Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report - November 16, 2018
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(ACC Mentioned) A Sea of Voices: Trends and Perspectives in Marine Plastic Pollution
Nov 15, 2018 | Packaging Digest
By Tristanne Davis
A key theme in this year’s conversations on sustainable packaging has been what to do about the (mostly) plastic packaging that ends up as marine litter. -
Trump, Wheeler Celebrate Recycling
Nov 16, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Corbin Hiar
President Trump and acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler this afternoon avowed their commitment to recycling. -
Spotlighting Recycling Collaboration, EPA Signs Mercury Switch MOU
Nov 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has renewed an agreement with industrial parties that aims to recover mercury switches from vehicles and curb mercury releases, and has launched a dialogue among dozens of industry leaders, non-profits and government entities to tackle the major challenges that have hit the recycling arena this year. -
EPA Official Arrested on Felony Ethics Charges in Alabama
Nov 15, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Michael Biesecker
The Trump administration’s top environmental official for the Southeast was arrested Thursday on criminal ethics charges in Alabama reported to be related to a scheme to help a coal company avoid paying for a costly toxic waste cleanup. -
Fast Food Brings Home an ‘F’ on Chemicals Report Card
Nov 15, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
Fast food giants such as McDonald’s Corp., Subway, and Starbucks Corp., have fallen short in addressing chemical safety in their products and their packaging. -
Group Says GenX Replacement Non-Stick Chemicals Pose Health Risks
Nov 15, 2018 | Florida Today
By Jim Waymer
GenX chemicals, introduced a decade ago as a safer alternative to two cancer-causing non-stick compounds, are almost as toxic as what they replaced, according to a new federal study. -
(ACC Mentioned) Petchems and the Need for Gas
Nov 16, 2018 | Natural Gas World
By Charles Ellinas
...Canada, with its plentiful cheap natural gas, is hoping to replicate this. According to an American Chemistry Council (ACC) announcement in September, since... -
Ohio EPA to Hold Hearing for Proposed Ethane Cracker
Nov 16, 2018 | Kallanish Energy
While it remains unclear if PTT Global Chemical America will build an ethane cracker in eastern Ohio, the company is seeking an air permit for the project from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Kallanish Energy reports. -
Cheniere Energy to Export First LNG Shipment from Texas
Nov 15, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Sergio Chapa
Houston-based Cheniere Energy is poised to export its first shipment of liquefied natural gas from its complex near Corpus Christi. -
FERC’s Draft EIS for Gulf LNG Moves Mississippi Export Project Forward
Nov 15, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
A plan to turn Kinder Morgan Inc.’s natural gas import facility in Mississippi into an export terminal could have some adverse environmental impacts, but they could be avoided or reduced to less-than-significant levels with mitigation, FERC staff said Thursday. -
Gas Coalition Beats Its Own Methane Emissions Target Years Early
Nov 15, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ryan Collins and Rachel Adams-Heard
A group of U.S. natural gas companies beat its target to reduce methane emissions to 1 percent of what’s produced and delivered, an objective they set for 2025. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA, OSHA Test Call To Enforce Existing Safety Rules Over New Standards
Nov 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the lead agencies once charged with implementing an Obama-era Executive Order (EO) on improving facility safety after a 2013 disaster, are heeding long-standing industry calls to enforce existing rules while scaling back or shelving new protections advanced under the Obama administration. -
CSB Faces Continued Uncertainty Despite Democrats' House Control
Nov 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Ariana Figueroa
Despite Democrats' control of the House next year, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) faces continued uncertainty about its future as its supporters fear the Trump administration may deprive it of a quorum to operate by not nominating new board members to replace those whose terms expire starting at the end of 2019. -
DOE Searches for Certainty in the Grid's Future
Nov 16, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
Are the barrages of extreme weather and growing cybersecurity threats increasing or reducing the need for new high-voltage transmission lines? -
States Move Closer On RGGI-Like Plan For Transportation, But Path Unclear
Nov 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
A wide variety of interested groups have reached consensus that a group of 11 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states should impose a regional carbon price to cut transportation greenhouse gases, which is similar to how the region limits utility emissions through a cap-and-trade program, though the states have not said they are ready to move on the concept. -
(ACC Mentioned) Democrats Prepare to Grill Trump Officials on Environmental Issues in New Congress
Nov 15, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni and Juliet Eilperin
Three likely incoming Democratic chairs of House committees overseeing environmental issues vowed to scrutinize the Trump administration’s actions on climate change and bring before them top administration officials who they think have escaped adequate oversight under their Republican colleagues. -
Ocasio-Cortez Gets in Closed-Door Fight with Veteran Lawmaker over Climate Change
Nov 15, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Anthony Adragna, John Bresnahan and Zack Colman
A fight broke out in a closed-door meeting of House Democrats over climate change as a powerful veteran lawmaker fought with freshman star Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members-elect over the creation of a special panel for the issue. -
Divides Harden in Clash over Global Warming Committee
Nov 16, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk, George Cahlink and Kellie Lunney
Many House Democrats remain skeptical of a push by leadership and progressives to revive the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, underscoring divisions about how to address climate change in the new Congress. -
Dems Know It's Warming but Not How to Fix It
Nov 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews and Scott Waldman
Climate change is the first big fight for congressional Democrats as they prepare to take control of the House next year. It's fracturing the party along fault lines of turf, strategy and age. -
'Shadow' Reviews By Former CASAC Members Could Help Defend NAAQS
Nov 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Former members of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) are planning “shadow” reviews of the agency's ozone and particulate matter (PM) air standards, generating data that could help defend the standards against any Trump administration bid to weaken them through its new, truncated CASAC review process.
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(ACC Mentioned) A Sea of Voices: Trends and Perspectives in Marine Plastic Pollution
Nov 15, 2018 | Packaging Digest
By Tristanne Davis
A key theme in this year’s conversations on sustainable packaging has been what to do about the (mostly) plastic packaging that ends up as marine litter. This year has seen a deluge of responses to the public outcry around this very visible and emotionally provocative issue.
Governments have responded with various regulations, and companies have responded with commitments to improve recycling rates and markets, as well as initiatives to invest in recycling technology and infrastructure. As a society, we are just now starting on the path to figuring out which solutions are most appropriate in which contexts.
The problem is marine litter, not plastics. Many in the packaging industry and sustainability space believe that demonizing plastics in packaging and other applications is an emotional reaction to plastic pollution, and that the problem really should be framed as marine litter, not plastics overall. Indeed, plastics are a versatile material with unique properties that sometimes do not have any viable substitutes. Problems emerge when they are mismanaged at end-of-life since they take a long time to break down in the environment. But not all plastics are mismanaged in all places. In Norway for example, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles have a 97% recycling rate.
It is possible for plastics to be managed at their end of life through a variety of methods. While we cannot all be Norway, there are successful examples of countries managing some plastics. Research shows that the biggest contributors to marine plastic pollution are land-based sources in emerging economies, namely Asia and Africa, which lack adequate infrastructure to manage these materials. Clearly these regions represent critical places for intervention.
Terminology around bio-based and biodegradable materials is confusing and potentially harmful in the marine plastics debate. Industry experts recognize there is a lot of confusion around these terms and how they relate to end-of-life management for plastics.
When talking about marine litter, oftentimes there are references to bio-based packaging, which actually has no impact on marine litter, since bio-based packaging refers to sourcing considerations for plastics and not their end-of-life. So when bio-based plastics are posed as a “solution” to plastic pollution, this is distracting from the end-of-life conversation. While some bio-based plastics are compostable, some are not, and these should be understood as separate concepts.
It is also common to hear about “biodegradable” packaging, which, while it sounds attractive to the general public, adds to the confusion on this topic. To impact marine litter, products must be biodegradable in certain conditions in the marine environment over a certain period of time. There is no marine degradability standard applicable to all conditions in which plastic would end up in marine environments. ASTM came out with standard D6691 that tests biodegradation of plastics under certain conditions, but recognizes there is significant variability in the nature of exposure of plastics in marine environments. Society at large should tread carefully on these claims and avoid popularizing the idea of “litter friendly” packaging.
Broad strategies are being discussed to address end-of-life management for plastics. Bans on certain single-use plastics have been prominent this year around the world. For example, we saw Chile and Burundi ban plastic bags, India promise to ban single-use plastics by 2022, Dominica to ban single-use plastics and expanded polystyrene by 2019 and, just this month (November 2018), the European Union (EU) promised to bansingle-use cutlery, cotton swabs, straws and stirrers by 2021, as well as products made of oxo-degradable plastics and fast-food containers made of expanded polystyrene.
These bans have focused on some of the most common ocean-polluting plastics. However, many in industry believe we should not expect to ban our way to the circular economy. Broader strategies are needed that reflect material and regional differences, as well as opportunities in plastics packaging.
The proposed EU plastics policy provides for other strategies, such as national plans to encourage reuse, minimum required recycled content, separate collection systems for specific products like PET bottles, variable fees to reflect broader package sustainability criteria and labeling for how to dispose of certain products. An explosion of voluntary commitments—like the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, a U.K. and Chilean Plastics Pact, G7 Ocean Plastics Charter, Commitments from Plastics Europe, the Canadian Plastics Industry Assn. and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) Plastics division—commit to increasing recyclability, reusability and use of recycled content. There is also an ever growing list of individual corporate commitments, including the first commitments by suppliers like Amcor and Klöckner Pentaplast. Emphasis is being placed on a diversity of solutions and from many different players.
Many perceive recycling as the solution, but fixing recycling is not enough. In ideal economic circumstances, market forces would keep all plastics from going into the ocean and direct them towards recycling and then onto a second life. However, this is obviously not how things play out in the real world. Even in Europe, considered to be a leader in recycling, plastic packaging recycling across plastics types is still only around 40% according to Plastics Europe, which is robust compared to the U.S.’s 14.6% recycling rate for plastic packaging.
Although not a lot of plastics today are getting effectively recycled, the recent 2018 Sustainable Packaging Study conducted by Packaging Digest and the SPC revealed that many still perceive recycling as the answer to plastic pollution. So, if recycling is the answer, why aren’t we doing more of it?
Recycling is not a perfect market since the value of some kinds of plastic packaging is lower than the cost to recover it. In addition, the actual process of mechanical recycling itself cannot adequately manage the diversity of plastic packaging materials on the market since some materials and formats are not widely recyclable today. While chemical recycling offers tremendous promise, there is a long way to go before this technology is scaled across packaging types. While low recycling rates for plastics are certainly part of the problem, conversations in industry are starting to acknowledge that fixing recycling is not the whole solution. We will not recycle our way out of this.
