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ACC AM 30/10/18

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Business Cycle Resilience Opens Wide Window for Investment
Oct 30, 2018 | Manufacturing.net
By Mike Laprocido

Over the last several years, there have been fundamental shifts at play that have served to prolong the current favorable conditions the chemical industry has been enjoying, triggering an unprecedented wave of investment in new capacity globally.
U.K. Targets Waste Packaging With Tax on Non-Recyclable Plastics
Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Hirtenstein and Jessica Shankleman

The U.K. is planning a tax on the import and manufacturing of non-recyclable plastic packaging in response to growing concern about waste materials polluting the environment.

LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) EPA Withdraws Rulemaking for 29 Snurs
Oct 30, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The US EPA has withdrawn 29 TSCA significant new use rules (Snurs) issued under direct final rulemakings in response to adverse comments.
U.S. EPA Settles With Two California Companies For Failure To Provide Required Toxic Chemical Notifications
Oct 29, 2018 | Oil and Gas Online

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has settled with two California companies for failing to provide required notifications for the handling of toxic chemicals. IPS Corporation, located in Compton, Calif., will pay a $87,000 penalty. Chevron Richmond Technology Center, located in Richmond, Calif., will pay a $11,011 penalty.
ACSH Explains: What's The Story On Perchloroethylene?
Oct 30, 2018 | American Council on Science and Health
By Michael Dourson

The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and was signed into law June 22, 2016.

Chemical Management News

Army Corps Wraps up Dredging in Ship Canal; Decision on Disposal of Most Contaminated Sediments Still in Limbo
Oct 29, 2018 | NWI Times
By Sarah Reese

The Army Corps of Engineers has completed another season of dredging in the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal, though a decision on where to store the most toxic sediments remains in limbo.
High PFAS Levels Found at Grand Haven Elementary School
Oct 29, 2018 | MLive
By Justine McGuire

Toxic PFAS chemicals have been found in the drinking water at a Grand Haven district elementary school at levels well above what's considered acceptable for human health.
This Toxic Chemical May Be Lurking in Our Homes, New Study Finds
Oct 30, 2018 | Earth.com
By Olivia Harvey

Researchers at Indiana University recently uncovered a threatening chemical that is potentially contaminating a large percentage of North American homes. Tri(2,4-di-t-butylphenyl) phosphate or TDTBPP was found in homes, in an electric waste facility, and within surrounding natural environments.
Dangerous Chemicals Could Be Lurking in Your Furniture: What to Know About Off-Gassing
Oct 29, 2018 | Cleveland 19
By Sara Goldenberg

Cleveland 19 is investigating a hidden danger in your house.
Common Household Chemicals Tied to Language Delays in Kids
Oct 29, 2018 | Medscape
By Michael Vlessides

Early prenatal exposure to phthalates — the synthetic chemicals commonly found in household items and personal care products — has been tied to language delays in children, new research shows.
EPA Skirts Perchlorate Rule Deadline
Oct 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA appears to have skirted, for now, a looming court-ordered deadline to publish a proposed drinking water standard for the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate as the agency's recent request for the federal court to extend the Oct. 31 deadline by 6 months results in an automatic three-month extension or until the judge rules.
Quaker Oats Hit With New Suit Over Weedkiller Residue
Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Julie Steinberg

PepsiCo, Inc. and its Quaker Oats Co. unit deceived consumers by failing to disclose that more than a dozen cereals and bars touted as healthful contain traces of the weedkiller glyphosate, a new proposed class suit alleges.

Energy News

Pension Funds Point Finger at Lobbyists of Polluting Firms
Oct 30, 2018 | Bloomberg (In E&E Climatewire)
By Anna Hirtenstein,

A group of pension funds that control $2 trillion are pushing for 55 large European energy, mining and transportation companies to scale back their anti-climate lobbying.
Billionaires Face off Against Oil Industry in Washington Carbon Ballot Fight
Oct 30, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Anthony Adragna

A ballot showdown that has pitted environmental grassroots activists, aided by billionaires like Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, against the oil industry will be decided Nov. 6 as Washington state decides whether it will become the first state to require polluters to pay a fee for their carbon pollution.
Next-Wave Lng Race Hits Hurdles in U.S.-China Trade War
Oct 30, 2018 | Reuters
By Julie Gordon, and Scott DiSavino

The delay of a U.S. Gulf Coast liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project has crystallized fears that the U.S. trade battle with China is hampering efforts to line up buyers needed to move ahead with multi-billion-dollar builds.
U.S. Government Official Says Country to Become Key Source of Global Energy Supplies
Oct 30, 2018 | Reuters
By Florence Tan, and Henning Gloystein

The United States will become a key source of energy supplies to meet growing demand globally, with innovation in technology and financing set to boost U.S. oil and gas production in the next decade, the country’s top energy diplomat said.
Scientists Close Gap in Oil, Gas Field Methane Emissions Estimates
Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bobby Magill

A new way of measuring methane emissions from oil and gas operations has exposed unexpected pollution sources and helps reconcile discrepancies in previous monitoring methods.
Florida Could Add Offshore Drilling Ban to State’s Constitution
Oct 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Chris Marr and Tripp Baltz

Florida voters could add a near-shore oil-drilling ban to the state’s constitution this November—reinforcing a prohibition already in state law.
Virginia Sets Carbon Emissions Cap for Dominion Energy, Others
Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman

Virginia electric power companies like Dominion Energy would have to keep their carbon emissions below a statewide cap of 28 million tons per year in 2020 under regulations approved by the State Air Pollution Control Board.
Minn. Regulators OK $700m Natural Gas Plant
Oct 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Jeffrey Tomich

A split Minnesota utility commission yesterday went against the recommendation of an administrative judge by approving a utility's participation in a $700 million natural gas plant to be built just across the state line in Superior, Wis.
Oil Sector, Ethanol Groups Clash over E15 Support
Oct 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

Oil sector and ethanol groups are making directly contradictory claims over the popularity of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15), which President Donald Trump has ordered EPA to authorize for sale year-round in a forthcoming rule that oil groups have promised to fight as unlawful and damaging to consumers.

Chemical Security News

DOE Rule Would Shield Grid Data from Disclosure
Oct 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak and Hannah Northey

The Department of Energy could close the blinds on troves of grid data deemed critical to U.S. national security under a rulemaking issued yesterday.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Railroad Remains in PPG Waste Suit to Access Right-of-Way
Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes

Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad Inc. will remain a defendant in a citizen suit against the railroad and PPG Industries Inc. over contamination in the Allegheny River, even though there are no allegations that the railroad is responsible for the contamination.
Canada’s Crude-by-Rail Shipments to U.S. Hit Record High
Oct 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By James Munson

Canada’s crude-by-rail shipments to the U.S. hit a new record in August, the country’s main energy regulator said Oct. 29.

Environment News

EAB To Weigh Trump EPA's Ability To Loosen Obama-Era CWA Permits
Oct 29, 2018 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss

EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) is set to hear oral argument Oct. 30 in a Clean Water Act (CWA) permit appeal that could set a new precedent on the agency's authority to loosen pollution restrictions in permits based on waterbody cleanup plans -- potentially boosting or putting new limits on its ability to roll back Obama-era permit terms.
U.K. Plans Carbon Tax to Replace EU Market (Corrected)
Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Mathew Carr

U.K. greenhouse gas polluters could see their costs for emitting carbon dioxide limited if the nation crashes out of the European Union without an agreement.
N.C. Governor Seeks Major Greenhouse Gas Cuts
Oct 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew M. Ballard

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) is calling for a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to help address the environmental impacts of climate change such as the powerful storms that have recently pounded the state.
A Call for Urgent Action: First-Ever WHO Conference on a Killer That Cuts Short Millions of Lives a Year
Oct 29, 2018 | EDF
By Sarah Vogel, Ph.D.

To breathe—from our very first breath to our last—is to be alive. But for billions of people around the world, that simple, necessary act is at risk due to pollution.
Best Way to Fight Climate Change? Put an Honest Price on Carbon
Oct 29, 2018 | The New York Times
By The Editorial Board

Will voters in Washington State breathe new life into the idea of taxing carbon emissions? Plenty of people worried about the earth’s future certainly hope so.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Business Cycle Resilience Opens Wide Window for Investment

Oct 30, 2018 | Manufacturing.net

By Mike Laprocido

Over the last several years, there have been fundamental shifts at play that have served to prolong the current favorable conditions the chemical industry has been enjoying, triggering an unprecedented wave of investment in new capacity globally. However, as the pace of change in downstream markets accelerates, precipitated mostly by the adoption of digital technologies, chemical leaders are now prioritizing the attainment of digital capabilities as a cornerstone for success in their own business strategy.
This shift in thinking stems from not only the desire to drive higher levels of productivity and cost containment, but also to address the pressing issues of accelerating downstream change and commoditization, a growing skills gap, and blurring industry lines to potentially transform the way they do business.
Fundamental Shift #1: Advantaged Raw Material Supply Resulting from Shale Gas Phenomenon
The shale phenomena that has utterly transformed the United States oil and gas industry has also had profound knock-on effects in many other industries—primarily in terms of lowering the cost of their energy inputs. However, no other industry has benefitted as much as the chemical industry in that it also enjoys a substantial raw material cost advantage as natural gas is the basic building block of organic chemistry (see diagram below from BCG).
The effects of this cost advantage have been profound. First, the industry now leads all other U.S. industrial sectors in shareholder return since the advent of shale gas (see chart by McKinsey below).
Second, having historically met demand through assets deployed on a regional level, the U.S. chemical industry is now able to compete successfully on a global basis to serve export markets as the lower input costs have more than offset disadvantages in labor costs. These two factors provide a significant competitive advantage to the U.S. chemicals manufacturing base relative to other regional manufacturers, in terms of attracting capital and meeting global demand.
Fundamental Shift #2: Shifting Demand Resulting from Rising Middle Class in Asia
In a mature market, growth in the chemical industry tends to correlate with overall economic growth as chemicals play a role in nearly every product-based industry. Chemical products like polymers, coatings, and adhesives, for example, are applications abound in consumer products, high tech, medical, automotive, aerospace and defense, telecommunications, and transportation.
As a result, the chemicals industry is considered by many to be a “bellwether” industry for overall economic productivity. In fact, the American Chemistry Council states that the ripple effects from the industry account for roughly 25 percent of U.S. GDP.
Developing markets, on the other hand, are a bit different. In these cases, growth rates accelerate as people rise from poverty and demand consumer goods and other products that are readily available in more mature markets. This is exactly what has been happening in Asia and parts of the Middle East over the last decade.
As a result, demand for chemicals in those regions is growing much faster than in the traditional markets of North America and Europe moving the center of mass for demand further east. Meeting this demand has spurred unprecedented levels of investment in new capacity since the advent of shale gas, both proximate to the rising demand (typically by national integrated producers in Asia and the Middle East) as well as near the abundance of cheap raw materials (by many of the leading players in the U.S. who are now well positioned to meet this demand through exports—see diagram from the European Chemical Industry Council below).
Impact of Shifts 1 & 2
The positive shifts of both supply and demand have created a wide window for capacity expansion. Much of the first wave of investment has been in steam cracker capacity. These are large and very capital-intensive plants designed to break the saturated gas liquids (ethane, propane, butane) into smaller, precursor molecules (ethylene, propylene, butylene) for the manufacture of very useful commodity chemicals (polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, and PVC, among others).
These projects have very long investment cycles (often more than five years) and are extremely expensive to build (about $10 billion for many world scale plants). As a result, they are often referred to as “mega-projects.” Ethylene is, by far, the most important of these precursors. So, it should be no surprise that quite a few ethylene projects have been announced over the last several years, many of them coming or expecting to come onstream recently (see IHS chart below).
In fact, since this chart was made in 2017 by IHS, three more projects totaling 4.3MM metric tons of capacity have been announced to bring the total of these project to more than 10 percent of global capacity.
IHS predicts that there will be over 40 percent growth in ethylene production between now and 2025 (inclusive of these projects) while natural gas production continues to grow by another 60 percent over the next 20 years. If this holds true, it is easy to see how the cycle can be prolonged for quite some time to come.
Where exactly is this new capacity going to come from? To no one’s surprise, the U.S. is expected to lead the charge in terms of adding new capacity over the next decade (see first chart below)—mostly for the export market (see second chart below), due to their advantaged raw material position. Likely, the U.S. chemical sector should have very favorable fundamentals driving their growth during this period.
Business Cycles and Timing
Influences on business cycles are nuanced. Changes in demand relative to supply (or vice versa) are usually what precipitates inflections in the cycle. Certainly, the surging global capacity and slowing demand in China are factors to monitor. In their March 2017 whitepaper, “Chemicals 2025: Will the industry be dancing to a very different tune?,” McKinsey points out several trends that could derail the current good times for US chemicals producers, including the following:
Decline of the Specialties Model
McKinsey points out that the specialties model, where “moving the portfolio to a higher specialties content is a reliable way to help solve the challenge of growth and value creation,” has become “a game of inches […] we would be hard pressed to name a single chemical blockbuster developed in the last ten years.”
This is a direct result of accelerated commoditization which slowly and steadily erodes the ROI of R&D given the long investment cycle. New entrants from national-owned entities will only serve to compress commoditization cycles more quickly as they move along the experience curve. M&A has risen in R&D’s stead to rapidly shift the portfolio to more differentiated products or widen a company’s value chain participation.
Unfortunately, increased M&A activity works against itself as competitors bid up companies, which distorts valuations and increases transaction costs. As a result, M&A success rates have remained low.
Rising Protectionism
It is hard to ignore the rising protectionism across the globe. Populous movements across the EU (UK, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Austria—even Germany and France) could alter global trade. In the US, the renegotiation of NAFTA, exit from the TPP, strong rhetoric towards China, and the recent imposition of trade tariffs on certain commodities and products could lead to increased proliferation tariffs which could have a profound impact on demand for US produced chemicals—specifically shifting advantage to national-owned entities.
Digital Blowback
Finally, digital disruption in other parts of the value chain and in adjacent industries could serve to blurry industry lines much faster. McKinsey serves up the prior cited (in Part 1) example of agro-chemicals where digital technologies open the door for platforms like Alibaba and Amazon to impinge on the sphere of existing market players and further promise more efficient application causing an adverse impact on demand. Regardless of when this may happen, the threat of disruption posed by digital technologies is rising steadily.
Tying it Together
The U.S. chemical industry currently enjoys a significant raw material cost advantage that enables it to successfully compete in export markets. This has provided sufficient cash flow and capital for investment which has, so far, gone to build new capacity to meet this demand. However, several factors, including new capacity in Asia and the Middle East, slowing demand (particularly in China), the erosion of the specialties model, rising geopolitical protectionist movements across the globe, and blowback from further adoption of digital technologies in the chemicals value chain portends of changing dynamics that could trigger significant disruption in the industry—sooner rather than later.
As Dan Bieler, principal analyst with Forrester, put it in his post on February 7, 2017, “digital transformation investments are ultimately about business survival through disruption.” With a projected window of relative stability in hand, now is the time for the industry to begin investing in digital technology in a big way.
https://www.manufacturing.net/article/2018/10/chemical-business-cycle-resilience-opens-wide-window-investment

