Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report - October 23, 2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Chabot Gains Upper Hand in $6.7m Tv Battle Against Pureval with 'Dark Money' Assist
Oct 23, 2018 | Cincinnati Enquirer
By Sam Rosenstiel
In the race for Ohio's 1st Congressional District seat, TV could tip the scales. -
Democrats Eye Stepped Up EPA Oversight As Key Agenda Item In 2019
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
If Democrats win control of at least one chamber of Congress in the upcoming Nov. 6 midterm elections, they are planning to conduct aggressive oversight of EPA and other agencies' efforts to roll back a suite of climate and other environmental rules in an attempt to block or tone down those efforts. -
In Latest EPA Defeat, Judge Orders More Discovery In TSCA Fluoride Suit
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A federal judge has ordered EPA to provide internal documents and allow plaintiffs to depose agency staff on the risks posed by fluoridation, mandates that highlight the effect of an earlier ruling allowing the plaintiffs to introduce new evidence in their landmark Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) suit rather than limiting it to the agency's record. -
US EPA Received 34 Pre-Manufacture Notices in July
Oct 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA received 34 pre-manufacture notices (PMNs) in July and 41 amendments to past PMNs, according to a 22 October Federal Register notice. -
Microplastics Find Their Way Into Your Gut, a Pilot Study Finds
Oct 23, 2018 | The New York Times
By Douglas Quenqua
In the next 60 seconds, people around the world will purchase one million plastic bottles and two million plastic bags. -
Experts Caution Study on Plastics in Humans Is Premature
Oct 23, 2018 | AP (In the New York Times)
Scientists in Austria say they've detected tiny bits of plastic in people's stool for the first time, but experts caution the study is too small and premature to draw any credible conclusion. -
EPA to Release GenX, PFBS Risk Estimates 'Imminently'
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is preparing the “imminent” release of it oral risk estimates for a pair of short-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) chemicals, known as GenX and PFBS, despite a slight delay due to concerns with the PFBS analysis, according to a North Carolina state official who discussed the issue with EPA last week. -
EPA Touts Lead Reduction Efforts In Face Of Criticism From Ousted Official
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA is touting its efforts to reduce exposure to lead in the face of criticism from an ousted official that the Trump administration “stonewalled” an inter-agency strategy for reducing children's exposure, though the administration is months behind schedule on issuing the strategy and still appears to lack a goal for curbing exposures as advocates are seeking. -
EU Notifies WTO of Draft Changes to Cosmetics Regulation
Oct 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has notified the WTO of draft amendments to the cosmetic products Regulation. -
CBA: ‘Not Enough Meat on Bones’ of UK REACH Plan
Oct 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
The Chemical Business Association has said there is "not enough meat on the bones" of the government’s UK REACH plan in the event of a no-deal Brexit. -
Canada Considers Further Restricting Long-Chain PFASs, Flame Retardants
Oct 22, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
In a move aimed at protecting the country’s endangered whales, the Canadian government has announced it wants to place added restrictions on four flame retardants and three long-chain perfluorinated alkylated substances (PFASs). -
In Colorado, a Bitter Battle Over Oil, Gas and the Environment Comes to a Head
Oct 23, 2018 | The New York Times
By Julie Turkewitz and Clifford Krauss
On stage at the Adams County fairgrounds, the M.C. wore cowgirl boots and a pink T-shirt that read “Mothers in Love With Fracking.” -
Two German Towns Vie to Make Trump’s Natural Gas Dream a Reality
Oct 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Parkin and Anna Shiryaevskaya
Downstream from Hamburg, two small Elbe River ports are competing to build Germany’s first liquefied natural gas import terminal and help shake up Europe’s biggest gas market. -
Merkel Moves to Open up Germany to Us Gas Imports After Trump's Push: Report
Oct 22, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Megan Keller
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is making a move to open up Germany's market to U.S. gas companies, following a lobbying push from President Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported. -
In the Loop: US Crude Exports to South Korea Soar
Oct 23, 2018 | Platts
By Mary Hogan
US Gulf Coast crude exports to South Korea nearly tripled week on week, coinciding with wider Dubai/LOOP Sour and Brent/WTI swap spread and despite persistently high freight rates from the US Gulf Coast to North Asia. -
As 1 Project Wins Big in Va., Another Hits Roadblock
Oct 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Virginia regulators last week gave the green light to development of the Atlantic Coast pipeline in the commonwealth. -
Senators Seek More Oversight After Massachusetts Gas Explosions
Oct 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Massachusetts’ senators want to know how federal regulators plan to prevent deadly natural gas explosions like the one in September that killed one person and destroyed dozens of homes in three communities near Boston. -
Putting The Brakes On: Transportation Department Rolls Back Oil Train Regulation
Oct 23, 2018 | Tri States Public Radio
By Madelyn Beck
The U.S. Department of Transportation has removed a regulation meant to force trains carrying crude oil or other flammable liquids to adopt electronic braking technology by 2020. -
Herrera Beutler Introduces Bill to Reinstate Oil-Train Safety Rules
Oct 22, 2018 | The Columbian
By Katy Sword
Making good on an earlier pledge, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, introduced legislation to reinstate safety regulations for oil trains. -
Economists Question Cap-And-Trade Rules
Oct 23, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
A new report on California's cap-and-trade program calls on state regulators to tighten their rules for carbon offsets. -
On Eve of Trial, Supreme Court Leaves Landmark Climate Case - Filed by Kids - in Limbo
Oct 22, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Brady Dennis
Expert witnesses had already booked their travel to testify in the long-awaited landmark climate change case. -
Youth Plaintiffs Urge Roberts To Lift Rare Stay Of Landmark Climate Suit
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Lawyers for a group of youth plaintiffs are urging Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to lift the unusual stay he granted the Justice Department (DOJ) on the eve of their scheduled, high-profile climate change trial in an Oregon federal court, arguing that his temporary stay undermines the judiciary's integrity and harms the plaintiffs. -
Environmentalists Sue EPA over Interstate Ozone Petition Denials
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
A coalition of nine environmental groups is joining Maryland in suing EPA over its denial of Clean Air Act petitions from Maryland and Delaware asking the agency to curb interstate emissions that contribute to excessive ozone levels on the East Coast, claiming the denial is at odds with an air law mandate to curb pollution in downwind states. -
Soot Deaths Plunged Following Clean Air Act Amendments
Oct 22, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
The number of air-pollution-related deaths in the United States plunged by almost half in the two decades following passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, amounting to about 71,000 by 2010, according to estimates in a newly released study.
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(ACC Mentioned) Chabot Gains Upper Hand in $6.7m Tv Battle Against Pureval with 'Dark Money' Assist
Oct 23, 2018 | Cincinnati Enquirer
By Sam Rosenstiel
In the race for Ohio's 1st Congressional District seat, TV could tip the scales.
And "dark money" groups, whose donors don't have to be disclosed, along with allied super PACs appear to have given U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot the upper hand in the fight to dominate Cincinnati airwaves.
The GOP-allied groups have helped Chabot and those backing his candidacy gain a $1.2 million edge in buying TV time, even though Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval's campaign itself has raised and spent more money than Chabot's.
An Enquirer analysis of FCC records shows just over $3.6 million went to pro-Chabot/anti-Pureval ads, while almost $2.4 million went to pro-Pureval/anti-Chabot ads. Those totals include both Washington "dark money" and direct expenditures by the candidates' campaigns reported in FCC files as of Oct. 21.
To put that $6.7 million on TV in context, that's roughly $2 million more than both sides spent for all expenditures in the 2008 and 2010 campaigns for the same seat. And the 2018 election is still two weeks away. The gap illustrates how the financing of campaigns is moving from the traditional form, where donors are revealed, to a new, harder to trace process.
Two key Republican groups bought almost $2.6 million in TV ads for Chabot, while a new Democratic super PAC and a nonprofit issue group spent roughly $646,000 on similar ads for Pureval.
Compare that to what the campaigns themselves have spent. Since June, FCC records show Pureval's campaign bought almost $1.7 million in ads, while records indicate Chabot's campaign spent less than half of that, just under $777,000.Who's behind the 'dark money' groups?
On the GOP side, the Washington, D.C.-based Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC and American Action Network "dark money" nonprofit poured roughly $2.2 million into the Cincinnati ad market.
But it's not clear exactly where that money came from.
The Congressional Leadership Fund is Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's super PAC, which can collect unlimited sums of money from individuals or groups but can't give money directly to candidates.
Instead, super PACs such as Ryan's produce and buy media ads, including a recent adclaiming Pureval was involved in a terrorism-related settlement with Libya when he worked at a D.C. lobbying firm.
While super PACs have to report their donors, "dark money" political nonprofits or 501(c)(4)s such as American Action Network, don't. AAN has given over $20 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund this election cycle.
AAN, headed by former Nixon and George H.W. Bush staffer Fred V. Malek, spent about $395,000 on ads, too, including this one supporting Chabot.
Conservative think tank Heritage Foundation recently started buying Cincinnati ads through its sister organization Heritage Action for America. Since Oct. 18, the org has bought $176,000 in ads in Cincinnati.
The American Chemistry Council, a nonprofit issue group that supports the chemical industry, ran an ad supporting Chabot for two weeks in early July, which cost roughly $80,000 to air on TV in Cincinnati, according to FCC records.
For the Democrats, the dark money 501(c)(4) nonprofit Ohioans for Economic Opportunity spent $315,000 on ads like this one attacking Chabot's healthcare record.
ChangeNow PAC, which formed in September, has spent about $331,000 on ads, according to FCC records. It has received money from the League of Conservation Voters and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, two other Democratic nonprofits, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.So exactly how does this 'dark money' show up?
The sources of most contributions to political campaigns and groups are publicly disclosed and reported to the Federal Elections Commission.
But "dark money" is a type of political contribution given to nonprofit issue or 501(c)(4) groups, which don't have to report their donors to the FEC.
Then the nonprofits give money to a political action committee, which must disclose its donors to the FEC and the public. So it's clear where the "dark money" went to, but not who originally contributed it.
A 501(c)(4) can also give to super PACs (such as the one led by speaker Ryan), which can't give money directly to candidates but can collect unlimited sums from donors.
Other PACs, which also report their donors, have poured significant amounts into elections.
For example, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee injected another $618,000 into Cincinnati ads against Chabot, according to FCC records. The official fundraising arm for Democratic Congressional candidates collected $206 million mostly from large individual donations this election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The National Republican Congressional Committee spent about $117,000 in Cincinnati ads, according to FCC records. It has raised over $153 million nationally this election cycle, also mostly from large individual donations.How much have the campaigns spent in '18?
