filling a critical gap in past government approaches, Stockton said. "Microelectronics and other vulnerable components are spread widely across transportation, communications and other sectors, including water and wastewater," he said.
The risks on these fronts from electromagnetic pulse (EMP) shocks from a nuclear detonation are not well understood, Stockton added. "They need to be," he said.
The DHS policy and its evaluations will "stimulate the public policy debate," and could accelerate deployment of blocking devices designed to shield vital power grid transformers from potential destructive overheating, said Thomas Popik, chairman of the nonprofit Foundation for Resilient Societies.
The transformer damage could come either from ground waves from a solar geomagnetic disturbance (GMD) or the similar "slow" wave from an EMP burst.
While their sources and technical characterizes differ, both solar GMD and EMP threats represent unexpected electromagnetic forces that can bring damaging current and voltage swings in sensitive electronics.
Vulnerable electronics aren't confined to the power grid. In the policy statement, DHS said it "is responsible for recommending measures necessary to protect the critical infrastructure of the United States in partnership with sector-specific agencies" — the Energy Department for the grid, the Department of Transportation for that sector, and more. DHS said it will prepare an implementation plan that details its "roles and responsibilities, current and projected capabilities, timelines, and governance to effectuate the strategy."
Foremost among the policy issues is whether the government will order companies to install blocking and shielding devices to protect vital equipment from damage from the fastest of the three EMP shock waves.
Whether the DHS initiative consolidates federal policy toward the two extreme threats, or possibly creates more policy confusion, remains to be seen, however.
DHS noted that alongside its new program, the White House National Security Council is drafting a presidential executive order on electromagnetic threats. The order "will potentially alter" the DHS strategy, the department said.Competing authorities
The DHS policy does not mention any coordination with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's ongoing regulation of solar storm threats to power grids, which began in October 2012 and now fills thousands of pages of orders, industry responses, and definitions of threats and strategies (Energywire, Sept. 19).
Congress assigned security of the interstate power grid to FERC in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. The commission is still weighing whether it will issue mandatory rules on EMP threats.
The latest DHS policy responds to a congressional mandate in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act and to pressure from Johnson for a stronger DHS role.
Johnson reiterated his desire to see "action" from DHS during yesterday's Senate hearing, which focused on a range of threats, from terrorism to cyberwarfare.
"[EMP/GMD] is certainly one of those problems that we've been admiring for years," he said. "I am really looking to do something, and my suggestion always has been: What do we do if the electrical grid goes down, regardless of the cause — whether it's kinetic, whether it's cyber, whether it's EMP/GMD? And maybe we start there."
In 2015, Congress gave the secretary of Energy sole authority to direct grid defense against a solar storm or electromagnetic pulse attack following a presidentially declared grid emergency.
It was not clear how DHS's assessment of the EMP threat would jibe with an ongoing, multiyear threat investigation by the industry-supported Electric Power Research Institute and several DOE national laboratories.
Randy Horton, EPRI senior program manager with the EMP research project, said DHS is aware of his institute's work on the issue and has reached out for periodic briefings, but added "I found out about this strategy about 8 o'clock [Tuesday] night."
Horton said a key question is how DHS decides to define the worst-case scenario of a once-in-a-century solar storm and the strength of the rogue ground currents it would trigger, a matter of fierce debate among specialists.
"Whatever you're using as the 'event,' that's going to drive what the potential impacts are," and from that, what defensive strategies could be required, he said. Safeguarding the power grid's most vital high-voltage transformers against solar and EMP threats would cost $4 billion, according to an estimate by an Idaho National Laboratory expert. But EPRI has concluded damage to big transformers would be minimal.
Another critical assumption concerns how badly electronics equipment of all types would be damaged by an EMP blast. "There is a real unknown to what the recovery period would be," Horton said. He added that the EPRI research project is nearing completion, and at that point, "we will have identified potential impacts and potential solutions to those impacts."
"It will be up to others whether they choose to do anything about it," Horton said.
Horton said he also wonders whether DHS will assume the power to order infrastructure companies to make changes.
In its new policy, DHS said it "actively supports vulnerability mitigation but does not generally have authority to compel it."
"It's tough for an agency to take a leadership role when they have no legislative authority," said the Foundation for Resilient Societies' Popik. "The crux of inaction at DHS is the lack of authority. The authority rests at FERC, and FERC has shown itself unwilling to hold the industry to strict protection standards under reasonable timelines."
Stockton said that sorting out the responsibilities of DOE under the Federal Power Act, versus DHS, will be important. "One thing is clear," he said. "The strategy, thank goodness, is focused on resilience for multiple infrastructure sectors. That integrated effort is squarely within the responsibility of DHS."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/11/stories/1060102277

