Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 11/15/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Tariff Exclusion Process Still Drawing Fire From All Sides
Nov 14, 2018 | Law 360
By Alex Lawson
The Trump administration’s scramble to adjust the process it has set up for companies to obtain exclusions from its steel and aluminum tariffs has continued to attract criticism from importers and domestic producers alike, according to documents published by the government Wednesday. -
(ACC Mentioned) Make This the Last America Recycles Day; It's Time to Celebrate Zero Waste and Ban Single-Use Plastics.
Nov 15, 2018 | Tree Hugger
By Lloyd Alter
Some say we should be worrying more about climate change, but you can't actually separate plastics from climate. -
DOJ Limit On Consent Decrees Has 'Unclear' Impact On EPA, Bodine Says
Nov 14, 2018 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
EPA enforcement chief Susan Bodine says officials are wrestling with how to apply a Department of Justice (DOJ) policy memo limiting when the administration can enter consent decrees with state and local governments and how long they can last... -
If Zinke Goes, Handoff to His No. 2 Would Be 'Seamless'
Nov 15, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Adam Aton
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spent the Friday before last Christmas mingling with staffers and their dogs, then flew out of Washington for a 15-day holiday break. -
EPA Unveils First TSCA Evaluation
Nov 14, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is seeking comment and peer review on a draft assessment of Colour Index Pigment Violet 29 (PV29), the first of the 10 evaluations it is conducting of existing chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
Us EPA Proposes Snurs for 66 Chemical Substances
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has issued TSCA significant new use rules (Snurs) for 66 substances. -
Violet-Hued Chemical in Paints and Inks Gets EPA Thumbs Up
Nov 15, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Makers of paint and ink would be able to keep creating violet-hued wares under an analysis of a pigment chemical the EPA released Nov. 14. -
(ACC Mentioned) EU Commission Eyes GHS Classification for EDCs
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
The European Commission said it will "explore" ways to include endocrine disruption in the UN's globally harmonised system of classification and labelling for chemicals (GHS). -
Replacements for Fluorinated Chemicals Are Less Toxic, EPA Says
Nov 14, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Two chemical compounds, developed as substitutes for the perfluorinated chemicals that have contaminated drinking water across the country, are likely less toxic than their predecessors, the EPA said in Nov. 14 reports. -
EPA Releases Draft Toxicological Profiles for Two PFASs
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin and Lisa Martine Jenkins
The EPA has published draft reference doses for two PFAS substances: 'GenX chemicals' and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS), which estimate the amount of a chemical a person can ingest daily over a lifetime (chronic RfD) or less (subchronic RfD) without suffering adverse health effects. -
IARC Finds Nitrobenzenes 'Possibly Carcinogenic'
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
Eight substances, comprising "some nitrobenzenes and other industrial chemicals", are "possibly carcinogenic to humans", according to a working group of experts at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Iarc). -
Apple, Target, Walmart Get Best Grades in Chemical Policy Review
Nov 14, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald Porter Jr.
Target Corp. and Walmart Inc. lead the industry in the latest round of grades released by watchdog group Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. The report ranks companies on how much information they disclose about potentially harmful ingredients in the products they sell... -
Hewlett Packard: Present Chemicals Management as a Business Proposition
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Chemical management needs to be packaged as a business case to get management buy-in and push companies beyond compliance, Chemical Watch's first conference on electronics heard last week in San Francisco. -
Report: Restaurant Chains Lag on Toxic Chemicals, while 21 Retailers Make Progress to Protect Consumers
Nov 14, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
A report released today reveals that major retail companies are making slow but meaningful progress at improving the chemical safety of the products, food, and packaging they sell, but nearly half of those scored — including every restaurant chain evaluated... -
Illinois Officials Seek Limits, Laws on Medical-Equipment Sterilizing Chemical (1)
Nov 14, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Joyce
Illinois lawmakers intend to introduce legislation that would change federal and state laws to control a medical equipment-sterilizing chemical. -
Not Far From Flint, Contamination Has Left Detroit School Taps Dry
Nov 15, 2018 | New York Times
By Sarah Maslin Nir
For a year now, Marcel Clark, a Detroit police officer and father of three, has been filling a 50-gallon drum each week with purified water for his family to drink. -
Austria Proposes Green Chemistry Regulatory Framework Integration
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
A study commissioned by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism has proposed policy options for integrating green chemistry into the framework of European chemicals regulations. -
Echa Updates Brexit Webpages for UK and EU27 Companies
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa has updated its Brexit webpages for companies preparing for EU withdrawal, offering guidance on its consequences and how to get ready for 29 March next year. -
(ACC Mentioned) Investor Explains Decision to Back Plastics-To-Fuel Firm
Nov 14, 2018 | Plastics Recycling Update
By Colin Staub
The leader of a company that is putting millions behind RES Polyflow says plastics conversion technologies today are comparable to renewable energy solutions when they were still in their infancy. -
Lower 48 Oil, Natural Gas to Dominate Global Supply into 2020s, Says IEA
Nov 14, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
The United States is forecast to contribute 40% of global natural gas production by 2025 and nearly 75% of oil growth in the next six years, driven mainly by unconventional onshore supplies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Tuesday. -
Oil and Gas Rule Changes Let Methane Leak, Critics Tell EPA (Corrected)
Nov 14, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz and Abby Smith
The health of people who live near oil and gas operations will be harmed by the EPA’s plans to revise methane emissions requirements for oil and gas operations, some speakers at a public hearing told the agency Nov. 14. -
Insight: Us Voters Give Boost to Clean Energy Policies but Stop Short of Carbon Tax
Nov 15, 2018 | Platts
By Kate Winston and Maya Weber
On November 6, US voters shied away from key statewide environmental initiatives that would have imposed near-term costs on oil, gas and traditional utility interests. But they backed candidates, including nine new Democratic governors... -
No Penalties for 90% of Pipeline Blasts
Nov 15, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Sue Bonham was ready to die. -
Interior Credits Increased Fossil Fuel Production for Jump in Revenue from Federal Lands
Nov 14, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Increased oil and gas production, as well as expanded access on public lands, are responsible for a surge in the Interior Department’s economic revenue this year, the administration said Wednesday. -
Landowners to Court: Not All Navajo Oppose Drilling
Nov 15, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
A group of tribal landowners this week sent a message to a federal appeals court. -
Some Senate Republicans Urge Trump to Nominate Leader for Chemical Safety Board
Nov 15, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Heidi Vogt
Some Senate Republicans have urged President Trump to nominate a chairman to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, an agency Mr. Trump has tried to eliminate. -
Nielsen Fights for Time as DHS Amps up Cyber Defense
Nov 15, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
The Department of Homeland Security's main cybersecurity office is getting a new name and additional authority under legislation headed to President Trump's desk this week. -
Murkowski Open to Adding Clean Energy in Infrastructure Package
Nov 14, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
Senate Energy Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said today she's open to working with Democrats on energy policy, including the promotion of clean energy sources, as part of an infrastructure package. -
Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’ Becomes Flash Point for Pelosi
Nov 14, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Zack Coleman and Anthony Adragna
Nancy Pelosi is facing an unexpected flare-up on climate change that is complicating relationships among House Democrats ahead of crucial leadership elections. -
Clock Starts for Challenges to NSR Aggregation 'Action'
Nov 14, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is slated to publish in the Nov. 15 Federal Register its final “action” reviving a 2009 policy making it easier for industrial projects to avert tougher air permit mandates by avoiding being combined, or “aggregated,” for the purposes of new source review (NSR) air permitting -
City, Corporate Carbon Cuts Key Ahead of Climate Talks, Activists Say
Nov 15, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bobby Magill
State and local policies, as well as corporate pledges, to switch to renewable energy, plug methane leaks, and use energy more efficiently offer important context for upcoming international climate talks, advocates for climate action said Nov. 14. -
My Evacuation from the California Wildfires Gave My Climate Work New Urgency
Nov 14, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jennifer Andreassen Burke
At 4 am on Friday, Nov. 9, I got the emergency alert I’d been dreading: We were under a mandatory evacuation order. -
Part of the Answer to Climate Change May Be America’s Trees and Dirt, Scientists Say
Nov 14, 2018 | New York TImes
By Brad Plumer
When people think of potential solutions to global warming, they tend to visualize technologies like solar panels or electric cars.
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Mentioned) Tariff Exclusion Process Still Drawing Fire From All Sides
Nov 14, 2018 | Law 360
By Alex Lawson
The Trump administration’s scramble to adjust the process it has set up for companies to obtain exclusions from its steel and aluminum tariffs has continued to attract criticism from importers and domestic producers alike, according to documents published by the government Wednesday.
Responding to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s tweaks to the exclusion process, a number of companies submitted public comments reiterating their long-standing concern that the process is a confusing, byzantine headache that is sowing confusion in global supply chains.
Generally, the process is supposed to allow importers to obtain tariff waivers for products that are not made in the U.S., an assertion that domestic producers are allowed to object to. In September, Commerce added a rebuttal and surrebuttal process to beef up the debate over exclusions and attempted to more clearly define key terms to simplify the process.
But as has been the case since the exclusion process was rolled out, the alterations have received a lukewarm reception from stakeholders across the supply chain.
“The inherent uncertainty of the product exclusion process is actually adding an unnecessarily prolonged cost burden to our members and their customers and chilling investment in the aluminum industry, rather than promoting domestic production,” wrote the Aluminum Association, a domestic industry group.
In its comments, the association asked Commerce for a searchable database of exclusion requests and their status at the department, along with a slew of other improvements like a quarterly report on exclusions and a policy to carefully review all requests, even those that don’t draw opposition from producers.
Also chiming in for domestic producers was the law firm Schagrin Associates, which said that producers were getting short shrift in the opposition portion of the process.
If a domestic producer opposes an exclusion request, current rules stipulate that it must be able to provide the importer with that product within eight weeks. That window is too tight for most producers to meet and should be expanded, according to Schagrin.
“The minimum standard that the department should establish for objections is 12 weeks, which we consider a reasonable and representative time for a foreign producer to make a simple steel item and ship it to the United States,” the firm said. “Only when a domestic source cannot provide material before offshore suppliers should the department determine that the domestic product is not ‘immediately available.”
The importing side of the ledger also suggested that Commerce was missing an opportunity to make much-needed changes to the process. Leading that charge was the American Chemistry Council, which said that Commerce must be more receptive to sweeping exclusion requests from industry associations.
Currently, only individual importers are allowed to request exclusions for specific products. The ACC noted that this approach has locked out a number of smaller companies that may not be able to afford legal representation to make their bid and also creates an overly complex web of pending requests.
“Requests and rebuttals from associations will streamline the Commerce review process and lead to a more transparent assessment of requests by Commerce staff,” ACC said. “It will also allow Commerce to hear the voices of smaller companies who might not otherwise engage in the exclusion process.--Editing by Aaron Pelc.
https://www.law360.com/internationaltrade/articles/1102016/tariff-exclusion-process-still-drawing-fire-from-all-sides
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Nov 15, 2018 | Tree Hugger
By Lloyd Alter
Some say we should be worrying more about climate change, but you can't actually separate plastics from climate.
It was ten years ago on November 15 that we first complained about America Recycles Day, the annual event sponsored by the Keep America Beautiful people. I described it once:
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It is my favorite holiday of the year, more comedic than April Fools Day and scarier than Hallowe'en. It is the day when Nestlé Water, Anheuser Busch, Alcoa and Pepsi get together with their friends at the American Chemistry Council to pat you on the head for picking up their shit.
When you look at its website now, it seems that it is a shadow of its former self; none of those sponsors seem to be around anymore.
Perhaps everyone has been reading TreeHugger and recognized recycling for what it is; in my decade-old post Recycling is BS [who edited that? It wasn't the initials!] Make Nov. 15 Zero Waste Day, not America Recycles Day where I described recycling as "a fraud, a sham, a scam perpetrated by big business on the citizens and municipalities of America."
Or perhaps people have finally realized that what the real scam and fraud was the way big business sold us on a world of single use plastics, and that recycling isn't enough; that recycling is totally broken, and that we have to break the entire single-use economic model and return to a circular economy.In the Guardian: The plastic backlash: what's behind our sudden rage – and will it make a difference?
Certainly, we are seeing a revolt against single use plastics; we have been complaining about them forever but now there seems to be a real movement. Steven Buranyi writes in the Guardian that "a worldwide revolt against plastic, one that crosses both borders and traditional political divides."
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All this has added up to a feeling that we might be on the verge of a great environmental victory, of the kind not seen since the successful action against acid rain and CFCs three decades ago. A great wave of public anger is pushing those in power to eliminate a single substance from our collective life – and with big commitments already secured, the signs seem promising.
That might be a bit of an overstatement, but there is certainly a lot of noise. Some are even complaining that it is diverting us from more important issues.
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The public turn against plastic was not foreseen by scientists or environmental activists, most of whom are used to their warnings going unheeded. In fact, today some scientists seem vaguely embarrassed by the scale of the backlash. “I scratch my head about it every day,” says the Imperial College oceanographer Erik van Sebille. “How is plastic public enemy No 1? That should be climate change.” Other scientists I spoke to downplayed plastic pollution as one problem among many, albeit one that had crowded out public interest in more pressing problems.
But Buranyi notes that "unlike climate change, which seems vague, vast, and apocalyptic, plastic is smaller, more tangible, it is in your life right now." - we can do something about it.
But in fact, the story of single-use plastics and climate change are deeply interconnected and intertwined.
So how did we get into this mess? Buranyi tells his version, but I have been thinking and writing about this for ten years, and I am going to try and pull it all together again in honour of America Recycles Day. Some of the points are covered in Buranyi's article; they are also in an article by Matt Wilkins in Scientific American that Katherine wrote about and that I thought looked vaguely familiar. We all owe a debt to Heather Rogers, author of Gone Tomorrow: The hidden life of garbage.
The story really starts here, with Miss Concrete and Miss Blacktop and the opening of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate and Defense Highways. It revolutionized transportation in the USA, permitting long-distance trucking.
At the time, most soft drinks and beer was packaged locally in heavy glass reusable bottles, filled at local bottlers and brewers. The interstate created an opportunity to centralize production and dramatically cut costs; one Coors brewery in Colorado produces more beer than is consumed annually in all of Canada. But shipping all of those bottles back and forth, all that distance, was way too expensive, so they started promoting single-use packaging like cans and disposable bottles. The brewers and bottlers loved them, as they closed down all the local breweries and bottlers and got rid of all that pickup infrastructure. Consumers loved them; they didn't have to take them back to the store.
Along with defense highways, the United States was going through a vast de-densification project, moving businesses and people out into the suburbs for civil defense purposes (Russia would need a lot more bombs in a nation of sprawl) which led to fast food, McDonalds and an increasing load of paper waste.
People weren't trained for this; they had always walked to a diner and ate of a china plate and drank out of a glass or mug. Now they had disposable paper and plastic, and that's what they did- they disposed of it, anywhere and everywhere. They just threw it all out the windows of their cars or dropped it where they walked.
This was becoming a problem for cities, which started thinking about legal action and deposit laws. So the industry got to work and created Keep America Beautiful (KAB) to drive home the message, getting Susan Spotless to tell us that every litter bit hurts. Heather Rogers wrote in Message in a bottle:
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KAB downplayed industry's role in despoiling the earth, while relentlessly hammering home the message of each person's responsibility for the destruction of nature, one wrapper at a time. ....KAB was a pioneer in sowing confusion about the environmental impact of mass production and consumption.
They even got citizens to accept that picking up their litter from the side of the public highways was something people should be spending their spare time doing or that kids should volunteer for it, even though the litter was packaging made by a company to contain their products, and maintain public roads is a public responsibility.