We won't know the final totals until after the election. In 2008, Chabot spent over $3.2 million (adjusted for inflation into 2018 dollars) total in a campaign against eventual victor Steve Driehaus, who spent $1.6 million. Chabot defeated Driehaus in 2010, spending over $2.3 million (adjusted for inflation) to Driehaus's $2.2 million.
Chabot's 2018 campaign has raised $958,000, mostly from PAC contributions and large individual contributions. As of June 30, Chabot's campaign spent about $331,000 overall, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Congressional race first-timer Pureval has raised almost $1.57 million, mostly from large individual donors. As of June 30, Pureval's campaign spent $220,000 overall, according to the CRP.Not just TV
Dark money groups also use mailers, signs and flyers to show support for candidates and issues. For example, Americans for Prosperity, the dark money group founded by GOP kingmakers the Koch brothers, has sponsored direct mail to voters supporting Chabot and his policies. How The Enquirer made its analysis
The Enquirer reviewed FCC public inspection files posted online by Cincinnati broadcast stations WCPO, WKRC, WLWT, WSTR, WXIX, as well as cable providers Spectrum and Cincinnati Bell. This report uses public filings posted between June 21 and Oct. 21 in order to track ad spending by candidates and non-candidate issue groups.
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/10/22/chabot-gains-upper-hand-six-million-tv-battle-pureval-ohio-first-congressional-district-dark-money/1224155002/
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Democrats Eye Stepped Up EPA Oversight As Key Agenda Item In 2019
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
If Democrats win control of at least one chamber of Congress in the upcoming Nov. 6 midterm elections, they are planning to conduct aggressive oversight of EPA and other agencies' efforts to roll back a suite of climate and other environmental rules in an attempt to block or tone down those efforts.
And some Democrats are even making the case that voters should give them control so they can conduct the aggressive oversight they are promising.
While such oversight could be coupled with affirmative legislative attempts to address climate change and other environmental problems, the ambition and prospects of such measures will be limited due to the party's uphill battle to win a majority in the closely divided Senate, coupled with President Donald Trump's deep skepticism of environmental policies.
Nevertheless, if Democrats win control of the House in November, a barrage of hearings and investigations headed by Democratic chairmen starting in January could stop, slow or soften the administration's rollbacks, either through focusing public attention on the issue or by revealing information that undermines the deregulatory efforts.
“When we have the gavels it's a huge difference,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), a former House lawmaker now serving in the Senate, told reporters on a recent call.
“We will have these type of hearings, including oversight on EPA to hold them accountable,” as well as “putting a spotlight on what America needs to do to address climate change.”
Cardin and other senators held the call Oct. 11 to highlight the United Nations' recent report warning of major climate change risks if countries do not make quick and deep cuts to greenhouse gases, with the lawmakers linking that report to the need to elect Democratic majorities in the midterms to serve as a check on Trump's climate agenda.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), another former House lawmaker, told reporters that there is “no question that the whole dynamic changes just because the hearings are conducted in a way that reflects respect for science. . . . Ultimately we can put a brake on all of the dangerous climate rollbacks the president is engaged in. That would be a fundamental difference from today.”
Markey charged that acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler -- as well as the Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke -- “are in the witness protection program” in terms of their limited appearances on Capitol Hill. “You don't see them. You don't know them. You'd have a hard time picking them out of a lineup.”
He added: “That won't be the case after six months of the Democrats controlling Congress.”
Wheeler, Perry and Zinke “are going to become as famous as James Watt and Anne Gorsuch,” Markey predicted, referring to the Reagan-era Interior secretary and EPA administrator who resigned amid scandals.
He predicted a similar barrage of hearings in 2019 on Trump administration “policies that hurt the climate.”
“We're going to be lifting up rocks and finding out what was the cause of the really terrible decisions that were made during the first two years of the Trump administration,” he added.
'A Lot Of Questions'
Democrats are widely expected to pick up the 23 seats needed to secure a majority in the House for the first time since 2010. For example, election forecasting website FiveThirtyEight says the party has an 86 percent chance to win a majority, pegging the party's average seat gain at 40.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, is even making the case that voters should elect a Democratic majority to ensure he and other top Democrats are able to conduct the oversight they are promising.
In a statement last week, Grijalva said an Inspector General report criticizing Zinke's travel arrangements would be a factor in oversight he has long promised. "Republicans have known about Secretary Zinke's scandals for 18 months and done nothing," he said. "Putting Democrats in charge of Congress is the only way to stop these abuses."
Republicans' edge is much stronger in the Senate, largely due to the fact that Democrats are defending many incumbents in states Trump won in 2016. FiveThirtyEight says the GOP has a 78 percent chance of retaining its hold in the upper chamber, though the most likely scenarios are that it retains its 51-49 majority, boosts that margin by one or two seats, or even maintains control through a 50-50 split, with a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence.
Sources are expecting Democrats to lob a barrage of attacks on virtually every EPA policy, though it remains to be seen whether those attacks will successfully slow or stop the agency's efforts.
“There will be a lot of questions about meetings, proposals, draft rules, proposed rules, going-to-final rules,” says a former Democratic Hill staffer. Additionally, lawmakers will float “legislation to slow down proposed rulemakings,” including riders in appropriations bills that would prohibit funds from being used for specific deregulatory measures.
While Democrats will not have unlimited leverage -- if they only control the House, for example -- a rider could be a means to extract concessions, put pressure on the Senate or make the public case that Republicans are standing in the way of environmental protections.
A second former Hill aide underscores that majority Democrats would be put in the position -- more so than they are now in the minority -- to question almost every EPA move.
“You almost have to think about every major regulation or issue or decision that EPA has to make and what would your response be as an oppositional legislator,” the source says.
A former Republican EPA official agrees with expectations that a Democratic takeover of the House would bring an onslaught of oversight to environmental rollbacks.
“Andy Wheeler will have a very busy spring 2019 up on the Hill,” the source says. “You'll have to explain everything you do. But it doesn't prevent you from doing what you were going to do in the first place.”
This source adds that if Democratic oversight “cranks up,” it is “going to sap resources. . . . It is a factor but not a crippling factor.”
Additionally, the former Republican official expects Democrats will continue raising the bevy of scandals surrounding former Administrator Scott Pruitt, who resigned in July, rather than solely focusing on deregulation that is continuing under Wheeler.
“They are not going to be able to help themselves” in going after scandal, the source says, suggesting that the issues might resurface if EPA's inspector general issues reports in pending investigations of questionable agency actions under Pruitt. “Tell me about that phone booth,” the source says, citing a high-profile scandal about Pruitt's installation of an expensive privacy booth in his office to make secure phone calls.
'Meaningful Changes'
Aside from oversight, Markey also professed on the recent press call that Democrats could achieve legislative victories on climate issues. He cited the passage of comprehensive energy legislation in 2007 -- passed under Democratic majorities in Congress and signed by President George W. Bush -- that strengthened fuel economy limits, boosted energy efficiency standards and moved biofuel requirements “more toward cellulosic” fuels.
Even though Democratic leaders in Congress were working with a Republican president, he said, “we were able to move through meaningful changes.”
Markey also pledged that Democrats in the majority would “ensure that there's greater funding” for EPA and other environment-related agencies.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/democrats-eye-stepped-epa-oversight-key-agenda-item-2019
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In Latest EPA Defeat, Judge Orders More Discovery In TSCA Fluoride Suit
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A federal judge has ordered EPA to provide internal documents and allow plaintiffs to depose agency staff on the risks posed by fluoridation, mandates that highlight the effect of an earlier ruling allowing the plaintiffs to introduce new evidence in their landmark Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) suit rather than limiting it to the agency's record.
In an Oct. 4 order, Judge Edward Chen, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ordered EPA to release internal documents regarding its scientists' views of a study linking fluoridation to IQ decrements, as well as ordering EPA to allow plaintiffs to depose agency staff on whether its existing fluoride standards consider neurotoxicity risks.
The order marks the latest in a series of potentially precedential losses the agency has suffered in the landmark TSCA suit, Food & Water Watch Inc., et al, v. EPA, where environmentalists and public health groups are seeking to force EPA to grant their petition seeking to ban the practice of treating drinking water with fluoride.
“In my view, it's quite significant going forward … [Chen] didn't provide any qualifications. He allowed deposition and forced EPA to search for internal documents,” the plaintiffs' attorney, Michael Connett with Waters Kraus & Paul's Los Angeles office, tells Inside EPA. “Even though [the order] is not technically precedential, it's nevertheless helpful guidance for future courts” because this case is the first of its kind.
Late last year, Chen ruled that the reformed TSCA allows citizens to petition EPA to regulate single uses of substances, a stance at odds with the agency's position in this case, where it rejected the petition because it sought to regulate one use of fluoride, the fluoridation of drinking water for its dental benefits.
More significantly for the latest order, Chen also ruled last February against the agency's arguments to restrict the suit to the evidence presented in EPA's petition denial -- paving the way for a rare, de novo hearing of the petitioners' arguments, scheduled for August 2019, where the plaintiffs are expected to offer a host of new scientific studies on the risks posed by the widely used substance.
EPA has declined to appeal either ruling and instead has vowed to win the suit on the merits. But attorney observers say the rulings will usher in increased interest from public interest groups in filings such petitions -- an action that had previously been rare, and even more rarely, if ever, challenged in court.
Environmentalists last month filed a similar section 21 petition urging the agency to amend its Chemical Data Reporting rule to require businesses to report their uses of asbestos, an effort aimed at closing what the petitioners say is a loophole EPA created when it said the regulation does not cover asbestos because it is “naturally occurring."
Section 21 gives EPA 90 days to respond to such a petition. Should EPA deny the petition, or fail to respond within 90 days, the petitioners can sue the agency in federal court.
Chen's latest ruling broadens the evidence that plaintiffs can gather from EPA, allowing for discovery of certain internal documents and even deposition of EPA staff on certain topics.
In his latest ruling, Chen reminds EPA that in this TSCA section 21 suit, “the Court reviews Plaintiffs’ administrative petition de novo. The EPA’s documents and correspondence relating to the specified studies are relevant to the ultimate issue the Court must decide -- whether the ingestion of fluoride in drinking water causes neurotoxic harm.”
Joint Letter
Chen's order responds to a joint Sept. 27 letter EPA and plaintiffs filed that details areas in which the litigants, after several months of discovery negotiations, have been unable to agree.
For example, the plaintiffs tell Chen that they “requested EPA documents related to the first-ever” National Institutes of Health-funded study of fluoride and IQ, which was published in September 2017.
“This much anticipated and methodologically rigorous study (which was funded, in part, by the EPA) found that fluoride ingestion during pregnancy correlates with significant and sizable IQ loss in children and thus strongly supports Plaintiffs’ position,” they say.