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U.K. Targets Waste Packaging With Tax on Non-Recyclable Plastics

Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Anna Hirtenstein and Jessica Shankleman

The U.K. is planning a tax on the import and manufacturing of non-recyclable plastic packaging in response to growing concern about waste materials polluting the environment.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond announced the tax in the 2018 Budget, saying that he is still consulting on the detail and timetable for the changes. It will apply to plastics that contain less than 30 percent recycled material. He also said that he is considering to add a levy to single-use plastic cups.
“We must become a world leader in tackling the scourge of plastic littering our planet and our oceans,” Hammond said in a statement to Parliament Oct 29. Single-use plastic items “are convenient for consumers but deadly for oceans.”
While plastic is durable, lightweight and inexpensive, the material’s widespread use is harming the planet. Only about 14 percent of the world’s plastic is currently recycled, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The rest is piling up in landfills, choking waterways and hurting wildlife. It’s estimated that it will take up to 1,000 years for it to fully break down.
Prime Minister Theresa May said in January that she’s seeking to eliminate “avoidable” plastic waste by 2042, calling it “one of the great environmental scourges of our time.” Her government has already enacted several measures to try to reduce it, such as banning microbeads, a deposit return program for plastic bottles and 5-pence charge for plastic bags.
Hammond’s plan would leave many harmful materials unaccounted for, such as the tiny synthetic fibers from polyester and nylon clothing which shed from items in the thousands when they’re washed.
Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee announced an inquiry into the sustainability of the U.K.’s fashion industry over the summer and has written to the CEOs of the country’s 10 biggest clothing retailers to ask what steps they’re taking to reduce their environmental impact.
The Treasury has said previously it’s looking at four ways of taxing plastic. These include measures to curb demand for single-use plastics like coffee cups and takeaway boxes and encouraging further recycling as opposed to incineration.
The takeaway drinks industry’s efforts to reduce its use of single-use plastic will be monitored and Hammond will return to the issue if progress isn’t made, he said.

https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/uk-targets-waste-packaging-with-tax-on-non-recyclable-plastics

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LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) EPA Withdraws Rulemaking for 29 Snurs

Oct 30, 2018 | Chemical Watch

The US EPA has withdrawn 29 TSCA significant new use rules (Snurs) issued under direct final rulemakings in response to adverse comments.
The EPA initially issued the rules in two batches – one on 19 Snurs, and a second covering ten others – on 27 August.

The Snurs cover a variety of new substances approved for commerce with certain restrictions. They are intended to extend the requirements imposed by each substance’s consent order to others who intend to use the chemical in the future. Without a Snur, the consent orders are only binding on the original pre-manufacture notice submitter (PMN).
Four comments were received for the batch of ten, and eight were received for the batch of 19 before the 26 September comment deadline.
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) raised concerns over both batches, which were largely procedural and semantic in nature. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), meanwhile, took issue with the testing on vertebrate animals requirements set by certain rules in both.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) submitted comments on the batch of 19 Snurs, which covered several isocyanate-based substances. The trade group primarily sought clarity on the regulations’ scope, although they also argued that the EPA should defer worker protections contained within the Snurs to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) and eliminate a record-keeping provision.
Rulemaking process
Direct final rules can be used to move forward non-controversial regulations on an expedited timeline. But if and when they are met with significant adverse comment, the EPA must withdraw them and start the proposed rulemaking process.
However, in this case, the EPA issued both the direct rule and the proposal simultaneously. This somewhat novel practice has raised questions about whether or not the agency will reopen the comment period for the original proposal.
As of publication, the EPA has not done so for the two proposed rules. In the case of the batch of 145 Snurs issued in August and withdrawn in September, however, the comment period was reopened within a few weeks.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71330/epa-withdraws-rulemaking-for-29-snurs?q=%22American+Chemistry+Council%22

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U.S. EPA Settles With Two California Companies For Failure To Provide Required Toxic Chemical Notifications

Oct 29, 2018 | Oil and Gas Online

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has settled with two California companies for failing to provide required notifications for the handling of toxic chemicals. IPS Corporation, located in Compton, Calif., will pay a $87,000 penalty. Chevron Richmond Technology Center, located in Richmond, Calif., will pay a $11,011 penalty.
Chevron Energy Technology Company, which owns and operates a site in Richmond, Calif., develops and manages technology in the oil and gas industry. Between 2013 and 2014, Chevron manufactured and processed chemical substances as part of its research and development. Health risks for chemicals used for research and development are not fully known; therefore, the chemicals cannot be distributed to consumers for commercial purposes. EPA found the company distributed chemical substances to third parties on three separate occasions without providing required written notification that use of the chemical substances was restricted to research and development purposes.
IPS Corporation, located in Compton, Calif., is a manufacturer of structural adhesives and other supplies for construction, industrial and manufacturing applications. IPS manufactures products that contain trichloroethylene (TCE), a known human carcinogen. Between 2015 and 2016, the company exported the TCE-containing products to 11 foreign countries without submitting timely export notices to EPA. These notices are required by law so EPA can provide information about exported chemicals to importing governments.
The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires reporting, notification, record-keeping and testing, and restricts the production, importation, exportation, use, and disposal of some chemical substances and/or mixtures. Certain substances regulated by other laws, including food, drugs, cosmetics and pesticides, are generally excluded from TSCA requirements.
https://www.oilandgasonline.com/doc/u-s-epa-settles-with-two-california-companies-for-toxic-chemical-notifications-0001

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ACSH Explains: What's The Story On Perchloroethylene?