We need innovation and investment to help develop the system of the future. Many conversations are happening on the ground in communities about the good old days when recycling was just corrugated packaging and metal cans. While some unnecessary complexity can be addressed through market and policy incentives,we can’t go back in time. The world is moving towards more lightweight, flexible packaging.
At the same time, the recycling market has shown itself to be in need of investments and corrective measures to direct material efficiently. Innovators like Renewlogy, DEMETO and Loop Industries are working to scale innovations in chemical recycling and the SPC’s FlexPack Recovery Challenge seeks to find others. Investment firms like Circulate Capital are providing the critical capital needed to invest in end-of-life infrastructure where it is most needed globally.
The plastics pollution debate will undoubtedly continue to unfold and drive an evolving conversation in the coming years, especially as new data is emerging on microplastics found in everything from drinking water to beer to air, which may move the conversation beyond packaging to textiles and other topics.
Many conversations and actions have taken place this year to build a roadmap to effective solutions. It is clear there is no silver bullet, but rather many solutions are required, and these might all look different in different places.
https://www.packagingdigest.com/sustainable-packaging/a-sea-of-voices-trends-and-perspectives-in-marine-plastic-pollution-2018-11-15
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Trump, Wheeler Celebrate Recycling
Nov 16, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Corbin Hiar
President Trump and acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler this afternoon avowed their commitment to recycling.
"We can reduce waste and ensure our Nation more efficiently utilizes our resources as we build a stronger America for future generations," Trump said in a presidential message on America Recycles Day, an annual holiday created in 1997 by two former Texas environmental regulators.
Meanwhile, Wheeler signed a memorandum of understanding that aims to promote the recycling of mercury light switches in automobiles at an EPA summit on reducing and reusing waste.
"Under President Trump, we've made it a priority to engage with stakeholders and the regulated community to work together to address the environmental challenges of our time," the EPA chief said at a roundtable with dozens of industry players as well as state and local regulators.
While delivering opening remarks at the two-hour event at EPA headquarters, Wheeler sat between Barry Breen, the career head of the agency's Superfund program, and Peter Wright, Trump's pick to lead the solid waste office at EPA who's currently serving as the administrator's adviser.
In the recycling context, Wheeler said "our role at EPA is to help develop best practices, provide the data the public needs to monitor their recycling efforts, and incentivize action through our programs and grants."
The memo he inked extends the national vehicle mercury switch recovery program for three years. The program is run by US Ecology Inc. and the End of Life Vehicle Solutions Corp.
The deal "will renew our partnership and help our nation's industrial recyclers recover steel and other materials from end-of-life vehicles while at the same time reducing the release of mercury into the environment," Wheeler said. The EPA chief added that he hopes the program will "continue long after" 2021.
Wheeler left the event without taking any questions from the roundtable attendees or the press.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/11/15/stories/1060106379
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Spotlighting Recycling Collaboration, EPA Signs Mercury Switch MOU
Nov 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has renewed an agreement with industrial parties that aims to recover mercury switches from vehicles and curb mercury releases, and has launched a dialogue among dozens of industry leaders, non-profits and government entities to tackle the major challenges that have hit the recycling arena this year.
Wheeler signed the renewed memorandum of understanding (MOU) Nov. 15 on America Recycles Day at the agency's first-ever Recycling Summit. The summit marked the launch of an effort to invigorate collaboration among the manufacturing and recycling industries, local, state and federal government groups and the non-profit sector.
While EPA has little regulatory role in the recycling arena, it is taking on a high-profile role in facilitating dialogue and collaboration among the various stakeholders as the industry faces major financial woes in light of Chinese restrictions and tariffs on imports, and as local and state governments struggle with “contamination” -- such as food waste -- devaluing single-stream curbside recyclable material.
The mercury switch MOU was signed with officials from steel manufacturers, scrap recyclers and automotive manufacturers. It extends a 2006 accord that set up the National Vehicle Mercury Switch Recovery Program, with the parties agreeing “to reduce the amount of mercury in the vehicle recycling stream, thereby reducing mercury releases to the environment,” the MOU says. It does this through efforts to remove mercury switches from end-of-life vehicles, recycling the switches, it says.
“Our role at EPA is to help develop best practices, provide the data the public needs to monitor their recycling efforts, and incentivize action through our programs and grants,” Wheeler told the summit, held at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C.
He outlined four action areas EPA has identified through feedback with stakeholders that the summit discussions then focused on.
These include “education and outreach” -- with potential future actions being the development of educational materials to promote proper recycling and a national public relations campaign -- and “enhancing materials management infrastructure,” according to an EPA fact sheet on the action areas. Under the latter, future actions could include stimulating investment to boost solid waste management infrastructure -- something some stakeholders are seeking through legislation -- and increasing communication among industry and stakeholders in the recycling arena “to allow for more flexible design and planning of recycling infrastructure investments,” the fact sheet says.
On the second action, Wheeler noted that “the “nation's aging recycling infrastructure has not kept pace with our rapidly evolving materials streams. We need to help incentivize new investments that will modernize our aging infrastructure.”
The third action is to strengthen secondary materials markets, with potential future actions including identifying incentives to encourage manufacturers to use post-consumer content in packaging and backing corporate social responsibility programs, the fact sheet says.
EPA says the fourth action is to enhance measurement methods for determining recycling rates. Potential future actions include being transparent by including definitions and measuring methods in published materials on recycling and fostering common measurement approaches, it says.
“If we can make progress on all four of these fronts, we will decrease the amount of valuable materials going into landfills and increase the amount of material that can be reused here in the U.S. for a variety of functions,” Wheeler said. “This will help the environment, help the economy and also help local governments."
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/spotlighting-recycling-collaboration-epa-signs-mercury-switch-mou
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EPA Official Arrested on Felony Ethics Charges in Alabama
Nov 15, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Michael Biesecker
The Trump administration’s top environmental official for the Southeast was arrested Thursday on criminal ethics charges in Alabama reported to be related to a scheme to help a coal company avoid paying for a costly toxic waste cleanup.
Trey Glenn, 47, was briefly booked into a county jail in Birmingham before being released on a $30,000 bond. Glenn was appointed in August 2017 to serve as chief of the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in Atlanta, which oversees operations in eight states stretching from the Carolinas to Mississippi.
A grand jury indicted Glenn and his former business partner Scott Phillips earlier this week. Prior to Glenn’s appointment at EPA, he and Phillips worked for the coal company Drummond Co. to build state and local opposition to a federal Superfund cleanup in Birmingham that their client would have had to help fund.
Glenn resigned as director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management in 2009 following an earlier ethics scandal in which he was not charged. He worked as an industry lobbyist before his appointment to EPA.
In a statement provided by his lawyer, Glenn denied the charges.
“The charges against me are totally unfounded, and will be vigorously defended,” Glenn said. “I am innocent and expect to be fully vindicated.”
The office of EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler has declined to comment since Glenn’s indictment was first reported by local media in Alabama on Tuesday.
“We’re not going to comment on that,” EPA spokesman John Konkus said Thursday. “We’re just not going to do it.”
Wheeler has been running EPA since former Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned in July under a cloud of ethics scandals. Congressional Democrats on Thursday pointed to Glenn’s arrest as further evidence of the corruption they said has been rife at the agency under President Donald Trump.
“Trey Glenn should have never made it through any serious vetting process,” said Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. “Scott Pruitt may be gone, but it’s clear the culture of corruption remains.”
Pallone pledged his committee would conduct “vigorous oversight” of EPA once Democrats take control of the House in January.
Details of the indictment have not yet been made public. Although Glenn’s criminal indictment is a public record under state law, the offices of the local district attorney and court clerk said Thursday they were unable to provide a copy and referred inquiries to the Alabama Ethics Commission. Thomas Albritton, director of the state ethics commission, did not return multiple calls from The Associated Press on Wednesday or Thursday.
Al.com first reported earlier this week that Glenn was indicted on multiple violations of Alabama’s Ethics Act, which prohibits lobbyists or their clients from giving a public official anything of value.
It’s the second time the Alabama Ethics Commission has accused Glenn of wrongdoing. In 2007, the commission voted unanimously that there was probable cause that Glenn, then the head of the state’s environmental enforcement agency, violated laws to get his job and to obtain personal trips. Among the issues was a trip to Disney World taken by Glenn and his family that was paid for by a public relations firm representing a client with business before his agency. Although he was not indicted on criminal charges that time, the resulting scandal led to Glenn’s resignation in 2009.
Glenn then formed a lobbying firm with Phillips, a former chairman of the Alabama Environmental Management Commission. Both were involved in opposing a federal Superfund cleanup in Birmingham on behalf of their client, Drummond Co.
In a federal trial earlier this year, Drummond Co. executive David Roberson and attorney Joel Gilbert were convicted on charges related to bribes paid to a state legislator to secure his opposition to an EPA cleanup of predominately African-American neighborhoods in north Birmingham contaminated by smokestack emissions from a plant owned by a Drummond Co. subsidiary. The company was potentially on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in cleanup costs for removing soil contaminated with lead, arsenic and other toxic materials.
Glenn was called to testify as a witness, and emails entered into evidence show he was deeply involved in efforts to build opposition among political and community leaders to the proposed toxic waste cleanup. In addition to the convictions of Roberson and Gilbert, the state lawmaker who received the bribes, Oliver Robinson, pleaded guilty.
EPA’s Region 4, headquartered in Atlanta, comprises Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/epa-official-arrested-on-felony-ethics-charges-in-alabama/2018/11/15/31fbbf5a-e92b-11e8-8449-1ff263609a31_story.html?utm_term=.7e9b1bfbb8da
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Fast Food Brings Home an ‘F’ on Chemicals Report Card
Nov 15, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington
Fast food giants such as McDonald’s Corp., Subway, and Starbucks Corp., have fallen short in addressing chemical safety in their products and their packaging.
That was a major takeaway of an environmental organization’s report card released Nov. 14 finding that of 40 companies evaluated, six national restaurant chains received a failing grade.
“Restaurant and fast food chains are lagging way behind” large retail companies like WalMart, Target, and Apple, said Mike Schade, Mind the Store campaign director for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., that rates companies on criteria such as chemical policy, transparency, and year-over-year improvement.
The third annual report card released by the group evaluates firms’ public documents for evidence that management makes efforts to limit toxic chemicals in their products and supply chains.
This year was the first that chain restaurants were analyzed, Schade told Bloomberg Environment, and the results indicate a sector failing to take chemical safety issues seriously.
“Lots of packaging we get at these restaurant chains includes a cocktail of toxic chemicals including bisphenol-A (BPA), phthalates,” and per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), he said.
Nearly half of retailers evaluated 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.
