Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report - October 12, 2018
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(ACC Blog) ACC supports the Save Our Seas Act
Oct 11, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters
This important bipartisan legislation reinvigorates existing programs and includes language recognizing the need to address the lack of waste management systems in developing countries. -
(ACC Mentioned) Trump Calls Out China, Japan Over Ocean Plastic
Oct 12, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
President Donald Trump criticized China, Japan, and other countries for dumping plastic waste into the oceans as he signed a bill to reauthorize a federal ocean pollution cleanup program. -
(ACC Mentioned) Trump Signs Bill to Improve International Cooperation on Ocean Trash Cleanup
Oct 11, 2018 | The Epoch Times
By Holly Kellum
President Donald Trump extended and expanded what he called a “very important” program to clean up sea-borne waste by signing a bill to boost international cooperation on removing debris from the planet’s oceans. -
E.P.A. to Disband a Key Scientific Review Panel on Air Pollution
Oct 11, 2018 | The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman
An Environmental Protection Agency panel that advises the agency’s leadership on the latest scientific information about soot in the atmosphere is not listed as continuing its work next year, an E.P.A. official said. -
Wheeler Affirms Children's Health Focus Amid Office Director Controversy
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in a new memo is “reaffirming” the agency's commitments to its children's health programs and specifically the Office of Children's Health Protection (OCHP), the latest step in the agency's efforts to mitigate controversy over the sudden removal of the office's former director in September. -
Senate Confirms New DOJ Environment Division Chief
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Senate has confirmed largely along party lines Jeffrey Bossert Clark as the new head of the Department of Justice's (DOJ) environment division -- the office responsible for defending EPA and its rules in court -- just as the agency is facing a series of current and impending challenges to major new policies and rollbacks. -
5 Things to Watch on Science Panel Next Year
Oct 12, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Christa Marshall, George Cahlink and Sean Reilly
Change is coming to the House Science, Space and Technology Committee in January, but will there be a sharp shift in direction or simply a passing of the gavel? -
(ACC Mentioned) Environmentalists Call For Broader EPA PFAS Policies Under Several Laws
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Environmentalists are calling on EPA to broaden its actions to stem the environmental impacts of the class of non-stick chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including regulating PFAS under multiple environmental laws and launching new testing and monitoring of the chemicals in drinking water systems. -
EPA Pledges Support for State-Led Fluorinated Chemical Solutions
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
EPA will focus on supporting states when it comes to finding, regulating, and cleaning up a family of ubiquitous chemicals turning up in drinking water supplies across the country. -
Autozone, PPG Halt Sale of Paint Strippers with Toxic Chemicals
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Lauren Coleman-Lochner
Three more retailers have agreed to follow the lead of Walmart Inc. and home-improvement chains Lowe’s Cos. and Home Depot Inc. in halting sales of paint strippers containing two toxic chemicals. -
EU Chemicals Agency Lists Suspected Hazardous Substances for Review
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Carbon nanotubes that companies like Arkema SA and Nanocyl SA produce are among 96 chemical substances slated for evaluation of their potential hazards by authorities in European Union countries between 2019 and 2021. -
Shell Petrochemical Project on Track in Pennsylvania
Oct 11, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC has achieved what officials are calling an "engineering milestone" at its petrochemicals site under construction in the Pittsburgh area. -
PG&E, California Utilities Get Millions to Stop Methane Gas Leaks
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Emily C. Dooley
Four regulated gas utilities in California will get nearly $315 million to track, repair, and reduce methane gas leaks in their systems over the next few years. -
EPA Faulted For Relying On State Methane Rules But Not Tallying Emissions
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
EPA's claims that it can rely on state programs to limit methane leaks at oil and gas operations in lieu of federal rules are drawing fire from environmentalists who say that EPA's analysis for its methane rule rollback proposal fails to quantify the pollution cuts -- or lack thereof -- from the state programs. -
West Texas an 'Extraction Colony' as Oil, Gas Exports Surge
Oct 12, 2018 | AP (In E&E Energywire)
By Kiah Collier, Jamie Smith Hopkins and Rachel Leven
Drilling booms have come and gone in this oil town for nearly a century. But the frenzy gripping it now is different. Drilling rigs tower over suburban backyards. There's a housing crunch so severe that rents are up 30 percent in the last year alone. -
Senators Examine Grid's Readiness for a Very Bad Day
Oct 12, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Blake Sobczak
Senators took stock of a vital spare tire for the U.S. power grid at a hearing on "blackstart" generation capacity yesterday. -
Bill Raising Infrastructure Trespassing Penalty Called 'out of Line'
Oct 12, 2018 | Courier Express
By Stacy M. Brown
The state legislature is considering a law that would make it a felony to trespass on a “critical infrastructure facility.” -
(ACC Mentioned) Industries Urge EPA To Narrow NSR 'Adjacency' Test Beyond Draft Guide
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Major industry groups are praising EPA's draft guidance narrowing when the agency will “aggregate” pollution sources as one source for new source review (NSR) permitting purposes, but are urging EPA to further reduce the scope of aggregation by creating a more-limited definition of when sources are deemed “adjacent” for NSR. -
EPA Fails to Produce Documents Backing Pruitt's Climate Claims
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is failing to produce any documents that support former Administrator Scott Pruitt's claims that human-released carbon dioxide is not the major factor behind climate change, causing one environmental group to claim victory in its challenge to his statements. -
Govt. Strategy in Kids' Climate Case: Don't Attack Science
Oct 12, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
To fight off a lawsuit that claims people have a constitutional right to a safe climate, first blame factors other than warming for harming the plaintiffs.
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(ACC Blog) ACC supports the Save Our Seas Act
Oct 11, 2018 | American Chemistry Matters
This important bipartisan legislation reinvigorates existing programs and includes language recognizing the need to address the lack of waste management systems in developing countries.
Among other provisions, the Save Our Seas Act:
1. Reauthorizes the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program
2. Supports studies on how solid waste enters the ocean, the effectiveness of waste management infrastructure to prevent marine debris, the economic impacts of marine debris, and the benefits of reducing marine debris
3. Works with countries that are the largest contributors of marine debris to mitigate the risk of marine debris, and increase technical assistance and investment in waste management infrastructure
We All Want a Clean Ocean
Legislation is one part of the answer. We and our members are working with governments, NGOs, and the private sector to deliver sustainable solutions to marine debris. In the United States, we work alongside scientists and policy makers to increase litter prevention, reducing, reusing and recycling, and other waste management infrastructure solutions. Through our “Global Declaration,” 75 plastics associations from 40 countries have launched 355 projects that address education, research, public policy, best practices, plastics recycling/recovery, and plastic pellet containment.
In May, America’s plastic resin makers announced an ambitious goal: to recycle or recover all plastic packaging in the United States by 2040. Achieving a more circular economy for plastics will enable society to continue to harness plastics’ essential benefits, like enhancing the safety and sanitary packaging of food and personal care products, while helping to protect and restore the environment for future generations.
We will continue to work with packaging makers and others in the consumer product value chain to design ever more recyclable packaging. While we strive to maximize mechanical recycling, we are also working on innovative new ways to reuse, recycle, and recover all plastic packaging after they’ve delivered outstanding performance attributes.
Now is a time of remarkable innovation throughout our industry. We can all play a role in keeping valuable plastics out of the environment. Have you thought about what you will do? Please follow us on Twitter @ForCleanOceans to stay up to date on our marine litter news.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2018/10/acc-supports-the-save-our-seas-act/
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump Calls Out China, Japan Over Ocean Plastic
Oct 12, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
President Donald Trump criticized China, Japan, and other countries for dumping plastic waste into the oceans as he signed a bill to reauthorize a federal ocean pollution cleanup program.
Trump signed the legislation, dubbed the Save Our Seas Act , on Oct. 11, before his lunch with rapper Kanye West and football great Jim Brown.
The law reauthorizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program and directs the U.S. government’s help in addressing international waste management. The law is noteworthy not only for its bipartisan support but also for elevating the issue of plastic pollution into future trade agreements.
During a signing ceremony, Trump singled out China and Japan as well as “many, many countries” for dumping plastic waste into the oceans.
“I’ve seen pictures recently, and some of you have seen them, where there’s a vast, tremendous, unthinkable amount of garbage is floating right into our coast, in particular along the West Coast,” Trump said. “And we’re charged with removing it, which is a very unfair situation.”
“As president I will continue to do everything I can to stop other nations from making our oceans into their landfills,” he added.
Trash Problem in AsiaA 2015 report in the journal Science by the University of Georgia’s Jenna Jambeck and her colleagues found that among the top 10 nations putting plastic into the oceans, eight were in Southeast Asia.
A separate study by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research based in Leipzig found that the Yangtze River in China alone dumps up to an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of plastic waste into the Yellow Sea.
“This is an unintended consequence of rapid population growth and economic development,” Nicholas Mallos, director of the Trash Free Seas Program at the Ocean Conservancy, a Washington-based nonprofit, told Bloomberg Environment.
In a political moment when big bipartisan deals are almost nonexistent, Mallos said, getting this law passed was “absolutely a big deal, particularly since it emphasizes international cooperation.”
But while Mallos said he understands why emphasis is being placed on plastic pollution in emerging Asian economies, he disagreed with Trump’s characterization that the U.S. is being inundated with “foreign garbage.”
“While the U.S. isn’t the top contributor to ocean plastic, we are still among the top 20,” he said. “There is plenty of pollution littering our coasts that comes from local sources.”
The Plastic EconomyGroups representing the plastic industry have supported the act, but have been cautious about any plans that would put bans on certain kinds of plastic-based packaging.
“While marine debris is a huge problem, it’s also a solvable one,” said Cal Dooley, the president of the American Chemistry Council, which represents plastics manufacturers.
While testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Sept. 28, Dooley said ocean plastic was largely the result of poor waste management infrastructure. This includes insufficient collection, recycling, and recovery facilities in developing countries.
