Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report - October 16, 2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Harold French Running On Small-Government Philosophy
Oct 16, 2018 | The Laconia Daily Sun
By Rick Green
Republican State Sen. Harold French, who is seeking re-election on Nov. 6, favors a smaller, less-intrusive government, and he says his legislative record backs up this philosophy. -
(ACC Mentioned) US Specialty Chemicals Group Socma Urges CDR Reporting Rule Changes
Oct 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The specialty chemicals group Socma is pressing the US EPA to make changes to its CDR reporting rule as a result of changes to the TSCA new chemicals programme. -
US EPA Reopens Comment Periods For 172 Snurs
Oct 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has reopened comment periods for two sets of TSCA significant new use rules (Snurs) for chemical substances, following requests for extensions. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Acknowledges Risks From 13 Chemicals Approved for Sale
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA allowed 13 new chemicals to enter the market even though it recognized that different ways they could be made or used might pose unreasonable risks, based on rules the agency proposed Oct. 15. -
Lead-Paint Makers Rejected by Supreme Court in $400 Million Case (1)
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Greg Stohr
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals from Sherwin-Williams Co. and Conagra Brands Inc., leaving intact a ruling that requires them to pay more than $400 million for lead-paint remediation in California. -
Amazon Joins Walmart, Other Major Retailers On Safer Chemicals
Oct 15, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Boma Brown-West and Alissa Sasso
Retail demand for safer products is not only here to stay – it’s now a source of competition in the evolving marketplace. -
Amazon Primes Recycling Pump to Cut Packaging Waste
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
Amazon will invest $10 million in Closed Loop Partners, a $100 million dollar fund focusing specifically on municipal recycling programs and technologies aimed at eliminating packaging waste. -
EU Adopts Restrictions on 33 Hazardous Chemicals in Textiles
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Benetton Group SpA, H&M AB, PUMA SE and other apparel brands will have to ensure by 2020 that the clothing and footwear they sell in the European Union is largely free of 33 hazardous chemicals. -
Authorities ‘Blindly’ Allowing Hazardous Chemicals on EU Market – NGO
Oct 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
European authorities are "blindly" allowing harmful substances on the market and the industry's "corrosive" influence is at the root of the problem, NGO the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) has said. -
Zinke's Latest Policy Gambit Collides With Alaska's $44B Plan
Oct 16, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
The state of Alaska is getting decidedly mixed messages from the Trump administration on the best way to commercialize the state's 35 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves that are now stranded on the North Slope. -
Fragile Pipelines Pose an Increasing Risk in Gas-Hungry U.S.
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Naureen S. Malik
The kind of dramatic scenes that played out in suburban Massachusetts in September following a series of explosions and fires could serve as a warning of what lies ahead for the U.S., where an increasing reliance on natural gas is running up against aging infrastructure. -
Zinke’s Energy Export Plan Knocked As 'Harebrained'
Oct 15, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Ben Lefebvre
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke drew immediate flak Monday for proposing to use military bases on the West Coast to export coal and natural gas despite the opposition of environmentally minded state governments — with critics saying it just won’t work. -
EPA Urged To Speed RMP Changes After Declining Appeal Of Delay Ruling
Oct 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Chemical industry attorneys are urging EPA to accelerate its plan to undo Obama-era changes tightening the risk management plan (RMP) facility safety program, after the agency opted against appealing a court ruling that scrapped the Trump administration's delay of the revisions and reinstated looming compliance deadlines. -
Criticism Of Grid Study 'Premature And Irresponsible' — DOE
Oct 15, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Edward Klump
The Department of Energy issued a blistering defense of its review of a pending power grid study, rejecting any implication it withheld the report for political reasons. -
Trump Says Climate Change No Hoax But Will ‘Change Back Again’
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Donald Trump may not think climate change is a “hoax” anymore, but the president made clear he still doubts whether humans are driving the phenomenon and thinks the whole thing could reverse itself. -
Did Trump Create a New Talking Point For Skeptics?
Oct 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman,
President Trump found a new way to express his suspicions about climate change. The question is whether it will become a talking point. -
Washington Voters to Decide on First-of-Its-Kind U.S. Carbon Fee
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Eric Roston and Jim Efstathiou Jr.
Voters in Washington state will go to the polls Nov. 6 to decide whether or not they want to impose a first-of-its-kind “fee” on carbon emissions -
EPA Faces Suit For Failing To Act On SO2 Noncompliance
Oct 15, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Environmental groups threatened a lawsuit today over EPA's alleged failure to act on state cleanup plans for a dozen areas that aren't complying with the 2010 Clean Air Act standard for sulfur dioxide. -
EPA Finalizes Rule Weakening Obama-Era Resins Manufacturing NESHAP
Oct 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA has finalized a rule that weakens an Obama-era national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP) rule for amino-phenolic resins manufacturing and is also delaying implementation of the softened rule, in response to petitions from resin products urging the Trump administration to revise the regulation. -
Legislature Begins Plotting Response To Trump Climate Rule
Oct 16, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jeffrey Tomich
The Illinois General Assembly is a month away from convening its fall veto session and possibly wrestling with one issue that appears to be gaining steam: state action related to EPA's proposed Affordable Clean Energy plan.
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(ACC Mentioned) Harold French Running On Small-Government Philosophy
Oct 16, 2018 | The Laconia Daily Sun
By Rick Green
ACONIA — Republican State Sen. Harold French, who is seeking re-election on Nov. 6, favors a smaller, less-intrusive government, and he says his legislative record backs up this philosophy.
French, 60, an auctioneer and real estate broker, talked about his priorities in an interview with The Daily Sun on Thursday.
“The state and federal government are responsible for some things, but not everything,” he said. “We are over-regulated. There are too many laws and they are getting in the way of people trying to live their lives.”
A graduate of Hopkinton High School, he attended Plymouth State University for a year. French operated a gallery in Laconia and was a folk sculptor. He was among those led by the late Wanda Tibbetts, who began the Lakeport Community Association.
He faces Democrat Mason Donovan in the General Election on Tuesday, Nov. 6.
French represents Senate District 7, which takes in Andover, Belmont, Boscawen, Canterbury, Franklin, Gilford, Northfield, Salisbury, Webster and Laconia.
Two years ago, he defeated Democratic incumbent Andrew Hosmer by a razor-thin margin to win the seat. Hosmer, now a Laconia City councilor, lost by 17 votes, 13,880-13,863.
During that campaign, a check of county deed records showed there were tax liens on several properties he owned and that he owed $57,713 to the Internal Revenue Service. He said those liens have since been released and they were incurred because of his real estate business."I've owned 50 properties in my life and I've had tax liens on many of them," he said. "I have no outstanding tax liens at this time. I buy and sell real estate and I let the taxes ride until I sell the property." He said he's in negotiations with the IRS over his federal tax debt, which he said exceeds $50,000. Consumer rights French said he's proud of a consumer rights bill he backed that Gov. Chris Sununu signed into law, allowing people to have legal representation in Insurance Commission proceedings.
“You were not allowed to have legal representation, while the insurance provider could have attorneys,” he said. “This changed that. Now you can go in with your attorneys and they can fight their attorneys. It sounds like a small change, but it’s actually a big change.”
He also said he backed legislation making it easier for individuals to provide up to three residential mortgages without being licensed.
“There are a lot of people in this state with a lot of money who would like to help people buy homes,” he said. “This helps people get into a home and start building equity.”
French said he introduced a legislative amendment that ensures people who are found not guilty of a criminal charge automatically have the matter taken off their arrest record.
“Up to this point, if you wanted an arrest record annulled, you would have to pay to have it annulled,” he said. “Hundreds of people in this state who were arrested and found not guilty had an arrest record when checked. It’s a small change, but it makes a big difference. Now it’s automatically taken care of.”
He said he backs transparency in government, including enforcement of a state law requiring upper-level state employees and commission appointees to file financial disclosures. The New Hampshire Union-Leader reported Thursday that the law appears to be routinely ignored.
Death penalty
French was a co-sponsor on a bill to abolish the death penalty. It passed the Legislature but was vetoed by Sununu.
“Being 60 now, my philosophy has changed on a few things and this is one of them,” he said. “The Innocence Project has proven around the country – time and again – that someone on Death Row might be innocent.”
The Innocence Project, founded by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck in 1992, works to exonerate the wrongly convicted through DNA testing.
“We haven’t used the death penalty in this state since 1939,” French said. “We have no death chamber or lawful way of doing it. A death penalty case takes 20 years and costs upwards of $10 million. It’s cheaper to put them in prison for life without parole, than engage in a death penalty process for some sort of revenge brought for the state.”
Campaign finance
French’s most current campaign finance report, filed Sept. 19, shows receipts to date at $16,411 and expenditures at $22,056. He filed the report electronically and said an error artificially inflated the expenditure total. He said the report will soon be updated to correct the error.
The largest expenditure, $3,000, was made on March 15, 2018, to pay him back for a loan he made to his candidate committee in his first run for state Senate.
Also reflected in the report was a $430 expense at the Country Inn and Suites of Nashville and a $169 rental car charge in that city. He said he traveled to Nashville to attend an American Legislative Exchange Council conference. Model legislation is often shared at such meetings. He also had an expenditure of $1,000 to the council for consulting fees and contract work. He explained the expenditure on his campaign report as "education on current state legislative issues."
The council calls itself a “nonpartisan voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism.”