Problem PackagingOver the years, PFAS compounds have been used in stain-resistant upholstery and carpets, nonstick pans, and food packaging that comes into contact with grease—such as pizza boxes and burger wrappers.
Health studies have linked PFAS to cancer, liver damage, and reproductive problemsthat can scramble hormones during critical stages of development.
BPA is used in packaging to keep it from corroding. According to the Environmental Working Group, BPA can be found in “the linings or lids of glass jars for baby food, pickles, jelly, salsa, and other condiments; aerosol cans for whipped toppings and non-stick sprays; bottles and tins of cooking oil; aluminum beverage cans, coffee cans, and even beer kegs.”
While phthalates are found in such products as soaps, nail polish, and some medications, food has been found to be the largest pathway for phthalates to enter the body. Because packaging materials and equipment used in food processing, such as conveyor belts and tubing, contain phthalates, they can then leach into food.
New York University pediatricians and scientists have found that the health effects of exposure to just a handful of endocrine disrupting chemicals such as flame retardants, phthalates, and BPA may cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars in health care expenses and lost wages each year.
Restaurant ResponseOf the six restaurant chains evaluated, only Panera Bread scored any points at all—8.5 out of 135—for establishing a chemical policy related to restricted substances in food packaging and the contents of food. Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families says the company hasn’t disclosed what is on its restricted substance list.
The company also indicated in 2016 that it was working on PFAS in packaging but hasn’t disclosed the details of its activities or progress since.
Of the six restaurant brands that Bloomberg Environment contacted for comment, only two replied.
“McDonald’s suppliers don’t use, or add BPA, PFASs, PFOA, PFOS, or phthalates in food packaging,” said Lauren Altmin, a spokesperson for Chicago-based McDonald’s.
“All packaging utilized is safe for its intended use and contains materials that comply with the Food & Drug Administration, European Union, and other local market regulatory requirements,” she told Bloomberg Environment.
Likewise, a Subway spokesman said that company is also committed to making its restaurants and operations environmentally and socially responsible.
“While we always follow FDA guidelines, we understand that our guests and others care about additional materials of concern,” the spokesman said. “As such, we’re continuing to understand their concerns, with the aim to reduce or eliminate areas of concern, as they are relevant for our supply chain.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/fast-food-brings-home-an-f-on-chemicals-report-card
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Group Says GenX Replacement Non-Stick Chemicals Pose Health Risks
Nov 15, 2018 | Florida Today
By Jim Waymer
GenX chemicals, introduced a decade ago as a safer alternative to two cancer-causing non-stick compounds, are almost as toxic as what they replaced, according to a new federal study.
This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published its draft toxicity review for GenX and a related compound called perfluorobutane sulfonate (PFBS). Both belong to a family of man-made chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
DuPont introduced GenX in 2009 as a "safer" alternative to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), fluorinated compounds used for years in firefighting foams and common non-stick consumer products. PFOS and PFOA use has been phased out. But the compounds remain in the environment for decades, are unregulated, and contaminate the drinking water of an estimated 15 million Americans.
“It is alarming that, 12 years after DuPont, 3M and other companies - under pressure from EPA - began phasing out PFOA and PFOS, we find that replacements like GenX are nearly as hazardous to human health,” said David Andrews, a senior scientist at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.
EWG points to test results DuPont provided to EPA showing GenX caused cancer in lab animals.
Similar fluorinated compounds, and their use in firefighting foams at Patrick Air Force Base, have been at the center of recent cancer concerns in the South Patrick Shores and Satellite Beach area. So as new science finds that replacement chemicals like GenX are nearly as dangerous as their predecessors, environmental advocates fear more health risks from similar, poorly understood "emerging compounds" used in firefighting foams and non-stick consumer products might come to light.
Andrews said the EPA study’s real significance is that it shows "the entire chemical regulatory system is broken."
"EPA has allowed hundreds of similar chemicals on the market without safety testing," Andrews added, "and it’s urgent that the agency evaluate the risk Americans face from all of these chemicals combined.”
EWG’s analysis of EPA’s toxicity assessment found that very tiny doses of GenX and PFBS could present serious health risks, including harm to the liver, kidneys, thyroid, the immune system and prenatal development.
PFOA has been linked to cancer and to reduced effectiveness of childhood vaccines and other serious health problems at even the small doses. GenX has a very similar chemical structure to PFOA, but it was not adequately tested for safety before being put on the market, EWG says.
Recent tests of groundwater and wastewater in Satellite Beach and Cocoa Beach found PFOS and PFOA at levels higher than federal drinking water guidelines but did not test for GenX.
Patrick Air Force Base uses so-called aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) to fight petroleum fires. The base switched two years ago to a more environmentally friendly foam that contain safer PFOS-free compounds and little-to-no PFOA.
Patrick and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station now use a foam called Milspec Phos-Chek in all fire emergency vehicles, Air Force officials said last month. Phos-Chek's literature shows this foam contains shorter chemical chain PFAS substances, which are thought safer.
But environmental activists say many of the fire foam alternatives harbor uncertain health and ecological risks.
"Regrettable substitutes are a key issue in PFAS substances and lack of information and claims of trade secrets are serious problems," Joseph DiGangi, senior science and technical adviser with IPEN, an international environmental group, said via email. "Ironically, competitors analyze each other’s products, so information about chemical content is privately known in the business world but withheld from the public and users of the products."
A report last year by EWG and other groups found the GenX family of chemicals in food wrapping from 27 different fast food chains.
“The system has it backwards: Instead of putting the burden of proof on EPA to show that chemicals like GenX are safe, the chemical industry should be responsible for testing its products for safety before they’re put on the market,” Andrews said. “This broken system has enabled DuPont and other companies to contaminate nearly everyone on Earth, including babies in the womb, with these chemicals.”
EPA's review is a precursor to a pending management plan for the agency’s approach to addressing the PFAS risks.
"Toxicity is only one piece of information that public officials consider when determining whether there is a risk to public health," an EPA fact sheet says about the study. "Other factors, such as exposure, must also be considered."
https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/environment/2018/11/15/group-says-replacement-non-stick-chemical-poses-health-risks/2010096002/
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(ACC Mentioned) Petchems and the Need for Gas
Nov 16, 2018 | Natural Gas World
By Charles Ellinas
Canada, with its plentiful cheap natural gas, is hoping to replicate this. According to an American Chemistry Council (ACC) announcement in September, since...
Access to full text unavailable – subscription required.
Story can be found here: https://www.naturalgasworld.com/petchems-and-the-need-for-gas-ngw-magazine-66022
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Ohio EPA to Hold Hearing for Proposed Ethane Cracker
Nov 16, 2018 | Kallanish Energy
While it remains unclear if PTT Global Chemical America will build an ethane cracker in eastern Ohio, the company is seeking an air permit for the project from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Kallanish Energy reports.
The state agency has scheduled a public information session on a draft air permit on Nov. 27, at Shadyside, Ohio, in Belmont County.
A public hearing will immediately follow, during which the public can submit comments on the record concerning the draft permit for the $6 billion plant. The meeting was announced Tuesday by the state regulators.
If approved, the permit would allow construction of an ethane cracker plant with an annual production capacity of 1.5 million tons. The plant would use six ethane cracking furnaces and manufacture ethylene, high-quality polyethylene and linear low-density polyethylene.
Carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter and greenhouse gas pollutants are expected to be emitted, along with minor quantities of other pollutants, the state regulator said.
Computer modeling was conducted to ensure local air quality will be protected, it said.
If the permit is approved, the total maximum air emissions would be limited to protect public health and the environment, the EPA said.
The permit application may be viewed online at http://epawwwextp01.epa.ohio.gov:8080/ords/epaxp/f?p=999:10 by entering permit number P0124972 or at the Ohio Epa Southeast District Office, 2195 Front St., Logan. Call for an appointment: 740-380-5245.
The Epa will accept public comment on the draft air permit through Dec. 11. Comments may be sent to Kimbra.reinbold@epa.ohio.gov.
PTT has postponed numerous times a final investment decision on the Ohio ethane cracker at the site of a now-razed coal-fired power plant on the Ohio River at Dilles Bottom.
Earlier this year, PTT approved an agreement with a subsidiary of Daelim Industrial Co. Ltd., a leading Korean construction and chemical company, to conduct a feasibility study and to secure funding for the Ohio petrochemical complex.
PTT Global Chemical America is a subsidiary of PTT Global Chemical, Thailand’s largest integrated petrochemical company.
Royal Dutch Shell is building a similar ethane cracker in Beaver County, Pa., northwest of Pittsburgh.
The plants would take ethane from drilling natural gas in the Utica and Marcellus shales and turn it into ethylene and polyethylene for plastics.
Work continues on the Shell cracker.
https://www.kallanishenergy.com/2018/11/16/ohio-epa-to-hold-hearing-for-proposed-ethane-cracker/
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Cheniere Energy to Export First LNG Shipment from Texas
Nov 15, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Sergio Chapa
Houston-based Cheniere Energy is poised to export its first shipment of liquefied natural gas from its complex near Corpus Christi.
Crews wrapped up construction for Train 1 at the company's Corpus Christi LNG export terminal this summer and spent the past five months commissioning the equipment.
Under the company's business model, the South Texas facility will receive natural gas from the Eagle Ford Shale, Permian Basin and other sources via pipeline, liquefy the gas and use tankers to export it to customers in Europe, Latin America and Asia.
It's not immediately clear where the first shipment from Port of Corpus Christ will go, but the export terminal's customers hail from three continents —Europe, Asia and Australia. They include three Spanish companies, Endesa, Iberdola and Gas Natural Fenosa, Petamina of Indonesia, Woodside of Australia, the French company Electricite De France, and the Portuguese company Energias de Portugal SA.
Cheniere's first export shipment was sent from its Sabine Pass LNG in Louisiana in February 2016. Since then, Cheniere has shipped 475 cargoes of LNG to 29 nations.
Trading under the stock ticker symbol LNG, the Houston company endured years of losses while the Sabine Pass export terminal was under construction. Once the company started shipping LNG, the profits followed.
The company said it earned a $65 million profit on $1.7 billion of revenue during the third quarter of 2018.
A second processing unit at the Corpus Christi facility known as Train 2 is expected to be completed during first quarter 2019 and placed into commercial service by the second half of 2019.
Crews with general contractor Bechtel started construction for a third processing unit known as Train 3 during the summer.
Over the past year, Cheniere has landed long-term supply agreements with a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp. and Poland's state-run Polish Oil and Gas Company.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Cheniere-Energy-to-export-first-LNG-shipment-from-13393239.php
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FERC’s Draft EIS for Gulf LNG Moves Mississippi Export Project Forward
Nov 15, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
A plan to turn Kinder Morgan Inc.’s natural gas import facility in Mississippi into an export terminal could have some adverse environmental impacts, but they could be avoided or reduced to less-than-significant levels with mitigation, FERC staff said Thursday.