Campaigns like these, with the tear running down an Italian actor's cheek, actually worked, and people became good eco-citizens, picking up the litter which was shipped off to dumps. Cue Heather Rogers:
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All this eco-friendly activity put business and manufacturers on the defensive. With landfill space shrinking, new incinerators ruled out, water dumping long ago outlawed and the public becoming more environmentally aware by the hour, the solutions to the garbage disposal problem were narrowing. Looking forward, manufacturers must have perceived their range of options as truly horrifying: bans on certain materials and industrial processes; production controls; minimum standards for product durability.
There was even talk, horror of horror, of mandatory deposit laws. Suddenly all the companies producing single-use packaging got into recycling, training us not only to pick up our litter, but to separate it into little piles so that we could all pretend to recycle it. Some of it, like the aluminum cans, actually was. The rest often went to landfills or got shipped to China.
Over time, convenience became the product; people paid more for the ability to have something faster, easier, and to not have to clean up. Water got wrapped up in bottles and coffee grounds engineered into plastic coffee pods. Millions of tons of plastic, more every year, feeding into this culture of convenience. As Leyla Acaroglu explains:
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We are set to see a perpetuation of the addictive cycle that has led us to the mess we are in — that being the all-pervasive disposability practices that designers replicate, governments try to manage and clean up, and everyday citizens like you and me have to accept all of it as normal.
Plastics and climate change
And here is where you get the confluence of climate change and single-use plastics, because plastic is essentially a solid fossil fuel. It is half natural gas. As transportation electrifies, plastics are the future of the fossil fuel industry and could consume up to 20 percent of it. So every bit of plastic made has its own carbon footprint from its manufacture, from its shipping across the country or across the planet. That's why we should stop calling them single-use plastics and start calling them single-use petrochemicals.
Recycling is broken
Now, the entire recycling system has broken down since China closed its doors to our waste. We were never really recycling, we were simply exporting to where the wages were once low enough that people could pick through it for value and scrape the pizza drippings off the cardboard.
So we have, on this America Recycles Day, a big mess. Manufacturers are making plastics that are killing our oceans, that are getting into our bloodstreams, that is pumping CO2 into our atmosphere and that has nowhere to go. No wonder nobody is celebrating.
But For me, the breaking point, where this turned to anger, was a few weeks ago when three Girl Scouts in lime green hi-viz were killed while picking up litter by the side of the road. “A tragic and senseless act that happened earlier today in Hallie involving a Halmstad Girl Scout troop has us all asking Why?”
I'll tell you why it's tragic and senseless: they shouldn't have been there in the first place. They were there because for 60 years we have been brainwashed into thinking that we have a problem and a personal responsibility to pick up garbage.
Now it is time to make it their problem – the petrochemical companies, the vendors of convenience. Let's have big deposits on everything and make the use of single-use petrochemicals as socially unacceptable as smoking.
And next November 15th let's celebrate Zero Waste Day.
https://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/make-last-america-recycles-day-its-time-celebrate-zero-waste-and-ban-single-use-plastics.html
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DOJ Limit On Consent Decrees Has 'Unclear' Impact On EPA, Bodine Says
Nov 14, 2018 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
EPA enforcement chief Susan Bodine says officials are wrestling with how to apply a Department of Justice (DOJ) policy memo limiting when the administration can enter consent decrees with state and local governments and how long they can last, saying the impact on EPA is “unclear” but doubting it will significantly limit environmental decrees.
The Nov. 8 memo, which former Attorney General Jeff Sessions signed on his last day in office, imposes new restrictions on consent decrees that are widely seen as intended to limit DOJ's agreements with police departments that remedy systemic civil rights violations. Sessions opposed such agreements as both a senator and Attorney General, but his memo is broad enough to apply not just to civil rights cases but also EPA enforcement actions.
Bodine, the assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Enforcement & Compliance Assurance, and other speakers at a Nov. 13 American Bar Association (ABA) forum on environmental enforcement said the language of the memo is sweeping enough to include many EPA cases, especially those that involve local governments facing Clean Water Act (CWA) liability for combined sewer overflows (CSOs).
"More to come on that; it's unclear. I think [DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD)] is trying to figure out whether they think CSOs are covered," Bodine said during her presentation to the ABA event.
Sessions' memo discourages DOJ from imposing consent decrees on state or local governments with a term of more than three years; sets a high bar to impose third-party compliance monitoring; and forbids decrees that aim to achieve “general policy goals,” requiring the agreements to be “narrowly tailored to remedy the injury caused by the alleged legal violation.”
Those requirements closely hew to Sessions' criticisms of civil-rights settlements for police departments, but as ABA speaker and former Obama-era ENRD head John Cruden pointed out in his presentation, the memo does not limit itself to those decrees.
“Obviously one of the things that Sessions has worked on for years, and [is] clearly a vocal opponent of, is these long-standing police consent decrees that were done by the Civil Rights Divsion . . . but the consent-decree memo itself is actually broader -- it would affect any consent decree that was done against a local or state government,” Cruden said.
However, the memo does explicitly exempt decrees intended to pay for “a specific environmental removal action” under the Superfund law, which Cruden and Bodine both said leaves CWA settlements as the most significant environmental arena where it is likely to have an effect.
CWA Decrees
EPA, working with ENRD, frequently inks consent decrees with local or regional governments to mandate upgrades to their sewer infrastructure as a remedy for frequent overflows -- either CSOs, which involve both stormwater and wastewater, or sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) that involve only sewage.
But Bodine told the ABA forum that environment officials were caught off-guard by Sessions' Nov. 8 memo, which was issued as one of his final acts before he stepped down -- at President Donald Trump's request -- and was replaced by his former chief of staff Matthew Whitaker working in an acting capacity.
Reading the memo, Bodine said she and other officials' immediate response was, “Wait a minute, what about all our municipal consent decrees, dealing with CSOs and SSOs?"
She said those questions are still unsettled, pending a full review of the new policy by ENRD attorneys.
However, she continued that DOJ will likely decide that any consent decree that would pass muster under DOJ's policies prior to Nov. 8 will still be permissible under the new memo -- though with new procedural and consultation requirements before any such settlement can be finalized.
"In practicality it probably won't affect our [consent decrees], but it certainly will require a series of considerations. . . . There are a lot of principles in there that we'll certainly be looking at,” she said.
More specifically, she noted that the suggested three-year timeline is unlikely to be a hurdle for CWA decrees because “the municipalities want us to have longer consent decrees, not shorter, so this is very different from other practices within DOJ that maybe the policy was addressed to.”
EPA Enforcement
Beyond the Sessions memo, Bodine in her remarks to the ABA forum downplayed many recent criticisms of the Trump EPA's enforcement practices, including accusations from environmentalists and Democrats that new enforcement actions have dropped significantly since the end of the Obama administration.
She admitted that there has been a perception that EPA is turning a blind eye to violations, but said the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) has moved quickly to “correct” that impression. “There were some companies that wanted to test EPA's resolve, and did -- to their detriment,” she said.
In particular, she defended her March 23 memo that requires regional enforcement officials to send OECA “early notice” of their civil cases slated for referral to DOJ, which critics have charged will weaken regions' leverage in settlement talks.
Bodine said the memo was not designed to change how the regions make enforcement decisions or negotiations, but rather to remedy OECA's lack of a central list of pending civil actions. “I didn't know what was on our enforcement docket,” she told the ABA forum.
Similarly, she defended the Jan. 25 memo by former DOJ Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand that prohibits department attorneys from using EPA and other agencies' guidance documents as the sole basis for its civil enforcement actions.
Bodine said concerns that the Brand memo will change how EPA or DOJ prosecutes environmental violations are “really silly,” because guidance has never been enforceable in court. “You don't plead guidance. You plead violations of the law,” she said.
Finally, Bodine said the transition from former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler following Pruitt's resignation under a cloud of ethics scandals has had little impact on OECA. “Administrator Pruitt didn't involve himself in our enforcement cases,” so the change in leadership “hasn't really changed the things we do in enforcement,” Bodine said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/doj-limit-consent-decrees-has-unclear-impact-epa-bodine-says
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If Zinke Goes, Handoff to His No. 2 Would Be 'Seamless'
Nov 15, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Adam Aton
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke spent the Friday before last Christmas mingling with staffers and their dogs, then flew out of Washington for a 15-day holiday break.
Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt was erasing the departmental handbook's climate change chapter. One-fifth of all American land would no longer require climate science to inform decisions about water, wildlife and landscapes because, as Bernhardt's order said, it could "potentially burden" fossil fuel extraction.
As investigations push Zinke toward potentially exiting the secretary's suite, Bernhardt remains a steady force for rolling back environmental protections and boosting energy development. He's kept a low profile, but both allies and adversaries say little would change after Zinke leaves because so many policies already bear Bernhardt's imprint.
"Certainly Zinke's calling the shots at the department. But when it comes to the detailed policies, his deputy secretary is the one doing that detailed work," Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said.
Along with the climate policy, Bernhardt has signed orders that could make it easier for industry to challenge the science undergirding department decisions (Climatewire, Oct. 4).
He's also played a central role curtailing the scope of two bedrock environmental laws, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, both of which are big obstacles to extractive industries.
Bernhardt, for example, has restricted NEPA environmental impact statements to 150 pages, or 300 for unusually complex projects, and ordered them completed within a year (Greenwire, Sept. 6, 2017).
He's also taken a leading role in overhauling the ESA, proposing to shed the highest protections for species that are merely listed as threatened. The proposed change would make it easier to delist a species and potentially tighten critical habitats (Greenwire, July 24).
He took point on developing the executive order President Trump signed in October aiming to deliver more water to Western farmers, leaving less for ecosystems that support endangered species (Greenwire, Oct. 22).
And he was the one to roll out proposed changes to sage grouse conservation plans, a massive and complex framework that opens more land for drilling and mining across the West (E&E News PM, May 2).
He's also gotten his hands dirty.
Bernhardt directed the raft of senior executive reassignments that, for some of the people affected — like former climate policy adviser Joel Clement — smacked of political retribution. Twelve staffers believe they had been targeted for their work under the previous administration, according to an investigation by Interior's inspector general.
Bernhardt said he followed the rules, but the IG couldn't verify that because he left such a sparse paper trail.
Critics say that fits a pattern for Bernhardt, who also served as Interior's solicitor during the George W. Bush administration: He wields all of the power but faces none of the accountability.
The Western Values Project obtained 13,000 documents on the sage grouse plans — but only one email came from Bernhardt, according to Chris Saeger, the group's director.
"When you consider that he's the person running the initiative, that's crazy," Saeger said. "And that's indicative of what we've seen from Bernhardt in general, which is he really knows how to play it right up to the line."
Environmentalists have painted Bernhardt as the person truly in charge of the department, with Zinke making field trips and congressional appearances while doing little to shape policy.
Sgamma said that's just not true, and former Obama officials say it's not unusual for deputies to play such a sweeping role.
That's because the deputy is the only other person who can act with the administrator's authority, said David Hayes, who was deputy administrator under both the Clinton and Obama administrations.
In a rare public appearance, Bernhardt told a Heritage Foundation audience in October that he counts himself fortunate to work for Zinke and Trump.
"Secretary Zinke is a decisive leader who listens to information, makes a decision and then simply expects us to carry out the decision," he said, adding that it was refreshing to work for a president who won't accept "mediocre outcomes merely because they're supported by conventional wisdom."
Zinke's light touch, though, has given Bernhardt more running room than past deputies, said Matt Lee-Ashley, who was Interior's deputy chief of staff under President Obama.
Bernhardt was on the Trump administration's beachhead team — allowing him to influence policy and personnel well before his confirmation as deputy secretary.
One reason Zinke earned more confirmation votes than other Cabinet nominees was his support for conservation programs, as well as an ideology that was seen as less rigid than other picks, like former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Lee-Ashley said that gave Bernhardt an opportunity to influence his boss in a way that wasn't possible for Andrew Wheeler, the No. 2 at EPA whose similar style and profile has made him a natural comparison for Bernhardt. Wheeler took over as acting EPA administrator after Pruitt resigned amid multiple scandals.
"[Zinke's] been very pro-industry, very pro-extraction — I think more so than I think people expected, but that's maybe a reflection of the Trump administration and the influence of David Bernhardt in particular," said Lee-Ashley, who's now at the Center for American Progress.
The Bernhardt-Wheeler comparison also offers a reassuring lesson for industry, which might seek some more small-bore changes after Zinke leaves but has already seen progress on its big asks.
"You saw the environmental lobby take its scalps. They always do. They took Pruitt's scalp, and the net effect on the direction of the organization was zero," Sgamma said. "I think [the transition to Bernhardt] would be seamless, just like it was with Andrew Wheeler."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/11/15/stories/1060106263
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EPA Unveils First TSCA Evaluation
Nov 14, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is seeking comment and peer review on a draft assessment of Colour Index Pigment Violet 29 (PV29), the first of the 10 evaluations it is conducting of existing chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
One reason that PV29 is the first of the drafts released is that it “is probably the easiest of the 10 chemicals to evaluate and will raise fewer issues than others,” an environmentalist attorney tells Inside EPA, while adding that “there are important policy issues based on the lack of data for many end-points.”
The agency announced the release of the draft assessment Nov. 14 and is scheduled to publish a Nov. 15 Federal Register notice seeking comment.
Existing chemicals are those that were on the market when the original TSCA took effect in 1976, plus those chemicals that EPA has allowed onto the TSCA inventory since.
As required by TSCA, the Obama administration identified the first 10 chemicals subject to review in December 2016, a list that includes such high-profile substances as asbestos, trichloroethylene, and methylene chloride, as well as PV29.
The Federal Register notice does not mention the status of the other nine draft assessments, all of which toxics officials have indicated will be released early next year for public comment and peer review.
EPA's toxics office faces a December 2019 deadline to finalize these first ten assessments, though the agency could exercise an option for a six-month extension to that deadline, as allowed in the statute.
EPA in its notice explains that PV29 “is utilized as an intermediate to create or adjust the color of other pigments, as well as in commercial paints, coatings, plastics, and rubber products. [CV29] is an organic pigment that has a low solubility, low volatility, is expected to be highly persistent and has low bioaccumulation potential in fish and other animals.”
EPA will allow 60 days for public comment on the draft, according to the notice, and “is also submitting these same documents to the TSCA Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) which will peer review the draft risk evaluation,” citing “SACC's expertise.” The notice adds that a subsequent notice will provide information on the upcoming peer review activities.
Environmentalists have recently raised concerns with EPA's plans for completing the drafts and public scrutiny and peer review of them. Several environmental groups have argued in recent letters that EPA should go so far as to delay the drafts' release in order to bolster their scientific rigor. Among their requests, they asked for extended public comment deadlines and urged EPA to set up highly specialized peer review panels rather than the general SACC for certain particularly unique chemicals on the list, pointing especially to asbestos.
“I don’t think we object to SACC review of [PV29] but there are still important details of the peer review process (like the charge and conflict-of-interest reviews) that EPA has yet to address,” the environmentalist says. “We’ll be looking closely to see how this is done.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-unveils-first-tsca-evaluation
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Us EPA Proposes Snurs for 66 Chemical Substances
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has issued TSCA significant new use rules (Snurs) for 66 substances.
Issued under a 'proposed rulemaking', the Snurs cover a range of new chemicals that were approved for commerce subject to section 5(e) consent orders, each of which took effect in the second quarter of 2018.
These consent orders, however, apply only to the original submitter of a pre-manufacture notice (PMN). This means that the EPA must issue Snurs in order to hold other users of the substances to the same requirements. This structure is designed to address potential unreasonable risks that the agency identified while reviewing the substance’s PMN.
