Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 18/10/18
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(ACC Mentioned) Barite Market Revenue Growth Predicted to 2026
Oct 18, 2018 | The Future Gadget
By Pareesh Phulkar
Barite Market report 2018-2026 focuses on the major drivers and restraints for the key players. -
(ACC Mentioned) Skeptics Named as Finalists for Science Advisory Board
Oct 18, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
Finalists for EPA's Science Advisory Board include researchers who reject mainstream climate science and who have fought against environmental regulations for years. -
Breaking Down the White House’s Fall Regulatory Agenda
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brandon Lee and Marissa Horn
The Trump administration’s fall regulatory agenda released this morning offers a window into the White House’s anti-regulatory vision for the country. It’s estimated to cut regulatory costs by $18 billion. -
EPA Says No Delay on Science Transparency Rule
Oct 18, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
EPA today reiterated that it continues to work on a controversial transparency proposal that critics warn could be used to limit the scientific studies and data that can be considered in rulemakings, after the rule was included on the Unified Agenda’s list of long-term actions. -
Purging Coolant Rules Costs Millions More Than EPA Says: Industry
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The EPA significantly understated the cost to industry of walking back Obama-era leak-repair requirements for climate-warming coolants, refrigeration and chemical industry groups told agency staff. -
EPA May Allow Furniture Workers to Keep Using Paint Stripper
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven Gibb
The EPA is signaling that commercial furniture refinishers may continue using a paint-stripping chemical called methylene chloride, reversing previous plans to significantly restrict both consumer and commercial uses. -
(ACC Mentioned) Drinking Water Quality Council Meets, No Word on MCLs
Oct 17, 2018 | WNYT
When people expect something from their government and they don't get it, they're not happy. -
(ACC Mentioned) New York Delays Action on Drinking Water Standards (1)
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
Expected approval of New York’s new drinking water standards for three contaminants was further delayed and now isn’t expected until the end of the year. -
California Agency Ramps Up Regulatory Efforts Under SCP Programme
Oct 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control is carrying out compliance checks to ensure that certain children’s sleep products do not contain the flame retardants TDCPP and TCEP. -
Transportation IG Weighs LNG Regulation
Oct 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
An internal agency watchdog is preparing to evaluate federal pipeline regulators' ability to oversee a host of new liquefied natural gas facilities. -
Exxon Mobil Bets Big on China LNG, Sidesteps Trade War
Oct 18, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Gary McWilliams and Henning Gloystein
In the middle of a Sino-U.S. trade war, the world's largest publicly traded oil and gas company is turning toward Beijing for business at a time when most of Corporate America is looking elsewhere to avoid the threat of tariffs. -
Bill Gates Opens $116 Million EU Green Energy Investment Fund
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment
By Jonathan Tirone
Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the startup fund founded by billionaire Bill Gates, opened a 100 million euro ($116 million) investment fund to help European companies develop clean technologies. -
Chemical Plant Safety Rule Rollback Presses on After Legal Loss
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
An industry-friendly replacement for Obama-era chemical facility safety rules is moving forward despite a court decision in August that questioned the agency’s basis for making changes. -
ALL ABOUT: Lithium Battery Hazards
Oct 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
The ubiquitous lithium battery—found in cellphones, laptops, power drills, and other portable technology—is regulated as a hazardous material. -
Keep Cybersecurity of the Energy Grid Clear of Politics
Oct 18, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal (Blog)
By Jason Bordoff
America’s electric grid faces escalating risk of cyberattack as it becomes more digitized and interconnected and countries like Russia and China develop new offensive cyber capabilities. -
Do DOE and the Pentagon March Together on Grid Security?
Oct 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr and Hannah Northey
Vince Guthrie's job is keeping the electricity running at the U.S. Army's vast Fort Carson base south of Colorado Springs, home to nearly a dozen military units that could be called on to deploy at a moment's notice. -
Oil-by-Rail Rises Once Again as Safety Rules Disappear
Oct 17, 2018 | DeSmog (Blog)
By Justin Mikulka
While a second oil-by-rail boom is well underway in North America, both the U.S. and Canada are taking steps that ignore or undermine the lessons and regulatory measures to improve safety since the oil train explosions and spills of years past. -
How NJ Transit’s Lifesaving Rail Task Dragged While Cost Doubled
Oct 18, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Elise Young
A New Jersey Transit safety project that’s strangling train service to Manhattan was slowed by years of agency foot-dragging while staff warned of soaring costs and a “negative public reputation,” according to documents obtained by Bloomberg. -
EPA Says it Will Re-Examine Toxic Mercury Air Limits By Next Month
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The EPA plans to complete its re-examination of toxic air pollution limits, including mercury for power plants, by November, according to the agency’s fall regulatory agenda released Oct. 17. -
EPA Proceeds With Easing Clean Air Act Permit Program (1)
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Companies have a bit longer to wait before the EPA makes it easier for them to expand plants or construct new additions without needing Clean Air Act permits. -
Decades-Old EPA Air Toxic Pollution Policy to See Changes in 2019 (1)
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Power plants, refiners, and manufacturers may be able to avoid some pollution controls under an upcoming EPA proposal to change its decades-old toxic air emissions policy. -
Trump EPA Draws Scorn for Touting Greenhouse-Gas Emissions Cuts (1)
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Eric Roston
The Trump administration celebrated reductions in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions even as it rolls back pollution curbs that could imperil that progress, drawing scorn from environmentalists. -
EPA Grants Reconsideration of Texas 'SIP Call' Claims
Oct 17, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA has granted a partial reconsideration of Texas' petition for the agency to reconsider its Obama-era “SIP Call” that banned states from using “affirmative defenses” and other regulatory exemptions for air pollution increases from industrial facilities during periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM). -
Md. Asks Court to Review EPA's Stance on Upwind Emissions
Oct 17, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Maryland has returned to court to appeal EPA's rejection of its bid for a federal crackdown on power plant pollution from outside its borders. -
Microsoft a 'Yes' On Taxing Carbon in Wash.
Oct 18, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
Microsoft Corp. this week delivered an unexpected boost to the first-in-the-nation attempt to price carbon via the ballot box.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Barite Market Revenue Growth Predicted to 2026
Oct 18, 2018 | The Future Gadget
By Pareesh Phulkar
Barite Market report 2018-2026 focuses on the major drivers and restraints for the key players. These research report also provides granular analysis of the market share, segmentation, revenue forecasts and geographic regions of the market. The Barite Market research report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of Barite Market Industry.
Baryte or barite is a white or colorless mineral and is a major source of barium. The barite group consists of anhydrite, baryte, celestine, and anglestite. Barite can be commonly found in the lead-zinc veins in limestones and are deposited through wide range of processes including, evaporation, hydrothermal, and biogenic, among others. It is an industrial mineral that contains 34.3% sulfate and 65.7% barium oxide when in pure form. The properties such as low solubility, high density, chemical inertness, and low cost makes barite an essential industrial mineral, with high demand in the oil and gas, paint and coatings, and pharmaceutical industries.
Download PDF Brochure of Barite Market Research Report @ https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/912
The Barite Market research report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global Barite Market industry for 2018-2026. The report enlists several important factors, starting from the basics to advanced market intelligence which play a crucial part in strategizing.
Barite Market report provides key statistics on the market status of the Barite Market manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the Barite Market industry. The Barite Market report also presents the vendor landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the major vendors operating in the market.
Key Vendors of Barite Market: Seaforth Mineral & Ore Co. Inc., CIMBAR Performance Minerals, Shijiazhuang Oushun Mineral Products Company Limited, Excalibar Minerals LLC, Shanghai Titanos Industry Company Limited. International Earth Products LLC. Spectrum Chemical Manufacturing Corporation, Anglo Pacific Minerals, and Desku Group Inc,
Barite Market report analyses the market potential for each geographical region based on the growth rate, macroeconomic parameters, consumer buying patterns, and market demand and supply scenarios.
Regions of Barite Market:
• Americas
• APAC
• EMEA
In the end, the report makes some important proposals for a new project of Barite Market Industry before evaluating its feasibility. Overall, the report provides an in-depth insight of 2018-2026 global Barite Market industry covering all important parameters.
Barite Market driver
Barite Market challenge
Barite Market trend
Market Dynamics
The major diver propelling the growth of this market include rapidly developing oil & gas industry. According to American Chemistry Council (ACC), due to the availability of cheap and abundant ethane and shale gas, there is a boom in the chemical industry in U.S with influx of 294 new projects by the end 2017. Further, with rise in demand for energy, there is increased demand for oil & gas, which in turn has shown a positive effect on the barite market
The growing demand for barite from the paint and coatings industry across the globe is another major factor driving barite market growth. Since barite is used as a pigment in paints, the rise in demand for paints and coatings would subsequently result in an increased demand for barite.
https://thefuturegadgets.com/27837/barite-market-revenue-growth-predicted-to-2026/
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(ACC Mentioned) Skeptics Named as Finalists for Science Advisory Board
Oct 18, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
Finalists for EPA's Science Advisory Board include researchers who reject mainstream climate science and who have fought against environmental regulations for years.
Among them is an economist from the conservative Heritage Foundation whose work was cited by President Trump as a justification for withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. Another downplays the dangers of air pollution. Several scientists are from energy companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., and the list includes a researcher who argues that more carbon dioxide is good for the planet.
A few are associated with the Heartland Institute, which has advocated for the rejection of climate science to lawmakers, teachers and voters. Among its efforts is the publication of books, like the "Roosters of the Apocalypse," which describes climate change as an "apocalyptic prophecy" (Climatewire, April 2, 2012).
The agency released a list of 174 nominees yesterday and will accept public comment until Nov. 7. The Science Advisory Board provides EPA with expert advice on a range of scientific and technical issues. Former Administrator Scott Pruitt sought to reshape the SAB by forcing off academic researchers who received agency grants, while elevating those who were funded by industry.
The latest round of selections, which will be made by acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, could shift the makeup of the board toward an industry viewpoint as EPA weighs a number of deregulatory actions. It currently has 44 members.
Last week, Wheeler replaced five of seven members on the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. He weighted the panel with industry voices and regulators from states critical of regulations adopted under former President Obama (Climatewire, Oct. 11). EPA also disbanded an affiliated panel that had been working on an assessment of the current limits on airborne particulates.
The list of finalists from which Wheeler will select the newest members of the SAB includes academics whose work has been funded by the premier science agencies in the United States, such as the National Science Foundation, NOAA and the National Institutes of Health.
Gretchen Goldman, who has a Ph.D in environmental engineering, is the research director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Kimberly Cobb, director of the Global Change Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is an expert on climate change and coral reefs. Steven Cohen is the former executive director of Columbia University's Earth Institute. Andrew Rosenberg is the director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
However, many stand out for fighting against climate science and agency regulations. The work of several has been used to justify rolling back environmental rules.
James Enstrom, who has served as a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute and is a retired professor from UCLA, has received funding from the tobacco industry to produce research that downplays the risks of secondhand smoke. He has said that his work negates the research of air pollution experts who connected fine particle air pollution, or PM2.5, with premature deaths.
A description of his qualifications for the appointment said that Enstrom's research, which has vastly different conclusions from those of the majority of scientists, justifies rolling back EPA regulations on air pollution, known as National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
"His research shows that the EPA PM2.5 NAAQS is scientifically unjustified and must undergo complete and objective reassessment," says the description submitted to EPA.
Richard Belzer is an independent consultant on regulatory economics who has worked for a number of conservative think tanks, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute and R Street Institute. His recent clients include Exxon Mobil, the American Chemistry Council and Fitzgerald Glider Kits, which is pushing EPA to roll back air pollution protections on heavy trucks.
Belzer has encouraged the Trump administration to go after EPA's endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, a scientific determination that provides the legal underpinning for agency regulations on climate-changing emissions.
"The goal here is not to change the policy but to correct the science," Belzer said at a conference hosted by the Heartland Institute last year.
John Christy, another nominee, is Alabama's state climatologist and a professor at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. He's a favorite of congressional Republicans who reject mainstream climate science and says that human-caused global warming has been exaggerated. At a House Science, Space and Technology Committee hearing, he was one of the first to suggest that a "red team" climate debate could contest established findings on global warming. He has also called on EPA to revisit the endangerment finding and has said that it is not scientifically valid.