But others claim that placing too much focus on waste infrastructure in developing economies downplays the role the companies from the global North play in creating these pollution streams in the first place.
“If you buy one of these single-use soap sachets, there is literally nowhere for that plastic to go but the environment, and the companies know this,” said Stiv Wilson, campaigns director for the Story of Stuff Project, an environmental leadership group based in Berkeley, Calif.
Wilson told Bloomberg Environment that many of the plastic products being marketed in developing economies are very difficult to recycle. Moreover, much of what is meant by “waste management infrastructure” is actually just burning trash, which causes other kinds of pollution.
“They’ll call it ‘waste to energy’, or ‘waste to fuel,’ but the pollution impacts from incineration are horrific and also wouldn’t address the fundamental problem of companies looking to developing economies for growth,” he said.
“Until these un-recyclable low-grade plastics started arriving, these countries were doing fine.”
Chinese ActionsA request for comment to the Chinese Embassy was not returned, but earlier this year China’s highest planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission announced that it is evaluating additional measures to reduce plastic waste pollution.
It has promised rules on plastic products that are comprehensive and detailed, as well as more bans, and an accelerated switch to less-polluting materials.
Starting in January, China drastically restricted imports of recycling material from western countries, which the Chinese government referred to as “foreign garbage.”There is precedent for action on plastics. In 2008 China laid out restrictions on ultra-thin plastic bags, which effectively cleaned up a once-universal form of litter.
The NDRC’s new moves are expected to revise the 2008 order, which banned bags thinner than 0.025 millimeters, and require retailers to charge for plastic bags.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/trump-calls-out-china-japan-over-ocean-plastic
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump Signs Bill to Improve International Cooperation on Ocean Trash Cleanup
Oct 11, 2018 | The Epoch Times
By Holly Kellum
President Donald Trump extended and expanded what he called a “very important” program to clean up sea-borne waste by signing a bill to boost international cooperation on removing debris from the planet’s oceans.
The Save Our Seas Act of 2018 extended the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Marine Debris Program for an additional five years, and directed the State Department and other federal agencies to work internationally to prevent countries from using the ocean as a landfill.
The act charges NOAA to collaborate with other U.S. government agencies to deal with land- and ocean-based sources of the trash, both domestic and foreign.
“People don’t realize it, but all the time we’re being inundated by debris from other countries,” Trump said. “And we will be responding and very strongly.”
In attendance at the Oct. 11 signing ceremony were Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Okla.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the sponsor and co-sponsor of the bill, respectively, whose presence attested to the bipartisan nature of the bill. The House held a voice vote on it, which wasn’t recorded; the Senate passed it unanimously, Sullivan said.
Through its diplomatic channels, the United States has already been putting other countries on notice that the Trump administration will no longer tolerate trash being dumped in the ocean, Trump said.
“And I can tell you that Dan [Sullivan] and Sheldon [Whitehouse] were very insistent on trying to get that into the USMCA, the new agreement that we have with Canada and Mexico. And we’ll be putting it into other agreements also,” Trump said.
Whitehouse concurred and said they were in the process of working it into an agreement with the Philippines, which he named as “one of the worst three” ocean polluters.
For Trump, the issue is an economic one as well as an environmental one. The United States has to clean up the trash that floats into U.S. waters and onto U.S. beaches each year, which not only creates a burden on the government, but hurts businesses along the coast. In one national ocean cleanup, the Ocean Conservancy reported picking up 4,144,109 pounds of trash from over 8,500 miles of coastline.
“This waste, trash, and debris harms not only marine life, but also fishermen, coastal economies along America’s vast stretches,” Trump said. “As president, I will continue to do everything I can to stop other nations from making our oceans into their landfills.”
The act also requires a representative from the State Department, as well as from the Department of the Interior, to join the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee.
The nonprofit Ocean Conservancy called the legislation a “triumph of bipartisanship,” and praised it for addressing the “the ever-increasing global marine-debris problem.”
Even the American Chemistry Council, an association of chemical manufacturers and other chemistry-related businesses, applauded the passage of the legislation. “This important bipartisan legislation reinvigorates existing programs and includes language recognizing the need to address the lack of waste management systems in developing countries,” it said on its blog.
The Plastics Industry Association also thanked the Trump administration for “demonstrating your commitment to combatting marine debris.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-signs-bill-to-improve-international-cooperation-on-sea-trash-cleanup_2687449.html
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E.P.A. to Disband a Key Scientific Review Panel on Air Pollution
Oct 11, 2018 | The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman
An Environmental Protection Agency panel that advises the agency’s leadership on the latest scientific information about soot in the atmosphere is not listed as continuing its work next year, an E.P.A. official said.
The 20-person Particulate Matter Review Panel, made up of experts in microscopic airborne pollutants known to cause respiratory disease, is responsible for helping the agency decide what levels of pollutants are safe to breathe. Agency officials declined to say why the E.P.A. intends to stop convening the panel next year, particularly as the agency considers whether to revise air quality standards.
Environmental activists criticized the move as a way for the Trump administration to avoid what they described as the panel’s lengthy but critical assessment of how much exposure to particulate matter is acceptable in the atmosphere.
“To me this is part of a pattern,” said Gretchen Goldman, research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science-oriented environmental nonprofit. “We’re seeing E.P.A. trying to cut science out of the process.”
She and others noted that the move follows other decisions at the E.P.A. they find worrisome, including eliminating a senior science advisory position and pressing for new rules that would restrict the number and type of studies the E.P.A. could consider when writing new regulations.
Dr. Goldman, an environmental engineer, wrote on Twitter that the E.P.A. quietly telegraphed its latest move in a personnel announcement Wednesday. In that announcement, the E.P.A. said that a smaller, seven-person umbrella advisory board would from now on be conducting reviews of federal air standards and that the administration hoped to complete any revisions by late 2020.
When asked about the future of the larger, 20-person scientific board, the E.P.A. spokesman confirmed that the board was not “listed” in agency documents as continuing its work past 2018. The body is slated to meet in December.
The EPA is responsible for updating six air standards every five years under the Clean Air Act: carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, lead, and ozone.
The smaller, seven-member group, known as the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, or C.A.S.A.C., is legally obligated to provide advice to the administrator about those air quality standards. But the work of its sub-panels, such as the one on particulate matter, is not required by law.
Those panels are typically made up of researchers, doctors and others with specific expertise in the individual pollutants. Their reviews can take as long as 18 months, Dr. Goldman said.
At the same time, the C.A.S.A.C. also is going through a shake-up. Andrew Wheeler, the acting administrator of the E.P.A., announced Wednesday he was installing new members to that panel. They include a biochemist from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; an air pollution control engineer with the Jefferson County, Ala., Department of Health; a toxicologist with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality; and a pulmonary doctor and professor emeritus from the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Lianne Sheppard, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington who until Wednesday served as a member of the C.A.S.A.C. and also is on the particulate-matter review board, expressed concern that the resulting panel may be too small and inexperienced in some of the specific issues to handle the new volume of work.
“They’re being asked to implement a new process, which will significantly increase their workload,” Dr. Sheppard said. “All of this will result in poorer-quality scientific oversight.”
Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a think tank that supports fossil fuels, dismissed concerns about the changes. “Apparently it seems the enviros still don’t understand that elections have consequences,” he said.
Last year Scott Pruitt, Mr. Wheeler’s predecessor, barred advisory committee members from also receiving E.P.A. grants, a change he said was designed to limit conflicts of interest. It also had the effect of making it harder for academic researchers to participate on agency boards. With Mr. Wheeler’s additions to the panel, the C.A.S.A.C. board now has only one researcher.
Mr. Wheeler, in a statement, praised the group as being highly qualified with a diverse set of backgrounds needed to take on new responsibilities.
“These experts will provide critical scientific advice to E.P.A. as it evaluates where to set national standards for key pollutants like ozone and particulate matter,” he said, adding the group would “work hard over the next two years to advise E.P.A. in a manner consistent with the Clean Air Act and the protection of public health.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/climate/epa-disbands-pollution-science-panel.html
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Wheeler Affirms Children's Health Focus Amid Office Director Controversy
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in a new memo is “reaffirming” the agency's commitments to its children's health programs and specifically the Office of Children's Health Protection (OCHP), the latest step in the agency's efforts to mitigate controversy over the sudden removal of the office's former director in September.
Wheeler's Oct. 11 memo backs the Clinton-era “Policy on Evaluating Health Risks to Children” that was first established in 1995, as well as the continued role of OCHP in implementing that agenda. The move appears to be an attempt to address fears by Trump administration critics that the removal of Ruth Etzel as the office's chief on Sept. 25 was the first step toward sidelining OCHP or shuttering it altogether.
“The EPA Office of Children's Health Protection plays an essential leadership role in protecting children through engagement on key children's health issues. OCHP will continue to work with internal and external stakeholders in risk communication and training, as well as scientific and policy analyses,” Wheeler's memo says.
It is still unclear why Etzel was placed on leave last month. Wheeler's most direct public comment on the issue was at an Oct. 1 National Child Health Day event, where he reiterated a Sept. 28 statement from his chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, that while “we don't typically comment on personnel issues, we did put out a short statement [last] Friday saying she's suspended while we investigate some allegations.”
However, Senate Democrats are seeking more details on the futures of Etzel and OCHP overall. An Oct. 4 letter from five Democratic members of the Senate appropriations panel that oversees EPA's budget, led by ranking member Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), have given Wheeler a deadline of Oct. 18 to answer a series of questions on his plans for the office and its leadership.
Other critics of the Trump administration, including environmentalists and academics, have attacked Wheeler for removing Etzel from her post at OCHP while continuing to push a deregulatory agenda that they claim poses unique threats to children's health.
“The Trump administration is celebrating National Child Health Day by moving forward with a proposal to attack limits on lead, mercury and other dangerous air pollution from the nation’s coal-fired power plants, putting children at risk from known brain poisons and toxic pollutants,” the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement.