Kinder is seeking to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) via the Gulf LNG Liquefaction Project in Jackson County, originally built as an import terminal. The project as designed would consist of two trains, each with capacity of about 5 million metric tons/year (mmty). Once in operation, capacity could exceed the total base level of 10 mmty by more than 10%.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff, which in September indicated it would issue environmental schedules for a dozen export projects, including Gulf LNG, concluded in its draft environmental impact statement (EIS) “that approval of the proposed project, with the mitigation measures recommended in the EIS, would have some adverse environmental impacts; however, these impacts would be avoided or reduced to less-than-significant levels” [No. CP15-521-000].
Gulf LNG has requested approval to construct and operate onshore liquefaction facilities, as well as modify and build interconnection and metering projects for the existing pipeline.
Approval also has been requested to modify existing metering stations at Gulfstream Pipeline Co. and Destin Pipeline Co. interconnection facilities, as well as the existing Gulf LNG Pipeline. Several federal agencies cooperated with FERC in preparing the EIS. In addition, because the Mississippi Office of the Secretary of State has jurisdiction over the wetland mitigation property, it also was a cooperating agency.
Kinder CEO Steve Kean in September said contracts for Gulf LNG could be structured in a similar way to the company’s Elba Liquefaction Project in Savannah, GA, which has 10 liquefaction units and about 2.5 mmty of capacity. Elba is supported by a 20-year contract with a unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc.
Kean said Gulf LNG also could include a long-term off-take agreement with “someone who is willing to take on the risk and opportunity” and “place the molecules in the international market.”
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116490-fercs-draft-eis-for-gulf-lng-moves-mississippi-export-project-forward
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Gas Coalition Beats Its Own Methane Emissions Target Years Early
Nov 15, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ryan Collins and Rachel Adams-Heard
A group of U.S. natural gas companies beat its target to reduce methane emissions to 1 percent of what’s produced and delivered, an objective they set for 2025.
The ONE Future group of 16 gas producers, pipeline operators and utilities—including Kinder Morgan Inc., Southwestern Energy Co. and Southern Co. Gas—said only about 0.6 percent of the gas they handled was vented in 2017. The group was formed in 2014.
The announcement comes as industry is coming under scrutiny from environmental groups after the federal government proposed loosening some regulation of methane emissions. The changes include reducing the frequency with which oil and gas operators must monitor their equipment for leaks.
“We are paid to transport that methane molecule, not to lose it, so we put a lot of effort into minimizing emissions,” said Tom Hutchins, vice president of environmental, health and safety for the gas business at Kinder Morgan, which owns or operates more than 80,000 miles (130,000 kilometers) of pipelines in North America.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/gascoalition-beats-its-own-methane-emissions-target-years-early
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA, OSHA Test Call To Enforce Existing Safety Rules Over New Standards
Nov 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the lead agencies once charged with implementing an Obama-era Executive Order (EO) on improving facility safety after a 2013 disaster, are heeding long-standing industry calls to enforce existing rules while scaling back or shelving new protections advanced under the Obama administration.
The approach is highlighted by a series of actions over the past few months. For example, even as the Trump EPA works to roll back the Obama administration's rule strengthening the Risk Management Plan (RMP) program, the agency last month announced its largest-ever settlement for program violations. In an Oct. 25 statement, EPA and the Justice Department (DOJ) announced a proposed settlement resolving RMP violations that led to a 2012 fire at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, CA, an incident the Obama administration pointed to in strengthening the RMP rule.
The settlement's requirements are estimated to cost the company more than $160 million, making it the largest in the history of EPA's RMP enforcement.
At the same time, the Trump OSHA has dropped Obama-era plans to strengthen its Process Safety Management (PSM) program but last month launched a Regional Emphasis Program (REP) to better address hazards of ammonium nitrate and anhydrous ammonia.
OSHA Sept. 25 announced a REP that aims to reduce worker injuries and deaths from ammonium nitrate, the substance that exploded during an April 2013 fire at a West, TX, facility, killing 15 people and injuring 200 others.
The new REP covers OSHA's Region 6, which includes Texas -- where the West explosion that prompted the Obama EO occurred -- Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and certain worksites in New Mexico in Region 6, as well as Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska in Region 7.
Enforcement will begin Jan. 1, following three months of education and outreach on prevention, and last for about a year unless the agency decides to extend the program.
Both actions appear to target facility hazards or accidents that were major drivers of former President Obama's August 2013 EO directing agencies to review and potentially bolster facility accident prevention rules.
But the prior administration's efforts spurred industry criticism that new rules were not necessary and improved enforcement of existing rules is more effective -- an approach the Trump administration now appears to be testing.
A chemical sector attorney told an Oct. 23 Process Safety Summit in Washington, D.C. that while EPA is unlikely to enforce provisions of the January 2017 RMP update as it rolls back the new provisions, EPA's "RMP enforcement is alive and well," noting that the Trump administration continues to focus on the rule's 1996 requirements.
Aaron Gelb of the firm Conn Maciel Carey, who represents employers, says that OSHA's new REP on ammonium nitrate and anhydrous ammonia, both used in agriculture, show that "there has been no discernible tick down in enforcement" under the Trump administration, and that, if anything, inspections are increasing.
'Full-Speed Ahead'
"OSHA's decision to initiate a new REP covering two regions and seven states is yet another reminder that the agency is continuing full-speed ahead with enforcement efforts," Gelb and Beeta Lashkari, said in an Oct. 31 post to the firm's blog OSHA Defense Report. "While many anticipated that the Trump administration would retire OSHA's national, regional and local emphasis programs, that has not happened," the attorneys say.
Obama's EO 13650, issued in response to the ammonium nitrate explosion at a fertilizer facility in West, TX, required EPA, OSHA and other agencies to review existing measures and consider updating them.
In response, EPA issued a final rule that imposed stricter auditing and hazard analysis requirements for RMP facilities, as well as new provisions requiring increased coordination with first responders and streamlined public disclosure of facility data.
While the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) in 2002 recommended that EPA and OSHA add ammonium nitrate to the list of substances covered under the agencies' RMP and PSM standards, the Obama EPA declined to take that step, saying that it would wait for OSHA to first consider adding new substances to its worker safety program.
The Obama OSHA floated possible changes to its PSM rule, including possibly adding ammonium nitrate, but the Trump administration has shelved any potential update to PSM, moving the rule to its long-term agenda.
As federal regulators considered advancing new rules strengthening the RMP and PSM programs, chemical and agricultural sector groups have urged regulators to enforce existing rules against "outlier" facilities instead, rather than issuing new mandates on all facilities, citing declining rates of facility accidents.
For example, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) pushed such an approach in comments on EPA's plan to roll back the RMP rule.
"ACC supports a targeted compliance enforcement approach, rather than imposing costly new requirements on a broad segment of the RMP regulated community," the group said. "ACC maintains that when correctly implemented and enforced, the current RMP regulations have been highly effective in reducing the risk of accidental chemical releases."
And the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a June 2017 letter, also urged OSHA to bolster oversight of ammonium nitrate by enforcing existing rules and implementing local emphasis programs, focusing on the safe use and storage of the substance at fertilizer facilities
"OSHA's ammonium nitrate storage requirements in 29 CFR 1910.109(i) are separate from OSHA's process safety management standard, [and] we believe OSHA could do more to enforce its existing ammonium nitrate storage requirements to help prevent chemical incidents," the GAO letter says.
Proposed Settlement
The agencies appear to be acting on those calls. In an Oct. 25 statement, EPA and DOJ touted the proposed settlement as requiring Chevron to spend roughly $150 million on process safety improvements at all its domestic refineries, and includes supplemental environmental projects requiring purchase of emergency equipment for departments near its facilities.
The proposed consent decree also requires that Chevron pay a $2.95 million civil penalty.
Federal officials will take comment on the proposed deal for 30 days, and it is subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The case began in response to the Aug. 6, 2012, fire at Chevron's refinery in Richmond, CA, that endangered 19 workers and caused 15,000 local residents to seek medical attention. EPA's investigation found that Chevron also had releases at two other refineries, including a 2013 explosion in Pascagoula, MS, that killed one worker and a 2013 rupture in El Segundo, CA, that caused a power outage and flaring at the facility, the statement says.
The deal comes after EPA and DOJ's July 2 settlement with MFA Incorporated of Columbia, MO, requiring that the agricultural products company perform third-party audits -- a requirement in the Obama-era rule now slated for roll back -- to prevent facility accidents.
Environmentalists say such requirements in enforcement agreements underscore their reasonableness. "What this really highlights is how reasonable those requirements are in the first place," an environmentalist says.
But industry and agency officials say the deal reflects a more targeted approach.
In a statement to Inside EPA, the agency argued that requiring third-party audits as part of the settlement is appropriate given MFA's compliance history, and is consistent with an enforcement-led approach to compliance that the Trump administration outlined in the agency's May 30 proposed rule revising the Obama-era update.
In the proposed rule, EPA backed industry arguments that "by requiring third-party audits after every reportable accident rather than using an enforcement-led approach, the RMP Amendments potentially burden more of the regulated community than is appropriate in light of new policy direction that we put more emphasis on regulatory burden reduction and improved net benefits."
In a similar vein, OSHA Region 7 Administrator Kimberly Stille described the new REP program as "an enforcement tool to emphasize the obligations under existing OSHA standards."
https://insideepa.com/weekly-focus/epa-osha-test-call-enforce-existing-safety-rules-over-new-standards
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CSB Faces Continued Uncertainty Despite Democrats' House Control
Nov 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Ariana Figueroa
Despite Democrats' control of the House next year, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) faces continued uncertainty about its future as its supporters fear the Trump administration may deprive it of a quorum to operate by not nominating new board members to replace those whose terms expire starting at the end of 2019.
In addition, staff morale at the agency has plummeted in the face of Trump administration efforts to eliminate the board by cutting its budget, as well as allegations about mismanagement, driving investigators and others to depart.
The Board, which investigates chemical incidents and advises EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on how to prevent them in the future, is typically run by five members who serve five-year terms.
But currently only three seats are filled and those members' terms expire beginning in December 2019 when seats held by Manny Ehrlich and Rick Engler expire. The term of Kristen Kulinowski, the board's acting chair, expires in August 2020.
Former President Obama tapped Ehrlich and Engler in January 2014 and they were confirmed by the Senate in December. Obama nominated Kulinowski in January 2015 where the Senate later confirmed her in August.