The latest batch of rules comes amid of flurry of recent Snur activity, with the EPA proposing more than 350 such rules since 1 August.
The rulemakings, however, had not been without controversy. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has issued several detailed comment letters flagging problems with the EPA’s approach to Snurs. The NGO said there were several examples where rules apparently fail to conform to TSCA guidelines, adding to its broader concerns that the EPA has changed its testing requirements without giving the public a chance to weigh in.
And industry groups, too, have raised concern both with the terms of individual Snurs, as well as the agency's regulatory processes for promulgating them.
For the earlier batches of Snurs, the EPA had attempted to finalise them on an expedited timeline through use of a direct final rulemaking. But having received adverse comments in response to each of these rulemakings – which has required, in turn, that they be withdrawn – the EPA in its most recent batch has issued them through the more traditional proposed rulemaking process only.
The closing date for comments on the Snurs is 31 December.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71984/us-epa-proposes-snurs-for-66-chemical-substances
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Violet-Hued Chemical in Paints and Inks Gets EPA Thumbs Up
Nov 15, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Makers of paint and ink would be able to keep creating violet-hued wares under an analysis of a pigment chemical the EPA released Nov. 14.
The Environmental Protection Agency concluded that a chemical called Pigment Violet 29—used to tint plastics, paints, and other products—does not need to be regulated, because it is unlikely to pose an “unreasonable risk” of injuring people or the environment. The nation’s primary industrial chemicals law requires that substances on the market not pose an unreasonable risk.
This analysis—the first of 10 chemical risk evaluations mandated by the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act amendments that the agency will release as drafts over the next few months—already is drawing criticism.
The EPA discounted known environmental hazards, numerous foreseeable uses, and ignored the chemical’s production below 25,000 pounds, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement.
“This is disturbing but falls in line with the Trump administration’s ongoing attempts to weaken the updated TSCA law. We look forward to holding hearings on this draft and EPA’s broad efforts to undermine the Lautenberg Act early next year,” Pallone said. He referred to the 2016 Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, which amended TSCA.
The EPA said it found little information to suggest the pigment would injure people or the environment.
Although the chemical is highly persistent, it does not build up in the food chain and it’s unlikely to get into the environment, the EPA said. There’s also little chance that people, plants, or animals will be exposed to the chemical, the agency found. EPA will accept public comment on its draft pigment violet 29 assessment through Jan. 14, 2019.
The EPA will release its remaining nine chemical assessments in the coming months, an EPA spokesperson told Bloomberg Environment Nov. 14. Those evaluations will examine asbestos—a mineral used to make chlorine, caustic soda, and hydrogen; a group of flame retardants called Cyclic Aliphatic Bromide Cluster (HBCD) chemicals; and seven solvents: 1-bromopropane, carbon tetrachloride, 1,4 dioxane, methylene chloride, n-methylpyrrolidone, perchloroethylene, and trichloroethylene.
Final risk evaluations are due by December 2019, the EPA said. That means the agency will be accepting comment and peer reviewing the documents next year.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/violet-hued-chemical-in-paints-and-inks-gets-epa-thumbs-up
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(ACC Mentioned) EU Commission Eyes GHS Classification for EDCs
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
The European Commission said it will "explore" ways to include endocrine disruption in the UN's globally harmonised system of classification and labelling for chemicals (GHS).
In a recent communication outlining its new strategy for endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), the Commission said GHS classification would bring "a global solution" to the identification of the chemicals similar to other hazard classes such as carcinogens, mutagens and reprotoxins.
If a GHS classification for endocrine disruption were agreed at UN level, it said, the Commission would then move to incorporate it in the Regulation on classification, labelling and packaging of substances or mixtures (CLP).
The UN system uses a ‘building block’ approach whereby countries or regional blocs are free to determine which of the modules will be applied in different parts of their regulatory systems.
The Commission’s idea is set to reignite debate over whether endocrine disruption should be a GHS classification.
Industry reaction
Cefic, the European Chemical Insustry Council, is "open" to dialogue but the proposal "warrants a separate discussion," it told Chemical Watch. This is because GHS is not based on mode of action chemicals. "This is probably why the Communication only refers to 'exploring possibilities'," a spokesperson said.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is against the idea, however. GHS classification is "unnecessary", it said, as the system already recognises several endpoints, such as cancer, that have been linked to exposure to EDCs. Classification should not be based solely on endocrine alteration, but on observing adverse health effects, it added.
"Now is not the time to propose expanding a programme that, despite showing early signs of progress, is also still vulnerable to confusion and potential setbacks caused by an overzealous pursuit of its goals," the ACC said.
NGOs argue that the WHO criteria sets too high a bar, and it would take years or decades to establish adverse effects from exposure to EDCs.
OECD response
Bob Diderich, head of the OECD's environmental, health and safety division, said GHS classification would facilitate risk communication in many countries that are struggling with a policy response to endocrine disruptors.
"Whether current criteria are flexible enough to classify EDCs or new criteria need to developed would be a topic of discussion," Mr Diderich told Chemical Watch.
If the GHS Sub-Committee of Experts were to open that discussion, he added, the OECD advisory group on endocrine disruptors testing and assessment (EDTA) "would most likely be willing to contribute to that work".
In its communication on EDCs, the Commission also said it would "step up" its support for the OECD in its work for developing internationally agreed test guidelines on endocrine disruptors.
Information exchanges have taken place on a bilateral basis with several countries, including Canada, Japan, the US and recently China, it added. "While having different approaches on how to deal with endocrine disruptors, all partners agree on the importance of addressing the matter as a priority."
https://chemicalwatch.com/72003/eu-commission-eyes-ghs-classification-for-edcs
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Replacements for Fluorinated Chemicals Are Less Toxic, EPA Says
Nov 14, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Two chemical compounds, developed as substitutes for the perfluorinated chemicals that have contaminated drinking water across the country, are likely less toxic than their predecessors, the EPA said in Nov. 14 reports.
The Environmental Protection Agency is taking a stance on whether GenX and perfluorobutane sulfonatic acid, or PFBS, affect human health at certain concentrations. Its findings could help companies, consultants, states, and local governments determine the concentrations of the chemicals that will trigger cleanup actions.
The chemicals are part of the family of poly- and perfluorinated compounds found in nonstick and stain-resistant coatings in clothing, fast-food wrappers, carpets, and other consumer products.
Both GenX and PFBS were meant to replace other perfluorinated chemicals in manufacturing processes for Chemours Co. and 3M Co., though the chemicals and their predecessors continue to pop up in drinking water, groundwater, and soil across the country.
‘Widespread’ ConcernsIn April, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality took legal action to require Chemours to get its air emissions and other sources of GenX under control. The state found evidence that air emissions from the company’s Fayetteville Works facility were causing widespread groundwater contamination.
The “widespread occurrence and subsequent environmental concerns” of two compounds in the family, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) led to the creation of their replacements, Damian Shea, a North Carolina State University professor, wrote in a 2017 analysis of GenX’s toxicity. GenX is a replacement for PFOA, and PFBS is a replacement for PFOS.
The replacement compounds leave the human body more quickly than PFOA and PFOS, on a scale of days rather than years, Jim Kelly, manager of environmental surveillance and assessment at the Minnesota Department of Health, told Bloomberg Environment Sept. 18.
Though 3M considered PFBS to be “practically nontoxic,” the company limited salesof PFBS-based products as early as 2002 to minimize their impact on the environment.
Varying StandardsStates, especially those on the East Coast, are setting their own guidance levels for poly- and perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water. The chemicals could cause developmental effects to fetuses, testicular and kidney cancer, liver tissue damage, immune system or thyroid effects, and changes in cholesterol, according to the EPA.
Last year, North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services set a goal for drinking water to have concentrations of GenX at less than 140 parts per trillion. The most vulnerable population, which the state determined to be bottle-fed infants, could see an increased risk of adverse health effects if they consume water with higher GenX concentrations throughout their lifetime.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s goal for PFBS in groundwater, especially when it is a source of drinking water, is less than 2 parts per billion, or 2,000 parts per trillion.
“We see traces of it in groundwater, and private and public water samples,” Kelly said.
Minnesota doesn’t expect to change its guidance on PFBS as a result of the EPA’s report, according to Kelly.
“The body of literature on PFBS is much smaller than for the other chemicals,” he said. “It’s unlikely they’ve found anything we weren’t aware of.”
Current EPA health guidelines address PFOA and PFOS. The agency recommends consuming no more than 70 parts per trillion of both chemicals in drinking water during one’s lifetime.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/replacements-for-fluorinated-chemicals-are-less-toxic-epa-says
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EPA Releases Draft Toxicological Profiles for Two PFASs
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin and Lisa Martine Jenkins
The EPA has published draft reference doses for two PFAS substances: 'GenX chemicals' and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS), which estimate the amount of a chemical a person can ingest daily over a lifetime (chronic RfD) or less (subchronic RfD) without suffering adverse health effects.
The development comes as part of the EPA’s broader effort to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), a class of substances which have been the subject of heightened scrutiny among concerns as to their potential toxicity and their prevalence in humans and the environment.
For PFBS, candidate values were developed based on both thyroid and kidney effects. They are as follows:
· PFBS, draft subchronic RfD:
· 0.04 mg/kg-day (based on thyroid effects);
· 0.1 mg/kg-day (based on kidney effects);
· PFBS, draft chronic RfD:
· 0.01 mg/kg-day (based on thyroid effects);
· 0.01 mg/kg-day (based on kidney effects);
· GenX chemicals, draft subchronic RfD: 0.0002 mg/kg-day; and
· GenX chemicals, draft chronic RfD: 0.00008 mg/kg-day.
Comparing these values to those of legacy substances PFOA and PFOS (which both have a chronic RfD of 0.00002 mg/kg-day), PFBS is about 500 times less toxic. Meanwhile, GenX chemicals (hexafluoropropylene oxide (HFPO) dimer acid and its ammonium salt), are about four times less toxic.
These values can be used by government and other stakeholders in combination with specific exposure information to characterise potential public health risks associated with exposure, according to a Federal Register notice announcing their release.
The EPA added that the assessments, once finalised, may be used by states, communities and other federal agencies to "to determine, under the appropriate regulations and statutes, if and when it is necessary to take action to address potential risk associated with human exposures to these PFAS chemicals".
GenX chemicals and PFBS are both "later generation" short-chain PFAS substances that have been used as surfactants and repellents to replace long-chain PFASs like PFOA and PFOS. While the short-chain PFAS are considered safer than their long-chain predecessors, their use is controversial. North Carolina has expressed concern over GenX chemicials contamination in drinking water, and PFBS has been recommended for phase out by Norway’s EPA.
According to the EPA's acting administrator Andrew Wheeler, the assessments "are critical to [the EPA’s] efforts to help communities impacted by PFAS".
He added that they are part of the agency’s forthcoming management plan for addressing PFASs, but that the EPA is "releasing the draft assessments now to provide this information – and give the public the opportunity to provide input – as soon as possible".
The EPA says it developed the draft assessments in consultation with independent peer reviewers, along with federal and state partners, using "the best available science".
Comments on the drafts will be accepted for 60 days following their official publication in the Federal Register.
The agency said in May that it plans to release its broader PFAS management plan "later this year".
According to the EPA, GenX chemicals are associated with health effects in the kidney, blood, immune system, developing fetuses, and especially in the liver following oral exposure; studies on animals are suggestive of cancer.
PFBS is associated with health effects on the thyroid, reproductive organs and tissues, developing fetuses and the kidney following oral exposure. The thyroid and kidney are particularly sensitive, though the studies on animals are inadequate to evaluate cancer, it says.
The toxicity assessments for GenX chemicals and PFBS include toxicity values associated with "potential noncancer health effects following oral exposure".
https://chemicalwatch.com/71998/epa-releases-draft-toxicological-profiles-for-two-pfass
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IARC Finds Nitrobenzenes 'Possibly Carcinogenic'
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley
Eight substances, comprising "some nitrobenzenes and other industrial chemicals", are "possibly carcinogenic to humans", according to a working group of experts at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Iarc).
Importantly, these ‘Group 2B’ designations will trigger California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) to begin the process to list the substances as carcinogens under Proposition 65.
The eight substances are:
· ortho-phenylenediamine and its dihydrochloride salt (already on Prop 65 list for carcinogenicity);
· 2-chloronitrobenzene;
· 4-chloronitrobenzene (already on Prop 65 list for carcinogenicity);
· 1,4-dichloro-2-nitrobenzene;
· 2,4-dichloro-1-nitrobenzene;
· 2-amino-4-chlorophenol;
· para-nitroanisole; and
· N,N-dimethylacetamide (on Prop 65 list for male developmental toxicity).
They are used in a wide range of applications including agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, paints, coatings, dyes and pigments.
The 14-member working group, which met in October at the Iarc headquarters in Lyon, France, comprised an expert from each of the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and the UK, four experts from Japan, and six from the US.
The group found that there was little quantitative exposure data available but decided that occupational exposure was expected during production and use of the substances.
They classified all of the substances Group 2B under Iarc's scheme because there is:
· "sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals"; and
· no data or "inadequate evidence" in humans.
There was little mechanistic data available for most of the substances.
Under the ‘labour code’ listing mechanism of California’s Prop 65 law, Oehha has a "duty to list chemicals identified by Iarc as possibly carcinogenic to humans, where the determination is based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in either humans or laboratory animals".
An Oehha spokesperson confirmed that the six of the eight substances not already listed were under evaluation as possible candidates via this mechanism. Once Oehha has completed its work, and determined whether the substances meet the criteria in the statute and regulations, it will issue a "notice of intent to list", opening a public comment period.
A summary of the Iarc analysis is published in Lancet Oncology. This mentions that "J o’Connor", a DuPont employee, attended the meeting as an observer and that the company uses N,N-dimethylacetamide in the manufacture of some products.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71996/iarc-finds-nitrobenzenes-possibly-carcinogenic
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Apple, Target, Walmart Get Best Grades in Chemical Policy Review
Nov 14, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald Porter Jr.
Target Corp. and Walmart Inc. lead the industry in the latest round of grades released by watchdog group Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. The report ranks companies on how much information they disclose about potentially harmful ingredients in the products they sell, as well as the steps they’ve taken to eliminate them.
Ikea and Apple Inc. were the other two companies to receive the highest marks in the study. Nineteen companies, meanwhile, received failing grades, including Dollar General Inc., Macy’s Inc., and McDonald’s Corp.
Key InsightsE-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. received a C grade—an improvement from the D it got a year ago. The Seattle-based company is putting pressure on privately owned brands that sell on its platform to eliminate harmful chemicals.
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families says companies are making “slow but meaningful progress” in improving the safety of products and packaging. Twenty-one of the 29 retailers that were evaluated both this year and last improved their score in 2018.
Some industries remain resistant to change, however. Department stores like Kohl’s Corp. and Nordstrom Inc. received low marks, along with restaurant operators like Panera Bread, Starbucks Inc., Subway, and Yum! Brands Inc.
Get MoreSafer Chemicals, Healthy Families says companies haven’t done enough to limit the use of substances such as formaldehyde and BPA in products such as household cleaners and cosmetics. While these ingredients aren’t deemed as harmful by U.S. regulators, some retailers, states and localities have restricted their use.
—With assistance from Lauren Coleman-Lochner and Jack Kaskey.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/apple-target-walmart-get-best-grades-in-chemical-policy-review
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Hewlett Packard: Present Chemicals Management as a Business Proposition
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Chemical management needs to be packaged as a business case to get management buy-in and push companies beyond compliance, Chemical Watch's first conference on electronics heard last week in San Francisco.