Oct 30, 2018 | American Council on Science and Health

By Michael Dourson

The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and was signed into law June 22, 2016. It created a mandatory requirement for EPA to evaluate existing chemicals with clear and enforceable deadlines, to do so in a transparent fashion, and to do so using risk-based chemical assessments rather than rely on simple epidemiological correlations.
EPA selected the first 10 chemicals to undergo risk evaluation under the amended TSCA and to make those understandable for the public, the American Council on Science and Health is producing risk-based evaluations of each, which will then be compiled into a free downloadable book for consumers and policy makers.
What is Perchloroethylene?
Perchloroethylene, a chlorinated hydrocarbon with the formula Cl2C=CCl2, is also known as PCE, PERC, tetrachloroethylene, tetrachloroethene, perchloro, and ethene, 1,1,2,2-tetrachloro. It is a nonflammable colorless liquid. It has a sharp, sweet, ether-like odor that most people can smell when it is present in air at concentrations as low as 1 part per million (ppm).
Perchloroethylene is a commonly used solvent (a substance, usually a liquid, capable of dissolving another substance). It is primarily used to produce fluorinated compounds, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) followed by dry cleaning and vapor degreasing solvents. It is used as a starting material for making other chemicals and is used in some commercial and/or consumer products such as automotive care products, cleaning and furniture care products, lubricants and greases, adhesives and sealants, coatings, spot removers, typewriter correction fluid, shoe polish, printing inks, paint products, and household cleaners
Perchloroethylene breaks down very slowly in the air and so it can be transported long distances as it has been identified in atmospheric samples in remote locations such as Antarctica where no local sources of this substance exist. It evaporates quickly from water or soil into air, although some perchloroethylene may remain in the water or soil where it is slow to break down. It can also migrate through groundwater (or soil) into the air of homes and buildings through a process referred to as vapor intrusion.
Like many chlorinated hydrocarbons, perchloroethylene is a central nervous system depressant and can enter the body generally through respiratory or dermal exposure.
Why Is EPA Looking At This Under The Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act?
EPA scientists are currently looking at the likely routes of exposure to perchloroethylene in the environment and will be developing exposure scenarios, or pathways, of how the public comes into contact with perchloroethylene.
These exposure pathways will then be studied by EPA scientists by comparing the amount of perchloroethylene exposure in the pathway to its safe or virtually safe level (the virtually safe doses are derived from the cancer IURs and OSF discussed above). If human exposure in the pathway is at or below this safe or virtually safe level, then perchloroethylene exposure from the pathway is not considered to be a human health concern. If exposure is above this safe or virtually safe level, then the pathway might be considered as a possible health concern. Small excesses of the safe or virtually safe dose are seldom cause for concern since these safety levels are developed from conservative assumptions, including the use of safety factors that tend to exaggerate risk and exposure pathways that tend to exaggerate exposure.
Several pathways may be added together to suggest a health concern. In either event, regulations might be developed to lessen the exposure of perchloroethylene from this pathway(s). Alternatively, the ratio of a health benchmark to the human exposure, referred to as a Margin of Exposure (MOE), can be used as a threshold to determine the presence or absence of risk. To assess risks, the MOE estimate was interpreted as a risk of concern if the MOE estimate was less than the benchmark MOE (usually a 100) (see EPA, 2018). On the other hand, the MOE estimate indicated negligible concerns for adverse human health effects if the MOE estimate exceeded the benchmark MOE. Typically, the larger the MOE, the more unlikely it is that an adverse effect would occur.
See also EPA (2018) for specific questions related to the assessment of perchloroethylene under the new Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act (LCSA).
Controversy Over Perchloroethylene
Little controversy exists on the toxicity of perchloroethylene. Central nervous system (neurotoxicity), kidney, liver, development, and reproductive effects have been associated with its exposure in humans and animals. In general, neurological effects were found to be associated with lower perchloroethylene inhalation exposures. These neurotoxic effects have been analyzed in human controlled exposure, occupational exposure, and residential studies, as well as in experimental animal studies, providing firm evidence that they represent the principle, or critical, effect from perchloroethylene exposure (U.S. EPA, 2012a, 2012b).
EPA and other regulatory bodies have classified perchloroethylene as to its carcinogenicity to humans. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, 2013) has classified perchloroethylene as a Group 2A carcinogen, which means that it is probably carcinogenic to humans. EPA has classified perchloroethylene as likely to be carcinogenic in humans by all routes of exposure (EPA 2012a).
The U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) has classified perchloroethylene as reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen (NTP, 2014) and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH, (2012) has classified perchloroethylene as an A3 carcinogen (confirmed animal carcinogen with unknown relevance to humans). All of these expert bodies agree that perchloroethylene is carcinogenic.
EPA (2018) is evaluating the pathways of exposure from industrial and commercial activities and uses of perchloroethylene and expects to include these in their risk evaluation. EPA (2018) also expects to evaluate the pathways of exposure resulting from consumer purchase and use products primarily intended for commercial use. The inhalation route has been identified as the primary route of exposure and EPA plans to further analyze inhalation exposures to perchloroethylene, including vapor intrusion and the risk towards bystanders. Given that the potential exists for dermal exposure to perchloroethylene from consumer uses, EPA expects to further analyze direct dermal contact with liquid perchloroethylene for consumers.
However, EPA considers the exposure of consumers to perchloroethylene via transfer of chemical from hand to mouth to be superseded by a combination of dermal absorption and volatilization. Therefore, EPA will not further evaluate this pathway. Nor does EPA expect that oral routes of exposure for mists or for incidental ingestion of perchloroethylene to have significant exposures. Thus, EPA will not include further analysis of these potential pathways. Neither will EPA further analyze exposure to consumers from disposal of consumer products.
EPA plans to evaluate perchloroethylene exposures to aquatic organisms from surface waters since aquatic and terrestrial species may be contaminated from environmental releases and waste streams associated with industrial and commercial activities. However, EPA will not further analyze the risk from rivers and streams, nor from air, drinking water, biosolids and disposal pathway exposures. This is because these pathways are under other environmental statutes administered by EPA, which adequately assess and effectively manage exposures and for which long-standing regulatory and analytical processes already exist. As one can expect, some of these exclusions may prove to be controversial.
Exposure To Perchloroethylene
Perchloroethylene is released into the environment following its use as a dry-cleaning agent, chemical intermediate, and metal degreasing agent. According to EPA (2012a, 2012b), workers and occupational non-users (workers who do not directly handle the chemical but perform work in an area where the chemical is used), consumers and bystanders (non-product users that are incidentally exposed to the product), and the general population are expected to be exposed to perchloroethylene primarily through inhalation, but also by skin and oral contact, such as through touching or ingesting contaminated surfaces and/or dust.
Workers in industrial and commercial settings are expected to have the highest exposures to perchloroethylene. Commercial and consumer users of the numerous products containing perchloroethylene can be exposed to perchloroethylene in indoor or outdoor environments. The general population is expected to have smaller exposures to perchloroethylene from industrial and/or commercial uses, from industrial releases to air, water or land, and from other conditions of use.
Perchloroethylene has been detected in most drinking water, groundwater, surface water and rainwater supplies (ATSDR, 2014). For example, ATSDR (2014) has reported the median value for indoor air in the United States, from 2,195 entries in the EPA’s database of volatile organic contaminants (VOC-AMBI), to be approximately 4.9 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3), with an average value of 20.7 μg/m3. In the drinking water of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, levels of perchloroethylene ranging from 1.5 to 7,750 microgram per liter (μg/L) have been reported, which was reduced to 40 μg/L after bleeding and flushing the drinking water pipes (ATSDR, 2014). Across the world, perchloroethylene has been measured in rivers at concentrations ranging from 0.01 to 168 μg/L, with levels in the U.S. ranging from 0.02 μg/L to 26.7 μg/L, but typically below 5 μg/L (EPA, 2018). In groundwater, perchloroethylene levels are usually below 10 μg/L, although levels as high as 1300 μg/L have been reported for contaminated sites due to unregulated or improper disposal of perchloroethylene (EPA, 2018).
Perchloroethylene is not likely to be in sediment based on its physical and chemical properties; for example, less than 5 μg/kg wet weight have been reported in the U.S.
Health Effects Of Perchloroethylene
Perchloroethylene is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream following inhalation and oral exposures in both humans and animals. It can also be absorbed across the skin following dermal exposure to either pure or diluted solvent or vapors. Once absorbed, perchloroethylene is distributed to all tissues in humans and animals.
The highest concentrations of perchloroethylene are found in fat, but it can also reach high levels in both the brain and liver when compared to other tissues.
When human volunteers were repeatedly exposed to perchloroethylene by inhalation, it accumulated in the body. The absorbed perchloroethylene is mainly excreted in the breath as the parent molecule, particularly at higher exposures, but also metabolized in laboratory animals and in humans to a limited extent through at least two ways. The primary way results in non-toxic metabolites found in urine, but the other way results in the formation of relatively potent toxic metabolites (ATSDR, 2014, EPA, 2012a, 2012b). Differences in the metabolism of perchloroethylene among experimental animals and humans has been observed. For example, its rate of metabolism is faster in rodents than in humans (EPA, 2012a, 2012b), but it is less extensively metabolized compared to its closely related chemical, trichloroethylene.
Like exposure to any chemical, toxicity of perchloroethylene depends on the level to which one is exposed and the length of time of exposure. Both ATSDR (2014) and EPA (2012a, 2012b) have information on the health effects of perchloroethylene. Inhalation and oral exposures to perchloroethylene have resulted in damage to a number of tissues or organs in humans and animals. Effects observed in humans and animals after brief, high oral exposures appear to parallel those observed after inhalation exposures.
In both humans and animals, the primary targets following brief inhalation and oral exposure are the central nervous system, kidneys, and liver. While no data are available in humans regarding oral or dermal exposure to perchloroethylene following longer term exposures, long term inhalation exposures have caused adverse neurological effects. For example, humans occupationally exposed to perchloroethylene had irreversible central nervous system effects and toxicity to the kidney, liver, and immune system. Effects on color vision were also reported in some of these studies. Following prolonged (chronic) inhalation and oral exposures in animals, perchloroethylene also caused reduced survival and kidney effects (nephropathy or kidney damage) while inhalation exposure caused changes in the brain.
Both ATSDR (2014) and EPA (2012a, 2012b) also report reproductive effects from occupational exposure to perchloroethylene in both men and women. These effects including menstrual disorders, spontaneous abortion, sperm abnormalities, and decreased fertility. However, perchloroethylene levels in many of these studies were not measured and exposure to other solvents could not be ruled out. These limitations make it difficult to determine if there is an association between perchloroethylene inhalation and reproductive endpoints in humans.
Although the data in animals were limited, well-conducted studies suggest that perchloroethylene is a potential female reproductive toxicant. Effects caused in female animals included increased mortality, increased pre-and post-implantation loss, increased resorptions, and decreased body weight in the offspring.
Perchloroethylene and its closely related chemical, trichlorethylene, cause similar toxic effects. Epidemiological data provide evidence that exposure to perchloroethylene is associated with several cancer types such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma (cancers that form in different types of white blood cells) and bladder cancer, while more limited evidence suggests it is also associated with esophageal, kidney, lung, cervical and breast cancer (U.S. EPA, 2012e).
Studies in animals also provide evidence that exposure to perchloroethylene leads to an increased risk of developing cancer. In one species of animals, exposure to perchloroethylene has resulted in increased incidence and severity of mononuclear cell leukemia (an extremely common spontaneous disease of aging in this strain of rats) after inhalation exposure. In another species, both inhalation and oral exposures have resulted in increased incidences of liver tumors in both sexes (ATSDR, 2014; EPA, 2012a, 2012b).
Perchloroethylene Safe Levels
The federal and state governments develop regulations and recommendations to protect public health. Regulations and recommendations are often expressed as a safe or virtually safe level, that is, a level of a substance in air, water, soil, or food that is not expected to cause any adverse health effect, even in people who are sensitive to the chemical’s effects.
These safe levels are usually based on information from experiments with animals (usually rodents) at much higher levels of the chemicals than humans would typically encounter. The higher animal exposures are used to see what adverse health effects could occur. Scientists then conjecture what the adverse health effects could
possibly be in humans at a lower level of exposure. Scientists can then estimate the level that will likely protect humans. Sometimes these safe levels differ among federal and state organizations because they used different assumptions for human exposure, different animal studies, or employ methods that differ slightly. Other times these recommendations differ because new science develops that suggests different levels are toxic or safe. Recommendations and regulations are also updated periodically as more information becomes available.
ATSDR (2014) has derived safe levels for inhalation and oral routes only and are referred to as minimal risk levels (MRLs). MRL is an estimate of daily human exposure to a substance that is likely to be without an appreciable risk of adverse effects (non-carcinogenic) over a specified duration of exposure. MRLs can be derived for acute, intermediate, and chronic duration exposures for inhalation and oral routes.
ATSDR has derived a chronic (or lifetime) inhalation MRL of 0.006 ppm (0.03 mg/m3) for perchloroethylene based on color vision impairment in humans chronically exposed to perchloroethylene in the workplace. The chronic inhalation MRL was also used for shorter-term inhalation exposures because the blood concentration of perchloroethylene after acute- and intermediate-duration exposure is very similar to that after chronic exposure to the same concentration. ATSDR has also derived chronic oral MRL of 0.008 mg/kg/day. This MRL was derived based on the chronic inhalation MRL by estimating similar internal doses between these differing routes of exposure.
The chronic oral MRL was also used for shorter-term oral exposures MRLs. The World Health Organization (WHO) has established an air quality guideline value of 0.25 mg/m3 as an annual average (WHO, 2010) and a drinking water quality guideline value of 0.04 mg/L (WHO 2011). The long-term safe levels derived by EPA are referred to as the reference concentration or dose - RfC or RfD, an estimate of the chemical concentration or dose that will not cause non-carcinogenic effects during a specified exposure period - for the inhalation and oral routes, respectively. EPA (2012a) derived an RfC of 0.04 mg/m3 was based on neurotoxicity (reaction time, cognitive effects) in occupationally-exposed adults. An RfD of 0.006 mg/kg/day was based on the data from the inhalation study.
Although ATSDR discusses the potential of a chemical to be carcinogenic, it does not currently assess cancer potency or perform cancer risk assessments. In contrast, EPA has derived am Inhalation Unit Risk (IUR) - an estimate of the increased cancer risk from inhalation exposure to a concentration of 1 µg/m3for a lifetime, which can be multiplied by an estimate of lifetime exposure (in µg/m3) to estimate the lifetime cancer risk - for the inhalation pathway and oral slope factor (OSF) - an estimate of the increased cancer risk from oral exposure to a dose of 1 mg/kg-day for a lifetime, which can be multiplied by an estimate of lifetime exposure (in mg/kg-day) to estimate the lifetime cancer risk - for the oral route. The EPA (2012) IUR for perchloroethylene is 1.8 × 10-3 per ppm (corresponding to 2.6 x 10-7 per microgram per cubic meter (μg/m3)) for liver tumors. The OSF of 2 × 10-3 per milligram per kilogram body weight [(2 x 10-3(mg/kg-day)-1] was based on liver tumor data reported in the inhalation study.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/10/30/acsh-explains-whats-story-perchloroethylene-13540

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Chemical Management News

Army Corps Wraps up Dredging in Ship Canal; Decision on Disposal of Most Contaminated Sediments Still in Limbo

Oct 29, 2018 | NWI Times

By Sarah Reese

The Army Corps of Engineers has completed another season of dredging in the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal, though a decision on where to store the most toxic sediments remains in limbo.
Contractors working for the Army Corps finished dredging about 250,000 cubic yards of sediment from the federal and nonfederal channel Sept. 21, spokeswoman Vanessa Villarreal said.
In total, the Army Corps has now removed an estimated 1.4 million cubic yards of sediment from the canal and placed it in a previously permitted confined disposal facility at 3500 Indianapolis Blvd. in East Chicago.
The sediments — which contain carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs — are shipped by barge to the disposal facility, which was built on the site of the former Sinclair oil refinery.
The refinery operated under various owners from 1918 to 1981, producing products such as mineral spirits, propane, leaded and unleaded gasoline, fuel oil, kerosene, asphalt and asphalt products, liquefied petroleum gas, grease, lubricating oils, paraffin wax, phenols, sulfur and insecticide during those years.
The goal in dredging the ship canal is to prevent the sediment from flowing into Lake Michigan and to make commercial navigation more safe and efficient in the Indiana Harbor Canal, the Army Corps said.
Activists have described the sediments in the ship canal as a "witches brew" and have called for the Army Corps to conduct an environmental dredge that goes deeper than the navigational depth of 20 feet.
The confined disposal facility is less than a half mile from East Chicago Central High School and the new Carrie Gosch Elementary School, which houses some children who were forced to leave the newly-demolished West Calumet Housing Complex in 2016 and 2017 because of lead and arsenic contamination.
The sediments are being stored in water within the clay-lined confined disposal facility, which the Army Corps says was designed to safely contain dredged material. Activists say they believe there is a chance contaminants could become airborne, particularly on windy days.
The Army Corps submitted a risk-based Toxic Substances Control Act application to the Environmental Protection Agency and Indiana Department of Environmental Management in 2014, seeking approval to store an estimated maximum volume of 60,000 cubic yards of sediment containing PCBs concentrations greater than 50 parts per million.
EPA and IDEM gave notice in 2017 they intended to approve the application, but after months of public pressure announced in late 2017 they would study an option for off-site disposal and capping of "hot spots" in the canal.
A decision on whether off-site disposal is a viable option has not yet been announced, the Army Corps said.
The area around hot spots, where PCBs concentrations are greater than 50 ppm, were not disturbed during dredging activities this year and should not have migrated, the Army Corps said.
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/army-corps-wraps-up-dredging-in-ship-canal-decision-on/article_a445c7ba-fbb7-5e44-a1fc-c2133be827b3.html

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High PFAS Levels Found at Grand Haven Elementary School

Oct 29, 2018 | MLive

By Justine McGuire

Toxic PFAS chemicals have been found in the drinking water at a Grand Haven district elementary school at levels well above what's considered acceptable for human health.
Testing found two individual PFAS chemicals, PFOS and PFOA, at a combined level of 110 parts per trillion (ppt) in the water at Robinson Elementary School in Ottawa County, the district announced in a letter sent to parents on Monday, Oct. 29.
The school has already moved onto bottled water.
District administration delivered 600 bottles of water to the school "within minutes" of being notified about the test results by the state, said Cheryl Dew, district spokeswoman. Another 33,000 bottles are en route.
All drinking fountains have been turned off at the school, located at 11801 120th Ave. in Robinson Township.
Lunches for the 300 preschool to fourth grade students are made at Grand Haven High School and transported to the elementary, which will continue, she said.
All other district schools use water from the Northwest Ottawa system in Grand Haven, which tested for low PFAS levels in August.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is retesting the water at Robinson school to confirm the initial results, according to the letter. Results are expected by Wednesday.
The detected PFOS and PFOA levels are well above the Environmental Protection Agency health advisory level of 70-ppt for those two compounds.
According to Ottawa County, Total PFAS -- the sum of all PFAS compounds detected in a given sample -- was 144-ppt in the well.
Grand Haven Area Public Schools said it is working with the DEQ, Ottawa County Health Department, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and other local and state agencies to create a plan and timeline to address the PFAS contamination.
According to the county health department, "the DEQ will determine the next steps for households and businesses in the area served by groundwater" once the school retesting results return.
In Michigan, the Robinson school detection is the highest level of the individual compound PFOS, and the second highest overall Total PFAS level, found in a school well to date.
The highest Total PFAS level in a Michigan school well is 182-ppt, discovered in the EightCAP preschool well in Ionia County in July. The Tri-County Junior High in Montcalm County found a Total PFAS level of 88-ppt in July. To date, at least trace levels of the chemicals have been found in 28 schools across the state.
The school detections are part of data being compiled by the DEQ, which is testing all schools on wells and public drinking water supplies in Michigan for PFAS contamination. To date, the DEQ data shows that more than 1.9 million people -- about 20 percent of Michigan's population -- have been drinking municipal water with at least a trace PFAS detection.
Exposure to PFAS is linked to certain types of cancer, high cholesterol, hypertension in pregnancy, thyroid disease and other health problems. State health officials say ingestion is the primary route of exposure concern.
In Ottawa County, Total PFAS at 20-ppt was found in the Northwest Ottawa Water System in August, but a follow-up test this month found no detection of any PFAS compounds. The city pulls its water from a Lake Michigan intake. Grand Haven officials say that more follow-up testing is planned.
https://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2018/10/high_levels_of_pfas_found_at_g.html