But since Trump's election, he has not nominated candidates to fill vacant slots and has proposed eliminating the agency in the fiscal year 2018 and 2019 budget requests.
Even though a Republican-controlled Congress rejected Trump's requests, his goal of eliminating the agency could still advance if he declines to fill vacant seats when they expire, says Jeff Ruch, executive director of a group that represents federal employees, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
“I think the larger threat to the board is Trump won't appoint anyone,” Ruch says. “They need three members to make quorum, [and] once they lose a quorum they’ll lose their ability to operate.”
CSB declined to respond to requests seeking comment.
But such uncertainty appears to be responsible, in part, for low staff morale at the agency, which has already gone through four leadership changes and placed top administration officials on paid leave since 2015.
In one such case, former CSB Chair Vanessa Allen Sutherland resigned unexpectedly last June, when, as her last act, she fired former CSB managing director Daniel Horowitz after the agency placed him on paid administrative leave since 2015 where he collected a salary of $161,000.
PEER is representing Horowitz and challenging his firing to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. The watchdog group says that CSB has spent nearly $1 million of its $11 million FY18 budget on the dispute between legal fees and Horowitz’ salary. The hearing is next year from January 9th through January 11th.
“CSB appears to be in a phase where they are self abolishing,” Ruch says.
Staff Morale
In the face of such changes, morale at the agency appears to have plummeted.
The 2018 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) showed a sharp decline in morale from 2017, when PEER says superiors told employees if the agency reported low scores then CSB would be eliminated, as Trump sought.
For example, results from the 2017 survey found that 68 percent of employees said their organization was a good place to work, whereas the 2018 results show only 41 percent of employees say CSB is a good place to work, a 27 point drop.
Only 36 percent said they were satisfied with the policies and practices of leadership at CSB versus 59 percent in the 2017 results.
“They were artificially inflated because managers told employees that the agency would be eliminated,” Ruch says. “The reason that is significant is because the leadership's success points to employee morale.”
Ruch says that low morale at the agency has caused investigators to leave, which curbs CSB’s ability to conduct inspections and has led the agency to outsource professional report writers from private companies to draft reports that typically falls on the responsibility of investigators. There are currently 9 investigators down from 20 in 2015.
About a dozen investigators published a Nov. 5 report criticizing CSB for its failure to hire investigators, wasting resources and limiting investigations.
“Management is pushing a model where an investigator "assesses" an incident for a few days and then the CSB publishes the likely cause without adequate investigation,” the investigators wrote.
While CSB released the FEVS results, PEER has also been pursuing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation to obtain results from an internal CSB survey of employees on board communications, which was conducted in February.
Although PEER has had limited success in its FOIA litigation, details of the responses obtained by the Daily Caller show significant staff concerns about the board's management.
The report notes that many responses ignored the survey and criticized “CSB management directly and interagency communications as a whole.”
For example, one response noted that in “general, communications at the agency are severely lacking. There is a real concern that upper-management does not care at all about the employees, especially investigators,” one employee commented. “I truly believe upper-management HR are trying to be ineffective in order to make people quit.”
Another wrote, there “is nothing wrong with the methods chosen for communications. Rather, it is the obvious lack of care and concern for the employees underlying the communications. In part, some of the communications are more propaganda than helpful, and some data points are well-known to be untrue or exaggerated to make agency management look better in a self-serving way.”
“I want to believe these are all anonymous, but I really can’t know for sure,” another employee wrote in the February survey. “But at this point, this place is so toxic. So it’s worth the chance that they are not anonymous just to actually voice my concerns.”
Ruch says such comments confirmed his belief that some of the “responses were scathing” and that PEER will continue their FOIA suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
“It’s no wonder the CSB didn't want them to see the light of day,” Ruch says of the responses.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/csb-faces-continued-uncertainty-despite-democrats-house-control
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DOE Searches for Certainty in the Grid's Future
Nov 16, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
Are the barrages of extreme weather and growing cybersecurity threats increasing or reducing the need for new high-voltage transmission lines?
A room full of officials and experts from power companies, grid operators and research labs never resolved the question, the first of a page full of queries posed by Department of Energy staff at a workshop yesterday called to refresh DOE's triennial grid congestion assessment.
While the meeting chaired by David Meyer, senior adviser at DOE's Office of Electricity, sought guidance from the industry representatives, they wanted more answers from DOE about how to face the future.
The growing threats of cyber and physical attacks and catastrophic weather raises a hard question, said Kenneth Seiler, executive director for system planning at the PJM Interconnection, the nation's largest regional transmission organization.
"It adds up to ... how much risk are we willing to take in terms of putting our customers in jeopardy if we lose the transmission system. ... And what is the risk that you are willing to pay for, because somebody has to pay for this at the end of the day."
"A lot of people are looking for certainty" in policy, in generation and in transmission, Seiler said. "A lot of people are looking for stability" and clarity on where DOE is headed, he said.
Members of one panel were asked by an audience member what an effective national transmission policy would look like. "I have no idea. I've never seen it," quipped Ed Tatum, vice president for transmission at American Municipal Power.
A study by DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory mentioned yesterday — not yet released or offered support by DOE leadership — proposes just such an overarching transmission plan. The NREL's "Interconnections Seam Study" analyzed connecting the three separate synchronized North American grids into a single network that could produce significantly cheaper and cleaner electricity.
In one NREL scenario, an overlay of high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) lines would be built across much of the U.S., allowing surplus solar power from the southwestern U.S. to meet peak afternoon loads in the Midwest and Great Plains wind power to reach the West Coast. NREL said the $14 billion cost of the most ambitious scenario would be recovered in 15 years, while reducing power plant carbon emissions significantly (Energywire, July 27).
Such a high-voltage backbone system could also be critical in restoring power after a devastating cyberattack or natural disaster, advocates say.
"Are we ... missing the opportunities for rational, regional, holistic buildouts?" Tatum said. "That's a concern."
"There's going to be a lot of debate about doing something like that," said Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies LLC. DOE could play a crucial role in taking the issue to the public, he added.What role does Congress play?
Energy Secretary Rick Perry's policy team has drafted a grid security plan that would subsidize money-losing coal and nuclear plants to keep them from closing, without investigating transmission's part, according to a leaked draft. And a separate DOE planning effort to assess strategic interdependences among grid, gas and communications infrastructure has months to go.
Congress' absence in the discussion was underscored by the conference itself. The triennial review of powerline congestion was ordered by lawmakers in 2005, in response to the massive 2003 Northeast blackout. It was meant to guide DOE in defining national corridors for new transmission projects where federal regulators could impose decisions on new powerline routes if state authorities failed to act. The corridor approach is now a dead letter at DOE.
When the 2005 Energy Policy Act was passed, Congress and grid experts were seeking a way to jump-start construction of new transmission lines after a long investment slump. But in the decade that followed, the surge in renewable energy projects and a shift from coal to gas generation triggered a burst of new lines. Aging power lines demanded replacement. And overall growth in electricity demand fell below what planners had predicted in 2005, further shrinking demand for power lines.
Congress hasn't returned to a comprehensive transmission policy review since the 2005 act.Waiting on Order 1000
High on the panelists' concerns was what they called the undelivered promise of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Order 1000 on commission transmission policy, issued in 2011. Several speakers yesterday said the order's mandate to increase competition in new power line projects is far from realization. The order also directed grid operators to begin interregional planning of transmission projects. "Order 1000 mentioned it, but didn't get the job done," Gramlich said.
Sharon Segner, vice president of LS Power Development, an independent generation and transmission developer and operator, cited a Brattle Group study released last month that found 2 percent of transmission projects in grid market regions were opened to competitive bidding. The others were carried out by transmission owners in their service areas with limited or no review, Brattle said.
Traci Bone, an attorney with the California Public Utilities Commission, told the conference yesterday such projects go directly into rates charged to customers. "They receive no review at any stage," Bone said.
A half dozen states have passed laws giving states a veto of regional transmission projects, initiatives that now face a court challenge.
In Bone's state, the three major utilities will spend an estimated $4.9 billion on transmission projects by 2022, half self-approved, she said. FERC dismissed a complaint against the utilities on this issue in August.
Steve Naumann, vice president for transmission at Exelon Corp., cautioned that top-level policy planners face a power system that is undergoing constant change, driven by economic and technology pressures as well as policy. Planners considering the structure of the electric grid 10 years ago could not have guessed the impact that horizontal fracking of natural gas would have on power generation, he said.
Then there's politics. "Carbon yes, carbon no," Naumann said. "Elections matter. We just have to deal with that."
"We'll never have certainty when we [look at] long-lived assets like transmission," said Alan Myers, director of regional planning for ITC Holdings. The industry "needs to plan around scenarios that are reasonable" and not let policy uncertainty "lock us into inaction. That is what we can't do."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/11/16/stories/1060106443
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States Move Closer On RGGI-Like Plan For Transportation, But Path Unclear
Nov 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
A wide variety of interested groups have reached consensus that a group of 11 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states should impose a regional carbon price to cut transportation greenhouse gases, which is similar to how the region limits utility emissions through a cap-and-trade program, though the states have not said they are ready to move on the concept.
The carbon pricing policy is the top recommendation that emerged from a series of six listening sessions held between March and August organized by Georgetown Climate Center's Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI), according to a Nov. 14 summary report.
In response to a question about what policies the participating states and the District of Columbia should explore, the report says the idea of imposing a price on GHG emissions “emerged consistently across all of the listening sessions” as the top response.
"In all listening sessions, the most frequently offered suggestion was the idea of pricing carbon and using the proceeds to invest in clean transportation options and modernizing our transportation infrastructure and transit systems,” it adds.
The recommendation is notable because it suggests that the states might begin to develop a regional carbon price for the transportation sector, though next steps are unclear and are not specifically addressed in the report.
However, the report is likely to inform the states' deliberations about any regional policy moving forward.
The six listening sessions took place in New York, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland, and included more than 500 participants discussing their priorities, goals and policy ideas for reducing carbon emissions from the transport sector. The sessions included more than 100 government officials from D.C., New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.
Those states roughly represent the participants in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) for utilities, with the exception of Pennsylvania. New Jersey and Virginia are poised to begin trading with RGGI in 2020. Also, Maine is in RGGI but did not participate in the TCI discussions.
A wide range of non-governmental groups also attended, including environmental and health groups like the American Lung Association and Earthjustice; industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute; and labor groups like the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Also, transportation groups such as AAA and CALSTART were represented along with utilities including Public Service Enterprise Group and NRG Energy. Major corporations like United Technologies and universities including Rutgers and Yale also attended.