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Pentagon Slow to Protect Weapon Systems From Cyber Threats: U.S. Agency

Oct 11, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has been slow to protect major weapon systems from cyber attacks and routinely found critical vulnerabilities that hackers could potentially exploit in those systems, a federal government report said on Tuesday.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), a watchdog unit of Congress, said in a 50-page report that the Pentagon found "mission-critical cyber vulnerabilities in systems" under development.
"Using relatively simple tools and techniques, testers were able to take control of systems and largely operate undetected, due in part to basic issues such as poor password management and unencrypted communications," the report said.
Some program officials told GAO that the weapon systems were secure and discounted some test results as "unrealistic."
While the Pentagon plans to spend about $1.66 trillion to develop major weapon systems, the report found, it had only recently taken steps to improve cyber security.
Cyber security has been receiving increasing attention among U.S military and intelligence officials.
Last week, Western countries issued coordinated denunciations of Russia for running what they described as a global hacking campaign, targeting institutions from sports anti-doping bodies to a nuclear power company and the chemical weapons watchdog.
In some of the strongest language aimed at Moscow since the Cold War, Britain said Russia had become a "pariah state."
The United States said Moscow must be made to pay the price for its actions. Their allies around the world issued stark assessments of what they described as a campaign of hacking by Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.
"Due to this lack of focus on weapon systems cybersecurity,
(Department of Defense) likely has an entire generation of systems that were designed and built without adequately considering cybersecurity," the report said.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/10/09/technology/09reuters-usa-pentagon-cyber.html

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Environment News

EPA Adds Science Advisers to Panel Reviewing Air Standards

Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Amena H. Saiyid

New committee members to advise on ozone, fine particulates
The additions come a year after the EPA barred scientists who received grants
Five specialists in toxicology, ecology, medicine, and atmospheric science will join a committee charged with advising the EPA on air quality standards for ozone, fine particulates, and other pollutants.
EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the fully staffed, seven-member Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee will now assist the agency in reviewing the latest scientific research to determine whether to relax, retain, or tighten the 2015 ground-level ozone standards of 70 parts per billion.
Committee Chairman Tony Cox and James Boylan, with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, will be joined by:
Sabine Lange, toxicology division section manager for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality;Mark Frampton, professor emeritus specializing in pulmonary and critical care with the University of Rochester;Timothy Lewis, supervisory ecologist with the Army Corps of Engineers;Corey Masuca, principal air pollution control manager with the Jefferson County, Ala., Department of Health; andSteven Packham, toxicologist with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
The EPA regularly assembles science advisory boards to guide it in making policy and rules. The boards include people drawn from universities, the government, and industry.
The new members replace those who had either served their terms or been dismissed a year ago at the behest of former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who barred scientists from serving on agency advisory boards if they had received EPA research grants.
This action resulted in the removal of Elizabeth Sheppard, with the University of Washington, who went onto sue the agency.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is one of three groups that sued the EPA in 2017, saying Pruitt’s order was akin to purging scientists.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-adds-science-advisers-to-panel-reviewing-air-standards

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Climate Change a ‘Very Serious’ Threat, DHS Secretary Says

Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Michaela Ross

DHS Chief Nielsen says weather changes impact agency operations
Comments on global warming “threat” at odds with Trump’s views
Major storms caused by climate change are posing a “very serious” threat, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told a Senate panel as Hurricane Michael made landfall in Florida.
“The intensity, the changes in weather patterns, the changes in which the hazards manifest all require us to update everything we do,” Nielsen said Wednesday in an appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Nielsen’s remarks stood in contrast with the stance of her boss, President Donald Trump , who has previously called climate change a hoax and promised to take the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
On Tuesday Trump expressed skepticism about an Oct. 8 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that predicted global warming may cause extreme weather, food and water shortages, and species extinction within the next two decades.
“I want to look at who drew it. You know, which group drew it. Because I can give you reports that are fabulous, and I can give you reports that aren’t so good. But I will be looking at it,” Trump said to reporters before he boarded Marine One.
Preventing Future Damage
Some disaster management specialists have questioned whether Nielsen’s Federal Emergency Management Agency needs to promote more resilient, cost effective ways of dealing with the more frequent natural disasters that appear to be fueled by climate change.
In 2017 alone, 15 percent of the U.S. population was affected by either hurricanes or wildfires, Nielsen said. Nielsen said FEMA is bracing response efforts for Hurricane Michael, which blasted the Florida panhandle today as a Category 4 storm.
States and localities granted FEMA recovery funds will need to channel a portion towards efforts that protect against future disaster damage under a new law (Public Law 115-254) signed by President Donald Trump last week. Nielsen thanked the committee for its work on the legislation.
“I think that will really help to prepare areas,” Nielsen said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/climate-change-a-very-serious-threat-dhs-secretary-says

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How High Does Carbon Need to Be? Somewhere From $20-$27,000

Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Mathew Carr

Scientists say market forces could help rein in global warming
World is on track to warm 3 degrees Celsius, double UN’s goal
The idea that carbon markets can help rein in greenhouse gas emissions got fresh momentum this week from a panel of scientists convened by the United Nations.
But whether the idea gains more political currency this time depends on the price that policymakers set for emitting Earth-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The UN panel set out a number of scenarios, suggesting that markets alone won’t solve the problem.
“A complementary mix of stringent policies is required,” scientists said in the report.
The market has the potential to shave 10 billion tons off global emissions by 2030, a 25 percent reduction from current levels. Another dividend: money collected from carbon pricing could be used to soften the blow of higher energy prices.
The panel stopped short of recommending a price. Instead, it said the price required depends on the goal policy makers want to hit and what other rules and regulations they impose. The idea is that a market together with regulations and taxes will provide both incentive and penalties for polluters to roll back their emissions.
Carbon prices would probably need to be 20 times higher than current levels in Europe to rein in fossil fuel emissions if that was the main policy mechanism in place, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in its report. After assessing peer-reviewed academic research, it concluded:
Prices need to average between $140 to $590 a ton from 2030 to 2100 to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 Celsius above levels seen before the industrial revolution
For a less ambitious target of keeping temperatures from rising 2 degrees, average carbon prices could average from $20 to $150 over the same period
For the more ambitious limit, prices may need to jump above $1,000 sometime before 2030 and perhaps reach as much as $27,000 by the end of the century
Carbon in Europe rose above 20 euros ($23) a ton for the first time in a decade in August, although it has remained well below levels the UN envisioned for much of the life of the continent’s Emissions Trading System, which started in 2005.
Advocates of emissions trading systems say higher carbon prices would steer consumers away from the dirty technology they are used to, said Glen Peters, senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environment Research in Oslo.
He expects high carbon prices, which are a reasonable policy, probably will fall victim to short-term fixes and political apathy about climate change. Five years ago Australia backed out of a carbon pricing system that promised effective tax cuts.
“Right wing parties should love carbon taxes, but they don’t because climate is a left-wing issue,” Peters said. “Climate leadership is gone.”
The IPCC report is another attempt to resuscitate debate about carbon markets after President Donald Trump vowed to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The UN scientists see a “double dividend” from carbon trading as it both encourages restraint on emissions and raises money that can be spent on projects that cut pollution or help the poor.
“The design of carbon pricing policy implies a balance between incentivizing low-carbon behavior and mitigating the adverse distributional consequences of higher energy prices,” the report said.
Substituting a levy on carbon for payroll taxes can “potentially decrease labor costs without affecting salaries,” reducing economic damage caused by climate policies, the report said.
Last month in Bangkok, envoys to the UN climate envoys produced a draft negotiating text outlining options for new global carbon markets under the Paris deal. If the measures get broader backing at the end of this year, countries will be able to voluntarily trade emission-reduction credits bilaterally, or via a new international program, known as the Sustainable Development Mechanism.
“I hope that the governments, scientists all come together to find a solution to our climate challenge,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.
The scientists’ report and climate talks are seeking an immediate decline in emissions, yet global emissions are set to rise again this year to a record, Birol said Oct. 10 in an interview at the Oil & Money conference in London.
“There’s a clash—a gap—between what the scientists and governments target and what’s happening in the real markets. This is my main worry,” he said.
The report ramps up the pressure on UN envoys to agree the rules this December for the international carbon markets, which will cut the cost of climate protection and make the 1.5 degree goal “more feasible,” said Dirk Forrister, president of the International Emissions Trading Association.
Burying carbon emissions could be critical to stave off catastrophic climate change, but don’t count on politicians making it happen because carbon prices need to at least triple to $75 a ton, Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said Oct. 10.
“The carbon price that we would be looking at with today’s state of technology and commercialization and everything else, would probably be out of reach from a political perspective,” Van Beurden said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/how-high-does-carbon-need-to-be-somewhere-from-20-27-000