The plaintiffs are seeking any internal documents that may exist of EPA scientists' review of the study. “Internal EPA documents showing, inter alia, that EPA’s own scientists recognize the strength of this study (A) would be probative reliance material for Plaintiffs’ experts, (B) would assist the Court in assessing the testimony of EPA’s litigation experts, and (C) would help identify potential witnesses.”
The plaintiffs argue that “[d]espite the probative value of EPA’s internal assessments of these studies, EPA has taken the sweeping position that any views of its individual scientists are wholesale irrelevant. The only documents EPA has produced, therefore, are official EPA and third-party documents that were already available in the public domain. This runs counter to the Court’s discovery ruling which permitted Plaintiffs to discover 'evidence [that] would not have been previously available to Plaintiffs but is within the scope of the petition.'”
EPA, however, argues that plaintiffs’ discovery “unnecessarily focuses on internal discussion and the personal opinions of agency personnel. Given the scope of discovery already defined by the Court, EPA searched for and produced responsive documents relevant to the existence of scientific studies and data rather than EPA’s interpretation of that data."
“Additionally, EPA flagged for Plaintiffs the potential that such requests likely impinge on EPA’s deliberative process privilege. . . . Nevertheless, Plaintiffs implicitly reflect their desire to harm the agency by attacking its credibility through compelled testimony of its own scientists.”
Chen also ordered EPA to respond to plaintiffs' request for a witness. Chen writes that the plaintiffs' requests “are relevant because whether the EPA considered the neurotoxic risk of fluoride in establishing its safety standards bears on how much weight the Court should give to any EPA argument that its safety standards can be used to show what a safe level of fluoride is.”
Chen acknowledges EPA's “protests that the request is duplicative and not proportionate to the needs of the case because the 'factual and scientific predicates for EPA’s denial of the petition are publicly expressed and identified in the document denying the petition.'”
But Chen notes that “EPA has not identified any undue burden from the request, and courts have made clear that 'the deposition process provides a means to obtain more complete information [than written responses to discovery requests] and is, therefore, favored,'” citing a 2008 case, Great Am. Ins. Co. of New York v. Vegas Const. Co., from the U.S. District Court for Nevada.
Connett deposed EPA's Ed Ohanian, associate director for science, on Oct. 15. As a witness in a federal rule 30(b)(6) deposition, Ohanian represents EPA and his statements are binding on the agency for purposes of the litigation, Connett says.
Fluoride Neurotoxicity
The plaintiffs in their letter to Chen explained they seek access to depose EPA witnesses “to clarify whether, and to what extent, EPA’s current safety standards the [maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) in drinking water] and [reference dose (RfD), the maximum amount an individual can be estimated to ingest daily over a lifetime without experiencing noncancerous health effects] considered neurotoxicity as a potential risk of fluoride.”
The plaintiffs add that based on information they have received, “it appears EPA’s safety standards did not meaningfully consider fluoride neurotoxicity, and, as such, cannot be used to demonstrate a neurological safe level of fluoride.”
EPA, however, argues that “While EPA takes the position as a matter of policy that neurotoxicity is not a risk of concern at doses below those associated with the MCLG and RfD, EPA is not required to defend that policy position in this litigation.”
“Moreover, in public documents addressing the issue which have already been provided to Plaintiffs, EPA has noted that the available data on neurotoxicity are not sufficient to assess the public health relevance to the U.S. population. Thus, Plaintiffs are unable to identify how inquiry into the MCLG for fluoride is relevant to the availability and existence of scientific studies and data necessary to demonstrate an unreasonable risk. … Plaintiffs have not provided a convincing explanation of how the disputed discovery relates to the only fact 'of consequence' in this litigation -- whether there is scientific evidence of an unreasonable risk of injury.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/latest-epa-defeat-judge-orders-more-discovery-tsca-fluoride-suit
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US EPA Received 34 Pre-Manufacture Notices in July
Oct 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA received 34 pre-manufacture notices (PMNs) in July and 41 amendments to past PMNs, according to a 22 October Federal Register notice. The manufacturer's identity was withheld on 48 of the 75 as confidential business information (CBI).
A significant new use notice (Snun) for functionalised multiwall carbon nanotubes as an anti-corrosion or strengthening additive in epoxy compounds for coatings, paints and composites was included in the announcement. The Snun is an amendment to a previously submitted notice.
The agency also received in July test data in support of 13 previously submitted PMNs; 19 notices of commencement (NOCs); and an application for a test marketing exemption (TME).
Section 5 of TSCA requires notification when any person intends to manufacture or import a chemical substance for a non-exempt commercial purpose, either for the first time (PMN) or for a 'significant new use', for substances subject to a significant new use rule (Snur). Submitters must provide the EPA with the appropriate information before initiating the activity; the agency reviews those notices, evaluates risk and takes appropriate action.
Under 2016 updates to TSCA, the EPA must publish a list of these submissions monthly.https://chemicalwatch.com/71202/us-epa-received-34-pre-manufacture-notices-in-july
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Microplastics Find Their Way Into Your Gut, a Pilot Study Finds
Oct 23, 2018 | The New York Times
By Douglas Quenqua
In the next 60 seconds, people around the world will purchase one million plastic bottles and two million plastic bags. By the end of the year, we will produce enough bubble wrap to encircle the Equator 10 times.
Though it will take more than 1,000 years for most of these items to degrade, many will soon break apart into tiny shards known as microplastics, trillions of which have been showing up in the oceans, fish, tap water and even table salt.
Now, we can add one more microplastic repository to the list: the human gut.
In a pilot study with a small sample size, researchers looked for microplastics in stool samples of eight people from Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria. To their surprise, every single sample tested positive for the presence of a variety of microplastics.
“This is the first study of its kind, so we did a pilot trial to see if there are any microplastics detectable at all,” said Philipp Schwabl, a gastroenterologist at the Medical University of Vienna and lead author of the study. “The results were astonishing.”
There are no certain health implications for their findings, and they hope to complete a broader study with the methods they have developed.
Microplastics — defined as pieces less than .02 inches long, roughly the size of a grain of rice — have become a major concern for environmental researchers over the past decade. Several studies have found high levels of microplastics in marine life, and last year, microplastics were detected in 83 percent of tap water samples around the world (the highest contamination rate belonged to the United States, where 94 percent of samples were contaminated).
Most microplastics are the unintended result of larger plasticsbreaking apart, and the United States, Canada and other countries have banned the use of tiny plastic beads in beauty products.
Researchers have long suspected microplastics would eventually be found in the human gut. One study estimated that people who regularly eat shellfish may be consuming as much as 11,000 plastic pieces per year.
The new paper, which was presented Monday at a gastroenterology conference in Vienna, could provide support for marine biologists who have long warned of the dangers posed by microplastics in our oceans. But the paper suggests that microplastics are entering our bodies through other means, as well.
“The fact that so many different polymers were measured suggests a wide range of contamination sources,” said Stephanie Wright, an environmental health scientist at Kings College London who was not involved in the study. Two of the eight participants also said they did not consume seafood.
To conduct the study, they selected volunteers from each country who kept food diaries for a week and provided stool samples. Dr. Schwabl and his colleagues analyzed the samples with a spectrometer.
Up to nine different kinds of plastics were detected, ranging in size from .002 to .02 inches. The most common plastics detected were polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate — both major components of plastic bottles and caps.
Still, Dr. Schwabl cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the origins of the plastic.
“Most participants drank liquids from plastic bottles, but also fish and seafood ingestion was common,” he said. “It is highly likely that food is being contaminated with plastics during various steps of food processing or as a result of packaging.”
Whether microplastics pose a health risk to humans is largely unknown, though they have been found to cause some damage in fish and other animals. Additionally, the microplastics detected in the current study are too large to be a serious threat, Dr. Wright said.
“But what may be of greater concern for these large microplastics is whether any associated chemical contaminants leach off during gut passage and accumulate in tissues,” she said.
The concentration of contaminants — 20 microplastic particles per 10 grams of stool — was relatively low, she said.
Nonetheless, Dr. Schwabl said the results were more than enough to investigate further.
“Now that we know there is microplastic present in stool, and we know how to detect it, we aim to perform a larger study including more participants,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/health/microplastics-human-stool.html
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Experts Caution Study on Plastics in Humans Is Premature
Oct 23, 2018 | AP (In the New York Times)
Scientists in Austria say they've detected tiny bits of plastic in people's stool for the first time, but experts caution the study is too small and premature to draw any credible conclusion.
Presenting their findings at a congress in Vienna on Tuesday, researchers from the Medical University of Vienna and the Environment Agency Austria said their pilot study detected so-called microplastics in all samples taken from eight volunteers in Europe, Russia and Japan.
Microplastics — defined as pieces smaller than 5 millimeters — have previously been found in water, animals and food, but so far studies haven't proved they pose a risk to human health.
Still, there is growing public concern about their apparent ubiquitous presence in the environment, and the head of Germany's Green party said the Austrian study was "a further alarm signal."
Robert Habeck told the Funke media group that microplastics should be banned from cosmetic products and the use of plastic packaging should be greatly reduced.
However, experts say it's not surprising that microplastics would be found in human samples too, and said the Austrian study raises many questions.
"It's small scale and not at all representative," said Martin Wagner, a biologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He noted that the study wasn't reviewed by independent scientists and the authors haven't provided details about the measures taken to prevent samples from becoming contaminated.
"In the worst case, all the plastic they found is from the lab," Wagner told The Associated Press.
Even if microplastics are found in stool, this doesn't mean they have entered the human body, he said. Unlike other substances we eat, microplastics are too large to be absorbed by cells in the gut and simply pass through.
His concerns were echoed by Mark Browne, an expert on microplastics at the University of New South Wales, Australia, who said the study lacked crucial details.
"Poor quality observations of contamination do not represent well the scientific method and therefore in my humble opinion do not help us understand impacts on humans or manage them," Browne told the AP by email.
The Austrian authors acknowledged that "further studies are necessary to assess the potential risk of microplastic for humans." They plan to submit a detailed study for independent review in the coming months.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/10/23/world/europe/ap-eu-austria-microplastics-study.html
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EPA to Release GenX, PFBS Risk Estimates 'Imminently'
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is preparing the “imminent” release of it oral risk estimates for a pair of short-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) chemicals, known as GenX and PFBS, despite a slight delay due to concerns with the PFBS analysis, according to a North Carolina state official who discussed the issue with EPA last week.
Sandy Mort, a toxicologist with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DCEQ), told the North Carolina Science Advisory Board (NCSAB) at its Oct. 22 meeting that she spoke last week with members of the EPA group responsible for crafting the GenX reference dose (RfD), a measure of the greatest amount of a chemical that EPA estimates could be consumed daily without adverse noncancer effects.
“They called the release imminent, in the next couple of weeks,” she said.