Shortly after Etzel's removal, Barbara Morrissey, the chair of EPA's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee -- which is meeting in Washington, D.C., Oct. 11-12 -- told Inside EPA, “I'm really dismayed. . . . It's a great loss to EPA and to children's environmental health.”
Wheeler's new memo does not explicitly state what OCHP's policy responsibilities will be going forward, but says that the office's “national scope and mission remains invaluable in working collaboratively with states, tribes and local governments to provide solutions that contribute to healthy and thriving children and communities.”
Further, it says of the 1995 policy, “I am confident that each of the EPA's program offices, in partnership with OCHP and the regions, will intensify efforts to implement this policy that is critical to our nation's future. This increased focus will help ensure that all children, especially those in vulnerable communities, can thrive by living, learning and playing in healthy environments.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/wheeler-affirms-childrens-health-focus-amid-office-director-controversy
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Senate Confirms New DOJ Environment Division Chief
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
The Senate has confirmed largely along party lines Jeffrey Bossert Clark as the new head of the Department of Justice's (DOJ) environment division -- the office responsible for defending EPA and its rules in court -- just as the agency is facing a series of current and impending challenges to major new policies and rollbacks.
Clark was confirmed to leak DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) on Oct. 11 in a 52-45 vote, according to the Senate Press Gallery. Among the chamber's Democrats only Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Claire McCaskill (MO) voted yes, while none of the Republican caucus voted no.
Clark's nomination had been pending in the Senate since 2017, during which time he was twice approved by the chamber's judiciary committee but never received a floor vote. Prior to joining the Trump administration he served as an ENRD official at the George W. Bush DOJ and then worked at Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
ENRD is responsible for litigating on behalf of EPA and other environmental agencies. Clark's arrival at the division means he will be tasked with directing its work on already-pending challenges to EPA's delays of Obama-era rules as well as high-profile substantive rules like implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act, rollback of the current vehicle efficiency standards and new, narrower rules on power plants' greenhouse gas emissions and Clean Water Act jurisdiction.
Until now, that work has been overseen by Jeffrey Wood as acting head of ENRD. DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Wood will remain at the department going forward.
The partisan split in support for Clark was immediately evident in officials' reactions to the confirmation. For instance, Attorney General Jeff Sessions praised the vote while criticizing the Senate for its delay.
“Jeff has four years of experience as part of the Environment and Natural Resources Division leadership team, working on virtually every case that the division litigated in the courts of appeals and every environmental case argued before the Supreme Court. He is ready to lead this Division -- and it should not have taken us 16 months to get him confirmed,” Sessions said in a DOJ press release.
Meanwhile, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member Tom Carper (D-DE) touted his “no” vote on confirmation based on Clark's record of opposing broad environmental policies both as a Bush DOJ official and in the private sector.
“The person serving in this position must uphold and enforce our nation’s environmental laws without reservation or ideology. Although Mr. Clark does have experience in the environmental space, his record at both DOJ and in private practice shows him to have strong opposition to critical environmental protections, including EPA’s efforts to curb climate change, using best available science in policymaking, and safety requirements for offshore oil and gas operations. The American people expect and deserve much better from the nation’s top environmental lawyer,” Carper said in an Oct. 11 statement.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/senate-confirms-new-doj-environment-division-chief
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5 Things to Watch on Science Panel Next Year
Oct 12, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Christa Marshall, George Cahlink and Sean Reilly
Change is coming to the House Science, Space and Technology Committee in January, but will there be a sharp shift in direction or simply a passing of the gavel?
If Democrats take the House, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), one of the House's most senior African-American members, is favored to claim the chairmanship. Last November, she told E&E News, "I hope that I will" be the next leader of the committee.
She'd likely use the panel to push back against the administration's doubts about climate science and press for more Energy Department and NASA research spending.
Johnson has shown a willingness to sometimes work across party lines, and some say she might soften the partisan tone of the panel, led in recent years by Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas).
"We'll catch a break if she is chairwoman of Science because she is pretty reasonable. Now, she'll be a lot more left of center than the Republicans," said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), long a leading conservative voice on energy issues who is retiring at the end of this Congress.
The chairmanship picture is more muddled for Republicans, with Reps. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, Dana Rohrabacher of California, Randy Hultgren of Illinois and Mo Brooks of Alabama in the mix.
All but Lucas and Brooks face competitive re-election contests and are not locks to return next year. Each of the lawmakers has a conservative track record and would likely not offer much of a shift from Smith's tenure.
Though more clarity will come on Election Day, here are five issues that have frequently sparked partisan fighting at Science and that could see a very different future if Democrats win the chamber but only modest changes if the GOP stays in power.
Climate
If it's Chairwoman Johnson or another Democrat, committee watchers expect an early airing of mainstream climate science, including findings released this month from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a U.N.-convened group. The IPCC report concluded that the world needs to act quickly to hold warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and avoid catastrophic consequences to the planet.
Johnson declined to be interviewed for this article, but she has released multiple statements in recent years criticizing lawmakers who do not share the view of most scientists that humans are the primary cause of rising temperatures.
She called efforts by Smith to subpoena documents related to climate change studies "disturbing," and she will be under pressure from advocates to push back on Smith's policies and rhetoric.
"Smith kept holding hearings where you didn't air the scientific evidence. That needs to be undone," said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Democrats also would be pushed to investigate efforts by the Trump administration to roll back spending on climate science at agencies like NASA.
As chairman, Smith published an op-ed for Fox News saying he was falsely labeled a climate denier and asked tough questions about "how much the climate has changed and how much of an impact humans have had on the climate."
Many analysts think conservatives in line for the chairmanship, including Lucas and Rohrabacher, would have a similar strategy on climate. Lucas has been critical of government efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and Rohrabacher told E&E News this month that the human impact on climate is "minimal" and that there need to be more debates on climate science (E&E Daily, Oct. 10).
A wild card could be Hultgren. The Illinois lawmaker cast similar votes to Smith's and supported President Trump's announced withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, but also joined the Climate Solutions Caucus this year.
"My state, our nation and our world are blessed with an abundance of resources and natural beauty, and it is our responsibility to be good stewards of creation," Hultgren said when joining the caucus, a bipartisan group focused on reducing risks from climate change.
EPA
Under Smith, the committee became a powerful antagonist to the Obama-era EPA, subpoenaing records and holding hearings on everything from air pollution studies to "regulatory overreach." Since Trump took office early last year, the relationship has mellowed dramatically.
The full panel and various subcommittees have held only a handful of hearings on environmental programs; the first was titled "Making EPA Great Again" (E&E Daily, Feb. 6, 2017).
Moreover, bills sponsored by Smith and Vice Chairman Lucas were the basis of two particularly contested EPA initiatives: a proposed rule to limit the agency's use of scientific research in drafting new rules and a directive that bars EPA grant recipients from serving on agency advisory committees.
Expect the committee to resume a more aggressive oversight stance should Democrats retake control of the House next month.
Johnson spokeswoman Kristin Kopshever declined to say whether the Texas lawmaker would ask House Democratic leaders to grant the panel subpoena authority.
But some ideas of possible targets come from Democrats' priorities thus far. Last month, for example, Johnson and several colleagues asked the EPA inspector general to dig into a Tennessee Tech University study used to justify the proposed repeal of Obama-era regulations on high-polluting "glider trucks" (Greenwire, Sept. 27).
In June, Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, the Oversight Subcommittee's top Democrat, unsuccessfully sought a hearing on a news report that the White House had considered ignoring federal climate research.
Should Republicans stay in charge, the status quo is likely to continue over the next two years. Lucas, who is also weighing a bid to lead the House Financial Services Committee, would run the Science Committee along the same lines as Smith should he become chairman, spokeswoman Meg Wagner said.
Rohrabacher, another potential challenger for the gavel, told E&E News last year after Smith announced his retirement that "[Smith] and I don't disagree on anything; we're soul mates" (E&E Daily, Nov. 7, 2017).
DOE
The committee oversees DOE research spending, and in recent years, partisan debates often followed the pattern of Democrats criticizing proposed budget cuts and Republicans arguing that DOE needs to shift more to early-stage research.
Yet Republicans and Democrats who rarely agree sometimes join together on DOE bills, because of either shared support for national laboratories in home districts or interest in energy technologies with heavier use in regions of the country. That makes it murkier to predict how changing leadership on the committee might shift the priorities on DOE.
Lucas, for example, joined with Johnson in introducing the "ARPA-E Act," which would expand the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy's mission to cover environmental cleanup of nuclear waste sites and require the agency to coordinate with other DOE programs to avoid duplication.
Trump targeted ARPA-E for elimination. Hultgren is the co-founder of the House Science & National Labs Caucus, and his district is home to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a DOE research center on particle physics.
Colin Cunliff, a clean energy policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said carbon capture research is another area to watch, considering support for the technology from Republicans on the committee and Johnson.
She co-introduced this year the "Fossil Energy Research and Development Act," which would focus DOE's fossil office more on using, sequestering and capturing carbon dioxide from emitters and the air. It also would authorize higher funding for the DOE office and establish an interagency task force assessing carbon dioxide pipelines.
Cunliff said he would watch whether a committee shift pushed back against appropriations language that has appeared in the past restricting CCS research to coal. "I'm curious to see if support builds for natural gas with CCS," Cunliff said.
Scientific 'integrity'
The phrase "scientific integrity" likely will be emphasized regardless of who wins the chamber, but the spin could be very different.
Johnson, along with more than 150 Democrats in the House, co-sponsored the "Scientific Integrity Act," which would require federal science agencies to develop policies that guarantee research is published and conducted without censorship or political influence.
"It shouldn't be controversial, and it shouldn't be partisan," Rosenberg at UCS said.
The bill would codify the 24 existing scientific integrity policies at federal agencies and require that agencies make policies public and train employees about them. If Johnson or another Democrat leads the panel, there's likely to be more of a focus on which agencies do or do not have "integrity" policies and an examination of whether such policies are effective, committee watchers said.