Anthony Lupo, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Missouri, Columbia, has argued that global warming is natural, not man-made. He co-founded Climate Exit, or "Clexit," which asserts that rising levels of carbon dioxide benefit the Earth.
Kevin Dayaratna is a senior statistician and research programmer with the Heritage Foundation. He was invited to attend Trump's announcement to withdraw from the Paris Agreement in the Rose Garden in June 2017, and his work was cited by the president as a reason to quit the accord. He says in his work that the agreement could shrink the U.S. gross domestic product by $2.5 trillion within two decades. (Trump stated that it would arrive within a decade.) The report was criticized by some as being misleading, because that amount is less than 1 percent of the aggregate GDP over that period, and the report did not account for the cost of taking no climate change action.
William Happer, an emeritus physics professor at Princeton University, is also on the list. Happer helped Pruitt develop the red-team concept and heads the CO2 Coalition, which received $150,000 in funding from the Mercer family in 2016 to suggest that more carbon dioxide would benefit humans.
Happer was recently appointed to serve on the Trump administration's National Security Council as the senior director for emerging technologies.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1060103611/search?keyword=%22american+chemistry+council%22
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Breaking Down the White House’s Fall Regulatory Agenda
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brandon Lee and Marissa Horn
The Trump administration’s fall regulatory agenda released this morning offers a window into the White House’s anti-regulatory vision for the country. It’s estimated to cut regulatory costs by $18 billion.
“I think within a period of about another year we will have just about everything that we wanted,” President Donald Trump said Oct. 17.
The agenda, released each year in the spring and fall, lists all rules that agencies are actively working on and what’s fallen to the back burner. There is no penalty for not meeting the listed dates, which aren’t always realistic.
Trump boasted his administration had “set a record” for removing costly, unnecessary regulations—a claim disputed by critics who said the White House wildly exaggerated savings and overlooked the benefits of many rules.
One of the reasons the economy is so strong is that businesses are not hampered by the “ridiculous regulations” in place, particularly EPA rules, Trump said at an Oval Office meeting with Cabinet secretaries and staff to discuss his administration’s regulatory agenda.
Reporters from Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, Bloomberg Government, and Bloomberg Environment dug through the regulatory agenda to see which rules have moved, and where.
Defense, Homeland, and Trade AgendaAthletic Shoes: New Balance could be among the beneficiaries of a proposed rule by the Defense Department that seeks to ensure new military recruits get American-made sneakers for training. That proposal marks a step that backs a long fight by New Balance and Northeastern congressional supporters to offer U.S.-manufactured athletic shoes to the Pentagon. Read more from Roxana Tiron.
Immigration: The Homeland Security Department is adding new immigration regulations to an already lengthy list, with a new focus on immigrant investors, asylum seekers, and agricultural and seasonal guestworkers, under its agenda. Read more from Laura D. Francis.
Foreign Trademarks: The Patent and Trademark Office is working on a rule that would require foreign trademark applicants to have a U.S.-licensed attorney. The office is set to issue a proposal in November, the agency said in its agenda. Read more from Peter Leung.
Finance and Tax AgendaQuarterly Earnings Reports: Corporate executives and investors might soon be able to tell the Securities and Exchange Commission what they think of Trump’s call for public companies to release fewer earnings reports. The SEC may draft a notice for public feedback on “ways to ease companies’ compliance burdens but still maintain appropriate levels of disclosure and investor protection” related to quarterly earnings releases, Andrew Ramonas reports.
Tax Law Regulations: Seventeen regulations implementing the 2017 tax law are at the top of the Treasury Department’s action list for fiscal year 2019, according to its regulatory agenda. Most of those projects already were singled out in an Internal Revenue Service priority guidance plan. The list includes high-profile rules on the tax overhaul’s limit on the amount of debt interest payments that businesses can write off and guidance on foreign tax credit issues arising from new international changes. Read more from Allyson Versprille.
Abusive Practices: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is adding a rule to define abusive acts and practices to its rulemaking agenda. It didn’t specify a date to begin that rulemaking, but such actions typically are initiated within 12 months of publication. The Dodd-Frank Act included a prohibition on “abusive” conduct in creating the CFPB’s enforcement authority, in addition to prohibiting “unfair” and “deceptive” practices, which have long been used by other enforcement agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission. Read more from Lydia Beyoud.
Dodd-Frank Changes: The FDIC’s regulatory agenda is expanding four-fold as it implements Dodd-Frank Act changes for small and midsize banks that went into effect last May. The 13 items on agency’s semi-annual regulatory agenda include a joint rulemaking from the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on easing stress test requirements for banks with between $100 billion and $250 billion in assets, Jeff Bater reports.
Banking Privacy: A report set for November at the Federal Trade Commission, two years after the close of a public comment period, could lead to an updated federal privacy rule, governing how banks protect consumers’ data. The agency has been looking at how to update the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Safeguard rules, given the existing patchwork of federal, state, and local rules. Daniel R. Stoller has more.
Health Care and Drugs AgendaData Breach Reparations: The administration plans in January to wade into its proposal to share money extracted from hospitals or health systems that broke federal health privacy laws with those harmed by the breaches, according to the agenda. The proposal would offer a percentage of penalties or settlements paid by health organizations responsible for data breaches to victims whose records were compromised. Read more from Alex Ruoff.
TRICARE Bias Audits: TRICARE health-care facilities can hang onto the hope that they’d be made permanently exempt from federal contractor anti-discrimination audits for the near future, according to the Labor Department’s agenda. TRICARE is the health-care program for military personnel operating in civilian capacities. Paige Smith has more.
Research Misconduct: The Food and Drug Administration is withdrawing a rule proposal that would have required drug and device companies who sponsored a study to promptly alert the agency of any information that suggests a researcher may have falsified data, Jeannie Baumann reports.
Employee Wellness: Employers waiting for an update on controversial wellness regulations from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission might have to stay on hold a bit longer, according to its agenda. The wellness regulations were previously slated for a proposed update by January 2019, but the agenda now sets it for June 2019. Read more from Paige Smith and Jay-Anne Casuga.
Employment and Safety AgendaFederal Layoffs: The federal government’s chief HR office is proposing to revise regulations on layoffs, performance-based demotions and removal actions, and other disciplinary actions, according to the regulatory agenda. Its proposed rule would implement provisions of Executive Order 13,839 from Trump that weren’t struck down by a court ruling. That order generally made it easier to fire or take other disciplinary actions against federal workers. Louis C. LaBrecque has more.
Worker Safety: Employers won’t know until June what changes the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will issue for reporting mandates for injury and illness enacted under Obama. The final rule revising reporting requirements is set for a June release. Read more from Bruce Rolfsen and Sam Pearson.
Small Business Retirement Plans: A Labor Department proposal that would expand access to retirement savings plans to more small-business employees is through the Office of Management and Budget’s review process. The publication of the rule proposal could happen in days to weeks. Read more from Madison Alder.
Group Retirement Plans: The Treasury Department will unveil a plan by June to protect the tax status of group retirement plans and modify the age retirees can freely access the money they’ve saved. Read more from Warren Rojas.
Religious Exemptions: The Labor Department plans to update its rules to reflect current religious exemptions that federal contractors may use as defense against accusations of workplace discrimination. That move may add to growing tensions between religious liberty rights for businesses and anti-bias protections for LGBT individuals. The department’s Office of Federal Contractor Compliance Programs could issue the proposed rule as early as December. Read more from Jay-Anne Casuga.
Union Election Rules: The NLRB is apparently moving a bit slower to change the rules on how fast workers can hold elections to join a union than it is on a plan to rewrite the “joint employer” rule. The National Labor Relations Board’s regulatory agenda focuses only on the board’s ongoing rulemaking to restrict circumstances when multiple employers can face liability for the same workplace law violations. It doesn’t mention plans to update union election rules the business community has been hoping that the board would address since Republicans took control of the NLRB in the Trump White House. Read more from Hassan A. Kanu.
Environmental Conservation Agenda‘Secret Science’ Rule: The EPA’s plans to restrict the type of science it will use to craft regulations is on the back-burner for now. The EPA is pushing back its goals of issuing the rule until January 2020, according to the agenda. That new timeline means that the April 30 proposal could languish at the EPA for almost two years. Read more from Abby Smith.
Clean Air Act Permits Program: Companies will need to wait a bit longer before the EPA makes it easier to expand plants or build new additions without needing Clean Air Act permits. The EPA delayed by five months the dates for when it is set to release its changes to a Clean Air Act permitting program for construction and expansion, known as the New Source Review program, Amena H. Saiyid reports.
Obama Waters Rule Repeal: The EPA is pushing back its timetable for repealing a landmark Obama-era waters jurisdiction rule by at least four months in a move that might prolong confusion over how and where to implement it in the interim. The agency is now planning on finalizing this repeal in March of 2019, rather than next month as initially planned, David Schultz reports.
Toxic Mercury Air Limits: The EPA plans to complete its re-examination of toxic air pollution limits, including mercury for power plants, by November. The EPA is reconsidering the economic basis for 2012 limits set in the Obama administration for toxic air pollution that power plants emit. The EPA said it won’t revise the standards, but is following the Supreme Court’s orders to re-examine how the Obama White House calculated costs and benefits of the air pollution limits. Read more from Amena H. Saiyid.
Energy and Chemicals AgendaPower Rule: The EPA’s efforts to repeal and replace the Obama administration’s signature climate policy could be complete next spring. The agency is aiming for March 2019 to finish repealing the Clean Power Plan, the previous White House’s regulation setting carbon dioxide limits for existing power plants. The EPA is also gearing up to complete the replacement, called the Affordable Clean Energy rule, that month. Read more from Abby Smith.
Efficiency Standards: The Energy Department is moving slowly on its efficiency standards for home and commercial appliances, but indefinite delays remain on over a dozen other appliance rules. The department moved efficiency standards for commercial ice machines, small electric motors, and walk-in freezers from its long-term agenda to pre-rule stages, but 14 other appliance standards are still in limbo. Read more from Rebecca Kern.
Chemical Facilities: The industry-friendly replacement for Obama-era chemical plant safety rules will move forward, despite an August court ruling questioning the EPA’s basis for making changes. Revisions to the risk management program, a set of safety standards aiming to keep first responders and communities near chemical plants safe, are expected by January. Read more from Sam Pearson.
Pesticide Rules: The White House is postponing the release of two farmworker protection rule proposals that would roll back changes made under the Obama administration. The EPA is weighing changes to the Worker Protection Standard and Certification of Pesticide Applicators Rule in January 2019. Those changes were previously set for this September, Tiffany Stecker reports.
Chemicals, Crude, Coal: Chemical manufacturers, electric power utilities and the petroleum and coal industries could be required to show the EPA they can afford cleanups if they cause an environmental disaster. The EPA is weighing whether to issue a financial assurance regulation for those industries, nearly a year after the former EPA head Scott Pruitt aborted years of work on a similar rule on hardrock mines, Sylvia Carignan reports.
Communications AgendaHearing-Disabled Reimbursements: The Federal Communications Commission is planning to reduce a reimbursement for hearing-impaired phone services that display a call’s text. The FCC could adopt a change in the reimbursement formula within 12 months. Read more from Jon Reid.
Anti-Spam Rule: The Federal Trade Commission is considering changing its rule enforcing a federal anti-spam law. FTC staff hopes to send a recommendation to the commission on possible changes by December, Alexis Kramer reports.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/breaking-down-the-white-houses-fall-regulatory-agenda
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EPA Says No Delay on Science Transparency Rule
Oct 18, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
EPA today reiterated that it continues to work on a controversial transparency proposal that critics warn could be used to limit the scientific studies and data that can be considered in rulemakings, after the rule was included on the Unified Agenda’s list of long-term actions.
“This is not a delay,” EPA spokesman Michael Abboud said in a statement. “The Agency is continuing its internal rulemaking development process for this action.”
The long-term list identifies regulations that agencies do not expect to finalize in the next 12 months.
“However, the Agency may advance rules on a faster timeline,” Abboud said.
Abboud noted that the spring version of the Unified Agenda, which listed the science transparency rulemaking on the active docket, did not project a deadline to finalize the rule.