The work follows risk analyses that EPA promised to NCDEQ and other states struggling with how best to address PFAS contamination at sites and in drinking water sources in places around the country. In August, an EPA spokesperson told Inside EPA that the agency planned to release toxicity assessments for GenX and PFBS together in September for public comment. But the agency has yet to do so.
The spokesperson indicated that the assessments would be released in draft form, adding that EPA plans to evaluate comments and revise and finalize the assessment. Both EPA programs and state agencies will then have access to the risk values as tools “to address GenX and PFBS contamination concerns in a variety of exposure scenarios,” the spokesperson said.
Mort told the board that EPA plans to release the oral reference doses for the two chemicals jointly, and after internal and external peer review, “there are some questions regarding their number or process for PFBS."
Mort added that internal and external reviewers are “comfortable with” the GenX analysis and conclusion, but there is a “slight hold up regarding PFBS.”
GenX is a replacement for an older PFAS chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), that manufacturers agreed to phase out by 2015. But GenX has become a potent issue in North Carolina where it has been found in the Cape Fear River, a source of drinking water for four counties in the state, near a manufacturing plant owned by Chemours, a DuPont spin-off.
PFAS -- known for their non-stick and repellent qualities -- have been used in a variety of consumer and industrial applications, but the chemicals have been linked to various adverse health effects, including certain cancers, ulcerative colitis and thyroid disease.
Mort told the NCSAB that she asked EPA “to consider releasing [the] GenX [RfD] without the PFBS [RfD]. They prefer not to do that.”
Peter Grevatt, the director of EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water and the agency's top official on PFAS policy said during an August community meeting EPA supports the 140 parts per trillion (ppt) provisional health goal the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has set for GenX, according to The Fayetteville Observer. The article does not say if he gave any indication of any level that EPA may adopt.
Grevatt, who also spoke at the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) Fall Meeting in late August in Stowe, VT, reiterated his past concerns that a single national PFAS standard may be inappropriate. He pointed to a recent agency survey of systems that supply drinking water showing 80 percent of users found PFAS in less than 2 percent of those systems.
Since then, an Ohio firefighter has brought a class action suit against PFAS manufacturers seeking industry-funded, independent nationwide health studies and testing to determine health effects caused by multiple PFAS -- including the newer replacement chemicals -- found in the blood of nearly all Americans.
The Oct. 4 suit, Kevin D. Hardwick v. 3M Company, et al. was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and represents all residents of the United States with a detectable level of PFAS in their blood. Such a class could be huge, as the suit says testing by independent researchers and defendants has found that 99 percent of the U.S. population has PFAS in their blood.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-release-genx-pfbs-risk-estimates-imminently
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EPA Touts Lead Reduction Efforts In Face Of Criticism From Ousted Official
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA is touting its efforts to reduce exposure to lead in the face of criticism from an ousted official that the Trump administration “stonewalled” an inter-agency strategy for reducing children's exposure, though the administration is months behind schedule on issuing the strategy and still appears to lack a goal for curbing exposures as advocates are seeking.
“Reducing lead exposure, particularly among children, is a top priority for EPA,” acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler says in a statement announcing the release of a document on “Protecting Children from Lead Exposures,” which details the agency's recent and ongoing efforts to limit exposures to lead in paint, water, soil, and air.
Wheeler adds that EPA and 17 other agencies involved in President Trump’s Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children are in the process of finalizing the federal strategy for reducing children's lead exposures, though Ruth Etzel, the dismissed children's health office chief, has said that the administration is ensuring it lacks teeth.
“We are in the process of completing several important actions to combat lead poisoning, such as publishing the new joint federal lead strategy, strengthening the dust-lead hazard standards, and overhauling the lead and copper rule for the first time in over two decades,” Wheeler says in the statement.
Etzel, who was placed on administrative leave last month, has told numerous media outlets that Wheeler declined her requests for meetings on the lead strategy and has generally stonewalled the effort.
In an interview televised on the Oct. 15 edition of CBS This Morning, Etzel, cautioning that she spoke “as a pediatrician” rather than an EPA official, attacked the “war on lead” initiative that former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced as a response to the Flint, MI, lead in drinking water crisis before he resigned following a series of ethics scandals.
She added that political appointees at EPA have told her they would not approve any new regulations as part of the federal lead strategy.
"My sense is that the government has absolutely no intention of taking any action toward seriously changing lead in children's environments," she said.
"It basically means that our kids will continue to be poisoned," she added. "It basically means that kids are disposable, they don't matter."
An agency spokesperson has said that Etzel is “currently on investigative leave because of serious reports made against her by staff regarding her ability to effectively lead the Office of Children’s Health."
Specific Targets
EPA's broad defense of its lead-reduction efforts also comes as environmental and children's health advocates are pressing for an inter-agency lead strategy to include specific targets and enforceable steps for reducing children's exposures, such as from lead in soil.
But industry has cautioned against an aggressive regulatory strategy, saying that officials need to improve their data on lead exposures and account for potential regulatory costs.
During an April 20 meeting of EPA's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC) meeting in Washington, D.C., Etzel, who was then still director of EPA's Office of Children's Health Protection, told CHPAC that the inter-agency lead strategy would call for eliminating children's exposures to lead, though federal officials were wrestling with a time frame for achieving that goal.
EPA National Lead Coordinator Hayley Hughes told the meeting that agencies hoped to release the strategy in June.
In the newly released document, EPA details its efforts to limit lead exposures, including a June proposed rule -- issued under a court deadline -- strengthening standards for lead in paint that trigger protective measures in home remediation, as well as loan programs that aim to reduce lead in drinking water by funding updated service lines.
“EPA is committed to reducing lead exposures from multiple sources including: paint, water, ambient air, and soil and dust contamination, especially among children who are the most vulnerable to the effects of lead,” the document says.
“EPA efforts to reduce lead exposures and prevent lead poisoning include a wide range of activities such as funding for community interventions and outreach, education and training, surveillance, and regulation and enforcement.”
EPA sought comment through Aug. 16 on its July 2 proposed rule, issued in response to an appellate court order, that would strengthen the agency's lead dust hazard standards, but the proposed rule bypasses advocates' calls to revise a definition of lead in paint that inspectors use to determine where lead-based paint is located in housing and informs risk reduction efforts.
While advocates have also called for EPA to set a standard for exposure to lead in soil, EPA says in the document that agency scientists have been advancing new methods that will help state regulators and others assess risks from exposure to lead in soil.
“EPA scientists have been working on a bioavailability method that simulates how the human digestive system absorbs lead and arsenic in soil,” to bolster risk assessments, EPA says. “Scientists and public health officials can now use the artificial stomach method to determine if arsenic and lead in contaminated soils are bioavailable and, if they are, can then remove those specific sections of soil."
EPA says that in 2018, the agency's Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program has prioritized projects that update aging infrastructure and reduce exposure to lead and other contaminants in drinking water systems.
“In addition, the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 passed by Congress in October 2018 includes programs that could be used to strengthen the federal government’s investment in reducing lead in drinking water,” the document says.
The document also reiterates that EPA continues to work with other federal agencies on finalizing the Federal Strategy to Reduce Childhood Exposures and Associated Health Impacts, though the document does not provide a schedule for issuing the strategy that advocates have long sought.
“As EPA works with its partner agencies to better coordinate activities and finalize the strategy, the Agency continues its efforts to reduce lead exposures as described in this document.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-touts-lead-reduction-efforts-face-criticism-ousted-official
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EU Notifies WTO of Draft Changes to Cosmetics Regulation
Oct 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The European Commission has notified the WTO of draft amendments to the cosmetic products Regulation.
The draft Commission Regulation aims to restrict use of climbazole as a preservative in:hair lotion (0.2%);face cream (0.2%);rinse-off shampoo (0.5%);footcare products (0.2%); andas an anti-dandruff agent in rinse-off shampoo (up to 2.0%).
The proposed date of adoption is the second quarter of next year. It will enter into force 20 days from publication in the Official Journal of the EU.
The deadline for comments is 60 days from notification.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71225/eu-notifies-wto-of-draft-changes-to-cosmetics-regulation
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CBA: ‘Not Enough Meat on Bones’ of UK REACH Plan
Oct 23, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
The Chemical Business Association has said there is "not enough meat on the bones" of the government’s UK REACH plan in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
"What meat there is," technical director Douglas Leech told Chemical Watch, "is not workable."
At the end of September the UK published its no-deal Brexit REACH technical paper, which sets out conditions and timelines for ‘grandfathering’ substances. It was met with criticism from industry associations and NGOs.
The Brexit REACH document "asked more question than gave answers", Mr Leech said.
The Health and Safety Executive has hosted two workshops on the basis of the UK leaving the EU without a trade deal. Speaking to Chemical Watch shortly after the second earlier this month, Peter Newport, CEO of CBA, said that it took over a decade to develop the "thousands of pages" of guidance for EU REACH. Whereas, "all we’ve got at the moment is not a helicopter overview, but a satellite overview of how UK REACH might work," he said.
"But companies don’t have to comply with satellite views, they have to comply with detailed guidance and requirement documents and we haven’t got that."
At the moment, he added, "even the principles don’t appear workable to us. And if the principles aren’t workable who knows what the details are going to be like."
The understanding, he said, is that the no-deal technical notices will be evolving over time. "On the basis of this draft it’s not going to be an evolution that we need, it’s a complete revolution. Rip it up and start over, because as we see it, we can’t see how it’s going to work."‘Full’ data
At the October workshop, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed that companies will need to submit a "full" data package to register their chemicals under a UK version of REACH in a no-deal scenario.
"We now have a position where they are telling us we have 60 days to notify and two years to lodge the full data package," Mr Newport said. "In reality that’s not going to happen."
The only way, he added, is if a UK lead registrant has all the data and can provide it to those in Britain. He explained that joint registrants of a substance only get a token and not the full data package. CBA, Mr Newport said, has asked Defra "several times" how this is going to work for UK joint registrants after a hard Brexit.
It is possible that a EU-based lead registrant, on request, will provide data to a UK joint registrant, he said. "This is based on a view that everyone is going to be reasonable and altruistic in Europe if they hold data. I’m not sure whether [UK] industry can rely on European altruism after a hard Brexit."
Unless the manufacturer in the UK is a subsidiary company, there is a "financial interest" for European manufacturers to not share the information, he added.Testing
If a company cannot obtain data, it will need to commission testing, which is unlikely to be completed within the two-year period, Mr Newport said. "What happens if testing this time round is different to the results that were submitted to Echa under EU REACH?"
Under REACH when companies were originally setting up data and lodging it with Echa and selling joint registrations, it was across the whole of the UK, he said.
Based on the distributor share of the market in Europe, the UK turnover of chemical distributors is about 10% of overall for the EU market, he added. "If you’re going to pay 100%, plus inflation, to re-do all the testing but only use it across 10% of the market volume for UK REACH – that’s not economically viable."