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Dirtier Air Expected if EPA Lets More Companies Duck Permitting

Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Amena H. Saiyid

EPA permitting guidance could allow industries to avoid new pollution controls
Industry groups seek brighter line on where guidance applies
Air pollution could hike under an EPA plan that would let power plants, steel manufacturers, and a host of other industries avoid installing new emissions controls when seeking permits.
An Environmental Protection Agency proposal to end the practice of grouping large, widespread sources of air pollution such as oil and gas fields together as a single facility for permitting purposes would mean treating more small source of emissions separately.
Assessing smaller facilities individually, rather than as a whole, would lead to fewer classifications of large sources, which trigger the Clean Air Act permitting requirements and accompanying stricter pollution controls.
For permitting purposes, “I want my clients to avoid permitting if possible, or be deemed a minor source that requires less stringent controls,” said Gale Hoffnagle, senior vice president and technical director at TRC Environmental Corp. in Windsor, Conn., an engineering and consulting firm.
Environmental groups are concerned that the EPA is finding loopholes for the industries to release more pollution into the air. Industry lawyers don’t dispute that the guidance would allow more pollution to be released.
Latest Easing of Hurdles
The draft guidance is the EPA’s latest effort to ease permitting hurdles for refineries, power plants, and factories, especially those constructing or expanding in a way that increases emissions and triggers the need for new source review permits.
The agency earlier this year revised how facilities tally upgrade-related emissions that trigger new pollution controls under the program.
It is now about to release a proposal that allows a facility to aggregate or clump emissions increases from two separate yet related projects for permitting purposes. The EPA sought feedback on the guidance through Oct. 5.
Any facility emitting 100 tons or more of pollution annually is deemed a major source that must install the best available pollution controls to obtain a permit for operations, or a new source review permit for expansion or new construction.
Emissions Could Double Without Permits
Under this guidance, facilities can nearly double their allowable emissions and still be considered a minor source if they emit up to 99 tons, Eric Boyd, an attorney with the Chicago office of Thompson Coburn LLP, told Bloomberg Environment.
The agency said its change in direction is driven by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit’s 2012 decision in Summit Petroleum Corp. v. EPA.
In this case, the court held that the EPA unreasonably treated Summit Petroleum’s natural gas sweetening plant and its gas production wells as a single major source, although they were anywhere from 500 feet to eight miles apart from each other. Gas sweetening is a process using solutions to remove hydrogen sulfide from gases.
The court instructed the EPA to consider the plain meaning of adjacent when deciding how to lump together facilities for Clean Air Act permitting purposes.
In response, the EPA declared oil and gas facilities half a mile apart as separate sources for permitting purposes, but it stopped short of applying this interpretation to other manufacturing facilities, until now.
Bright Lines Needed
The EPA guidance isn’t as clear as industry would like. For instance, Hoffnagle said, the guidance leaves it up to agency to determine proximity on a case-by-case basis.
The National Association of Manufacturers told the EPA they would prefer a “bright line” distance for clarifying the meaning of “adjacent” based on proximity.
“The EPA is opening the door to essentially more gamesmanship that will produce more pollution,” Sierra Club managing attorney Sanjay Narayan told Bloomberg Environment.
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Environment is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/dirtier-air-expected-if-epa-lets-more-companies-duck-permitting