WHAT’S NEXT: EPA got nearly 600,000 comments on its proposal earlier this year and needs time to review and respond to them, according to Abboud.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Purging Coolant Rules Costs Millions More Than EPA Says: Industry
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The EPA significantly understated the cost to industry of walking back Obama-era leak-repair requirements for climate-warming coolants, refrigeration and chemical industry groups told agency staff.
The missing costs, which include increased energy consumption and potential retraining of equipment service workers, came as part of a chorus of opposition directed at the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to reverse the Obama administration rule during an Oct. 16 hearing.
Major chemical makers, refrigeration groups, organizations representing service workers, and educators in the industry joined environmental groups in urging EPA staff to maintain the 2016 rule.Momentum Lost
“We all worked together to help the EPA create something that helped move the program forward and eliminate all the ambiguity,” Howard Weiss, executive vice president of the ESCO Group, which focuses on technical education in the heating and refrigeration industry.
“It just seems right now what we’re doing is moving everything backwards,” Weiss added.
The Obama administration in 2016—at the request of industry—extended leak repair requirements so hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and their climate-friendlier alternatives are trapped. HFC chemicals are greenhouse gases hundreds of times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The Trump EPA, in a Sept. 18 proposal, said it would reverse course, suggesting it didn’t have the authority to apply the leak-repair guidelines to HFCs and their alternatives. EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler touted projected net savings to industry of $24 million annually.Undoing Progress
Industry groups say the opposite is true. Walking back the leak repair guidelines could cost companies millions of dollars and undo the progress they have made in complying with the Obama-era rule they consider to be best practices.
The refrigeration and chemical industries have backed a transition away from HFCs, urging the Trump administration to support a 2016 global deal phasing down the refrigerants. The White House has been relatively silent on the agreement, which would need Senate ratification.
Helen Walter-Terrinoni, fluorochemical global regulatory policy manager with the Chemours Co. said, “without this rule, substances used in the same application would be subject to different regulatory schemes.”
The 2016 rule took a cost-effective approach that would reduce industry costs, she said.
Chemical companies and refrigeration groups argued the Obama administration’s approach was most cost-effective because it made leak-repair requirements for HFCs and their climate-friendly alternatives consistent with those for ozone-depleting chemicals. HFCs don’t deplete the ozone, and they often served as replacements for chemicals that do.
Absent the requirements for HFCs, equipment leaks might not be caught or repaired as quickly, and leaking equipment will use a lot more energy, they said.
Environmentalists added that the EPA’s analysis also doesn’t properly take into account the cost of increased HFC emissions, which the agency’s own estimates project could add at least 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year to the atmosphere.Energy Costs?
Heating and refrigeration equipment is responsible for at least 40 percent of electricity consumption, Jason Obrzut, director of education at the HVAC Technical Institute in Chicago, told EPA staffers. The Trump proposal would only magnify that by allowing systems to continue to operate with leaking refrigerants, he added.
Obrzut and other industry representatives said the EPA clearly didn’t consider that cost in its proposal.
Obrzut suggested the EPA’s failure to include these costs runs afoul of a George W. Bush-era executive order requiring agencies to issue a statement on the energy effects of regulations that will significantly impact power consumption.
The EPA also doesn’t put a proper dollar amount on the increase HFC emissions that would result from its proposal, environmentalists said.
If the agency fully monetized the climate damages from its plans, the benefits of maintaining the Obama rule would far outweigh the costs, Alex Hillbrand, an energy efficiency and climate advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said.Retraining Workers
Walking back the leak-repair requirements also would be costly to educators in the heating and refrigeration industry who teach service workers how to best handle refrigerant chemicals.
Cengage Learning, one of the four major publishers of textbooks in the industry, could see losses of at least $1 million if it has to rewrite learning materials and retrain workers, Eugene Silberstein, who has authored textbooks for the company, said at the hearing.
“To remove the very regulations that have been put in place to increase the quality of our industry will only serve to move our industry in the wrong direction,” Silberstein said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/purging-coolant-rules-costs-millions-more-than-epa-says-industry
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EPA May Allow Furniture Workers to Keep Using Paint Stripper
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven Gibb
The EPA is signaling that commercial furniture refinishers may continue using a paint-stripping chemical called methylene chloride, reversing previous plans to significantly restrict both consumer and commercial uses.
The solvent is one of the top 10 chemicals the agency is re-examining under a new chemicals law and major companies like Lowe’s, Home Depot Inc., the Sherwin-Williams Co., and Walmart Inc. have pledged to remove products containing the chemical by the end of the year.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s fall regulatory agenda said the scope of the final methylene chloride regulation (RIN:2070-AK07) it’s crafting may be narrower than previously proposed, by allowing commercial furniture workers to continue using the chemical under different restrictions than do-it-yourself users.
According to the notice, “while EPA proposed to identify the use of methylene chloride in commercial furniture refinishing as presenting an unreasonable risk, EPA intends to further evaluate the commercial furniture refinishing use and develop an appropriate regulatory risk management approach under the process for risk evaluations for existing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act.” Poor Ventilation Concerns
Concerns about bathtub refinishers and other home and maintenance worker exposures spread after coating strippers usage resulted in over 63 deaths associated with the use of the solvents in poorly ventilated spaces primarily by do-it-yourself users, according to a coalition of chemical safety advocates. The deaths were flagged by relatives in meetings with former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt last spring.
Liz Hitchcock, acting director of the chemical safety coalition Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, said that although it’s good the EPA is going forward with some regulatory action, “it would be substantially better if it didn’t just protect do-it-yourself users but also protected commercial workers exposed in furniture refinishing operations.”
“This is deeply troubling,” Richard Denison, senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, said. “EPA acknowledges unreasonable risk from this use but has decided to fold it into the ongoing risk evaluation of methylene chloride, which again will delay any action to mitigate this risk for years.”
The agency also announced that it will separate out the other paint stripper, N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), which was part of the 2017 methylene chloride proposed rule, into another regulation. The “EPA intends to address NMP use in paint and coating removal in the risk evaluation for NMP and to consider any resulting risk reduction requirements in a separate regulatory action” (RIN:2070-AK46).
—With assistance from Tiffany Stecker.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-may-allow-furniture-workers-to-keep-using-paint-stripper
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(ACC Mentioned) Drinking Water Quality Council Meets, No Word on MCLs
Oct 17, 2018 | WNYT
When people expect something from their government and they don't get it, they're not happy.
"You don't know what it feels like to get a letter saying you can't drink your water," one man told New York State's Drinking Water Quality Council Wednesday morning. "I'm angry as hell."
People aren't just angry, they're fed up because they're not comfortable drinking up any water from their own faucets.
"Please do the right thing," a Petersburgh resident told the Council. "Peoples' lives depend on it."
The 12-member Board, which met Wednesday morning in Albany and New York via teleconferencing, can make a lot of people feel better. They've been charged with setting maximum contaminant levels for PFOA, PFOs, and 1,4 Dioxane, all of which are toxic chemicals that have been detected in municipal drinking water supplies across the state, including Hoosick Falls.
"The inaction of this Council makes no sense to me considering the risk that these chemicals pose to our families, children, and the unborn," said Frank Natale, representing Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 7 at the public hearing.
The state promised those standards by October 2, but missed their deadline.
"The process of setting a drinking water standard in New York with such a rapidly growing field of science makes it challenging and complicated," said Brad Hutton, Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health. "I think the Drinking Water Council got some good presentations today on that evolving science."
With more than 90,000 chemicals currently in use by U.S. industry, Hutton says it makes sense to be thorough.
"I don't think anyone should be happy today," said Liz Moran, of Environmental Advocates of New York. "This is a pattern at this point, delay, delay, delay. It seems to be a repeat thing with this administration."
It should be pointed out, members of the American Chemistry Council attended, and spoke at Wednesday's meeting. There are people who believe they are intent on downplaying the health impact of many of the chemicals found in drinking water.
Meanwhile, Hutton points out Governor Cuomo announced $200 million in funding recently so that municipal drinking water systems can be treated for emerging contaminants.
The next meeting is scheduled for next month.
https://wnyt.com/news/drinking-water-quality-board-contaminant-levels-pfoa-brad-hutton-liz-moran/5112432/?cat=10114
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(ACC Mentioned) New York Delays Action on Drinking Water Standards (1)
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
Expected approval of New York’s new drinking water standards for three contaminants was further delayed and now isn’t expected until the end of the year.
The state Drinking Water Quality Council failed to act on the standards at its Oct. 17 meeting, despite a statutory deadline of Oct. 2 for the measures. Instead, the Council heard reports from the Department of Health and took public comments.
Brad Hutton, deputy commissioner of public health, told Bloomberg Environment that “we are still way ahead of the game” and “still moving at an aggressive pace.” He said the Council would vote on the standards at a yet-to-be-determined meeting in November or December.
New York was expected to join at least eight other states that aren’t waiting for the Environmental Protection Agency and have taken action to regulate the chemicals. At least 10 other states are considering action.
The standards would set maximum contaminant levels for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), and 1,4-dioxane.
New Levels?
The Council is expected to set a maximum contaminant level of somewhere between 4 and 35 parts per trillion for PFOA and 8 and 35 parts per trillion for PFOS, based on recommendations from the state Health Department’s Bureau of Toxic Substance Assessment. It is expected to set a maximum contaminant level of somewhere between 0.35 and 7.2 for 1,4-dioxane.
The Council may also consider action at some point on a broader range of chemical compounds known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Gary Ginsberg, director of the Health Department’s Center for Environmental Health, told the Council that New York and other Northeastern states—Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont—have been holding discussions on the need to address at least three other PFAS chemicals.
Steve Risotto, senior director of chemical products and technology at the American Chemistry Council, urged the council to take “a thoughtful and scientific approach before setting the standards.
He said numerous studies have drawn “varied and sometimes conflicting conclusions” on the health effects of the chemicals in humans. Risotto also urged the Council not to set combined limits for PFOA and PFOS, saying there’s “not sufficient scientific basis.”
Kimberly Ong, staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, urged the Drinking Water Council to set combined levels for PFOA and PFOS of 2-5 parts per trillion.
Under Pressure
New York’s Drinking Water Quality Council was created in 2017 and has been under pressure from environmental groups and Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature to set the standards. PFOA and PFOS have been found at several sites in New York, including Hoosick Falls.
PFOA and PFOS are used in nonstick coatings and water repellents and have been linked to developmental delays, liver and immune system problems, and increased cancer risk.
“Delays are dangerous,” Elizabeth Moran, water and natural resources director for Environmental Advocates of New York, said in a statement.
“Every second the governor, his Department of Health, and the Drinking Water Quality Council fail to address these dangerous chemicals, the greater the chance that more New Yorkers will get sick,” she said.
(Updated with reporting in the sixth through 10th paragraphs.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/new-york-delays-action-on-drinking-water-standards-1
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California Agency Ramps Up Regulatory Efforts Under SCP Programme
Oct 18, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control is carrying out compliance checks to ensure that certain children’s sleep products do not contain the flame retardants TDCPP and TCEP.
The checks come after the agency revealed that no notices were submitted under its Safer Consumer Products programme to inform the DTSC that such uses are ongoing.
California designated children’s foam-padded sleeping products containing these flame retardants as its first priority products under its SCP programme, effective last July. Under the state’s law, manufacturers had either to stop using the targeted chemicals, or to begin an analysis to determine if safer alternatives exists.
Manufacturers had until 1 September 2017 to notify the agency if they were planning to conduct such an analysis. But the agency confirmed to Chemical Watch that it did not receive any notifications, and it said this indicates that manufacturers removed the chemicals before the regulation became effective.
The DTSC is now conducting compliance testing to verify that the products covered by the regulation no longer contain the substances.Paint strippers
Meanwhile, the agency has told Chemical Watch that, in the last two months, it has begun an informal, pre-regulatory process for designating paint and varnish strippers and graffiti removers containing N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) a priority product.
"Once we digest the comments received and make any related changes we will [begin] the formal rulemaking proposal and that will have an associated comment period and hearing prior to formal listing sometime later in 2019, if all goes as planned," an agency spokesperson said.
