Preview Newsletter

ACC AM 11/30/2018

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) EPA Recycling Summit Highlights Lack of National Responsibility
Nov 29, 2018 | Waste Dive
By Cole Rosengren

If all goes well, this year's America Recycles Day may be remembered as the one where the national conversation began to coalesce around a collective vision.
(ACC Mentioned) US Specialty Chemicals Volumes Up in October: 3 Stocks to Buy
Nov 30, 2018 | Zacks
By Anindya Barman

The U.S. specialty chemical industry started the fourth quarter on a positive note with October seeing a rise in volumes, according to the latest report from the American Chemistry Council (“ACC”).
Corporate Protections, Tariffs Dog Nafta 2.0 Push
Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss

A last-minute scramble by Republicans to secure a lame-duck vote on the successor treaty to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is expected to fall short, raising new doubts over the viability of the sweeping deal in the Democratic House next year.
NAFTA 2.0 Is Being Signed This Week, but Will Congress Approve It?
Nov 29, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Lori Wallach

After a year of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations, the United States, Canada, and Mexico are expected to sign a revised deal on Nov 30.
Wheeler's Transparency Pledges Win Rare Praise Ahead of Confirmation
Nov 30, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds

Acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler is winning praise from some environmentalists for recent pledges to improve transparency, including policies limiting political reviews of disclosures and mandating decisions be documented, measures that could aid...
Manchin Tightens Grip on Top Democratic Energy Committee Slot
Nov 30, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Zack Colman and Anthony Adragna

Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) appeared close to clinching the top Democratic slot on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee as other senior party members staked their claims on other powerful roles.

LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) EPA Chemicals Office Nominee Dunn Headed for Swift Confirmation
Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker

President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the EPA’s chemical safety and pesticides office could be confirmed as early as next week, according to the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Senate GOP Eyes Speedy Confirmation for Dunn After TSCA Pledges
Nov 29, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad

Senate Republicans are eying a speedy confirmation for Alexandra Dunn, President Donald Trump's second nominee to lead EPA's toxics office, after a confirmation hearing where Democrats welcomed public and private pledges the nominee has made though...

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Ill. Democrats Seek Reform in Wake of Toxic Emissions Uproar
Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly

Following an outcry over emissions from several Chicago-area plants, some Illinois lawmakers are seeking to upgrade key government programs for gauging the potential dangers of hazardous chemicals.
In California, Houses Burned. So Did the Toxic Chemicals They Contained.
Nov 29, 2018 | New York Times
By Sarah Maslin Nir

The long, laborious process of returning Paradise and neighboring towns to a safe state will begin next month when crews in masks, Tyvek suits and booties begin combing through every last property in this town that was decimated by wildfire.
3M, Dupont Tussle Over Lawsuit on Cancer-Linked Chemicals
Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Kary

Creating a massive lawsuit over cancer-linked chemicals found in around a third of Americans’ drinking water got a skeptical reception in federal court Nov. 29.
EU Council Backs Lower POPs Limit on decaBDE Flame Retardants
Nov 29, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel

The European Council has agreed to slash by half the proposed concentration limit for toxic flame retardants, including decaBDE, in plastic toys made from recycled material.

Energy News

Time Running Short for 14 Energy Bills Still Before Senate
Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern

Fourteen Senate energy bills including one to use Energy Department computers to do veterans’ health research and one to lease parts of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve are heading for a committee vote, but Congress is running out of time to pass them this year.
EPA Signs MOU to Bolster Work with Oil and Gas Policy Review Group
Nov 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to bolster its work with the State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations (STRONGER) -- a collaboration between EPA, environmentalists, states and industry -- beyond the group's primary duty of reviewing...
NOAA Fisheries Expected to Advance Atlantic Exploration
Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Rob Hotakainen

In a long-awaited decision, the Trump administration today is expected to give the green light to five companies that want to take the first step in exploring for offshore oil and natural gas in the Atlantic Ocean.
U.S. Speeding Toward Net Export Status — Report
Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Kelsey Brugger

The U.S. is on track to produce more oil and gas than it can burn, according to a report yesterday from the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers.
Perry Calls for Energy Infrastructure Build-Out
Nov 29, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne

Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday that the United States needed to expand its energy infrastructure to meet the increasingly diverse sources of energy powering the nation.
U.S. Oil and Gas Reserves Surpass 1970 Record
Nov 30, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum

The United States has surpassed the 1970 record for proven oil and gas reserves, roughly doubling the amount of discovered petroleum in the ground in the past decade, the federal government said Thursday.
Conservative Oil State Trumps the President on Methane
Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow

President Trump has spent much of the past two years dismantling methane regulations governing oil and gas wells.
Booming LNG Industry Weighs Up Headwinds From Oil to Renewables
Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Shiryaevskaya

Liquefied natural gas may be one of the fastest-growing fossil fuels but that didn’t stop market participants spotting clouds on the horizon when they met on the first day of the CWC World LNG Summit in Lisbon.
Air Liquide Plans First Hydrogen-For-Energy Plant
Nov 29, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch

AIr Liquide is spending $150 million on what it says will be the world’s first large hydrogen plant dedicated to supplying the energy market. To be built in the western US for the California market, the plant will have the capacity to power 35,000 fuel-cell electric vehicles.

Chemical Security News

Chemours to Drastically Cut Non-Stick Toxics at N.C. Site
Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew M. Ballard

A Chemours Co. chemical manufacturing facility in North Carolina will have to nearly eliminate its air releases of the toxic compound GenX because the pollutant has been found to drift downwind and contaminate water.
Citgo Can’t Upend Majority of Awards Over Toxic Releases
Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes

Citgo Petroleum Corp. failed to upend the bulk of awards in favor of dozens of Louisiana residents for the negligent release of toxic substances during a 2006 flash flood.
DOJ to Cyber Criminals: 'We Can Catch You'
Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak

A barrage of hacking indictments released this week is part of a conscious effort to deter foreign hackers from prying into U.S. networks, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said at a cybersecurity event yesterday.

Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

D.C. Circuit Divided on Merits of States' Bid to Force EPA OTC Expansion
Nov 30, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker

Appellate judges at Nov. 28 oral argument appeared divided on the merits of Northeastern states' suit aiming to force EPA to expand the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) of states subject to stricter ozone reduction mandates, with two judges backing the agency's...
EPA Sends Final CSAPR 'Close-Out' Rule for OMB Review
Nov 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA on Nov. 27 sent its final Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) “close-out” determination for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) pre-publication review, the final step before publication of the determination that will absolve Eastern states...
Science Advisers Worry Ozone Review May Be Inadequate
Nov 29, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Alex Guillen

EPA is not giving its science advisers the tools they need to determine if new air quality standards for smog-forming ozone will adequately protect public health, several members of a key advisory committee said Thursday.
Carbon-Neutrality Backers Push Pennsylvania Toward Cap and Trade
Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas

Pennsylvania should consider an economywide greenhouse gas trading program that would make the state that’s the third largest source of the gases carbon neutral within 35 years, a coalition of environmental advocates, attorneys, and businesses said.
Lame-Duck Session Grounds Senators From Poland Climate Talks
Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott

Democratic senators who long have jetted to United Nations climate summits are grounded this year.
Belief in Global Warming Grows Despite Trump
Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Daniel Cusick

Climate change skepticism may be alive and well at the White House, but nearly 3 in 4 Americans believe there is "solid evidence" that global warming is occurring, according to new survey data released by Muhlenberg College and the University of Michigan.
Ocasio-Cortez to Join Bernie Sanders for Climate Change Town Hall
Nov 29, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Avery Anapol

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) will join Sen. Bernie Sanders(I-Vt.) next week for a town hall on climate change.
Trump’s ‘Energy Dominance’ Doctrine Is Undermined by Climate Change
Nov 29, 2018 | New York Times
By Lisa Friedman

It’s been a defining phrase of the Donald Trump presidency, “Energy dominance,” a doctrine that emphasizes the expansion of coal and oil production as well as the weakening of environmental regulations, including those that address climate change.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) EPA Recycling Summit Highlights Lack of National Responsibility