TCI announced the listening sessions a year ago. At that time, Georgetown Climate Center released a paper to explore policy options -- including a cap-and-trade program that is similar to RGGI, with the price imposed on transportation fuels.
However, it cautioned that the states may embark on a different policy approach than something modeled on RGGI.
Midterm Results
Release of the report comes just days after the 2018 midterms, in which nearly all of the participating states' governors won re-election.
Connecticut will have a new governor, Ned Lamont (D), who will replace outgoing Gov. Dannel Malloy (D).
Governors who won re-election and are already participating in TCI include Tom Wolf (D-PA), Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), Chris Sununu (R-NH), Phil Scott (R-VT), Charlie Baker (R-MA), Larry Hogan (R-MD) and Gina Riamondo (D-RI). D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) was also re-elected.
Delaware, New Jersey and Virginia did not have gubernatorial elections this year.
All are expected to continue to support the program, though some observers are concerned that Hogan might become “less green” after winning a second and final term. Maryland joined TCI under former Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), who was a major supporter. Hogan has remained in the program but has not been as enthusiastic, though his administration has opposed major Trump EPA rollbacks of Obama-era climate rules, including for vehicles.
One unresolved question is how EPA's pending proposal to roll back its vehicle GHG rules will affect any future regional planning under TCI.
EPA and the Transportation Department plan to finalize their joint rule next year, though it remains uncertain whether they will finalize their aggressive plan to freeze standards at model year 2020 levels -- likely sparking a protracted court battle -- or reach a deal with California and other supporters of current, Obama-era limits.
How the battle over EPA's rule plays out may be unclear but the TCI report signals many are interested in lowering the carbon intensity of the transportation system.
Other policy recommendations in the TCI report call for accelerating electrification of the transportation system; incorporating smart growth, zoning and affordable housing policies; encouraging people to use other transportation modes besides personal vehicles; supporting expansion of alternative transportation fuels; and addressing special issues related to ports and freight.
The policy options came after participants addressed two other questions: "What would make it easier for you to transition to low-carbon transportation choices?" and "A regional low-carbon transportation policy should . . . "
The report cites answers to the first question including: improving public transit to make it more convenient, affordable, safe and reliable; making zero-emissions vehicles more readily available, affordable and easy to use; expanding the range of transportation options; making biking and walking safer and more accessible; and incorporating clean transportation into land use and community designs.
Answers to the second include that such a policy should "be equitable and benefit disadvantaged communities;" "enable efficient movement of goods and services;" and use on “sustainable, dedicated funding sources . . . that don't rely on the gas tax and are not regressive.”
Additionally, stakeholders said the policy should be consistent regionally; support market transformation; encourage investment in technology research and development; be effective and accountable; be technology and fuel neutral; set measurable goals; be linked to broader socioeconomic objectives; address freight and transit as well as vehicles; engage utilities; prioritize investment in transit, walking and biking; be transparent; and consider climate-related impacts on planning and infrastructure investments.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-move-closer-rggi-plan-transportation-path-unclear
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(ACC Mentioned) Democrats Prepare to Grill Trump Officials on Environmental Issues in New Congress
Nov 15, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni and Juliet Eilperin
Three likely incoming Democratic chairs of House committees overseeing environmental issues vowed to scrutinize the Trump administration’s actions on climate change and bring before them top administration officials who they think have escaped adequate oversight under their Republican colleagues.
After eight years out of power in the House, Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Tex.), Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) and Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.) are expected to lead the committees on Science, Space, and Technology; Natural Resources; and Energy and Commerce, respectively, after serving as the panels' ranking Democrats.
In a slate of interviews, they outlined an expansive agenda to put a hot spotlight on the Trump administration’s rollback of President Obama’s climate agenda and to delve deep into alleged misconduct of officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, Interior Department and the Housing and Urban Development Department.
At the top of that list is Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
Grijalva wants Zinke to testify before his committee about discussions surrounding a deal in Whitefish, Mont., between the Zinkes’ family foundation and Halliburton chairman David Lesar along with other developers. Democrats asked Interior’s acting inspector general to launch a probe of the matter in late June after Politico first reported on the deal. The watchdog office last month referred the matter to the Justice Department.
Trump said last week he was “looking at” the allegations against Zinke but that overall he was “very happy with most of my Cabinet.” Zinke has denied the allegations as “vicious attacks.”
The planned oversight is in line with the overall aim by the incoming House majority to scrutinize President Trump and his underlings on subjects such as the president’s tax returns and alleged payments by Trump’s former lawyer to women who said they had affairs with him.
Some agencies are already gearing up for an onslaught of congressional demands. The EPA recently hired two lawyers who are prepared to handle document requests, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
An EPA spokesman, who declined to comment directly on the two hires, said there had not been a spike in hiring at the agency due to the prospect of greater oversight.
While agencies prepare, there is already a turf battle within the new Democratic majority over how to wield its power to address what scientists say is an ecological crisis the world has little time to solve.
At the moment, even the forum for a climate debate is up for debate.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), looking to corral support and again serve as speaker of the House, said she “strongly” supports reestablishing a special committee on climate change.
[Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi says she has the votes to become the next House speaker]
By doing so, she is meeting one of the demands from a group of protesters — one of whom was Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N. Y) — who occupied her office Tuesday. First impaneled by Pelosi in 2007, the select climate committee was scrapped four years later when Republicans took the House.
But Pallone and Johnson have voiced apprehension about duplicating the efforts of their own panels.
“We have climate change champions leading all these committees,” Pallone said.
Johnson, meanwhile, wondered what a select committee, which was purely a fact-finding panel the last time around, could achieve with Trump regularly dismissing the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the globe.
“I don’t know what a special select committee would do to change the executive branch,” Johnson said.
A day after Pelosi tweeted her support for creating a special climate committee, the three ranking Democrats announced they plan to hold two days’ worth of hearings on climate change early next year. Pallone said Democrats want to review some of Trump’s splashier climate-related moves, such as the plans to pull out of the Paris climate accord and to repeal greenhouse-gas limits on coal-fired plants.
They also want to bear down some smaller-bore but still neglected issues.
Pallone wants to determine whether the Trump administration is following legally mandated requirements to review potentially dangerous chemicals and issue energy-efficiency standards.
Johnson said she aims to review a proposal to ban the use of certain studies in rulemaking that rely on confidential health information.
Grijalva said he was interested in conducting hearings on a proposed reorganization plan of Interior, which he worries may break up some “pretty well-functioning” offices.
“It's a long list that has been dormant,” Grijalva said.
That alone probably will not be enough for the progressives. A handful of freshmen, including Ocasio-Cortez, are pressuring Democratic leaders to craft an ambitious plan to take the entire nation to 100 percent renewable energy within 10 years.
In addition to answers about the Montana land deal, Grijalva said he wants to know more about an incident last month in which Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson announced one of his top appointees would become Interior’s acting inspector general. Days later, Interior officials called Carson’s statement “100 percent false” and said they would not hire HUD official Suzanne Israel Tufts.
“The coincidence of the timing, I would question,” Grijalva said, noting that Carson’s statement came shortly after Interior acting inspector general Mary Kendall referred allegations concerning Zinke to Justice.
Pallone said he wanted to know more about the work of Nancy Beck, formerly an executive at the lobbying outfit American Chemistry Council, at the EPA.
Even the tenure of Scott Pruitt, Trump’s first EPA administrator who resigned in July amid ethics investigations, may again be scrutinized.
“My concern with the EPA is: How was Mr. Pruitt able to get away with all he got away with and remain there?” said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), who is set to take over the gavel of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Asked about future congressional investigations, Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift declined to directly address the issue in an email.
“We have a number of bipartisan priorities that we work with Congress on and we will continue to work with them,” she said.
House Democrats will also have the opportunity to grill corporate executives. Already, environmental groups have called for Democrats to investigate ExxonMobil for allegedly misleading the public about climate change.
“If you’re a company, and there’s been outreach before by the minority on these committees, then that gives you a pretty good indication that they’re going to want to talk to you,” said Aaron Cutler, a former lawyer for Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee who now works at the law firm Hogan Lovells.
But Democrats will have to balance their impulse to investigate Trump’s environmental deputies with their desire to try to work with the president on a long-promised infrastructure bill.
Pallone expressed interest in working with the White House to improve drinking-water systems, while Grijalva said he wants to finish a plan kicked off by congressional Republicans to use federal oil and gas revenue to fix leaky pipes and craggy roads in national parks.
“This is an area where we can work with the president,” Pallone said.
But at a news conference this week, Trump threatened to take a “warlike posture” if Democrats investigated him and his team.
And while lawmakers have the power to demand documents when they’re in the majority, Alston & Bird partner Kevin Minoli said it is important to keep things in perspective. Minoli, who led the EPA’s response to congressional oversight during the Obama administration, it, noted that members of Congress often set tight deadlines of two weeks or less.
But, he cautioned, “It doesn’t mean that when they write that letter that the agency is going to provide them the next day, or even ever."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/11/15/democrats-prepare-grill-trump-officials-environmental-issues-new-congress/?utm_term=.a3bacc7bf182
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Ocasio-Cortez Gets in Closed-Door Fight with Veteran Lawmaker over Climate Change
Nov 15, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Anthony Adragna, John Bresnahan and Zack Colman
A fight broke out in a closed-door meeting of House Democrats over climate change as a powerful veteran lawmaker fought with freshman star Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members-elect over the creation of a special panel for the issue.
New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, incoming chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee — backed by a number of other committee members — slammed the creation of the new climate panel, according to multiple sources in the room. Pallone argued that his committee and other existing panels within the House could take on the issue aggressively.
But Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rep.-elect Joe Neguse (Colo.) and some of the other progressive incoming lawmakers fought back, saying they ran on the issue and needed to do it. Ocasio-Cortez earlier this week pushed for a “Green New Deal” as she backed more than 200 young protesters at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Ocasio-Cortez later said it wasn’t a direct confrontation with Pallone in a tweet late Thursday.
“I never even [had] a direct interaction with him today,” she tweeted, “and by direct interaction, I mean I didn’t share a conversation. I did say hello and he is very kind.”
Watching it all from the sidelines was Pelosi, who has already called for reinstatement of the select panel that she first set more than a decade ago. Ocasio-Cortez has praised Pelosi for reinstating the special committee, even though she wants it to have far broader authority to craft legislation remaking the U.S. energy grid.
“We need to act on climate change NOW w/ a *fossil fuel $-free* Select Committee *with a mandate* to draft a Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted earlier Thursday. “It’s our best chance to beat the clock.”
Pallone declined to comment on what happened during the closed-door meeting, but further explained why he opposes the select committee.