The DTSC is hoping that a regulation listing paint strippers with methylene chloride as a priority product will become effective as of 1 January 2019. NMP, a common substitute for methylene chloride in paint strippers and other products, has reprotoxic properties, according to the DTSC.
The EPA issued a proposal to ban methylene chloride paint strippers under TSCA in the final weeks of the Obama administration. But the rule has stalled under the agency's current leadership.
The EPA announced in May, after a meeting with campaigners, that it would finalise a rule addressing methylene chloride "shortly". The agency has slated a December release for the final rule, according to its autumn semi-annual regulatory agenda update.
Although NMP was also addressed in the original proposal, EPA says it intends to address it in its ongoing risk evaluation, and "to consider any resulting risk reduction requirements in a separate regulatory action".
The products have remained in the spotlight in recent months, following an NGO campaign by Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and several retailers committing to phase out products containing the substance.Next priorities
Work continues gathering information and feedback on a set of product categories named in the DTSC’s 2018-2020 priority products work plan. One such category – nail salon products – is coming into focus, with the agency expecting to "propose some products for consideration in the next four months, maybe sooner".
Additionally, the public is able to nominate candidates for the programme’s consideration via an online ‘petition’ portal.
It has received two recommendations in total, the most recent being for tires containing zinc. The DTSC is considering the recommendation, which was submitted in May by the California Stormwater Quality Association.
In 2016, the agency received a recommendation for BPA in can linings from NGO the Centre for Environmental Health. It determined that the petition did not provide "sufficient detail" to take the recommendation forward.Safer Consumer Products programme
The SCP programme enables the DTSC to identify and take regulatory action on priority products that contain one or more chemicals of concern. The substances, known as Candidate Chemicals, are determined from a number of authoritative lists, including the EU’s candidate list of SVHCs, California’s Proposition 65 law and Washington state’s PBT list.
Products that have been adopted as priority products are:children’s foam-padded sleeping products with TDCPP or TCEP, effective July 2017;spray polyurethane foam with unreacted MDI, effective July 2018, but paused subject to an informal dispute.
Proposed priority products are:paint strippers containing methylene chloride. Comments were required by 18 January;carpets and rugs containing PFAS substances. The comment deadline was 16 April; andlaundry detergents containing NPE. Comments were due on 25 June.
The agency is in the process of considering submitted comments for all three proposals.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71090/california-agency-ramps-up-regulatory-efforts-under-scp-programme
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Transportation IG Weighs LNG Regulation
Oct 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
An internal agency watchdog is preparing to evaluate federal pipeline regulators' ability to oversee a host of new liquefied natural gas facilities.
In a memo issued this week, the Department of Transportation inspector general said it has "self-initiated" an audit oversight of LNG at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
PHMSA regulates 151 LNG plants in 38 states and territories, in conjunction with state officials. The IG statement said PHMSA's LNG responsibilities are likely to increase, noting that the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates American LNG exports will grow fivefold between 2018 and 2030.
"To successfully meet its future challenges, PHMSA will need effective and efficient oversight of these facilities," the IG statement said.
The IG plans to assess the agency's oversight of companies and states. The audit process is to begin this month.
LNG is a supercooled version of natural gas, its volume reduced 600-fold by bringing it to a temperature of minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit.
The status of any revision to federal LNG rules is unclear. PHMSA held a workshop in 2016 that officials said was geared toward an upcoming revamp of LNG safety regulations.
Since the 2016 public workshop, PHMSA has shown no signs of moving forward on a revamp of LNG regulations. The issue is noted at the bottom of the Department of Transportation's long-term list of potential regulations in the agency's "unified agenda" of ongoing rulemakings.
But a longtime LNG safety expert has been warning federal regulators that LNG export terminals face explosion risks that are not accounted for under current safety regulations.
Jerry Havens, a retired University of Arkansas chemical engineering professor, has told PHMSA those regulations were written to accommodate LNG import terminals, not the rapidly growing U.S. LNG export business, which comes with different engineering issues.
Havens, who developed a computer model that was once widely used for gas dispersion analysis, submitted comments saying export terminals have high-explosion-risk hydrocarbons not common at import terminals (Energywire, Sept. 26).
PHMSA and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently developed an agreement to work together to review LNG export terminal applications.
Under the agreement, LNG developers will work more directly with PHMSA to clarify any questions that come up in reviewing their plans, which the agencies said would streamline the process and reduce permitting time. FERC is under pressure from Congress to move applicants more quickly through its review process.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/18/stories/1060103589
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Exxon Mobil Bets Big on China LNG, Sidesteps Trade War
Oct 18, 2018 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Gary McWilliams and Henning Gloystein
In the middle of a Sino-U.S. trade war, the world's largest publicly traded oil and gas company is turning toward Beijing for business at a time when most of Corporate America is looking elsewhere to avoid the threat of tariffs.
Exxon Mobil Corp is placing big bets on China's soaring liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand, coupling multi-billion dollar production projects around the world with its first mainland storage and distribution outlet.
Its gas strategy is moving on two tracks: expanding output of the super-cooled gas in places such as Papua New Guinea and Mozambique, and creating demand for those supplies in China by opening Exxon's first import and storage hub, according to an Exxon manager and people briefed on the company's plans.
That combination "will guarantee us a steady outlet for lots of our LNG for decades," said the Exxon manager who was not authorized to discuss the project and spoke on condition of anonymity. One of the company's top policy goals this year, the manager said, is building its Chinese client roster.
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"China's natural gas demand is rising really fast, with imports soaring well over 10 percent annually at the moment because of the government gasification program and due to fast rising industrial demand, including in petrochemicals," the Exxon manager said.
(Graphic: China LNG imports by origin - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PlXUcf)
An Exxon spokesperson declined to provide an executive to discuss the company's LNG investments in China.
Years in the making, the strategy delivers an added benefit: helping Exxon sidestep a global trade war. Exxon's massive LNG projects in Papua New Guinea and Mozambique will not incur the 10 percent tariff China put on U.S. gas as part of the trade war between the Trump administration and Beijing.
Jason Feer, head of business intelligence at LNG tanker brokers Poten & Partners, which tracks LNG sales, said the deal provides "a sign that China is willing to let foreign interests invest in things that in the past were seen as strategic."
Exxon is among the top ranked U.S. companies that are pushing ahead in China despite the trade dispute, but it is not alone. U.S. and European car makers are opening or expanding China plants to avoid hefty tariffs and transport costs. Tesla Inc this month acquired a Shanghai site for a car and battery-manufacturing complex.EDITORS’ PICKSA Tragedy in the Tattoo Parlor‘Too Little Too Late’: Bankruptcy Booms Among Older AmericansThe Nazi Downstairs: A Jewish Woman’s Tale of Hiding in Her Home
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Exxon's Asian and African LNG will offer a cost advantage over U.S. rivals' exports that face tariffs and greater transport, while China's support for the project offers a rebuttal to Trump administration complaints about the country's closed markets.
The decision to expand its LNG production and open an import terminal in the world's fastest growing LNG market is a step by Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods to pull the company out of an earnings rut that has left its shares flat over the past seven years.
TRADE WAR RISKS
Woods appeared holding discussions with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on state-run media last month days after disclosing local approvals for the LNG terminal and a massive chemical project in Guangdong province. Since becoming CEO last year, Woods has pushed Exxon to take greater risks, including in energy trading operations.
His timing with LNG is key. Next year, China will become the world's largest importer of natural gas, and its LNG imports are forecast to rise 70 percent by 2020, from 38.1 million tonnes last year, estimates Beijing consultancy SIA Energy.
Exxon has not publicly named its partner in the import terminal. State-run power company Guangdong Yuedian Group said on its website it will join the project. BP Plc is the only other foreign oil major with a stake in a Chinese LNG terminal.
Yuedian did not respond to a request for comment.
The multi-billion dollar bets still faces risks from the Sino-U.S. trade dispute. China has vowed to respond to any new tariffs by the Trump administration, which recently accused China of meddling in November elections and trying to recruit Americans to spy for it. But it remains unclear what that response will be and if it puts agreements like Exxon's in China in jeopardy.
In addition to the LNG terminal, Exxon received approval for its first wholly-owned chemical plant in China, becoming one of two foreign firms including Germany's BASF to gain approval to operate such plants without a local sponsor.
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The terminal and chemicals plants combined will cost about $9 billion to build, consultancy IHS Markit estimates.
(Graphic: China's petrochemical demand is rising fast - https://tmsnrt.rs/2PB6aF6)
CALL FOR NEW PROJECTS
China in 2017 embarked on a huge program to shift millions of households and factories from coal to natural gas for power and heating, a move to clear the smoggy skies over its cities.
That surge has injected new life into an LNG industry that suffered from plunging prices between 2014 and 2017, which forced energy companies to put off liquefaction projects.
But with prices for LNG rising this year, major producers have boosted investment. In addition to Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell PLC this month gave the go-ahead to a $31 billion LNG Canada project that will export fuel primarily to China.
"Major Independent Oil Companies such as Exxon aim for large-scale tier one positions, and in the LNG game that is Qatar, East Africa, and possibly some North American and Papua New Guinea projects," said Saul Kavonic, oil and gas researcher for Credit Suisse in Sydney, Australia.
Exxon and other LNG producers also are adapting to changing buyer behavior. In the past, LNG was dominated by long-term supply contracts - especially with Japanese and South Korean buyers - that could span several decades and in which buyer and seller agree to a fixed monthly volume at a set price formula, usually priced off crude oil.
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That is changing, in part because China's importers either demand more contract flexibility or simply buy LNG at short-notice in the spot market whenever they need it.
The shift away from such rigid price-supply deals is forcing producers to trade new LNG supplies and give import terminals a larger role in encouraging spot purchases.
"LNG players are increasingly adopting an LNG portfolio model whereby supply projects are not directly linked to end customers, with over 50 percent of contracts now coming from portfolio suppliers rather than specific projects," said Credit Suisse's Kavonic.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/10/17/business/17reuters-exxon-mobil-lng-china.html
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Bill Gates Opens $116 Million EU Green Energy Investment Fund
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment
By Jonathan Tirone
Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the startup fund founded by billionaire Bill Gates, opened a 100 million euro ($116 million) investment fund to help European companies develop clean technologies.
“We need new technologies to avoid the worst impacts of climate change,” Gates said in Brussels, where he met with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. “Scientists and entrepreneurs who are developing innovations to address climate change need capital to build companies that can deliver those innovations to the global market.”
The $1 billion Breakthrough Energy fund established by Gates in 2016 was founded to pursue the long-shot technological breakthroughs needed to avert climate change that are too risky for venture capitalists. Other investors include Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder Jack Ma. Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg LP, also provided seed funding to Breakthrough.
“The scale and speed of what is needed to reach our climate goals require innovative thinking and bold action,” European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said in a statement. “Not only is this new public-private investment vehicle being set up in record time, it will also serve as an example of us joining forces to accelerate breakthrough innovation.”
Breakthrough Energy reported last month that it’s taken stakes in companies pursuing fusion energy, power storage and bio-technologies.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/bill-gates-opens-116-million-eu-green-energy-investment-fund
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Chemical Plant Safety Rule Rollback Presses on After Legal Loss
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
An industry-friendly replacement for Obama-era chemical facility safety rules is moving forward despite a court decision in August that questioned the agency’s basis for making changes.
Revisions to the risk management program (RIN:2050-AG95), a set of safety standards aimed at keeping first responders and communities near chemical facilities safe, are expected by January, the Environmental Protection Agency said in its fall regulatory agenda released Oct. 17.
The dispute over the rules began in the early days of the Trump administration, when the EPA delayed the Obama-era rule by 20 months to give the new administration time to replace it.
It didn’t go as planned. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Aug. 17 the action exceeded the EPA’s authority, vacating the delay. That left the old rule to take effect and threw the administration’s deregulatory strategy into disarray.
Environmental groups that defeated the 20-month delay before the D.C. Circuit have called on the EPA to withdraw the replacement rule and implement the Obama proposal instead.Similar Set of Issues
Some of the same errors that doomed the 20-month delay are also present in the replacement rule, Bethany Davis Noll, litigation director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University, told Bloomberg Law.
The agency could have a stronger case if it let the original rule take effect and proposed changes down the line based on real data developed during the implementation, Noll said.