Nov 29, 2018 | Waste Dive

By Cole Rosengren

If all goes well, this year's America Recycles Day may be remembered as the one where the national conversation began to coalesce around a collective vision.
Or it will go down as the height of choreographed symbolism.
Earlier this month, many of the recycling world's biggest names came together in Washington, D.C. to affirm the industry's economic and environmental importance at the first-ever EPA Recycling Summit. Forty-four people signed a voluntary pledge in a photo-op with with Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. Then, an even larger group gathered in a cavernous oak-paneled meeting room for two hours of discussion. A large map of the U.S., a relic of the building's former Interstate Commerce Commission days, loomed fittingly overhead.
The event carried the weight of historic import — yet for all the fanfare, it drew limited media coverage. Beyond a short piece the day after, Waste Dive has also struggled to evaluate the proceedings. As tempting as it's been to write this non-binding pledge off as more theater than substance, the obvious significance assigned to gathering stakeholders together warrants more attention than the event has so far received.
The range of financial, political, social and regulatory connections among those in attendance is vast. In a country that lacks a national recycling policy, the various stakeholders' individual sense of responsibility in addressing current issues will prove key to whether this EPA pledge yields any tangible results.
The EPA
The EPA's role in helping to address the many structural changes in recycling that have taken place over the past year or more has at times been unclear. Many career staff have continued to attend conferences and remain engaged in ongoing dialogue, but direct actions have been limited. This event was seen as an opportunity for the agency to showcase its intent to play a larger role, albeit more than a year after China's scrap import restrictions upended the conversation last summer.
Wheeler sat in the center of it all, flanked by Acting Assistant Administrator of the Office of Land and Emergency Management Barry Breen and nominee for the post Peter Wright, to set the agenda. In keeping with President Trump's proclamation and recent framing in the EPA's latest Facts & Figures report, he emphasized the economic angle first and foremost. Wheeler also touched on common points — commodity market shifts, public education challenges, aging infrastructure, inconsistent measurement standards — before making clear how far EPA's jurisdiction actually extended.
“The issues we face are of national significance and will require collective action to successfully address them," he said, reading from prepared remarks. “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."
After about 20 minutes, Wheeler departed without taking questions or engaging in the dialogue.
The brands
Big name manufacturers have an interest in seeing their products recycled in order to maintain an image of environmental stewardship — and, in some cases, guarantee a steady stream of feedstock. However, they view themselves as only one part of the equation. Rather than an extended producer responsibility system for packaging, as exists in some other countries, they prefer a form of shared responsibility. A sizable chunk of that gets placed on the consumer.
The challenge there, as made clear at a morning session organized by Keep America Beautiful and Keurig Dr Pepper, is that even the most amenable consumers remain confused. Following a lecture on behavioral science, seven focus group participants shared their grievances and questions for about an hour as industry professionals listened.
While far from scientific, the range of comments showed how much work needs to be done if consumer education is considered the key to success. The most avid recyclers still admitted to being unsure of how the process worked, while others expressed outright distrust in the system.
“This is the first I’ve heard of the single stream recycling," said one.
“I love the environment as much as anybody, but I would still like to know what the purpose of all this is," said a self-proclaimed non-recycler. "It’s like we’re sheep.”
“You guys are making money and we’re sitting here going through all this effort," observed another occasional recycler.
During the EPA summit, Keep America Beautiful CEO Helen Lowman described this portion of the event as being the most compelling, reemphasizing the importance of consumer responsibility.
Others at the table representing companies that make the products in question struck a similar tone by taking various shares of responsibility upon themselves while still maintaining a healthy distance.
“Our consumers tell us one thing — and that is they look for us to give them sustainable products and packages," said Stephen Sikra, associate director of corporate R&D at Procter & Gamble. "While they’re buying our products because they want them to perform, they look to us to design it properly for proper recovery and proper recycling."
“Making it easy for customers is a very important step, and quite frankly it’s not easy enough right now. We have to make it easier as an industry and we have to design the right way and we have to tell the customer how to recycle in the right way," declared Zach Freeze, senior director of strategic initiatives for sustainability at Walmart.
“We know that packaging waste is a problem. It’s a global problem and we know our packages are contributing to that problem," said Ryan Guthrie, group director of federal government relations for Coca-Cola — which, like the others, has set its own future goals around packaging recyclability. Guthrie added that while his company is willing to invest significant marketing dollars to get the message out, responsibility would need to be shared by all in the room. "It’s good for our planet, it’s good for our communities, and frankly it’s good for business — and so we’re committed to it at Coca Cola."
The collectors and their customers
Recyclers — both public and private — struck a different tone. They have been steadfast in their insistence that recycling service needs a cost increase due to the modern logistics of collection and sorting. In municipalities that have "zero waste" or high diversion rate goals, those costs may become even higher.
“SWANA believes that the current market disruption caused by China’s waste import restriction imposes unique burdens on local governments, who are often stuck between vocal citizens that demand ever-increasing recycling goals and the practical reality of volatile commodity markets," said CEO David Biderman, adding that the organization "wants to move beyond pointing fingers at aspirational or confused citizens."
Later in the dialogue, Biderman also added, "Maybe we should stop thinking about chasing tons and we should be going after the right tons."
"China did not cause our market disruption, but it did expose a number of weaknesses in U.S. residential recycling, including a collection system that varies by community and is driven by local wishes instead of manufacturing demand," said ISRI President Robin Wiener.
The NWRA, representing private interests, took an even more direct line.
“I’ve heard a lot of the larger companies and entities in the room talk about making materials that are recyclable. Just because something is recyclable doesn't mean it has a market to be recycled," said CEO Darrell Smith. "It’s very commendable to make these products that can be recycled, but maybe try to work with the people that wind up with the stuff to try to find a market for it."
NWRA members Waste Management and Republic Services, the only two industry companies at the table, expressed similar sentiments — which echoed the messaging they've been delivering during earnings calls and conferences for the past year.
Brent Bell, Waste Management's vice president of recycling, listed off the standard statistics: an approximate average 25% contamination rate and the fact that 60% of what his company is currently collecting has no value. Republic's vice president of recycling, Pete Keller, emphasized the need to change municipal contract structures.
"Changing commodity markets, changing material streams, additional program recyclables — that’s the part of our business that’s broken," he said. "We’ve come to the realization very painfully that we can’t continue to live that way."
The question of what this financial pressure means for local governments was also front and center.
“We have recovered from crashes before and we can expect to recover again," said Southeast Recycling Development Council Executive Director Will Sagar, describing local governments as being at the "headwater of volatility." He added, "We need an intervention to provide stability for municipal collection programs and we have to approach the contamination problem."
The National Association of Counties, among others, expressed similar feelings. The Recycling Partnership, a corporate-backed nonprofit that assists state and local governments, expressed characteristic optimism while also emphasizing a sense of urgency.
“We can make measurable change between now and next year in those four areas. In fact, we have to. Communities cannot bear the cost burden of recycling alone. They look to the companies, to governments and to organizations like many of those in the room to help them — and help them we must," declared CEO Keefe Harrison. "And we must do it quickly, because if we do not, they will not survive this economic blip."
The back end
Also represented were a host of material-specific trade associations, investment groups and others that have a direct stake in what happens post-collection. They also had their own focal points, pushing for more clarity around infrastructure priorities and a new sense of how the conversation has been framed to date.
“There’s trillions of dollars in investment capital that could come into this sector that’s going into more linear models today and a lot of the capital is on the sidelines for a variety of reasons," said Bridget Croke, vice president of external affairs for Closed Loop Partners. “Investors don’t have a clear sense of the availability of good feedstock that is coming to bear."
“From an infrastructure perspective, we need to think about what is the future of packaging," said Sustainable Packaging Coalition Director Nina Goodrich. "We’re really focused on what we have today, and what we can recycle, but if we want to get ahead, and we want to lead, we need to work with those companies that are creating the future of packaging and understand how to create that infrastructure for tomorrow’s package."
"This is an exciting time to have this discussion, and I encourage flexibility and creativity as we think about the models that will take us into the future, [which] may not be the models that have brought us to where we are today." said Steve Russell, vice president of the American Chemistry Council's plastics division. “Nobody wants material to be wasted, nobody wants the environment contaminated by plastic or paper or aluminum or glass. We want to all do better."
The list went on, with further perspectives from paper, plastic, aluminum and other interests, before one penultimate comment brought a hint of skepticism to the proceedings.
"I think the one thing we are missing that is absolutely critical to our success is a shared vision of what the future looks like and why we want to get there. Not just how we get there," said Jeff Wooster, global sustainability director for Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics. “We’ve got to come up with a shared vision around recycling that really inspires each and every one of our companies — and each and every one of our organizations, and governments around the country, and individual citizens — to really take part in this process if we really want it to be successful. We can’t just keep doing the same education programs and the same things that we’ve been doing for the last 15 years and expect a different result."
What happens next?
Those last remarks raise an evergreen question about recycling in the U.S. today. When it means so many different things to so many different people — who all have different stakes in making it work, and different definitions of what making it works means — how can true progress be measured? When curbside recycling — largely the focus of the event — is often viewed in terms of profit rather than public utility, who sets the conditions and who reaps the benefits? When policy authority is largely deferred to state and local governments — which have a wide range of capabilities and authority themselves — where does the EPA fit in? When programs or products fall through the cracks, who is the last line of defense to catch them in an open market system?
Some of these questions may be addressed in further meetings and calls planned around the four key action areas for the months ahead. The hope is to reassemble with happier results to report for America Recycles Day 2019. In the meantime, EPA's Barry Breen did his best to sum it all up as the event concluded.
“We hope that together among ourselves and with others who are interested in joining over the next several months, we can develop a national action plan. Will it be perfect? No. But do we have a chance to wait and do nothing? Absolutely not," said Breen. "Doing nothing is not an option, because everybody signed that sheet that says you’ve going to do something."
https://www.wastedive.com/news/epa-recycling-summit-lack-of-national-responsibility/542482/

Return to headline | Return to top
(ACC Mentioned) US Specialty Chemicals Volumes Up in October: 3 Stocks to Buy

Nov 30, 2018 | Zacks

By Anindya Barman

The U.S. specialty chemical industry started the fourth quarter on a positive note with October seeing a rise in volumes, according to the latest report from the American Chemistry Council (“ACC”).
Positive October Readings
The Washington, DC-based chemical industry trade group said yesterday that U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes rose 0.3% in October on a monthly comparison basis. This follows a 0.4% gain a month ago and a 0.6% increase in August. The data changes are reported on a three-month moving average basis.
Of the 28 specialty chemical segments monitored by the ACC, 17 saw growth in October. During the reported month, large market volume growth (1% and over) was witnessed across foundry chemicals, lubricant additives and textile specialties.
Per the ACC, the overall specialty chemicals volume index went up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis in October. Volumes were driven by year over year growth in 22 markets and functional specialty chemical segments. Oilfield chemicals notched up the strongest growth with volumes climbing 16.6%. The index stood at 114.4% of its average 2012 levels in October, which is equivalent to 3.54 million metric tons.
Trade Tensions Cloud Prospects
Specialty chemical products are used based on their performance and have a specific purpose. They have application in the manufacturing process of a vast range of products including paints and coatings, cosmetics, petroleum products, inks and plastics.
The ACC envisions national chemical production (excluding pharmaceuticals) to rise 3.4% in 2018 and further gain steam with a 3.6% growth in 2019. The growth is expected to be spurred by higher demand across light vehicles and housing markets, an upswing in U.S. manufacturing, favorable shale gas economics, capital investments and strengthening export markets. The trade group expects improving industrial activities to contribute to the growth of the specialty chemicals segment.
However, the prospects of the industry of late are being clouded by escalating trade tensions between the United States and China. The Trump administration imposed tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods earlier this year that led to China retaliating with tariffs on American products of equal value. The U.S. administration, in September, also slapped a 10% tariff (slated to rise to 25% starting 2019) on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, thereby intensifying the trade tensions. In response, China hit back with tariffs on an additional $60 billion in American products.
Beijing’s list of U.S. goods hit with tariffs includes a wide range of chemicals. China is one of the biggest export markets for U.S. chemicals and thus, leaves the U.S. chemical industry heavily exposed to Beijing’s retaliatory trade actions. The tariffs have created an uncertain demand environment for U.S. chemical products in this major market.
Strategic Actions to Reap Margin Benefits
Companies in the specialty chemical space are also hamstrung by feedstock cost pressure. These companies face headwinds from a spike in costs of raw materials as a result of short supply partly due to production outages and plant shutdowns. China’s environmental crackdown has led to the tightening in the supply of certain key raw materials as a result of plant closures. The disruption in the supply chain has pushed up the prices of inputs.
However, the companies in this space are gaining from favorable demand in major end-use markets such as construction, electronics, automotive and agriculture as well as strategic measures including cost-cutting and productivity improvement, expansion into high-growth markets, operational efficiency improvement and earnings-accretive acquisitions.
Moreover, a number of companies including Ashland Global Holdings Inc. (ASH - Free Report) and W. R. Grace & Co. (GRA - Free Report) are taking aggressive price increase actions in the wake of raw material cost inflation. These actions should help them alleviate any pressure on margin.
Stocks Worth a Bet
Specialty chemical companies are bearing the brunt of trade tariffs and faces input cost pressure. However, strategic actions including expansion of scale through acquisitions and continued focus on cost and productivity should keep them afloat over the short haul. The favorable October volume data also augurs well for the specialty chemical industry.
We highlight the following three specialty chemical stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) that are worth considering for investment in the prevailing operating environment. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Ashland Global Holdings Inc.
Kentucky-based Ashland sports a Zacks Rank #1. It has expected earnings growth of 13.7% for the current fiscal year. Earnings estimates for the current year have been revised 2.8% upward over the last 60 days. The stock also has long-term expected earnings per share (EPS) growth of 10%.
Ingevity Corporation (NGVT - Free Report)
South Carolina-based Ingevity is another attractive choice. It carries a Zacks Rank #2 and has an expected earnings growth of 49.2% for 2018. The company delivered positive earnings surprise in each of the trailing four quarters, with an average positive surprise of 19.8%. Earnings estimates for the current year have been revised 3.5% upward over the last 60 days.
Celanese Corporation (CE - Free Report)
Texas-based Celanese carries a Zacks Rank #2. The company has expected earnings growth of 47.8% for 2018. Moreover, it delivered positive earnings surprise in each of the trailing four quarters, with an average positive surprise of 13.3%. Earnings estimates for the current year have been revised 5% upward over the last 60 days. The stock also has long-term expected EPS growth of 10%.