When the bill was introduced last year, Johnson said she was concerned about the "increasing suppression or denial of widely supported and tested scientific findings."
A report from the Union of Concerned Scientists released this summer, based on a survey of federal employees, found that 32 percent of responding EPA scientists listed influence of the White House or political appointees as a top barrier to their research. Scientists at EPA, the Interior Department and other agencies also reported cases of being asked to remove "climate change" from their work.
Lucas, Smith and other Republicans also have emphasized "scientific integrity," but usually in the context of attempts to restructure EPA or alter funding of government programs, efforts that could continue next year.
Last year, the House passed legislation to revamp the membership of EPA's Science Advisory Board, which Lucas said would restore "scientific integrity and transparency" to the agency.
Johnson warned that the measure would limit the input of scientists and restrict the board's ability to respond to important scientific questions (Greenwire, March 30, 2017).
Smith also held hearings on the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer, which got pushback from agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. after finding that the herbicide glyphosate, used in weedkiller, is "probably carcinogenic" (Greenwire, Dec. 8, 2017).
Lucas co-wrote a letter with Smith criticizing IARC for not "adequately" addressing concerns about its scientific integrity.
National Science Foundation
Some of the biggest fights between Republicans and Democrats on the committee in recent years have revolved around grants from the National Science Foundation. Smith and other Republicans have targeted social and behavioral research from NSF and what they termed frivolous research.
NSF grants on studying animal photos in National Geographic magazine and the Icelandic textile industry during the Viking era were slammed by conservatives. Johnson and others countered that many grants termed "silly" actually yielded important scientific findings.
During Smith's tenure, the House passed a bill that would require NSF grants to include an explanation of how they serve the national interest. The legislation was supported by many Republicans in line for the chairmanship, including Lucas, Brooks and Rohrabacher.
It's unclear how much a GOP chairman would emphasize NSF, but considering earlier debates, it's likely that if Republicans are in charge, there would be more of a focus on whether NSF spending is being used effectively. Democrats have focused more on Trump's proposed budget cuts for NSF, which would have reduced spending levels at NSF in fiscal 2019 by about 30 percent.
Proposed cuts to behavioral, economic and social sciences — targets of conservatives — were around 11 percent. In a statement this spring, Johnson said the ongoing "devaluing" of social science at NSF would have "damaging consequences."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/10/12/stories/1060102393
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(ACC Mentioned) Environmentalists Call For Broader EPA PFAS Policies Under Several Laws
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Environmentalists are calling on EPA to broaden its actions to stem the environmental impacts of the class of non-stick chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including regulating PFAS under multiple environmental laws and launching new testing and monitoring of the chemicals in drinking water systems.
They are also calling for EPA to develop more analytical detection methods for a wider swath of the thousands of chemicals in the class, and to provide additional resources to states. Some states have been leading efforts to address the chemicals through drinking water advisories and levels, at times setting stricter levels than EPA has established for two of the most common PFAS -- perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS).
Chemical manufacturers, state drinking water regulators and water utilities, among others, also submitted comments to EPA on suggestions for addressing PFAS. And drinking water utilities this summer submitted comments warning EPA not to leap ahead with regulatory actions on PFAS before addressing significant gaps in detection and treatment, health effects and lab capacity.
EPA took comments through Sept. 28 on its PFAS efforts, in particular soliciting remarks on efforts it is undertaking to characterize risks from the chemicals and develop monitoring and treatment techniques, as well as asking for advice on near-term actions to address state and local challenges beyond those EPA has said it is moving forward on, and on risk communication strategies to address public concerns over the chemicals.
PFAS, used in a host of consumer and industrial applications including in firefighting foam, is a class of thousands of emerging contaminants that is increasingly drawing concerns due to its presence in drinking water systems. They have been linked to several adverse health effects, including certain cancers, ulcerative colitis and thyroid disease.
While EPA is considering several actions to address PFAS, including an enforceable drinking water standard, known as a maximum contaminant level (MCL), and listing chemicals as “hazardous substances” under the Superfund statute or other laws, EPA's top official leading efforts to address the chemicals recently told lawmakers that if the agency does decide to move forward on such regulations, it would take years to complete.
In various comments submitted to the agency, a multitude of environmental groups are urging EPA to adopt a number of measures -- both in broadening drinking water testing -- and in other areas of law.
“EPA's current proposed actions are entirely inadequate,” the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) says in Sept. 28 comments. In particular, the group says, “(1) they only consider two of the thousands of existing PFAS, allowing companies to continue using the regulatory loopholes that they have used for decades, and (2) they do nothing to stop additional toxic PFAS from spewing into our air, soil, and water, and remaining there for decades.”
On the drinking water front, environmental groups allege EPA's past Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule 3 (UCMR3) was inadequate in capturing the extent of PFAS contamination in drinking water systems. In its comments, Environmental Working Group (EWG) calls for testing all public water systems, capturing all PFAS chemicals for which analytical detection methods exist, rather than just six compounds, and using lower reporting levels.
Next UCMR
A group representing state drinking water regulators agrees that PFAS compounds should be in the next UCMR round, UCMR5, saying sampling should be at lower detection limits such as from 5 to 10 parts per trillion (ppt) instead of the 20-40 ppt range used in UCMR3, and additional compounds should be added to testing. The group, Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA), says in July 20 comments that EPA should also test for total organic fluorine to detect other classes of highly fluorinated compounds impacting water resources.
EPA's Peter Grevatt, director of the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, speaking at an Oct. 11 Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee meeting said the agency is considering including other PFAS in the next UCMR, although it is having to balance that with other priorities, and needs to ensure there are sufficient analytical capabilities. At the same time, during a Senate hearing at the end of September, he said the agency has enough data to decide whether or not to set an MCL for PFOA and PFOS. One of the factors EPA uses to determine whether to set an MCL is the UCMR data regarding how much a contaminant occurs in public drinking water systems and at what levels.
Further, ASDWA cautions EPA against relying solely on the UCMR3 findings to decide on whether to develop an MCL, with UCMR3 showing that just three percent of all systems tested were affected by PFAS. But ASDWA doubts the UCMR3 accurately portrays the extent of contamination, noting the high detection and reporting limits compared to levels of concern heard today, and that the chemicals have been found at many more locations beyond those locations for which UCMR3 required monitoring. It says that many small groundwater systems were not included in the testing.
Environmentalists call for a number of other regulatory actions. A multitude of groups call for designating the chemicals as hazardous substances or toxic pollutants under the Clean Water Act. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) -- which submitted as comments testimony it gave recently before a House subcommittee -- and EWG in separate comments say PFAS should be given the hazardous substance/toxic pollutant designation under sections 304 and 311 of the Clean Water Act (CWA), triggering key monitoring, reporting and permitting requirements to control pollution.
Meanwhile, a host of environmental groups in Sept. 28 comments submitted by Earthjustice says EPA should add PFAS as a group to its toxic pollutant list under CWA section 307(a)(1). “This addition will cause PFAS to be added to the [Superfund] hazardous substance list, which will in turn require federal, state and local government[s] to be notified when PFAS over a certain amount are released into the environment.
EWG and NRDC, among others, call for separately designating the chemicals as a hazardous substance under section 102 of the Superfund law -- something EPA is currently weighing. This would “help facilitate clean-ups and ensure responsible parties pay for remediation,” EWG says.
TSCA Controls
Environmentalists and others also are urging EPA to tighten its use of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) on PFAS, closing loopholes that they say are allowing new versions of chemicals in the class to go to market without a safety review. The agency should “take steps to ensure that no new PFAS are manufactured without going through the approval process set forth in section 5 of” TSCA, the Earthjustice comments say. They note that the required pre-market review and approval process under TSCA is often skirted through regulatory loopholes.
In its comments, American Water Works Association (AWWA), which represents drinking water utilities, says that EPA at a national PFAS summit earlier this year “alluded to the use of its authority under TSCA to collect additional data but has not committed to the effective use of this authority.” The group says EPA through TSCA can obtain data on chemical toxicity, properties related to fate and transport, and manufacture and use sites, which can inform it on how to manage exposures. AWWA backs EPA's effort to evaluate PFOA and PFOS for potential regulation through an MCL, but stops short of saying an MCL should be set. The group also stresses that other PFAS sources besides drinking water should be examined.
Both environmental groups and ASDWA call for EPA to add PFAS to the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), which serves to alert communities of toxic contamination. “EPA has failed to add any PFAS to the TRI despite indicating over a decade ago that it would take steps to do so,” Earthjustice writes.
SELC's comments in particular point out contamination caused by a former DuPont plant now owned by the Chemours Company in North Carolina, as it makes its case for the chemicals to be regulated under the Clean Air Act as well. It says EPA should designate all PFAS as “hazardous air pollutants” under the law and issue national emission standards. It says that air emissions result in soil, water and other media contamination.
Analytical Methods
On the issue of analytical methods, EWG says the agency lacks analytical methods to cover most PFAS. It should invest in developing new methods, using the lowest detection limits available. And EWG says with states playing a “leading role in addressing the risks” from PFAS, EPA should provide additional resources to states for research, monitoring and cleanup.
Lab capacity is another issue that re-surfaces in comments, with the National Ground Water Association, which represents contractors, engineers, suppliers and others, saying in Sept. 28 comments that EPA offers a list of just 21 labs capable of using its method 537 to test for PFAS. The group says resources must be added to boost the number of labs with this capability. The limited number that currently exist makes testing cost-prohibitive, it says.
In its Sept. 28 comments, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), which represents chemical manufacturers, stresses that actions EPA is currently working on need to be based on “the best science available” and effectively communicated to the public.
ACC asks for EPA to include several additional measures in its PFAS management plan -- which the agency expects to release by the end of the year. The group asks that the agency also finalize 2015 amendments to its Significant New Use Rules for PFOA, PFOS, and other PFAS no longer manufactured in the United States to address imports; create a federal interagency process to coordinate research, monitoring and cleanup efforts across federal agencies; and advance methods for determining the chemical and toxicological properties of the extensive number of PFAS to assist in prioritizing those needing greater scrutiny.