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U.N. Climate Report Uses 'Scare Tactics' — Republicans

Oct 11, 2018 | E&E News PM

By Hannah Northey and Nick Sobczyk

Senate Republicans today chipped away at a high-profile and dire report on climate change, as EPA offered its first response by touting the nation's historic emissions reductions.
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) during an interview on Capitol Hill this morning suggested that findings the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this weekend are widely misinterpreted and exaggerated.
The IPCC report, penned by the world's top climate scientists, found that keeping temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius — 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit — is no longer sufficient, and the globe must prevent warming of 1.5 C above preindustrial levels or abandon billions of people to the social and natural dangers of runaway warming (Climatewire, Oct. 9).
Barrasso said that he's committed to a "clean, safe and healthy environment" and that he has a "great deal of respect for the environment" before rejecting the IPCC's findings.
"I think that they continue to use scare tactics — those efforts are what we see in this report," Barrasso told reporters.
The senator's comments are significant given his committee oversees EPA, and the White House has remained quiet about the report's warning that the planet will soon reach a critical threshold of wildfires, floods and food shortages if warming exceeds 1.5 C.
The president told reporters yesterday he has received the report and wants to see who "drew" the document.
Another Republican and well-known skeptic of mainstream climate science, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, criticized the IPCC as "prejudiced" today. Inhofe is the former EPW chairman.
"They were totally discredited, totally discredited. I think they thought they'd wait long enough people would forget. Well, I haven't forgotten," Inhofe told reporters before adding that the U.N. was "formed to sell this in the first place."
Inhofe didn't specify how the IPCC panel of 91 top-tier experts from 40 countries had been "discredited" but was likely referring to the 2010 event known as "Climategate," in which emails were stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in the United Kingdom.
They were presented as evidence of scientists falsifying their findings on man-made warming, but six subsequent investigations have cleared the scientists of any wrongdoing. Sunday's report drew from 6,000 scientific studies from diverse sources.
When asked whether the president should review the report, Inhofe said, "Well, it depends on what else he has to do."
The senators' response is indicative of the uphill battle the report's findings face within the Beltway, where the Trump administration has been largely dismissive of the IPCC's warnings.
When EPA weighed in on the report today — marking the agency's first comments — an official repeated the White House's talking point that the United States "continues to lead the world in greenhouse gas reductions" and has already lowered its emissions 14 percent since 2005.
The spokesman also said the IPCC report is the responsibility of its authors, not any one government.
"We appreciate the hard work of the scientists and experts, many from the United States, who developed this report under considerable time pressure," the EPA spokesman said in an email.
"In accordance with IPCC procedures, the report and its contents remain the responsibility of its authors," the spokesman said. "Governments do not formally endorse specific findings presented by the authors."
Still, Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of a few Senate Republicans willing to speak out about climate change, said the effects of global warming are impossible to ignore in her state, regardless of the IPCC report.
She stopped short of calling for immediate action on her committee but called for "an honest discussion about the issues" after the report, rather than devolving into partisan battles about the science.
"There are plenty of areas that we can do that," Murkowski told reporters, citing potential impacts on the insurance industry amid more frequent flooding and more intense storms.
"It seems to me that we ought to be able to have a discussion about that without screaming at one another," she said. "Maybe that's a good way to start."
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), Barrasso's counterpart on the EPW Committee, similarly predicted the IPCC's findings would "keep our attention on climate change."
"I think the United Nations report was stark, gripping and hard to ignore," Carper said. "I think we needed that right now."
Reporters George Cahlink and Jean Chemnick contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/10/10/stories/1060102241