The HSE is planning to host another Brexit workshop early next year.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71221/cba-not-enough-meat-on-bones-of-uk-reach-plan
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Canada Considers Further Restricting Long-Chain PFASs, Flame Retardants
Oct 22, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
In a move aimed at protecting the country’s endangered whales, the Canadian government has announced it wants to place added restrictions on four flame retardants and three long-chain perfluorinated alkylated substances (PFASs).
It says it plans to propose changes to the country’s 2012 Prohibition of Certain Toxic Substances Regulations, which would come on top of amendments already made in 2016 to address the substances.
A Notice of Intent in the country’s official Gazette has opened a first consultation step on the impacts of the additional restrictions.
The amendments would potentially remove certain exemptions to existing restrictions on the manufacture, use, sale, offer for sale and import of the brominated flame retardants HBCD and PBDE and the oil and water repellents: perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS); perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA); and perfluorocarboxylic acids (LC-PFCA).
The government also formally signalled in the notice that it will be amending the regulations to address two additional flame retardants – DP and DBDPE – once their final screening assessment comes through. The risk evaluation process for these chemicals began in 2016, and a government spokesperson told Chemical Watch the final risk assessment is expected to be published in spring 2019.
The Notice of Intent addressing all seven substances will be open for comment until November 12. A consultation document will follow.Targeted substances
PFOS, PFOA, and LC-PFCA are all long-chain PFASs that are already listed on Schedule 1, the country’s list of toxic substances. Current regulations bar their use in Canada with a few exceptions including: water-based inks, photo media coating or firefighting foams, as well as products in which the chemicals are "incidentally present".
Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) was added to the Prohibition of Certain Toxic Substances Regulations in 2016. As a result since January 2017 its manufacture, sale, offer for sale or import has been prohibited. This includes expanded and extruded (EPS and XPS) foams containing HBCD used in building and construction applications, but does not extend to its use in other products.
Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are also used as flame retardants, though they have many other consumer uses, including as: carpet underlay, furniture foam, electrical and electronic equipment and building materials. They were initially regulated under 2008’s Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers Regulations, which was repealed when the substances were added to the Prohibition of Certain Toxic Substances Regulations in 2016.
That move expanded the scope of the previous prohibition to cover all PBDEs (penta-, octa- and decaBDE) unless present in a manufactured article. Canada has also taken steps to monitor human exposure to the substance, as well as concentrations in the environment.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71131/canada-considers-further-restricting-long-chain-pfass-flame-retardants
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In Colorado, a Bitter Battle Over Oil, Gas and the Environment Comes to a Head
Oct 23, 2018 | The New York Times
By Julie Turkewitz and Clifford Krauss
On stage at the Adams County fairgrounds, the M.C. wore cowgirl boots and a pink T-shirt that read “Mothers in Love With Fracking.”
In the audience, more than a thousand oil and gas workers looked on as local leaders issued dire warnings about the effects of a Colorado ballot measure that, if passed, could drastically reduce oil and gas drilling in the state.
Thousands of jobs: gone. Millions of dollars: lost. Conservative families: driven out.
“The wolves are at the front door,” insisted one speaker. “We need to tell them to frack off,” thundered another.
After years of bitter fights over oil and gas development, Colorado voters have managed to get a statewide anti-fracking measure on the November ballot. The initiative is unprecedented in its scope — potentially barring new wells on 95 percent of land in top-producing counties — and industry executives are watching with concern, fearful that it could encourage similar measures across the nation.
So far, only New York, Maryland and Vermont have banned fracking altogether. But none of those states have anything close to the reserves of Colorado, which is among the top six states in both oil and gas production.
Not surprisingly, the initiative has deepened political fissures in a purple state whose economy counts on oil, but whose lifestyle hinges on access to pristine wilderness. As Colorado’s population has climbed, driven by the cost of living, a growing technology sector and the appeal of the outdoors, the state’s new and old industries have collided. At the same time, environmentally-oriented companies like Patagonia are pressing to become bigger political players in the region, often putting them at odds with the oil and gas lobby.
If passed, the measure — Proposition 112 — would require companies to place new wells at least 2,500 feet from homes, schools, waterways and other areas designated as “vulnerable,” two-and-a-half to five times the current state regulation. Even as the measure faces fierce resistance, industry leaders and environmentalists alike acknowledge that it could succeed. One recent industry poll obtained by The New York Times showed 43 percent of voters in favor, with 41 percent opposed.
In recent years, Colorado oil and gas well operations have come so close to homes, schools and playgrounds that drill rigs, holding tanks, diesel trucks and floodlights are now common neighborhood features. In places like Weld County, the center of the state’s boom, residents increasingly fear they are exposing their children to chemicals. A series of deadly industry incidents has only heightened concerns.
Efforts to pass less extreme restrictions have failed, and in some neighborhoods, frustration has reached a fever pitch.
“It’s really community members against Goliath,” said Russell Mendell, 33, a volunteer with Colorado Rising, the main group supporting the measure.
Laurie Anderson, 45, a mechanical engineer and mother of five who has been fighting a large well project in her community, called the proposition “our only option.”
“It has to be a grass-roots, citizen-led effort,” she said.
In the last decade, fracking has become an increasingly important part of Colorado’s diverse economy, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue.
In a high-stakes election year, the proposition is likely to bring out voters on both sides of the political aisle, intensifying races for the governor’s office and several contested congressional seats.
Proponents of the measure say it is a common-sense regulation meant to protect people forced to breathe fracking-related fumes and live near explosion-prone sites. Opponents say it would cripple some Colorado communities, stripping the state of 43,000 jobs and more than $200 million in tax revenue in the first year alone. By 2030, lost tax revenue could hit $1.1 billion.
The real goal, they contend, is to halt drilling in Colorado altogether, before moving on to places like California and New Mexico.
“This is not a reasonable measure for health and safety,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, an industry group. “This is a measure to shut down the entire industry.”
At a time of deep political division, the measure has also emerged as a proxy battle over the direction of the state with national implications — putting to the test a tug of war between economic development and environmental protections that has reached critical levels of tension in the Trump era.
Colorado is split in thirds among Republicans, Democrats and independents, and many who support the measure say it is a chance to put a progressive stamp on a purple state.
Those who oppose it say it is a liberal effort to drive a working-class industry — and its conservative employees — out of the state for good. Industry jobs pay an average of $117,000 a year, twice the typical state salary, according to federal data.
At the Brighton rally just north of Denver, many said that they never went to college, but that industry jobs had allowed them to stay in Colorado, raise a family, and buy a home. If the measure passed, they said, they would likely move to oil fields in Texas or North Dakota.
“The people that oppose this industry, they treat us as if we’re really evil,” said Cody Doane, 45, a service specialist who stood with his twins, Everleigh Halli and Adler Burton — named for the company that had given their family everything: Halliburton.
“They want to ban oil and gas and chase us out of this state,” he said.
Big producers like Anadarko, Noble and Extraction are so concerned about the initiative that industry players have donated more than $30 million to the principal group organizing the opposition.
Supporters of the anti-fracking measure, who are being outspent roughly 40-1, according to the secretary of state, see a steep road ahead.
Their main organizing group has raised just $800,000. And their effort is opposed not only by oil and gas companies and Republican politicians, but also by much of the Democratic establishment, with officials like Gov. John Hickenlooper expressing deep concern about the economic fallout.
Colorado residents have argued for years over how to balance drilling with the protection of human and environmental health. But tension has hit a high in the last decade with the increased use of hydraulic fracturing.
Just as thousands of people moved here, the state’s crude production more than tripled. Today, the top-producing county, Weld, is home to22,000 active wells.
In the Denver suburbs, residents have tried repeatedly to move fracking operations farther from their homes, only to be stymied by their own representatives, the State Supreme Court and a regulatory agency they see as preferential to industry.
Supporters of the setback measure believe this anger will carry them to victory.
In Erie, Colo., Beth Ewaskowitz, 48, a pharmacologist who lives near dozens of wells, became a symbol of the oil and gas fight this year when she sent her 6-year-old son’s blood to be tested for chemicals associated with fracking operations. A local doctor found her son in the 79th to 85th percentile for three of them — benzene, ethylbenzene and o-xylene — and her story was picked up by local news media.
“I understand it isn’t, ‘I have high blood levels, therefore the villain is fracking,’” Ms. Ewaskowitz said. “However, if it’s not the fracking, then what? What? And if you can’t tell, what am I supposed to do with that?”
The state’s top toxicologist cast doubt on the test’s validity, and said it showed no clear link to the industry.
But part of activists’ concern is that there is no conclusive information about what effect living near oil and gas operations has on long-term health. A 2017 state study found “no substantial or moderate evidence for any health effects.” But a year later, researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health concluded that the air quality around oil and gas wells puts people nearby at an increased risk of developing cancer.
But the oil and gas rally brought out plenty of workers who called Colorado’s fracking industry the safest in the nation.
At the front by the stage, Matt Smith, 42, stood with his children, Parker, Pepper, Peyton and Preston, ages 3 through 12. Parker slept in his arms, her ponytail drooped over one arm, her blue boots hanging over another.
The older children had missed school for this event.
“This affects their lives,” said Mr. Smith, a Halliburton employee. “What happens in November will in turn affect their lives. Whether I have a job or not, whether we get to stay, to keep living where all my children were born.”
He went on: “The sooner they are in touch with what goes on in the real world, the better.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/colorado-fracking-proposition-112.html
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Two German Towns Vie to Make Trump’s Natural Gas Dream a Reality
Oct 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Parkin and Anna Shiryaevskaya
Downstream from Hamburg, two small Elbe River ports are competing to build Germany’s first liquefied natural gas import terminal and help shake up Europe’s biggest gas market.
Hugging opposite banks of the river before it arcs into the North Sea, Stade and Brunsbuettel are battling for federal approval and hundreds of millions of euros in investment. The government may announce a winner next year, ending dithering about the need for such a facility and pressure by President Donald Trump to import U.S. fuel to cut reliance on Russian gas.
Both sites tout their advantages, but the main winner will be Germany, Oliver Grundmann, Stade’s constituency lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said on the phone Oct. 22. Other sites are also being considered, such as the Baltic Sea port of Wilhelmshaven.
“The strategic relevance of diversifying our gas supplies via LNG is, I hope, by now a given,” Grundmann said. “The big question is who can build it fast and run it cost-effectively.”
Pressure by Trump on Germany this summer to dump its support for Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline project in favor of U.S. shale gas in ships is a boon to ports jockeying to become a LNG hub. Federal aid is seen as critical to the project’s structured finance, enabling the winner to speed up construction.
Supplies of gas to Germany from the rest of Europe are drying up, boosting Russia’s position as the primary source for heating, industry, and power plants. Russia accounted for about 45 percent of Germany’s imports in 2017, an increase of almost 4 percentage points from the previous year, according to data from McKinsey & Co.