The group also asks that EPA include in the management plan development of “an effective risk communication program” offering information to communities to lower their exposure to contaminants. ACC says there is confusion about what are safe levels of exposure. “This confusion is heightened by the number of conflicting federal and state guidelines, standards, and other criteria for these substances,” it says.
“States and local governments have taken a variety of approaches to address PFAS, but EPA can demonstrate leadership to these entities and to the public by clearly communicating the actions it is taking to protect public health and why.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmentalists-call-broader-epa-pfas-policies-under-several-laws
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EPA Pledges Support for State-Led Fluorinated Chemical Solutions
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
EPA will focus on supporting states when it comes to finding, regulating, and cleaning up a family of ubiquitous chemicals turning up in drinking water supplies across the country.
States—especially those on the East Coast—are starting task forces and seeking progressively stricter limits on poly- and perfluorinated compounds in drinking water. The compounds may cause adverse health effects, including developmental effects to fetuses, testicular and kidney cancer, liver tissue damage, immune system or thyroid effects, and changes in cholesterol, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Environmental Protection Agency is “going to stay in support of states and tribes that are trying to address these challenges,” Peter Grevatt, director of the agency’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water said at the EPA Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee’s Oct. 11 meeting in Washington.
The agency plans to look at more compounds in the family, which has hundreds of members, instead of focusing on two compounds, PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate) and PFOA (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid).
The EPA recommends consuming no more than 70 parts per trillion of both compounds in drinking water over one’s lifetime, but that number isn’t legally enforceable. The agency is considering whether it will set an enforceable limit for the compounds in drinking water.
The agency needs to “move toward addressing these compounds as a class,” Grevatt said. The compounds have been found in not only drinking water, but also food wrappers and non-stick and water-resistant consumer goods.
“If we were to treat only PFOA and PFOS, I think it would be a mistake,” he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-pledges-support-for-state-led-fluorinated-chemical-solutions
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Autozone, PPG Halt Sale of Paint Strippers with Toxic Chemicals
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Lauren Coleman-Lochner
Three more retailers have agreed to follow the lead of Walmart Inc. and home-improvement chains Lowe’s Cos. and Home Depot Inc. in halting sales of paint strippers containing two toxic chemicals.
AutoZone Inc., Kelly-Moore Paint Co. and PPG Industries Inc. are eliminating paint removers that contain the ingredients methylene chloride and NMP this year. Each one confirmed to Bloomberg News that sales of products containing the substances are being discontinued.
The ingredients are among the first 10 chemicals under review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as it implements an updated law on toxic substances. Hazards listed by the EPA for the substances include reproductive risks for NMP, or N-Methylpyrrolidone, and nervous system damage and liver or lung cancer for methylene chloride.
In May, the agency said it would “shortly” finalize a rule to ban methylene chloride, also known as DCM, in paint strippers. The chemical strippers have been linked to over a dozen deaths from bathtub refinishers operating in areas with poor ventilation.
Stripped from ShelvesIn the meantime, several of the largest U.S. retailers took action. Sherwin-Williams Co., Home Depot, and Walmart are among those that have said they’re eliminating paint strippers containing the chemicals.
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families—a coalition of environmental and health groups—has urged retailers to develop chemical policies and eliminate toxics in products. The group has contacted about 20 retailers and a couple of manufacturers asking them to eliminate the chemicals, said Mike Schade, who is heading a campaign called Mind the Store.
Pittsburgh-based PPG—which manufactures paints and operates a network of about 900 stores—has removed the two chemicals from almost all of the paint removers it makes and sells, spokesman Mark Silvey said in an email. It’s now working to eliminate them from the “very small number” of strippers sold outside the U.S. and Canada that still contain them.
New Amazon Chemical PolicyMind the Store has also reached out to Amazon.com Inc. about the paint strippers, but hasn’t received a response, Schade said. The e-commerce giant recently posted a new chemicals policy on its website, though it doesn’t mention paint strippers.
The Amazon policy establishes a list of restricted chemicals it wants to avoid in its private-label personal-care and household products sold in the U.S. Amazon says it will encourage other manufacturers to find safer alternatives for substances of concern as well. The company plans to make information about product ingredients and certifications easier to view on its website.
Amazon declined to comment.
In May, Lowe’s was the first national retailer to announce the move to eliminate the two chemicals from paint strippers. Several others quickly followed.
“It shows that if one retailer will step out, it will inspire others to follow suit and join them,” Schade said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/autozone-ppg-halt-sale-of-paint-strippers-with-toxic-chemicals
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EU Chemicals Agency Lists Suspected Hazardous Substances for Review
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Carbon nanotubes that companies like Arkema SA and Nanocyl SA produce are among 96 chemical substances slated for evaluation of their potential hazards by authorities in European Union countries between 2019 and 2021.
Under the EU’s REACH law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals), substances with suspected hazards but about which there is too little hard data are allocated to authorities in EU countries for evaluation.
If evaluations show information gaps, the European Chemicals Agency can issue binding requests for additional information to the companies that have registered the substance under REACH to gain market approval.
The chemicals agency issued the 2019-2021 list for the community rolling action plan, or CoRAP, Oct. 10 and said companies that have registered any of the 96 substances—or companies that rely on those substances in their processes and products—should prepare to answer questions that might arise from the evaluations.
Although prepared in coordination with EU countries, the list could be modified, and a definitive list would be issued in March 2019, the chemicals agency said.
Other substances included in the list were the antibacterial agent triclocarban, the pesticide propargite, and the solvent and fuel additive n-methylaniline.
Superior PropertiesGermany’s Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health will evaluate carbon nanotubes—more precisely known as tangled multiwalled carbon nanotubes— for suspected carcinogenic properties, according to the chemicals agency.
Nanotubes are used in a range of industries and applications, including automobiles, fuels, paints and coatings, fuel cells, and batteries.
In a document outlining why carbon nanotubes will be evaluated, the German agency said the substance is manufactured at low volume but has widespread uses, which are expected to “grow rapidly due to the superior material properties of the nanomaterial.”
Only France’s Arkema has registered tangled multiwalled carbon nanotubes under REACH. The evaluation of the substance also will cover carbon, however, for which there are six registrations, including by LG Chem Ltd. and Nanocyl.
Arkema and Nanocyl didn’t respond to a request for comment Oct. 11.
The European Chemicals Agency told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 11 that the 96 substances were selected for evaluation because they “give rise to an initial concern based on available information indicating a possible hazard and exposure leading to a potential risk.”
Suspected carcinogens, toxics, and endocrine disruptors are among the list of substances.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/eu-chemicals-agency-lists-suspected-hazardous-substances-for-review
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Shell Petrochemical Project on Track in Pennsylvania
Oct 11, 2018 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC has achieved what officials are calling an "engineering milestone" at its petrochemicals site under construction in the Pittsburgh area.
In an Oct. 10 news release, officials said the firm successfully installed a quench tower at the site. Installation of the tower began Oct. 7. Water circulating through the 285-foot-high tower will cool cracked gas, condense heavy hydrocarbons and remove coke and tar particles.
Officials added that the tower is energy-efficient because it transfers heat absorbed by the circulating water for use in other parts of the plant. The tower weighs more than 4 million pounds and spent nearly three and a half weeks being towed up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
After arriving in Pennsylvania, it was unloaded onto a dock and transported down a newly-created road — both specially-designed to handle the tower. It's the largest piece of equipment so far installed at the site since construction launched in November.
Since then, Shell also has built two of three planned reactors for the site's polyethylene resin units and has laid about 15 miles of underground pipe for the cooling, firewater and drainage systems.
"Eleven months into main construction, I'm delighted with the progress we're making in Pennsylvania," Graham van't Hoff, Shell global chemicals executive vice president, said in the release.
The petrochemicals complex will use ethane from shale gas produced in the Marcellus and Utica basins to make around 3.5 billion pounds of PE resin per year. The complex will include four processing units, an ethane cracker and three PE units. Two of those PE units will make high density PE, with the third making linear low density PE.
The project will be the first U.S. petrochemicals project built outside of the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana in several decades. Production is expected to begin in the early 2020s.
Officials added that the project is bringing economic growth and jobs to the region. The site currently employs 3,000 construction workers. That number is expected to increase to 6,000 by the end of 2019 through its construction phase.
Shell expects around 600 onsite jobs when the complex is completed. In addition to the reactors, facilities being built at the site include a 900-foot cooling tower, rail and truck loading facilities; a water treatment plant; an office building and a lab. Construction crews moved 7.2 million cubic yards of dirt to get the 386-acre site ready for physical construction.
Shell Chemical, a unit of global energy firm Royal Dutch Shell, launched its Shell Polymers brand in May. In an interview with Plastics News that same month at NPE2018, business integration lead Michael Marr said that Shell was "looking to develop customer needs and relationships."
"What we like about the project is its closeness to both feedstock supply and the customer base," he added. The location "will give us a competitive advantage vs. competitors." Officials previously said that 70 percent of North American PE resin buyers and makers of end use products are within a 700-mile radius of the Pittsburgh site.
Resin made at the Pittsburgh-area location mostly will be sold into the domestic market, Marr said. Although many other petrochemical firms are adding PE capacity in North America — mostly on the Gulf Coast — for the same reasons that Shell is, he added that "buyers always like to have new options."
Shell also operates three major petrochemical facilities in the U.S. at Deer Park, Texas; and Norco and Geismar in Louisiana; The firm exited the commodity plastics market more than a decade ago.
Shell Chemical is based in The Hague, the Netherlands, with U.S. headquarters in Houston.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20181011/NEWS/181019979/shell-petrochemical-project-on-track-in-pennsylvania
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PG&E, California Utilities Get Millions to Stop Methane Gas Leaks
Oct 11, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Emily C. Dooley
Four regulated gas utilities in California will get nearly $315 million to track, repair, and reduce methane gas leaks in their systems over the next few years.