His contributors include Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield ($250), AT&T ($225), Eversource PAC-NH ($100), New Hampshire Independent Pharmacy Association ($1,000), New Hampshire Realtors PAC ($1,500), the pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. of Memphis ($1,000), Select Management Resources of Georgia ($750) and Exacta Systems of Florida ($500) and American Chemistry Council of Washington, D.C., ($250).
https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news/local/harold-french-running-on-small-government-philosophy/article_ac72d28e-cd9a-11e8-8ac7-ab38c594df11.html
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(ACC Mentioned) US Specialty Chemicals Group Socma Urges CDR Reporting Rule Changes
Oct 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The specialty chemicals group Socma is pressing the US EPA to make changes to its CDR reporting rule as a result of changes to the TSCA new chemicals programme.
The comments came in response to an EPA information collection request (ICR) on its Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule, which requires companies to submit, every four years, quantity and use information for substances produced in and imported into the US.
Socma pointed out that manufacturers must report if, for any year of the CDR cycle, production volume exceeds 25,000lbs per manufacturing site. However, for substances subject to a TSCA action – including a consent order or significant new use rule (Snur) – that threshold drops to 2,500lbs.
Since enactment of the Lautenberg Act in 2016, use of these regulatory instruments in the TSCA new chemicals programme has soared. And consequently, the group fears that this will "undoubtedly result in a vast increase in the number of small companies who will be subject to CDR reporting in 2020".
Compounding this concern is that the definition of a small business, as far as it relates to section 8 reporting requirements, has not been updated since 1988. And despite having acknowledged that an inflationary adjustment may be warranted, the EPA has yet to issue a rulemaking to update these size requirements.
TSCA’s finalised fees rule includes an updated small business definition based on employee numbers, but this change only relates to fees, and does not cover section 8 reporting requirements.
Socma has called on the agency to begin a prompt rulemaking to update its size standard for the CDR. And it reiterated a request for creating a "single, consistent classification system to identify small businesses" across all of TSCA.
The EPA said in the fees rule it believes a forthcoming TSCA section 8(a) rulemaking will "provide for more consideration of appropriate size standards for industries subject to TSCA and offer the public further opportunities to comment on small business size standards". It indicated plans in its semiannual regulatory agenda to propose such a rule in September, but there is no sign of it yet.Additional suggestions
Beyond Socma’s concerns, the American Chemistry Council requested that the EPA address "historical operability issues" with its electronic reporting tools.
The e-CDR web tool, said the trade group, requires "significant upgrades for a variety of reasons in order to ensure a less burdensome, more accurate CDR reporting process".
Cited issues included difficulty navigating, page time-outs, challenges submitting confidential business information (CBI) substantiation, and that login passphrases cannot be reset by EPA staff – leading to access problems when company staff roles change.
The ACC also requested that the EPA revise its burden cost estimates to reflect the generally higher actual compliance time that companies spend.
Finally, the Color Pigments Manufacturers Association (CPMA) requested that the EPA not use the CDR to collect information on chemicals and processes which "cannot reasonably be anticipated to pose a hazard of concern".
"EPA should use its broad discretion with respect to CDR reporting to focus the CDR on fewer chemicals which represent a potential risk," it wrote. "For those chemicals which pose a potential risk and are subject to EPA risk evaluation, a more detailed data collection should include processors to more accurately approximate the entire chain of commerce."
Federal collection of information is regulated by the Paperwork Reduction Act. ICRs are used to demonstrate that the collection is necessary and justifiable, and must be renewed every three years.
The existing ICR for the CDR is set to expire on 31 October. The agency collected comments in advance of that deadline, to inform its renewal submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval.
OMB will make a final determination on this.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71035/us-specialty-chemicals-group-socma-urges-cdr-reporting-rule-changes
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US EPA Reopens Comment Periods For 172 Snurs
Oct 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has reopened comment periods for two sets of TSCA significant new use rules (Snurs) for chemical substances, following requests for extensions.
Comments for the proposed rule on 145 Snurs covering various substances can now be submitted until 14 November. The original comment period ended on 31 August.
Submissions for the second set of 27 Snurs, which include chlorinated paraffins and other substances, will be accepted until 30 October. The original comment deadline closed on 17 September.
In both cases, the agency received a request to extend the comment period that came too late to enact before the consultation expired.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71037/us-epa-reopens-comment-periods-for-172-snurs
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Acknowledges Risks From 13 Chemicals Approved for Sale
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
EPA proposes restrictions for 13 new chemicals allowed into commerce for known, intended uses
Rules would control reasonably foreseen, potentially risky, uses
The EPA allowed 13 new chemicals to enter the market even though it recognized that different ways they could be made or used might pose unreasonable risks, based on rules the agency proposed Oct. 15.
The batch of proposed “significant new use rules,” or SNURs, which the Environmental Protection Agency will publish in the Oct. 16 Federal Register, covers 13 new chemicals used to make plastics, rubber, paper, and other goods.
The timing of the full restrictions the agency thinks are needed for these 13 chemicals departs somewhat from similar regulations of 283 new chemicals the agency proposed earlier this year.
In the previous SNURs, the agency and manufacturers—which are never identified in these types of regulations—signed an enforceable consent order controlling any potential unreasonable health or environmental risks before the compound could enter commerce.
Those orders controlled potential respiratory, ecological, or other hazards the new chemical might pose. The agency then proposed through SNURs similar controls for other companies that would make or use the new chemical.
By way of contrast in this case, the EPA decided the new chemicals could be made or used in ways that might pose an unreasonable risk but allowed them to be made anyhow, without an enforceable consent order restricting their uses.
The potential risks that might raise concerns were unlikely to happen immediately, the agency said in findings that accompany its decisions on each chemical. An example includes a chemical, generically named esteramine, that’s used to make other chemicals but might be harmful if released into water at concentrations above 1 part per billion.
The agency would control those potential concerns by issuing its proposed SNUR, which serves as the cut-off date for any new chemical use the EPA says could pose a risk.
Consistent With EPA Strategy?The process EPA is using is consistent with an approach the agency released in Novmber 2017 but had not used until a lawsuit challenging that strategy was withdrawn by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Neither the EPA, an NRDC attorney, nor the American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical manufacturers, immediately responded to a Bloomberg Environment request for comment.
But another environmental group flagged concerns.
The 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act amendments do not permit the EPA to allow a new, potentially risky chemical into commerce unless its known, intended, and reasonably foreseen uses have been controlled, Richard Denison, lead senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund told Bloomberg Environment.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-acknowledges-risks-from-13-chemicals-approved-for-sale
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Lead-Paint Makers Rejected by Supreme Court in $400 Million Case (1)
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Greg Stohr
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals from Sherwin-Williams Co. and Conagra Brands Inc., leaving intact a ruling that requires them to pay more than $400 million for lead-paint remediation in California.
The rebuff, issued without comment Oct. 15, is a blow to business groups, which had called for high court review in the hope of derailing other suits over climate change, opioid addiction and gun violence.
In separate appeals, Sherwin-Williams and units of Conagra said the state court ruling violated their constitutional rights, penalizing them for things they said in the first half of the 20th century without proof that those statements contributed to current lead-paint problems. Ten California cities and counties sued the companies for creating a “public nuisance” by promoting lead paint.
“While we are disappointed, the Supreme Court reviews very few cases,” the companies said in a joint statement after the court acted. “California’s decision is an outlier and at odds with courts across the country which have correctly held that companies should not be held retroactively liable for lawful conduct and truthful commercial speech decades after they took place.“
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the success of the lead-paint suit has spawned a string of similar cases against other industries, more than 80 filed in federal court in California and elsewhere in the last 12 months alone.
‘Prolonged Use’The cities and counties said the companies and their trade associations promoted lead paint as safe well after they learned that it caused irreversible neurological harm, particularly to children. Lead paint was banned in the U.S. in 1978 but remains on the walls of many homes.
“Those cumulative, coordinated promotional efforts were enormously successful, resulting in sustained, increased, and prolonged use of lead paint in residences throughout the jurisdictions,” lawyers for the the cities and counties argued.
A state court judge in Santa Clara County concluded after a six-week trial that the companies had created a public nuisance, and a California appeals court upheld the judgment. The trial judge later set the tentative amount the companies must pay at $409 million, a figure designed to cover the cost of inspection and abatement in more than a million homes built before 1951.
Public-nuisance lawsuits are designed to address conduct that broadly affects a community, like pollution or the storage of explosives. California has authorized government lawyers to press public-nuisance suits since 1872.
Sherwin-Williams and Conagra said they aren’t opposed to all public-nuisance suits but said the case against them goes so far it violates the Constitution’s due process and free speech clauses.
“Pegging public nuisance liability to prior product promotion offers a tempting, facile way to shift responsibility from government policymakers and budgets onto corporations,” Sherwin-Williams argued.The cases are Conagra Grocery Products v. Calif., U.S., No. 18-84, 10/15/18 and Sherwin-Williams v. Calif., U.S., No. 18-86, 10/15/18.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/lead-paint-makers-rejected-by-supreme-court-in-400-million-case-1
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Amazon Joins Walmart, Other Major Retailers On Safer Chemicals
Oct 15, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Boma Brown-West and Alissa Sasso
Retail demand for safer products is not only here to stay – it’s now a source of competition in the evolving marketplace.