"You need to put the value of managing chemicals progressively into business terms so that management understand the significance," said Susanne Gallivan, Hewlett Packard materials environmental programme manager for the Americas region.
This, she said, could include presenting the cost savings, revenue generation associated with the work or improved trust in your brand.
Ms Gallivan was speaking during a panel session, where several corporate speakers stressed the need to translate the importance of chemicals management into business terms.
Tangible examples
Brandon Kobilka, advisory scientist for technology giant IBM, said it’s useful to provide tangible examples of missed opportunities or past failures.
"For example, missing a product deadline due to a chemical or regulatory related issue, and how that left the company exposed and what we can do to avoid that in the future, are great tools for pushing better chemicals management," he said.
One of the first considerations should be identifying what is most important to a company’s executive team, said Pamela Gordon, chair of the the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative's (iNEMI's) Eco-Design Roadmap.
"If you think about your company’s corporate culture, the focus might be on marketing, engineering or safety. Think about the primary business goals of the executives and then relate your work and products to those ," Ms Gordon said.
"You’re then talking the executives' language. For example, if a company’s executives are primarily focused on product quality, then convince them that going beyond regulations and developing sustainable products will not only meet their quality expectations but will likely go beyond them," she added.
Resources
The panel agreed that without management buy-in more resources are unlikely to be allocated to better address chemicals.
Ms Gallivan said it isn’t just small to mid-sized companies that struggle to increase resources in the field of chemicals. Many multinationals don’t have the capacity they need to push things further.
Michael Kirschner, president of consultant Design Chain Associates and chair of the panel, said many SMEs rarely have the resources to deal with regulatory requirements, much less measures to move beyond compliance.
Commenting from the audience, Randy Flinders, senior manager of product support at service provider GreenSoft Technology Inc, said that often a SME's entire compliance team consists of just one person.
"For that one person to try and make the case to grow their staff by 800% so they can run a proactive sustainability programme, that their customers aren't even asking them to do, it's really a pipe dream," he said.
https://chemicalwatch.com/72000/hewlett-packard-present-chemicals-management-as-a-business-proposition
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Nov 14, 2018 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
A report released today reveals that major retail companies are making slow but meaningful progress at improving the chemical safety of the products, food, and packaging they sell, but nearly half of those scored — including every restaurant chain evaluated — have failed to take any public measures to help eliminate toxic chemicals from the products they carry. The third annual Who’s Minding the Store? A Report Card on Retailer Actions to Eliminate Toxic Chemicals evaluated and graded the chemical policies and practices of 40 of the largest North American retailers, including grocery and fast food chains, as part of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families’ Mind the Store campaign.
Four retailers received the highest grades for their work to protect customers from toxic products and packaging, setting the pace for the industry: Apple (A+), Target (A), Walmart(A-) and IKEA (A-). In 2018, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Amazon were ranked “most improved” with all three companies announcing sweeping chemical safety policies over the past two months.
Mike Schade, Mind the Store Campaign Director for Safer Chemicals Healthy Families and report co-author said, “Companies can prevent harm and protect public health by taking common-sense steps to phase out toxic chemicals in everyday products. Retailers have an important role to play – they have both the power and the moral responsibility to eliminate and safely replace toxic chemicals to ‘mind the store.’ They should stop letting chemical corporations put public health at risk.”
Nearly half of retailers evaluated for Who’s Minding the Store?received a grade of F for failing to announce policies or publicly report progress to assess, reduce or eliminate toxic chemicals in the products or packaging they sell. However, year-over-year results reveal that retail chains have improved their chemical safety efforts after receiving poor grades on the Retailer Report Card. 72 percent of the 29 retailers evaluated in both 2017 and 2018 improved their scores by taking measures such as establishing new chemical safety policies, banning chemicals of concern from private-label brands, and expanding their chemical bans to new products.
Chain restaurants were analyzed for the first time this year and significantly lagged behind other retailers in reducing chemical hazards. These companies have been slow to announce chemicals policies and to publicly address toxic chemicals, such as phthalates and PFAS, in packaging and other food contact materials. Six fast food chains were evaluated representing 10 brands, with all companies earning Fs: Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, Panera, Pizza Hut, Popeyes, Taco Bell, Tim Hortons, Starbucks, and Subway.
Other retail sectors with poor performance include dollar stores (average grade of F), department stores (F), beauty shops (D-) and office supply stores (D-).
For a full list of the evaluated companies and their grades, and to contact companies to demand chemical safety improvements, visit RetailerReportCard.com.
“Learning and developmental disabilities now affect 1 in 6 children. Over a quarter of these disabilities are linked to toxic chemical exposures,” said Tracy Gregoire, Learning Disabilities Association of America’s Healthy Children Project Coordinator.
“Prenatal and early childhood exposure to harmful chemicals in consumer products and food packaging can lead to life-long impacts and chronic health conditions. Major retailers have both the opportunity and the responsibility to become industry leaders by keeping toxic chemicals out of products and packaging to protect children’s minds and bodies.”
Jose Bravo, Coordinator of the Campaign for Healthier Solutions, said “Once again, dollar stores fall among the worst national retailers when it comes to protecting customers and our families from toxic chemicals–and none of them have done much to ease product safety concerns in over a year. People of color and the poor depend on these discount retail chains, and our families deserve safe and nontoxic products just as much as any other family. While dollar stores continue to lag behind other retailers on toxic chemical safety, we continue to worry that our children and vulnerable populations are getting more than our share of toxic chemical exposures.”
“The food we buy should nourish us, not expose us to toxic chemicals from packaging and processing,” warned Mike Belliveau, Executive Director of Environmental Health Strategy Center and co-author of the report. “Restaurant chains are serving up a recipe for poor health by failing to slash the use of toxic chemicals in food packaging and other food contact materials. Toxic industrial chemicals like phthalates and PFAS don’t belong in the food we eat. Consumers expect a lot more leadership from food retailers in getting toxic chemicals out of the food supply chain.”
To evaluate retailers’ policies, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, the Environmental Health Strategy Center, Campaign for Healthier Solutions, Getting Ready for Baby campaign, Environmental Defence (Canada), and Safer States collected and reviewed publicly available information about corporate safer chemicals programs, and shared draft findings with retailers to provide them an opportunity to review the conclusions, disclose additional information, and make new public commitments toward safer chemicals as of November 9, 2018. Companies selected for evaluation were among the top forty North American retailers by sales or commanded the largest market share in one of twelve major retail sectors. Full methodology details are available at RetailerReportCard.com.
https://saferchemicals.org/newsroom/report-restaurant-chains-lag-on-toxic-chemicals-while-21-retailers-make-progress-to-protect-consumers/
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Illinois Officials Seek Limits, Laws on Medical-Equipment Sterilizing Chemical (1)
Nov 14, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Joyce
Illinois lawmakers intend to introduce legislation that would change federal and state laws to control a medical equipment-sterilizing chemical.
State lawmakers held a Nov. 14 hearing in Springfield, Ill., over health concerns at a Sterigenics U.S. LLC facility, citing emissions of ethylene oxide. Later in the day Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler met on Capitol Hill with four members of the state’s congressional delegation to discuss the matter.
The company uses the chemical as a medical sterilizer at its plant in Willowbrook, west of Chicago. The state legislation under consideration would regulate and eventually ban the chemical from the state by 2022; the envisioned federal bill would require the EPA to revise existing standards for ethylene oxide, which have been criticized as too lax.
Sterigenics claims it is in full compliance with state and federal emissions limits and possesses a valid permit to operate, but Illinois lawmakers have raised concerns over air pollution. The state last month filed suit to force the plant to limit its emissions or shut down.
State Sen. John Curran (R)—the sponsor of the legislation discussed at the state hearing—said federal EPA assessments show increased exposure to the chemical poses health hazards, including the risk of cancer. But industry specialists disputed those EPA toxicity assessments at the hearing.
Wheeler MeetingOn Capitol Hill, Wheeler met with Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Reps. William Foster (D-Ill.) and Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), to discuss potential health hazards associated with the chemical.
Durbin called on the EPA Office of the Inspector General to investigate whether the federal agency complied with all statutory and regulatory requirements regarding when and how much information EPA released about potential health hazards linked to the chemical at Illinois sites emitting ethylene oxide in a Nov. 14 news release issued after the meeting.
The lawmakers also said they would introduce in the Senate and House legislation that would require EPA to revise its emissions standards for ethylene oxide.
Bill Wehrum, EPA assistant administrator for air, said in a Sept, 27 letter to the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) the Willowbrook site was identified this year as potentially having an elevated chronic risk from ethylene oxide as much as 60 times more potent than levels contained in a 2014 National Air Toxics Assessment, alarming local officials that existing EPA standards don’t adequately protect individuals residing near the Willowbrook facility.
The chemical is listed as a hazardous air pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and the EPA listed the chemical as an agent “carcinogenic to humans.”
Cleaning 30 Million Medical DevicesThe reach of any state legislation could be sweeping.
Thomas Tremble, vice president and managing director for state government affairs for the Advanced Medical Technology Association, told the Illinois hearing that 400 of his organization’s members operate about 45 facilities in Illinois that sterilize about 30 million medical devices each year. The firms process medical tools for “pretty much anything used to diagnose and treat a health care condition that’s not a drug,” Tremble said.
“Obviously all of those don’t require ethylene oxide, but a lot do,” he said.
Substitute processes can make plastics brittle, and equally practical alternatives aren’t currently available, he said.
“We are not aware of any suitable alternatives for ethylene oxide for many, many of these devices,” Tremble said.
A Sterigenics representative didn’t appear at the hearing. But the company said in a Nov. 13 statement that it follows “rigorous safety protocols at our Willowbrook, Ill., facility to protect our employees, the environment, the communities in which we work and live, and the patients we serve.”
The company said the facility “was never a concern” until EPA’s Region 5 headquarters in Chicago requested a health consultation from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, that was released in the run-up to Nov. 6 state elections.
Because of what the company called “intentional bias” in the letter, and the timing of its release, it said “the voice of objective subject matter experts could not and would not be heard.”
Legislation ScrutinizedThe Illinois Senate Environment and Conservation Committee’s hearing discussed SB 3630, a bill requiring the state’s EPA to reevaluate existing air pollution permits and not renew any permit if the facility “is in violation of any federal or State standards or current studies pertaining to ethylene oxide.”
A second bill, SB 3640, would allow the chemical’s use only if no substitute chemical or technology can be identified and in any case prohibits the chemical’s use in the state beginning in 2022.
Alec Messina, Illinois’ Environmental Protection Agency director, said his agency opposes the bills as now drafted.
The legislation calls on his state agency to conduct activities traditionally outside its capabilities, such as setting state air emission limits and approving the use of substitute chemicals, he said.
The state typically adopts by reference U.S. EPA air standards and relies on the federal Food and Drug Administration to approve products using substitute chemicals. The legislation also would change the state’s permitting process to allow the EPA to re-assess air permits for possible revocation when the state EPA determines a public health hazard exists.
Messina said he is concerned about a company’s due-process rights when the state tries to revoke an already issued permit. But he said he supports the overarching aims of the legislation and that it may be possible to develop acceptable language.
Committee Vice Chairperson Melinda Bush (D) also told Bloomberg Environment after the hearing that a bipartisan compromise will be achievable.
But the timing of approving the bill will depend on the speed with which the state’s EPA plus Sterigenics and other industry actors can agree to legislative language, she said.
(updates with information from Capitol Hill meeting)
(Adds details on Wheeler meeting. )
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/illinois-officials-seek-limits-laws-on-medical-equipment-sterilizing-chemical-1
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Not Far From Flint, Contamination Has Left Detroit School Taps Dry
Nov 15, 2018 | New York Times
By Sarah Maslin Nir
For a year now, Marcel Clark, a Detroit police officer and father of three, has been filling a 50-gallon drum each week with purified water for his family to drink. Ever since he heard about the water contamination crisis in Flint, Mich., an hour’s drive away, he hasn’t trusted the aging copper and steel pipes in his house. He’s been talking to contractors about replacing them, and hopes to get the work done in the next few months.
“As a responsible parent, I said to myself, let me go ahead and secure my family,” said Mr. Clark, 48.
But his children may have been exposed to tainted water anyway — at school.
The water fountains in all 106 schools run by the Detroit Public Schools Community District have been dry since classes began in August. The superintendent ordered them shut off as a pre-emptive measure, after testing revealed elevated levels of copper and lead in drinking water at some schools. After completing checks at 86 of the schools last month, officials announced that 57 of them had lead or copper levels above the federal thresholds that require action to be taken.
The situation has set parents on edge in Detroit, 60 miles southeast of Flint, where contaminated water sickened residents while officials dismissed their concerns for months, insisting that the water was safe.Flint’s crisis prompted Detroit officials to start testing school water supplies in 2016.
“We are talking about Detroit now because we proactively tested all water sources, and defined the problem with a solution,” said Nikolai P. Vitti, the superintendent. “I think large urban areas around the country have infrastructure as outdated as ours is, and they don’t know if there is lead or copper in the water because they are not testing it.”
Based on Detroit’s experience, Dr. Vitti has called for a nationwide requirement for water testing in schools; there is no such rule now.
The situation in Flint, which began after the city changed its water source in 2014, raised concerns over water safety around the country. In rural communities, residents have complained of tainted wells tied to industrial farms and lax regulations. In Newark, N.J., officials insisted for months that drinking water was safe before reversing course last month when a new study showed lead contamination.
After the Flint crisis erupted, Michigan stepped up blood testing of children for elevated lead levels. A report by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services found in 2016 that a higher percentage of children under 6 had elevated levels in Detroit than in any other Michigan county — nearly 9 percent, compared with a statewide average of less than 4 percent. The study noted that a larger share of Detroit children were tested than in other places.
“We are a baby Flint — or a Flint coming,” said Aliya Moore, an artist in Detroit. One of her daughters, Chrishawna Jefferson, is an 11th grader at Cass Technical High School, where water tests last month found high levels of copper and lead.
Some parents, like Mr. Clark, the police officer, praised Detroit’s schools superintendent for stepping in to stem the problem even before the full extent of contamination was known.
Others voiced outrage that the problem had gotten as far as it has, including Roslyn Markhal, whose daughter attends Chrysler Elementary, another school found to have elevated copper or lead levels in its water.
Experts say the problem in Flint developed after officials switched to a new source of water but failed to add chemicals needed to prevent corrosion.
In Detroit, officials and water quality experts say, the issue may simply be aging pipes. Much of the thousands of miles of plumbing in the city’s schools is decades old, and rarely updated. That has left many people wondering how long the problem existed before anyone started testing the water.
“It’s horrible,” said Ms. Markhal, who works in health care. “Twenty years of pipes — that was around the time I was going to school.”
Joints and other plumbing components often contain metals that can leach into the water over time. And the way water runs through pipes in schools — only intermittently, rather than in a constant or frequent flow — adds to the problem, according to Elin Betanzo, a water quality expert. Anti-corrosive additives in the water must run through pipes consistently to be effective in preventing leaching.
In the schools in Baltimore, officials have been using bottled water for drinking since 2007, after tests revealed elevated lead levels there. “This is not just a Detroit problem, this is an everywhere problem,” Ms. Betanzo said. “And we have been ignoring it for years.”
Ripping out all the old plumbing in the Detroit schools is financially impossible, said Dr. Vitti, the superintendent. The district has been saddled for years with financial woes and deteriorating infrastructure. From 2009 to 2016, the school system was run by emergency managers appointed by the state; then it was divided in half so that the Detroit Public Schools Community District could shed debt.