The California Public Utilities Commission voted Oct. 11 to accept plans from Pacific Gas and Electric Co., Southern California Gas Co., San Diego Gas & Electric Co., and Southwest Gas Corp. to dramatically reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.
Commissioner Cliff Rechtschaffen said the program was the first of its kind in the nation and aims to reduce methane emissions by 40 percent by 2030.
Supporters of the measure say the efforts will both protect the public from dangerous gas leaks and help fight off climate change.
“It’s become clear that a system that has less leaks is one that has more integrity,” said Timothy O’Connor, senior director of California energy programs for the Environmental Defense Fund. “This investment will pay dividends for the climate and public safety.”
O’Connor told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 11 that an estimated 6 billion standard cubic feet of gas is lost every year from leaks, more than three times what was lost during the Aliso Canyon natural gas leak in Porter Ranch when a ruptured well allowed natural gas to escape into the air for nearly five months starting in 2015.
Southern California Gas Co. settled earlier this year with the state, city and county of Los Angeles, agreeing to pay $119.5 million for the leak.
In statements provided to Bloomberg Environment, PG&E, Southern California Gas, and San Diego Gas & Electric said they were happy the commission approved the plan and funding. The bulk—$234 million—will go to Southern California Gas.
“We view the decision as a positive step forward, and as an opportunity for us to implement innovative industry best practices that not only reduce emissions, but also improve the safety of our system,” PG&E Spokesman Matt Nauman said.
Those steps include more frequent leak surveys, a program to target the highest-emissions leaks, and research and development investments.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/pg-e-california-utilities-get-millions-to-stop-methane-gas-leaks-1
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EPA Faulted For Relying On State Methane Rules But Not Tallying Emissions
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
EPA's claims that it can rely on state programs to limit methane leaks at oil and gas operations in lieu of federal rules are drawing fire from environmentalists who say that EPA's analysis for its methane rule rollback proposal fails to quantify the pollution cuts -- or lack thereof -- from the state programs.
Even as they argue that the state rules are no substitute for federal requirements, advocates are urging states to bolster their oil and gas emissions controls in response to EPA's proposed relaxation of its methane new source performance standards (NSPS) for the sector.
“The largest oil and gas states have weak rules when it comes to air pollution from oil and gas operations,” says one environmentalist. The question is “whether states will step up” in response to EPA's proposal.
There are signs that some states are poised to issue tougher standards in the coming months, though the trend is not uniform and major oil- and gas-producing states such as Texas likely will continue enforcing standards that environmentalists view as far too lax.
Part of EPA's NSPS rollback, released Sept. 11, would recognize compliance with state methane programs as equivalent to the federal rules. But critics say EPA has not done enough to show that the state programs are actually equivalent to the agency's own rules, particularly in terms of the emissions cuts they would achieve.
“Our comments are probably going to push very hard [for EPA] to do a quantitative analysis,” says another environmental advocate, citing a lack of information in the proposal on the pollution reductions really achieved by state programs.
EPA's plan would soften the NSPS in several ways, including by weakening monitoring requirements for methane leaks and easing schedules for repairing leaks. The proposal is widely seen as the first step of an effort to eliminate methane-specific requirements on new oil and gas sources to bar future controls on existing facilities.
The plan's provisions regarding state rules would allow operators in some states to follow state requirements for monitoring, repair and record keeping in lieu of the NSPS, with some variation in how it treats the state programs. It would allow such equivalency for well sites and compressor stations in California, Colorado, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and for well sites in Texas and Utah.
A supporting memo recently inserted into the regulatory docket, dated April 12, details which state rules -- including multiple regulations in some states -- EPA believes are equivalent to the proposed NSPS changes.
But one state source and numerous environmentalists are blasting EPA's contention that many of the state programs it is citing are stringent enough to be deemed equivalent with the current NSPS or any reasonably stringent federal replacement.
“One example is Texas,” says the first environmentalist, citing the country's largest gas-producing state. Despite EPA's suggestion that the Lone Star State's leak detection and repair programs for well sites are equivalent to EPA's proposal, the source says the program only covers roughly 5 percent of hundreds of thousands of well sites in the state because it imposes a 10-ton volatile organic compound (VOC) annual emissions threshold for being subject to the rules.
While the VOC content of different wells varies widely depending a well's gas composition, the source notes that the existing NSPS does not include an emissions threshold. It requires semi-annual inspections at all well sites, with the proposed NSPS rollback relaxing that frequency to annually, or once every two years for a new category of low-production wells.
Such concerns highlight the lack of quantitative analysis of emissions covered -- and reduced -- by state programs, which the second environmentalist says is a conspicuous gap in EPA's approach. Even so, groups are still working to “wrap themselves around” the specifics of EPA's proposal.
Stronger Programs
“EPA needs a [more rigorous] process” for deeming state programs equivalent to federal rules, with many oil and gas states already eyeing measure to strengthen programs, or being urged to do so.
EPA's proposal could have two, potentially conflicting, implications. First, it could boost pressure for some states to initiate or accelerate implementation of controls that, directly or indirectly, curb methane. Conversely, other states with statutory or other restrictions against exceeding federal environmental rules might face new pressure to scale back their programs or drop plans to strengthen them.
Observers note, however, that states have varying statutory or other restrictions on going beyond federal rules, and that the prohibitions may apply only to some environmental programs and can allow exceptions. In that vein, a 2014 analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures notes that state agencies in Pennsylvania may not exceed federal standards under a state executive order, but that this limitation does not apply if there is a “compelling and articulable interest.”
The first environmentalist notes that limitations on state controls have not precluded state action in cases in which the state wants to move forward. “We have seen that play out in Colorado, Ohio, Wyoming and Pennsylvania,” the source says.
A Sept. 28 report in Wyoming Public Media, for example, notes that the sixth-largest gas producing state has been considering revisions to its guidance for presumptive best available control technology that would include a requirement for semi-annual leak inspections at new or modified oil and gas wells.
Pennsylvania, which is second only to Texas in gas production, took steps in June to adopt the country's first general permits that would require methane limits at new unconventional oil and gas operations, standards tougher than the current NSPS.
Colorado air pollution division director Gary Kaufman -- whose state is cited as a leader by both EPA and environmental groups regarding methane controls -- said in September the state “will not waver” in curbing oil and gas emissions despite EPA's proposal. Colorado ranks fifth in gas production.
In contrast, a third environmentalist cites neighboring New Mexico is a laggard -- relative to states like California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Wyoming and parts of Utah -- in curbing emissions. New Mexico, which includes a portion of the oil- and gas-heavy Permian Basin, is the ninth-largest gas producer.
The outcome of New Mexico's gubernatorial election next month will be crucial to determining if the state issues tougher oil and gas methane controls, the source says.
The contest features two sitting members of Congress -- Republican Steve Pearce and Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham -- though Lujan Grisham has a 7-point lead in the latest average of polls and many political observers are projecting her to win.
The two candidates hold starkly different positions on oil and gas methane emissions. Pearce backed language on Capitol Hill to scuttle the Obama-era Bureau of Land Management rule to limit methane waste on public lands. Lujan Grisham's campaign platform includes a pledge to “make New Mexico a national leader in methane mitigation.”
“We have no idea what will be possible and realistic” regarding future methane rules until after the election, the third environmentalist source says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-faulted-relying-state-methane-rules-not-tallying-emissions
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West Texas an 'Extraction Colony' as Oil, Gas Exports Surge
Oct 12, 2018 | AP (In E&E Energywire)
By Kiah Collier, Jamie Smith Hopkins and Rachel Leven
Drilling booms have come and gone in this oil town for nearly a century. But the frenzy gripping it now is different. Drilling rigs tower over suburban backyards. There's a housing crunch so severe that rents are up 30 percent in the last year alone.
This boom is engulfing the rest of West Texas, extending to areas drilling hasn't touched before. As communities welcome new jobs and business, they're struggling with an onslaught of problems, from air pollution to student homelessness.
In December, companies in the Permian Basin — an ancient, oil-rich seabed that spans West Texas and southeastern New Mexico — produced twice as much oil as they had four years earlier, during the last boom. Forecasters expect production to double again by 2023.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and others say the drilling spree is ushering in a new era of American energy independence, but American demand isn't driving it. Foreign demand is.
In late 2015, Congress cut a deal to lift 40-year-old restrictions on the export of crude oil. Three years later, the U.S. has surpassed Russia as the world's top oil producer. The International Energy Agency predicts that American oil — most of it from the Permian — will account for 80 percent of the growth in global supply through 2025.
Hydraulic fracturing made this boom technologically possible, but exports are the reason there's so much new drilling. U.S. refineries built for heavier varieties of oil than the Permian produces can't handle the enormous new quantities of Texas light crude. Instead, companies are shipping it abroad.
The lifting of the export restrictions "is tantamount to one of the most important things that's ever been done for the industry," said Tim Dove, CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, based near Dallas.
But the country is not "energy independent" in the way most Americans would conceive of the idea. Nor can anyone promise that America, as Abbott put it in a recent tweet, "will NEVER AGAIN depend on Foreign Oil Cartels for energy."
That's because the U.S. is still importing oil: 1.4 billion barrels in the first half of this year alone, a third of it from the foreign oil cartel known as OPEC.
The country will keep buying oil from other nations indefinitely even as it sells more abroad, the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts.
The Texas Tribune and the Center for Public Integrity investigated the scope and impacts of energy exports as part of a collaboration with Newsy and the Associated Press.
In Texas, the boom is sending a lot of money into state and local coffers. Oil and gas tax revenue is up more than 50 percent this year. Said James LeBas, a Texas Oil and Gas Association economist: "When oil and gas is doing well, the state is doing well."
Still, climbing production hasn't boosted local tax revenues fast enough to address the problems that come with it, from crowded classrooms to wrecked roads. Schools, police departments and hospitals are struggling to keep employees lured by better-paying oil field jobs.