Amazon is the latest retailer to join Walmart, Target, CVS Health, Home Depot, and Rite-Aid by publishing a chemicals policy (note: scroll down the page to find it) and a public Restricted Substances List. Amazon and the above-mentioned retailers[1] represent half of the top ten retailers in the US. Amazon’s new policy is a big deal: not only is Amazon the third largest retailer by sales in the US, it is the first primarily ecommerce retailer to create a chemicals policy. Ecommerce represents a challenge in terms of implementing such a policy, but as shoppers increasingly turn to online retailers for many of their purchasing needs, this also presents a major opportunity to increase the availability of safer products.
While Amazon’s and others’ policies have room for improvement, we’re excited about many of the common elements reflected across these policies. These retailers are sending a strong and consistent demand signal throughout the value chain to remove toxic chemicals from products and to ensure that new ingredients used to reformulate products are truly safer.
What are these common elements and why are they important?Beauty and Personal Care (BPC) Leadership Group Participation: In its policy Amazon announced joining the BPC Leadership Group. Walmart, Target, and CVS already participate, as does Walgreens, Sephora, EDF, and numerous product manufacturers. The BPC product scorecard consists of uniform criteria to define safer and more sustainable beauty and personal care products. Amazon’s participation in the group, and future implementation of the scorecard, strengthens the BPC criteria. For the first time, we are witnessing significant market agreement on a common standard for a “sustainable” beauty and personal care product. As industry shifts towards using the BPC critera, other retailers and product manufacturers will be pushed to rise to this standard.Removing chemicals of concern: Walmart released its first policy in 2013 and defined a priority chemical as “a chemical that meets the criteria for classification as a carcinogen, mutagen, reproductive toxicant, or is persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic; or any chemical for which there is ’scientific evidence of probable serious effects to human health or the environment which give rise to an equivalent level of concern‘. Amazon’s policy uses the same definition for chemicals of concern. And, like Walmart, Target, CVS, and Home Depot, Amazon has initially prioritized the following chemicals for removal from products: parabens, formaldehyde, phthalates, nonylphenol ethoxylate (NPEs), toluene, and triclosan. Amazon is amplifying the message that suppliers and product manufacturers should restrict and eliminate these chemicals from their products — meaning that products throughout the value chain, and not just those sold by these retailers — will be safer. This also reinvigorates the call for innovation of truly safer alternatives to these priority chemicals.Focusing on hotspot product categories: Amazon’s policy applies to its private brand formulated baby, household cleaning, personal care, and beauty products. Walmart, Target, and CVS have also prioritized these categories (Walmart and Target go further by tackling national brand products too). These are products that are used frequently, many daily, across all consumer segments. Driving change in these categories ensures safer products for all, especially those that are most vulnerable among us, like babies and children.Increasing the assortment of safer products: Most of the retailers encourage the use of credible certifications for products in these categories, particularly the US EPA Safer Choice and Cradle to Cradle certification programs. These certifications communicate to customers that products have met rigorous ingredient selection criteria and make it easier for customers to make informed purchasing decisions.Promotion of the use of safer alternatives: Amazon is e ncouraging its private brand suppliers to “phase out potentially hazardous chemicals and adopt green chemistry alternatives”. Like Walmart, Target, the Home Depot, and Rite-Aid, Amazon also promotes the use of the US EPA Safer Chemicals Ingredient List (SCIL) to facilitate improvement. This creates a greater demand for safer alternatives, spurs innovation for new alternatives, and provides innovators with the ability to scale these chemicals for commercial use.
With these policy elements in place, retailers have set the foundation to ensure that their policies translate into real results in stores and online. Here is EDF’s take on what steps these retailers should to take to ensure success:Use a data-driven approach to tracking progress: Developing a meaningful process for measuring their chemical footprint is critically important to ensuring progress in reducing the use of harmful chemicals in products. It also allows retailers to identify products and suppliers that represent hotspots in need of faster improvement and support. Importantly, it will help retailers ensure that products used frequently by consumer segments disproportionately impacted by chemicals exposures, e.g. children and women of color, keep up with improvements happening across product categories more broadly.Support suppliers and buyers with tools to implement their policies: Successful outcomes will require direct engagement and collaboration with suppliers and buyers. This support involves working with suppliers to develop supplier-specific implementation plans as part of the retailers’ larger goals, encouraging suppliers and holding them accountable to these goals, and sharing supplier success stories. Retailers can bring buyers into this process by educating them about chemical policies as well as the steps that suppliers are taking to improve products. This will encourage buyers to seek out and feature safer products thereby further increasing the demand signal for these products.Accelerate the availability and uptake of verified safer ingredients: Collectively the retailers are increasing the demand for safer alternatives. Though there are some resources for alternatives, like the SCIL, there are chemicals and functional classes that would benefit from innovation to identify alternatives. The retailers can continue to support initiatives that spur innovation, like the GC3 preservatives challenge, and can help bring new alternatives to scale.Report progress and results publicly: Amazon, as well as some of the other retailers, should create measurable goals based on their commitments, as well as the metrics they plan to use to track progress. Meaningful, time-bound commitments hold retailers and suppliers accountable. Reporting goals and progress shows customers that retailers are actually creating change in store and online.
Through EDF’s work with Walmart, we’ve seen the hard work needed to implement a chemicals policy and to bring stakeholders along for the journey. Ultimately, Amazon’s policy and the actions taken by other retailers will result in a safer marketplace. We will continue to support and challenge companies as the market moves towards mainstreaming safer products.
http://business.edf.org/blog/2018/10/15/amazon-joins-walmart-other-major-retailers-on-safer-chemicals
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Amazon Primes Recycling Pump to Cut Packaging Waste
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
Firm says $10M investment in Closed Loop Partners will allow curbside recycling for 3 million households
Recyclers still suffering from low prices and domestic oversupply
Amazon will invest $10 million in Closed Loop Partners, a $100 million dollar fund focusing specifically on municipal recycling programs and technologies aimed at eliminating packaging waste.
“Amazon’s sheer size, reach, and growth projections represent a big statement about the future of how things will be manufactured, and really the future of the circular economy,” said Ron Gonen, CEO of Closed Loop Partners.
Amazon joins other large retail and consumer goods investors including 3M, Coca Cola Co., Procter & Gamble Co., and Unilever.
The move comes amid a prolonged price slump for recycled materials, prompted by China’s import ban of 24 types of waste and stricter 0.5 percent contamination standard for mixed paper—both of which went into effect earlier this year.
Still, Gonen told Bloomberg Environment that he’s still bullish on the future of the recycling sector.
“Companies that have invested in new sorting equipment to reduce contamination are doing well,” he said.
“I think the reckoning we’re seeing now has actually been a healthy thing for the industry because it highlights who the high-quality operators are.”
Boost for Curbside ProgramsAccording to a company statement, the investment aims to divert 1 million tons of recyclable material from landfills and open up curbside recycling programs for some 3 million U.S. households by 2028.
“This investment will help build the local capabilities needed to make it easier for our customers and their communities to recycle and to increase the amount of material recycled across the country,” said Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations.
“We are investing in Closed Loop Fund’s work because we think everyone should have access to easy, convenient curbside recycling.”
Still, Amazon’s investment also comes at a time when many cities and communities are re-evaluating the benefit of curbside services, in the face of soaring costs for collection and sorting.
“There are some things that industry and government have done to suggest that recycling is free,” said Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability at Phoenix-based Republic Services, the second-largest waste-collection company in the U.S.
Keller told Bloomberg Environment the company will be renegotiating many of its 680 municipal recycling contracts over the coming months, with costs likely to increase.
“Obviously you can’t have environmental sustainability without economic viability. If these programs continue to operate in the red, they can’t be sustainable,”
Major AdvantagesNot all of Closed Loop’s circular-economy investments have paid off. Last year, a joint-venture plastics recovery facility in Dundalk, Md., closed, citing challenges in the post-consumer plastics industry, despite a $2 million loan from Closed Loop.
Gonen says that talk from waste management companies, which also run landfills, may need to be taken with a grain of salt.
“The alternative to recycling is paying a landfill operator to take your material,” he said. “So, they have a financial incentive to try to convince people that recycling doesn’t work.”
Gonen said the relationships with Amazon and other consumer product companies give the Fund major advantages, including insider insights about the future of supply chain management, as well as a large group of potential buyers for recycled material.
“The folks that makes our boxes, definitely, this could contribute to more materials being available to them,” said Kara Hurst, director of sustainability at Amazon.
Hurst said the investment is about more than cardboard boxes. She points to the company’s new e-commerce packaging requirements designed to reduce waste and cut costs.
“I think it’s similar to what’s going on with energy—where we need to look at multiple solutions across multiple sectors.”
“We need to invest in curbside recycling, and also keep thinking about what’s next,” she added.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/amazon-primes-recycling-pump-to-cut-packaging-waste
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EU Adopts Restrictions on 33 Hazardous Chemicals in Textiles
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
EU to limit 33 hazardous substances in clothing, footwear, textiles by 2020
Many brands already taking steps to phase out risky chemicals
Benetton Group SpA, H&M AB, PUMA SE and other apparel brands will have to ensure by 2020 that the clothing and footwear they sell in the European Union is largely free of 33 hazardous chemicals.
Under a law amending the EU’s REACH regulation (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals), clothing and other textile products, including furniture and bed linen, must not contain the substances above certain thresholds after Nov. 1, 2020. All the affected substances are classified in the EU as carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic for reproduction.