Germany needs LNG capacity fast, said Grundmann, citing the need for shipping to switch from dirtier fuels after 2020, when International Maritime Organization limits on sulfur emissions kick in. Germany seeks a significant slice in building LNG-powered ships too, he said, citing initial success in attracting contracts for cruise and special-purpose vessels.
Co-financed by Macquarie Group Ltd. and China Harbour Engineering Co. and costing as much as 500 million euros ($575 million), closely held consortium LNG Stade GmbH plans a terminal that will eventually be able to handle as much as 15 percent of Germany’s gas imports.
Brunsbuettel ProjectOn the other side of the Elbe and further downstream, Brunsbuettel’s bid is being led by a joint venture of gas infrastructure company NV Nederlandse Gasunie, Vopak LNG Holding BV, and Oiltanking GmbH, bundled together as “German LNG Terminal.” It’s sited at the North Sea end of Germany’s “Ostsee Kanal” channel, giving it shipping access to the Baltic.
The group signed an agreement last month with RWE AG that guarantees the utility access to a substantial chunk of the prospective terminal’s annual capacity of 5 billion cubic meters, compared with Stade’s planned 8 billion cubic meters.
LNG Stade is looking to U.S. LNG exporters to strike long-term supply contracts that offer attractive price models for the German market, project head Martin Schubert said in a note to Bloomberg. Germany is also looking at other suppliers, such as Qatar, and Uniper SE is mulling a terminal at Wilhelmshaven, about 55 miles west of Stade.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/two-german-towns-vie-to-make-trumps-natural-gas-dream-a-reality
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Merkel Moves to Open up Germany to Us Gas Imports After Trump's Push: Report
Oct 22, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Megan Keller
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is making a move to open up Germany's market to U.S. gas companies, following a lobbying push from President Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Merkel told a group of lawmakers over breakfast in October that her government will co-finance a $576 million liquified natural gas (LNG) shipping terminal in northern Germany, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the meeting.
The project had been stalled for years, but Trump has lobbied hard for Europe to increase LNG purchases from the U.S. while reducing their reliance on Russia.
Germany gets most of its gas from Russia, and American efforts to open its market to U.S. companies has stalled due to lack of government support.
Merkel told lawmakers that the decision to co-finance the LNG terminal was "strategic" and could pay off in the long term, people familiar with the meeting told the Journal.
A German government spokesman told the Journal that the move was made because of Germany's economic interests, not U.S. pressure.
Less than a week after the reported Merkel meeting with lawmakers, an international consortium filed its first official bid for government financing for a terminal in a town near Hamburg.
Merkel said in her conversation with lawmakers that the government support for the terminal will likely have to continue for the long term and that the terminal will likely not break even for at least 10 years.
“We’re creating jobs and we’re also deepening the trans-Atlantic relationship," Richard Grenell, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, told the Journal. "The U.S. is totally committed to bringing U.S. LNG to Europe and to Germany."
https://thehill.com/policy/international/412551-merkel-concedes-to-trump-on-opening-germany-to-us-gas-imports-report
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In the Loop: US Crude Exports to South Korea Soar
Oct 23, 2018 | Platts
By Mary Hogan
US Gulf Coast crude exports to South Korea nearly tripled week on week, coinciding with wider Dubai/LOOP Sour and Brent/WTI swap spread and despite persistently high freight rates from the US Gulf Coast to North Asia.
Waterborne crude exports from PADD III to South Korea increased by 2.717 million barrels week on week to 4.225 million barrels for the week ended October 19, according to data from PIRA.
South Korea has emerged as one of the top buyers of US crude in recent month, taking both USGC light sweet grades like WTI MEH as well as medium sour grades Mars, Poseidon and Southern Green Canyon.
The increase in exports to South Korea coincided with a wider Dubai/LOOP Sour swap spread.
Second-month Dubai’s premium over front-month LOOP Sour has increased $4.97/b since the start of October to $4.55/b.
Dubai began the month at a discount to LOOP Sour.
As Dubai’s premium to LOOP Sour increases, USGC domestic medium sour grades become more competitive with comparable Dubai-based Middle Eastern grades in export markets.
At the same time, the Brent/WTI swap spread widened, making domestic light sweet grades more competitive with comparable Brent-based grades in export markets.
Brent’s premium over WTI since the start of the month has increased 55 cents/b to $9.93/b.
The export flows from the USGC to South Korea ramped up despite soaring freight costs in the past few weeks that have limited exports to other areas of the world.
South Korean buyers of US crude, however, receive government freight kickbacks that can lower the total cost to ship from the USGC to Asia.
The kickbacks are meant to incentivize buyers to diversify sources of crude away from more volatile Middle Eastern supply and toward areas of more stable supply, including the US.http://blogs.platts.com/2018/10/23/loop-us-crude-exports-south-korea-soar/
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As 1 Project Wins Big in Va., Another Hits Roadblock
Oct 23, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Virginia regulators last week gave the green light to development of the Atlantic Coast pipeline in the commonwealth.
The state Department of Environmental Quality said Friday that it had approved karst protection, erosion control and stormwater management plans for the 600-mile project to carry natural gas from West Virginia to North Carolina. Last week's announcement also triggered approval of a key Clean Water Act certification from the state.
"After more than a year of detailed analysis, all aspects of these plans have been carefully reviewed, modified, and intensified before being approved by DEQ," Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Matthew Strickler said in a statement. "We understand the pipeline projects have raised concerns. We remain dedicated to holding them to the highest environmental standards possible pursuant to state authorities."
The pipeline's developers, which include Dominion Energy Inc., still require approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in order to begin construction, but Virginia DEQ's decision is "a major step forward," said project spokesman Aaron Ruby.
Separately, the Pittsburgh District of the Army Corps of Engineers last week suspended a critical stream-crossing permit for the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP), which would also transport gas through West Virginia and Virginia.
Environmental groups, which have challenged both the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines, asked FERC to halt all work on the EQT Corp. project.
"Not only is continued construction unlawful, but it makes no sense — environmentally, financially or otherwise — to allow MVP to install its pipeline in between streams and wetlands now and just assume that it will ultimately be able to come back later and complete its stream crossings," Derek Teaney, senior attorney at Appalachian Mountain Advocates, said in a statement yesterday. "It is surprising that FERC hasn't yet put a stop to this illegal, wasteful, and inefficient construction method that MVP is undertaking."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/23/stories/1060104057
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Senators Seek More Oversight After Massachusetts Gas Explosions
Oct 23, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Massachusetts’ senators want to know how federal regulators plan to prevent deadly natural gas explosions like the one in September that killed one person and destroyed dozens of homes in three communities near Boston.
Sens. Ed Markey (D) and Elizabeth Warren (D) wrote to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration Oct. 22, saying issues that led to the September explosions could occur elsewhere.
They expressed alarm that the agency doesn’t regulate construction activities, which could affect pipelines. They also said the agency should regulate shut-off valves on gas distribution lines instead of just on larger transmission lines.
‘Serious Lapses’Dozens of explosions and fires along NiSource Inc.’s natural gas network Sept. 13 in Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover, Mass., left at least one person dead and injured 13. The incident displaced more than 8,000 customers.
“It is clear that there were serious lapses in safety procedures that resulted in this accident,” the senators wrote. “These issues call into question whether existing regulations are sufficient to protect the public from future disasters or if additional oversight is needed.”
The agency is reviewing the letter and working on a response, according to a PHMSA spokesman. The senators asked the agency to respond by Oct. 25.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/senators-seek-more-oversight-after-massachusetts-gas-explosions-1
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Putting The Brakes On: Transportation Department Rolls Back Oil Train Regulation
Oct 23, 2018 | Tri States Public Radio
By Madelyn Beck
The U.S. Department of Transportation has removed a regulation meant to force trains carrying crude oil or other flammable liquids to adopt electronic braking technology by 2020.
Electronically Controlled Pneumatic brakes — or ECP brakes — are meant to stop train cars and keep them from slamming into each other when a train derails.
Illinois is both a train hub and an oil train hub, and the regulatory change will have several effects in the state.
One is cost savings to the railroad industry. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, “the expected costs of requiring ECP brakes would be significantly higher than the expected benefits of the requirement.”
It would cost the industry between $375 and $554 million to install the braking systems in the next four to five years, hundreds of millions more than it would save in damages, according to the department. That’s an update from when this was first calculated under the Obama administration, which found that the benefits may outweigh costs. The change can partially be explained by reduced oil train traffic in general due to pipelines and lower oil prices between 2015 and 2017. Fewer trains means fewer potential accidents and damages.
The other effect to consider is what those damages mean: oil trains potentially derailing and leaking oil into the environment or causing hazardous explosions. Groups like the Sierra Club believe those should matter more in this cost-benefit analysis.
“To me [the recent Department of Transportation analysis] seems like it’s baseline not looking at what we really value, which is the health and safety of our communities, our waterways and our environments,” said Cathy Collentine, Associate Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign.
Illinois has seen a few significant oil train derailments, including one in Galena in 2015. The Galena incident happened in an area near where a tributary entered the Mississippi River. In that case, a wheel rim broke, 21 cars from the BNSF oil train derailed, seven tanker cars ruptured and five caught fire. It took three days to put the fire out.
Luckily there was no evidence the oil made its way into the water. Still, 110,543 gallons of crude oil were released, nine residents were evacuated and lawmakers called for changes to make oil trains safer.
While Federal Railroad Administration simulations initially showed electronic braking systems led to a significant decrease in damage from train derailments, more recent calculations and field tests put that into question.
A re-analysis of ECP brakes effectiveness showed that trains with the brakes still often had fewer cars derail with fewer punctures. However, it wasn’t as big of a help as earlier simulations showed, and the amount they helped varied significantly.
That left researchers, including third-party National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, to findthe ECP brakes’ effectiveness inconclusive.
As debates go, this finding is also debated. The Sierra Club finds it “deeply flawed,” saying that any benefits found in testing should be looked at as a clear reason to keep the regulation.
“When we’re looking at something that can be as potentially dangerous as a train derailment, to me any improvement over our current braking system is worth it,” Collentine said.
But Why Pull Back Now?The transportation department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said it decided to pull back this regulation now because of a requirement in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, signed by President Barack Obama in 2015. It ordered more analysis of the ECP brakes’ effectiveness and whether they were worth the cost — which they recently found is not the case.
Part of that is because of the changes in oil traffic. When many oil train accidents happened between 2014 and 2016, oil prices, oil production and oil train traffic were all high. Then prices tanked. At the same time, more oil pipelines were built and more rail safety technology, like new types of tanker cars, went into effect.