Texas regulators, long criticized for being too industry-friendly, also aren't aggressively tracking or policing problems that accompany the boom. For example, the Texas portion of the Permian — roughly the size of Georgia — has only a few air pollution monitoring stations, leaving residents largely in the dark about what's in the air they breathe.
And the industry is consuming water in the arid region at an unsustainable rate. Permian Basin operators used eight times as much water to frack and drill last year as they did in 2011; the ultimate consequences are unknown because Texas doesn't require companies to disclose basic information that would allow scientists to understand the risks.
People with no say in these decisions are stuck with the consequences, said Coyne Gibson, who lives in a part of the Permian that had little oil and gas activity until a few years ago.
"The bitter, cynical way to look at this is, West Texas becomes an extraction colony for the fuel resources for the rest of the world," said Gibson, a Big Bend Conservation Alliance volunteer who once worked in the oil and gas industry.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/12/stories/1060102345
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Senators Examine Grid's Readiness for a Very Bad Day
Oct 12, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Blake Sobczak
Senators took stock of a vital spare tire for the U.S. power grid at a hearing on "blackstart" generation capacity yesterday.
If enough of the bulk grid is brought down in a catastrophe, utilities rely on blackstart resources to get their networks back online. These typically consist of small diesel or gas-fired generation units but can also include hydropower and battery storage.
Lawmakers on the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee invited experts to Capitol Hill to testify about the U.S. grid's preparedness to pick up the pieces after an extraordinarily bad day.
"Just imagine a scenario where everyone living within an interconnected electrical grid system loses power," Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said at the outset of the hearing. "Here on the East Coast, that would effectively mean a blackout that spans from Maine to Florida, all the way to Minnesota, back to Louisiana — hundreds of millions of people could be left in the dark."
Such a widespread outage has never happened in the history of the U.S., though a few have come close, such as the 2003 North American blackout that affected some 50 million people and took weeks to fully recover from in some regions.
Murkowski pointed out that "the increasing risks presented by cyberattacks — and the threats of electromagnetic pulses and solar storms — make it more important that we be prepared."
Panelists at the hearing spoke to the U.S. grid's resilience, noting that physical and logical separations among the three major interconnections in America provide a buffer against certain worst-case scenarios.
However, the government and academic and industry specialists also spoke to the need to periodically check in on blackstart capacity, given its complexity and importance.
"The blackstart process is not so simple," said Juan Torres, associate laboratory director for energy systems integration at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado.
He painted the painstaking process of re-energizing the grid as an "intricate and multifaceted endeavor, fraught with potential unforeseen technical challenges that are unique to each specific outage scenario."
For instance, an especially dire hypothetical blackout could combine a natural disaster like a hurricane with a malicious cyberattack aimed at hampering recovery.
Hackers could focus on disabling utilities' communication lines, forcing them to fall back on potentially unreliable or overcrowded radio networks to coordinate delicate "cranking paths" for restoring power.
"You need radio spectrum to operate them, and if you have interference during a restoration or a blackstart, you're not going to have the level of communications you need," said Joy Ditto, CEO of the Utilities Technology Council, which represents major power utilities and other critical infrastructure providers.
Ditto urged lawmakers to push for additional coordination and education between the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the radio spectrum shared by everything from utilities to entertainment providers, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is responsible for monitoring the reliability of the bulk power grid.
"There hasn't been a focus on critical infrastructure sectors" in discussing allocation of finite radio spectrum, she said. "This is an area that we'd like to get the FERC and the FCC together around."Assuming the worst
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) pressed witnesses on the likelihood a grid disruption could ever reach the scale needed to trigger widespread use of blackstart resources.
"We haven't had a major blackout of that nature for 50 years," King pointed out, sharing his own memories of the Northeast blackout of 1965 that affected tens of millions of people from New York to Ontario. "Is this a realistic risk — is it something that should be on the top of our list, or is it not as high a priority as perhaps other parts of grid security?"
Tom Galloway, president and CEO of the North American Transmission Forum, replied that the bulk power grid operators that constitute NATF treat blackstart — and particularly cyberthreats to blackstart systems — as a "serious" concern.
"We in the Transmission Forum have been spending a lot of time on the issue of resiliency under the assumption that, however unlikely, something of this scale could happen," Galloway said.
A report from grid regulators at FERC and the nonprofit North American Electric Reliability Corp. earlier this year found that U.S. utilities maintained enough blackstart resources to bounce back from a major outage, despite retirements of some blackstart-capable generating units over the past decade. The study team based its review on an evaluation of nine utilities large enough to fall under NERC's jurisdiction.
The availability of backup generators, paired with the low likelihood of a devastating grid event, should inform the level of action and economic investment in blackstart capacity, said Andrew Ott, CEO of PJM Interconnection.
"This is a realistic threat," he said. "Certainly, we haven't seen it in the past. But the way to approach it is with thoughtful analytics, not panic. And I think you're seeing that" among large grid operators and transmission organizations like PJM, he added.
Witnesses at yesterday's hearing offered more general lessons than specific action items for lawmakers, though Tim Yardley, senior associate director of technology and workforce development at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, urged Congress to consider allocating more funds for "test beds" to rehearse blackstart processes.
Yardley is involved with a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency effort to simulate cyberattacks on grid infrastructure and develop methods to quickly detect hackers, boot them out of crucial networks and restore electricity.
Some of DARPA's tools will be put to the test during a first-of-its-kind exercise hosted by the Department of Energy next month (Energywire, Aug. 3).
Yardley credited grid operators' ability to bounce back from a conventional blackout but cautioned that hackers could throw a wrench into recovery plans.
"I fear that we are still not prepared to [use blackstart] in the face of a cyberattack that eliminates our ability to trust the systems that we use to operate and restore our grid," he said. "There is urgency necessary in closing that gap. The risk is growing, and all of us involved know it."
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member of the ENR Committee and an outspoken advocate of greater critical infrastructure cybersecurity, seized on climate change and cyberthreats as two major concerns for future grid reliability.
"We take for granted the lights will always come on when we flip the switch. But our electric system is increasingly being tested and stressed," she said. "There are daily cyberthreats to our electricity infrastructure."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/10/12/stories/1060102395
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Bill Raising Infrastructure Trespassing Penalty Called 'out of Line'
Oct 12, 2018 | Courier Express
By Stacy M. Brown
The state legislature is considering a law that would make it a felony to trespass on a “critical infrastructure facility.”
The full Senate and the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee have approved the bill despite opposition from the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and a passionate plea from state Rep. Jordan Harris (D-186).
“I understand the concerns of infrastructure and I would be supportive, but my biggest concern with the bill is that [trespassing at an infrastructure site in the state] would be considered a second-degree felony, which is typically left for those who commit some type of murder or manslaughter in our commonwealth,” Harris said.
The law would leave “too much” to the interpretation of law enforcement officials, he added.
“Regardless of where you stand on law enforcement, … when things are ambiguous, it doesn’t seem to play well for people in my community,” Harris said. “This bill is way out of line.”
Elizabeth Randol, legislative director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, says the law is unnecessary because people who damage infrastructure already can be charged with various crimes.
Sponsored by Sen. Mike Regan (R-31), Senate Bill 652 is designed to protect facilities such as gas pipelines and gas wells.
“Legislation is needed to enhance penalties for criminal trespass,” he said.
The proposal comprises a wide swath of operations — whether built or under construction — in defining a “critical infrastructure facility.” It can range from petroleum, chemical and pipeline facilities to electrical power and water treatment facilities to telecommunications facilities to shipping and trucking ports to railroad switching yards, as well as any others identified and regulated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Chemical Facility Anti-terrorism Standards program.
Under the legislation, anyone who enters a critical infrastructure facility with intent to vandalize or damage any part of it or interfere with the operations could be charged with varying degrees of misdemeanor or felony counts and pay fines of $5,000 to $20,000. The felony charges would come with prison sentences.
http://m.thecourierexpress.com/news/state/bill-raising-infrastructure-trespassing-penalty-called-out-of-line/article_f891daa3-74b8-5087-a4db-85536c2eacb0.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Industries Urge EPA To Narrow NSR 'Adjacency' Test Beyond Draft Guide
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Major industry groups are praising EPA's draft guidance narrowing when the agency will “aggregate” pollution sources as one source for new source review (NSR) permitting purposes, but are urging EPA to further reduce the scope of aggregation by creating a more-limited definition of when sources are deemed “adjacent” for NSR.
A coalition of 10 industry groups including the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and National Mining Association (NMA) in comments obtained by Inside EPA say the guidance fails to resolve confusion over when sources are deemed adjacent and thus considered for aggregation as one source. Industries generally try to avoid aggregation, as combining sources can push them over the threshold for triggering strict, costly “major” source air permits.
Similarly, the National Association of Manufacturers in its written comments to EPA calls for an explicit distance test for determining adjacency.
Under current EPA rules, regulators must use three factors to determine whether to combine facility emissions for Clean Air Act permits: the operations must be under common control, they must fall under the same major standard industrial classification code, and they must be on contiguous or adjacent properties.
Bill Wehrum, head of EPA's air office, floated Sept. 4 draft guidance, aiming to narrow the scope of adjacency, which is one criterion that air regulators must consider when deciding whether to aggregate. The guidance applies to sources other than oil and gas production, for NSR and Title V air permitting. Title V air permits are “umbrella” operating permits that include underlying requirements such as NSR permits.
Wehrum opted to abandon the more-expansive Obama-era policy of considering factors beyond “physical proximity,” such as “functional interrelatedness,” in deciding whether properties are adjacent.
“EPA believes that focusing exclusively on physical proximity when considering whether or not operations are adjacent is a more objective and reasonable approach, and one that is more consistent with the dictionary meaning of 'adjacent,' the 'common sense notion of a plant,' and the original intent expressed in the early development of the NSR program” as established in 1980, Wehrum wrote in the draft guidance.