3 Medical Stocks to Buy Now
The greatest discovery in this century of biology is now at the flashpoint between theory and realization. Billions of dollars in research have poured into it. Companies are already generating revenue, and cures for a variety of deadly diseases are in the pipeline.
So are big potential profits for early investors. Zacks has released an updated Special Report that explains this breakthrough and names the best 3 stocks to ride it.
https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/340283/us-specialty-chemicals-volumes-up-in-october-3-stocks-to-buy

Return to headline | Return to top
Corporate Protections, Tariffs Dog Nafta 2.0 Push

Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Daily

By Geof Koss

A last-minute scramble by Republicans to secure a lame-duck vote on the successor treaty to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is expected to fall short, raising new doubts over the viability of the sweeping deal in the Democratic House next year.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the deal, dubbed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), will be signed this week when U.S., Mexican and Canadian officials gather for the Group of 20 summit in Argentina. But it's unclear when the administration will submit the deal or implementing legislation to Congress for approval.
Under fast-track trade authority, Congress can pass the deal by simple majorities in both chambers but must first submit the text of the agreement to lawmakers. Led by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), a handful of Republican senators last week urged President Trump to do so by the end of today, which they said could allow for passage in the current Republican-led Congress.
"We are concerned that if the administration waits until next year to send to Congress a draft implementing bill, passage of the USMCA as negotiated will become significantly more difficult," wrote the Republicans.
Toomey yesterday conceded that long-shot strategy was unlikely to work, noting that a 30-day mandatory delay before the House could vote on implementing legislation would mean lawmakers would have to return after Christmas to vote.
"It doesn't look like it," he told E&E News.
The delay will hand Democrats more leverage in shaping implementing legislation in the next Congress, which doesn't bode well for key industry-backed provisions, including the contentious investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process.
The draft deal struck this summer would retain but scale back the ISDS provisions contained in NAFTA, which allow multinational companies to challenge environmental and other safeguard protections in tribunals. Retention of ISDS was a top priority of U.S. energy interests but is soundly opposed by environmentalists (E&E Daily, Aug. 28).
In one famous case, TransCanada Corp. filed a $15 billion complaint against the U.S. government over President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline. That case was later dropped after Trump moved to allow the project to proceed.
Major environmental groups cited the retention of ISDS for oil and gas companies dealing with Mexico as one reason why they'll oppose USMCA.
"The deal takes a step forward in curtailing corporate rights, but then uniquely grants those rights to history's biggest climate polluters, while guaranteeing corporations an additional avenue to weaken environmental protections," wrote the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and other green groups.
They're expected to find a receptive audience in the new Democratic majority in the House, where likely Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has signaled she'll make climate change a central focus.
But it's not just environmentalists and liberals who have concerns with USMCA. Oil- and gas-friendly lawmakers want to see the ISDS provisions extended to cover smaller energy companies that are helping the major firms produce oil and gas in Mexico.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) is pressing for broadening the companies protected by ISDS in the deal through a "side agreement" with Mexico.
"Currently if you are Exxon and you are contracting with the Mexican government, you have ISDS, but Exxon can take care of themselves," he told E&E News this week. "What if you are the oil field service company that is working for Exxon, and you have to have a joint venture under Mexican law, and then Mexican law decides to kind of grab your goods from you? That's not fair, and those guys don't have the same recourse."
Additionally, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce this month led a host of business groups in urging the Trump administration to remove the contentious Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs from the deal. Continuing the tariffs will further complicate the deal's prospects for congressional approval, the groups wrote this month.
"Tariffs are taxes, both those imposed by the administration and those our trading partners apply," the groups wrote. "In the end, they will only hurt our long-term economic growth and competitiveness, reduce our overall output of goods and services, negate the benefits of tax reform and raise costs for American businesses and families throughout all 50 states."
Reporter Jeremy Dillon contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/11/30/stories/1060108283

Return to headline | Return to top
NAFTA 2.0 Is Being Signed This Week, but Will Congress Approve It?

Nov 29, 2018 | The Hill - Congress Blog

By Lori Wallach

After a year of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations, the United States, Canada, and Mexico are expected to sign a revised deal on Nov 30.
The NAFTA 2.0 text is not the transformational replacement of the corporate-rigged trade-pact model that progressive activists, unions and congressional Democrats have long demanded.ADVERTISEMENT
But if the incoming House Democratic majority and their progressive allies successfully fight to secure swift and certain enforcement of the pact’s new labor standards and other key improvements, then the final package Congress will vote on next year could stop some of NAFTA’s ongoing, serious damage.
And that is a worthy goal. Almost one million American jobs have been government-certified as lost to NAFTA, with more being outsourced to Mexico every week. Nearly $400 million already has been paid by North American taxpayers to corporations using NAFTA’s outrageous Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunals to attack the policies that protect our health and the environment.
ISDS grants multinational corporations rights to sue governments before a panel of three corporate lawyers that can award the corporations unlimited sums to be paid by taxpayers, including for the loss of expected future profits. NAFTA 2.0 largely eliminates the ISDS threat.
U.S.-Canada ISDS is terminated. ISDS with Mexico is replaced with a new approach that jettisons the extreme investor rights used to attack public interest policies and remedies key procedural concerns. (A problematic loophole preserves broad rights for nine U.S. oil and gas companies with contracts with Mexico’s Hydrocarbon Authority.)
The new text also eliminates provisions that forced countries to export natural resources they sought to conserve and restores U.S. rights to prohibit access for Mexican-domiciled trucks that do not meet U.S. environmental and safety standards.
It closes loopholes that granted NAFTA benefits to goods with significant value produced in China and other non-NAFTA countries. And, its benefits sets an important precedent by conditioning trade benefits on wage standards. How this Labor Value Content (LVC) requirement that 40 percent of the value of autos must be produced by workers paid $16 per hour or more to qualify for NAFTA will effect production location decisions remains unclear.
But, unless the new deal has strong labor and environmental standards that are subject to swift and certain enforcement, firms will continue to outsource U.S. jobs to Mexico to pay workers poverty wages, dump toxins and import their products back here for sale.
On this most critical measure, the NAFTA 2.0 text falls short.
Yes, the NAFTA 2.0 text includes terms that could eliminate the fake “protection” unions endemic in Mexico that lead to workers in new high-tech plants being paid $2 per hour. But absent greatly enhanced enforcement, such terms won’t improve North American workers’ lives.
Plus, Trump’s text has major new giveaways for Big Pharma that help them keep drug prices high by avoiding generic competition. These terms would lock in current U.S. policies that keep medicines outrageously expensive and export our bad system of protectionist drug company monopolies to Mexico and Canada.
So, what happens next? With Democrats regaining control of the House of Representatives, only a final NAFTA replacement package that preserves the NAFTA 2.0 text’s progress while addressing its flaws is likely to pass.
Congressional Democrats are well aware that Trump won in 2016 in no small part by focusing on people’s legitimate grievances with the devastation that U.S. trade policies have caused to communities nationwide. He exploited the infuriating reality that Democratic presidents have pushed NAFTA-style deals and been dismissive about the damage.
As a matter of policy and politics, progressives must not fall into the trap of conflating Trump’s isolationist withdrawal from the Paris Climate Treaty and other non-trade pacts with progressive opposition to job-killing, wage-suppressing, corporate-power-enhancing deals like NAFTA. That frame falsely posits neoliberalism as the alternative to Trump’s nationalism.
Rather, the test is whether a final NAFTA package puts the needs of working families first and stops some of NAFTA’s ongoing damage.
If NAFTA 2.0 does not measure up to that standard, it will face fierce opposition. Consider that the Trans-Pacific Partnership could not get through Congress in the year after it was signed despite both chambers being controlled by Republicans more favorably inclined to any and all trade deals.
Alternatively, if a final NAFTA package includes the improvements necessary to stop NAFTA’s ongoing job outsourcing and environmental damage, it would merit support even if its enactment were only a first step towards a truly new trade agreement model that could benefit all of us.
Lori Wallach is director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/418937-nafta-20-is-being-signed-this-week-but-will-congress

Return to headline | Return to top
Wheeler's Transparency Pledges Win Rare Praise Ahead of Confirmation

Nov 30, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Dave Reynolds

Acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler is winning praise from some environmentalists for recent pledges to improve transparency, including policies limiting political reviews of disclosures and mandating decisions be documented, measures that could aid his pending confirmation even as he faces criticisms over the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda.
"I don't know if the motivation here is to make Mr. Wheeler as appealing as possible for confirmation purposes," says Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). He notes that despite the new transparency policies, the agency is using the pledges in an effort to dismiss lawsuits and is continuing to roll back environmental protections.
Wheeler and Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson issued two separate memos to staff this month strongly backing government transparency, and pledging improvements in processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
In a Nov. 13 memo, Wheeler outlined a series of improvements, planned and already underway, to the agency's processing and disclosure of public information through FOIA and reiterated the need to comply with the Federal Records Act (FRA) by documenting decisions.
Days later, Jackson, in a Nov. 16 memo, placed limits on political officials' review of FOIA disclosures.
The memos mark only the latest indication of Wheeler's commitment to transparency, shortly after taking over as acting administrator -- following the resignation of former Administrator Scott Pruitt -- he issued his “fishbowl memo” principles for transparency in the agency's contact with the public, including rulemakings, litigation, responses to oversight requests and document releases, including several principles that echo a similar memo from Obama EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.
Such policies could help Wheeler as he prepares for hearings on his nomination as the agency's permanent administrator.
The latest memos appear aimed at reversing practices that may have been conducted by GOP and Democratic administrations though they had resulted in strong criticism against Pruitt, Wheeler's predecessor.
Environmentalists have opposed both practices and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the incoming chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, has suggested he may issue subpoenas to EPA to find out more about the FOIA reviews -- which were begun under the Obama administration -- and stop the practice.
In a Nov. 29 statement, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), the group which had sued to block the FOIA reviews, welcomed the new limits on political reviews as “good news,” but notes that the Trump administration cited Jackson's memo to support a motion to dismiss their lawsuit challenging the review process as conducted under Pruitt as violating FOIA.
The new policy “makes clear that the agency can’t use political reviews to hold up responses to [FOIA] requests,” EIP attorney Sanghyun Lee says in the statement.
“Our lawsuit, and several letters from . . . [Rep.] Cummings, cited evidence that these reviews were being used to block or delay responses to requests from environmental and public health organizations this administration doesn’t like very much,” he adds.
Heavy-Duty NOx
EIP's praise for EPA's action -- albeit limited -- marked the second time in the past few weeks that environmentalists have cautiously welcomed steps the acting administrator has taken.
Earlier this month, they cautiously welcomed his announcement that the agency plans to strengthen nitrogen oxide (NOx) standards for heavy-duty trucks, though they suggested they would closely scrutinize the “Cleaner Trucks Initiative” (CTI) to see how it balances the Trump administration deregulatory efforts and expected increases in NOx emissions from the sector.
“After nearly two years of taking it easy on polluters, the Trump administration’s EPA is proposing its first measure that could limit harmful air pollutants,” the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said. “We will be watching closely to make sure the agency follows through and actually mandates the needed cuts in these smog-forming compounds. There’s ample reason for skepticism.”
But NRDC lost its optimism Nov. 28 after Wheeler struggled to name three measures that would reduce air pollution.
During a Washington Post Live event, Wheeler cited the heavy-duty NOx plan, then sought to argue that Trump administration efforts to roll back Obama-era greenhouse gas rules for power plants and vehicles would reduce emissions.
NRDC's John Walke said on Twitter that Wheeler's “struggles to answer that question -- and his air pollution-increasing rollback responses -- confirm the Trump administration’s dirty air agenda.”
Noting Wheeler's plans to rollback the Obama-era clean power plan with a weaker alternative, Walke added, “[He cites one of EPA’s biggest rollbacks of clean air safeguards as one of his top 3 examples of Trump actions to reduce air pollution. Up is down, clear is brown.”
In a similar vein, environmentalists say they have yet to see changes in EPA headquarters' disclosure practices under FOIA as a result of the transparency pledges, and that the Trump administration is continuing to pursue an agenda that advocates say is contrary to the agency's core mission of protecting human health and the environment.
PEER's Ruch notes that EPA is still using the transparency memos in seeking to dismiss two pending lawsuits that challenge agency disclosure practices under Pruitt as unlawful. He adds that PEER has other pending FOIA suits seeking data that the agency has refused to provide.
Pending Lawsuits
The two lawsuits EPA is seeking to dismiss are EIP's litigation challenging the Trump administration's use of so-called “awareness reviews” as blocking or delaying disclosures under FOIA, as well as a separate suit filed by PEER and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) alleging the agency has failed to create adequate records of decisions, including verbal commitments, in violation of the FRA.
EPA is seeking to dismiss both cases, which are pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
In the Nov. 13 memo to EPA staff, Wheeler outlines a series of steps that the agency has taken to improve its FOIA responses, including dedicating 12 employees to reducing a backlog of requests in the administrator's office,
centralizing FOIA review and management, and hiring additional staff for processing requests.
In a nod to the CREW and PEER lawsuit alleging violations of the FRA, Wheeler says that agency employees must document the formulation of all policies and decisions. “It is particularly important that all employees understand that the [FRA] requirements apply to oral communications,” Wheeler adds. “All substantive decisions and commitments reached orally should be documented.”
Justice Department (DOJ) attorneys cited Wheeler's remarks on the FRA in a Nov. 14 filing in the case, CREW et al. v. Wheeler, calling the memo “directly relevant” to the agency's pending motion to dismiss the lawsuit as moot, or alternatively, for summary judgment.
Plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in February alleging Pruitt failed to adequately create and preserve records in violation of the FRA, and citing news reports that the former administrator and other senior officials gave verbal orders and directed staff to avoid creating a record for certain decisions.
Days later, DOJ cited the Jackson memo that places a limit on political “awareness reviews” of FOIA disclosures and requires disclosure, in seeking to dismiss the case, EIP et al. v. EPA, which is seeking to compel disclosure of data on Pruitt's travel expenses, but also calls for an end to the awareness review process.
Plaintiffs allege that the awareness reviews conducted under Pruitt caused unlawful delays of FOIA disclosures deemed “politically charged” or potentially embarrassing to the Trump administration. But DOJ in a Nov. 20 filing reiterated its prior motion to dismiss the case, arguing that the issuance of the new policy makes the lawsuit moot.
In a Nov. 29 statement, EIP says its suit helped drive the new policy. “The move decreases the politicization of the FOIA process at EPA,” EIP says. “Those decisions are now properly the responsibility of EPA’s FOIA team, which is made up of civil servants. The FOIA team must also release records at the end of that three-day period regardless of whether the request has actually been reviewed.”
But PEER's Ruch says that Wheeler's commitment to transparency in the Nov. 13 memo has yet to result in greater disclosures, at least from FOIA requests filed with agency headquarters. “It depends on whether they actually implement” the principles and practices outlined in the memo, he said of the potential effect of the memo.
Ruch said that in addition to the FRA litigation filed with CREW, PEER has two other pending FOIA lawsuits in response to delays in EPA disclosures. One lawsuit is seeking a draft risk assessment of formaldehyde, and the other seeks documents on the amount of radiation allowed in drinking water after a nuclear release.
While PEER continues to seek documents in those cases, Ruch questioned Wheeler's plan outlined in the memo to devote additional staff to processing FOIA requests, rather than hiring more criminal investigators or filling other positions that more directly help carry out the agency's primary mission of protecting human health and the environment.
And while noting that Wheeler's Nov. 13 memo calls for additional employees to support FOIA response, as opposed to putting those resources toward other agency priorities, Ruch noted that EPA will likely soon face information requests from the incoming House Democratic majority, and that those requests will also take up resources
https://insideepa.com/weekly-focus/wheelers-transparency-pledges-win-rare-praise-ahead-confirmation