Over the past 18 months, the Detroit Health Department has ramped up efforts to test children who may have been exposed, including sending workers to knock on the doors of every resident in neighborhoods where children have been found with elevated copper or lead levels, according to Tamekia Ashford, a spokeswoman for the department.
“This is troubling for Detroiters, because it’s just a long list of examples where it feels as if people are treated as if they are second-class citizens,” Dr. Vitti said.
Even so, he said, he believes the water issue is linked not so much to the school system’s turmoil but to the nationwide problem of aging school buildings. “We tested and were transparent, and so the focus is on us,” he said.
Detroit officials now say a solution is at hand: a $3 million project to put filtration systems in every school, paid for mostly by philanthropic donations. Installation of the first of 800 new “hydration stations” — drinking taps equipped with filters to remove contaminants — began last month.
The plan is little comfort to some caregivers, who fear that their children have already been exposed.
In the meantime, temporary water coolers have replaced water fountains in most schools, and students said they have adapted to the new situation.
“We used to didn’t need permission to get water, we just got water,” said Cherrill Markhal, 6, a student at Mann Elementary School, which tested positive for contaminants. She described how her first-grade class is led by a teacher several times a day to a cooler to fill up their water bottles.
The school district says that bottled water is also used in school kitchens for steaming, rinsing and cooking food. Piped water is used for sanitary purposes, and children still wash their hands at the school’s sinks.
“It should have never gotten to this level of the game,” said Barbara Cannon, 67, who packs bottled water for her grandson to take with him to Mann Elementary. “Up in Flint, Mich., the water is really poison. I hope it doesn’t get to that point in Detroit.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/us/detroit-schools-water-lead-contamination.html
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Austria Proposes Green Chemistry Regulatory Framework Integration
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
A study commissioned by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism has proposed policy options for integrating green chemistry into the framework of European chemicals regulations.
Green chemistry involves principles (GCPs) that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances in the design, manufacture and application of chemical products.
The scope of the study included all stages of the process of designing and producing the final products to which chemical substances contribute.
It examined to what extent existing EU policies relevant for chemicals are already reflecting elements of the greener chemistry concept.
Policy options for REACH include:
· improvement of the procedure to handle applications for authorisations by supporting third parties in providing relevant information on alternatives;
· creation of a mechanism in the application procedure to take into account product and process-orientated research and development (Ppord) substances in alternatives assessment;
· consideration of a new chapter on implementing the REACH principle of substance responsibility in the context of Ppord; and
· expansion of the consumer "right to know" regarding SVHC by adapting REACH Article 33(2) to make answers to the consumer obligatory in all cased and reduce the time frame to respond.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71995/austria-proposes-green-chemistry-regulatory-framework-integration
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Echa Updates Brexit Webpages for UK and EU27 Companies
Nov 15, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Echa has updated its Brexit webpages for companies preparing for EU withdrawal, offering guidance on its consequences and how to get ready for 29 March next year.
Businesses that manufacture or use chemicals in the UK and/or EU27 will be affected in different ways. As a starting point, the agency advises companies to identify their role in the supply chain and future connection to the EU27 and EEA market.
"Where and with whom you do business will determine how the withdrawal will affect you," Echa says.
If a UK-based company registered a substance under REACH, the registration with Echa will no longer exist. And REACH, CLP, BPR and Pic will not apply to UK companies that place chemical substances, mixtures or articles, biocidal products or active substances on the market only in the UK. This will also be the case when companies export certain chemicals directly from the UK to non-EU/EEA countries.
Echa's new web section offers advice to EU27 downstream users relying on REACH authorisations granted to UK suppliers and others who face changes.
While Prime Minister Theresa May said recently that the UK is "significantly closer" to delivering on a deal, any agreement must be ratified by both sides.
"If and only when this occurs, companies may benefit from a transition period, which gives them more time to prepare for the effects of the UK’s withdrawal," the agency says, adding that it will continue to update its support pages.
Echa's Q&A page discusses the impact on the UK and EU27-based companies and how Brexit will affect Board of Appeal hearings. The agency also assures UK-based firms that they can rely on helpdesk support for advice on EU chemical legislation post 29 March.
https://chemicalwatch.com/71981/echa-updates-brexit-webpages-for-uk-and-eu27-companies
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(ACC Mentioned) Investor Explains Decision to Back Plastics-To-Fuel Firm
Nov 14, 2018 | Plastics Recycling Update
By Colin Staub
The leader of a company that is putting millions behind RES Polyflow says plastics conversion technologies today are comparable to renewable energy solutions when they were still in their infancy.
“To me, this is akin to markets we’ve seen 10 to 15 years ago in renewables, both in solar and wind,” said Bob Powell, president and CEO of Brightmark, in an interview. “We think the U.S. could support up to 600 additional plastics-to-fuel facilities.”
Brightmark Energy, a San Francisco company that focuses on commercializing waste and energy products, recently acquired a majority interest in and invested $10 million in plastics-to-fuel and petrochemistry technology company RES Polyflow. The deal was announced last week.
As part of the agreement, Brightmark has committed to put an additional $47 million into a long-discussed RES Polyflow facility in Ashley, Ind. That site, which has been said to have a capacity of 100,000 tons of mixed plastics per year, was initially announced in 2015 but has yet to open.
Nevertheless, Powell said Brightmark feels that with sufficient investment, RES Polyflow is primed for a breakthrough. “[It] brought its technology to the point where it’s demonstrable at production scale,” Powell said. “For the industry to mature, the technology needs to be commercialized.”Proving plastics-to-fuel
Brightmark has been looking into plastics-to-fuel for several years, identifying it as a sector that fits with Brightmark’s mission, explained Powell. In addition to the RES Polyflow project, Brightmark also has a stake in a wastewater-to-energy plant in South Carolina and solar projects in Hawaii and California.
In the waste field, the company has identified single-use plastics as “one of our most profound issues,” Powell said.
Chagrin Falls, Ohio-headquartered RES Polyflow came to the forefront of Brightmark’s search.
“We looked at a lot of different opportunities and we think that what they’ve done is really interesting in that they solved one of the more difficult problems,” Powell explained.
Many of the other plastic waste-related technologies Brightmark evaluated were functional at the test stage, but they wouldn’t work when scaled up to production level, Powell said. In particular, many plastics-to-fuel systems create significant amounts of residue. RES Polyflow, which has been developing its technology for several years, does not have this problem with its system, Powell said.
He added that other technologies require very specific types of plastic for feedstock but that RES Polyflow’s can work with a wider variety, including post-consumer mixed plastics, auto plastics, medical plastics and more.
Fundamentally, the RES Polyflow system “can operate at production scale and it does so for low cost,” Powell said.
The goal for the Indiana facility is to annually produce 18 million gallons of diesel fuel and naphtha blend stocks, which are used in fuel production. The facility will also produce 5 million gallons of wax per year.
Powell said the site is now expected to open in late 2019 or early 2020.Industry in development
The plastics-to-fuel sector has been in development for more than a decade. A year ago, Plastics Recycling Update spoke with RES Polyflow CEO Mike Dungan, who also leads the plastics-to-fuel subgroup of the American Chemistry Council, about where the industry is at in terms of scaling up. Dungan said the industry had evolved dramatically over the past few years, but was still not at maturity.
Brightmark agrees with that assessment.
“I don’t think it’s mature at all,” Powell said. “That’s where our expertise comes in.”
One of the key factors tied to the development of the sector has been oil prices. When the cost of crude is high, there is more economic incentive for consumers to purchase from alternative sources.
Powell said Brightmark researched the current and projected markets for plastics-to-fuel products and concluded the economics will work.
“Price levels would have to go down quite significantly for this to be in a position of being uneconomic,” Powell said. “So there’s a lot of safety margin here.”
Powell also noted that unlike some other alternative energy sources, the plastics-to-fuel sector is not dependent on government subsidies. Energy subsidies offset the economic hurdles of producing renewable energy, with the goal of keeping costs low to allow producers to compete.
“You can’t find too many solar or wind projects here in the U.S. that would work economically without government support,” Powell said.
In addition, some fuel-sector buyers have recently shown willingness to work with plastics-to-fuel enterprises. BP previously signed an offtake agreement to purchase the fuels produced by RES Polyflow, and the latest announcement states that the waxes will be sold to AM WAX, an industrial wax distributor.
https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2018/11/14/investor-explains-decision-to-back-plastics-to-fuel-firm/
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Lower 48 Oil, Natural Gas to Dominate Global Supply into 2020s, Says IEA
Nov 14, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
The United States is forecast to contribute 40% of global natural gas production by 2025 and nearly 75% of oil growth in the next six years, driven mainly by unconventional onshore supplies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Tuesday.
The supplies of low cost U.S. gas output should keep Henry Hub prices relatively low until the mid-2020s, the IEA said in its World Energy Outlook 2018 (WEO).
The global energy watchdog also said increasing levels of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) would begin to narrow the gap between regional prices around the middle of the next decade.
Natural gas is the fastest growing fossil fuel in the WEO’s New Policies Scenario, the IEA’s central outlook. Gas is forecast to overtake coal by 2030 to become the second-largest source of energy after oil.
IEA also reported that U.S. oil supplies should reach 9.2 million b/d by the mid-2020s.
“The shale revolution continues to shake up oil and gas supply, enabling the U.S. to pull away from the rest of the field as the world’s largest oil and gas producer,” Paris-based IEA said in its central outlook. “By 2025, nearly every fifth barrel of oil and every fourth cubic meter of gas in the world come from the United States.”
New Policies, the most likely forecast, analyzes what would happen under announced global policies and targets. The Current Policies Scenario is one in which there would be no changes in policy from today, while the Sustainable Development Scenario envisions what would happen if the renewable energy transition were to be accelerated.
Gas demand would soar worldwide under the most likely scenario. Researchers raised their gas demand estimate to 2040 by almost 100 billion cubic meters (bcm) from the 2017 analysis to reflect rapidly growing efforts in China to replace coal generation and improve air quality.
“With demand growing by 1.6%/year, gas consumption is almost 45% higher in 2040 than today,” under the main scenario. “Industry takes over from power generation as the main sector for growth.
The WEO “does not aim to forecast the future, but provides a way of exploring different possible futures, the levers that bring them about and the interactions that arise across a complex energy system,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said. “The world is gradually building a different kind of energy system, but cracks are visible in the key pillars,” including affordability, reliability and sustainability.
“The movement toward a more interconnected global gas market, as a result of growing trade in liquefied natural gas (LNG), intensifies competition among suppliers while changing the way that countries need to think about managing potential shortfalls in supply. Robust data and well-grounded projections about the future are essential foundations for today’s policy choices.”
According to the New Policies Scenario, unconventional gas is forecast to increasingly underpin future supply, with shale and tight gas production expanding by 770 bcm to 2040 and exceed conventional gas growth.
“After 2025, additional growth comes from a more diverse range of countries including China, Mozambique and Argentina.”
The New Policies Scenario envisions gas demand in China tripling to 710 bcm by 2040, up 100 bcm from the 2017 analysis because of a concerted coal-to-gas switch.
“China’s gas consumption moves from being roughly half that of the European Union (EU) today to 75% higher by 2040,” researchers estimated. “China soon becomes the world’s largest gas-importing country, with net imports approaching the level of the EU by 2040. It is also on track to surpass Japan as the largest LNG importer.”
By 2040, emerging economies in Asia as a whole are forecast to account for around half of total global gas demand growth in the new policies analysis. Their share of global LNG imports is forecast to double to 60% by 2040.
The likely forecast model sees most of the growth in the global gas trade coming from LNG, with its share swelling to almost 60% by 2040 from 42%.
“LNG import flows continue to go mostly to Asia, while the export picture becomes more diverse with a new roster of suppliers,” researchers said. “The global gas market comfortably absorbed a recent ramp-up in LNG liquefaction capacity,” but even though “new LNG investment decisions are starting to come through...it remains challenging to reconcile buyer expectations of greater flexibility on contractual terms with supplier needs for bankable longer term commitments.”
The New Policies Scenario revised down its estimate for EU gas demand on the back of new targets for efficiency and renewables, “but gas infrastructure retains a strong role in ensuring security of supply, especially to meet seasonal peaks in heating demand that cannot be met cost effectively by electricity.”
Even with lower gas demand, “declines in indigenous production mean that the EU’s import dependence rises to 86% by 2025.” Russia should remain the largest single gas source to the EU, “but the leverage that this provides is set to wane in an increasingly integrated European gas market in which buyers have access to multiple sources of imported gas.”
Surging global gas trade, underpinned by the gas revolution in the United States and the rise of LNG, “continues to accelerate the transformation of gas markets,” under the New Policies Scenario.
“Although talk of a global gas market similar to that of oil is premature, LNG trade has expanded substantially in volume since 2010 and has reached previously isolated markets,” researchers said. “Spot trading, liquidity and flexibility are all on the rise, meaning that gas is more accessible to a wider variety of market players and is more responsive to short-term changes in supply and demand across regions.”
Some uncertainty exists around the position of gas in Asia’s future energy mix, “particularly since several potential new export projects do not look profitable at the price levels that have supported the recent rise in the region’s gas consumption,” researchers noted.
“While strong policy efforts may establish gas as a mainstream fuel in the energy system, signs of supply security risks or frequent price spikes could push gas to the margin and increase the prospect of Asian markets relying on a mix of coal and renewables.”
Uncertainty also impacts investments, and only a handful of liquefaction plants received the go-ahead from mid-2016 until mid-2018, researchers noted.
“Project approvals have picked up since then, but there are signs that exporters are still searching for commercial models suited to the new market order.”
Meanwhile, U.S. onshore oil production is expected to plateau in the mid-2020s, the central forecast estimated, ultimately falling by 1.5 million b/d in the 2030s as a result of resource constraints. After 2025, the “baton gradually passes” to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, i.e. OPEC, to meet “continued -- albeit slowing -- growth in global oil demand.”
The world’s appetite for oil is seen growing by 1 million b/d on average to 2025 before slowing to around 250,000 b/d. Oil use for vehicle fuel should peak in the mid-2020s on stronger fuel efficiency standards and the rise in electric vehicles, with demand then driven by petrochemicals and fuel use for trucks, planes and ships.
In its Sustainable Development Scenario for gas, researchers said demand would continue to grow to 2025 before flattening out at around 4.2 trillion cubic meters. Gas is seen as the only fossil fuel in which demand in 2040 is higher than today, “and it becomes the largest fuel in the global energy mix,” researchers noted.
“The dynamics are different from those in the other scenarios. Gas demand for power generation declines as gas increasingly provides peaking and balancing power rather than baseload generation. Instead, gas increases its share in the industry and transport sectors, where there is a strong impetus to curb the use of more emissions-intensive fuels.”
Lower gas demand in the sustainable outlook would translate into lower prices and lower investment needs for supply, with the cumulative investment requirements amounting to $6.3 trillion.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116479-lower-48-oil-natural-gas-to-dominate-global-supply-into-2020s-says-iea
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Oil and Gas Rule Changes Let Methane Leak, Critics Tell EPA (Corrected)
Nov 14, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz and Abby Smith
The health of people who live near oil and gas operations will be harmed by the EPA’s plans to revise methane emissions requirements for oil and gas operations, some speakers at a public hearing told the agency Nov. 14.
The Environmental Protection Agency proposed Oct. 15 to make the changes to the standards, which set limits on the potent greenhouse gas methane from new oil and gas drilling operations. The changes include decreasing the frequency with which oil and gas operators must monitor their equipment for leaks.
The oil and gas rule is one of several methane requirements the Trump administration is pulling back. The Bureau of Land Management has already rolled back its methane requirements drilling operations on public lands. The EPA said it plans to reconsider similar methane limits for landfills.