Wehrum did not, however, establish a “bright line” set distance that defines adjacency, leaving the determination up to state air regulators. He also proposes in the guidance to allow regulators discretion that could see facilities divided by, for example, a public right of way nonetheless considered “adjacent.”
Adjacency Test
In their comments submitted to the agency ahead of an Oct. 5 deadline for public input, the coalition of 10 industry associations asks EPA to tighten its draft guidance to further restrict the notion of adjacency. If sources are aggregated, they stand a higher chance of exceeding Clean Air Act thresholds requiring “major source” NSR review. Such review can trigger onerous new pollution control mandates, hence industry generally seeks to avoid aggregation.
In addition to ACC and NMA, groups that signed the comments include American Forest & Paper Association, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, and the American Petroleum Institute.
They ask EPA to “address the entirety of the phrase 'contiguous and adjacent properties,' rather than just the component term 'adjacent,'” in order to avoid conflicting interpretations of those terms between the NSR program and the air toxics program under air law section 112. EPA has previously understood the term “contiguous area” in section 112 be the same as “contiguous or adjacent property” under NSR, the groups say. However, Wherum's draft guidance seeks to give each term independent meaning, creating scope for confusion, the groups argue.
Air law section 112 establishes “maximum achievable control technology” (MACT) for air toxics-emitting sources. EPA should recognize that its new interpretation for NSR also applies for the purposes of determinations of what constitutes a “stationary source” under MACT, the groups say.
The associations “prefer such an approach to prevent future re-interpretations of 'contiguous' that may reintroduce functional interrelationships or other inappropriate concepts into the meaning of 'contiguous or adjacent properties.'”
They further urge EPA to “consider using distance ranges as parameters for explaining the level of rationale needed to aggregate properties.” EPA has so far established only one “bright line” distance for determining adjacency, which is the quarter-mile limit established in agency policy on oil and gas production.
Also, EPA should “recognize that 'continguous and adjacent properties' unambiguously refers to proximity and that states have no discretion to interpret such language differently in their approved State Implementation Plans” for attaining federal air quality standards. The agency should also refer to proximate “properties,” not the broader term “operations,” the groups say.
For the sake of regulatory certainty and to reduce unwanted bureaucratic burdens, EPA should leave existing permits alone, even where they conflict with the new definition of “adjacent,” the groups say. EPA should “support leaving existing stationary source determinations undisturbed unless an owner or operator requests that the permitting authority re-evaluate a prior decision.”
'Step Further'
NAM in its separate Oct. 5 comments “recommends that EPA go a step further and provide a more definitive interpretation of 'adjacent' for NSR and Title V source determinations for all industrial sectors other than oil and gas.” Manufacturers that fall outside of the oil and gas sectors would prefer a “bright line” distance for clarifying the meaning of ‘adjacent’ based on proximity, NAM says.
Still, “the agency must also allow exceptions to be made on a case-by-case basis for NSR determinations for facilities located outside the bright-line distance, if sought by the permittee,” NAM says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industries-urge-epa-narrow-nsr-adjacency-test-beyond-draft-guide
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EPA Fails to Produce Documents Backing Pruitt's Climate Claims
Oct 11, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is failing to produce any documents that support former Administrator Scott Pruitt's claims that human-released carbon dioxide is not the major factor behind climate change, causing one environmental group to claim victory in its challenge to his statements.
“The political position [EPA] now espouses on climate change does not match its scientific research,” says Public Employees for Environmental Protection (PEER) in an Oct. 11 statement that notes the agency was unable to produce any documentation in response to its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and lawsuit seeking material that justified Pruitt's high-profile remarks from early in his tenure as EPA chief.
EPA finished its search for any evidence contradicting the mainstream scientific consensus that humans are in fact the primary cause of climate change, due to CO2 released from burning fossil fuels, in response to a federal district court order in PEER's FOIA suit, which was filed in April 2017.
The group sought information supporting Pruitt's statement in a March 2017 interview on CNBC that he did not agree that CO2 is a “primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
Late last year, PEER and the Department of Justice offered dueling reasons for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to issue a quick decision in the case, PEER v. EPA. The court in a June 1 order ruled in favor of PEER and strongly rejected EPA's arguments.
EPA has produced the documents in two stages, with the first released in August, after agency officials had questioned Pruitt before he left the agency in early July and he admitted he had no data upon which his comments were based.
“The former Administrator identified no additional responsive records,” the EPA letter said, other than 12 pages of material he used for the “Squawk Box” interview that PEER said were non-responsive to its request.
EPA answered the second part of PEER's request by sending Pruitt's seven-page written response to questions posed senators during a January 2018 oversight hearing. Only three of those questions related to climate change, and in response to those Pruitt discussed his plan to have a “red team/blue team” debate on climate science.
"EPA knew from day one there was no needle in its research haystack," PEER General Counsel Paula Dinerstein said, adding that the only scientific information EPA could find were 2009 public comments submitted by a since-retired EPA employee. "The agency engaged in a prolonged, expensive snipe hunt to delay this inevitable admission.”
The final release from EPA comes two days after the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a bombshell report warning that the world is running out of time to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions, and as EPA continues to roll back Obama-era GHG rules.
“Our suit demonstrated that today's EPA has abandoned any pretense of being a fact-based agency,” Dinerstein added.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-fails-produce-documents-backing-pruitts-climate-claims
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Govt. Strategy in Kids' Climate Case: Don't Attack Science
Oct 12, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
To fight off a lawsuit that claims people have a constitutional right to a safe climate, first blame factors other than warming for harming the plaintiffs.
Then argue that the United States can't alone address climate change.
The government's playbook for defeating Juliana v. United States, a lawsuit brought by 21 children and young adults, is coming into clearer view as Oct. 29 opening statements in a long-awaited trial near.
Court records and statements from Justice Department experts indicate the government intends to argue at the proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon that the plaintiffs do not have legal standing to bring the case.
DOJ will argue that the government's climate and energy policies cannot be directly tied to the harms that the young Americans allege they have suffered; that the government has not undermined plaintiffs' rights; and that, even if the government has harmed the plaintiffs, fixing that damage is infeasible.
"This lawsuit is an unconstitutional attempt to use a single Oregon court to control the entire nation's energy and climate policy," Jeffrey Wood, who has served as acting assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice, said in a statement through a spokesman.
Issues the plaintiffs raise are matters for political discussion, not lawsuits, Wood said.
"Those policies should be decided by the elected branches, not the courts," he said. "The Justice Department is continuing our efforts to see this case dismissed, as is clearly warranted by law."
The youth plaintiffs first brought the lawsuit in 2015, arguing that — over the course of at least 10 administrations — the government has violated their constitutionally protected right to live in a safe climate. They're seeking a court-ordered plan to phase out fossil fuels.
Government lawyers have fought unsuccessfully for years, under both the Obama and Trump administrations, to prevent a trial from even starting in the landmark climate change case. They've filed multiple motions to dismiss, as well as wielded two petitions for a writ of mandamus, a rarely used legal tool that asks a higher court to circumvent a lower court's decision.
They've also pushed the Supreme Court to step in and quash the suit.
While no court has dismissed Juliana, DOJ has been able to at least delay the trial. It was originally scheduled to occur last year, but the government won a stay while it appealed a decision from the Oregon district court to allow the case to proceed.
Even now, while DOJ is preparing for the trial, it's also still trying to halt the proceedings before they even begin. Last week, government attorneys filed a last-ditch attempt to stop the trial while it brings the case up to the Supreme Court, one that experts say is aimed at Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court's newest conservative member (Climatewire, Oct. 10).
The plaintiffs, on the other hand, have submitted hundreds of documents — often highly technical — about climate change, as well as science to support it and information about the costs of failing to address a warming world.
The young Americans argue they have been directly harmed by climate change, pointing to a number of specific impacts. They argue, for example, that reduced snowpack brought on by warming has affected the ability to ski and higher temperatures have harmed the health of a family hazelnut orchard.
Michael Burger, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University's law school, said it is unlikely that the government will squabble with the plaintiffs and their experts over climate science itself.
"I would be shocked if the federal government in court sought to challenge the fundamentals of climate science," Burger said. "There has not been a point at which the DOJ has contested the reality of climate change."
Richard Frank, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Davis, also expressed doubt in a recent interview that the federal team would challenge climate research.
The government will likely instead tell the court that other factors beyond its role in fueling climate change — population growth, urban development, resource management, mitigation of fires and floods — can be blamed for harming the plaintiffs.
"All these sorts of things," Burger said.'Plausible, real-world actions'
Julia Olson of Our Children's Trust, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an email that even though the trial is just weeks away, DOJ has not yet "disclosed their exhibit list, their witness list, nor answered plaintiffs' interrogatories" — sets of written questions — "where we asked them to tell us what their defense would be on the evidence."
Still, expert witness reports submitted by DOJ hint at the government's defense.
In court papers, John Weyant, a management-science and engineering professor at Stanford University and an expert witness DOJ hired, takes issue with the work of Kevin Trenberth, a climate expert at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a witness for the plaintiffs.
Factors other than climate change may be to blame for the plaintiffs' circumstances, he says.
"By failing to analyze the potential confounding effect of local conditions, Dr. Trenberth reaches conclusions about the impacts on Plaintiffs that are unsupported and therefore unreliable," Weyant said in the court papers.
In his own report, David Victor, a DOJ witness and an international relations professor at the University of California, San Diego, criticized expert witnesses for the plaintiffs, including Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist.
The economist, he said, warned of climate change and its perils but didn't provide any ways the federal government could significantly fix the problem.
"Stiglitz fails to identify plausible, real-world actions that the U.S. government could have taken that would have led to appreciably different outcomes with respect to domestic and international energy systems," Victor writes.
The first week of the trial will include opening statements and testimony from some plaintiffs and their experts, including NASA scientist James Hansen and glacier expert Eric Rignot.
Government lawyers are expected to release their list of exhibits Monday.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/10/12/stories/1060102405
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