Return to headline | Return to top
Manchin Tightens Grip on Top Democratic Energy Committee Slot

Nov 30, 2018 | PoliticoPro

By Zack Colman and Anthony Adragna

Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) appeared close to clinching the top Democratic slot on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee as other senior party members staked their claims on other powerful roles.
None of the three committee members with greater seniority — Sens. Ron Wyden(D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) — have voiced interest this week in giving up positions on other panels where they lead their caucus.
"I like where I am. I like the Agriculture Committee," Stabenow told reporters on Thursday.
Manchin had indicated earlier he expected Stabenow to remain at the Ag Committee and Sanders to keep his ranking position at the Budget Committee.
"That’s where his forte is," Manchin said.
Sanders has said he planned to retain the Budget Committee spot, and Wyden is also expected to keep his ranking position at the Finance Committee.
Current Energy ranking member Maria Cantwell (Wash.) told reporters Thursday she had not felt any pressure to stay in her current role, and she downplayed concerns from green groups and progressives about Manchin taking that role.
“Last I checked the Senate’s still going to be a very closely divided body, so I’m not worried about any legislation that would pass,” she said. “I think people are more just, 'How do we get things done that we want to get done?' The same challenges exist either way.”
That would leave greens opposed to Manchin taking the ranking member slot with only a long-shot chance at convincing Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to persuade a Democrat with less seniority than the West Virginian to step in the spot. Green groups have floated organizing a letter or grassroots protests, but those efforts are still only in the planning stages.
Manchin’s resistance to efforts to combat greenhouse gases and his strong support for coal have made him an outlier in his party. But the freshly reelected senator said he hasn’t personally heard concerns from outside groups or other lawmakers.
“I don’t know how I’d be that great of a threat to anybody,” he said, adding he’d meet with any constituents wary of his potential ascension to ranking member.
When told some environmental groups voiced opposition, Manchin responded: “Tell them to please come talk to me. If you talk to them, tell them Sen. Manchin is open.”
“I don’t even know who they are,” he responded to a suggestion that he could reach out to those organizations.
Some opponents have floated the possibility that Schumer could elevate Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) — who has broad support among the environmental community — above the more senior Manchin. Heinrich told POLITICO Thursday he’d be interested if the slot was available, but didn’t wade into the Manchin debate.
“I don’t really tend to talk about our leadership machinations, but absolutely, that’s a committee I think is important and requires good leadership,” he said.
Manchin also said deviating from a seniority-based system would “break all the rules in the Senate on the Democrat side.”
“Our system works as a pecking order,” he said. “If I’m in the pecking order, I’m in the pecking order. If I’m not, I’m not.”
Sanders, for his part, told reporters Thursday that “I’m staying on the Budget Committee,” where he is currently the ranking member. He parried questions that eschewing the Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member job — and clearing the way for Manchin to take it — would hurt Democrats' efforts to focus on climate change.
“I think [climate change is] something the Democratic Caucus might want to deal with,” he said.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/11/manchin-tightens-grip-on-top-democratic-energy-committee-slot-1000527

Return to headline | Return to top

LCSA News

(ACC Mentioned) EPA Chemicals Office Nominee Dunn Headed for Swift Confirmation

Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Tiffany Stecker

President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the EPA’s chemical safety and pesticides office could be confirmed as early as next week, according to the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, who currently leads the Environmental Protection Agency’s New England regional office, could be confirmed to serve as assistant administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention under unanimous consent by the Senate, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told reporters Nov. 29.
Dunn has until Dec. 3 to answer questions from the committee. If there are no objections—and Barrasso doesn’t expect any—her nomination will go straight to the Senate floor and bypass a vote from environment panel members.
“There does seem to be bipartisan support” for Dunn, Barrasso said.
Before her appointment to be an EPA regional administrator, Dunn served as executive director and general counsel of the Environmental Council of the States, an organization of state regulators, and taught environmental law. She also headed the Association of Clean Water Administrators, which represents state water pollution control officials, served as general counsel for the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, which represents publicly owned water and wastewater utilities, and was an attorney at the American Chemistry Council.
‘No Michael Dourson’
But her biggest asset, according to panel Democrats, was having a different background from her predecessor. The last nominee for the position, Michael Dourson, went through an acrimonious confirmation hearing in which Senators accused him of being paid by companies to downplay chemical risks. Dourson, a toxicologist, dropped out of the confirmation process after it became clear he wouldn’t receive enough votes in the Senate for confirmation.
“You are clearly no Michael Dourson,” committee ranking member Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) told Dunn during her hearing.
Dunn was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as assistant administrator of the EPA’s chemicals office Aug. 31. She deflected when asked to take a strong stance on many of the top issues facing the chemicals office, saying she would commit to meeting with EPA employees to learn more about the issues.
“My first priority will be to connect with the EPA staff,” she said in her opening statement.
The chemicals office implements the Toxic Substances Control Act, the nation’s primary chemicals law, which was significantly updated in 2016. The agency is re-evaluating the health and environmental risks of 10 old chemicals in a more rigorous assessment under the updated law.
The EPA has repeatedly missed its legal deadlines for approving new chemicals before coming to market.
“I commit to implementing the law, following the law, and bringing all provisions of the law to the full effect,” Dunn told senators.
She also said she would work to complete a national plan to address perfluorinated chemicals, substances used in nonstick coatings that have been found in drinking water near chemical manufacturing plants and military bases. The chemicals have been linked to a number of cancers, immune system problems, and thyroid concerns.
Don’t Assume EPA is Welcome
Dunn also said she would leave much of the enforcement authority to states.
“We don’t just assume that EPA is welcome” to take over authority on enforcing environmental violations from states she said, describing her philosophy as a regional administrator.
Senators also peppered Dunn with questions on the potentially fatal paint stripper methylene chloride, asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls in fluorescent lights in schools, and farmworker protection rules to shield agricultural workers from pesticide exposure.
The Trump administration will soon propose to roll back a number of provisions from the Obama administration’s 2015 Worker Protection Standard rule, including a minimum age of 18 for farmworkers to apply pesticides.
“I will immediately find out the status of the [worker standards] rulemakings and get back to you,” Dunn told Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-chemicals-office-nominee-dunn-headed-for-swift-confirmation

Return to headline | Return to top
Senate GOP Eyes Speedy Confirmation for Dunn After TSCA Pledges