The substances include heavy metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium IV and lead; hydrocarbon chemicals including benzene and chrysene; and a number of phthalates. The substances have a range of uses in textiles, including in dyes, as flame retardants, and as treatments to make textiles resistant to water and stains.
‘On Track’The law amending REACH could force companies to alter their production processes or substitute hazardous chemicals with less hazardous alternatives. Published in the EU Official Journal Oct. 12, the law said the limitations were needed to help protect consumers. Clothing and other textiles were “considered a priority case” for reducing their exposure to hazardous chemicals.
Most well-known brands are phasing out use of the substances already, or in the process of phasing them out.
Germany’s PUMA is “fully compliant with the EU’s REACH regulation” and was “on track” to eliminate hazardous chemicals from its supply chain by 2020, spokesman Robert-Jan Bartunek told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 15.
AFIRMationPUMA respects the restricted substances list developed by the AFIRM Group in Orinda, Calif., a coalition of clothing brands seeking to reduce use of hazardous chemicals, Bartunek said. Other AFIRM Group brands include Gap Inc., Lacoste SA, Levi Strauss & Co., Lululemon, and Nike Inc.
H&M, which is also a member of the AFIRM Group, already adopted “bans or limit values for the substances included in this approved law,” H&M spokesman Inigo Saenz Maestre told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 15.
Italy’s Benetton has included 30 of the 33 substances covered by the REACH amendment in its list of chemicals banned or limited in its products, spokeswoman Greta Gamba told Bloomberg Environment.
Adidas AG, Nike, and Tommy Hilfiger Group didn’t respond to Bloomberg Environment’s requests for comment.
The EU “measure to weed out substances which may harm people” was welcome, but enforcement authorities in EU countries would need to “work hand-in-hand with customs agencies to ensure these chemicals do not enter the EU market through the import backdoor,” Pelle Moos, health team leader with the European Consumer Organization, told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 15.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/eu-adopts-restrictions-on-33-hazardous-chemicals-in-textiles
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Authorities ‘Blindly’ Allowing Hazardous Chemicals on EU Market – NGO
Oct 16, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
European authorities are "blindly" allowing harmful substances on the market and the industry's "corrosive" influence is at the root of the problem, NGO the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) has said.
Its comments come in response to an EU REACH compliance project, which found almost a third of dossiers for substances registered at more than 1,000tpa to be non-compliant with REACH on average for a given endpoint.
The project, carried out by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and Environment Agency (UBA), began in 2014 and investigated more than 3,800 registration dossiers submitted across the EU.
The EEB's senior policy adviser Tatiana Santos praised the German study as being "the only inspection from a national authority for years". Having discovered "a mess", however, they should now move to enforce the law, she said.
The NGO's report accused industry of "breaking the law" and the authorities of "pretty much letting it happen". Substances allowed on the EU market are often linked to a "silent pandemic of diseases" such as cancer, Ms Santos said.
And despite the low level of compliance, the chemicals will continue to be used with no extra enforcement activities foreseen in the short-term, she added, pointing out that just four of around 40,000 dossiers registered with Echa have been revoked since 2010.
In its response, the BfR said it did not subscribe to all of the "personal views" expressed in the EEB report.
Underlining a lower average non-compliance rate of 19% detected in the German study for the 100-1,000 tonnage band, the BfR stressed that a 'non-compliant' dossier "does not automatically mean that use of the substance poses a risk to human health or the environment".
A missing or incomplete justification for the adaptation of the standard information requirement does not mean that such cannot be given, a BfR spokesperson noted.'Unjustified'
The German Chemical Industry Association (VCI) said EEB’s comments are "excessive and largely unjustified" and discredit companies' efforts to meet complex requirements under REACH. Furthermore, the German study was designed in a way that made it impossible for the companies examined to be found conforming.
Describing the existing rules for dossier evaluation as "adequate", the VCI also warned against member states conducting their own separate checks in addition to those carried out by Echa. Such checks could become a "one-sided playing field" for political interests of national authorities, it said.
Meanwhile, the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) said it agreed with the UBA and BfR's assessment that both industry and authorities need to increase their efforts in improving dossier quality.
Cefic and Echa signed a joint statement in June agreeing to work together on the effective implementation of REACH. It sees both sides committing to improving chemical safety information and how this is communicated up and down the supply chain.
Cefic said it is already working on recommendations that will provide registrants with more certainty and guidance on how to complete their dossiers.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71034/authorities-blindly-allowing-hazardous-chemicals-on-eu-market-ngo
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Zinke's Latest Policy Gambit Collides With Alaska's $44B Plan
Oct 16, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
The state of Alaska is getting decidedly mixed messages from the Trump administration on the best way to commercialize the state's 35 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves that are now stranded on the North Slope.
On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin backed the state's proposed Alaska LNG project, a $44 billion venture that would include construction of an 800-mile pipeline to ship gas to an export terminal along Alaska's southern shore.
Mnuchin stopped in Fairbanks for talks with Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (I) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) after attending an annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Indonesia.
Walker said Mnuchin has repeatedly expressed "strong support" for the Alaska LNG project. "He understands that this is America's infrastructure project and that it represents a trillion-dollar opportunity," the governor said in a statement.
But at the same time, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is suggesting that the federal government host an LNG export facility in Alaska's Aleutian Islands, with gas shipped to the site by tanker from the North Slope.
Zinke told the Associated Press that the Trump administration is considering use of military bases to ship fossil fuels from the West Coast and thus circumvent environmental opposition.
He noted that coal and natural gas interests are appealing for more export capacity to reach markets abroad, specifically in Asia. However, state regulators in California, Oregon and Washington have rejected proposals for private terminal projects (Greenwire, Oct. 15).
Zinke's only example of a potential military site that could be used for export was the former Naval Air Facility Adak, located 1,200 miles southwest of Anchorage. Built during World War II, the Adak military site was shuttered in 1997.
Early this year, an Interior Department official told Alaska officials that Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, trained in the Aleutians during the 1980s.
In response to Zinke's comments, the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. (AGDC), the state agency in charge of the Alaska LNG project, expressed cautious support for the White House's interest in Alaska natural gas.
AGDC communications manager Jesse Carlstrom noted that "unlike other U.S. regions, responsible resource development in Alaska enjoys broad public support."
He added: "We appreciate the Trump administration's advocacy for the Alaska LNG project and the major trade and economic benefits it will bring to the nation, and thank Secretary Zinke for his interest in developing Alaska's natural resources and exploring ways to bring them to market."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/16/stories/1060102621
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Fragile Pipelines Pose an Increasing Risk in Gas-Hungry U.S.
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Naureen S. Malik
Massachusetts blast last month highlights issue of aging pipe
Lawmakers concerned regulation hasn’t kept pace with expansion
The kind of dramatic scenes that played out in suburban Massachusetts in September following a series of explosions and fires could serve as a warning of what lies ahead for the U.S., where an increasing reliance on natural gas is running up against aging infrastructure.
While there is no firm conclusion about what caused the series of deadly blasts on Sept. 14, a preliminary National Transportation Safety Board report on the incident released last week said it was linked to work being carried out to replace old pipes.
Across the U.S. there is an awful lot of old pipes: In all, the country has about 80,000 miles of unprotected bare steel and cast or wrought-iron natural gas pipes—enough to wrap around the Earth three times—much of which dates back to the early 1900s.
“Aging infrastructure is clearly an issue in the U.S., especially on the East Coast, where they have a lot of old cast-iron pipes that are well-known to fail,” said Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust in Bellingham, Wash.
Technological ImprovementsWhile those lines represent just 3.6 percent of all the pipes that deliver gas to consumers nationally, they pose the highest risk and account for 41 percent of all fatalities, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
PHMSA has urged operators to accelerate plans to replace the oldest lines because decades of wear and degradation has made them more brittle and prone to leaks or ruptures from ground movement. Exposure to rain and freezing temperatures also is a problem (modern gas lines installed in towns and cities are made of plastic, which is corrosion-resistant and less brittle, or from protected steel that won’t rust as easily).
To be sure, the natural gas industry has come a long way technologically since it began about 200 years, with improvements such as new materials and inspection tools, said Christina Sames, vice president of operations and engineering with the American Gas Association, a Washington-based industry group.
Utilities continue to spend billions of dollars to replace old lines. In Ohio, for example, the Public Utilities Commission oversees programs undertaken by utilities including Duke Energy Corp. But while those lines are being ripped out and replaced, there is a huge build-out of new pipelines, driven by the shale-gas boom. And that has prompted concerns that the regulatory environment hasn’t kept pace.
18,000 MilesDespite the inherent dangers of routing natural gas around the country above and below ground, its use has grown in recent years. It accounted for 29 percent of the U.S. energy mix in 2017, and that share is set to expand thanks to the exploitation of the massive reserves in shale-rock formations around the country through hydraulic fracturing.
That shale-gas boom has slashed the cost of electricity and is set to turn the country into the world’s third-largest shipper of the heating and power-plant fuel within the next two years. It also precipitated a huge build-out of pipelines. Since 2000, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has authorized almost 18,000 miles of interstate gas transmission pipelines totaling more than 159 billion cubic feet a day of transportation capacity.
U.S. oil and gas pipeline-related deaths jumped to the highest level in seven years in 2017. The 20 fatalities were the most since 2010, when a gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif., killed eight.
Past IncidentsThe government figures include both large pipelines that crisscross the countryside as well as smaller lines serving residences. But as data from PHMSA makes clear, older pipes made of of cast-iron are disproportionately deadly.