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This Toxic Chemical May Be Lurking in Our Homes, New Study Finds

Oct 30, 2018 | Earth.com

By Olivia Harvey

Researchers at Indiana University recently uncovered a threatening chemical that is potentially contaminating a large percentage of North American homes. Tri(2,4-di-t-butylphenyl) phosphate or TDTBPP was found in homes, in an electric waste facility, and within surrounding natural environments. This discovery further proves there is a blatant chemical mismanagement issue within the United States.
TDTBPP can be absorbed through skin contact and/or breathed in via contaminated dust. The chemical is part of a toxic organophosphates family, yet not much else is known about TDTBPP’s origins or effects on consumers. Researchers theorize it may be used as a flame retardant or a product plasticizer. The chemical could also form as other chemicals degrade over time, or it could even be an impurity within a related compound.
“We found surprisingly high levels of TDTBPP everywhere we looked,” said Marta Venier, scientist at the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the first author of the study. “The fact that this potentially toxic chemical is so abundant, but was previously unknown, is another example of the ineffective management of chemicals in the United States.”
It is believed that TDTBPP is just one of many potentially toxic chemicals that are currently flying under the radar within the United States. Unless they’re being used for entirely new purposes, chemicals like TDTBPP are not adequately regulated under the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act. Furthermore, information about these chemicals is kept private, making it extremely difficult for scientists to track their environmental and biological impact.
The scientists at Indiana University discovered high levels of TDTBPP in dust particles from 20 residential homes in Ontario. The chemical was also lingering amongst similar chemicals within an e-waste dismantling facility, leading scientists to believe it’s used in the production of plastics, wiring, circuit boards, and electronics across the board.
“Now that we know that TDTBPP is prevalent, especially in homes, scientists can flag it for further study and focus on understanding the effects of TDTBPP on people,” Venier added.
The full study will be published in Environmental Science & Technology on October 30th.
https://www.earth.com/news/toxic-chemical-lurking-homes/

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Dangerous Chemicals Could Be Lurking in Your Furniture: What to Know About Off-Gassing

Oct 29, 2018 | Cleveland 19

By Sara Goldenberg

Cleveland 19 is investigating a hidden danger in your house.
Imagine buying a new furniture set and noticing a strong, chemical odor in your house days, even months later.
For some people, headaches, asthma, allergies and even serious diseases like cancer may follow.
It's called furniture off-gassing. Furniture can release toxic chemicals into the air we breathe.
A personal connection
Our search for answers started in my baby’s nursery. When you’re a new parent, you can’t wait to decorate and buy new furniture.
We assembled our crib and matching dresser just a month before our baby showed up a few weeks early.
Several months went by, and we had no problems.
But then we noticed there was a strong odor in our nursery. Sometimes it smelled like plastic, other times it was like a dead animal.
We couldn't figure out what it was. So we got it checked out and it wasn't rodents, it wasn't mold or anything like that.
Finally the last expert who stopped by suggested it may be furniture off-gassing.
For months, we went through the process of elimination to see if that was the case, and we found it was.
We were so worried about our baby's safety, we had to figure out, what do we do now?
We tried to air out the furniture in our garage and outside for several months and when that didn't work we got rid of it.
We decided to buy a new crib and dresser, this time GreenGuard certified, meaning it has to meet certain VOC standards.
I spoke to other people who had never heard of furniture off-gassing, so I thought this is an important story to tell.
Learning more about furniture off-gassing
I found out I wasn’t the only one with this problem. I combed through dozens of complaints on saferproducts.gov
We found people describing problems from their furniture, saying an “overwhelming odor has caused her to feel dizzy” or listing symptoms like eye irritation, throat burning and difficulty breathing.
These symptoms were all described as coming from a bedroom set, a mattress and a desk.
Lauren Egger of Avon runs a blog called Healthy Mom Project.
“I think that was a tipping point. We had already looked into the food, vaccines, air, we had our whole house water filter. And then my husband puts on a documentary like five years ago on furniture and I just sat there, like are you serious?” she said.
A mom of five young children, Lauren eats "green" and uses natural household cleaners.
But when it comes to chemicals in furniture, Lauren had no idea.
“As a mom, do we have time to look into every single thing?” she said.
“It's criminal. Honestly should we have to think about what is in our furniture? No,” she said.
Cleveland19 turned to Kurt Rhoades, an environmental engineer and assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University to learn more about furniture off gassing.
“A lot of the materials we use to coat furniture contain solvents, and also other materials to seal them in. And those constituents can be harmful. One example can be formaldehyde, this is a chemical that's used in furniture polishes and stains. And it's a known carcinogen,” Rhoades said.
Formaldehyde is just one of many Volatile Organic Compounds, known as VOCs, you can find on furniture.
Rhoades says you should also watch out for benzene and phthalates found in plastics.
“They've been linked to hormonal issues, that can then be linked to things like obesity, cancer, behavioral problems,” he said.
Off-gassing can last long after your furniture loses its new shine.
Heat and humidity can increase off-gassing.
“Especially if you're in a tight place, like a small room, and you unwrap one of these items and use it in a small area, then you're being exposed to it all the time just as you breathe,” Rhoades said.
I asked Rhoades how long off-gassing lasts.
“The off-gassing can last for the life of the product, but the rate of off-gassing will decrease. It will also depend on the product. It’s like potpourri or a scented candle. The scent never entirely goes away, but it will eventually dissipate to the point where you do not notice it anymore,” he said.
Lauren's family is moving next year, and since we told her about the effects of off-gassing...
She's considering buying new Amish-made furniture to replace some of what she has now.
“Sometimes I always say, back to our roots. It just seems like everything, we have to go back to the way it once was,” she said.
Buying safe furniture
Ron Mandor knows looks can be deceiving when it comes to furniture.
“All of my tables are solid wood,” he said, knocking on the table.
“There's no veneers, there's no particle board.”
Mandor owns Eastwood Furniture, with several stores across Northeast Ohio.
All of their furniture is manufactured by the Amish in Wayne and Holmes County.
Mandor says furniture manufacturers, many of them overseas, take real wood out to save a buck.
“Those tables are made from—God knows what's in there in terms of the particle board, the veneers, things like that that are inside that,” he said.
But they're still charging you just as much as you might pay for local furniture made from real wood.
“The way they make that is basically sawdust, basically parts of wood that's mixed together with adhesives, and those adhesives contain some of the chemicals that we were talking about. The formaldehyde that is toxic in certain quantities,” Mandor said.
Are there any regulations?
Cleveland19 wanted to know whether the chemicals used in furniture manufacturing are regulated, and it wasn't easy to find the answer.
We went through documents from the EPA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and found regulations on formaldehyde, but not other VOCs.
In 2010, Congress passed the Formaldehyde Emission Standards for Composite Wood Products Act.
In 2012, California put limits on formaldehyde in furniture, enforcing it before the federal government.
It took until 2018 June of this year for the federal act to go into effect, and that means you'll see furniture labeled "compliant" now.
More regulations go into effect in 2019.
Lab testing will keep a check on formaldehyde emissions.
The American Home Furnishings Alliance says the original draft of the EPA rule would have “decimated the residential furniture industry, forcing plant closures and widespread job losses.”
"The industry-wide cost was estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, despite clear science showing that the new measures would not provide any increased health benefit to American consumers,” AHFA says on its website.
A spokesperson tells Cleveland19 the furniture industry began complying with formaldehyde emission limits in 2012, according to the California law.
AHFA says new “ultra-low” emitting formaldehyde resins were developed at that time.
We asked Mandoor what you should do if you're buying furniture.
“I would ask questions, I would ask what the content is of the particular piece of furniture that you're buying. In your case a crib, absolutely you should know what's in that and what the dangers are from off-gassing of that material. You have a right to know that,” he said.
Resources
If you are having problems with furniture off-gassing, you can file complaints with the furniture company, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
The CDC has a fact sheet called Formaldehyde in your home: what you need to know if you are concerned about its levels in your home.
You can read more about the dangers of chemicals like VOCs and other chemicals like benzene on cancer.org.
The Minnesota Department of Health has a comprehensive guide to VOCs in your home and how to reduce your levels.
Flame retardants on furniture are another concern. You can read more about that at the Green Science Policy Institute.
Find out how you can improve your air quality at home here.
http://www.cleveland19.com/2018/10/30/dangerous-chemicals-could-be-lurking-your-furniture/

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Common Household Chemicals Tied to Language Delays in Kids

Oct 29, 2018 | Medscape

By Michael Vlessides

Early prenatal exposure to phthalates — the synthetic chemicals commonly found in household items and personal care products — has been tied to language delays in children, new research shows.
In the first study of its kind, the collaboration between investigators from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, and Karlstad University, Sweden, showed that the risk for language delay was as much as 30% greater in children whose mothers were exposed to twice the levels of dibutyl phthalate and butyl benzyl phthalate, two chemicals commonly found in such everyday items as cosmetics, plastic toys, and food...
Access to full text unavailable –subscription required.
Story can be found here: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/904083

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EPA Skirts Perchlorate Rule Deadline

Oct 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA appears to have skirted, for now, a looming court-ordered deadline to publish a proposed drinking water standard for the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate as the agency's recent request for the federal court to extend the Oct. 31 deadline by 6 months results in an automatic three-month extension or until the judge rules.
The automatic extension is written into the agency's 2016 consent agreement with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which sued EPA over its failure to propose a perchlorate drinking water standard by a statutory deadline.
“Any deadline in this Consent Decree may be extended by written stipulation of NRDC and EPA and notice to the Court,” the 2016 consent decree states.
“To the extent the Parties are not able to agree to an extension of any deadline set forth in this Consent Decree, EPA may seek a modification of the date. . . . If EPA files a motion requesting a modification of any deadline established by this Consent Decree totaling more than [30] days” and meets certain notice requirements, “then the filing of such motion shall, upon request, automatically extend the date for which modification is sought.”
The document explains that an automatic extension “shall remain in effect until the earlier of (i) a dispositive ruling by this Court on such a motion or (ii) [90] days following the date for which modification is sought.”
The settlement sought to end NRDC's February 2016 suit, which charged that EPA missed a two-year Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) deadline for proposing a national drinking water goal after then-Administrator Lisa Jackson's 2011 determination that perchlorate should be regulated.
Should EPA comply with the settlement and issue a drinking water standard for the substance it would mark the first such limit the agency has issued since Congress amended SDWA in 1996.
But EPA's efforts have been hobbled since then by challenges in expanding a model as directed by agency science advisors, and in seeking peer review of the updated model.
EPA on Aug. 30 sought to amend the settlement agreement and extend the Oct. 31 deadline to April 30, 2019. NRDC responded with a request for discovery on EPA's request to delay the deadline.
In a declaration filed alongside the request, Eric Burneson, chief of the Standards and Risk Management Division within EPA's Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water, points to agency efforts to peer review the model as the reason for its delay. Burneson writes the two-step peer review of the biologically-based dose-response model took six months longer than EPA anticipated when it reached the settlement with NRDC.
In September, Judge Edgardo Ramos set an Oct. 4 conference on NRDC's request in the suit, NRDC vs EPA, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. But he has yet to rule on it, according to the docket.
Ramos also stayed NRDC's deadline to respond to EPA's motion until after the hearing.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-skirts-perchlorate-rule-deadline

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Quaker Oats Hit With New Suit Over Weedkiller Residue

Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Julie Steinberg

PepsiCo, Inc. and its Quaker Oats Co. unit deceived consumers by failing to disclose that more than a dozen cereals and bars touted as healthful contain traces of the weedkiller glyphosate, a new proposed class suit alleges.
Glyphosate is used as a drying agent for oats and other grains. It is also the active ingredient in Roundup, exposure to which caused a groundskeeper’s non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a blood cancer, a jury recently determined.
The suit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California notes a reportand update from the Environmental Working Group that found glyphosate residue in breakfast cereals.
The cereal maker denied the suit’s claims.
“This lawsuit has no merit,” Quaker said in a statement to Bloomberg Law Oct. 29. “We proudly stand by the safety and quality of Quaker products,” the company said.
Other Roundup Residue Suits
The new suit joins other glyphosate litigation, including suits against Pret a Mangerand Citrus World Inc., alleging their products contain traces of the weedkiller.
Here, Quaker says Quaker Old Fashioned Oats and other products are “whole grain,” “may reduce the risk of heart disease,” and have other benefits, Morgan Steckler alleges.
These health representations make consumers think the products won’t pose a safety risk, Steckler’s suit says.
In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer—an arm of the World Health Organization—labeled glyphosate a probable carcinogen.
Regulators, including the Environmental Protection Agency, say the glyphosate found in food isn’t a problem because it’s at low levels. But some scientists contend not enough is known about the effects of eating small amounts of it, especially over long periods of time.
Because it is a probable carcinogen with no nutritional value, any amount of glyphosate, even below regulatory limits, would keep consumers from buying the Quaker products, the suit says.
The defendants had a duty to disclose the presence of glyphosate or, at a minimum, that they couldn’t guarantee the products were glyphosate-free, the suit alleges.
Steckler seeks money damages and marketing changes on behalf of California and multistate classes.
Bonnett, Fairbourn, Friedman & Balint P.C. and Siprut PC represent Steckler.
The case is Steckler v. PepsiCo, Inc., C.D. Cal., No. 18-9211, complaint 10/26/18.

https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/quaker-oats-hit-with-new-suit-over-weedkiller-residue

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Energy News

Pension Funds Point Finger at Lobbyists of Polluting Firms

Oct 30, 2018 | Bloomberg (In E&E Climatewire)