Nov 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Maria Hegstad

Senate Republicans are eying a speedy confirmation for Alexandra Dunn, President Donald Trump's second nominee to lead EPA's toxics office, after a confirmation hearing where Democrats welcomed public and private pledges the nominee has made though they signaled they still need additional commitments before allowing the nomination to advance.
Senate environment committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY) told reporters after the Nov. 29 hearing that his “goal” is to try to approve Dunn's nomination on the floor by unanimous consent as soon as next week, as long as members have no concerns with Dunn's pending answers to written follow-up questions.
“There does seem to be significant bipartisan support,” Barrasso said, citing comments from Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE), the committee's ranking member, and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
While those two senators praised Dunn, they -- and others -- also raised concerns about the Trump administration's implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and signaled they may need additional commitments before allowing a vote.
Dunn, who has served as EPA Region 1 administrator since last year and has a lengthy resume in the environmental policy field, is the second Trump nominee to lead EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. The first nominee, Michael Dourson, a toxicologist, was blocked by Democrats and a handful of Republicans concerned about his support for industry.
At the hearing, Democrats largely praised Dunn but raised numerous concerns with the Trump EPA's implementation of the 2016 reform of TSCA.
For example, Whitehouse praised Dunn's knowledge of TSCA and its recent legislative reform, saying that she is well-placed to implement it. He added that he “will count on her to resist improper interference with her work.”
And Carper said in his opening statement, “from what I know of Ms. Dunn’s professional reputation, she does not lack objectivity or credibility.”
But Carper also said he is seeking a commitment from Andrew Wheeler, the agency's acting chief who is slated to be nominated for the top slot, that he will give Dunn “authority and support” to implement the program in a way more acceptable to Democrats.
Carper blasted the Trump EPA's implementation of TSCA reform to date, saying “there is almost no element of EPA’s TSCA implementation efforts that has the vote of confidence of anyone at all,” and noting the lawsuits that environmental groups have brought against the Trump EPA's final implementation rules.
Carper said the Trump EPA “appears to have broken the new law repeatedly, subjecting itself to litigation that I -- along with many others -- believe the Administration will likely lose.”
He noted that in a private meeting with Dunn, she had said she wants to change the dynamic, though he questioned whether she would have “the authority and support from the rest of the political leadership.”
Carper said that if Dunn is given such support, she could likely “be confirmed in short order,” but he warned that if not, “then your nomination could be pending for some time.” He further warned that “we’ll also be looking to Acting Administrator Wheeler for some specific commitments that will make possible a real change in direction for EPA’s chemical safety efforts.”
NAS Review
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) also sought a commitment from Dunn that the agency would have the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) review the toxics office's approach for conducting systematic reviews -- a nascent approach to addressing environmental health questions, intended to increase the rigor of the analyses as well as their transparency.
While EPA's research office has begun using the approach, the toxics office recently released its own white paper on the subject that has been sharply criticized, including by researchers who are experts in the field.
Such a request has precedent for delaying a confirmation. Former Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) blocked President Barack Obama's first nominee to lead EPA's research office, Paul Anastas, until EPA agreed to contract with NAS to peer review the 2010 draft of agency's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of formaldehyde's human health risks.
“I appreciate your work in New England. But you could take over the toxics office, or you could be taken over,” Markey told Dunn. “That's gonna be the challenge. So far, I am completely unsatisfied with what has happened. . . . You are the one person that could finally step up, and tell the politicians in that office to get out of the way.”
Dunn appeared to stop short of agreeing to the NAS review Markey sought, saying that she would like to “learn why we may not be using the Academy right now. I have worked with the Academy before; they are an excellent entity. I will commit to getting back to you on whether that is a possibility.”
In a similar vein, Dunn told Carper that if confirmed, her first steps would be to “immediately hold open door hours with the career staff at EPA. I want to find out where they are being listened to, how they are being treated, how their decisions are being valued by the team. . . . I have learned from working at EPA New England that the career staff are experts . . . they have great recommendations, they work hard.”
Dunn added that she also intended to include staff in her briefings, saying it is how she operates. She also told Carper that she wants “prioritize the workload that we have,” noting the reformed TSCA's many deadlines for risk evaluations and other actions.
“We have three years of work that has occurred under the reauthorized law. We have more things happening in 2019. I'd like to work closely with you and your colleagues to find out where EPA can make the most impactful changes to the work that has occurred,” Dunn said.
“Do we need look backward or do we need look forward? And I am wiling to do both, but I think we have to prioritize which direction to go. So I intend . . . to take a very, very comprehensive look at the workload and prioritize the tasks that we need to implement.”
Dunn also committed to “maintaining regular contact both with this committee and also certainly members of the house who were passionate about this statute to hear firsthand about what you expected.”
TSCA Assessments
But she appeared to sidestep a request from Carper for EPA to consider all uses when assessing existing chemicals for possible regulation, a controversial issue as the Trump EPA argues it has discretion to decide which uses to consider.
Carper reminded Dunn about a letter she wrote last year in which she stated the reformed TSCA requires all uses of chemical to be evaluated. Carper asked if she still agreed with the statement.
While it is not clear which letter Carper referenced, Dunn, when she served as executive director of the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), signed a letter stating that TSCA “requires U.S. EPA to evaluate all conditions of use including all forms and pathways of use, disposal, combustion, reuse, recycling and reprocessing.”
“If confirmed, I commit to implementing the law, following the law, and bringing all the provisions of the law to full effect,” Dunn replied.
Similarly, Whitehouse said that in the Trump EPA's toxics office, “there has been an unnecessary and unjustified narrowing of the exposure pathways included in the TSCA risk evaluations.” He asked Dunn whether she would “review what has been done before you and come to your own conclusions on what those should be?”
Dunn replied, “I understand this is an issue of great concern. I commit to being fully briefed, [on] how and why taking the approach that we have been taking and finding out whether there are alternate approaches that we could implement.”
Markey also questioned Dunn about the current draft of the IRIS formaldehyde assessment, reminding her that he has requested the draft document's release from both Wheeler and Trump's first EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, but it has yet to be made public.
Markey asked Dunn to commit to releasing the assessment “within the month you are confirmed.”
Dunn replied that she would “immediately find out the status of the formaldehyde work, why it is not completed along the time frame that you had heard it should be and getting right back to you what time frame it will be on.”
Markey warned Dunn that “if it is completed, I expect it to get released.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/senate-gop-eyes-speedy-confirmation-dunn-after-tsca-pledges

Return to headline | Return to top

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Ill. Democrats Seek Reform in Wake of Toxic Emissions Uproar

Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Daily

By Sean Reilly

Following an outcry over emissions from several Chicago-area plants, some Illinois lawmakers are seeking to upgrade key government programs for gauging the potential dangers of hazardous chemicals.
EPA would have to ramp up the frequency of its National Air Toxics Assessments and ensure the results of the Integrated Risk Information System chemical evaluations are accessible to state and local health agencies. This is just one of several changes proposed in legislation introduced yesterday by five Democratic members of the state's congressional delegation.
The bill, which would also authorize a hefty amount of new spending, "will ensure that the EPA utilizes the best available scientific data to evaluate chemicals in a transparent and methodical manner and communicate their findings with appropriate federal, state and local officials," Rep. Bill Foster, the lead sponsor of H.R. 7189, said in a statement.
The air toxics assessments, which calculate concentrations of hazardous pollutants and the accompanying risk down to the census tract level, are now released every three years. Foster's bill would set a two-year timetable.
The bill also strives to improve coordination between EPA and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a branch of the Health and Human Services Department that responds to environmental health emergencies.
In all, it would allow up to $110 million in spending to help pay for the proposed changes. Other House sponsors are Reps. Brad Schneider and Dan Lipinski; a Senate version has been introduced by Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin.
The legislation comes after reported releases of a cancer-causing chemical known as ethylene oxide from several sterilization and chemical facilities caused an uproar. One of those plants, run by Sterigenics International LLC, has ties to outgoing Gov. Bruce Rauner (R); critics have accused EPA of failing to promptly inform area residents of the potential dangers.
Under separate legislation introduced earlier this week by the same group of lawmakers, EPA would have to set new Clean Air Act standards for ethylene oxide emissions. The agency would also have to let the public know within 30 days of any violations.
"This is about our public health, and we need action now," Schneider, the lead sponsor of H.R. 7179, said in a release. Durbin is the lead sponsor of S. 3671, the Senate counterpart.
Neither measure has a chance of movement in the current lame-duck session but could be reintroduced next year when Democrats will control the House. The legislation also contrasts to Republican attempts to undercut IRIS.
Last year, for example, GOP Senate appropriators unsuccessfully sought to end funding for the program, which assesses the risk posed by toxic chemicals.
This summer, the House Science, Space and Technology Committee approved H.R. 6468 by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), which would shift the assessment process from IRIS chemical experts to EPA employees in various program offices. Biggs' bill has not advanced further.
Although Republicans say IRIS does sloppy work, a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine this spring found the program had made substantial progress in adopting previously recommended changes (E&E News PM, April 11).
Last week, EPA said it may have overstated emissions of ethylene oxide at the Sterigenics plant, which sterilizes medical instruments (Greenwire, Nov. 26).
The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, also contends the agency's latest air toxics assessment exaggerates the perils posed by the widely used chemical. In September, the council formally petitioned for a "correction" (Greenwire, Sept. 25).
In an email, an ACC spokeswoman yesterday said the group has not received a response, but it opposes any use of the "significantly flawed" IRIS value for ethylene oxide "in EPA regulatory actions."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/11/30/stories/1060108291

Return to headline | Return to top
In California, Houses Burned. So Did the Toxic Chemicals They Contained.

Nov 29, 2018 | New York Times

By Sarah Maslin Nir

The long, laborious process of returning Paradise and neighboring towns to a safe state will begin next month when crews in masks, Tyvek suits and booties begin combing through every last property in this town that was decimated by wildfire. Their targets are things like burned bottles of bleach, melted cans of paint, and corroded car batteries, which will be tagged and removed.
Next, they will test the surrounding soil and, if needed, scrape away layers to get to clean earth, free from oil and gasoline. “You’d be surprised how much of that stuff survives a fire,” said Adam W. Palmer, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control who is helping lead the cleanup.
In the charred footprint of each home in Paradise lurks an invisible and dangerous legacy of the Camp Fire: toxic chemicals released by the blaze. There may be radioactive isotopes from burned-up antique crockware, cupboards of incinerated household cleaners, and asbestos from old siding. Heavy metals, chemicals and biological contaminants left behind demand a cleanup of extraordinary scale, before any permanent return to Paradise is safe, according to the department.
Only once the properties have received official signoff that they have been cleansed can residents begin rebuilding. The task will take time; cleanup is still not finished in the aftermath of the Tubbs Fire, which scorched Sonoma, Napa Valley, and other parts of Northern California over a year ago. The Camp Fire destroyed more than three times as many buildings than did the Tubbs Fire.
“It’s a godawful mess; there is just such a long list of hazardous materials that are partially burned and scattered about in the debris after a fire,” said Dr. Gina Solomon, a professor at University of California, San Francisco, who studies the effect of chemicals on health.
On Wednesday, Kory L. Honea, the Butte County Sheriff, announced that next week, residents may be allowed to return to certain sections of the town in phases providing there were no “setbacks,” like inclement weather, which can lead to mudslides. On Thursday, a rainstorm forced the sheriff to order the evacuation of roads outside Paradise because of the threat of mudslides.
Still, it is not safe for people to sift through the debris for any possessions to salvage until toxic waste is cleared. At the Red Cross shelter at the Butte County Fairgrounds in nearby Gridley, organizers have held off distributing the free tool kits — a shovel, a pair of gloves, a dust mask — they typically give to victims to help dig through the ruins for items that might have been spared, at the local government’s request, said Steve Walsh, a spokesman.
“There is still too much risk to go looking for your wedding ring,” he said.
Experts say the risk posed by contamination stands to grow in scope as wildfires happen more frequently in California. As the fires burn up homes, they also release the components of modern daily life into the ground, water and atmosphere.
“People focus on the immediate effects of a fire, which are tragic and important,” Dr. Solomon said. “But there are all kinds of ripple effects that flow from these events, ranging from the enormous respiratory and cardiac effects from the plumes of smoke, and all the way to the aftermath of the toxic chemicals that are left behind.”
Contamination has slowed recovery. Huddled in messy shelters at local fairgrounds, or holed up in motels, thousands of residents are anxious to start sifting through what is left of their town, but officials say they cannot fully reopen until the areas are made safer.
Just under 200 people are still declared missing, and search crews are combing the area looking for remains, slowing the ability of cleaning crews to enter. Hazardous material removal teams from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, in conjunction with other state and federal agencies, will begin the process of clearing out the most dangerous toxic materials on Dec. 3.
Even then, it will take time until the area is deemed safe.
Many of the homes in Paradise were older, with roofs that may have been shingled in asbestos, filled with treated wood that can release arsenic and chromium when burned. An incinerated television can expose heavy metals such as cadmium and lead. Even seemingly innocuous items, such as collectible antique Fiestaware crockery, may contain radioactive uranium. Mercury can leak from old thermometers.
“We understand the desire to physically go and see if their home or property is gone,” said Lisa Almaguer, the spokeswoman for Butte County Public Heath. “But if the breeze comes through and that ash and debris blow through that window and doors and gets on your clothes — it’s a health and safety issue.”
The agency has issued a hazard warning for residents not to live on or camp out in their destroyed property, even once the town is reopened.
“When can I go home?” asked Gregory Ghica, at a recent disaster relief meeting at the Silver Dollar Fairground in Chico. His house was spared, but when Paradise might be safe to reinhabit was unknown. “I should be happy, but I have slept in six different beds,” Mr. Ghica said. “When? When?”
The dangers will take painstaking work to mitigate. “That ash could contain a lot of toxic hazards,” said Linda Smith, the chief of the health and exposure assessment branch of the California Air Resources Board. Risks from exposure to various chemicals found at burn sites range from acute reactions to more serious, long-term problems, with much unknown. “Even a few fibers of asbestos could be a health impact,” Dr. Smith said.
“We don’t know the magnitude of the contamination that was produced in this urban burning, because it was unprecedented,” said Jackson Webster, a professor who studies wildfires’ impact on water systems at California State University in Chico, a town near Paradise.
On a recent evening, Professor Webster stood on the blackened banks of Butte Creek, scooping up sample jugs of water. He is part of a project with a consortium of universities studying the contaminants that wildfires release into the watershed. Of particular concern, he said, was the site of this fire: Paradise sits in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, where cities as far away as Los Angeles get their water.
“That landscape is the landscape that provides high-quality drinking water for the rest of the state,” Professor Webster said.
Crews are currently installing wattles — bundles of straw — along water bodies in an attempt to block the seepage of contaminants. But with recent rains, many chemicals are still flowing and the cleanup work has become even more challenging.
“The firefighters are doing heroes’ work,” Dr. Solomon said, “but these hazardous materials workers are doing heroes’ work for sure too — it’s just less visible.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/us/california-fire-chemicals.html