“My fear is that if you have a select committee, by the time the select committee gets going, gets appointed and hires staff that it might actually delay what we’re doing,” the New Jersey Democrat told reporters. “We’ve got people who are in charge of these committees who are very progressive and I just don’t see the need for the select committee. I think it may actually delay what the progressives are trying to achieve.”
Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, was not in the meeting but said he heard it included "a pretty lively discussion" of climate change. Chakrabarti said Pelosi's office has been in touch about how to "merge" some of Ocasio-Cortez's proposals into the plan for the new committee.
“So far [Pelosi] is pushing to have the conversation,” Chakrabarti said. “They seem pretty excited about this as well. I’m really hoping we can get this done together.”
Chakrabarti said reviving the panel could provide another forum for discussing legislation along the lines of the “Green New Deal” concept Ocasio-Cortez floated Tuesday. He said Ocasio-Cortez’s staff has reached out to the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the House Rules Committee to advocate including it in the rules package governing the new Democratic-led House.
A senior Democratic aide said the proposal discussed at today's meeting was to establish a committee resembling the one that existed between 2007 and 2011.
“A draft proposal was presented today to the caucus that includes Pelosi’s recommendation of reinstating the select panel on climate that existed the last time dems were in the majority,” the aide said in an email.
Ocasio-Cortez has become a media sensation since she defeated Rep. Joe Crowley, seen by some as a potential future speaker, in a June primary. She said Thursday that climate change is an “important” factor in her vote for speaker.
Other chairmen-in-waiting, including Natural Resources ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Transportation ranking member Peter DeFazio, have also questioned whether the climate committee is necessary.
“I don’t know that we need another panel,” DeFazio told POLITICO.
Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) said “a vast majority” of the caucus supports the aims Ocasio-Cortez and her allies laid out, but that it’s just a question of whether working through the standard committee structure is more effective.
“I think that it’s great that [Ocasio-Cortez] put that down,” he told POLITICO. “People appreciate her emphasis on that, but people also believe we have not allowed the committee structure to work in an open and fair way.”
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/11/ocasio-cortez-gets-in-closed-door-fight-with-veteran-lawmaker-over-climate-change-976915
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Divides Harden in Clash over Global Warming Committee
Nov 16, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk, George Cahlink and Kellie Lunney
Many House Democrats remain skeptical of a push by leadership and progressives to revive the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, underscoring divisions about how to address climate change in the new Congress.
The caucus clashed in closed-door meetings this week about whether the select panel is even necessary and how much power it should have, with incoming committee chairmen looking to stake out territory on the issue.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has proposed bringing back the select panel to spotlight the issue with Democrats in control of the House, but progressives — led by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — are aggressively pushing for a stronger version of the climate committee that would craft a "Green New Deal" to combat climate change.
Ocasio-Cortez has a resolution in-hand that would establish a Select Committee for a Green New Deal, with the goal of crafting a comprehensive policy by 2020.
But the incoming leaders of the committees of jurisdiction on climate — namely, the Energy and Commerce; Natural Resources; and Science, Space and Technology panels — are not pleased with potentially creating a committee that could leach away their power.
Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), in line for the chairmanship next year, has been the most vocal critic of the idea thus far (E&E Daily, Nov. 14).
That earned him a rebuke yesterday from the Sunrise Movement, the group that organized a protest in Pelosi's office earlier this week. In a statement yesterday, the group called his objections "ludicrous" and pointed to donations he has taken from fossil fuel political action committees.
Pallone has taken in about $20,000 from oil and gas PACs and about $100,000 from utilities in 2017 and 2019, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, though he's also been lauded by the League of Conservation Voters in the past for his work on climate issues.
"Frank Pallone is concerned about holding onto his power and title, not about the future of our generation and human civilization," the group wrote in a tweeted statement.
Pallone said yesterday that a new committee "takes us away from the goal," with his panel and the other committees of jurisdiction already planning hearings on climate change early next year.
"We want to move very aggressively, we've got people in charge of these committees who are very progressive, and I just don't see the need for the select committee," Pallone told reporters. "In part, I think it may actually delay what the progressives are trying to achieve."
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the co-founder of the Congressional Solar Caucus, said the select panel has "definitely" been a topic of conversation among Democrats as they have gathered this week to plan for the 116th Congress.
He said the "sticking point" has been over whether it would have any legislative authority, a move that he said seems unlikely given the clout of E&C.
Krishnamoorthi did not rule out serving on the select panel but said it needed to do more than hold hearings.
"When we were in the minority, we used to have what I'd call all of these mock hearings, but we are in the majority now, so let's get something done," he added.
Pelosi, for her part, doesn't appear bothered by the potential jurisdictional battles, and she suggested yesterday that those issues will get worked out before January.
"That's always been a challenge with the standing committees, and we will have conversations about some of the objections they may have," she told reporters. "But there's tremendous interest on the outside for us to return to that place where the climate issue is pre-eminent."Weighing the pros and cons
Feelings about the select committee revival are generally mixed among the rank and file.
Several other Energy and Commerce lawmakers expressed skepticism about the need for the select panel after a caucus meeting yesterday, echoing Pallone in arguing their committee is best suited to holding hearings and drafting legislation.
"I know the Energy and Commerce Committee is raring and ready to go," said Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), a member of the committee. He said several panel Democrats have already drafted climate legislation but could not even get hearings on their proposals with the GOP in power.
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), an Energy and Commerce member, downplayed talk of any rift over the panel, saying there's broad support in the party for action on global warming. She said in closed-door caucus sessions this week the question has been whether the select panel is needed or the full committee can simply act.
"I could be flip and say John Dingell is not here anymore," said Dingell, when asked if the panel was needed.
Pelosi created the original panel in 2007 out of concern that Dingell's husband, John, the legendary E&C chairman, would slow walk climate legislation. The Democratic leader saw the select panel as a way to make sure the issue got attention, a move that rankled the then chairman.
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), a senior Energy and Commerce member who some have speculated could lead the select panel given her close ties to Pelosi, did not seem sold on the need for it.
"I think we need to make climate change a centerpiece of our agenda, how we do that I don't know yet," said DeGette, noting she had not given any thought to serving on it.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who served on the last version of the select committee, from 2007 to 2010, didn't appear keen on the revival either. He said he's "agnostic" on the issue, though he noted that the caucus is debating the "pros and cons."
Still, plenty of others said they like the idea of a select committee, and some suggested they were looking to stake out a spot.
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who was on the original committee, said she would be interested in a second tour.
"The leader has many slots to fill, so we'll see what happens," she told E&E News yesterday.
Speier said she didn't believe such a panel would undermine the authority of other committees with overlapping jurisdiction on climate change, energy and natural resources, for instance.
"It's not that kind of committee," Speier said. "When I served on it before, it was really fact-finding. We went to China to try and get the president to get more engaged and reduce carbon in the atmosphere. We went up to Alaska and dealt with some of the issues the Native Americans were having," she said. "So, no, I don't see it as anything more than helpful."
The stark divide in the caucus could reverberate to leadership battles, particularly for Pelosi, who's facing opposition from a coalition of new and existing members.
Ocasio-Cortez said how party leaders handle the issue will affect who she backs for speaker.
"I think it's important, its very important," she said.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/11/16/stories/1060106429
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Dems Know It's Warming but Not How to Fix It
Nov 16, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews and Scott Waldman
Climate change is the first big fight for congressional Democrats as they prepare to take control of the House next year. It's fracturing the party along fault lines of turf, strategy and age.
At issue is which lawmakers should lead the way, as well as the scope of potential legislation. How the intraparty feud plays out could foreshadow the aggressiveness with which House Democrats try to tackle climate change over the next two years, a critical period that will shape the party's positions on the environment as it tries to rip the White House away from President Trump.
Over the next six weeks, the battle could also impact the power struggle over party leadership, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) bid to reprise her role as speaker.
"There is not one group or caucus that has enough votes to hijack everything," said Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.).
She said House Democrats aren't unified on a single climate policy because there are multiple constituencies pushing different priorities. All of them, she added, are fighting for position right now.
"What you're going to see is what I hope is a robust discussion about what direction we go in," said Rice, one of several Democrats who want someone other than Pelosi to become speaker.
One climate activist had a different take.
"I'm seeing it as a classic jockeying for power move," said RL Miller, president of Climate Hawks Vote. "And unfortunately it's just creating despair among ordinary Americans who care more about the climate crisis than inside-baseball matters."
The first sign of friction arrived on Congress' first day back after Election Day, when newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) joined protesters outside Pelosi's office to demand a new approach to a warming planet.
Specifically, they wanted her to support the creation of a committee that would draw up plans for a "Green New Deal" — in essence, a new government jobs program that would invest heavily in sectors such as renewable energy.
What's more, they want to limit membership in the proposed committee to lawmakers who don't take contributions from the fossil fuel industry. Some protesters said they'd like to apply that same restriction to the next slate of House Democratic leaders — a major ask for a party still struggling to figure out how it wants to handle the oil and gas sector.
In response to the demands, Pelosi floated the idea of a different kind of climate change committee — one based on a panel that Democrats created the last time they were in control of the House. "I have recommended to my House Democratic colleagues that we reinstate the select committee to address the climate crisis," she said Tuesday in a statement.
The proposal was criticized almost immediately. Critics on the left saw it as a toothless gesture that wouldn't lead to anything. At the same time, establishment Democrats saw it as an attack on their jurisdiction. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who's in line to lead the Energy and Commerce Committee, has laid claim to climate change as an issue.
"We got a lot of people on the committees that are real champions, so I don't think it's necessary," Pallone said earlier this week of the select committee.
The divide can be broken down roughly into four camps: those with Pelosi and her idea of bringing back the select committee; those with Ocasio-Cortez and her plan of focusing the panel on a Green New Deal and limiting its membership to fossil fuel opponents; those with Pallone and his preference to keep the committee structure as it is; and then finally those Democrats who haven't publicly made up their mind — fence-sitters who are waiting, perhaps, for the broader leadership fight to shake out.
Incoming Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) said he supports the idea of giving climate change its own committee, though he was open-minded about its focus — so long as House Democrats use it to develop far-reaching solutions.
Climate change is a "crisis of epic proportions, and it merits an epic response on the part of the federal government," he said. "It should be big, it should be bold, it should be comprehensive."
One major question is how quickly House Democrats want to attack the problem of rising temperatures legislatively, given that Republicans will maintain control of both the Senate and the White House and can stymie any bill that leans too far to the left.
New members, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who want the party to put forward bolder ideas on climate have support from Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who plans to use his position as the presumed head of the Natural Resources Committee to lead on the issue.
"I would agree with some of their criticism — I think we're baby-stepping it," he said. "I can understand us doing some incremental stuff, but I think fight No. 1 is to elevate the discussion of science up. That's going to be our first task sending out our own directives about the impacts of climate change on public lands, what's going on, because it's been dumbed down by this administration and in fact denied."