By Anna Hirtenstein,

A group of pension funds that control $2 trillion are pushing for 55 large European energy, mining and transportation companies to scale back their anti-climate lobbying.
Sweden's AP7, Legal & General Group PLC, the Church of England's pension fund and Robeco of the Netherlands wrote to the chairs of each company, asking them not to use organizations that try to ease governments' environmental rules and to be transparent about their own lobbying. The list of recipients includes 10 oil and gas companies such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Total SA as well as Renault SA, Glencore PLC and Airbus SE.
"If these lobbying positions are inconsistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement, we would encourage you to ensure they adopt positions which are in line with these goals," they said in the letter.
Lobbying by large companies and industry associations can have a significant impact on a government's stance on an issue. A study by Drexel University showed that the oil and gas industry spent $2 billion between 2010 and 2016 to try to influence the U.S. government on climate legislation.
This is a significant barrier to governments delivering on their Paris Agreement promises. In 2015, nearly 200 countries signed a landmark deal pledging to try to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.
"Long-term investors have a clear interest in the Paris Agreement being implemented to support the necessary transition to a low-carbon global economy," said Stephanie Pfeiffer, chief executive officer of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change. "Shareholders should rightly expect companies in which they invest to advocate for the climate policy required for this to happen."
Central banks are warning financial institutions that climate risk isn't adequately priced in to asset valuations. Bank of England governor Mark Carney has previously said that this could result in a "climate Minsky moment," a term for the sudden collapse of asset values. Two key issues are physical risk from extreme weather and transition risk, which could result in rapid repricing and stranded assets.
The letter identifies other risks:Regulation — delayed action may result in stronger regulatory action in the future, which could affect companies.Reputation — companies could face backlash from their consumers, investors and stakeholders if they're seen to be blocking climate action.Legal — companies that continue to invest in high-emitting projects or with misleading corporate disclosure could be exposed.
"AP7 has identified that weaknesses in current climate policy globally pose a risk to the long-term value growth of our pension portfolios," said Charlotta Dawidowski, the environmental, social and governance manager at one of Sweden's largest pension funds. "At this point in time we find it unacceptable that companies counteract ambitious climate policy."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/10/30/stories/1060104647

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Billionaires Face off Against Oil Industry in Washington Carbon Ballot Fight

Oct 30, 2018 | PoliticoPro

By Anthony Adragna

A ballot showdown that has pitted environmental grassroots activists, aided by billionaires like Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, against the oil industry will be decided Nov. 6 as Washington state decides whether it will become the first state to require polluters to pay a fee for their carbon pollution.
The ballot initiative, known as I-1631, has attracted tens of millions of dollars in campaign spending and galvanized thousands of volunteers to support the effort that would be one of the most ambitious policies in the nation to reduce greenhouse gases — and its approval would send a loud message to the Trump administration that states are stepping in to take the lead on fighting climate change.
“We’re not going to go down without knocking every door,” Gov. Jay Inslee, a major supporter of the ballot measure, told POLITICO.
The campaign over the carbon emissions fee has already become the most expensive ballot initiative battle in state history. Opponents of the effort, funded almost entirely by the oil and gas industry, have raised $29.9 million and already spent $18.8 million of that sum, according to state campaign finance records. Leading funders include the companies that operate oil refineries in the state: BP America, which has given $11.6 million; Phillips 66, which has provided $7.2 million; and Andeavor, which has put in $4.4 million. Andeavor LLC, now owned by Marathon Petroleum, has also kicked in $1.7 million, while Valero Energy has contributed $995,000 and the Koch brothers' Koch Industries has added $950,000.
Backers of the ballot measure, who have raised $15.2 million of their own, boast big-name donors as well. Those include Gates, who gave $1 million; Bloomberg, who added $1 million; Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs, who contributed $400,000; and Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, who each gave $100,000. Two major environmental organizations — the Nature Conservancy and the League of Conservation Voters — poured $3.05 million and $1.4 million into supporting the ballot initiative, respectively.
The statewide Crosscut Elway poll in October put the ballot initiative on course to pass with support of 50 percent of voters versus 36 percent opposed, though most observers expect the final tally to be closer. REI, Microsoft, Expedia and Pearl Jamare among the measure's backers, while the state’s largest newspaper, The Seattle Times, has opposed it, calling the plan “a largely inescapable, regressive tax especially on middle income families” in an editorial.
Washington state has struggled for years to find the right formula to institute a price on carbon emissions, but advocates think they’ve figured it out. The plan under I-1631 would set a price for companies' carbon dioxide emissions at $15 per ton beginning in 2020 and increase it by $2 per year — plus inflation — annually until 2035.
Seventy percent of the funds raised under the fee would go to pay for “clean air and clean energy” projects, 25 percent for “clean water and forest” projects, and 5 percent would help communities adapt to climate change impacts. Portions of that money would be directed toward low-income and vulnerable populations, while another dedicated chunk would aim to help fossil fuel workers affected by the transition to clean energy.
The state’s Office of Financial Management estimates the carbon fee would generate $2.3 billion over the first five fiscal years. A 15-person oversight board, appointed by the governor, would oversee how the money is doled out.
Backers hope the coalition they built to push the ballot initiative will help it do better than a 2016 carbon tax proposal, which was modeled on British Columbia's approach but didn't gain the support of Inslee and other prominent state officials. It failed to pass, drawing the support of just over 40 percent of voters.
Opponents argue that oversight board won't be effective in guiding the spending of hundreds of millions to various projects. They also argue higher costs for fuel, electricity, heating and natural gas will be borne by lower-income populations who cannot afford them, and they object to exemptions in the proposal for certain industries, like aircraft manufacturers and aluminum producers.
“The more voters know about it, the less they like it,” said Dana Bieber, spokeswoman for the "No on 1631" coalition. “Climate change is a serious issue and it needs a solution that’s effective and fair.”
Proponents counter that the exemptions were carefully considered, and were designed to keep those industries from leaving the state and causing job losses. The Centralia coal-fired power plant is exempted under the plan, but it is already slated to shut down by 2025.
“We believe strongly that the policy is built to reduce emissions and be effective and that it covers the economy-wide emissions in a reasonable and effective approach,” said Mike Stevens, state director for the Nature Conservancy, in an interview. “This is a carefully constructed policy that very carefully evaluated the issues of exemptions and public oversight.”
The high-stakes and high-dollar fight in the Evergreen State mirrors other expensive ballot fights around the country, such as in Arizona, where Steyer and his NextGen America have put $18.4 million — as of the Oct. 15 filing deadline — behind a measure that would amend the state’s constitution to require that utilities get half of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030. But the spending on the measure, Proposition 127, has been topped by Pinnacle West, parent company of the state’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service, which has spent $22.2 million to defeat it.
The cash spent on the Arizona initiative dwarfs the hard money contributed to all Arizona statewide candidates combined, and PACs for the two sides are the two best funded PACs in the state. It also exceeds the $38 million raised by both Senate candidates — Democrat Rep. Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Rep. Martha McSally. An Arizona Republic/Suffolk University poll this month showed the "no" vote with a 13-point lead, though 20 percent of respondents were undecided.
In California, where Republicans hoped a gas tax repeal push would juice turnout, proponents of the effort — Proposition 6 — have received just $5.67 million in contributions, including $300,000 from Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and $250,000 from Republican gubernatorial hopeful John Cox’s campaign. That's far below the $47.4 million hauled in by opponents of the repeal bid, according to state campaign finance records.
Supporters hope the grassroots energy to curb greenhouse gases in Washington will carry the effort across finish line. Nick Abraham, communications director for the "Yes on 1631" coalition, said thousands of volunteers are ready to knock on doors to get the word out in the closing days.
“People are really excited about trying to take a step forward in combating climate change,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). “It is a blueprint for what can happen if you get this really broad coalition. We would expect other states would follow us and that it would lay out a path for federal action.”
Officials know the national climate movement and other states are watching for results in Washington, and they say they've already been successful in motivating young voters to turn out in the midterms.
“We would like to tell them that there won’t be $25 million dumped into races from outside oil industries, but we can’t tell them that,” Inslee said. “We can tell them that there are more people voting because of this.”
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/10/billionaires-face-off-against-oil-industry-in-washington-carbon-ballot-fight-891794

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Next-Wave Lng Race Hits Hurdles in U.S.-China Trade War

Oct 30, 2018 | Reuters

By Julie Gordon, and Scott DiSavino

The delay of a U.S. Gulf Coast liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project has crystallized fears that the U.S. trade battle with China is hampering efforts to line up buyers needed to move ahead with multi-billion-dollar builds.
The United States is positioning itself as the dominant provider of the supercooled fuel as Asian nations shift away from dirtier power sources like coal, and this month’s approval of a giant Canadian project led by Royal Dutch Shell bolstered enthusiasm for the sector overall in North America.
That optimism took a hit on Monday, when Australia’s LNG Ltd delayed until next year a planned decision on whether to build its Louisiana-based Magnolia LNG plant due to problems lining up Chinese customers. And it comes when bankers and analysts in the sector had already questioned whether the next wave of projects in the pipeline would pass muster with investors.
“Chinese LNG demand growth is the largest piece of demand growth out there, and Chinese buyers have got to feel reluctant to commit to U.S. capacity when the U.S. government sees trade as a means of exerting political leverage,” said Bob Ineson, managing director of North American natural gas at IHS Markit.
China set a 10 percent tariff on U.S. LNG imports last month, extending a trade scuffle in which U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of imported Chinese goods and China retaliated with duties on $110 billion worth of U.S. goods.
China’s LNG demand has skyrocketed in recent years on Beijing’s pollution crackdown, with imports nearly tripling since 2015. Last year it overtook South Korea as the world’s No. 2 importer of LNG.
That boom, along with rising demand from other Asian nations, has helped gobble up an anticipated LNG glut and boosted spot prices to near four-year highs, breaking a multi-year freeze on new project investment.
By the mid-2020s, global LNG demand is forecast to range from 360 million to 450 million tonnes, up from about 290 million tonnes in 2017. With China leading that growth, signing deals with its companies is viewed as imperative to get larger projects done.
But the tariffs are having a chilling effect, according to two U.S. industry sources. China is not signing any long-term deals with U.S. projects until the spat is resolved, they said.
That’s not good news when there are at least six other new builds or expansions in North America on the cusp of a construction decision, with a handful more eyeing go-aheads by 2020, representing more than $100 billion worth of potential construction.
The first wave of U.S. LNG projects was able to leverage underutilized infrastructure and cheap gas to get a foothold in what had been a closely held global market.
But second-wave newcomers like Tellurian Inc, NextDecade Corp and Venture Global LNG face a range of challenges from financing to contract pricing to pipeline access, experts told Reuters.
With so many horses in the race, big builds backed by established players or expansions of existing export facilities will likely fare better than upstarts.
This favors energy giants like Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp and Qatar Petroleum, all of which have projects in the works, along with Cheniere Energy, the leading independent U.S. LNG company.
Shell and its partners this month approved the C$40 billion ($31 billion) LNG Canada mega project, promising 14 million tonnes per annum of new capacity before 2025, with the option to double that output.
“My instinct would tell me that the larger companies have the resources and relationships to get these things approved, because they’re just enormous projects,” said Charlie Cone, an LNG analyst with energy data firm Genscape.
LNG Canada’s chief executive, Andy Calitz, said last week that U.S. rivals could end up “dead in the water” as long as China keeps its tariff on U.S. imports. That could be a boon for Canada’s tiny Woodfibre LNG on the west coast and Pieridae Energy Ltd’s Goldboro LNG on the east coast.
Non-Chinese buyers are also cautious about long-term deals due to changing trade policy, said IHS’s Ineson. “This conflict could lead to many developers of U.S.-based projects missing this window,” he said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil/oil-prices-fall-on-rising-supply-trade-tensions-idUSKCN1N402I

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U.S. Government Official Says Country to Become Key Source of Global Energy Supplies

Oct 30, 2018 | Reuters

By Florence Tan, and Henning Gloystein

The United States will become a key source of energy supplies to meet growing demand globally, with innovation in technology and financing set to boost U.S. oil and gas production in the next decade, the country’s top energy diplomat said.
“In the next 5-10 years, we expect to see improved recovery rates and even a doubling in some of our most prolific (gas) basins,” said Frank Fannon, assistant secretary in the energy bureau of the U.S. state department.
“What this means in the near-term is that the United States may double production, double export capacity and introduce new market innovation,” he said at an industry conference in Singapore.
Graphic: Russian, U.S. and Saudi crude oil output - tmsnrt.rs/2CRXg31
Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said at the same event that the United States would become the “undisputed leader” of global oil and gas production.
In oil, the United States crude production overtook that of top exporter Saudi Arabia earlier this year, recently hitting a record 11 million barrels per day (bpd), putting the United States within reach of top producer Russia.
Largely thanks to the U.S. increase, crude output from the world’s top 3 producers reached 33 million bpd for the first time in September, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.
That’s an increase of 10 million bpd since the start of the decade and means that these three producers alone now meet a third of global crude demand.
In gas, the IEA’s Birol said the United States, together with Australia and Qatar would supply 60 percent of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) by 2023.
The U.S. currently only has two LNG export projects operational, although several are waiting for financial approval.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil/oil-prices-fall-on-rising-supply-trade-tensions-idUSKCN1N402I

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Scientists Close Gap in Oil, Gas Field Methane Emissions Estimates

Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Bobby Magill

A new way of measuring methane emissions from oil and gas operations has exposed unexpected pollution sources and helps reconcile discrepancies in previous monitoring methods.
It is helping scientists answer a question that has long plagued the oil and gas industry and regulators: Why do the two main ways of measuring methane pollution from oil and gas fields come up with radically different estimates? Measurements taken from aircraft consistently show larger amounts of methane releases than ground measurements and estimates reported by industry.
A first-of-its-kind, industry-funded Colorado State University and National Renewable Energy Laboratory-led study published Oct. 29 shows that the difference between the two vanishes only if methane leaks are measured on the ground and from the air at the same time at the same place.
“We have a big gap between national inventory estimates,” study co-author Garvin Heath, a senior scientist at NREL, told Bloomberg Environment. “This study explains that gap” for the period of the study.
The answer has implications for how natural gas field methane leaks and flares are regulated and for scientists’ understanding of oil and gas production’s contributions to climate change. The methods could yield a more accurate way of measuring methane releases.
Natural gas fields leak a lot of methane, one of the most potent air and climate pollutants. Methane has up to 34 times the power to warm the Earth than carbon dioxide over the span of a century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The Trump administration has rolled back federal regulations designed to control oil and gas field methane leaks. The Bureau of Land Management has reversed most provisions of the 2016 Waste Prevention Rule, which aimed to reduce venting, flaring and leaks of methane from oil and gas operations on federal lands. That decision is being challenged by the Environmental Defense Fund and 17 other environmental groups.
The study confirms that greater methane emissions monitoring and better emissions data are needed for regulators to fully understand how much methane leaks from gas fields and how leaks can be controlled, Jeremy Neustifter, an air quality planner for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Bloomberg Environment.
Natural gas development is widespread in Colorado, and other methane emissions studies have been conducted there. Two Ways to Measure
Scientists and regulators use two methods of estimating methane emissions.
Some estimates are based on measurements taken from the ground near natural gas production equipment—the primary method used for the federal greenhouse gas emissions inventory.
Other estimates rely on aircraft measurements of methane concentrations in the air above oil and gas-producing regions.
The difference between the two is stark. Aircraft measurements usually resulted in estimates of gas field methane pollution that are about 50 percent greater than estimates using measurements taken on the ground.
Until now, nobody knew exactly why.
The new study, conducted at a natural gas field in northern Arkansas, shows that ground-level methane measurements and airborne measurements have to be taken at the same time and in the same place in order to capture emissions that result from daytime gas field maintenance operations.
In Arkansas, the scientists found that large plumes of methane released into the air during daytime maintenance operations had previously been captured by aircraft measurements—but not from the ground—because gas field maintenance and scientific aircraft both fly only during daytime business hours. Ground-level measurements aren’t constrained by business hours, so their results were different. Underestimating Emissions?
Though the study’s specific emissions results are unique to a single Arkansas gas field, they show that existing methane emissions estimates are likely to miss some intermittent sources of methane pollution, such as maintenance operations, Heath said.
The study gives the industry an easy way to pinpoint specific sources of emissions that they’d previously missed because it shows that specific activities at certain times of day may be the source of a larger percentage of pollution than previously thought, David Lyon, an oil and gas scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, who was unaffiliated with the study, told Bloomberg Environment.
The study shows that methane pollution estimates using ground-level measurements used by the federal government are likely to underestimate a gas field’s total methane emissions, Robert Howarth, a Cornell University ecosystem scientist who studies methane leaks and who was unaffiliated with the study, told Bloomberg Environment.
Howarth said it is remarkable that nobody conducted a similar study before.
But it’s too soon to conclude that official federal greenhouse gas emissions inventories are inaccurate, Neustifter said.
“An emission inventory is a snapshot in time, which represents the best estimate of emission activities—some that may be overestimated and other activities that may be underestimated,” he said. “There is still more work to be done on better understanding and characterizing the many and varying sources of methane from the oil and gas sector.”

https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/scientists-close-gap-in-oil-gas-field-methane-emissions-estimates-1

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Florida Could Add Offshore Drilling Ban to State’s Constitution

Oct 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Chris Marr and Tripp Baltz

Florida voters could add a near-shore oil-drilling ban to the state’s constitution this November—reinforcing a prohibition already in state law.
Amendment 9 on the Nov. 6 ballot would add constitutional language to bar “drilling for exploration or extraction of oil or natural gas” in state waters off the coasts of Florida. The proposal needs 60 percent support by voters to succeed.
The oil and gas industry opposes the amendment in principle but concedes it would have very little practical impact.
“There’s already an existing law in place. It’s been in place for over 30 years,” said David Mica, executive director of the Florida Petroleum Council, a division of the American Petroleum Institute.
“We have not conducted a massive public relations campaign because we didn’t see the benefit relative to the cost,” Mica told Bloomberg Government Oct. 23.
Amendment 9 would apply only to state waters, which extend 3 nautical miles out from shore on Florida’s Atlantic coast and 9 nautical miles on the Gulf coast.
Federal waters off the coast of Florida also have been off-limits for offshore drilling for years. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in early 2018 that Florida’s coast would be excluded from new oil and gas leases, after Gov. Rick Scott (R) objected to the new federal offshore leasing plan that Interior announced in January.
The Destin Dome natural gas reserve, which lies in federal waters about 25 miles south of Pensacola, Fla., has long been one of the industry’s untapped targets in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Some environmental advocacy groups are endorsing Amendment 9. “Amendment 9 will help protect Florida’s beaches, our economy and our wildlife from oil spills by banning nearshore drilling,” the Florida Wildlife Federation said on its website.
Legal Challenge
The amendment faced a legal challenge that threatened to remove it from Florida ballots as recently as mid-October.
Opponents of the proposal and other measures on the November ballot argued a single constitutional amendment can’t contain multiple unrelated topics. Amendment 9 also proposes a ban on using electronic cigarettes or vapor tobacco products in the workplace.
A Florida trial court agreed and ordered Amendment 9—along with two others—stricken from the November ballot, but the Florida Supreme Court overturned the decision in an Oct. 17 ruling in Detzner v. Anstead, allowing the ballot questions to remain.
The proposal is one of several offered this year by Florida’s Constitution Revision Commission, a panel of state lawmakers and other appointees that meets every 20 years.
Colorado
Florida’s initiative isn’t the only one focused on drilling projects this Election Day. New oil and gas drilling would be kept farther away from certain structures if voters in Colorado approve Proposition 112.
The citizen-led ballot initiative would mandate that new oil and gas development, including hydraulic fracturing, be a minimum of 2,500 feet from homes, schools, hospitals, and other areas designated as “vulnerable.” The current statewide setback is 500 feet from homes and 1,000 feet from schools.
Colorado Rising, the campaign pushing the initiative along with several environmental and community groups, said the 2,500-foot setback is a sensible measure needed to ensure public health and safety and a clean environment.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Association, the leading organization for the industry in Colorado, a top 10 drilling state, said the 2,500-foot setback is too rigid and would “radically increase” the amount of surface area off-limits to responsible energy development.
It would put 94 percent of private land in the state’s top-five oil and gas producing counties off limits to new development, COGA said.

https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/florida-could-add-offshore-drilling-ban-to-states-constitution

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Virginia Sets Carbon Emissions Cap for Dominion Energy, Others

Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Gerald B. Silverman

Virginia electric power companies like Dominion Energy would have to keep their carbon emissions below a statewide cap of 28 million tons per year in 2020 under regulations approved by the State Air Pollution Control Board.
The regulations, approved Oct. 29, are needed to link Virginia with the nine states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a carbon dioxide emissions trading program. Virginia, with emissions of 34 million tons per year from 33 power plants, will become the second largest state in RGGI, as measured by carbon emissions, after New York.
Virginia’s emissions cap is about 15 percent lower than the one originally proposed by the board and about 17 percent lower than the total carbon emissions from the state’s power sector in 2016.
Dominion Energy, which is Virginia’s largest power company, had urged the state to set the cap at around 36 million to 37 million tons per year. The higher cap is needed to account for annual price fluctuations due to year-to-year changes in the weather and fuel prices, Dominion said in written comments to the board.
In response, the board said the new cap was a reasonable starting point for carbon reductions, given its modeling. The 28-million-ton cap would be reduced by 3 percent annually from 2020 through 2030, under the proposed regulations.
The regulations will now undergo executive review by Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and two state agencies, according to Karen Sabasteanski, an environmental program planner at the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
They will then be published in the Virginia Register for a 30-day public comment period, with final approval by the Air Pollution Control Board expected sometime in the spring 2019.

https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/virginia-sets-carbon-emissions-cap-for-dominion-energy-others

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Minn. Regulators OK $700m Natural Gas Plant

Oct 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Jeffrey Tomich

A split Minnesota utility commission yesterday went against the recommendation of an administrative judge by approving a utility's participation in a $700 million natural gas plant to be built just across the state line in Superior, Wis.
The state Public Utilities Commission voted 3-2 to approve Minnesota Power's stake in the 525-megawatt plant, which will be owned by an affiliate, South Shore Energy LLC.
Minnesota Power's petition to add natural gas capacity as part of a broader portfolio was backed by the state Department of Commerce. But environmental groups and large power users urged regulators to go along with the administrative judge's recommendation to reject the proposal.
The Nemadji Trail Energy Center (NTEC) is part of Minnesota Power's EnergyForward plan — a portfolio that also includes 10 MW of solar and 250 MW of wind — to replace about 700 MW of older coal-fired generation that's being retired. The utility, with 145,000 customers in northern Minnesota, would jointly own the gas plant with Wisconsin's Dairyland Power Cooperative.
The plant is one of a few combined-cycle natural gas plants that have been proposed across the Midwest as replacements for aging coal fleets (Energywire, July 13).
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Proposals in Minnesota, Michigan and Indiana have been challenged by environmental groups that question whether coal fleets should be partially replaced with gas or whether utilities can transition away from fossil fuels by embracing higher levels of renewable energy, efficiency and demand response.
The Minnesota Power project was also opposed by consumer ratepayer advocates and a coalition of industrial power customers, including steel and paper mills and mining companies.
Yesterday's decision followed hours of deliberation that split commissioners over whether the gas plant was the cheapest, cleanest way to help Minnesota Power meet its energy needs and whether the plant would help Minnesota achieve its climate goals (Energywire, Oct. 19).
The commission's decision goes against the recommendation of an administrative judge who earlier this summer said the utility "failed to demonstrate that the underlying 250-MW NTEC purchase is needed and reasonable."
The judge ruled that Duluth-based Minnesota Power didn't fully consider alternatives to meet customers' capacity and energy needs or establish that the plant was warranted for "dispatchability needs."
"I think it's fair to say in this day and age of carbon this is a very challenging decision. But I think as the utility commission we have to think about risks to the climate, we have to think about risks to ratepayers. ... I also think we have to think about prudent planning practices that we've relied upon for many, many years that have put Minnesota on a cleaner evolving trajectory around the area of carbon emissions," said PUC Chairwoman Nancy Lange, one of three commissioners who approved the plant.
Commissioner Katie Sieben disagreed. "The Nemadji Trail Energy Center will raise rates for Minnesota Power's customers, the stated capacity need is in question and it will emit more carbon," she said. "In that regard, it's a lose-lose for Minnesota Power's ratepayers and the environment."
A spokeswoman for Minnesota Power and Dairyland Power said the utilities are pleased with the PUC's decision, which would help Minnesota Power achieve its goal of reaching 44 percent renewable energy by 2025 from a current level of 30 percent.
"Natural gas is a key component to support our renewable energy goals and reduce the carbon emissions on our system while ensuring safe and reliable power for customers," Minnesota Power spokeswoman Amy Rutledge said in a statement.Capacity, climate questions
Consumer advocates, meanwhile, said the plant means an unnecessary increase in costs.
"Minnesota Power customers will likely face more than $350 million in new costs for an investment that the utility could not prove it needs," said Annie Levenson-Falk, the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota's executive director.
Consumer groups, including some of Minnesota Power's largest customers, argued the utility doesn't need additional capacity in 2025, when the plant is scheduled to begin operation.
PUC Commissioner Dan Lipschultz, however, agreed with the utility that moving forward now is in consumers' best interest because it allows Minnesota Power to take advantage of economies of scale that go with the Dairyland Power partnership.
To address concerns about the plant's impact on Minnesota's goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the PUC will also require the utility to analyze potential closures of its last two coal-fired generating units when it submits its next long-range plan.
Before deciding on whether to allow Minnesota Power to go forward with the plant, the PUC unanimously voted to deny a petition from an environmental group seeking review of the project under the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act (MEPA).
Lipschultz said the request to review the project under MEPA fell outside the PUC's jurisdiction.
"I don't think this is a close question," he said. "This is a Wisconsin facility being built entirely in Wisconsin subject to multiple permitting and regulatory requirements in Wisconsin."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/30/stories/1060104667

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Oil Sector, Ethanol Groups Clash over E15 Support