Similar incidents can be found on a grim list on the agency’s website. In January, for example, four people were injured in a Brooklyn fire that followed damage to a cast-iron gas pipe that the regulator said appeared to be be caused by “frost heave,” where the ground swells upward due to freezing conditions. There were five deaths in 2011 after an explosion and fire in Allentown, Pa., where a preliminary investigation found a crack in a cast-iron main installed in 1928.
Perhaps ironically, the blasts and fires that last month ripped thorough several towns in the Merrimack Valley, north of Boston, happened as work was underway to replace aging gas pipes operated by NiSource Inc.’s Columbia Gas of Massachusetts unit.
Massachusetts ScrutinyAccording the NTSB report, crews contracted by Columbia Gas were replacing a cast-iron distribution main with a plastic one. When the workers removed a section of pipe containing pressure sensors, the system mistakenly registered a drop in pressure, triggering a surge of gas into the pipes that exceed the maximum allowed. The ensuing havoc killed one man and damaged 131 structures.
U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Oct. 12 that NiSource didn’t do enough to prevent it or respond quickly enough and that he will looking at “what we can do to change the laws in our country” to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
NiSource President Joe Hamrock said in a statement that while the company is limited in what is can say about the incident while the investigation is still underway, immediately after the incident the company suspended similar work and it enhanced procedures related to low-pressure systems.
Oversight is a focus of lawmakers in Massachusetts, who are preparing to launch inquiries into the Merrimack Valley blasts. Those probes will likely start after the Nov. 19 target for when NiSource plans to finish replacing pipelines in the affected areas, state Sen. Mike Barrett, a Democrat, said in an interview just before the NTSB report was released.
“We are supposed to ultimately oversee the regulatory agencies involved,” he said. “There have been preliminary reports that the state Department of Public Utilities has too few pipeline inspectors to discharge oversight responsibility on its own.”
Such concerns have arisen in the past decade as U.S. shale plays come online, according to Weimer at the Pipeline Safety Trust. The Barnett shale in Texas and the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania—two massive, gas-rich areas that have been opened up by fracking—“were being brought online and developed much more quickly than the regulatory infrastructure developed to keep an eye on them,” he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/fragile-pipelines-pose-an-increasing-risk-in-gas-hungry-us
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Zinke’s Energy Export Plan Knocked As 'Harebrained'
Oct 15, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Ben Lefebvre
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke drew immediate flak Monday for proposing to use military bases on the West Coast to export coal and natural gas despite the opposition of environmentally minded state governments — with critics saying it just won’t work.
“It’s really impressive how this administration churns out harebrained schemes for their Department of Cock-Eyed Ideas,” Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told POLITICO. “The president must be getting really bad advice. It’s not going to work. Our clean water and clean air laws are still on the books and will still be enforced.“
In an interview with The Associated Press, Zinke cast the idea of using the sites like a former Navy base on a remote Alaskan island as a national security matter because it would ensure that the U.S. can supply allies with cheap energy. And it would circumvent opposition to new fossil fuel exports in Democratic-dominated states like Washington and California.
“It doesn’t sound logical or fully baked,” Tom Hicks, a former undersecretary of the Navy and now a principal at Mabus Group, an energy consulting firm, said on Zinke's plan. “It sounds a little half-cocked.“
Both the bureaucratic and economic hurdles in building the infrastructure needed to turn military bases into export facilities would be difficult to overcome, experts said, and any development would still need the approval of state-level environmental regulators who have stymied other projects.
Inslee said the federal government had not reached out to his office about the idea, and he couldn’t think of any bases, active or shuttered, in Washington that would be likely candidates. And he blasted Zinke and the Trump administration for pursuing coal exports despite warnings from the Department of Defense that climate change is a growing national security threat.
Zinke has complained that coastal states were harming their neighboring states by blocking fossil fuel export projects, such as the Millennium Bulk Terminals' proposed export facility in Washington that would ship coal from Wyoming to Asia. And Zinke, along with Energy Secretary Rick Perry and chief White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, has increasingly criticized state environmental regulators for blocking oil and gas pipelines and local governments on the West Coast for nixing new liquefied natural gas export facilities.
“It's in our interest for national security and our allies to make sure that they have access to affordable energy commodities." Zinke said in the interview. He suggested the Adak Naval Air Facility in Alaska could be used as an LNG export point that could receive Alaskan-produced gas by barge.
But Adak's location on a remote island located near the western tip of the Aleutian Islands is in a region battered by storms, and natural gas must either be turned into LNG or compressed natural gas before it can be moved by ship.
“It sounds like a bit of a stretch,” Sarah Emerson, managing principal at oil and gas consulting firm ESAI Energy, said of the Adnak idea. “The Adak base is on an Aleutian island, so you would also need an undersea [pipeline] connection. I think this would be a hard sell for the oil and gas industry.“
The list of military bases with access to deep water ports that sit far from population centers in case of accidents is a short one, according to Hicks. Even if one could be found, the economics of exporting coal “would flame them in theface,” he added. Foreign demand for U.S. coal is expected to wane in coming years, according to government forecasts.
Even Zinke’s proposal of using closed bases wouldn’t likely fly, Hicks said.
“Just because it was once a military base that’s closed, it doesn’t mean Department of Defense has anything to do with it. I don’t even know what the role of Interior would be at that point. Usually the land is turned over to the state,” he said.
An Interior spokesperson did not respond to a series of questions on how far along Zinke’s plan was, whether he had consulted with states, and whether the government had interest from the private sector for the plan. A spokesperson for the Commerce Department — which Zinke told the AP was involved in his proposal — referred questions to Interior.
Spokespeople for California Gov. Jerry Brown did not return calls for comment. A spokesman for Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, who has been promoting an Alaska LNG project, did not immediately respond to questions.
Still, the administration may feel the need to do something to counteract how its own trade policy has antagonized China, one of the largest potential customers for U.S. gas and coal, said Leslie Palti-Guzman, president at natural gas consulting firm Gas Vista.
"The timing of this announcement is interesting,” Palti-Guzman said. “It happens in a context of escalating trade war with China, which could negatively impact the US push for 'energy dominance.' Hence, the U.S. government is on the defensive, doubling down on its inter-agency commitment to removing barriers to energy developments and trade and to promoting exports of U.S. energy resources.”
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/10/zinkes-energy-export-plan-knocked-as-harebrained-848856
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EPA Urged To Speed RMP Changes After Declining Appeal Of Delay Ruling
Oct 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Chemical industry attorneys are urging EPA to accelerate its plan to undo Obama-era changes tightening the risk management plan (RMP) facility safety program, after the agency opted against appealing a court ruling that scrapped the Trump administration's delay of the revisions and reinstated looming compliance deadlines.
Attorneys representing the chemical sector say that EPA faced an early October deadline for seeking rehearing of an U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel's Aug. 17 ruling, which vacated the agency's nearly 20-month delay of the Obama-era rule, and ruling that the delay made a “mockery” of the Clean Air Act. The court, at the request of environmentalists, expedited the mandate to put the RMP revisions into effect.
Given that the appellate court scrapped the delay rule, the attorneys argue that the Trump administration should now focus on quickly revising the RMP revisions through rulemaking.
“If EPA and industry are looking for a savior here I don't think the delay rule is it,” Micah Smith of the law firm Conn Maciel Carey, which represents employers, told Inside EPA in a Sept. 25 interview.
Smith noted that even if the agency had met the early October deadline to appeal their loss in the case, Air Alliance Houston, et al., v. EPA and Andrew Wheeler, that process would likely have taken months of briefing, pushing any appeal far beyond the expiration of the delay rule that was set to end on March 2019. “I think the revision rule, that's where the action will be,” he added.
A separate chemical sector attorney told Inside EPA in an Oct. 11 interview that multiple court observers believed that the agency had until Oct. 1 or Oct. 8 to petition for re-hearing, and so apparently has opted not to appeal.
“My guess is they think they can get the revised rule in place, and that they may as well focus on getting that done,” the source says.
The source adds that finalizing the proposed revision rule would eliminate two requirements that have taken effect as a result of the court's order as well as other future compliance burdens. The ruling triggered a mandate that facilities begin complying with the Obama rule's requirements for greater coordination with local emergency planners and first responders, as well as a new process safety requirement.
A final rule is expected to face legal challenges from environmentalists, ensuring more lengthy litigation. If the administration does not have a final rule in place that has survived legal challenge by March 14, 2020, then strict Obama-era emergency response program revisions will take place. On March 15, 2021, new auditor requirements will take effect, and further mandates take effect on March 14, 2022, according to a blog post by Conn Maciel Carey.
“They'll put together a final rule and publish it and make all these issues go away,” the chemical sector attorney says of the agency.
EPA in May issued its proposed rule that would undo the prior administration's tightening of the RMP requirements, and took comment on it. The next step is for the agency to review the comments and make any changes to the rule before sending the final version to the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) for mandatory pre-publication review. That process typically takes 90 days, but can take more or less time depending on the policy under review. However, OMB's website does not list the final RMP rule as currently under review, meaning the agency is yet to transmit the final version for the White House's input.
RMP Revisions
Shortly before the end of the Obama administration, EPA issued the January 2017 final rule updating the RMP program with new requirements, including for facilities to conduct third-party audits, analyze safer alternatives, and streamline data disclosure to first responders and the public.