“The D.C. Circuit confirmed they have to give a reasoned explanation,” Noll said. “They can’t just give guesses.”
Since the court loss, about 12,500 facilities using high-risk chemicals are starting to face compliance requirements from the Obama administration rule. However, some of the most far-reaching components have yet to take effect.
Under a proposed rule the EPA issued May 17, companies would be spared from analyzing whether they can run facilities using safer chemical processes and would see an eased compliance audit process and reduced requirements to share information with the public. They also wouldn’t have to conduct a root cause investigation to determine what went wrong after chemicals are released or almost released.
The Obama administration estimated its program would cost companies about $131 million per year but prevent some of an estimated $274.7 million in annual damages from unplanned chemical releases. The EPA now says the rollback will save companies $88 million per year.
The EPA didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg Environment’s request for comment Oct. 17.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemical-plant-safety-rule-rollback-presses-on-after-legal-loss
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ALL ABOUT: Lithium Battery Hazards
Oct 18, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
The ubiquitous lithium battery—found in cellphones, laptops, power drills, and other portable technology—is regulated as a hazardous material. Though they have relatively long lives compared to other types of batteries, the metals and chemicals they contain can pose a fire, shock, heat, or explosion risk.
If lithium batteries are damaged or defective, they cause problems not only for electronics manufacturers but also for transporters such as UPS, recyclers, and disposal companies.
Firms have been reluctant to admit that the batteries were causing fires in their facilities, Craig Boswell, co-founder and president of asset management company HOBI International, Inc., said during an EPA webinar in April.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration—under the Department of Transportation—is among the federal agencies working to stay on top of lithium battery transportation regulations.
PHMSA has authorized some unique circumstances for lithium battery transportation with special permits. A United Nations committee also will discuss proposals from the battery industry to clarify international guidelines later this year.
This All About appeared in today’s First Move, which is delivered at 7:45 a.m. on weekdays.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/all-about-lithium-battery-hazards
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Keep Cybersecurity of the Energy Grid Clear of Politics
Oct 18, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal (Blog)
By Jason Bordoff
Jason Bordoff (@JasonBordoff), a former energy adviser to President Obama, is a professor of professional practice in international and public affairs and founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
America’s electric grid faces escalating risk of cyberattack as it becomes more digitized and interconnected and countries like Russia and China develop new offensive cyber capabilities. Yet our ability to address this threat risks being undermined by the pitched partisan battle over climate change. The Trump administration argues that coal enhances grid security while some clean-energy advocates argue that distributed renewables do so. Neither is correct. Given the urgency of the threat, grid cybersecurity must be treated as the critical national security issue that it is, and must not be politicized in the polarizing climate debate.MORE IN ENERGYHow AI Will Increase the Supply of Oil and Gas—and Reduce CostsWhat Government Inspectors Can Learn From ‘Moneyball’5 Top Energy Posts of 2017 from The Experts BlogWhy Better Energy Storage Could Ramp Up Fossil-Fuel UseTrump vs. Obama on the Social Cost of Carbon--and Why It Matters
In a highly unusual March 2018 report, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security warned of rising cybersecurity risks to the energy system, and publicly called out Russia for hacking the power grid. The report said Russian hackers had gained access to critical controls that enabled them, in some cases, to cut off the power. In an unprecedented intrusion, security firm Symantec found that hackers last year successfully gained access to the networks of more than 20 energy companies, and the ability to cut off the power at a handful of firms.
In the U.S., we take it for granted that when we flip a switch, the lights will come on. But the impacts of an attack on the electric grid would be severe. Lloyd’s of London found an attack on the U.S. grid could cost up to $1 trillion.Without electricity, we lose the ability to produce and refrigerate food, purify water, pump gasoline, run our transportation network, run the financial and telecommunications systems, or operate hospitals and emergency services.
Preventing these catastrophic effects is an urgent national security priority. It is not and should not be a partisan issue. Yet cybersecurity of the grid is at risk of being politicized by the highly polarized debate over the future of the energy mix and climate change.
After the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s plan to prop up struggling coal and nuclear plants in the name of grid reliability, the Trump administration touted a new line of reasoning in a leaked Department of Energy plan that cybersecurity and physical threats to the grid would be “minimized” at nuclear and coal plants because they could physically store fuel on site.
While the DOE memo was immediately (and rightfully) attacked for its proposed solution of propping up coal plants, the furor overshadowed that the report accurately identified a very real and serious threat, namely the vulnerability of our power system, including the grid and pipeline networks, to cyberattack. Indeed, an August 2017 DOE report found numerous “capability gaps” in the power sector’s ability to respond to a cyberattack on the electric grid.
On the other side, advocates of renewable energy argue that the transition to distributed renewables and storage would protect the grid from cyberattack. Small, local systems—microgrids—made up of renewables and battery storage could be isolated, thus minimizing the risks of a cyberattack into a centralized grid.
The reality is that our grid remains highly vulnerable to cyberattack, no matter what the share of coal, nuclear and renewable sources are within the system. The cyberthreats to the grid are not merely to fuel supply, and thus mitigated by having a large pile of coal on standby. The grid is a vast network of power plants, transmission lines, substations, transformers and distribution lines, all of which face the threat of cyberintrusion through electronic controls and internet-connected sensors.
At the same time, the rise of distributed energy resources, along with a vast “Internet-of-Things” network of connected devices, creates a broader area of attack to target. Like fossil fuels, renewables depend on sophisticated industrial control systems and distribution networks that are similarly at risk of a cyberattack. Renewable energy sources, too, are often controlled by internet-connected devices vulnerable to hacking. And renewables often depend for backup on batteries, which have systems that rely on computers vulnerable to attack to manage and discharge the batteries.
The Department of Energy in the Trump administration deserves praise for building on the Obama administration’s work to prioritize cybersecurity of the energy system, creating a new office dedicated to cybersecurity, energy security and emergency response, and tapping a woman with decades of cybersecurity experience to lead it.
But more work is needed to take preventive measures to shore up the grid’s defenses, develop robust response plans, improve collaboration between government and utilities to assess risks and invest in cybersecurity, establish standards for grid infrastructure, equipment and connected devices, and build deterrence capabilities.
We need to move much more rapidly to low-carbon energy sources to address the threat of climate change. But regardless of what energy sources generate and deliver our electricity, cybersecurity threats remain real and rising. This is an urgent national security issue, not a partisan one. Any efforts to trumpet one fuel over another on specious grounds that it can protect us from the threat of cyberattack only serve to polarize the issue and undermine a broad consensus that we must work collaboratively across the aisle to address this pressing threat.
https://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2018/10/18/keep-cybersecurity-of-the-energy-grid-clear-of-politics/
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Do DOE and the Pentagon March Together on Grid Security?
Oct 18, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr and Hannah Northey
Second in a two-part series. Click here for part one.
Vince Guthrie's job is keeping the electricity running at the U.S. Army's vast Fort Carson base south of Colorado Springs, home to nearly a dozen military units that could be called on to deploy at a moment's notice.
The Pentagon has placed responsibility for ensuring a 24/7 electricity supply in the hands of base commanders and managers like Guthrie, a silver-haired engineer who has overseen Fort Carson's energy needs for a quarter century. Their assignment is to assure a military base’s power supply can be met with its own emergency generation if the surrounding civilian grid goes down.
The stakes are highest for a classified number of military installations that can never be without power, critical installations that include the digital outposts to direct precision-guided bombs and drones, defend seas and skies, and operate global military communications.
Vince Guthrie. Fort Carson
Those Defense Department operations spread across the country "can't afford to blink," Guthrie said.
The need for guaranteed sources of electricity for America's defense has taken a new turn in President Trump's Washington. Here, the complex problem of how to prevent a cyberattack on multiple utilities or an extreme storm from plunging large areas into darkness is now entangled with the president's pursuit of a federal fix for struggling coal companies.
At Trump's request, Energy Secretary Rick Perry's policy staff crafted a plan in the spring that would steer subsidy payments to ailing coal and nuclear plants near strategic military bases. Keeping uncompetitive baseload power plants operating, the plan says, would be insurance against worst-case scenarios that destroy natural gas pipelines or other vital infrastructure.
That proposal hasn't made it very far. A Trump administration official, who wasn't authorized to speak for the administration, told E&E News that the "poorly articulated" DOE plan is faltering inside the White House, with political, legal and economic headwinds slowing its progress. And yet a senior DOE official yesterday challenged that bleak outlook. The agency continues its work at the White House on a fuel security policy, said Bruce Walker, assistant secretary of Energy for the Office of Electricity. "I'm not sure who thinks anything is shelved," he said. Walker said the plan is centered on strengthening national security by creating more secure power for critical military installations and vital civilian infrastructure.
But DOE's coal and nuclear revival plan also appears out of step with the Defense Department’s priorities for energy security, creating another issue for the plan—already opposed by a large contingent of the energy sector that aren’t on the coal and nuclear side.
A look at DOE's floundering coal and nuclear revival plan and a review of the Pentagon's "mission assurance" doctrine suggest the Energy Department and the Defense Department have vastly different priorities and perspectives on energy.
In recent months, Trump's energy policy team clustered around a national security argument: Coal and nuclear plants, with on-site fuel storage, were fundamentally more resilient than gas plants claiming an increasing share of the nation's energy portfolio.
Speaking of the military's almost total reliance on electricity from local utilities, the DOE plan said, "This dependence makes electric grid resilience vitally important for national defense."
Trump also made the military-energy connection at a campaign rally in West Virginia this fall, when he called the DOE proposal a "military plan" aimed at boosting the coal sector.
Walker said DOE, the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Army Corps of Engineers are identifying critical defense-related U.S. energy infrastructure.Is the military vulnerable?
Would a DOE plan for blanket support for many dozens of power plants really give the U.S. military what's called "mission assurance" to withstand the worst "black sky" disasters? And is the same asked for other critical corners of American life such as airports, hospitals and communication?
For one perspective on the question, E&E News charted 35 plants with 63 coal and nuclear power generation units in the Lower 48 states that were scheduled for retirement by 2023, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration database as of June.
Eighteen of the 35 plants are within 25 miles of a military installation, but the other half are not. Where a military base and a retiring power plant are within 25 miles of each other, in most cases there are other generating units within 50 miles whose energy would be available barring a high-voltage grid outage. (The distances were chosen arbitrarily as a rough measure of base and generator proximity.)
Walker stressed that the purpose of the draft plan was not to save coal and nuclear plants per se, but to support "fuel secure" generators with onsite supplies, a coal pile or working nuclear fuel core.
"One rationale cited in the leaked DOE plan is military defense," noted an analysis by M.J. Bradley & Associates. "The power plants qualifying for aid would arguably be essential for keeping critical military installations online in a widespread grid blackout."
To zoom in on a particular example, New Jersey's largest Defense facility is the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. It's on 42,000 acres, and it's the only facility serving the Army, Air Force and Navy together.
As of the beginning of this year, four nuclear plants in the state were earmarked for retirement. That included the 636-megawatt Oyster Creek nuclear plant near the New Jersey shore that closed last month. Three other plants on the state's southern border would be closed if they didn't receive federal or state financial support, according to the owner, utility holding company Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG).
The loss of those plants would erase 4,100 megawatts of electric power capacity from the Mid-Atlantic's supply, removing nearly 40 percent of the state's electric power generation. New Jersey would be left heavily dependent on a string of natural gas power plants along the Delaware River, plus power it could import from the west and a scattering of small solar installations.
Walker said keeping Oyster Creek open was a case in point.
"Again, we look at things more broadly than just picking a military base," he said. "[But] if you have military bases that are being fed by a specific generation plant, of whatever type, that generation plant obviously is relevant to that site."
Having more coal and nuclear plants in service buttresses an "all-of-the-above" approach to insuring against the loss of natural gas plants if pipelines are knocked out, he said.
"[A]ll-of-the-above would support why you would keep Oyster Creek going," he said.