Speakers from the oil and gas industry said companies are already reducing methane emissions absent regulation. They added the EPA was right to make the changes, and some called for further regulatory reduction.
The hearing, in Denver, was the only one the EPA plans on the proposed changes, the first in the EPA’s two-step review of the Obama-era methane regulations. The agency is also on track to conduct a separate review of the entire regulation.
According to the EPA’s own estimates, the changes to the methane rule proposed in October would increase methane by 8.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent between 2019 and 2025. The agency also projected it would increase volatile organic compounds by 100,000 short tons and hazardous air pollutants by 3,800 short tons in that same period.
“Communities living with the oil and gas industry as their neighbor need comprehensive instrument-based leak surveys at least quarterly each year to protect public health,” said Patrice Tomcik, a resident of Gibsonia, Pa., and the oil and gas specialist for Moms Clean Air Force.
The EPA’s proposal generally would require operators to conduct inspections just twice a year, or in some cases once a year. Environmentalists would like to see them done four times a year. The Obama administration rule called for twice-yearly inspections.
State ProgramsIn addition to less frequent monitoring for leaks, the proposal would adopt several state-level methane regulations as consistent with the federal program. Those include states that have strict methane rules—such as Colorado, California, and Pennsylvania—as well as those such as Texas that have less stringent regulations.
The EPA is “on the right track” in revising the standards, which will fix many of the “impractical” aspects of the original rule and enable better technical flexibility and innovation that could ultimately lead to greater methane reductions than the Obama administration’s requirements, Stuart Siffring, a regulatory analyst with the Western Energy Alliance in Denver, said.
Siffring told Bloomberg Environment the industry does have several concerns about the EPA rule as proposed, chiefly over the approval process for certifying new leak detection technologies. He said the EPA should allow a more streamlined method for industry to adopt new technology that can better find methane leaks.
Matthew Todd, senior policy adviser for the American Petroleum Institute, said that methane from the natural gas industry has fallen 16 percent even as production increased by 50 percent since 1990.
API has long supported a regulatory approach focused on VOCs, achieving methane reductions as a co-benefit. The group has urged the EPA to revise the 2016 regulation to drop methane from the list of directly regulated pollutants covered by the rule.
“The controls that are being put in place designed for VOCs do pick up methane already,” Howard Feldman, the institute’s senior director of regulatory and scientific affairs, told reporters Nov. 13.
Having a separate methane-focused regulation “is an inefficient use of resources and mandate,” he added.
But health advocates said the EPA should withdraw the proposed change to the rule, which “unnecessarily weakens straightforward requirements for companies to find and fix leaky equipment and fails to account for the ways in which the policy would adversely affect health and welfare,” Sarah Smith, a program director with the Clean Air Task Force, said at the hearing.
The EPA’s own scientists published a peer-reviewed study this summer showing that pollution from the oil and gas industry will cause 1,970 premature deaths and prompt 1.1 million asthma attacks each year, Smith told Bloomberg Environment.
(Clarifies API’s position on the EPA rule in 13th paragraph.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/oil-and-gas-rule-changes-let-methane-leak-critics-tell-epa-corrected
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Insight: Us Voters Give Boost to Clean Energy Policies but Stop Short of Carbon Tax
Nov 15, 2018 | Platts
By Kate Winston and Maya Weber
On November 6, US voters shied away from key statewide environmental initiatives that would have imposed near-term costs on oil, gas and traditional utility interests. But they backed candidates, including nine new Democratic governors, with aggressive renewable energy and environmental goals. Advocates may now look to states fully under Democratic control – such as Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado – to take quick action on clean energy, since divided government at the federal level lowers prospects for this in Washington.
The defeated
Click here for more details about the results
Several green ballot initiatives offered critical test cases, and their defeat could discourage other states from pursuing similar measures. Washington’s carbon fee and Colorado’s drilling setback were seen as bookending what is politically possible at the moment.
Washington Initiative 1631 would have been the first carbon fee in the US. If passed, it would have set a carbon fee of $15/mt starting in 2020 and boosted costs for oil refineries, gas-fired power plants and other large users of fossil fuels.
Colorado Proposition 112 would have increased oil and gas drilling setbacks on non-federal land from 500 feet to 2,500 feet. The measure, strongly opposed by the oil and gas sector, could have reduced oil production in some basins by more than 50% by 2023.
If the Colorado measure had passed in a state that leans heavily on industry revenue, it could have been copied elsewhere. The failure of the Washington measure in a state with low carbon intensity suggests it could be a heavy lift elsewhere.
“We viewed both states as litmus tests for potential policy contagion,” ClearView Energy Partners said in a post-election note. “In Colorado, where proceeds from a fast-growing oil and gas industry fund schools and local governments, voter support for a de facto drilling ban could have pointed towards emulation by other, less-revenue-reliant producer states,” the note said.
Carbon tax
Scott Segal of Bracewell said Washington state has a balance of urban and rural voters, and of conservative and liberal voters. As a result, there were two well-funded sides battling over a fairly aggressive carbon tax. “It in many respects was a test case for the politics of the carbon tax on what I would call neutral ground,” he said in a post-election webinar.
But Tom Steyer, founder of the nonprofit NextGen Climate Action, pushed back against the narrative that the failure of the Washington initiative means a carbon fee would be politically infeasible at the national level. “I don’t think that for a second because obviously the largest, most populous state in the United States is California and we have a comprehensive plan,” Steyer said at a post-election event.
Environmental advocates blamed the defeat of some initiatives on industry spending. Advocates spent $15 million backing the Washington initiative while opponents spent about $30 million to defeat it. Proponents of the Colorado initiative spent $1 million and opponents spent $30 million.
Industry groups countered that some initiatives failed when put to the test by voters. “Where energy bans were on the ballots, many of them failed when it was put to a vote of the people,” said Benjamin Marter, communications director for the American Petroleum Institute.
Elsewhere, Alaska voters also shot down Ballot Measure 1, which would have strengthened permitting regulations for any activity that could affect salmon habitats. Oil and gas producers said the rules could delay projects and increase costs, potentially prohibiting developments on the state’s North Slope and elsewhere.
Renewable gains
While several high-profile ballot initiatives disappointed environmental groups, their policy goals gained ground in governors’ mansions. Seven switched to Democratic hands.
The League of Conservation Voters tallied nine new governors who committed to move their states toward 100% clean energy: Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Janet Mills of Maine, Jared Polis of Colorado, Kate Brown of Oregon, Gavin Newsom of California, Steve Sisolak of Nevada and Ned Lamont of Connecticut.
Michelle Lujan Grisham in New Mexico, another Democratic governor pickup, is expected to tighten venting and flaring requirements for oil and gas production, in addition to backing 50% renewables by 2030 and 80% by 2040.
Governor-elect support for clean energy goals overlaps with six states in which Democrats moved from divided control to holding the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature: Colorado, Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, New York and Nevada. The combination increases the likelihood of measures advancing.
That makes a difference in places like Colorado, where Senate Democratic control combined with the election of a governor who has backed 100% renewable energy by 2040 and favors tighter regulation of the oil and gas industry.
The New York state Senate flip to Democratic hands also could give life to more ambitious renewables goals than embraced by Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo. The push for a higher concentration of renewables “will be baked into the nationwide platform approaching 2020 and beyond” in the Democratic Party, said Rob Rains of Washington Analysis.
Dan Lashof, director of the World Resources Institute–United States, said after the election he sees Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico as poised for quick action on renewable standards. Wisconsin experienced the biggest ideological shift, Lashof said, with Democrat Tony Evers unseating Republican Governor Scott Walker, while Michigan and Illinois governors-elect could strengthen the existing goals on renewables.
With no action on climate legislation at the federal level, many environmental groups are focusing on state-level and sector-specific progress, Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club said. “The commitments on 100% clean energy coming from these governors, we feel will be deeply transformative.”
Going in a different direction, Ohio elected Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine, improving prospects for efforts to relax renewable mandates.
Results were mixed for ballot initiatives to raise renewable energy targets. Arizonans rejected a ballot initiative to require electric utilities to get 50% of their power from renewables by 2030. Arizona Public Service fought the measure, saying it could force the 3.9 GW Palo Verde nuclear plant to retire early.
A Nevada initiative to increase the state’s renewable portfolio standard to 50% by 2030 won easily with 60% of the vote, despite the state’s utility remaining neutral on the issue. While the initiative needs to pass again in 2020 to go into effect, environmental groups hope the state legislature will pass a law making that mandate binding even sooner. Prospects are improved by the election to governor of Sisolak, who ran as a clean energy advocate combating climate change.
https://blogs.platts.com/2018/11/15/us-voters-clean-energy-carbon-tax/
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No Penalties for 90% of Pipeline Blasts
Nov 15, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Soraghan
Sue Bonham was ready to die.
A ruptured high-pressure natural gas pipeline was firing a flame at her house like a blowtorch. She was crouching by a fence in a flower garden behind her home about 200 yards away, struggling to breathe the scalding air. Her thoughts turned to the things she'd miss — grandchildren, birthdays, weddings — but she had made her peace.
"God, please," she thought, "just don't let me know I'm going to burn alive."
About 20 miles down Interstate 77 in Charleston, Jim Cooper was looking at his screen in the control room of Columbia Gas Transmission, trying to decipher an array of signals. It took about 10 minutes and two calls from a different gas company to determine a line had ruptured. It took nearly an hour to shut off the flow of gas.
Across the road from Bonham that day in December 2012, the house of a night nurse was incinerated. Normally, the nurse would have been sleeping there. But she had left minutes before the blast to see a children's Christmas pageant. Up the hill, four hunting dogs died, trapped in their kennel.
Bonham was lucky. Four local volunteer firefighters appeared in the haze and whisked her to safety. She still calls the men her "angels in the garden."
The transmission pipeline, which is called Line SM-80 and ran by Bonham's home and under nearby I-77, hadn't been inspected for 24 years, even after inspections of two parallel lines by Columbia Gas had found signs of corrosion.
"I would have thought there should have been some big-time fines levied," said Bonham's husband, Paul Bonham.
But there weren't. Federal regulators at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration ordered Columbia to repair the line and inspect it at a higher standard. But they didn't seek a financial penalty.
They rarely do. Since the beginning of 2010, interstate pipelines have exploded or caught fire 137 times, according to an E&E News analysis of interstate pipeline enforcement and incident data. In about 90 percent of those cases, PHMSA sought no fine.
The fines totaled $5.4 million in the 13 explosion and fire cases where PHMSA did seek civil penalties in that eight-year period. That's less than one day of profits for TransCanada Corp., the company that owns the Keystone XL pipeline and that in 2016 bought the line that blew up near Sissonville. It's about $2 million less than TransCanada CEO Russ Girling's total compensation last year.
TransCanada did not respond to repeated requests for comment. NiSource, which owned Columbia Gas Transmission at the time of the Sissonville explosion, declined comment.
Some cases are still pending with PHMSA, such as a 2016 ammonia pipeline leak in Nebraska that killed a farmer and a 2016 gas line explosion in Pennsylvania the same year that left a man so badly burned that parts of his right arm and leg were amputated. PHMSA records show the agency has not taken steps to levy fines in those cases.
In other high-profile cases, such as the 2010 gas explosion in San Bruno, Calif., that killed eight people, states had jurisdiction rather than PHMSA. California authorities prosecuted and won felony guilty verdicts against the company that owned the San Bruno pipeline. They also levied a $1.6 billion fine.
The job of keeping interstate pipelines safe belongs to PHMSA, a relatively small unit of the Department of Transportation with a $250 million budget and 540 employees. About 200 of those employees are pipeline inspectors. The agency is led by a former railroad executive, Howard "Skip" Elliott.
Elliott, an appointee of President Trump, has said he doesn't think increased penalties against pipeline companies would increase safety.
"It is not as though we are going to inspire further carefulness with punitive measures," Elliott told the members of two oil and gas trade groups in a speech last month.
He said the agencies need to "levy penalties where appropriate." But he said the companies represented in his audience, not regulators, were the ones who could reduce the relatively small number of pipeline accidents.
But PHMSA itself stresses the importance of imposing penalties when it grades state pipeline agencies on their safety programs. One question on the agency's annual evaluation of state programs is "Can the state demonstrate it is using their enforcement fining authority for pipeline safety violations?"
Enforcement job grows
PHMSA directly regulates about 350,000 miles of pipeline, more than 400 natural gas storage sites and 26 liquefied natural gas facilities around the country. An additional 2 million miles of pipe in the United States is regulated by the states or is unregulated.
The agency's job is growing as companies build new lines to capitalize on the country's oil and gas drilling boom, driven by hydraulic fracturing. More than 2,500 miles of new interstate pipe is under construction or has been approved. The 600-mile Atlantic Coast pipeline is to funnel gas from the Marcellus Shale to North Carolina. Keystone XL, if built, will transport oil from Canada into the U.S. pipeline system.
Pipeline disasters are rare, relative to the vast amount of oil and gas they transport every day. But PHMSA's apparent reluctance to impose financial penalties isn't reassuring to people who live in the path of the pipeline construction boom. Bill Limpert, whose house in Virginia is within what he calls the "blast zone" of the planned Atlantic Coast pipeline, says it reinforces his opinion that pipeline companies — not safety officials — are in charge.
"It almost seems like the industry can make money by skimping on safety and the fines don't catch up with them," Limpert said. "It seems like it's part of the cost of doing business."
Safety advocates say PHMSA could do a lot more to push companies toward safety.
"They've never been a particularly aggressive enforcement agency," said Rebecca Craven, program director at the Pipeline Safety Trust, a small safety advocacy group in Bellingham, Wash. "I don't know why."
Cynthia Quarterman, who led PHMSA during the Obama administration, says the public often expects a bigger fine after a spill or explosion rattles a community.
"That is always a big challenge," said Quarterman, now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. "The public's expectation is high; the regulator's resources and authority are often limited. We regularly requested more authority, but never got enough."
Industry leaders say pipeline companies are constantly striving to make their operations safer.
"Safety is our industry's core value, and protecting the public and the environment is the top priority for pipeline operators and a central component to pipeline design, construction and maintenance," Robin Rorick, vice president of midstream and industry operations at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement to E&E News.
Some note that even the largest fines leveled by federal regulators still probably pale in comparison to the cost of an explosion that shuts a pipeline down for a long time. Columbia spent $5.5 million after the West Virginia explosion to upgrade its lines to accommodate high-tech inspections. That's more than all of PHMSA's fines for explosions and fires since 2010. It also spent another $3 million on more basic repairs. And it settled lawsuits with nearby homeowners for undisclosed amounts.
"The steps and cost necessary to correct the situation at the incident location and potentially across a pipeline system can be significant regardless of any financial penalty," said John Stoody, an executive with the Association of Oil Pipe Lines.
PHMSA has laid out in official documents how it considers what size a fine should be. But the Pipeline Safety Trust's Craven said it's far less clear how PHMSA decides whether or not to seek a civil penalty in the first place.
A statement forwarded to E&E News by a PHMSA spokesman says the agency takes enforcement actions based on whether a company has likely violated regulations. It then factors in whether the violation might have caused an incident and whether the company's response was appropriate.
Civil penalties are set by Congress at $209,002 per day for each day the violation continues, the agency noted, with a maximum of $2,090,022 for a related series of violations.
PHMSA's relative powerlessness
One reason for PHMSA's reluctant approach to fines is federal pipeline law itself. Congress has given the agency significantly less enforcement power than environmental regulators such as EPA.
Spilling oil into a river, for example, is almost automatically a violation of the Clean Water Act. Having a spill or an explosion on a pipeline, however, doesn't necessarily violate PHMSA's pipeline safety rules.