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Conn. Residents Deserve To Be Heard As EPA Seeks To Roll Back Clean Power Plan

Oct 10, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog

By Dannel P. Malloy

In recent years, Connecticut has taken real and concrete steps to protect our environment and combat climate change. With the passage of the Global Warming Solutions Act, we set ambitious goals to curtail greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and because of steadfast efforts within state government, we met and exceeded those goals eight years early. Between 2011 and 2017, we reduced air pollution from major facilities by 23 percent. And we have preserved and protected our state’s open spaces and natural resources. In short, we have done our part to reduce pollution and protect the health of our residents.
However, Connecticut, like much of the northeast, is a downwind state. Meaning that emissions from our south and west are carried into our state by prevailing winds, contaminating the air our children and families breathe. In other words, regardless of our own efforts, we are forced to breathe toxic pollution from dirty coal power plants in the Midwestern and Southern United States.
The Trump administration’s rollback of the Clean Power Plan will only make that problem worse for Connecticut and our neighbors by reversing commonsense standards that would compel coal and natural gas power plants to reduce emissions by an estimated 32 percent by 2030. Energy production is the nation’s second leading source of carbon emissions, behind only the transportation sector, and loosening protections will only serve to hurt residents of downwind states. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) own estimates show that as many as 1,400 people will die prematurely every year because of the increased pollution caused by this backwards rule.
Incredibly – and despite the profound, negative effects – the EPA opted to hold just one public hearing on its proposal to gut the Clean Power Plan, which was held on Monday in Chicago.
In contrast, when the Clean Power Plan was introduced by the Obama administration, the EPA held four two-day hearings throughout the country. This was after extensive listening sessions and outreach in both coal country and downwind states.
To be fair, the EPA has done some outreach on the rollback, which they have titled the “ACE rule” – in states where coal has been a staple for power generation. “Today, EPA brought the good news to the Bluegrass State,” EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in touting the rollbacks in Kentucky. In Ohio, he stressed the value of outreach, according to an EPA press release, “hearing directly from Ohioans and their elected officials is essential to EPA’s efforts to work closely with the Buckeye State.” I know of no such outreach in states set to bear the brunt of increased emissions.
But let’s be very clear. One rushed hearing is completely inadequate when the safety, health and welfare of our residents is at stake.
Our poorer, older and younger citizens and those in environmental justice communities who are most affected by climate change and air pollution – most often people of color – likely did not catch a flight to Chicago to testify Monday, but their voices must still be heard. That’s why I sent a letter imploring Mr. Wheeler to hear directly from the Constitution State by scheduling an additional hearing in our region of the country.
Climate change is already endangering the health and safety of our residents. A detailed study of sea level in Long Island Sound predicts nearly two feet of sea level rise in the next three decades, turning routine coastal storms into deadly catastrophes and directly threatening our coastal communities.
The voices of our children, elders, low income citizens and people of color — and everyone who breathes air tainted by upwind coal plants — should be just as important to the EPA as the voices of those who profit from coal extraction.
So much for the “protection” component of EPA’s moniker and mandate.
Malloy, a Democrat, has served as governor of Connecticut since 2011.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/410866-conn-residents-deserve-to-be-heard-as-epa-seeks-to

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Bill Gates Backs Wash. Ballot Measure

Oct 11, 2018 | Associated Press (In E&E Climatewire)

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has endorsed a November ballot measure in Washington state that would charge a fee on carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
Gates wrote in a LinkedIn post Tuesday that he will contribute to the Yes on 1631 campaign and vote for it, saying "climate change may be the toughest problem humanity has ever faced."
The philanthropist cited several reasons for his support, including that the measure would help Washington state become a hub for innovative work on clean energy.
Initiative 1631 would charge large polluters an escalating fee on fossil fuel emissions starting at $15 per metric ton. It would be the first direct carbon fee of its kind in the U.S.
Opponents including top oil companies have raised more than $21 million to defeat it. They say it would hike gas and electricity costs and exempts too many big polluters.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/10/11/stories/1060102225

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