But Oyster Creek wasn't a prime candidate for the kind of federal subsidies DOE policy staff proposed. Its closure wasn't for economic reasons but followed an agreement between state officials and Exelon Corp., the owner, to satisfy environmental concerns about the plant's water discharges. And the three PSEG nuclear reactors were saved by state legislation enacted in May, promising up to $300 million a year in subsidies — a policy aimed at preserving the reactors' zero-carbon electricity output, not buttressing grid security.'Black sky' attacks
DOE's threat case assumes an attack that would knock out a major pipeline connection, cutting off power to gas-fired plants. A similar "black sky" attack could also take down parts of the transmission grid, blocking power flows to customers from any kind of generating plant, experts note.
For the Pentagon, relying on the civilian grid as a fail-safe energy source isn't an option, its directives make clear.
DOD has placed unambiguous responsibility for "mission assurance" on commanders to make certain essential operations can be carried out, come what may, a requirement that includes securing reliable and resilience energy supplies.
A "mission assurance" policy declaration from then Deputy Secretary Ash Carter in 2012 warned that potential U.S. adversaries "are seeking asymmetric means to cripple our force projection, warfighting, and sustainment capabilities by targeting critical Defense and supporting civilian capabilities."
Installation commanders must understand the vulnerabilities of the civilian infrastructure on which their top priority operations rely and team with private-sector operators to confront the risks, Carter's policy stated.
DOD rescinded a mandate that framed energy supply issues around a broader climate policy and energy efficiency challenges. The new top priority says the department should "take necessary steps to ensure the security of energy and water resources." And installation commanders "shall identify, design, and install primary power and emergency energy generation systems, infrastructure, and equipment to support their critical energy requirements."
"The overwhelming focus now of the DOD on insuring reliable and resilient energy is to strengthen mission assurance," said Paul Stockton, former assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense.
The urgency of the challenge begins with the weaknesses of backup electric power supplies at military installations. The U.S. Army requires that facilities be able to keep running on their own for two weeks if all outside power were lost.
In fact, most installations store 24 to 72 hours of backup fuel for individual generators, and central fuel storage and delivery capabilities vary widely between installations, according to an unclassified analysis in 2016 by Lincoln Laboratory, a federally funded research center owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The report's authors said they were not cleared to discuss it.
The Lincoln report, "Application of a Resilience Framework to Military Installations," reviewed four representative military installations in the continental U.S., finding that backup power capabilities generally came from anywhere from 50 to more than 350 small, building-scale diesel generators. And those systems aren't always well-maintained.
Commanders could meet the backup fuel requirement either by keeping enough fuel in on-site fuel tanks "or from a confirmed delivery source," the Lincoln report said.
But Stockton warns that in an extreme emergency following a catastrophic natural disaster or cyber or physical attack, backup fuel supplies may be impossible to bring in. The cavalry cannot ride in if the roads are impassable.'There's no single solution'
Colorado Springs Utilities, a municipal power company, supplies Fort Carson with its day-to-day electricity, as it does to the nearby Peterson Air Force Base, home of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a "can't blink" DOD facility, experts say.
The biggest and nearest source of power for Peterson is the Martin Drake plant, a 185-megawatt coal-fired generator with several units. The plant isn't scheduled to shut down until the mid-2030s, but public objections to its smokestack pollution prompted the utility to accelerate a study on how to replace the power if it retired sooner.
Guthrie at Fort Carson, representing one of the utility's crucial customers, will be at the table when it draws up its next operating plan, including the fate of the Drake plant.
Even so, Fort Carson has other options for getting power in the case of an emergency. One of those is a microgrid, Guthrie said, created five years ago in a demonstration project with the Naval Facilities Engineering Command and DOE to test its performance and affordability.
Called SPIDERS, the project included installations at several other military bases. The Fort Carson unit had three diesel generators, a 1-megawatt solar array and five electric vehicle chargers that all would serve seven buildings with critical facilities, Guthrie said. The system is still operating, and next year the base will install a battery unit to expand its capacity.
Concerns that an extreme, lengthy outage of the grid would exhaust diesel fuel supplies are not a major worry at Fort Carson, Guthrie said, because of its large fuel stocks for its vehicle detachments.
The steady decline in battery costs has raised that technology's potential. And the Pentagon is taking notice, the Lincoln Laboratory analysis said. "There is a growing interest in the DoD to use large-scale batteries combined with solar PV [photovoltaic arrays] as a potential energy resilience solution," said the Lincoln report.
Its analysis showed that large batteries, with 1-megawatt-hour capacity or more and sized for peak critical energy loads, are not cost effective. "As battery prices continue to become competitive, however, the DoD could use the modeling and simulation tool to reassess energy storage as a cost-effective energy resilience option," the Lincoln report said.
A report by Noblis, a nonprofit consulting group, noted that DOD has supported over two dozen microgrid demonstration projects. "The deployment of on-site generation — when combined with a microgrid and upgrades to the local distribution system — can enhance energy security by allowing a base to 'island' critical loads during a power outage," according to the Noblis analysis.
Guthrie said the Colorado Springs utility would look at all options for replacing the Martin Drake plant if it is retired soon, including microgrids.
"Utilities know the grid is changing. They know how to evolve with it," Guthrie says. "Through their planning process they're going to do what's best for our communities."
The security answers can and should be found at the local level, said Sharon Burke, former assistant secretary of Defense for operational energy plans and programs.
Burke said, "Here's my opinion: There's no single solution that's going to work for every base."
The security solution has local and national components, said Thomas Galloway, president and CEO of the North American Transmission Forum, an organization of transmission owners and operators that addresses grid reliability and resilience issues.
"My view would be that when you're talking about the administration's discussion of support for different power plants that goes towards the overall reliability of the grid," he said.
Diversity of fuel supply supports the grid in its entirety, especially for outages that affect a particular geographic area of fuel source, added Galloway, whose organization is engaged in grid security planning. "Having a highly reliable transmission system, that is really the backbone," he added.
"When you're talking about power to one limited but critical facility ... your normal service would typically be over transmission, and you want that to be hardened. But it wouldn't necessarily be failsafe," Galloway said. "You would also want alternative means of providing power to that critical installation."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/18/stories/1060103609
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Oil-by-Rail Rises Once Again as Safety Rules Disappear
Oct 17, 2018 | DeSmog (Blog)
By Justin Mikulka
While a second oil-by-rail boom is well underway in North America, both the U.S. and Canada are taking steps that ignore or undermine the lessons and regulatory measures to improve safety since the oil train explosions and spills of years past.
Canadian oil-by-rail now is operating at record levels, which are predicted to double by 2019. Favorable economics have led to a recent rise in oil-by-rail movements in the U.S. as well, with more Bakken oil moving by train to East Coast refineries.
Meanwhile, in September the Trump administration finalized its rollback of a regulation requiring an updated braking system for oil trains, known as modern electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes, in a highly questionable regulatory process detailed on DeSmog last year.
In North Dakota, the Department of Mineral Resources now plans to reverse a regulation which required even the minimal stabilization of oil transported by train, with “stabilization” referring to a process that removes some of the natural gas liquids that make Bakken oil so explosive. That move doesn't bode well for avoiding earlier scenarios in which rail operators dubbed oil trains as “bomb trains.”
In September Canada committed to phasing out some of the unsafe older rail tank cars ahead of schedule, but a derailment earlier this year shows that this step is far from foolproof. On June 22, a train carrying Canadian oil that derailed in northwestern Iowa was using the newer DOT-117R tank cars, the same ones being phased in as the new standard. The derailment still resulted in the release of an estimated 230,000 gallons of tar sands oil into local floodwaters.
And while track defects are the leading cause of train derailments (which, of course, lead to fires, explosions, and spills), the Trump administration has hit pause on efforts to regulate rail wear, which makes unlikely the possibility of new rules on this issue while Trump is in office.Regulator's Statement on Modern Braking Systems Inaccurate
On September 24, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the regulatory agency that oversees the transport of oil by rail, announced its final decision to undo the regulation requiring modern ECP braking systems for oil trains. But its statement explaining the rationale for the rollback was misleading.
First, however, it should be noted that the current head of PHMSA is Howard “Skip” Elliott, who retired from his position as a rail executive at CSX before taking the job as federal regulator of the industry he just left.This line from the agency's announcement gives the appearance that new research provided justification for the decision:
“The updated RIA [Regulatory Impact Analysis] incorporated new findings from ECP brake testing conducted by the Federal Railroad Administration, which were reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences.”
However, as detailed on DeSmog, the entire process used to justify this regulatory reversal was deeply flawed. This was simply a case of the rail industry not wanting to pay for the safety that upgrading its fleet to ECP brakes would provide. It was not a decision based on “new findings” that somehow reversed the many years of research proving ECP brakes are superior to the current air brake system (which dates back to the 1860s).
All of this should come as no surprise. As DeSmog reported in 2015, shortly after PHMSA proposed these regulations, Mathew Rose, CEO of oil-by-rail giant BNSF, said that “this rule [ECP braking requirement] will have to be changed in the future.”To review why the Trump administration's repeal of an important oil train safety measure is a political, rather than evidence-based, decision, just turn to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), but under previous presidents.
As DeSmog reported, in 2006, Joseph Boardman, FRA administrator under George W. Bush, explained why updating trains with ECP brakes makes perfect sense: “ECP brakes are to trains what antilock brakes are to automobiles — they provide better control.” Boardman also is on the record saying that ECP braking “offers a quantum improvement in rail safety.”
In 2015, under Barack Obama's administration — when the rail industry began its push to repeal the new ECP braking rule — Matt Lehner, FRA communications director at the time, told DeSmog:
“ECP brakes are a proven technology that will reduce the number of train derailments and keep more tank cars on the track if a train does derail. Delaying the adoption of ECP brakes seriously jeopardizes the citizens and communities along our nation's freight network.”North Dakota's Safety Rule That Did Almost Nothing for Safety
North Dakota's move, which would undo a vapor pressure requirement for Bakken oil prior to rail transport, demonstrates how much sway the rail industry has in the state at this point.
This vapor pressure standard, nominally intended to stabilize volatile oil on trains, requires the transported oil to have a Reid Vapor Pressure lower than 13.7 pounds per square inch (psi). Higher vapor pressure in a rail tank car, like in an aerosol can, increases the likelihood of explosion if the unit is damaged or punctured during a derailment or crash.
However, as I wrote in 2014, North Dakota's rule was essentially meaningless.
The majority of oil train accidents — including the one in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people — have involved oil with a vapor pressure lower than the North Dakota standard of 13.7 psi. Therefore, the state's regulation did very little to improve safety for oil trains in the first place.
But now the rail industry is saying that oil vapor pressures usually only exceed 13.7 psi in the winter, and because of that, vapor pressure testing shouldn’t be required year round.
Yet the industry has always maintained that the volatility of Bakken oil was never a problem. In May 2014, The Wall Street Journal ran a story with the headline: “Bakken Shale Oil Safe for Rails, Industry Group Says.”
And while a half dozen state attorneys general and a coalition of environmental groups separately have called for a national standard for vapor pressure on oil trains, the Trump administration has done nothing on this issue.
What North Dakota is doing now won’t change oil train safety one way or the other. But, again, the move highlights the complete lack of industry consideration for stabilizing oil, a trend DeSmog has documented many times over the years.
As a result, the second oil-by-rail boom now ramping up will occur with the same void of safety rules as the first and with the same dangerously volatile oil — from Texas to North Dakota to Canada — filling the mile-long “bomb” trains crossing the continent.Trust the Trump Administration on This One Point
Washington State Governor Jay Inslee is a vocal advocate for improving rail safety and earlier this year put the final nail in the coffin of what would have been the nation's largest oil-by-rail terminal, proposed for Vancouver, Washington. When Inslee commented on the recent rollback of the ECP braking regulations for oil trains, he told Oregon Public Broadcasting:
“One thing you can trust about this administration, they’re going to sell out your safety for special interests.”
Considering the string of fiery, explosive, and deadly incidents during the first oil-by-rail rush, North America should expect the same performance from the oil and rail industries the second time around.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/10/17/safety-rules-rollback-second-oil-train-boom-rail-industry
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How NJ Transit’s Lifesaving Rail Task Dragged While Cost Doubled
Oct 18, 2018 | Bloomberg
By Elise Young
A New Jersey Transit safety project that’s strangling train service to Manhattan was slowed by years of agency foot-dragging while staff warned of soaring costs and a “negative public reputation,” according to documents obtained by Bloomberg.