Instead, PHMSA requires operators to maintain their pipelines properly and continually look for problems. They can be penalized for not looking for problems, but as long as they have inspected and made reasonable decisions about when to fix the problems they found, they're in compliance. That's the case even if those decisions turn out to be wrong.
Federal appeals court judges made that clear after PHMSA tried to fine Exxon Mobil Corp. $2.6 million for a 2013 spill in Mayflower, Ark., that dumped 134,000 gallons of goopy oil sands crude after a seam failed. Exxon officials had decided the pipe was not likely to rupture due to seam failure.
Exxon's fine was slashed by 90 percent after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Congress had not authorized PHMSA to penalize pipeline operators for every mishap, even major ones.
"The fact that the Mayflower release occurred, while regrettable, does not necessarily mean that Exxon Mobil failed to abide by the pipeline integrity regulations," the judges wrote. "Despite adherence to safety guidelines and regulations, oil spills still do occur."
Federal environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act were created in the late 1960s and early '70s at a time when Congress was more pro-regulation. Key aspects of pipeline safety laws were drafted after the 1994 "Republican Revolution," led by Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), transformed Congress and made deregulation a priority.
Pipeline safety was one of the few areas where the new majority succeeded in placing its deregulatory stamp, according to Sara Rollet Gosman, a University of Arkansas law professor, who wrote a paper on the legislation. Its passage in 1996, she said, left PHMSA dependent on industry and with diminished authority.
"The congressional reforms [from 1996] are designed to keep PHMSA from regulating too much," said Gosman, who serves on the board of the Pipeline Safety Trust. "Therefore, some incidents will occur because it would have been too costly for the industry to prevent them."
In oil spill cases, EPA often steps in later to impose fines, even when PHMSA did not. For example, Exxon Mobil paid a $3.2 million fine in a settlement with EPA over the Mayflower spill.
But in gas explosion cases, such as the 2012 Sissonville rupture that trapped Sue Bonham, EPA doesn't usually step in. So the total penalty imposed by federal regulators is generally lower for gas explosions than it is for major oil spills.
There are any number of ways Bonham, a retired legal secretary, could have died that day. Her first thought was to dive into her pool, but the water likely would have scalded her. If she had stayed in her home, she learned, she would have suffocated as heat sucked air out of the house.
She reunited with the four firefighters last month and returned for the first time to the spot where she'd hid from the fire. They still marvel at the intensity of the blast, recalling brown dirt scorched red and a stream of molten aluminum that apparently used to be a car, or part of one.
"Everybody here has fought their fair share of brush fires," said one, Drew Foutty, as the group looked over the site. "That's not at all what this looked like. Brush fires leave something behind. And this didn't."
Paul Bonham, Sue's husband, said he felt that Columbia treated the couple fairly after the blast. The company bought their damaged house, then deeded it back to them. A small-engine repair shop is now where their house once stood.
But Sue Bonham thinks that the company brass shifted blame for the blast to lower-level employees. And she's watched as the area has again embraced the oil and gas industry and the pipelines that come with it.
"I think they should be held accountable for the lack of control and monitoring they had," Bonham said. "I think it's all been swept under the rug."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/11/15/stories/1060106253
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Interior Credits Increased Fossil Fuel Production for Jump in Revenue from Federal Lands
Nov 14, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Increased oil and gas production, as well as expanded access on public lands, are responsible for a surge in the Interior Department’s economic revenue this year, the administration said Wednesday.
Production activities on Interior land under the Trump administration helped generate $292 billion in economic output during fiscal year 2017, a big increase of $400 million from the previous year, according to an economic report released by the Interior Department.
The significant increase is being credited to regulatory reforms, increased fossil fuel extraction on public lands and expanded access for surveyors, hunters and fishers done under the Trump administration.
“Anyone who grew up in the West can tell you that federal lands are working lands and, if managed properly, they support jobs and economic activity for communities in industries like recreation, energy, agriculture, and mining," Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement.
"This report shows that thanks to smart regulatory reforms and increased access, federal lands and waters are once again increasing economic output and creating jobs.”
According to the report, the department under President Trump increased the revenue it received from oil and gas royalties on public lands by nearly $1 billion. That includes royalties from 869 million barrels of crude oil, 4.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 347 million tons of coal gotten from Interior-managed public lands and waters.
The report highlighted that nationally the number of onshore wells increased by almost 85 percent, notably in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
When it comes to renewable energy however, Interior’s report found that production plummeted. Energy derived from geothermal, wind and solar on public lands were zeroed out. Hydroelectric venues were the lone green energy source to increase from 36.7 terawatt hours to 43.9.
In its revenue estimate, Interior also included the expected revenue it would give back to the economy due to the number of deregulations on public lands it initiated under Trump. The agency estimated the “savings to the economy” due to the 21 deregulatory actions it initiated, will amass to $3.8 billion overtime.
The report highlighted energy and mineral production as Interior’s top economic output to the national economy at 66.5 percent. Recreation trailed energy production at 22.6 percent.
At least one Conservation group regarded the report and its numbers with heavy skepticism--nothing that fiscal 2017 extends into the Obama administration. The year begins October 2016.
"This report contains no evidence that 'smart regulatory reforms and increased access, federal lands and waters are once again increasing economic output and creating jobs,'" said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), citing Interior's press release.
"For example, a portion of revenue reflects recreational visits to parks and other public lands; I don’t think Trump can take credit for any of this unless it can be shown people were visiting preserves in order to get away from Trump-related news."
Ruch added that the comparisons from year to year were not apples to apples. He said the numbers reflect conflicting activities. For example, increases in mining royalties means less access to public lands, which may cause a decrease in camping permits in affected areas. He added that prices for petroleum are also a direct factor of the revenues, not necessarily policy changes.
"Overall, there remains a question of how well Interior is managing these lands and for what purpose," he said.
The Interior Department under Zinke has focused heavily on increasing oil and gas production and has been criticized for its emphasis on energy production over recreation. Earlier this year Zinke advised the president to shrink the boundaries of two national monuments in Utah by nearly half, opening up their land to future drilling.
Zinke in January also announced that he was exploring options to expand offshore drilling on federal waters. The decision met near unanimous backlash from government officials from coastal states.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/416676-interior-credits-increased-fossil-fuel-production-for-jump-in
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Landowners to Court: Not All Navajo Oppose Drilling
Nov 15, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
A group of tribal landowners this week sent a message to a federal appeals court.
Some members of the Navajo Nation favor oil and gas drilling in the region surrounding New Mexico's Chaco Culture National Historical Park, according to an amicus brief filed Tuesday night by allotment holders from the tribe's Nageezi, Huerfano and Counselor chapters.
"Petitioners, particularly Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, attempt to portray this litigation as a fight between the Navajo people and big business, but they do not speak for the Indian allottees who live and work in the Nageezi region, who overwhelmingly support the proposed drilling," the allottees wrote in their brief to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"Petitioners may occasionally visit the area ... but it is our home."
The Diné Citizens group is part of a larger environmental coalition that has asked the 10th Circuit to reverse a lower court's approval of oil and gas extraction near Chaco, which contains ancient pueblos and other tribal artifacts (Energywire, June 18).
Navajo allottees say oil and gas development can bolster impoverished communities.
"Many members of the Navajo Nation benefit directly from the development of oil and gas in this region, and a ruling for Petitioners would endanger their family income," they wrote. "This is particularly troubling because the poverty rate in the region where this drilling is taking place is more than twice the national average and the allottees have few other opportunities to improve their property and earn a living."
According to data cited in the brief, the poverty rate for the Navajo Nation sits at 38 percent, compared with 12.3 percent nationwide.
The allottees also argue that drilling opponents had plenty of opportunity to voice their concerns when the Bureau of Land Management finalized its Farmington Resource Management Plan (RMP) in 2003 and when the agency was considering individual applications for permit to drill.
"It is ironic and outrageous that after so many Indians were forced — without their consent — to bear the risks of private property ownership that their descendants now struggle to reap the rewards of ownership — to make their own decisions concerning their property," according to the brief.
Diné Citizens, the San Juan Citizens Alliance, WildEarth Guardians and the Natural Resources Defense Council contend that the RMP is outdated and does not weigh the impact of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling on the number of wells in the region.
The groups are represented in part by the Western Environmental Law Center.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/11/15/stories/1060106283
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Some Senate Republicans Urge Trump to Nominate Leader for Chemical Safety Board
Nov 15, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Heidi Vogt
Some Senate Republicans have urged President Trump to nominate a chairman to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, an agency Mr. Trump has tried to eliminate.
The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works made the appeal in a letter to the White House last month, which The Wall Street Journal reviewed on Wednesday. It adds the Senate to a chorus of voices in government and industry calling for the president to support the agency.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is a tiny agency of fewer than 40 employees that investigates the causes of oil spills, well explosions and chemical plant accidents. It was among the first agencies Mr. Trump targeted for elimination after taking office, but Congress has maintained its annual funding of at least $11 million.
“We encourage the president to nominate a new chair as soon as possible,” wrote committee chairman Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.), head of the subcommittee on clean air and nuclear safety. Mr. Trump has also not nominated an acting chairman, so board member Kristen Kulinowski, appointed by former President Barack Obama, is serving as interim head. That doesn’t directly affect operations, but can make it difficult for Ms. Kulinowski to set the direction of the agency.
“Until Congress decides to eliminate the agency, it is imperative that the president—not members of the board, none of whom were elected by the American public—select CSB’s leader,” the senators wrote.
The Senate letter follows on a similar one sent by the House in August. Industry groups have also called the agency’s work essential and asked the president to back it.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Chemical Safety Board has lost more than half its investigators since Mr. Trump’s election and the agency’s previous chairwoman quit in June. The EPA inspector general said the continuing threat of elimination has impeded the agency’s ability to attract, hire and retain staff.
The Trump administration maintains the board’s work duplicates that of other agencies and that it has been too ready to recommend regulations. The president has made a deregulatory push a central part of his policy agenda.
The CSB is an independent agency, so while its board is nominated by the president, the executive branch doesn’t direct its actions.
The agency has long been plagued by management issues and complaints by staff of a toxic work environment, and both the Senate and House letters said this makes the need for a leader even more urgent.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-senate-republicans-urge-trump-to-nominate-leader-for-chemical-safety-board-1542234240
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Nielsen Fights for Time as DHS Amps up Cyber Defense
Nov 15, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
The Department of Homeland Security's main cybersecurity office is getting a new name and additional authority under legislation headed to President Trump's desk this week.
The agency could also get a new boss, based on reports from The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal that Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has fallen out of Trump's favor over her handling of his hard-line immigration policies.
DHS spokesman Tyler Houlton tamped down those reports in an email, saying Nielsen "is honored to lead the men and women of DHS and is committed to implementing the President's security-focused agenda to protect Americans from all threats and will continue to do so."
Notwithstanding Nielsen's fate and the impact of DHS's newly minted Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, employees at the ground level are likely to press on with a risk-based approach to cybersecurity that began under President Obama and has only picked up steam under his successor.
A senior DHS official told House lawmakers yesterday that the agency would have a list of "national critical functions" inked by the end of this year for priority protection.
Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary for DHS's Office of Cybersecurity and Communications, cast her agency as a "central axle for cybersecurity" in the civilian domain but told a joint House Armed Services and Homeland Security subcommittee hearing that she would continue to work closely with the Pentagon.
"With our knowledge of the domestic risk landscape and our work with the private sector, we will inform DOD's 'defend forward' efforts to pre-empt, defeat and deter malicious cyber activity outside the U.S. that is targeting our critical infrastructure," Manfra said in her opening testimony at the afternoon hearing on interagency cybersecurity cooperation.
Manfra was referring to recent DOD cybersecurity guidance that laid out an aggressive, "defense forward" strategy for "confronting threats before they reach U.S. networks," such as crucial power grid controls or gas pipelines (Energywire, Sept. 21).
Kenneth Rapuano, DOD's assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security, testified that Nielsen had recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, marking a "sea change" in their joint handling of cyberthreats.
"The energy focus for both of us is a high priority, because energy is really considered to be one of the fundamental, foundational elements for critical infrastructure, which many of the others depend on," Rapuano said. "So that's something we've been engaging with DHS on from the beginning."
A new agency takes shape
Amid reports that she could be shown the door, Nielsen is keeping a full schedule and is set to speak to her agency's critical infrastructure protection mission at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce tomorrow.
This summer, she unveiled a "National Cyber Risk Management Center" that will mark a major part of her cybersecurity legacy at the agency if she is asked to step down.
In contrast to immigration, "Nielsen's tenure was relatively continuous on cybersecurity to the actions of the previous administration," noted Betsy Cooper, director of the Aspen Institute's tech policy hub, in an email. "As Secretary, Nielsen was particularly knowledgeable about these issues and spearheaded initiatives such as the National Risk Management Center that one could have equally seen during an Obama presidency."
An Obama-era legislative effort to rename a DHS office passed the House on Monday, following a sustained push by top homeland security officials, some lawmakers and even the White House, via Vice President Mike Pence. Trump is widely expected to sign the "Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act of 2018," sponsored by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
The bill's passage will rebrand the vaguely named "National Protection and Programs Directorate," which was charged with defending civilian .gov networks and helping private critical infrastructure operators fend off hackers.
The NPPD will now become the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA. In addition to the name change, the office will also earn standalone operational authority, meaning officials there do not need to funnel activities and decisions up through DHS headquarters.
That may seem like a bureaucratic shuffle, but senior DHS figures lobbied hard for the change in recent months, with the NPPD's own leader, Christopher Krebs, claiming the change will aid in recruitment.
"It's going to help me cement my position across the federal family," he said this summer, likening the NPPD name to "a Soviet-era intelligence agency" (Energywire, July 27).
If Nielsen leaves DHS by the end of the year, acting Deputy Secretary Claire Grady would fill the role and mark the fourth DHS chief since Trump took office nearly two years ago.
"A major new initiative for the next secretary will be the reformulation of NPPD into a world leading cybersecurity organization," Cooper noted. "One hopes that the name change will be accompanied with more substantive growth in purview as well."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/11/15/stories/1060106297
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Murkowski Open to Adding Clean Energy in Infrastructure Package
Nov 14, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
Senate Energy Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said today she's open to working with Democrats on energy policy, including the promotion of clean energy sources, as part of an infrastructure package.
"I’m absolutely supportive of energy infrastructure — whether it’s pipelines or whether it’s more clean sources of energy," she told POLITICO. "When you’re lowering your energy costs, that’s benefiting everybody. When you are working to reduce your overall emissions, that’s just smart strategy. I think there's a lot of room in an infrastructure package for some of the energy technologies," she said.
She cited other issues for potential compromise with the Democratic House, including on cybersecurity, energy efficiency and grid modernization.
"We’ve got a lot of things that we can be working jointly on," she said.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’ Becomes Flash Point for Pelosi
Nov 14, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Zack Coleman and Anthony Adragna
Nancy Pelosi is facing an unexpected flare-up on climate change that is complicating relationships among House Democrats ahead of crucial leadership elections.
Incoming liberals, led by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, are demanding Pelosi go beyond her promise to revive a select committee on global warming; they want her and the rest of the Democratic Caucus to back an ambitious plan to transition the economy to 100 percent renewable energy in a little more than a decade.
But the party's chairmen-in-waiting are pushing back on the idea that even a new select committee would be necessary, arguing that the existing Energy and Commerce, Natural Resources, Transportation and Science committees have the tools they need to address climate change.
The tension within the party comes as Pelosi is racing to secure the support she will need to claim the House speaker's gavel when Democrats take the majority next year. While she is confident she will prevail, Pelosi faces a thin margin for error and has launched an intense campaign to round up the support she will need, and Democrats are using that vulnerability to attempt to secure concessions on a host of issues.