But in response to petitions from GOP-led states and industry, the Trump administration began a two-step reconsideration process. The agency issued a final rule delaying the Obama-era RMP update for nearly two years, until February 2019, and then proposed its May 17 rule seeking to rescind most requirements of the 2017 Obama update rule.
In comments submitted to EPA in advance of an Aug. 23 deadline for input on the proposed revision rule, environmentalists and Democratic-led states threatened to sue if the agency did not drop its plan to revise the Obama-era rule, pointing to the D.C. Circuit's Aug. 17 ruling as evidence that the Trump administration efforts to scale back the rule are paying short shrift to Clean Air Act duty to prevent disasters.
In the Aug. 17 opinion two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the delay rule violated a Clean Air Act limit on delays of rules for reconsideration to three months, even if it follows notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures. But the judges also noted EPA's prior conclusion that new safety measures are needed.
“The Delay Rule does not explain its departure from EPA’s previous conclusions regarding the appropriate and practicable timeline for implementing the Chemical Disaster Rule,” the judges said.
“Nor does it explain why the detailed factual findings regarding the harm that would be prevented upon implementation of the Chemical Disaster Rule are now only 'speculative.'”
The panel Sept. 21 granted environmentalists' call to expedite its ruling scrapping the Trump administration's delay of an Obama-era rule. While the ruling triggered requirements for facilities to comply with certain requirements of the Obama-era rule, other compliance dates are well into the future.
In an Aug. 17 blog post, Smith and other attorneys with Conn Maciel Carey say that the court's vacatur of the delay rule triggered requirements for companies' three-year compliance audits to cover all elements of the rule in each covered process at the facility, and a duty to coordinate with local emergency responders.
In a May 17 proposed rule, EPA is seeking to rescind most requirements of the agency's January 2017 final RMP update rule, though it proposes to retain and amend provisions relating to first responders.
In comments on the proposed revision rule, petrochemical industry groups backed EPA's authority to revise standards through rulemaking and argued that a downward trend in facility accidents supports the Trump administration's plan for targeted enforcement over new federal mandates.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-urged-speed-rmp-changes-after-declining-appeal-delay-ruling
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Criticism Of Grid Study 'Premature And Irresponsible' — DOE
Oct 15, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Edward Klump
The Department of Energy issued a blistering defense of its review of a pending power grid study, rejecting any implication it withheld the report for political reasons.
The emailed response today came after Michael Webber, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, tweeted Friday that a grid resilience report hadn't "seen the light of day, yet."
Webber said a main conclusion of the report is that on-site fuel storage such as coal isn't a critical factor for resilience. It's one of many factors, he said.
Shaylyn Hynes, a DOE spokeswoman, said today that studies done at the department typically take months — and sometimes years — to be released.
"The purpose of many of these reports is to better inform internal discussions and policy making," Hynes said in a statement. "It is premature and irresponsible to criticize and jump to politically motivated conclusions about a report that has not yet been finalized or released."
In this case, Hynes said that last fall, DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy requested a study from the Idaho National Laboratory "evaluating nuclear resilience and baseload capacity needed to maintain grid stability under a variety of scenarios."
She said the Idaho lab then subcontracted out the study to the University of Texas. The Office of Nuclear Energy received the latest study draft from the Idaho lab on Sept. 30, Hynes said, "and it is currently proceeding through the internal review process."
Webber was quoted in recent days by Bloomberg and E&E News after he posted his thoughts on Twitter (Energywire, Oct. 15).
He told E&E News yesterday via email that he wasn't sure why the report in question — which he said was prepared by his engineering group at UT, in partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory — hadn't been released.
In a phone interview today, Webber said it's not unusual for DOE reports to take months or years to go through a process. He cautioned against assuming political motivation. He said UT's work on the report ran from about October 2017 to March 2018 before it was submitted to the Idaho lab.
"I think it's important to note that I did not criticize nor did I jump to conclusions that the delay was politically motivated," Webber said via email today. "Perhaps the readers would jump to that conclusion but I did not."
Webber said yesterday that the report looks at reliability and resilience.
Definitions vary, but reliability and resilience are used in discussions about keeping the lights on and having a power system that can bounce back after a major event or disruption. Critics of the status quo warn that natural-gas-fired power plants create vulnerabilities because of their reliance on pipelines for fuel. There also are frequent reminders of the intermittency of wind and solar energy.
Observers are watching DOE and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for potential federal action during the Trump administration to boost struggling nuclear and coal-fueled power plants. The report being discussed today has taken a good deal of time given that context, but it remains to be seen how it might be used.
Webber said yesterday via email that the grid report features several important points. First, he said, power plants "are not the weak point in the reliability of the power sector," but rather it's transmission and distribution.
Second, he said, "on-site storage of fuel" is a minor factor among many factors in determining power sector reliability. Third, he said, each fuel-technology combination such as nuclear, gas and wind "offers some benefits for reliability, and some disbenefits."
Webber also said in an email yesterday that "it's been amazing to watch political leaders abandon market principles to push for a coal bailout under the guise of security" while work from outside analysts concludes "that reliability of the grid is a complex mix of factors."
Webber is acting director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas, Austin.
He's expected to start a new job in France with Engie SA in January while taking leave from the university (Energywire, Oct. 11). Engie had nothing to do with the study prepared for DOE, according to Webber.
Reporter Hannah Northey contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/10/15/stories/1060102589
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Trump Says Climate Change No Hoax But Will ‘Change Back Again’
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Trump acknowledges ‘something’s happening’ with warming
President doesn’t want to put U.S. at disadvantage on issue
Donald Trump may not think climate change is a “hoax” anymore, but the president made clear he still doubts whether humans are driving the phenomenon and thinks the whole thing could reverse itself.
Trump reiterated his doubts on climate change during an interview with “60 Minutes” on CBS, even as he distanced himself from a past tweet asserting that global warming is a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese. Trump also used the interview to suggest scientists with “a very big political agenda” have fanned concerns about the phenomenon.
“I don’t think it’s a hoax. I think there’s probably a difference, but I don’t know that it’s man-made,” Trump said. “I’m not denying climate change. But it could very well go back.”
The president’s remarks aired one week after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a dire report warning that countries must take “unprecedented” action over the next 12 years to keep global warming in check and prevent a cascade of catastrophic consequences, from devastating droughts and savage storms to rising seas.
Trump’s comments contradict research about the way carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases behave in the atmosphere. Global temperatures have already risen 1 degree Celsius since the industrial revolution. And scientists broadly agree that greenhouse gas emissions, including those released when oil and coal are burned to generate electricity, are the primary cause of global warming.
“There really is no serious scientific disagreement that if you put massive amounts of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and you increase concentration, that traps heat,” said Kate Marvel, an associate research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “There really is no dispute on that.”
Trump’s suggestion that the climate will snap back marks an evolution of his views on the issue. He previously told the New York Times in January that “there is a cooling and there is a heating.”
Now, he appears to be confidently forecasting a reversal of climate change.
“I think something’s happening,” Trump told CBS journalist Lesley Stahl. “Something’s changing and it’ll change back again.”
Trump delivered his analysis without offering additional scientific support for his views. White House officials didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment Oct, 15.
Scientists draw a distinction between big shifts in the world’s climate stretching over millennia and the recent rapid warming trend. According to U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, there hasn’t been a cooler-than-average year since 1976. Instead, it’s been hotter than average every year—all 41 of them—since.
And the Earth keeps setting temperature records—2014 was the hottest year for surface temperature, according to NOAA, until 2015, which was even hotter. Then 2016 topped even that. 2017 was the third-hottest year, after 2016 and 2015, NOAA says.
“The odds of that happening by chance are just statistically infinitesimal,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor and senior fellow at Stanford University. “We also know that warming is not consistent with volcanoes or solar cycles or these non-human sources.”
The existence of past cool periods—including the Ice Age—aren’t evidence the current warming trend is illusory, scientists say. They help support it. Some of the strongest evidence and understanding of what causes Earth’s climate to change come from studies documenting conditions before humans showed up, Diffenbaugh said.
Ice AgeAndrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, said it’s unclear what Trump meant in asserting the climate can “go back.”
“Given the scientific community’s view that the warming is driven by greenhouse gases, there’s zero reason to think that climate change will reverse itself,” Dessler said.
In the CBS interview, the president reiterated his view that he’s not willing to risk American jobs or the U.S. economy to confront climate change—even if “something’s happening.”
“I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars,” Trump said. “I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t want to be put at a disadvantage.”
That’s in keeping with Trump’s June 2017 decision to pull the U.S. out of the landmark Paris climate accord, based on an argument that living up to the pact’s carbon-cutting commitments would punish America and deal a devastating cost to the economy. Under Trump, federal agencies also are easing a slew of Obama-era regulations designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from oil wells, automobiles and power plants.
Trump has long questioned climate change, declaring in one November 2012 tweet that the entire “concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
Although Trump told “60 Minutes” that “something’s changing,” he later added: “You don’t know whether or not that would have happened with or without man. You don’t know.”
Michael E. Mann, a scientist at Pennsylvania State University, calls that “one of the standard ‘stages of denial”’ on climate.
“The first stage is ‘it’s not happening,’ The second stage of denial, where Trump is currently located, is ‘it’s not human-caused,”’ Mann said. “In reality, there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that the warming we have seen over the past century can only be explained by human-caused climate change and in particular the burning of fossil fuels, something that Trump’s key supporters and funders profit from directly.”
Trump’s latest assertions dovetail with the careful refrain many of his top officials have adopted on climate change: acknowledging the climate is or may be changing, but questioning how much of it is caused by humans.