Oct 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

Oil sector and ethanol groups are making directly contradictory claims over the popularity of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15), which President Donald Trump has ordered EPA to authorize for sale year-round in a forthcoming rule that oil groups have promised to fight as unlawful and damaging to consumers.
American Petroleum Institute (API) Downstream Group Director Frank Macchiarola on an Oct. 29 call with reporters touted a new poll commissioned by API showing that the majority of respondents have concerns about E15.
Trump's order directs EPA to promulgate a rule authorizing E15 for sale in the summer months, when it is currently banned due to federal limits of fuel vapor pressure originally introduced to protect air quality.
EPA expects to issue a proposed rule by February, which may also include measures to boost the transparency and functioning of the market in renewable fuel standard compliance credits. The rule needs to be finalized by May to take effect before the summer season when E15 is currently prohibited, from June 1 to Sept. 15.
Macchiarola said the new Harris Poll survey shows that the “vast majority” of likely voters interviewed are “significantly concerned” about the prospect of E15 summertime sales, and called on Trump to reconsider his directive.
Any EPA final rule authorizing E15 would be “also contrary to the clear letter of the law,” Macchiarola said, repeating that all legal options are on the table for API. Most observers see a bitter legal fight over a summer E15 waiver as inevitable.
API's poll shows that “79 percent of voters are concerned about expanded E15 sales and vehicle incompatibility; 83 percent of voters are concerned that consumers could shoulder higher pump prices if service stations are forced to invest in new infrastructure to accommodate certain types of fuels; 68 percent of voters are concerned about consumers mistakenly using E15 and causing damage to their engines; and 81 percent of voters are concerned that government requirements could exceed the 10 percent level of ethanol in the nation’s fuel supply which studies have shown could increase gasoline prices by up to 26 cents per gallon.”
Reporters on the call and ethanol sector critics question the premise of the questions in the poll, however. For example, API's question about “higher pump prices” assumes that service stations would be forced to pay more to install E15 pumps. But E15 is already on sale for most of the year in many parts of the country, and EPA does not intend to mandate its sale. Indeed, API insists there is no pent-up consumer demand for E15.
Macchiarola said service stations would be at a “competitive disadvantage” if they are not equipped to sell E15. He insisted that E15 “is a fuel not ready for the marketplace” that could damage small engines and older cars.
In response, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) on Oct. 29 provided polling data of its own showing E15 to be a popular option.
“API’s newest poll is so manipulative it can’t even be called a ‘push poll.’ It’s more like a ‘shove poll’ that bullies respondents into answering the questions exactly the way API wants them answered. These results are meaningless and do nothing to objectively represent consumer opinion on E15,” said RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper.
He cited a poll conducted by Morning Consult for RFA, saying that shows 85 percent of voters “expressing an opinion on E15 said they would be more inclined to vote for a candidate who supported the sale of year-round E15.”
However, half of those interviewed said that year-round E15 sales would have no effect on their vote; did not know whether it would affect their vote; or made them less likely to vote for a candidate supporting year-round E15 sales.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/oil-sector-ethanol-groups-clash-over-e15-support

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Chemical Security News

DOE Rule Would Shield Grid Data from Disclosure

Oct 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Blake Sobczak and Hannah Northey

The Department of Energy could close the blinds on troves of grid data deemed critical to U.S. national security under a rulemaking issued yesterday.
The DOE proposal would allow unclassified filings from U.S. utilities to earn "pre-designation" as "Critical Electric Infrastructure Information," immediately shielding the material from public view and exempting it from disclosure under federal freedom-of-information laws.
The proposed rule's expanded definition of "CEII" could offer cover to Bruce Walker, assistant secretary for DOE's Office of Electricity, as his office prepares a "series of strategies" for safeguarding U.S. military bases from blackouts (Energywire, Oct. 17). It would enable a senior DOE official to pre-emptively apply the CEII label to "Defense Critical Electric Infrastructure Information," such as data from power utilities serving key military installations.
In a statement, Energy Secretary Rick Perry called the proposed rule "a vital step forward in protecting the nation's energy critical infrastructure and ensuring a reliable and resilient flow of energy to America's communities and businesses."
But critics pointed out that the agency appears to be casting a wide net with authorities laid out under the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act of 2015, which first tasked DOE and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to lay out their procedures for handling CEII.
Tyson Slocum, energy program director at the public interest watchdog Public Citizen, warned that the CEII rule could bolster a controversial leaked DOE plan to offer a financial lifeline to ailing coal and nuclear plants.
"It is absolutely reasonable to conclude that this is a Trojan horse as part of the DOE's broader efforts to radically reshape the nature of electricity markets, to provide large financial subsidies to certain types of preferred generation units under the nebulous guise of national security," he said. "So I'm very concerned about this. ... The issue here is the justification for the subsidy is going to become secret.
"Once you've designated it [CEII], details about it are wiped from the public domain," he said.
Slocum said his group intends to formally comment on the DOE proposal ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline.
In an interview last month with E&E News, Walker cast efforts to pinpoint "defense critical infrastructure," and efforts to spell out how DOE deals with CEII, as two distinct assignments under the FAST Act.
He said that the "pre-designation" authority laid out in this week's proposal is a necessary measure to build trust with the energy firms that often provide DOE with sensitive data.
"If I call a company up and say, 'I need your bulk power map for your system,' I can tell them that we are pre-designating it Critical Electric Infrastructure Information so that they have confidence," he said. "It provides them a willingness and capability to give us that information without fear that it would be disclosed."
He called setting ground rules for CEII "the first part," while the second part involves specifying "defense critical electric infrastructure" in conjunction with the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, among other agencies. "Then we can employ strategies to protect them better from things like cyberthreats as well as physical threats," he said.
The importance of Walker's work is elevated by the slow demise of a DOE proposal at the White House that aimed to shore up "fuel secure" facilities like coal and nuclear plants.
A Trump administration official who asked to remain anonymous confirmed to E&E News that the policy, based on a "pre-decisional" document tied to Walker's work, is faltering at the White House after failing to attract support (Greenwire, Oct. 16).
"Efforts to ensure resilience of the grid continue while DOE's poorly articulated policy flounders in the National Economic Council," the official, who was not cleared to speak for the White House in an official capacity, said when asked about a DOE draft proposal underpinning the White House review.
The "pre-decisional" document proposed purchasing electricity from unidentified U.S. coal and nuclear power plants to prevent their "premature" retirement, citing heightened threats of cyberattacks and natural disasters. The language pulled from three statutes: the Defense Production Act of 1950, the FAST Act and the Energy Policy Act.
Those purchases would serve as a stopgap defense for two years while DOE completed a detailed assessment of strategic vulnerabilities and interdependencies among electricity, natural gas and other critical infrastructure.
The policy was quickly denounced outside the White House by free-market conservative think tanks and a coalition of oil, gas, wind and renewable power interests as a "bailout." Sources say the policy has also faced a slew of questions about legal authority from Don McGahn, the outgoing director of the White House Office of General Counsel, as well as stiff pushback from the National Economic Council, led by Washington insider Larry Kudlow.
Slocum said he "wouldn't think anything" of the latest CEII rulemaking were it not for the leaked policy memo.
"Until I see the carcass being dragged through the streets, I am never going to believe this proposal is dead," he said. "And this CEII proposed rulemaking, to me, illustrates that it's still alive."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/10/30/stories/1060104663

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

Railroad Remains in PPG Waste Suit to Access Right-of-Way

Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Peter Hayes

Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad Inc. will remain a defendant in a citizen suit against the railroad and PPG Industries Inc. over contamination in the Allegheny River, even though there are no allegations that the railroad is responsible for the contamination.
The railroad’s motion to dismiss was denied by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania Oct. 26 because the court said a complete remedy is impossible without access to the railroad’s right-of-way through a wetland area to address contamination.
PennEnvironment and Sierra Club filed the citizen suit against PPG, the Borough of Ford City, and the railroad.
The groups allege that contamination from the PPG site in Armstrong County, Pa., has migrated to groundwater and continues to contaminate the Allegheny River.
The complaint alleges that contamination is seeping through the face of a cliff and is then being discharged into the river through culverts under railroad tracks at the base of the cliff, and that the railroad tracks are within a right-of-way held by the railroad.
The complaint includes claims under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Clean Water Act.
Judge Robert C. Mitchell issued the ruling.
Terris, Pravlik & Millian, LLP, and Emily McNally, Farrell & Reisinger LLC represent PennEnvironment and Sierra Club.
McGuire Woods LLP represents Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad.
The case is PennEnvironment v. PPG Indus., Inc., 2018 BL 395928, W.D. Pa., No. 14-229, 10/26/18.

https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/railroad-remains-in-ppg-waste-suit-to-access-right-of-way

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Canada’s Crude-by-Rail Shipments to U.S. Hit Record High

Oct 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By James Munson

Canada’s crude-by-rail shipments to the U.S. hit a new record in August, the country’s main energy regulator said Oct. 29.
The National Energy Board—which released the figures Oct. 25—confirmed that the 229,544 barrels a day of crude shipped in August was the highest figure recorded since the board began tracking rail exports, spokeswoman Karen Ryhorchuk told Bloomberg Environment in an email.
The total volume of crude sent across the border that month was 7,115,861 barrels, the board said.
A transportation bottleneck has been hurting oil production in Alberta for several years, exacerbated by a series of stalled pipeline projects.
Western Canadian oil producers sell their crude at a steep discount compared to global prices because they have few options other than to send their oil to the U.S.
Building New Pipelines
The Alberta government is considering actions to increase crude-by-rail shipments to ease the price gap, Premier Rachel Notley told reporters Oct. 22 after a meeting with oil executives.
But, she told reporters, “the best and only long-term solution to the price gap is building new pipelines.”
Notley had nothing to add to those comments after the latest National Energy Board figures were released, spokeswoman Cheryl Oates told Bloomberg Environment Oct. 29.
The latest and most controversial of those stalled pipelines is the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, which is supposed to link Alberta producers with Pacific and Asian markets.
The federal government was forced to begin new regulatory approvals in early fall after the Federal Court of Appeal quashed a federal permit because of an insufficient examination of marine impacts and a lack of consultation with Indigenous groups along the pipeline’s route, the court said Aug. 30.
The National Energy Board, which regulates interprovincial and international pipelines in Canada, has until Feb. 22, 2019, to send the federal Cabinet a new recommendation report on the project’s marine impacts, which includes effects on endangered orca whales.
Former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci also is overseeing a new consultation process with all 117 Indigenous groups impacted by the pipeline, Ottawa announced Oct. 3.
The project, which would ship crude product from northern Alberta to a port near Vancouver, would increase an existing pipeline’s capacity from 300,000 barrels a day to 890,000 barrels a day.
Industry on Meeting Demand
Canada needs more crude pipeline and rail infrastructure to be able to supply growing global demand, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said Oct. 29.
“The record-setting crude-by-rail numbers highlight the important role rail plays in our industry—providing increased flexibility and additional options for market access, particularly in light of current pipeline constraints,” Nick Schultz, vice-president of pipeline regulation, said in an email to Bloomberg Environment.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi said his government has worked hard to increase the number of pipelines leaving Alberta, including approving Enbridge Inc.’s Line 3 replacement project and supporting the construction of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline.
“I understand that Albertans are frustrated,” Sohi said in a statement emailed to Bloomberg Environment Oct. 29. “I care deeply about this issue and that’s why we’re working hard to expand to non-U.S., global markets.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/canadas-crude-by-rail-shipments-to-us-hit-record-high

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Environment News

EAB To Weigh Trump EPA's Ability To Loosen Obama-Era CWA Permits

Oct 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

By David LaRoss

EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) is set to hear oral argument Oct. 30 in a Clean Water Act (CWA) permit appeal that could set a new precedent on the agency's authority to loosen pollution restrictions in permits based on waterbody cleanup plans -- potentially boosting or putting new limits on its ability to roll back Obama-era permit terms.
At issue in In re: City of Ruidoso Downs and Village of Ruidoso Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) is the revised National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit issued for the New Mexico treatment plant in 2017, which sets more lenient limits on total nitrogen (TN) discharges compared to the previous Obama-era permit.
The challenger, Rio Hondo Land & Cattle Co., a downstream hunting range, says the change is “backsliding” forbidden by the water law, which generally bars EPA and state permit-writers from loosening discharge limits under the NPDES program.
But EPA is countering that the changes are justified by revisions to a total maximum daily load (TMDL) cleanup plan -- setting up a test of whether making a TMDL more lenient automatically requires loosening discharge permits designed in part to implement the cleanup.
If Rio Hondo wins it would set a strict test for EPA to justify making existing permits less stringent even when the terms are based on revisions to a TMDL. But a decision in the agency's favor would create a precedent that a more lenient TMDL directly justifies more lenient discharge permits -- meaning the looser permits could only be overturned through a challenge to the cleanup plan itself.
In its EAB briefing, Rio Hondo has argued that EPA fell short of a CWA requirement for permits to ensure that receiving waters comply with states' water quality standards. Since the limits in the prior permit still led to the nearby Rio Ruidoso being designated impaired and subject to a TMDL, it is logically impossible to justify loosening the permit, the petitioner argues.
“It simply defies common sense and logic for the EPA to argue, as it must in this case in order to justify the backsliding on nutrient limitations, that relaxing water quality standards for nutrients in the Ruidoso WWTP NPDES permit will assure attainment of water quality standards when the more stringent effluent limitations incorporated into the previous permit iterations did not have that effect,” Rio Hondo said in its opening brief to EAB.
But EPA has countered that two separate CWA exceptions to the anti-backsliding provision justify its decision to craft a less stringent TN limit for the Ruidoso plant, most prominently that the Rio Ruidoso TMDL itself was revised in 2016 to become less stringent.
The water law allows regulators to loosen a NPDES permit that was based on a TMDL if “the cumulative effect of all such revised effluent limitations based on such total maximum daily load or waste load allocation will assure the attainment” of water quality standards.
Rio Hondo says that regardless of the new TMDL limits, EPA must still justify more lenient permit terms based on a site-specific finding that loosening the limits in a particular permit will not conflict with state water quality standards -- which would be a much more stringent test than the agency prefers.
Litigation Venue
EPA is arguing that its changes to the wastewater permit are merely implementing 2016 revisions to the Rio Ruidoso TMDL that were approved by the Obama administration. It continues that the only way for Rio Hondo to challenge those changes is for it to sue over the TMDL itself, because any tightening of the permit terms would create a conflict with the cleanup plan.
“Petitioner has not challenged EPA's approval of the TMDL in federal district court -- but this option remains open to them,” EPA said in its response to the EAB petition.
Rio Hondo has sued New Mexico's state government over its decisions in crafting the TMDL, but that suit is playing out in state court and could only lead to a ruling that sets federal precedent if it reaches the Supreme Court.
Rather, the company has argued that the CWA requires regulators to justify even TMDL-based permits on their own merits.
Even though permits are required to be “consistent with” a TMDL's allocations for pollution loads, the company says, “there is simply no requirement that an effluent limitation in an NPDES Permit for a discharger be equivalent to the waste load allocation assigned to that discharger in a total maximum daily load.”
If EAB backs that claim, it would allow for claims that EPA permit-writers failed to consider factors that should lead to discharge limits for specific facilities stricter than what a waterbody-wide TMDL would otherwise require -- potentially limiting the Trump administration's ability to roll back stringent permit terms.
The Ruidoso case is going to oral argument despite settlement talks that began in the spring or earlier. An April 26 joint filing said “Rio Hondo and Ruidoso are now engaged in discussions aimed at resolving Rio Hondo’s water quality concerns in the Rio Ruidoso without the need for further litigation,” but despite two extensions on the argument date the parties never filed any paperwork memorializing a deal, and have now reached the end of the second extension without requesting another delay.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/eab-weigh-trump-epas-ability-loosen-obama-era-cwa-permits