Now, oil prices are back up. There is significantly more pipeline infrastructure than before, so fewer oil trains are needed, but those pipelines — including the Dakota Access pipeline — are already nearing or at capacity.
Rob Benedict is the senior director of transportation and infrastructure at American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, which has argued against the brake mandate in the past. He says oil trains won’t reach the levels they were a few years ago.
“I don’t think you’ll ever see the amount that you saw, that quick uptick back in the 2012 to 2014 era. And I also think that with the new tank car fleet, if there happens to be a derailment, you are going to see a considerable improvement in the performance of those tank cars,” Benedict said.
He added that many paint this regulation change in a bad light; saying it’s just another regulation rollback by the Trump administration. He disagrees.
“I see this more as a case of good governance. There was some question about the initial analysis, whether there was enough data and modeling to support the safety benefits that were claimed with ECP. There was also questions of the actual cost,” he said, noting that the Department of Transportation did find that its initial conclusions were flawed.
Benedict said AFPM is already in the middle of a major tanker car update and retrofitting to improve safety, and his organization is supportive of other types of safety regulations. Specifically, he said they support regulations that would prevent a derailment, rather than mitigate the damages if a train does derail.
“The majority of derailments are caused by either human error or track integrity,” he said, adding that any advancements in prevention “whether it be track maintenance, track oversite or efforts to train your employees can go much further as far as reducing risk than ECP braking technology.”
Benedict said he’s excited about some possible new regulations about track integrity, which the Department of Transportation could propose next year.
The Galena train derailment in 2015 would not have been stopped with a better track, and it had relatively updated train car types. At the same time, ECP brakes require that a train conductor see the accident coming and “put the brakes in emergency,” according to Benedict.
None of this guarantees there will be a reduction in human error, though, which contributes to oil train accidents like the Lac-Megantic disaster — an oil train derailment in Canada that killed 47 people in 2013.
Because of how bad some singular incidents can be, groups like the Sierra Club and people like Washington Gov. Jay Inslee argue that repealing the brake regulation was a bad move. In 2016, a train derailed at the border of Washington in Mosier, Oregon, spilling 42,000 gallons of oil, catching fire, and forcing evacuations. At the time, the Federal Railroad Administration believed ECP brakes would have mitigated the damage.
And oil traffic could go up as new pipelines meet capacity and other pipelines are delayed. In North Dakota, where most oil train traffic comes from in Illinois, there is an oil train uptick, but it’s still not even half as much as during 2014.
Canada is already shipping significantly more oil by rail into the Midwest as it faces pipeline problems. And as an increase of oil trains has done in the past, there have been an increase in accidents, like in Iowa this last summer.
http://www.tspr.org/post/putting-brakes-transportation-department-rolls-back-oil-train-regulation
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Herrera Beutler Introduces Bill to Reinstate Oil-Train Safety Rules
Oct 22, 2018 | The Columbian
By Katy Sword
Making good on an earlier pledge, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, introduced legislation to reinstate safety regulations for oil trains.
The Obama-era rules were rolled back by the Trump administration in September. The 2015 regulations require railroads to ensure trains with either crude oil or flammable liquids onboard to be outfitted with electronic braking systems. The updated systems are considered both more responsive and effective that traditional air-braking systems.
Herrera Beutler’s bill, the Oil and Flammable Material Rail Transportation Safety Act, would reinstate those rules. It was introduced in the House on Friday.
“For the sake of our Columbia River Gorge communities and our environment, we need stronger safety measures when it comes to transporting hazardous materials by rail,” Herrera Beutler said in a press release.
“The U.S. Department of Transportation made the wrong call to roll back a crucial braking-upgrade requirement for oil trains,” she said in the press release, “so I’m taking legislative action to correct this mistake and protect the best interests of Southwest Washington.”
The USDOT concluded the cost to upgrade trains with new electronic braking systems outweighed the benefit. The Federal Roadway Administration, however, determined that upgraded brakes could have reduced the $9 million in damage caused by an oil train derailment in Mosier, Ore., in 2016.
The state Department of Ecology also states that Southwest Washington is a major oil train corridor, with nearly 546 million gallons of crude oil traveling through the region in the second quarter this year.
https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/oct/22/herrera-beutler-introduces-bill-to-reinstate-oil-train-safety-rules/
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Economists Question Cap-And-Trade Rules
Oct 23, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
A new report on California's cap-and-trade program calls on state regulators to tighten their rules for carbon offsets.
The California Air Resources Board is getting ready to vote on amendments to its economywide emissions trading program that would set rules through 2030. The amendments, released last month, propose a first-ever price ceiling for the program of $65 per ton starting in 2020, which would increase 5 percent per year, plus inflation. CARB will hold an initial hearing on the amendments next month, with a final vote expected early next year.
The state's Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee, a group of five energy experts appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and state lawmakers, released a report yesterday raising questions about a potential surplus of allowances and how the program will interact with other emissions reduction policies.
The group also warned of "lingering sentiments of mistrust" among environmental justice advocates, who have long opposed cap and trade for its focus on greenhouse gases at the potential expense of conventional pollutants.
To that end, CARB should clarify its proposal on restricting the use of out-of-state offsets, the group said. The market currently allows companies to use offsets for up to 8 percent of their total emissions. Under the proposed amendments, the proportion will drop to 4 percent from 2021 to 2025, then go back up to 6 percent through 2030.
As well, a 2017 law, A.B. 398, mandated that no more than half of offsets turned in after 2020 come from projects that fail to produce "direct environmental benefits." CARB's proposed rules would allow all in-state offset projects to qualify as producing direct benefits; out-of-state projects would qualify if they reduce any air pollutant or other pollutant that could affect in-state waters.
The group said that the amendments could be read as meaningless and recommended that CARB clarify that the out-of-state projects must reduce pollutants besides greenhouse gas emissions, "following a relatively standard canon of statutory construction that words in a statute are to be given effect rather than to have no consequence."
The committee did not take a stance on whether the cap-and-trade program is issuing too many allowances, another question that A.B. 398 directed regulators to examine. The report's chapter on allowance supply, written by Resources for the Future senior fellow Dallas Burtraw and Danny Cullenward, policy director for the think tank Near Zero, recommends that the state provide more data on how many allowances are being held by companies and perform analysis on various allowance supply scenarios.
"Without expressing a view on this question, the subcommittee suggests that going forward, additional technical disclosures and public analysis from CARB would help address the statutory direction on overallocation," the report says.
The group also warned against the potential for emissions to go up if the Trump administration is successful in hamstringing California's authority to reduce vehicular emissions. The administration is considering challenging the state's waiver under the Clean Air Act, which allows it to set tailpipe emissions standards as well as sales targets for zero-emission vehicles.
The committee recommended that the agency study a series of substitutes for the standards, including charges on vehicle miles traveled; increases in subsidies for electric vehicle purchases; regulations on the extraction of fossil fuels; and carbon-intensity rules for the manufacturing of vehicles, rather than their fuel use.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/10/23/stories/1060104067
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On Eve of Trial, Supreme Court Leaves Landmark Climate Case - Filed by Kids - in Limbo
Oct 22, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Brady Dennis
Expert witnesses had already booked their travel to testify in the long-awaited landmark climate change case. Some of the plaintiffs -- young activists who are suing the federal government -- altered their school schedules in order to live in Eugene, Ore., during what was expected to be a first-of-its-kind trial.
But thanks to an eleventh-hour stay by the Supreme Court, those plans are now in doubt.
An order late last week from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. handed a notable, if temporary, victory to the federal government, which has for years tried unsuccessfully to halt a landmark suit by 21 young people who argue that the failure of U.S. leaders to combat climate change violates their constitutional right to a clean environment. The case was scheduled to be heard beginning on Oct. 29 in a U.S. District Court in Oregon, but the administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
“It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for the Supreme Court to enjoin a trial when the Court of Appeals is still considering the case. Ordinarily they’ll wait for the lower court to rule,” said Michael Gerrard, an environmental law professor at Columbia University.
The plaintiffs in the case range in age from 11 to 22. The goal of their lawsuit is to compel the government to scale back its support for fossil fuel extraction and production and to support policies aimed at reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.
“It’s one of the most profound threats to young people I’ve ever seen,” Julia Olson, the attorney for the youths and executive director of Our Children’s Trust, said of climate change in an interview with The Washington Post last week. She added that the only way for the nation to make a systemic shift from its reliance on fossil fuels is for the government to lead the way through policy action.
“It’s not going to happen otherwise,” she said.
Both the Obama and Trump administrations have repeatedlyasked lower courts to halt the lawsuit since it was filed in 2015, questioning the merits of the case, saying discovery requests were “burdensome" and arguing that the suit would usurp the authorities of Congress and federal agencies.
Time and again, lower courts have allowed the case to proceed. The government also went to the Supreme Court earlier this summer seeking a stay, but the court in an unsigned opinion also refused to stop the case, calling the request “premature.”
But the court also foreshadowed it might be willing to step in at some point: “The breadth of respondents' claims is striking, however, and the justiciability of those claims presents substantial grounds for difference of opinion. The District Court should take these concerns into account in assessing the burdens of trial and discovery."
Last week, with the landmark trial looming, the Trump administration once again asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
“This suit is an attempt to redirect federal environmental and energy policies through the courts rather than through the political process, by asserting a new and unsupported fundamental due process right to certain climate condition,” Department of Justice lawyers wrote, adding that a district court “has allowed this improper suit to proceed for nearly three years over the repeated objections of the government."
Late Friday, Roberts temporarily halted the case, pending a response from lawyers for the children. The decision angered environmental activists who have been eager to see the long-awaited trial begin, but others welcomed the delay.
“The Supreme Court is acknowledging what we have really known all along: this is a policy issue that belongs in the halls of Congress, not the courts," Jeff Holmstead, who headed EPA’s air and radiation office under President George W. Bush and is now a lawyer representing energy firms, said in a statement. He added, "These young activists' considerable time and effort would be better spent working to influence the federal and state legislative debates surrounding policy solutions that address the challenges of climate change in an effective and meaningful way.”
The plaintiffs in the case show no signs of going away quietly.
On Monday, their attorneys filed a 103-page response to the Supreme Court. It argued that the Trump administration had not met the legal bar for a stay and would not suffer “irreparable” harm in having to go to trial.
“This case clearly poses profoundly important constitutional questions, including questions about individual liberty and standing, the answers to which depend upon the full evaluation of evidence at trial,” the lawyers wrote, adding, “These young plaintiffs, mere children and youth, are already suffering irreparable harm which worsens as each day passes with more carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere and oceans."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/23/eve-trial-supreme-court-leaves-landmark-climate-case-filed-by-kids-limbo/?utm_term=.7cfbb91955a3
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Youth Plaintiffs Urge Roberts To Lift Rare Stay Of Landmark Climate Suit
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Lawyers for a group of youth plaintiffs are urging Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to lift the unusual stay he granted the Justice Department (DOJ) on the eve of their scheduled, high-profile climate change trial in an Oregon federal court, arguing that his temporary stay undermines the judiciary's integrity and harms the plaintiffs.