Even alarms raised by NJ Transit’s own contractor had little effect, if any, at the nation’s second-biggest commuter railroad. As the cost of the project’s more than doubled to $320 million, the cash-strapped agency fell behind on rail maintenance, let its ranks of train engineers dwindle and triggered a federal operations audit. Even if NJ Transit makes its Dec. 31 installation deadline, it will take as many as two years to deploy safer trains while the system is tested.
Trapped in mismanagement’s grip are 150,000 New York City-area daily commuters, most enduring decades of declining service, only to see more service cuts and crowding as locomotives are idled during equipment installations. A 10 percent fare discount, NJ Transit’s trade-off for the inconvenience, is no balm for riders who routinely face hours-long tie-ups, scarce seating and out-of-order restrooms, only to miss work meetings and family dinners.
At the same time, a wider crisis is bearing down. Annual funding -- the budget is $3.8 billion for the fiscal year that began July 1 -- is “inadequate, uncertain and unsustainable” after years of declining government aid and capital-to-operating budget transfers, according to a 179-page audit released by Governor Phil Murphy on Oct. 9. A retired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. senior director, Murphy says he’ll find steady revenue, streamline management and follow other audit recommendations to restore the railroad to its former status as a national envy.
Still, his administration has resisted disclosing how the railroad bungled one of its biggest-ever undertakings: installing what’s known as positive train control, a system to prevent collisions and derailments that was mandated by Congress for all U.S. railroads after a series of fatal Amtrak wrecks. The audit that Murphy ordered in January didn’t evaluate the project. And NJ Transit hasn’t released contracts, change orders, status updates and related materials sought by Bloomberg under New Jersey’s public-records law.
“Reach your own conclusions as to what happened,” Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, state transportation commissioner and chairwoman of New Jersey Transit’s board, said at a news conference about the audit on Oct. 9 in Metuchen.Limited Access
Some of the answers lie in agency records, provided to Bloomberg, that chronicle deep-seated troubles beginning immediately after the contract was awarded in March 2011. The documents were made available on condition that their origin not be identified because their details haven’t been made public.
In a letter dated March 15, 2016, NJ Transit’s contractor, New York-based Parsons Transportation Group, said the agency had faltered on seven project areas by delaying change orders, limiting access to railroad property and altering design plans. Promised drawings, manuals and charts, Parsons “repeatedly made requests” for more than three years, only to be given material of limited use, according to the letter.
The “cumulative effect of these issues has made it impossible to achieve the planned project productivity levels, thus causing damages to Parsons and its subcontractors,” Thomas P. Moore, a Parsons project manager, wrote to an NJ Transit contract specialist. To complete the job, Moore wrote, Parsons needed an additional $49 million and a 39-month extension.Details Withheld
It’s not known whether NJ Transit agreed to the request, because the agency has withheld contract details from public scrutiny. Parsons spokeswoman Maggie LaMar declined to comment about the work, didn’t respond to a request to interview Moore and referred questions to NJ Transit. Moore didn’t respond to a message sent to his LinkedIn account.
Internally, NJ Transit staff backed many of Parsons’ complaints and needs as recently as December 2017, records show. One analysis called for “critical strengthening” of the agency’s stewardship, or risk federal fines and “a negative public reputation” if deadline passed with work still pending.
Jim Smith, NJ Transit’s media relations director, didn’t respond to Bloomberg’s questions on whether the agency showed a lack of urgency to finish, as Parsons claimed, or why the cost grew 106 percent from a March 2011 contract award of $155.6 million.Fast Work
“In January 2018, the project was at just 12 percent completion -- we are now at more than 74 percent complete,” Smith said in an email. The agency, he said, was working with Parsons and legal counsel on public-records requests, he said, because the documents include “clauses protecting the contractor’s proprietary, technically complex information.”
While NJ Transit was taking heat from its own contractor, publicly the agency gave no hint of strife. In October 2016, records show, Parsons named a new completion target date: September 2019 -- nine months after Congress’s deadline. Still, Richard Hammer, transportation chief under then-Governor Chris Christie, told lawmakers that the project was progressing despite the challenges.
“I want to be crystal clear: New Jersey Transit will meet the 2018 deadline for implementing PTC,” Hammer said on Oct. 21 to a state legislative panel investigating the agency after its first fatal train accident in two decades killed a woman on the Hoboken platform, injured more than 100 people and upended service at that terminal for seven months.
Murphy, almost immediately after taking office in January, said positive train control stood no chance of finishing on time without a serious push, and he committed to the Dec. 31 finish date. Under Christie, the project “received no attention” and the in-house team had numbered five, at most, according to Gutierrez-Scaccetti, the transportation chief. Now 11 full-timers are on the task.
“We have accomplished more in the last eight months than in the previous six years,” said Smith, the transit spokesman.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-18/how-nj-transit-s-lifesaving-rail-task-dragged-while-cost-doubled
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EPA Says it Will Re-Examine Toxic Mercury Air Limits By Next Month
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The EPA plans to complete its re-examination of toxic air pollution limits, including mercury for power plants, by November, according to the agency’s fall regulatory agenda released Oct. 17.
The Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering the economic basis for the 2012 limits that the Obama administration set for toxic air pollution that power plants emit (RIN: 2060-AT99). The agency said it won’t revise the standards, but is following the U.S. Supreme Court’s orders to re-examine how the Obama administration calculated the costs and benefits of reducing mercury and other toxic air pollutants from power plants.
The Supreme Court in 2015 required the EPA in Michigan v. EPA to take the power industry’s compliance costs into account when determining whether it was necessary to regulate toxic pollution. The agency a year later put out a subsequent determination supporting regulation after taking costs into account and slashed the benefits of implementing this rule.Environmental Groups Meet with OMB
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the Trump administration disagreed with the way the Obama administration estimated compliance costs of $9.6 billion, while the benefits totaled $4 million. The EPA confirmed Oct. 1 that it has sent its draft mercury proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review.
That White House office is reviewing the proposal and will address how the standards have been met by electricity generating utilities. The utilities claimed they met the toxic emissions limits and urged the EPA to leave the standards alone. The EPA said it is aware that the power sector has spent $18 billion to comply with this rule.
Environmental groups including the American Lung Association are meeting Oct. 17 with OMB and they plan to exhort the administration to keep the toxic air pollution limits in place, Janice Nolen, American Lung Association’s assistant vice president for national policy, told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 16.
“They don’t recognize indirect benefits from the rule and only want to count the benefits from the targeted reductions,” Nolen said. “If you are saving lives by actions that benefit people, you should recognize that. It’s not like its not happening, and you are recognizing it.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-says-it-will-re-examine-toxic-mercury-air-limits-by-next-month
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EPA Proceeds With Easing Clean Air Act Permit Program (1)
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Companies have a bit longer to wait before the EPA makes it easier for them to expand plants or construct new additions without needing Clean Air Act permits.
The Environmental Protection Agency has delayed by five months the dates for when it will release changes to the Clean Air Act permitting program for construction and expansion known as New Source Review program.
The EPA will release a proposal (RIN:2060-AT89) in February to revise how large industrial sources such as power plants and refineries calculate changes in their emissions that might trigger requirements that they install new air pollution controls, according to the agency’s fall regulatory agenda released Oct. 17. The proposal was initially due out in September.
The agency also plans to issue a reconsideration (RIN: 2060-AP80) this month of a Bush-era rule that would have allowed factories, refineries, and power plants to combine emissions increases from separate—yet related—projects for permitting purposes. The 2009 rule was halted in its tracks by the Obama administration. If the 2009 rule is adopted after reconsideration, industrial facilities will find it easier to get a single Clean Air Act permit for multiple projects instead of having to undergo multiple reviews.New Source Review
Both these rules are much awaited by the industrial and power generation sectors. Companies in those sectors said the existing New Source Review permitting program was a barrier to expansion and left no room for flexibility and innovation. The program requires new or expanding facilities to install updated pollution controls to avoid increasing their emissions.
Representatives from the American Petroleum Institute, BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips met with White House officials Aug. 21 to urge adoption of the rule that would allow companies to bundle emissions increases from projects carried out within a three-year span.
Environmental groups such as the Southern Environmental Law Center oppose any attempts by businesses to avoid installing the pollution controls. Environmentalists say changing the way emissions increases are calculated would allow companies to spew more pollution under the guise of updates to make their operations more efficient.
The EPA already has issued a series of guidance documents for facilities to tally the emissions that trigger new pollution control requirements under the air pollution permitting program. The agency also has included a provision to calculate emissions increases in its rewrite of the Obama-era rule to regulate greenhouse gases.
A rulemaking would take the guidance document through notice and comment, Richard Alonso, a Sidley Austin LLP attorney, told Bloomberg Environment.
“This would make it difficult for another administration to change the project emission accounting approach,” he said.
(Updated snapshot and sixth paragraph with names of companies that are backing EPA's proposal.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-proceeds-with-easing-clean-air-act-permit-program-1
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Decades-Old EPA Air Toxic Pollution Policy to See Changes in 2019 (1)
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Power plants, refiners, and manufacturers may be able to avoid some pollution controls under an upcoming EPA proposal to change its decades-old toxic air emissions policy.
The Environmental Protection Agency is planning in February to release a proposal(RIN:2060-AM75) that would allow large industrial sources to avoid more stringent and costly controls if they keep their emissions just below the Clean Air Act’s threshold for air toxics, according to the federal government’s fall regulatory agenda released Oct. 17
Clean Air Act emissions control requirements for toxic air pollutants kick in for industrial facilities that emit at least 10 tons per year of a single hazardous pollutant, or 25 tons of two or more air toxins.
This proposal would revoke the EPA’s “once in, always in” policy, which was enshrined in a 1995 memo. Large sources of air toxics, under this original policy, must keep using pollution controls even if their emissions eventually drop below the thresholds for regulating them.
Manufacturers, refiners, and electric power generators have long advocated for a relaxation of this policy, saying companies can’t be held to the same stringent standards if their emissions have dropped below the threshold.
EPA air chief Bill Wehrum, who spent a decade representing industry groups, agrees with this stance and already has replaced the 1995 policy with one he wrote in January. Wise Course
Industry lawyers say the EPA was smart to pursue rulemaking, because guidance doesn’t have the force and effect of law, and it allows the public to weigh in.
Wehrum’s policy memo was bound to be challenged in court, Eric Boyd, a partner with the Chicago office of Thompson Coburn LLP, told Bloomberg Environment.
It was based on a new “plain language” interpretation from the Clean Air Act despite 20-plus year EPA guidance to the contrary, Boyd said, and the EPA had twice before proposed rules—in 2003 and 2007—to change the prior guidance but never took final action.
Wehrum’s policy is now being challenged by California and a coalition of environmental groups including the Environmental Defense Fund that claim Wehrum changed the agency’s approach without allowing the public a chance to comment. The groups also argue the Wehrum policy, which the EPA now wants to issue as a binding regulation, will allow an increase in hazardous air pollution.Rulemaking Won’t Affect Lawsuit
EPA’s decision to pursue rulemaking won’t affect the litigation, given the uncertainty of whether the agency will meet the agenda’s schedule, Tomas Carbonell, regulatory policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund, told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 17.
More importantly, Carbonell said, “the reversal of the once-in, always in policy had an immediate effect and was done without giving the public an opportunity to comment, and without analyzing the risks the change in policy would have on public health.”
“We think the risks that this loophole created are real and imminent, and that would remain the case even if EPA commences with rulemaking. The urgency of closing this air toxic loophole remains,” he added.
(Updated with additional comment throughout.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/decades-old-epa-air-toxic-pollution-policy-to-see-changes-in-2019-1
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Trump EPA Draws Scorn for Touting Greenhouse-Gas Emissions Cuts (1)
Oct 17, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Eric Roston
The Trump administration celebrated reductions in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions even as it rolls back pollution curbs that could imperil that progress, drawing scorn from environmentalists.
Data released Oct. 17 from industrial facilities showed total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell 2.7 percent between 2016 and 2017. Environmental Protection Agency acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler gave credit to President Donald Trump’s “regulatory reform agenda.”