Climate activists are urging Ocasio-Cortez and other liberals to consider withholding their support for Pelosi's bid to be speaker without additional concessions.
Pelosi's record "doesn't give us confidence that she is ready to do what it takes in the next two years. ... She wants to reintroduce this select committee on climate change, but basically all she wants it to do, from what we can tell, is convene people to talk about the science," said Evan Weber, national political director with the Sunrise Movement, an organizer of protests outside of Pelosi's office on Tuesday. "We’ve been talking about the science for the past few decades.”
Ocasio-Cortez is gathering support for a resolution that would establish a select House committee to develop legislation on the Green New Deal, a set of ambitious principles that progressives envision as a work-in-progress Democratic Party platform on climate change.
“I don’t want to see Miami underwater, I don’t want to see my own district underwater, and I know that Leader Pelosi doesn’t, either,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Tuesday as she joined protesters at the leader's office. “What we need to show her is that we’re here to back her up in pushing for 100 percent renewable energy and we’re here to support that kind of bold, progressive leadership.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) along with new members Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) have all endorsed the Green New Deal resolution. Other liberals, like Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), have not endorsed the Ocasio-Cortez resolution but backed similarly ambitious legislation like transitioning the U.S. to 100 percent clean energy by 2050. Most have remained coy on whether they'll support Pelosi on the floor.
The Green New Deal resolution calls for a bevy of far-reaching liberal goals to decarbonize the economy within a decade by reshaping the electric power, agriculture and transportation sector, but it includes few details outlining how to get there. That is likely too ambitious even for many Democrats — and would stand zero chance of getting past Senate Republicans or President Donald Trump — but the concept has become an important rallying cry for the need to address climate change.
“Whether or not it’s called the Green New Deal, I think there will be significant pieces of [an infrastructure package] that will touch on climate,” Jayapal told POLITICO. “There are lots of ideas out there that aren’t called Green New Deal but are addressing similar kinds of issues.”
Pelosi created the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming when she was first elected speaker in 2007, but Republicans eliminated the committee when they took the majority in 2011. Now, a growing number of senior Democrats say they don't know if the panel needs to come back.
"As co-chairs of the Safe Climate Caucus, we believe that the committees of jurisdiction and future Chairs are ready and able to tackle this challenge," Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) wrote in a letter to Pelosi on Wednesday. "However, should you decide to create a select committee on climate change in the 116th Congress, we stand ready to work with you."
The letter from Beyer and Lowenthal came a few hours after three Democratic chairmen-in-waiting — Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Science ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) and Natural Resources ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) — announced they would be holding climate change hearings early next year, in an apparent attempt to protect their turf. "Our committees plan to work closely together to aggressively assess the public health, economic and environmental impacts of climate change and to explore the best solutions to combat this challenge," they said in a statement.
Grijalva, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who has said he plans to back Pelosi, said he understood why Ocasio-Cortez and others are pushing leadership to be more aggressive in attacking climate change. “I would agree with some of their criticism. We’re baby-stepping it,” he told reporters Wednesday.
But climate change wasn’t a top issue most Democrats campaigned on in a wave election, and the incoming majority is expected instead to focus on health care, infrastructure and conducting oversight on the Trump administration.
Republicans will likely paint any Democratic plan to address climate change as too expensive, but activists say Democrats should not fear such attacks from a party that has overseen growing deficits and did not pay for its massive tax cut last year.
“I’m not interested in entertaining that question given the full board of what Republicans have funded most recently with the tax cut,” said Vijay Das, a senior campaign strategist with Demos who has been working on the Green New Deal concept. “To be perfectly blunt, fiscal conservatives don’t have to answer this question when they’re making decisions to embolden the 1 percent.”
That’s not to say Republicans won’t make the argument anyway.
“Green New Deal? Sounds like a lot of red ink,” Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) told POLITICO.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/11/ocasio-cortezs-green-new-deal-becomes-flash-point-for-pelosi-966748
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Clock Starts for Challenges to NSR Aggregation 'Action'
Nov 14, 2018 | Inside EPA
EPA is slated to publish in the Nov. 15 Federal Register its final “action” reviving a 2009 policy making it easier for industrial projects to avert tougher air permit mandates by avoiding being combined, or “aggregated,” for the purposes of new source review (NSR) air permitting, starting a 60-day clock for groups to sue over the action.
The agency has characterized the decision, released Nov. 7 as an “action” rather than a final rule, and therefore exempt from judicial review. Environmentalists, who have opposed attempts to make it easier to avoid NSR requirements, are likely to disagree with that determination and could file suit.
The action stems from an Obama-era reconsideration of the 2009 policy implemented by President George W. Bush's EPA. The Obama administration imposed a stay of the previous administration's aggregation policy while it considered petitions from environmentalists to reconsider the rule as too weak on polluters.
The new final action concludes that reconsideration process,and reinstates the Bush policy. The now-reinstated policy creates a “rebuttable presumption” that activities taking place three or more years apart are not “substantially related,” and therefore should not be considered part of the same project.
Further, it affirms that timing alone should not be a basis for aggregating projects because “the appropriate basis for aggregation is whether there is a substantial technical or economic relationship.”
Projects considered separate are less likely to exceed regulatory thresholds for predicted air emissions that would in turn trigger a full NSR review and possibly tough new pollution control mandates.
EPA's 2009 action did not change the agency's NSR regulations, but rather altered the agency's interpretation of them. As such, it is not a rule and is nonbinding on state air regulators, EPA says in the new final action.
However, “because the EPA has been using notice-and comment rulemaking procedures up to this point, the EPA believes it is prudent, but not required, in order to retain the interpretation of the NSR regulations with regard to project aggregation that we published in 2009, that we publish this notice in the Federal Register” EPA says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/clock-starts-challenges-nsr-aggregation-action
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City, Corporate Carbon Cuts Key Ahead of Climate Talks, Activists Say
Nov 15, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bobby Magill
State and local policies, as well as corporate pledges, to switch to renewable energy, plug methane leaks, and use energy more efficiently offer important context for upcoming international climate talks, advocates for climate action said Nov. 14.
Company, state, and local government pledges to cut carbon can get the U.S. two-thirds of the way toward meeting its commitment to the Paris climate agreement—even as the Trump administration takes steps to withdraw the U.S. from the accord, said Nate Hultman, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability, and a former Obama administration climate and energy official.
Hultman spoke in Washington, D.C., at a World Resources Institute forum about America’s Pledge on Climate. The pledge is an effort by California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to rally more than 3,000 companies and local governments to respond to climate change.
Bloomberg Environment is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg. WRI is a nonprofit global research organization that advocates for action on climate change.
Deeper CutsCountries will convene for the next round of international climate negotiations beginning Dec. 2 in Katowice, Poland. The objective of this year’s talks is to hammer out the final rules for how the 2015 Paris Agreement—which officially begins in 2020—will be implemented.
The Paris accord is the only coordinated international effort to address climate change. But this year’s talks follow new research showing that the world has only about a decade to begin making drastic carbon cuts to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
In announcing his June 2017 decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, President Donald Trump said the pact “disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.”
Without U.S. leadership, local and corporate carbon cuts are especially important, Todd Stern, the former chief U.S. climate negotiator in the State Department under the Obama administration and a WRI senior fellow, said at the forum.
‘Globally Significant’Local and corporate commitments alone can cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 21 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, Hultman said. The U.S. commitment under Paris—made during the Obama administration, and since rejected by Trump—is to slash emissions by up to 28 percent below 2005 levels in that time.
More than 500 U.S. cities, counties, and tribes, and nearly 2,000 businesses and investors have shown their support for the Paris Agreement by committing to carbon cuts, WRI said. California and Hawaii are the first to commit to obtaining all of their electricity from renewable energy by 2045.
“This coalition is globally significant,” Hultman said. “The coalition represents half of the U.S. population—60 percent of the U.S. [gross domestic product]. If it were a country, this would be the world’s third-largest economy. It would be the world’s fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter.”
“For other countries to see [that] while Washington may be dark on climate change all these years, there’s been huge activities in large swaths of the country,” Stern said. “We can’t underestimate the importance of that at the international level.”
A United Nations climate report published in October says countries will have to go beyond their Paris commitments sooner if some of the worst consequences of climate change are to be avoided. Local and corporate pledges to use clean energy will help the U.S. do its part, but it won’t do enough to solve climate change on its own, Stern said.
“You absolutely need national leadership,” Stern said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/city-corporate-carbon-cuts-key-ahead-of-climate-talks-activists-say
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My Evacuation from the California Wildfires Gave My Climate Work New Urgency
Nov 14, 2018 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jennifer Andreassen Burke
At 4 am on Friday, Nov. 9, I got the emergency alert I’d been dreading: We were under a mandatory evacuation order.
I live in Thousand Oaks, a city that until last week was known for its low crime rate and expansive space – until a tragic mass shooting and destructive wildfires hit our area within the span of 24 hours.
Emergency officials were projecting that the extremely dry Santa Ana winds, which cause so much destruction during California fires, would push the catastrophic Woolsey Fire our way. These winds, coupled with a seven-year drought linked to climate change, have turned much of our state into a tinderbox.
Just three miles away, my family’s neighborhood had been ordered to evacuate due to a separate wildfire, the Hill Fire.
Because the winds ended up shifting, we got very lucky: The fire moved toward Malibu, sparing much of our city. When our evacuation orders were lifted later the next day, I connected with my coworkers to let them know I was safe and back home – and to get back to working on California’s biggest opportunity to address climate change.
Our team is laser focused on the state’s effort to help protect tropical forests, which absorb climate pollution. Keeping forests such as the Amazon standing is critical for preventing catastrophic global warming.
California’s proposed standard for carbon credits to preserve tropical forests may also help slow climate change where I live. It’s coming not a day too soon.
This is what climate change looks like
Even as we’re safe from the fires, for now, the air outside smells like smoke when the winds blow in a certain direction. The hills surrounding my Thousand Oaks neighborhood are draped in red fire retardant to prevent both the Woolsey and the Hill fires from advancing.
My house is on the flightpath between the helicopter central command and the active fires, so we’re constantly hearing the hum of air support. And while on my 10-minute drive to the doctor, I passed heavy smoke right off the freeway – in what turned out to be a short-lived fire, thankfully. The doctor’s office was handing out N95 respirator masks to protect us against smoke.
We all know that wildfires, particularly during periods of strong winds, can change in an instant. It takes just a spark and entire communities could be overtaken by flames. Everyone’s on edge.
“The new abnormal”
I’ve been lucky, but so many Californians nearby and in communities up north have faced devastating losses of loved ones and homes from the fires this past week. It’s heartbreaking to see the damage and to know it’s not the last time something like this will happen. Nobody deserves such tragedy.
Over the past few days, state officials have been talking about the unprecedented nature of these fires.
“The fact of the matter is, if you look at the state of California, climate challenge is happening statewide,” said Los Angeles Fire Chief Daryl Osby.
“This is not the new normal, this is the new abnormal,” noted Gov. Jerry Brown. “Things like this will be a part of our future.”
To illustrate that point: Last year, my husband, a teacher, got more days off because of harmful smoke from the massive Thomas Fire than he did for snow days during the six years he lived in Washington, DC.
All this brings me back to California’s opportunity to protect tropical forests. Having witnessed the destruction of wildfires up close and having lived through the fear of us, our family and friends possibly losing our homes, I feel even more urgency to address the climate crisis.
California’s horrific wildfires are proof: The fight against climate change is one we cannot afford to lose.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2018/11/14/my-evacuation-california-wildfires-gave-my-climate-work-new-urgency
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Part of the Answer to Climate Change May Be America’s Trees and Dirt, Scientists Say
Nov 14, 2018 | New York TImes
By Brad Plumer
When people think of potential solutions to global warming, they tend to visualize technologies like solar panels or electric cars. A new study published on Wednesday, however, found that better management of forests, grasslands and soils in the United States could offset as much as 21 percent of the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.
At the high end of the projections, that would be roughly equivalent to taking every single car and truck in the country off the road.
The paper, published in the journal Science Advances, identified a number of promising strategies, like replanting trees on degraded lands, changing logging practices to better protect existing forests and sequestering more carbon in farmland soils through new agricultural techniques.
“We’re not saying these strategies are a substitute for getting to zero-carbon energy; we still need to do that too,” said Joseph E. Fargione, a scientist at the Nature Conservancy and lead author of the study. “But we think that natural climate solutions generally get overlooked. And we found a lot of opportunities here to help mitigate climate change.”
Other scientists agreed that storing more carbon in forests and soils could be a potent tool, though some were more cautious about how much was feasible in practice. For instance, the authors of the study used remote-sensing data to identify more than 100 million acres of land in the United States that is not currently being used for crops or pasture but that could be suitable for planting more trees, which absorb carbon from the air.
“I’m intrigued and hopeful but also a little skeptical,” said Timothy D. Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton University and the World Resources Institute. “They’ve provided a very rough map of these lands, and it would be a good idea to go out and examine this land more closely to see if they’re right and if so, more closely determine what it would take to reforest it.”
A growing number of states are now looking at better managing their natural landscapes to store more carbon. California, for example, is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in programs to restore degraded wetlands and forests and in efforts to reduce the risk of severe wildfires through improved forest management. (Wildfires release millions of tons of carbon into the air, and it takes many years for the burned trees to fully grow back.)
This year, California formed a partnership with 15 other states, including New York and Hawaii, to explore how better land management could help tackle climate change.
It’s not an easy task. While many states track the emissions coming out of their power plants and vehicles, they have not traditionally studied how much carbon is released into the atmosphere when, say, grasslands are plowed up and converted into cropland. And it takes detailed modeling to figure out which ecosystems should get priority for restoration.
“I’d say we’re still learning,” said Claire Jahns, the assistant secretary for climate issues at the California Natural Resources Agency. “But there’s a growing recognition that we’re not going to hit our state climate targets without paying attention to our lands and the physical environment.”
The study looked at nearly two dozen possible approaches. For instance, policymakers could encourage more farmers to plant cover crops between their main harvests rather than leaving their fields bare, which would help pull more carbon from the air into the soil. While cover crops are becoming increasingly common in the United States, the practice often requires extra labor or equipment, so financial incentives may be needed to speed adoption.
Other steps could prove more contentious. The study noted that large swaths of forests in the South and Pacific Northwest are being cleared as cities expand. But restricting urban sprawl, as cities in Oregon have tried to do, can be tricky in practice.
The researchers contended that many of these actions are relatively affordable. For example, they calculated that reforesting unused land around the United States would cost between $10 and $50 per ton of carbon dioxide avoided. That is cheaper than many subsidies to encourage clean energy, and in line with the cost per ton of several recent carbon tax proposals.
Actions to replenish natural landscapes can also have valuable side benefits. Restored wetlands don’t just pull carbon out of the air; they can also improve local water quality and protect cities from flooding.
Still, challenges abound. Policymakers have to make sure that efforts to protect forests or convert marginal farmland back into carbon-rich grasslands don’t just spur deforestation or more intensive farming elsewhere. And if we fail to get global warming under control, more of the carbon locked away in forests could be released as more frequent wildfires, droughts and pest infestations kill off trees.
Another huge obstacle to conserving more of these ecosystems is the growing global demand for farmland, as the world adds billions more people. Reducing that pressure will most likely require difficult steps like significantly improving crop yields, curtailing food waste and perhaps moderating global meat consumption.
“We need to pay attention to everything that’s happening across different landscapes,” said Katharine Mach, a scientist at Stanford University who was not involved in the study. “So much of this is tied to the way we grow food.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/climate/climate-change-natural-solutions.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate
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