The posture, adopted by former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, may undercut accusations from environmental groups that they are “climate deniers.” The careful rhetorical formulation also provides room for administration officials to acknowledge climate change without pursuing policies to curb the use of fossil fuels that is driving the phenomenon.
—With assistance from Eric Roston.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/trump-says-climate-change-no-hoax-but-will-change-back-again
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Did Trump Create a New Talking Point For Skeptics?
Oct 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman,
President Trump found a new way to express his suspicions about climate change. The question is whether it will become a talking point.
Those who doubt mainstream climate science have for a long time downplayed the role of human-related emissions by saying that Earth's climate system has always fluctuated naturally. Trump flipped that around. He looked to the future instead of the past by suggesting that today's higher temperatures could decrease on their own — or "change back."
As scientists grappled with this new presentation of skepticism, others began repeating it. Trump made his remarks Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes."
Marc Morano, who runs the website Climate Depot, which rejects climate science, wrote that it was "scientifically, politically and economically accurate."
"Once again, President Trump is accurately citing Earth's history," Morano wrote in an email to his followers. "The climate has varied over billions of years, millions of years, hundreds of thousands of years, thousands of years, hundreds of years and decades."
Trump made his comments a week after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a major report showing that humans have dramatically altered the climate. Then, yesterday, Trump toured the splintered Florida Panhandle and Georgia pecan farms to survey damage from Hurricane Michael. He sidestepped questions about climate change along the way.
In today's supercharged political sphere, the accuracy of Trump's words is almost irrelevant in terms of political discourse, observers say. The president has a knack for boiling big ideas into manageable phrases. And they can be repeated, even if they're misleading.
"Unfortunately, when the president says something, or when any leader says something, it has the potential to spark it being a new talking point," said Susan Joy Hassol, director of the science outreach nonprofit group Climate Communication and a senior science writer on the National Climate Assessment.
Hassol, who has worked in climate communications for three decades, said Trump's claims are basically a variation of the most popular talking point for climate contrarians, the notion that the climate is always changing and therefore humans can't do anything about it, like curb their use of fossil fuels.
"This is the No. 1 myth, it's a reflection of ignorance; climate has changed before, climate scientists are quite aware of that," she said. "We also know why it's changed before and the long time scales on which it has changed before, and we know how different current global warming is from all of those."
On Sunday, Trump didn't delve into the subtleties of climate science.
"I don't think it's a hoax. I think there's probably a difference; I think something's happening," Trump said. "Something's changing, and it'll change back again. I don't think it's a hoax; I think there's probably a difference, but I don't know that it's man-made. I'm not denying climate change. But it could very well go back."
Others saw it as a new claim, including Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Lewis said Trump's assertion that the climate would change back was a comment on the long-term effects of climate change, not something that will happen in the next few decades or even centuries. He said the president meant to say climate change was a "scam" in 2012, when Trump called it a "hoax." Trump repeated those claims before the 2016 presidential election.
"Trump can crystallize the big picture for the general public in a single punchline or phrase," Lewis wrote in an email. "A 'hoax invented by the Chinese.' It's pretty clear from the context that 'hoax' means 'scam.' As in the Paris Agreement is a 'bad deal' for America."
Still, Trump's followers have a history of picking up his falsehoods and turning them into a new argument or even policy goals. Take Trump's false assertion that millions of illegal immigrants helped tip the popular vote toward Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. He has never provided evidence to support that claim, and a voter fraud commission that was appointed to examine supposed illegal activity disbanded after failing to find a crime.
This summer, Trump claimed that California did not have adequate water to fight severe wildfires. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection immediately said that was not true and that environmental laws had no effect on firefighting. Nonetheless, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross ordered NOAA Fisheries to allow water use beyond the normal limits of the Endangered Species Act, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke blamed "radical environmentalists" and their forest conservation lawsuits on supposed water shortages.
Yesterday, less than a day after Trump made his comments, some conservative outlets were repeating his claims and attacking Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes."
"The role of man [in climate change] has not been unveiled to a way in which the president accepts," said Brian Kilmeade, host of "Fox & Friends." He then accused Stahl of having "an agenda" for asking about climate science.
"She really believes in global warming, and that's fine, and man's role in climate change, and that's OK," he said. "But I don't think you should bring your point of view — she was trying to win over the president with her point of view."
Trump's loyalists immediately picked up and repeated the false claim.
Although it is true that the Earth's climate has always varied, as kindergarteners learn when they learn about the extinction of dinosaurs, climate scientists say the current rate of rapid warming is unprecedented.
The rise in warming corresponds to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, scientists say.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/10/16/stories/1060102627
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Washington Voters to Decide on First-of-Its-Kind U.S. Carbon Fee
Oct 16, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Eric Roston and Jim Efstathiou Jr.
Measure could be first enacted by referendum in the world
Governor sees carbon effort raising $2.3 billion by 2025
Whatever you do, don’t call it a tax.
Voters in Washington state will go to the polls Nov. 6 to decide whether or not they want to impose a first-of-its-kind “fee” on carbon emissions. Ballot initiative 1631marks the second time the state will vote to put a cost on emissions. A prior effort, labeled a carbon tax, failed when it was on the ballot two years ago.
Proponents including Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates are hoping the new proposal, which the state estimates would raise $2.3 billion for clean-energy investment by 2025, will win more backing. If passes, it would be the first effort of its kind enacted by referendum anywhere in the world, making the state a global leader in climate policy at the same time the Trump administration is reversing some federal measures.
“If it passes, it would encourage carbon-tax supporters in other states—as a matter of political reality, this means ‘blue’ states—to pursue analogous referendums,” Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates in Houston, said in an email.
Fifty percent of registered voters support the measure, with 36 percent opposed, and 14 percent undecided, according to a poll conducted Oct. 4 to Oct. 9 by Elway Research and Crosscut, an online news provider. The margin of error is 5 percent.
The idea is to make carbon pollution more expensive so people will use less fossil fuel. Though with abundant hydroelectric power, Washington is among the least carbon-intensive states in the nation, ranking ninth lowest in U.S. Energy Information Administration data. It produces more hydroelectric power than any other state—more than double Oregon, which ranks second.
So the Washington measure isn’t likely to change the world, but “doing something is better than doing nothing,” said Robert Stavins, director of Harvard University’s environmental economics program.
Ballot initiative 1631 would impose a fee beginning in 2020 on major emitters of carbon dioxide, including refineries, power utilities, and oil and gas producers. The amount would start at $15 per ton of emitted carbon and increase by $2 a year, plus inflation, until the state meets its 2035 emissions goal to cut carbon to 25 percent below 1990 levels.
The NO on 1631 political-action committee estimates that it would increase state gasoline prices as much as 14 cents a gallon. The group led by the Western States Petroleum Association, which faults the measure for exempting other major polluters, has amassed more than $21.3 million to fight the state proposal. Washington is the fifth-largest state in terms of refining capacity.
The measure “creates an unlevel playing field within our industry, raising energy prices, and failing to provide adequate transparency and accountability,” said Jamal Kheiry, a spokesman for Marathon Petroleum Corp., one of the top corporate donors along with Phillips 66 and BP Plc.
UN ReportBackers of the measure, who have raised $8.49 million, were emboldened by two events last week:
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a 700-page report chastising world leaders for their inaction on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and William Nordhaus of Yale University won half of the 2018 Nobel Prize in economics for research on how carbon-emissions pricing can drive change in the energy sector and in consumer behavior.
“The U.N. report is a seal of approval, that we’ve accurately assessed the dangers to our state,” Inslee said in an interview. “It’s a scientific coda to what we’re feeling personally. We’re choking on smoke from fires the last two summers. We’re seeing our shellfish industry damaged because of ocean acidification.”
The money the measure would raise is earmarked for environmental and community programs—not the state treasury—meaning it’s technically not a tax, Harvard’s Stavins said.
In the 2016 referendum, 59 percent of Washington voters rejected the carbon tax, which would have used revenue from the levy to cut other taxes and provide rebates to low earners. Environmental activists broke ranks over what to do with the proceeds, with some pushing for spending on renewable energy, public transit and communities inundated with pollution.
The 2018 version, developed in consultation with labor and social justice groups, American Indian tribes, communities of color, health organizations, and business groups, is more politically viable because it invests in programs people want, said Mo McBroom, director of government relations for the Nature Conservancy, which has pumped $1 million into the pro-carbon-fee campaign. A third of the money raised will go to addressing forest-fire risk and water-supply issues and the rest to carbon-reduction strategies.
‘Incentives and Activities’“Our strategy is more focused on investing in the incentives and activities on the ground that will make us less reliant on fossil fuels,” she said. The 2016 measure “had no chance of passing” because the public “did not want to tax itself in order to pay for tax breaks.”
Average household fuel costs would rise by $13 a month, according to the Washington State Budget & Policy Center, a Seattle-based group that develops and analyzes economic and policy proposals.
“What we have found is that people understand that their children’s health is worth a few dollars a month,” Inslee said. “You have excess pollution and inadequate health and this simply tries to reduce that externality by imposing a cost on something that is a cost to all of us.”
—With assistance from Brian Eckhouse
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/washington-voters-to-decide-on-first-of-its-kind-us-carbon-fee
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EPA Faces Suit For Failing To Act On SO2 Noncompliance
Oct 15, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Environmental groups threatened a lawsuit today over EPA's alleged failure to act on state cleanup plans for a dozen areas that aren't complying with the 2010 Clean Air Act standard for sulfur dioxide.