“While many around the world are talking about reducing greenhouse gases, the U.S. continues to deliver, and today’s report is further evidence of our action-oriented approach,” Wheeler said in a news release.
That didn’t sit well with environmentalists, who credited the shuttering of coal-fired power plants and regulations put in place by Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama.
“This is both political plagiarism and vandalism,” said David Doniger, senior strategic director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Trump’s EPA appointees are claiming credit for their predecessors’ work and trying to destroy it at the same time.”
Predates Trump
Overall declines predate the presidency of Trump, who took office in January, 2017. Since 2011—when facilities first started sending data to the federal Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program—emissions from non oil-sectors have declined by 15.1 percent. For seven years, that EPA program has collected annual emissions information from roughly 8,000 industrial facilities across 41 sectors of the economy.
The U.S.—now the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China—led the world in reducing emissions last year, according to the International Energy Agency. It marked the third consecutive annual reduction for the U.S., which the energy agency attributed to utilities switching from coal to gas, dropping demand for electricity and boosting renewable power.
The EPA said power plant emissions in 2017 were down 4.5 percent compared with 2016 and 19.7 percent from 2011. That reduction reflects a broader transformation in the power sector, as utilities increasingly shut down coal plants and switch to natural gas, which produces about half as many greenhouse gas emissions when burned to generate electricity.
Wheeler stressed that federal regulations aren’t the main force behind the lower greenhouse gas levels.
“These achievements flow largely from technological breakthroughs in the private sector, not the heavy hand of government,” Wheeler said. “The Trump administration has proven that federal regulations are not necessary to drive CO2 reductions.”
According to Bloomberg NEF’s U.S. Power Plant Stack Dashboard, about 3 percent—or 6,900 megawatts—of coal generation capacity were retired in the U.S. in 2017.
“It’s ridiculous and insulting that the very person currently shredding the Obama-era policies responsible for the greenhouse gas reductions is now trying to hoodwink the American people into believing his anti-environmental policies are responsible for the reductions,” said Liz Perera, director of climate policy for the Sierra Club.
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Environment is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.
Natural gas producers heralded the reductions Oct. 17, noting that the decreased emissions come against the backdrop of growing oil and gas production.
“Americans have the cleanest air in decades due in part to the increased use of natural gas to generate electricity, demonstrating that environmental protection and economic growth are not mutually exclusive,” said Howard Feldman, senior director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Petroleum Institute.
The new data come on the heels of a dire report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned 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. Global commitments to cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions fall short of what the IPCC said is needed: cutting them more than 50 percent by 2030 and then to zero by 2050.
Market Trends
Market trends may continue to propel some carbon dioxide drops, but Trump also has vowed to revive coal, a promise that, if fulfilled, could reverse some of the greenhouse gas reductions tied to the closure of power plants burning the fossil fuel.
Environmentalists argue the reductions are coming in spite of Trump’s deregulatory agenda—not because of it. And some of the emission reductions have been compelled by federal regulations the administration is now rolling back or relaxing, potentially imperiling successes.
For instance, the EPA has proposed easing requirements for oil companies to detect and repair leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane at their facilities. It also has proposed scaling back Obama-era limits on greenhouse gases from power plants and freezing U.S. fuel-economy and tailpipe emissions requirements at the 2020 level of 37 miles per gallon.
The decline in power sector emissions largely comes from influences beyond federal policy, since Obama’s Clean Power Plan to reduce emissions from electrical generation was challenged in court and never went into effect. Kevin Kennedy, deputy director of the U.S. Climate Initiative at the World Resources Institute, cited the natural gas boom and more affordable renewables.
“Those trends have actually been largely sufficient to keep the U.S. on track to meeting the goals that had been set under the Clean Power Plan. So there’s been a lot of good technology progress in a lot of ways that has been driving those emissions down.’’
Trump last year pledged to pull the U.S. out of the landmark Paris climate accord, arguing that living up to the pact’s carbon-cutting commitments would punish America.
He has long questioned climate change, once declaring 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 subsequently said he was just joking, he repeatedly called global warming an “expensive hoax” and frequently invoked winter snowstorms to question its existence.
Trump disavowed the “hoax” allegation in an interview that aired on “60 Minutes” on Oct. 14. “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.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/trump-epa-draws-scorn-for-touting-greenhouse-gas-emissions-cuts-1
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EPA Grants Reconsideration of Texas 'SIP Call' Claims
Oct 17, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA has granted a partial reconsideration of Texas' petition for the agency to reconsider its Obama-era “SIP Call” that banned states from using “affirmative defenses” and other regulatory exemptions for air pollution increases from industrial facilities during periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM).
In an Oct. 16 filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit case Environmental Committee of the Florida Electric Power Coordinating Group, et al., v. EPA, the agency notifies the court that on the same day, the agency informed Texas that it will reconsider the state's participation in the 2015 SIP Call.
Texas objects to the agency's rule stripping SSM exemptions from the state implementation plans (SIPs) of 36 states, including the Lone Star State. EPA issued the rule to bring the SIPs, which are blueprints for attaining federal air standards, into line with EPA's policy of removing SSM waivers from its own regulations. EPA adopted the policy to comply with D.C. Circuit rulings finding the exemptions unlawful.
In addition to bringing suit, Texas in 2017 filed a petition for administrative reconsideration with EPA. A key issue in both the litigation and reconsideration will be EPA's determination in the SIP Call that affirmative defenses are unlawful in both federal rules and SIPs. Affirmative defenses allow polluters to obtain waivers from Clean Air Act compliance for malfunctions if they can prove they took reasonable steps to avoid breakdowns and the malfunction is therefore unavoidable.
“EPA will conduct notice-and-comment proceedings as part of that reconsideration process if the Agency proposes to change the Texas SIP call,” EPA says in its status update in the lawsuit, which is currently stayed pending EPA's decision on whether to reconsider the entire rule.
The agency has not yet decided how to proceed with the SIP Call as it applies to other states, EPA says in the filing. However, agency air policy chief Bill Wehrum recently told reporters that he doubts the premise of the SIP Call rule, in which he thinks EPA wrongly applied to SIPs D.C. Circuit holdings that are applicable to federal rules only.
In its letter to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the state's air regulator, EPA's Region 6 office that has responsibility for the state says that even though the state's petition does not meet air law criteria to merit reconsideration, the agency will reconsider the rule with regard to Texas anyway, under its own initiative. Region 6 covers Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas.
The 5th Circuit has found affirmative defenses acceptable in some circumstances, placing it as odds with the D.C. Circuit. Under EPA's “regional consistency” policy, EPA regions may diverge from national policy where a state falls within the jurisdiction of a regional appeals court that has adopted a position at odds with the national policy. The 5th Circuit states are Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Anne Idsal, administrator of EPA Region 6, in her letter to TCEQ appears to suggest EPA may invoke this policy to grant Texas an exemption from the national SSM policy.
“Region 6 has received concurrence from the relevant office in EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation to convene a proceeding for reconsideration of the Texas SIP call, the outcome of which may potentially entail Region 6 proposing an action inconsistent with EPA’s interpretation in the 2015 SSM SIP Action when acting pursuant to the reconsideration of the Texas SIP call,” Idsal writes.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-grants-reconsideration-texas-sip-call-claims
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Md. Asks Court to Review EPA's Stance on Upwind Emissions
Oct 17, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Maryland has returned to court to appeal EPA's rejection of its bid for a federal crackdown on power plant pollution from outside its borders.
EPA's denial "gives a green light to out-of-state power plants to continue sending their pollution downwind," Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D) said in a news release announcing the lawsuit filed this week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
While Maryland strictly controls emissions of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides, Frosh added, "other states need to do their part."
In its initial administrative petition, filed in November 2016, Maryland had asked EPA to require 19 coal-fired power plants in five other states to cut their emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) that were allegedly undercutting efforts to meet the 2008 ground-level ozone standard.
After EPA failed to act by a statutory 60-day deadline, the state filed a petition last year in U.S. District Court to compel the agency to reach a decision.
In a final determination published this month, EPA denied both Maryland's petition and four others brought by Delaware that also targeted upwind power plants.
In explaining its decision, EPA stressed its 2016 Cross-State Air Pollution Rule Update was already helping to reduce NOx emissions that made it harder for downwind states to meet the 2008 ozone standards of 75 parts per billion.
Ozone, a lung irritant that is the main ingredient in smog, is formed by the reaction of NOx and volatile organic compounds in sunshine. EPA currently lists significant parts of Delaware and Maryland in nonattainment for the 2008 threshold.
Under the Clean Air Act, Delaware has until early December to decide whether to also challenge EPA's denial of its petitions in court.
At this point, the state "continues to consider all legal options," Michael Globetti, a spokesman for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said in an email today.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/10/17/stories/1060103577
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Microsoft a 'Yes' On Taxing Carbon in Wash.
Oct 18, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow
Microsoft Corp. this week delivered an unexpected boost to the first-in-the-nation attempt to price carbon via the ballot box.
The company endorsed a Washington state ballot measure that would impose a fee on carbon emissions starting at $15 a ton. The announcement, made in a company blog post Tuesday, highlights the rapidly evolving political landscape in the Pacific Northwest.
The software giant, a powerful voice in Evergreen State politics, stayed on the sidelines in 2016, when Washington voters overwhelmingly rejected a carbon tax at the polls. That campaign was doomed in part by infighting among environmentalists and on the left more broadly (Climatewire, Oct. 17, 2016).
This year, environmentalists are united, but it was unclear whether the proposal would win the backing of Microsoft, which employs nearly 50,000 people in the state. The company was a prominent backer of the unsuccessful effort by Gov. Jay Inslee (D) to tax carbon emissions earlier this year, but it made no secret of its preference to pursue a bill at the Legislature rather than a ballot initiative (Climatewire, Jan. 22).
This week's endorsement underscored the political impact of the recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which raised alarms over the increasing rate of planetary warming. A Microsoft representative said the report played a large role in its decision to endorse the carbon fee.
"While there is room for debate on the details of this proposal, as there is with any policy, one thing is increasingly clear — we need to take urgent action to address climate change," wrote Lucas Joppa, the company's chief environmental officer, citing the IPCC's findings.
He called the Washington initiative an "important first step on carbon policy."
"We believe it offers opportunity; an opportunity for businesses of all kinds to come together to find workable solutions that lower emissions while keeping our economy strong," Joppa said.
The proposal, officially known as Initiative 1631, would institute a $15-per-ton fee on carbon emissions beginning in 2020. The fee would rise $2 annually until 2035. Much of the revenue would be spent on clean energy and pollution reduction programs.
Microsoft's move is the second high-profile tech endorsement for the carbon fee in a matter of two weeks. Bill Gates, the software giant's founder, threw his weight behind the initiative last week, writing in a post on LinkedIn that the urgency of climate challenge outweighed his doubts over a state's ability to tackle the issue on its own.
"Going first is never easy, but Washington has a history of pioneering new ideas," Gates wrote.
The tech billionaire and his wife, Melinda, each subsequently donated $500,000 to the yes campaign. The influx of support has helped boost proponents' fundraising take to more than $11 million. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also pledged $1 million to the campaign, but a donation has yet to be reported to the state.
The campaign is on track to become the most expensive in Washington state history. Nine oil companies have donated more than $20 million to the no campaign, which has argued the proposal will raise energy costs to consumers while providing exemptions to large polluters like pulp and paper mills and aluminum smelters.
Dana Bieber, a spokeswoman for the no campaign, noted that several local unions have recently joined in opposing the measure. She added, "It's easy for billionaires who are funding the YES campaign to ignore the costs of I-1631 and embrace a policy that they probably haven't really studied carefully."
A recent Crosscut/Elway Poll conducted Oct. 5-9 showed registered voters supporting the initiative 50 percent to 36 percent, with 14 percent of voters undecided. The issue broke largely along partisan lines, with 77 percent of Democrats in favor of the idea while 65 percent of Republicans opposed it. Independents were more likely to support it (48 percent) than not, though sizable numbers were either against it (38 percent) or undecided (15 percent).
In 2016, an Elway poll put those in favor of a proposed carbon tax 42 percent to 37 percent, with 21 percent of voters undecided.
A spokeswoman for the no campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/10/18/stories/1060103593
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