“A stay of trial in the district court will disrupt the integrity of the judiciary's role as a check on the political branches and will irreparably harm these children,” the plaintiffs' lawyers wrote in an Oct. 22 response to DOJ's successful petition.
“The independence of the judiciary, free from pressure by the political branches, is instrumental in preserving our democratic institutions and the People's respect for them.”
The response then quotes an Oct. 16 speech Roberts delivered to the University of Minnesota School of law: “Without independence, there is no Brown v. Board of Education. . . . Now, the Court has from time to time erred, and erred greatly. But when it has, it has been because the Court yielded to political pressure.”
Their response to DOJ's petition comes after Roberts late Oct. 19 granted -- at least temporarily -- DOJ's request in In re: United States, et al. to stay the case, which was brought by a group of 21 youth plaintiffs and had been slated to go to trial in a federal district court in Oregon later this month.
“It is ordered that discovery and trial in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon in” Juliana, et al. v. United States “are stayed” pending the response from the young people, which was not due until Oct. 24 but was filed Oct. 22.
It is unclear when the court will act next.
DOJ has long sought to block the trial in this case, and had previously asked the Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to grant it a writ of mandamus, which is considered extraordinary relief as most appellate courts want proceedings to complete at a lower court before hearing them.
Granting such a petition is generally only done when a higher court believes a lower court has committed a grave error.
When DOJ asked the Supreme Court to halt the case earlier this year, then-Justice Anthony Kennedy -- who at the time had responsibility for overseeing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit -- in one of his final acts on the court, rejected the petition as premature.
But Kennedy also expressed skepticism about the plaintiffs' case, which seeks a court ruling that the government has violated the plaintiffs' rights as well as an order requiring U.S. greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to levels deemed safe by scientists.
“The breadth of respondents' claims is striking, however, and the justiciability of those claims present substantial grounds for difference of opinion. The district court should take these concerns into account in assessing the burdens of discovery and trial,” Kennedy wrote.
DOJ relied heavily on Kennedy's skepticism in the new petition to the court, arguing that the lack of “immediate appellate review is flatly inconsistent with” Kennedy's July 30 order, which the filing claims demonstrates the government's requests have met the standard for interlocutory certification.
Avoid Trial
While the Obama administration also opposed the suit, first filed in 2015, the Trump administration has sought to downplay the need to address climate risks and is rolling back Obama-era mitigation requirements.
However, after the Obama DOJ lost a bid to dismiss the case on procedural grounds at the district court level, it answered the complaint and admitted some of the most important claims that its actions, such as permitting fossil fuel extraction, promoted climate change, just before President Donald Trump was inaugurated in early 2017.
The Trump administration has taken many steps to avoid the trial, and it warned earlier this month that it was planning to return to the Supreme Court, an effort aimed in part at avoiding the optics of government officials fighting claims by young people that the United States has violated the Constitution and the public trust doctrine by promoting fossil fuel use and causing them to be injured by climate change.
The department filed with the Supreme Court Oct. 18 just 11 days before the Oct. 29 trial had been slated to begin and three days after Judge Ann Aiken of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon denied two earlier DOJ motions to end the case.
The filing asked the high court to determine“[w]hether this suit is justiciable under Article III” of the Constitution; “[w]hether this suit should be dismissed for failure to comply with the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act:” and “[w]hether this suit should be dismissed because there is no right to a 'climate system capable of sustaining human life' under the Due Process Clause or a public trust doctrine.”
DOJ also filed a third request with the 9th Circuit asking that court to similarly grant it a writ of mandamus. The 9th Circuit denied both of DOJ's earlier requests, and it is unlikely to do anything with the third filing since the high court has acted.
In response to the stay, one of the youth's attorneys, Julia Olson, said in a statement, “We are confident once Chief Justice Roberts and the full Court receive the youth plaintiffs' response to defendants' mischaracterization of their case, the trial will proceed.”
The response says the new petition is “nearly identical” to the previous one, which it notes Kennedy rejected as “premature."
And the attorneys agree with Kennedy's statement about the breadth of the case to claim it poses “profoundly important constitutional questions,” and add, “This Court will have the opportunity to review these questions after trial. . . . However, to stay this case now, and to reach these questions prematurely, would deprive this Court of the record necessary for considered appellate review of the claims.”
The lawyers also stress that the case is not over an environmental law and cannot be addressed under the Administrative Procedure Act, but is a civil rights action under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
“These issues cannot be responsibly determined by speculating as to what the evidence might show or conjecture regarding what remedy the district court might award. They must be decided on the facts. . . . The occurrence of the bench trial itself . . . does not intrude into the exclusive domain of the executive branch. To so find would give the federal government license to evade any trial where it is a defendant in a constitutional case. Importantly, Petitioners make no claim of intrusion into executive privilege or deliberative process privilege by either discovery or in the evidence to be presented at trial.”
They further argue that DOJ has not established irreparable harm but say the children will continue to be irreparably harmed by any additional delay and that there is not a fair prospect that a majority of the high court will vote to grant mandamus.
Climate law expert Michael Gerrard of Columbia University said on Twitter that the stay is a “highly unusual action, reminiscent of [the court's] stay of the Clean Power Plan."
A number of responders noted that since Kennedy's action, he has been replaced by Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who they expect to be more opposed to such suits. “What's unusual? We [all] know decisions like this are why Kav is there,” wrote a Twitter user named Stephen Soldz, in response to Gerrard's post.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/youth-plaintiffs-urge-roberts-lift-rare-stay-landmark-climate-suit
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Environmentalists Sue EPA over Interstate Ozone Petition Denials
Oct 22, 2018 | Inside EPA
A coalition of nine environmental groups is joining Maryland in suing EPA over its denial of Clean Air Act petitions from Maryland and Delaware asking the agency to curb interstate emissions that contribute to excessive ozone levels on the East Coast, claiming the denial is at odds with an air law mandate to curb pollution in downwind states.
The suit challenging the Oct. 5 final denial of the petitions was filed Oct. 19 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by organizations including Clean Air Council, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Sierra Club, among others.
Delaware and Maryland petitioned EPA under Clean Air Act section 126 to limit ozone-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions from power plants in several upwind states, claiming the emissions are contributing significantly to problems meeting national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone on the coast.
Maryland's petition sought regulation of NOx from 36 electric generating units at power plants in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Delaware's four petitions targeted emissions from individual power plants in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Maryland sued EPA over the petition denial Oct. 12 in the D.C. Circuit, while a Delaware official has said the state “continues to consider all legal options” in response to the denial of its petitions.
EDF Senior Attorney Graham McCahan in an Oct. 19 statement on the environmental groups' suit said, “The Clean Air Act is clear that EPA must protect downwind states from dangerous air pollution that is encroaching on them from coal plants in neighboring states. EPA’s denial of Maryland and Delaware’s petitions shirks that responsibility, and prevents states from providing the cleanest and safest air possible for their citizens.”
The air law’s “good neighbor” provision requires states to mitigate their emissions that “cause or contribute significantly” to NAAQS violations in other states downwind. Should they fail to do so, section 126 allows downwind states to petition the agency to directly regulate specific pollution sources upwind.
But EPA has not granted such petitions, and is also proposing no further federal rules to curb interstate ozone, preferring to rely instead on state implementation plans that states are required to craft to meet the good neighbor obligation. EPA has proposed not to update its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) emissions trading program for power plants to meet the agency’s tougher ozone NAAQS of 70 parts per billion (ppb), set in 2015. CSAPR will by 2023 have met its goal of helping states meet the weaker 2008 ozone NAAQS of 75 ppb, EPA predicts.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/environmentalists-sue-epa-over-interstate-ozone-petition-denials
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Soot Deaths Plunged Following Clean Air Act Amendments
Oct 22, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
The number of air-pollution-related deaths in the United States plunged by almost half in the two decades following passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, amounting to about 71,000 by 2010, according to estimates in a newly released study.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina, EPA and other organizations looked at long-term mortality trends stemming from exposure to ground-level ozone and the tiny particulates technically known as PM2.5. From a total of 135,000 in 1990, the number of annual deaths fell 47 percent to end at the 71,000 figure by 2010, the study found. The drop occurred as the nation's total population swelled by almost one-quarter during that time.
"We've invested a lot of resources as a society to clean up our air," Jason West, a professor of environmental sciences and engineering at UNC Chapel Hill and one of the paper's authors, said in a news release. "This study demonstrates that those changes have had a real impact." New federal policies, however, "likely will slow the improvement in air quality," West added, or possibly make it worse.
The paper, published Friday in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, relied on a computer simulation of air pollution across the U.S. The bulk of the decline in deaths from stroke, chronic respiratory disease and other ailments was driven by an almost 40 percent drop in average annual concentrations of PM2.5 during the two decades in question.
Summertime ozone levels fell 9 percent when measured by a one-hour daily maximum. Because other factors also influence overall mortality rates from those diseases, "the drop in deaths was not solely the result of improved air quality," the release says. The study also notes some uncertainties, such as a possible overestimation of the number of deaths linked to PM2.5 exposure.
Besides the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the paper credits EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which has helped cut power plant releases of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides, along with various policies to reduce car and truck pollution. Even so, both PM2.5 and ozone remain "a great threat to the public health."
PM2.5 refers to fine particulates that are no more than 2.5 microns in diameter, or roughly one-thirtieth the width of a human hair. Coincidentally, EPA is set to begin collecting public comments tomorrow on a draft assessment citing research that its current standards — last tightened in 2012 — are too weak to adequately protect public health (Greenwire, Oct. 16).
EPA last tightened the national ozone standard in 2015 to 70 parts per billion. Three years later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is set to hear oral arguments in December on a package of litigation that features both industry claims that EPA went overboard in setting the 70 ppb limit and public health groups' arguments that the evidence warrants cutting the standard to as low as 60 ppb.
While the Trump administration has opted to defend the 70 ppb standard, it has otherwise shown little interest in tightening air pollution regulations and in some cases has sought to roll back Obama-era policies. It's in the process, for example, of scrapping 2016 control guidelines intended to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds — another contributor to ozone — from existing oil and gas operations. After proposing the guidelines' withdrawal earlier this year, EPA plans to issue the final rule by December, according to its latest semiannual regulatory agenda released last week.
The same research team plans to follow up with more work to analyze air pollution since 2010. But the health improvements found so far likely have continued past that date "as air pollutant concentrations have continued to decrease," Yuqiang Zhang, a Duke University scientist and lead researcher on the study, said in the release.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/10/22/stories/1060104037
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