In private, there's a sense among some Democrats that the party should wait until after the 2020 elections to be more forceful.
Related to that worry is the idea that Democratic leadership shouldn't vote on ambitious climate bills that likely won't pass the Senate because it could force its members in more conservative, fossil-fuel-friendly districts to take tough votes.
A number of Democratic operatives and congressional staffers privately acknowledged this week that the party doesn't have an off-the-shelf policy it needs on climate right now.
Many Democrats were reluctant to speak on the record because they didn't want to highlight intraparty squabbles. But they pointed to Pelosi's significant track record on climate, which includes passing the Waxman-Markey bill, a cap-and-trade system that would have significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions if it had not stalled in the Senate.
They argued that the current climate fight was essentially a proxy for the struggle over the soul of the party, with new members jockeying for a way to make their name on an issue that's important to younger voters.
"It's not going to change anything I do," said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), who is expected to head the Science, Space and Technology Committee.
Johnson, along with the heads of the Natural Resources and Energy and Commerce committees, pledged to hold two days of hearings on climate science as soon as the 116th Congress is seated in January. The announcement was seen by some Democrats as a rebuke to Pelosi's notion that a select committee would take over their work in going after the Trump administration on climate policy.
For now, Johnson and Pallone have the backing of Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who appears to have locked up the votes to become the next majority leader, the No. 2 spot in House leadership.
"I know that [Minority] Leader Pelosi has talked about a special task force, which we had before," Hoyer said. But "I've talked to Mr. Pallone about it — he believes that they can handle it and want to handle it and are enthusiastic about that — I think that can be done through the committee."
Meanwhile, green groups are getting restless.
The Sunrise Movement, which organized the protest in Pelosi's office, criticized Pallone for not supporting Ocasio-Cortez and her plan to have a select committee on the Green New Deal, which seeks to shift the nation away from fossil fuels and toward renewables.
It pointed out in a tweet that Pallone took more than $100,000 from "fossil fuel PACS in 2018."
"If he's our champion, we're fucked," the group tweeted, working in a reference to Ariana Grande's new breakup song: "thank u, next."
Now, two months before House Democrats assume power, the party remains split on the best way to handle climate change in the next Congress — despite a general agreement that global warming poses an existential threat.
"We're fighting over what to do with power we don't have," said one congressional staffer.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/11/16/stories/1060106405
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'Shadow' Reviews By Former CASAC Members Could Help Defend NAAQS
Nov 15, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Former members of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) are planning “shadow” reviews of the agency's ozone and particulate matter (PM) air standards, generating data that could help defend the standards against any Trump administration bid to weaken them through its new, truncated CASAC review process.
The former panelists plan to undertake in-depth scientific reviews of the PM and ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) in parallel to the agency's recently launched Clean Air Act-mandated assessments of the two standards. An informed source says that the intervention of former CASAC scientists, especially epidemiologists, “would be extremely valuable” in guiding EPA. “Their comments could have some weight.”
The tentative plan is for the “alter ego” panel of scientists to perform the in-depth NAAQS review that the Trump administration is circumventing through its overhaul of the review process, the source says.
The former members' plans to conduct what a second informed source calls a “shadow CASAC panel” review of the science underpinning the standards could further bolster environmentalists and others who oppose any softening of the standards, because it might generate data they could use in lawsuits challenging weaker NAAQS.
Several sources tell Inside EPA that that former members -- who served either on the full independent advisory committee or panels dedicated to reviewing specific NAAQS -- will highlight what they see as flaws in the agency's new approach to assessing the standards. Their shadow CASAC panel reviews will likely fault the new process for conducting the reviews, and push back on the content of those reviews.
Prior CASAC members have faulted the NAAQS overhaul that accelerates the ozone and PM reviews and reduces the advisory panel's input. Critics have said it could make any attempt to weaken the standards vulnerable to legal attack because the process might lead to weak data on which to make such decisions.
Under the Clean Air Act, EPA must set its NAAQS for ozone, PM and four other criteria pollutants at a level requisite to protect public health and the environment with an adequate margin of safety. The air law mandates that the agency review its NAAQS every five years, although it often falls behind schedule with the reviews. CASAC is an independent panel that routinely provides input to EPA on its review of the standards.
But the Trump administration is looking to overhaul and accelerate the NAAQS review process through an effort launched by former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and continued by current acting agency chief Andrew Wheeler and Office of Air & Radiation Assistant Administrator Bill Wehrum.
Wehrum is keeping to Pruitt's goal of completing the ozone and PM reviews by 2020. EPA is assessing the 2015 decision by the Obama administration to tighten the ozone limit to 70 parts per billion (ppb) from the prior 2008 limit of 75 ppb. Separately, the agency is also undertaking its review of the fine PM standard, which the agency updated in 2012 at 12 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3), stricter than the 2006 limit of 15 ug/m3.
As part of the accelerated review process, the agency has dismissed a specialized panel of experts convened earlier to help with the PM review, and declined to recruit a planned panel for the ozone review.
EPA has replaced all Obama-era members of CASAC, which is now dominated by state regulators and led by an industry consultant, Tony Cox, with controversial views rejecting some of the scientific evidence on health harms resulting from air pollution. Only one current CASAC member is a research scientist.
This leaves only the seven-member chartered CASAC to conduct not only the two reviews, but also report on potential “adverse” effects of NAAQS implementation -- a task that CASAC would be conducting for the first time. CASAC previously has focused its reviews of the standards on health effects, but the Trump administration is tasking it with weighing other factors such as adverse economic harms from the standards.
'Kind Of Nuts'
Former long-time senior EPA air staffer John Bachmann, who left the agency in 2007 and worked with Wehrum, says in a Nov. 14 interview with Inside EPA that the decision to drop specialized review panels is “kind of nuts.”
On the timetable for the PM and ozone reviews, Bachmann says “they want to do it fast, bad, and they are going to do it bad,” echoing observers' suggestion that the quick reviews might be based on legally vulnerable data.
The lack of sufficient committee members to conduct the required reviews, and the decision not to convene a separate panel on adverse implementation impacts, are motivating former CASAC members to form their shadow, or alter ego, reviews. “That could end up having some impact when the ultimate lawsuits come,” Bachmann says.
NAAQS rules are routinely challenged in court, by industry groups arguing they are too tough and environmentalists or others arguing they are too weak. Criticism by former CASAC members that the review process lacks credibility could hurt EPA's ability to claim that courts should defer to it on technical matters. The air law requires litigants to show that an agency decision is “arbitrary or capricious” in order to have courts overturn it. Courts have previously given considerable weight to CASAC's opinion. The committee is “a really important group,” Bachmann said.
He predicted that former panelists may resist opinions on pollutants' risks “that may not be mainstream,” in contrast to current CASAC members. Some observers are critical of CASAC Chairman Cox, in particular, who is known to hold controversial views doubting the strength of the evidence backing tougher NAAQS.
Bachmann said former panelists will not be able to review the entirety of the documents EPA produces during the reviews, but will instead “pick their spots” when commenting on the specifics of scientific issues.
The former agency staffer wrote to Wehrum and CASAC members June 18 to express his concerns with Pruitt's May memo that sought to compress the NAAQS review process, calling for an “ad hoc” CASAC panel to consider the implementation issues, and seeking to ensure sufficient opportunities for CASAC to review EPA staff documents. The letter pre-dated Wehrum's decision to ditch CASAC sub-panels.
Former CASAC Chairman and PM panelist Chris Frey, a professor of environmental engineering at North Carolina State University, told Inside EPA previously that CASAC will lack the “horsepower” to conduct its various advisory functions. Frey was a member of the dismissed PM review panel and a candidate for the never-convened ozone panel.
In a new statement to Inside EPA prepared ahead of a Nov. 29 CASAC teleconference, on which panelists will discuss EPA's integrated review plan for undertaking the ozone NAAQS, Frey will tell EPA that “the Clean Air Act requires a 'thorough review' of the 'latest scientific information' pertaining to the 'kind and extent of all identifiable effects on public health or welfare.' The myriad of recent changes to the NAAQS review process are collectively harmful to the quality, credibility, and integrity of the scientific review process for these standards.”
Further, “With the recent appointment of five new CASAC members chosen primarily based on geographic location or affiliation with government agencies, the 7-member CASAC has transitioned from a committee of nationally and internationally recognized researchers at the leading edge of their fields toward a committee of stakeholders. Furthermore, with an unprecedented high turnover rate, CASAC is now largely inexperienced."
This inexperienced panel is faced with a “time frame proposed by EPA for the ozone review” that “is unprecedented and unrealistic. EPA is proposing that CASAC complete its scientific review in about one year. On average, it usually takes about three years for this type of review,” Frey says.
He warns of a “co-mingling” of scientific and policy considerations under the timetable proposed by EPA in the IRP that will result in a “lack of transparency of the overall review process.”
Also, “It is illegal for EPA to consider adverse effects of implementation when setting a NAAQS. Therefore, any CASAC advice on adverse effects of implementation should be developed separately from its advice regarding setting NAAQS,” Frey says. Rushing through the adverse effects review will mean its “credibility will be severely undermined,” Frey says. Frey and other former panelists may also offer comment on specific aspects of the ozone and PM reviews, including the scientific evidence EPA is considering in the integrated science assessment for PM, which CASAC will consider at an in-person meeting in Arlington, VA, Dec. 12 and 13.
EPA did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
'Conflicts Of Interest'
Some former CASAC members, and former EPA staff or members of the agency's Scientific Advisory Committee (SAB), have already gone public with harsh criticism of the agency's actions.
In one recent example, Christopher Zarba, head of the SAB staff office at EPA until February, takes aim at the Trump administration's handling of EPA science in a Nov. 14 New York Times op-ed. Zarba writes that with the dismissal of the PM panel, “it is entirely likely that the advisory committee will lack the time and expertise to provide authoritative guidance on the regulation of this pollutant. The same can be said of ground-level ozone.”
A group of 16 Democratic senators, led by Senate Environment & Public Works Committee ranking member Tom Carper (DE) and fellow panel member Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) are adding their voices to the protest over the CASAC panel dismissals, and the wholesale replacement of CASAC members, in a Nov. 15 letter to Wheeler.
“These actions, taken together with past similar actions, could have the effect of jeopardizing the environment and human health, because they are likely to result in the replacement of renowned scientists who can provide EPA with advice on how to best protect people from the effects of environmental pollution with less qualified, industry representatives who may also have conflicts of interest,” the senators say.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/shadow-reviews-former-casac-members-could-help-defend-naaqs
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