"Timely implementation" of that standard "is critical," Robert Ukeiley, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity and two other groups, said in a letter to acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler serving notice that the suit could be filed in 60 days.
In eight instances, EPA has passed a statutory deadline for taking final action on state plan submittals turned in more than a year ago, the letter alleges. In four others, agency officials similarly haven't issued a required "finding of failure" for states that are behind schedule in submitting complete plans, it says.
The nonattainment areas in question are in Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The Trump administration "has ignored those deadlines for protecting the public and is instead turning a blind eye to corporate polluters," Sierra Club attorney Zachary Fabish said in a news release. Also signing on to the letter was the California-based Center for Environmental Health.
EPA press aides did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment this afternoon.
Sulfur dioxide is among a half-dozen "criteria" pollutants named in the Clean Air Act for which EPA is supposed to review and, if needed, update air quality standards every five years. The biggest sources of SO2 emissions are coal-fired power plants and other industrial facilities.
Short-term exposure is linked to breathing difficulties, with children and the elderly particularly vulnerable. SO2 also contributes to the formation of acid rain and fine particulates.
The 2010 hourly standard, based on a three-year average, is 75 parts per billion. This spring, following a fresh review, EPA proposed to leave that standard unchanged (Greenwire, May 29). Under a court-ordered timetable, the agency must make a final decision by next January.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/10/15/stories/1060102593
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EPA Finalizes Rule Weakening Obama-Era Resins Manufacturing NESHAP
Oct 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA has finalized a rule that weakens an Obama-era national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP) rule for amino-phenolic resins manufacturing and is also delaying implementation of the softened rule, in response to petitions from resin products urging the Trump administration to revise the regulation.
The final rule published in the Oct. 15 Federal Register completes reconsideration of the April 2014 risk-and-technology-review (RTR) rule, which tightened emissions limits originally set in a January 2000 rule setting maximum achievable control technology (MACT) for the sector. Amino-phenolic resins are used in the manufacturing of various plastic moldings, coatings and adhesives.
Under the Clean Air Act, EPA must conduct RTRs eight years after the initial issuance of a NESHAP for a sector. If the agency finds that “residual” public health risks remain from an industry, or new, cost-effective emissions control technology is available, or both, it can tighten the standards.
EPA has previously used RTRs to provide eased compliance terms for industry, for example by changing monitoring or reporting requirements, but it has not used them to weaken maximum achievable control technology (MACT) emissions limits themselves. The agency has said it faces an “intense” workload for conducting RTRs after environmentalists sued and won binding deadlines for the reviews, including for the resins sector.
However, the new rule results from a reconsideration, not a fresh RTR. Environmentalists, meanwhile, warn that EPA cannot legally weaken MACT limits pursuant to RTRs, and say they will litigate any attempt to do so under the agency's planned revisions to the Obama-era power plant MACT.
In the final rule for resins manufacturing, EPA is sub-categorizing the sector to reflect different types of “continuous process vents” (CPVs) used in different facilities. While the 2014 RTR set a limit of 1.9 pounds of HAP per ton of resin produced for CPVs, the reconsidered rule sets a limits of 8.6 pounds of HAP per ton of resin produced for “back-end” CPVs. For “front-end” CPVs, the new rule sets limits expressed in pounds of HAP emitted per hour, set at 0.61 pounds of HAP per hour for “reactor” CPVs and 0.022 pounds of HAP per hour for “non-reactor” CPVs.
The net effect of these changes is to reduce the emissions reductions achieved by the RTR rule over the 2000 NESHAP by 64 tons of HAP per year overall. While the Obama rule would have reduced HAP by 271 tons per year (tpy) relative to the original NESHAP, the revised rule now achieves a 207 tpy reduction, EPA says in the new regulation.
The agency is also extending compliance dates for CPVs from the Obama rule's already-passed deadline of Oct. 9, 2017, to Oct. 15, 2019, or one-year after promulgation of the reconsideration, to allow the sector time to implement the necessary process changes. Further, EPA is introducing a “work practice standard” instead of compliance with strict numeric emissions limits during periods of storage tank maintenance at the facilities, requiring that the tanks be empty during routine upkeep. The emissions impact of this should be minimal, EPA says.
In its response to comments in the new rule, EPA rebuffs environmentalists' criticisms that its one-year compliance extension and use of work practice standards during maintenance is unlawful, claiming air law legal authority for both. The agency also defends its use of the “upper predictive limit” (UPL), a statistical method used by EPA to account for variability in sources' performance that environmentalists say results in weaker MACT “floors,” or minimum emissions standards. Despite several challenges to EPA's use of the UPL in other air toxics rules, courts have so far upheld EPA's right to use the method. Nor is EPA obligated to set tougher standards that go “beyond the floor” EPA says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-finalizes-rule-weakening-obama-era-resins-manufacturing-neshap
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Legislature Begins Plotting Response To Trump Climate Rule
Oct 16, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jeffrey Tomich
The Illinois General Assembly is a month away from convening its fall veto session and possibly wrestling with one issue that appears to be gaining steam: state action related to EPA's proposed Affordable Clean Energy plan.
State Rep. Andre Thapedi, chairman of the Illinois House Public Utilities Committee, didn't hint at what lawmakers might do. But he plans to work alongside members of the House Energy Committee after EPA's public comment period closes on the Trump administration's replacement for an Obama-era regulation on carbon emissions.
"I would prefer not to wait," said Thapedi, a Democrat from Chicago's South Side. "The early bird gets the worm."
The Public Utilities Committee took the first step yesterday afternoon with a 2 ½-hour informational hearing on EPA's ACE plan in Chicago, just blocks from where EPA conducted the nation's lone public hearing on the plan two weeks ago (Greenwire, Oct. 1).
Like the EPA hearing, legislators heard a barrage of criticism of the proposed rule from environmental groups and the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D).
Meanwhile, representatives from the Illinois coal industry declined an invitation to testify at the hearing, Thapedi said.
Alec Messina, director of the Illinois EPA, testified neither in support of nor against ACE but said the agency would file comments in support of preserving state flexibility in a final rule.
"I think there's still a lot of work to be done, but by maintaining the maximum level of flexibility we really haven't backed ourselves into any one corner," Messina said.
Katie Stonewater, director of the Illinois Energy Council, part of the state Chamber of Commerce, said the development of a state implementation plan should be open, transparent and politically impartial.
The ACE rule won't be finalized for months. Even then, states would have three years to submit implementation plans, and U.S. EPA would have an additional year to approve it. That means there could be two changes of administration in Illinois before a final plan is put in place.
The first changes will occur soon as Madigan, a longtime attorney general, isn't seeking re-election. Meanwhile, two recent polls have Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) trailing Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker by more than 20 points.
With just months left in office, Madigan's office is charging hard against the ACE draft rule, which falls short of action necessary to protect Illinois from the effects of climate change that threaten cities, farms and natural resources including Lake Michigan, said Jason James, a special assistant attorney general.
"ACE is a dangerous retreat in the effort to address climate change," James said, echoing Madigan's comments to EPA earlier this month.
The draft rule for reducing carbon emissions from power plants would give states more discretion and would limit action to efficiency improvements at generating units rather than allowing states to make emissions reductions across the grid, which would involve investments in renewable energy or energy efficiency, as would have been allowed under the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.
Another provision in ACE would change requirements for when plant modifications would trigger action under a pre-construction permitting program known as New Source Review.
Although critics of the Trump administration's replacement for the Clean Power Plan aren't hopeful that comments will produce a stronger final rule, they said the Illinois Legislature can be proactive and take steps to combat climate and power plant pollution by enacting laws like the Future Energy Jobs Act.
The sweeping legislation, signed into law by Rauner in December 2016, provides as much as $235 million a year for a pair of Exelon Corp. nuclear plants in Illinois. It is expected to spur development of more than 4,000 megawatts of new wind and solar development by 2030 and increased investment in utility energy efficiency programs.
Environmental groups said the state can do more to encourage clean energy development.
Jack Darin, director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club, reminded legislators that they passed H.R. 490 in June 2017, which would urge Illinois to join the U.S. Climate Alliance and to develop a plan to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.
So far, Illinois has taken no action on the resolution.
"I don't think we're going to be getting much movement from Washington anytime soon. I think the ACE is basically a proposal to kick the can down the road for at least a few years," Darin said. "The good news is that we don't have to wait for permission from Washington to set these bold goals, and states across the country are already doing so."
Although Illinois' coal industry didn't participate yesterday, state Rep. David Reis (R), whose southern Illinois district is in the heart of coal country, filled in as a proxy.
Reis defended the coal industry and the jobs and taxes it provides downstate and peppered critics with questions and comments.
During one exchange with the Illinois attorney general's office, the conservative legislator suggested Illinois farm and timber industries are benefiting from climate change because it's bringing more rain. He also said Illinois coal plants have slashed emissions since the 1980s.
"Coal is not a dirty energy," Reis said.
Environmental and public health advocates, meanwhile, cited EPA's own data showing the ACE rule would contribute to an increase in premature deaths as well as an increase in asthma and missed school days.
Among them was Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the Respiratory Health Association, a Chicago-based nonprofit, who said the Clean Power Plan itself was inadequate to tackle the climate threat.
"To replace it with a rule that does more harm, not less, borders on maniacal," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/16/stories/1060102623
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