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U.K. Plans Carbon Tax to Replace EU Market (Corrected)

Oct 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Mathew Carr

U.K. greenhouse gas polluters could see their costs for emitting carbon dioxide limited if the nation crashes out of the European Union without an agreement.
That is the implication of Treasury proposals to charge a tax of 16 pounds ($20.48) a ton on carbon dioxide emissions if Brexit talks fail and leave the U.K. excluded from the EU emissions trading system early in 2019.
The Treasury detailed the plans in its annual budget statement to Parliament Oct. 29, suggesting that government ministers want to limit surging costs of energy that have been pushed up in part by rising prices in the cap-and-trade market.
Power generators burning fossil fuels like coal and natural gas currently pay 18 pounds a ton for carbon emissions under the U.K.’s carbon floor policy. On top of that, they must pay for EU carbon allowances. Together, the two levies cost utilities about 33 pounds a ton for their emissions.
Should Britain exit the EU without a deal, emitters will pay only 16 pounds a ton under a planned carbon emissions tax, according to a government budget paper published Oct. 29. The government would maintain the floor price policy too.
While the two charges together are about the same as what polluters would pay based on today’s prices, the fixed tax would prevent polluters for paying more in the event that prices surge in the EU’s emissions market.
“The tax would be a stop-gap measure, and the U.K. government is currently exploring long-term alternatives,” said Jahn Olsen, a power and carbon analyst at Bloomberg NEF. “A U.K. ETS is the favored long-term option of several government ministers.”

https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/uk-plans-carbon-tax-to-replace-eu-market-corrected

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N.C. Governor Seeks Major Greenhouse Gas Cuts

Oct 30, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Andrew M. Ballard

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) is calling for a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to help address the environmental impacts of climate change such as the powerful storms that have recently pounded the state.
Cooper signed an executive order Oct. 29 that calls for a 40 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, when compared with 2005 levels. In his order, the governor cited “climate-related environmental disruptions” and the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes that are hitting North Carolina.
The governor seeks to boost the number of zero-emission vehicles in North Carolina, cut energy consumption in state-owned buildings, and expand renewable energy and conservation in the state. State agencies also will be required to evaluate the impacts of climate change and develop plans to address them.
“With historic storms lashing our state, we must combat climate change, make our state more resilient, and lessen the impact of future natural disasters,” Cooper said in an Oct. 29 statement. The governor also said North Carolina is well-positioned to grow its clean energy economy and that the environmental and health protection measures he’s requiring could be implemented while boosting the state’s economy.Republicans Control Legislature
While Cooper, a Democrat, can order state agencies to study the issue and develop plans of action, any significant changes would require approval by lawmakers.
Republicans currently have a significant majority in both the state House of Representatives and the Senate and have generally scaled back environmental protections during recent years and favored market-driven clean energy policies.
“State officials should do everything in our power to increase the efficiency of government buildings and motor fleets to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and the environment, so I’m open to reviewing specific strategies and proposals that would achieve those goals on behalf of North Carolinians,” House Speaker Tim Moore (R) said in an Oct. 29 statement.
“Effective energy reform requires bipartisan cooperation,” Moore said in comments emailed to Bloomberg Environment. “We must continue to work together towards other commonsense reforms that secure a sustainable and affordable future to benefit North Carolina families and businesses.”Opposing Federal Plans
Cooper’s executive order comes on the heels of an Oct. 26 letter the state Department of Environmental Quality sent to federal regulators urging them not to relax fuel economy and emissions standards because of the potential impact on climate change.
Derb Carter, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill, N.C., said the governor was showing leadership at a time when the federal government was pulling back from climate change commitments. North Carolina now joins more than a dozen other states that will continue to work toward the goals of the Paris climate accord, he told Bloomberg Environment.
“Maintaining the momentum is important,” according to Carter. He told Bloomberg Environment that the governor’s goals were “ambitious but achievable” and called on state lawmakers to support the effort to achieve the plan’s environmental and economic benefits.
Duke Energy also announced Oct. 29 that it was seeking to boost solar generating capacity in the state. The utility said it plans to build, own, and operate on-site solar facilities that will allow customers to access renewable energy without a large upfront investment.
Duke representatives weren’t immediately available to comment on Cooper’s plans or their impact on the company.
North Carolina is second only to California in solar generating capacity with about 4,500 megawatts installed, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Solar Energy Industries Association.

https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/nc-governor-seeks-major-greenhouse-gas-cuts

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A Call for Urgent Action: First-Ever WHO Conference on a Killer That Cuts Short Millions of Lives a Year

Oct 29, 2018 | EDF

By Sarah Vogel, Ph.D.

To breathe—from our very first breath to our last—is to be alive. But for billions of people around the world, that simple, necessary act is at risk due to pollution. For the hundreds of millions of children and adults with asthma struggling to breathe, the immediate and acute experience of breathing polluted air cannot be mistaken. And scientific research tells us that air pollution is also cutting short the lives of an estimated 7 million people a year due to heart attacks, stroke and respiratory diseases. For some context, that is more than the total lives lost to HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
Everyone on this earth has a right to breathe healthy air. But today, too many countries around the world are facing serious air pollution crises. That’s why people from all around the world—government officials, civil society organizations, artists, and academics—have gathered this week in Geneva, Switzerland for the first World Health Organization Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health. And it’s why we’re here: to call for urgent and immediate action to address global air pollution.
Innovative solutions to air pollution
In a world where the vast majority of people live in cities and where the air is unhealthy, it is imperative that we understand air pollution within large urban areas. Air pollution information from regional monitors have been essential in many parts of the world, including the US, to assess and manage major sources of pollution, but they do not provide insights into city-level distribution. To fill this critical information gap, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is working with a diverse community of experts, advocates, government officials, sensor developers, and private industry to develop scientifically robust, cost-effective approaches to mapping air pollution at the hyperlocal level using lower cost, mobile and stationary monitors, and to use these insights to assess impacts and advocate for clean air solutions.
In Oakland, California, EDF partnered with Google Earth Outreach, Aclima and University of Texas to produce the first-ever hyperlocal air pollution maps. We’ve expanded our hyperlocal mapping efforts to Houston, Texas; the broader Bay Area, California and – most recently –to London, England.
Air pollution insights that drive solutions
Turning local insights into on-the-ground solutions to clean air means translating new data into action. And that doesn’t happen overnight. City officials—planners, regulators, public health experts—are rolling up their sleeves alongside community groups and academics to develop and implement clean air policies.
In Oakland, we’re working with partners to use hyperlocal air pollution data to inform community air pollution reduction plans. These plans are part of California’s new Community Air Protection Program as part of the implementation of the state’s new law, AB617, which passed last year.
And in Houston, we worked with the city to pilot air pollution sensors on fleet vehicles, and are developing detailed air pollution data to identify vulnerable communities and prioritize local sources for emission reductions. Through the One Breath Partnership—a collaboration among advocates and local universities that EDF coordinates—we’re urging Houston to become a world leader in clean air.
For communities across the world to effectively address air pollution, they will need powerful insights into air pollution—its distribution, sources, and impacts on people and their pocketbooks—to develop sound solutions that reduce pollution and advance prosperity.
Make no mistake, air pollution is a complex problem; but today there are new tools and technologies to support the needed insights; committed leaders in government, civil society, academia, health providers and the private sector; and a powerful groundswell of public demand for action. Together, these forces can lead the way towards a healthier future.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2018/10/29/call-for-urgent-action-on-a-killer-cuts-short-millions-lives/

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Best Way to Fight Climate Change? Put an Honest Price on Carbon

Oct 29, 2018 | The New York Times

By The Editorial Board

Will voters in Washington State breathe new life into the idea of taxing carbon emissions? Plenty of people worried about the earth’s future certainly hope so.
Climate scientists and economists have long argued that the single best way to slow global warming is to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and raise that price over time, thus creating a sensible market incentive to reduce emissions and invest in cleaner energy sources. Carbon pricing was also high on the list of urgent recommendations of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned in a major report this month that without swift action to control emissions the world will begin suffering global warming’s worst consequences — including, but not limited to, the displacement of millions of people by drought and sea-level rise — as early as 2040, much sooner than previously forecast.
It is thus encouraging that in this time of torpor and climate denial at the highest levels of the federal government, voters in the state of Washington will soon be given the chance to adopt, by initiative, a carbon pricing plan that would charge polluters like refineries a fee for emitting greenhouse gases. This would be what economists call a Pigovian tax, after the British economist Arthur Pigou. In this case, the fee would factor in the now unaccounted for costs of more frequent and intense hurricanes, wildfires, droughts and other natural disasters linked to climate change. In the words of George Frampton, a senior environmental adviser to Bill Clinton and co-founder of a group that favors carbon taxes, Partnership for Responsible Growth, it’s an overdue stab at “honestly pricing carbon,” which industry has until now been able to hurl into the atmosphere pretty much for free.
Polling so far suggests a close vote. Opponents of the measure, including such big oil companies as BP and Chevron, have raised more than $25 million to get people to vote no; in addition, Washington voters soundly defeated a carbon tax the last time it appeared on the ballot, in 2016. But other powerful forces, including Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, have ponied up in support this time.
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If the proposal, Initiative 1631, wins — as we hope it does — the result could ripple beyond Washington’s boundaries. No state can match California’s impressively broad suite of clean-energy programs, but the initiative, if successful, could catapult Jay Inslee, Washington’s governor, into the climate leadership role long occupied by the outgoing California governor, Jerry Brown. More important, it could provide a template, or at least valuable lessons, for other states to follow; and (let’s dream for a moment) it might even encourage Congress to take action on a national program.
Initiative 1631 is substantially different from the measure that failed spectacularly two years ago, and which Mr. Inslee voted against. That measure was advertised as revenue-neutral (meaning no net gain to the government). The money raised through carbon taxes would have been mostly returned to state residents through a reduction in the sales tax. This was intended to appeal to conservatives who didn’t want the tax to underwrite new government programs, but it turned out that many conservatives, like a lot of others, wanted real programs for their money, not just a tax shift.
Initiative 1631 aims to do that. On the revenue side, it would impose a $15 per metric ton fee on carbon emissions starting in 2020, increasing by $2 per year until the state’s 2035 carbon reduction goals are met.The state estimates that the levy would generate $2.2 billion in its first five years. The initiative’s supporters say that gasoline prices would rise about 13 cents a gallon in 2020, and would, overall, cost most citizens about $10 a month.
As for spending the money, about 70 percent of the proceeds would be invested in projects to accelerate the state’s transition from fossil fuels — public transportation, energy efficiency, wind and solar plants, and so on — and the rest on protecting forests and streams and shielding low-income ratepayers from higher electricity bills. There are exemptions — for the state’s only operating coal-fired power plant, which is scheduled to close in 2025, and for the state’s largest employer, Boeing, which competes in foreign markets. All in all, the initiative covers about 80 percent of Washington’s climate-warming emissions.
Groups that opposed the 2016 initiative, like the Sierra Club, have flocked to this one. As David Roberts has noted in Vox, “Tying the revenue from a dirty-energy tax to clean-energy investments is intuitively appealing.” He has also noted, however, that carbon pricing is no cure-all.RELATEDMore climate coverage in OpinionOpinion | Auden Schendler And Andrew P. Jones: Stopping Climate Change Is Hopeless. Let’s Do It.Oct. 6, 2018Opinion | The Editorial Board: Wake Up, World Leaders. The Alarm Is Deafening.Oct. 9, 2018Opinion | Naomi Oreskes And Erik M. Conway: Fixing the Climate Requires More Than TechnologyOct. 16, 2018
The dream among many carbon-pricing enthusiasts is that a smoothly functioning carbon tax will eliminate the need for messy government regulations like those imposed by the Obama administration after Congress failed to pass a cap-and-trade program. Carbon pricing would help, and could do wonders to drive private investment toward cleaner energy. But it won’t eliminate the need for government involvement; as the I.P.C.C. report made clear, rapidly decarbonizing a global economy is a gigantic undertaking, and will require government involvement and an array of responses.
And in the meantime, of course, and indeed into the foreseeable future, all present strategies to reduce emissions must continue, including the kinds of things Mr. Trump refuses to do — build out the electric vehicle fleet, reduce emissions from power plants, clamp down on methane pollution from oil and gas wells.
As of now, about 40 governments around the world, including the European Union and California, have put a price on carbon, some through cap-and-trade programs, with an average price per ton of $8,nowhere near the level the I.P.C.C. thinks necessary (at least $135 a ton by 2030, if not much higher) to cause meaningful reductions. But lately the idea of carbon taxes is showing signs of life in many parts of the world. Portugal launched a carbon tax in 2015, and Chile followed in 2017, and just last week Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, announced a sweeping plan to tax industrial emitters.
A yes vote in Washington State would add further momentum — and possibly focus a few minds in the other Washington.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/opinion/climate-change-carbon-price.html

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