Return to headline | Return to top
3M, Dupont Tussle Over Lawsuit on Cancer-Linked Chemicals

Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Tiffany Kary

Creating a massive lawsuit over cancer-linked chemicals found in around a third of Americans’ drinking water got a skeptical reception in federal court Nov. 29.
A panel of seven judges in Manhattan repeatedly asked whether cases across the U.S. should be consolidated, given that they may have dealt with different “delivery mechanisms,” or ways the chemicals got into water. The court heard arguments from more than 20 lawyers over whether to consolidate more than 70 lawsuits over firefighting foams into a single case—and whether to add others regarding pollution alleged near manufacturing sites.
3M Co., a maker of the chemicals, and Tyco Fire Products LP and Chemguard Inc., which have used them in firefighting foams, asked to consolidate the cases. DowDuPont Inc., which as DuPont used the chemicals to make Teflon, and its spinoff Chemours Co. are fighting against merging the litigation. They argue that such a large lawsuit would be “unprecedented and unwieldy,” given allegations the chemical is in 99 percent of the U.S. population. Plaintiffs—including towns, water districts and people with personal-injury claims—are split on consolidating the litigation.
“The delivery mechanisms are different,” Andrew Carpenter, a lawyer for DuPont and Chemours, told the panel.
Douglas Garrou, a lawyer for Georgia-Pacific LLC, which also doesn’t want consolidation, agreed. “Yes, it does matter what this chemical was contained in,” he said. For the paper maker, he said, the allegations are that oil and grease-resistant papers treated with the chemicals were improperly disposed of in landfills. In other cases, claims are over airborne pollution or disposal in rivers.
Municipal Water
At stake are potentially billions of dollars of claims against companies over a class of thousands of similar chemicals, known as PFAS.
If the lawsuits fail, municipal drinking-water systems across the country could have to pay for filters to screen out PFAS, as some states tighten regulations and the Environmental Protection Agency debates new rules. If the lawsuits succeed, they could shake up supply chains.
Besides being used to make electronics and the nonstick coating Teflon, the chemicals are in a wide range of household products, such as stain-repellent carpets, waterproof clothing, and fast-food packaging.
Immune System
The cases could even determine whether new evidence exists of links between PFAS and cancers or damage to the immune system, as many lawsuits claim. One case from a firefighter, which seeks a class action on behalf of everyone with PFAS in their blood—an estimated 99 percent of the population—asks the courts to order a health study of exposed people.
The panel said Nov. 29 it would rule later through a court filing.
Tyco and Chemguard face suits saying that their firefighting foams—known as AFFFs, or aqueous film-forming foams—contaminated groundwater with PFAS through use at airports and military bases. The companies asked to consolidate the suits in district court in Massachusetts or Manhattan.
3M, which sold PFAS for use in the AFFFs and uses them in its own products, including Scotchgard—was named as a co-defendant in many lawsuits. It wants to consolidate 15 of them with the AFFF cases, citing common questions, such as whether “scientifically reliable evidence” exists that connects PFAS to human health problems and whether federal or state governments knew about risks associated with the firefighting foams.
Health Study
DuPont and Chemours said the firefighter’s request for a health study make that case “fundamentally different” from the monetary claims sought in some of the firefighting foam litigation. They have already lost some suits over the chemicals, after such a study was done and weighed by a judge.
The two companies together paid $671 million to settle thousands of personal-injury suits in a Columbus, Ohio, court. The rulings came after a similar study was done on people exposed to one of the chemicals, PFOA, which got into the water around a plant in West Virginia. The study monitored affected residents over time and concluded that PFOA was linked to six diseases, including kidney cancer, testicular cancer, and ulcerative colitis.
Both companies say they also oppose consolidation because such a “mega” multidistrict litigation would “only increase the complexity, delay and inefficiencies” of the suits.
Which Court?
Arguments were also made Nov. 29 over which court should handle any consolidated case. 3M wants a joint suit to be heard by Judge Kenneth Karas in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York or by Judge Denise J. Casper of the District of Massachusetts. The firefighter wants his case assigned to Chief Judge Edmund Sargus of the Southern District of Ohio, who ruled against DuPont and Chemours in the cases that led to the $671 million settlement.
3M phased out some types of PFAS by 2002, while other companies, including DuPont, did so later. Because the most-studied types of PFAS don’t degrade, they are still found in sites where they were disposed of decades ago.
The case is In Re Aqueous Film-Forming Foams (AFFF) Products Liability Litigation, MDL, J.P.M.L., No. 2873, 11/29/18.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/3m-dupont-tussle-over-lawsuit-on-cancer-linked-chemicals

Return to headline | Return to top
EU Council Backs Lower POPs Limit on decaBDE Flame Retardants

Nov 29, 2018 | Chemical Watch

By Clelia Oziel

The European Council has agreed to slash by half the proposed concentration limit for toxic flame retardants, including decaBDE, in plastic toys made from recycled material.
On 28 November, the Council endorsed an amendment adopted by the European Parliament to lower the limit to 500ppm for the cumulative sum of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), a category of flame retardants which include decaBDE, in mixtures and articles.
The new threshold is half the level initially proposed in Parliament, but still significantly higher than what NGOs had campaigned for.
The Council's decision comes as part of a recast of the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) Regulation, which the Council approved this week. The EU Parliament adopted the recast on 15 November, but rejectedan amendment seeking a 1,000ppm limit on the combined flame retardants.
NGOs had suggested a more protective standard of up to 50ppm, after a major study found flame retardants in plastic toys and other articles made from recycled electronic waste.
But British independent MEP and rapporteur Julie Girling, who tabled the original amendment, argued that European plastics recyclers handling electronics or end-of-life vehicles would be hit hard if the limit was much lower.
The Council added a review clause to PBDEs, which requires the European Commission to assess their related effects on health and on the environment two years after the entry into force of the POPs Regulation.
It also agreed with Parliament on a derogation for decaBDE use in aeroplanes, motor vehicles, and electric and electronic equipment.
The Council's position on POPs follows "intensive discussions", a spokesperson said. The Austrian presidency will now start negotiations with Parliament and the Commission, with a first meeting scheduled for 4 December.‘Insufficient’
The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) said the Council's decision on decaBDE and other similar flame retardants "is an improvement" from the initial proposal "although not sufficient to protect people's health and the environment".
The derogations "are not well founded", the EEB argued, and rubber stamp automotive industry’s demands "without proper scrutiny".
The International POPs Elimination Network (Ipen) said the reduction in the PBDE concentration limit was "a partial victory".
"Lax limits" and derogations have already led to the contamination of recycled plastic products, "so we hope that this further reduction will be followed by additional measures to forever end the practice of toxic recycling," said Ipen campaign manager Sara Brosché.
Meanwhile Czech NGO Arnika, also a member of the EEB network, said the limit on PBDEs is a "fairly good compromise". Consumer campaigns coordinator Karolina Brabcova said she was disappointed, however, that the Council did not lift recycling exemptions of 1,000ppm for octa- and penta-BDE.SCCPs
For the controversial issue of short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) the Council agreed with Parliament's view for a concentration limit of 10,000ppm. NGOs had called for a 100ppm limit.
The limit is "outrageously high", said Ms Brabcova. A 1,000ppm would have been feasible, she added, saying campaign efforts on this issue will continue with some member states keen to revisit the values.
Elsewhere, the Council also endorsed the Commission's proposal to transfer new tasks to Echa to oversee the POPs Regulation. This is expected to reduce the overall costs and to increase the scientific knowledge available for implementation, it said.

Earlier in November a group of NGOs called for a more stringent limit for the definition of POPs waste (low POPs content level) to be established at a level of 50 ppm for the sum of all regulated PBDEs. Additionally they campaigned for recycling exemptions for commercial pentaBDE and octaBDE – as they are currently established under the Stockholm Convention and registered in the EU and several other states – to be withdrawn.
https://chemicalwatch.com/72468/eu-council-backs-lower-pops-limit-on-decabde-flame-retardants

Return to headline | Return to top

Energy News

Time Running Short for 14 Energy Bills Still Before Senate

Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Rebecca Kern

Fourteen Senate energy bills including one to use Energy Department computers to do veterans’ health research and one to lease parts of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve are heading for a committee vote, but Congress is running out of time to pass them this year.
“We’ve got to hit the gas pedal and get these done as quickly as possible,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Energy Subcommittee Chairman Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) told reporters after a Nov. 29 hearing on the bills. “These bills have bipartisan support so we have to get them through committee, see if we could process them through other expedited procedures at the end of the year.”
Those procedures could be expedited unanimous consent to agree to vote all of them on the Senate floor, Gardner said. Another vehicle could be the remaining agency funding bill, including spending for the EPA and Interior Department, which could take place in an omnibus or continuing resolution before funding runs out for those agencies Dec. 7.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hasn’t set a vote for the bills, and the bills would have to start over if they’re not passed before the end of the year.
Among the bills under consideration are several with companion versions that have passed the House, including S. 3656 and H.R. 6398, which would authorize the Energy Department to conduct health care outcome research with the Veterans Affairs Department using high-powered computing.
The Energy and Water Development Act, which was a portion of the partial government spending bill signed into law in late September, already provided $27 million to the Veterans Affairs to support collaboration over the next five years.
Other companion bills—S. 3618 and H.R. 6511—would lease some of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to private entities to help pay for maintenance of the oil reserves located in four sites along the Texas and Louisiana gulf coasts.
Energy Department Undersecretary for Energy Mark Menezes said at the hearing that while the agency is still reviewing all of the legislation, it supports the goals of the bill to help fund upgrades to the reserve sites, which were built following the 1973 oil embargo.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/time-running-short-for-14-energy-bills-still-before-senate

Return to headline | Return to top
EPA Signs MOU to Bolster Work with Oil and Gas Policy Review Group

Nov 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to bolster its work with the State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations (STRONGER) -- a collaboration between EPA, environmentalists, states and industry -- beyond the group's primary duty of reviewing and crafting guidelines for states' oil and gas policies.
The Nov. 29 MOU is vague on what new policies or initiatives EPA and STRONGER plan to pursue, only outlining broad goals to “Identify and implement projects and activities that are in the mutual interest of both STRONGER and the EPA,” and for the agency's Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations to identify potential opportunities for collaboration.
However, Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in a statement on the agreement signaled that the agency's work under the MOU will focus on enforcement and compliance assurance. “By collaborating with STRONGER, we can enhance our enforcement and compliance efforts while ensuring America’s historic energy production under President Trump continues,” the statement says.
Wheeler is also quoted as saying that the MOU “will provide more opportunities for EPA and STRONGER to work together to improve both environmental protections and economic outcomes.”
In addition to the agreement's new collaborative goals, the MOU also says EPA and STRONGER will continue three current initiatives: maintaining the presence of two agency officials as non-voting members of the group's board, and continuing STRONGER's development of guidelines for state oil and gas rules along with reviews of states' existing policies.
“While STRONGER will continue to develop guidelines and conduct reviews of state oil and natural gas programs, the MOU will provide the parties with greater opportunities for collaboration that are in the mutual interest of both STRONGER and EPA,” the agency says in its press release announcing the new agreement.
The new agreement with STRONGER is just the latest MOU EPA has signed on oil and gas policy; in July, the agency inked an MOU with New Mexico to explore possibilities for reuse of wastewater from oil and gas extraction, which has drawn fire from environmentalists who say it violates federal laws on advisory committees.
EPA officials have said they hope to enter more such agreements with states and state-level groups because states are at the forefront of the changing industry, and often manage complex water allocation programs under state law.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-signs-mou-bolster-work-oil-and-gas-policy-review-group

Return to headline | Return to top
NOAA Fisheries Expected to Advance Atlantic Exploration

Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Rob Hotakainen

In a long-awaited decision, the Trump administration today is expected to give the green light to five companies that want to take the first step in exploring for offshore oil and natural gas in the Atlantic Ocean.
Delivering what would be a major blow to environmental groups, NOAA Fisheries appears ready to allow the companies to conduct seismic surveying in a huge blast zone that stretches from New Jersey to Florida. Opponents say the zone would cover an area roughly twice the size of California.
While agency officials would not respond to a request for comment last night, drilling opponents were braced for bad news.
"President Trump is essentially giving these companies permission to harass, harm and possibly even kill marine life — including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale — all in the pursuit of dirty and dangerous offshore oil," said Diane Hoskins, campaign director for Oceana, an organization opposed to drilling.
The decision would require NOAA Fisheries to make an official determination that any harm to whales, dolphins and other sea life would be insufficient reason to block the plan.
Industry officials have long argued that there's no proof that seismic surveying harms marine life, while opponents say the loud sounds from airgun blasts can harm or kill many animals.
"Just one week after issuing dire warnings on the catastrophic fallout of climate change to come, the Trump administration is opening our coastlines to for-profit companies to prospect for oil and gas and is willing to sacrifice marine life, our coastal communities and fisheries in the process," said Michael Jasny, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
As part of a two-step process, the plan would still have to be approved by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an agency in the Interior Department that gets the final say.
Drilling opponents say that's nearly a sure bet to happen soon, noting that both Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke have pushed hard to allow more drilling in federal waters.
In January, Zinke said the administration wanted to open more than 90 percent of the outer continental shelf for leasing. That would mark a nearly total reversal from the Obama administration, which put more than 90 percent of the outer continental shelf off-limits.
On Capitol Hill, House Democrats are eager to try to thwart the Trump team's plans when they take control in the new Congress.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who's expected to become chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee in January, said last night that allowing seismic surveying shows "an alarming sign of administration indifference to the fate of coastal communities and marine life."
"There is nothing this administration won't do for the fossil fuel industry, including destroying local economies and ruining endangered species habitats," Grijalva said. "The Natural Resources Committee is going to provide serious checks and balances on this behavior from day one in the next Congress."
Industry officials have accused opponents of fearmongering, especially when some of them raised concerns that seismic surveys could even stir up buried radioactive waste.
Gail Adams, vice president of communications and external affairs for the Houston-based International Association of Geophysical Contractors, said seismic surveys have been conducted around the globe for eight decades without any scientific evidence that they have ever caused explosions or compromised containers with chemical or radiological waste.
"This issue has never been a concern anywhere in the world," Adams said earlier this year.
Whatever happens next, opponents said they're ready for a new battle with both the industry and its backers in the Trump administration.
"This is the first step toward offshore drilling in the Atlantic, and we're going to make sure coastal communities know what's happening and fight this," Oceana's Hoskins said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/11/30/stories/1060108299

Return to headline | Return to top
U.S. Speeding Toward Net Export Status — Report

Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Kelsey Brugger

The U.S. is on track to produce more oil and gas than it can burn, according to a report yesterday from the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers.
Staale Gjervik, senior vice president at XTO Energy Inc., said the country is "on the path to being a net exporter of oil for the first time in decades."
Oil and gas provide about half of the world's energy today and show no signs of slowing down, the global upstream association said. This year the global oil supply broke records and exceeded 100 million barrels per day. At the same time, cutting carbon emissions remains a global priority for many world governments as threats of climate change intensify.
In the U.S., oil and gas production has increased in the past decade by 90 percent. In the same time frame, Canada's production has increased by 47 percent. Imports, meanwhile, are way down.
In South America, Brazil now leads oil and gas production, clocking in at 2.7 million barrels per day — a 50 percent jump in the past decade. The country surpassed Venezuela in 2016.
Driving oil production in the U.S. is the shale oil boom.
XTO Energy, an Exxon Mobil Corp. subsidiary, has announced plans to triple its daily production from the Permian Basin to more than 600,000 oil-equivalent barrels by 2025, the company said. In the same time frame, oil production from the Delaware and Midland portions of the basin will increase fivefold, Gjervik said in a statement.
"Technology is key to these ambitious plans," he said, adding that improvements on horizontal wells in the Permian have helped double footage drilled and cut costs.
According to energy analyst group Wood Mackenzie, oil field depletion is expected to return to its standard rate of 6 percent, higher than it has been in recent years. Oil depletion is the decline in production of a field as it matures. Even a 1-percentage-point change in the depletion rate could expand or reduce the supply gap by 2 million barrels per day by 2021, the report said.
But the depletion rate analysis excluded North American shale oil, which declines at a much greater pace, noted Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program. If the report had included shale, the oil depletion rate would look much worse, he said.
"Shale oil is driving everything," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/11/30/stories/1060108253

Return to headline | Return to top
Perry Calls for Energy Infrastructure Build-Out

Nov 29, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By James Osborne

Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday that the United States needed to expand its energy infrastructure to meet the increasingly diverse sources of energy powering the nation.
Speaking at an event hosted by the Consumer Energy Alliance, Perry cataloged strides in oil and natural gas production, advances in solar and wind technology, as well as the importance of nuclear energy.Recommended Video
"Today's consumers have more choices, more information, more say on their energy sources than ever before," he said. "If we're to seize this amazing moment in American energy, it is imperative we build more energy infrastructure."
The former Texas governor said that should include not only pipelines and power transmission lines but infrastructure in energy-producing regions like West Texas, including roads and schools.
Perry also talked at length about cyberattacks, saying the threat level was now approaching those of the period leading up to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Protecting our energy infrastructure against those attacks is our highest priority," he said. "We must rise to the occasion."
The speech was perhaps most notable for what Perry did not talk about, namely the coal and nuclear bailouts pushed by President Donald Trump.
The administration at one point considered using its emergency powers to stop coal and nuclear plants from closing, according to a memo leaked this summer, but so far no action has been announced.
Perry left the event without taking questions from reporters.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Perry-calls-for-energy-infrastructure-buildout-13431306.php

Return to headline | Return to top
U.S. Oil and Gas Reserves Surpass 1970 Record

Nov 30, 2018 | Houston Chronicle

By Jordan Blum

The United States has surpassed the 1970 record for proven oil and gas reserves, roughly doubling the amount of discovered petroleum in the ground in the past decade, the federal government said Thursday.
The U.S. shale boom has unlocked large volumes of oil and gas, currently driven by drilling for crude oil in West Texas' booming Permian Basin and for natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica plays in Pennsylvania and neighboring states.Recommended Video
Proven reserves of crude oil in the U.S. jumped almost 20 percent to 39.2 billion barrels by the end of 2017, setting a record. The previous record, in 1970, was 39.0 billion barrels. The U.S. is churning out a record of 11.7 million barrels of crude a day, the Energy Department estimates.
Proven reserves of crude oil in the U.S. jumped almost 20 percent to 39.2 billion barrels by the end of 2017, setting a record. The previous record, in 1970, was 39.0 billion barrels. The U.S. is churning out a record of 11.7 million barrels of crude a day, the Energy Department estimates.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/U-S-oil-and-gas-reserves-surpass-1970-record-13431399.php

Return to headline | Return to top
Conservative Oil State Trumps the President on Methane

Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Benjamin Storrow

President Trump has spent much of the past two years dismantling methane regulations governing oil and gas wells.
But one conservative state is moving in the opposite direction. Wyoming is expected to finalize a statewide rule in the coming weeks that aims to limit methane leaks from new oil and gas wells.
The rule won't fully replace federal standards, according to environmentalists. EPA is attempting to water down regulations on new wells, and the Bureau of Land Management recently scrapped a rule to prevent well leaks and flaring on public land.
Still, Wyoming's plan represents a major step forward in efforts to cut methane emissions from the oil patch.
"The first thing I would say is any sort of methane emission reduction in Wyoming would have a fairly significant impact overall, simply because the volume produced on federal land in the state is sizable," said Warren King, an energy and climate specialist at the Wilderness Society. "It really helps to illustrate some of the arguments that we have been making while the BLM revision was being developed, that these are cost-effective and reasonable regulations."
Wyoming accounts for roughly 20 percent of all federal onshore oil production and 43 percent of federal gas production, according to a recent Wilderness Society report. Some 17.7 million cubic feet of methane, the main component of natural gas, was vented, flared or leaked from oil field equipment between 2008 and 2017, the report found. That amounts to roughly $65 million in lost gas.
The Cowboy State has for several years imposed strict regulations on operators in the Upper Green River Basin, a gas-rich stretch of western Wyoming where ozone emissions once exceeded federal health standards.
Yet much of the new oil production in Wyoming today is happening in the eastern part of the state, in the Powder River Basin. Output there has surged in recent years, though a recent dip in crude prices has raised questions about how long the boomlet will continue.
The state's new standards would extend to the basin, applying to new and modified wells. Operators would be required to check their equipment twice a year for leaks and repair them where needed. The requirement is stricter than the proposal by EPA, which outlined a plan to reduce its inspection requirements to once a year.
Oil and gas operators in Wyoming have reservations about the state plan, but they seem willing to give it a shot. The requirements could become more onerous over time, as production drops and inspection requirements remain the same, said John Robitaille, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, a trade group.
The state has signaled that it's willing to revisit its standards if EPA's latest proposal is finalized, he noted.
"I would say we're wading in and trying to get our feet underneath us and learning as we go," Robitaille said. "We're looking at it always, watching it to make sure we don't put anyone out of business. We certainly don't want to do that."
Still, he added, "this is something we agreed we could accomplish."
Wyoming's move means methane could soon be regulated along the spine of the Rockies. Colorado was the first state in the nation to impose leak detection and repair requirements on oil field operators. And New Mexico's incoming governor has said she intends to cut methane emissions from her state's prolific oil and gas fields (Climatewire, Nov. 26).
Not everyone is moving in the same direction. North Dakota recently weakened its standards on flaring, the practice of burning off excess natural gas. And a patchwork of state rules is a poor substitute for a federal standard, environmentalists said.
Wyoming is illustrative of the dynamic. Unlike its standards in the Upper Green River Basin, Wyoming's new statewide requirements exempt existing oil and gas wells, a large potential source of methane emissions.
Greens are hopeful that the incoming governor, Mark Gordon, a Republican who once did a turn as the head of the local Sierra Club chapter, will take up the task. Gordon pledged on the campaign trail to limit methane waste.
"We continue to think that's an opportunity for the state to take up under Gov.-elect Gordon that are modeled on what they've done in the Upper Green," said Jon Goldstein, director of legislative affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund. "I'd say we're optimistic about working with him when he comes into office in January."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/11/30/stories/1060108297

Return to headline | Return to top
Booming LNG Industry Weighs Up Headwinds From Oil to Renewables

Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Anna Shiryaevskaya

Liquefied natural gas may be one of the fastest-growing fossil fuels but that didn’t stop market participants spotting clouds on the horizon when they met on the first day of the CWC World LNG Summit in Lisbon.
Below are some of the most pressing issues discussed at the biggest annual event for the industry in Europe.
Oil and Economy
Brent crude is trading below $60 a barrel, having lost almost 11 percent this year. A perceived economic slowdown, which is affecting oil, is a challenge for the gas and LNG industry, said Eric Bensaude, managing director at Cheniere Marketing.
The booming U.S. projects tend to offer contracts linked to the U.S. Henry Hub natural gas benchmark, which has gained 50 percent this year, making competition difficult with the oil-linked contracts that dominate in long-term LNG supply deals.
“We have to remain competitive,” Bensaude said. “You don’t want oil to be too high because otherwise the LNG industry gets carried away, you don’t want it to be low because otherwise Henry Hub becomes unaffordable and it switches to oil again.”
Renewables
As the costs of renewable energy fall and battery technology is developed to store it, the natural gas industry sees a role for itself in the future energy mix.
“We should embrace the growth of renewables, we have no alternative, it makes no sense to confront that, that has to be part of our global landscape,” said Galp Chief Executive Officer Carlos Gomes da Silva said. “I am seeing natural gas and LNG in particular as not a transitional energy but as destination energy.”
Investment Shortfall
A lack of final investment decisions in the past years is expected to weigh on supply by the middle of the next decade, when it is seen falling short of demand. This year, Cheniere’s Corpus Christi Train 3 and Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s LNG Canada got the green light, but more multibillion-dollar projects are needed and expected next year to secure the second wave of supply.
The lack of FIDs could generate a jump in prices in the early 2020s and potentially make LNG unaffordable, risking a shift back to cheaper and dirtier coal, Bensaude said.
Spike in U.S. Gas?
The rally in U.S. benchmark Henry Hub futures earlier this month was seasonal and related to a cold snap and is unlikely to be sustained, according to panelists at the conference.
Cheniere’s Bensaude sees a long-term range of $3 to $4 per million British thermal units. Michael Sabel, co-CEO of Global Venture LNG, another U.S. export project developer, sees the range at $2.25 to $3.25 on average.
China
China has led LNG demand growth but those increases are becoming less certain. China imposed a 10 percent tariff on U.S. LNG, and sellers are re-organizing flows to bring alternative sources of supply.
What’s more, from October industrial demand started to decline to avoid the higher costs observed at the same time last winter, said Yanyan Zhu, general manager of the trading department at CNOOC Gas & Power. Longer term, China’s LNG imports face increasing pressure from cheaper pipeline gas, including from Russia, and by government support for domestic gas production.
“In the future when the government is encouraging domestic production, pipeline gas is coming, I think the role of LNG will be reduced to some extent,” Zhu said.
Impact of U.S. LNG Expansion on Other Exporters
U.S. LNG production has been rising since Cheniere started its Sabine Pass project in Louisiana in 2016. That is becoming a concern to other exporters, who are rushing to get their projects finished.
Tavares Martinho, vice president for exploration and production at Mozambique’s national oil company, Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos EP, compared competing with U.S. LNG to a “a monkey with a stick trying to hit a lion.” Mozambique is among the most promising future LNG exporters in Africa.
“Competing with the U.S. is very difficult,” he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/booming-lng-industry-weighs-up-headwinds-from-oil-to-renewables

Return to headline | Return to top
Air Liquide Plans First Hydrogen-For-Energy Plant

Nov 29, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Marc S. Reisch

AIr Liquide is spending $150 million on what it says will be the world’s first large hydrogen plant dedicated to supplying the energy market. To be built in the western US for the California market, the plant will have the capacity to power 35,000 fuel-cell electric vehicles.
The firm’s bet on hydrogen fuel follows numerous smaller investments in hydrogen fueling stations in California and elsewhere supplied from the firm’s industrial gas network.
The new plant will be built at an as-yet-undetermined site and produce most if not all of its 30 metric tons of hydrogen per day from landfill-derived methane.
Some of the gas will come from Air Liquide–owned and operated facilities that convert waste to “renewable” natural gas, a company spokesperson says. The firm also plans to use renewable energy to run the process.
Though fuel-cell vehicles emit only water and heat from their tailpipes, the conversion of methane to H2 generates the global warming gas CO2 as a by-product. Still, “hydrogen produced from natural gas and used in a fuel-cell vehicle is twice as efficient and 55% cleaner than gasoline,” says the California Fuel Cell Partnership, an industry-government group.
Construction on the hydrogen facility will begin early next year, Air Liquide says. Deliveries should get under way in 2022, when 40,000 fuel-cell vehicles will be on California roads, the firm says.
To get the fuel into customer vehicles, Air Liquide has signed an agreement with FirstElement Fuel, which operates 19 retail hydrogen stations from San Francisco to San Diego. Another 12 are on the drawing board.
Air Liquide says it also plans to invest in FirstElement. Other investors include fuel-cell vehicle makers Toyota and Honda.
https://cen.acs.org/business/investment/Air-Liquide-plans-first-hydrogenenergy/96/i48

Return to headline | Return to top

Chemical Security News

Chemours to Drastically Cut Non-Stick Toxics at N.C. Site

Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Andrew M. Ballard

A Chemours Co. chemical manufacturing facility in North Carolina will have to nearly eliminate its air releases of the toxic compound GenX because the pollutant has been found to drift downwind and contaminate water.
A reduction of at least 99 percent from last year’s levels of GenX air emissions is part of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s efforts to address water contamination, according to a consent order filed in a state court. GenX has been found to travel through the air for miles from the facility and fall with rain.
Although Chemour’s water discharges were first considered the source of the contamination, investigations into groundwater pollution also linked the problem to air emissions, according to Sheila Holman, the department’s assistant secretary for the environment.
“As we discovered GenX in wells that were upgradient from your traditional groundwater flow, that led us to look at air emissions and the possibility of air deposition,” Holman said Nov. 29.
GenX in Rainwater
The compound has been measured in rainwater as far as 20 miles downwind of the Chemours plant in Fayetteville, “indicating atmospheric transport and deposition of this compound,” a panel of scientists said in an August report.
That distribution and other findings indicate that air emissions are linked to the “widespread groundwater contamination” near the facility and could also taint soil and certain food sources, they said.
“We followed what the data told us, we followed the science,” Holman told members of the media participating in a teleconference in response to a question from Bloomberg Environment.
The agreement filed in North Carolina’s Superior Court, would settle a lawsuit against the company filed by the state and Cape Fear River Watch over water quality violations. The pending deal includes other control and reporting requirements and would impose a $12 million fine which, if finalized, would be the largest penalty the state agency has ever collected for a single site, Holman said.
Court approval is required for the order to take effect.
Discharges of GenX and other per- and polyfluorinated (PFAS) compounds of concern into the Cape Fear River have led to a state and federal investigation and several lawsuits against Chemours and its past parent company DuPont. Those substances, considered toxic, are used to make stain resistant coatings for carpets, rain gear, fast food wrappers, and frying pans.
Such contamination also has been found near the Chemours plant in Parkersburg, W.Va.
Series of Controls
The pending order calls for a series of air pollution reductions, with at least a 99 percent cut of GenX emissions from last year’s reported levels by the end of 2019. Three sets of controls are to be installed to meet the required limits that involve the use of a scrubber, carbon adsorber, and a thermal oxidizer.
Chemours already started building and installing certain necessary air control equipment and plans to spend more than $100 million in emissions and discharge control upgrades at the facility, Thom Sueta, a spokesman for the company, told Bloomberg Environment.
Carbon adsorption units and a scrubber have been set up and construction has begun for the thermal oxidizer and a thermolysis reactor, he said.
“Given the work we have underway, we are well-positioned to achieve the targets outlined in the proposed consent decree,” Sueta said in a Nov. 29 email.
The company also would have to control air emissions of other PFAS, control discharges, clean up groundwater, conduct health and impact studies, and provide a permanent source of alternative drinking water to neighbors, among other requirements.
Chemours previously stopped direct water discharges of GenX and other compounds into the Cape Fear River. North Carolina currently has a provisional health goal for GenX in drinking water at 140 parts per trillion that regulators set in July 2017.
Geoff Gisler, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill, said the order was “a really good, a really strong step” to address a problem that has been decades in the making.
The required air controls are a significant part of the solution as there was an unusually strong connection between emissions and water contamination, he told Bloomberg Environment.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemours-to-drastically-cut-non-stick-toxics-at-nc-site

Return to headline | Return to top
Citgo Can’t Upend Majority of Awards Over Toxic Releases

Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Peter Hayes

Citgo Petroleum Corp. failed to upend the bulk of awards in favor of dozens of Louisiana residents for the negligent release of toxic substances during a 2006 flash flood.
But the claims of one resident awarded $28,000 by the lower court were implausible, a Louisiana appeals court said.
Citgo appealed the awards in nine cases consolidated for trial involving 26 individual plaintiffs stemming from the release of 4 million gallons of slop oil and 17 million gallons of wastewater into the Calcasieu River from Citgo’s Calcasieu Parish Refinery.
The flood also caused the release of toxins including hydrogen sulfide or sulfur dioxide from smoke stacks in illegal concentrations for a full day, which were carried into the surrounding community.
The plaintiffs were either working or conducting other activities in the area when the slop oil and aerial releases occurred.
The majority of the awards, which range from $7,850 to $50,000, were reasonable, the court said.
But those residents who were exposed only to the air release shouldn’t have been awarded damages to compensate for their fear that they would develop a disease, the court said.
This is so because there is no evidence that exposure to hydrogen sulfide or sulfur dioxide cause long-term health problems, the court said.
The court therefore vacated the portion of the awards to 10 residents for fear of developing disease, which ranged from $7,500 to $10,000, but left in tact the balance of the awards for pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and medical expenses.
The court tossed the claims of one resident who alleged he was fishing when he was exposed.
The plaintiff, Ellis Jack, Jr., would have had to navigated a closed ship channel in order to get to the lake where he claimed to have been exposed, the court said.
Judge Sylvia R. Cooks wrote the opinion, joined by Judges John D. Saunders, and Elizabeth A. Pickett, who dissented in part.
Cox, Cox, Filo, Camel & Wilson, LLC, and Baggett, McCall, Burgess, Watson & Gaughan represented the residents.
Barrasso Usdin Kupperman Freeman & Sarver, LLC, and Scofield, Gerard, Pohorelsky, Gallaugher & Landry represented Citgo.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/citgo-cant-upend-majority-of-awards-over-toxic-releases

Return to headline | Return to top
DOJ to Cyber Criminals: 'We Can Catch You'

Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Energywire

By Blake Sobczak

A barrage of hacking indictments released this week is part of a conscious effort to deter foreign hackers from prying into U.S. networks, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said at a cybersecurity event yesterday.
Details in the back-to-back cyber crime indictments "reflect our capability, and I think that's a really important point," Rosenstein said at the Georgetown University Law Center's Cybercrime 2020 Conference. "Our goal is to send a message that we can catch you."
On Tuesday, the Justice Department unsealed a 13-count indictment alleging eight Russian and Kazakh nationals built "botnets" of hacked computers to conduct millions of dollars' worth of digital ad fraud. The following day, another DOJ indictment accused two Iranian citizens of spreading "SamSam" ransomware across multiple U.S. city, hospital and school networks, causing more than $30 million in damage.
"If we can catch two people sitting in Iran, which is not exactly a friendly ally of the United States — if we can identify those people by name, and in one case we even published the suspect's photograph — we can identify you anywhere in the world," Rosenstein said.
SamSam's alleged architects, Mohammad Mansouri and Faramarz Savandi, remain at large in Tehran (Energywire, Nov. 29). In the separate botnet case, law enforcement officials were able to arrest three of the defendants, while five remain at large.
While neither case unveiled this week involved alleged state-sponsored hackers, Justice Department leaders under President Trump have had a propensity to name and shame foreign spies who attempt to hack U.S. companies or critical infrastructure. Just last month, DOJ tied Russian government hackers to a cyber espionage campaign against nuclear company Westinghouse Electric Co. and global anti-doping organizations, among other targets.
Rosenstein called the ability to unmask specific hackers "critical" to DOJ's role in U.S. cybersecurity. "You cannot deter malicious uses of technology without having a credible capacity to impose punishment for committing fraud, hacking into information systems, stealing data and disabling computers," he said.
Experts have cautioned that the jury's still out over the efficacy of the Trump administration's cyber deterrence policy, which, in addition to naming and shaming foreign hackers, includes a "defend forward" mission for U.S. Cyber Command to strike back at hackers menacing America's most vital networks, like the power grid.
Scale and scope of the threat
That aggressive approach to cyber deterrence could tamp down on the number of crippling cyberattacks — or it could exacerbate them. "We don't know," Jason Healey, a senior research scholar at Columbia University, said at a cybersecurity conference yesterday. "There is no evidence, or there is not much evidence either way, to try to answer that."
Healey has pushed for a more rigorous assessment of U.S. cyber deterrence policies to ensure they play out as intended in the murky world of spies and hackers.
"When you're trying to drive when your car is spinning on ice, it's really easy to overcorrect," he said. "Any input you might make might push you farther and farther to the extreme."
The Justice Department detailed its approach to cyber deterrence in a July report, calling it a "key factor" for U.S. cybersecurity. Still, the report of the attorney general's Cyber Digital Task Force concluded that "the reality is that identity-masking technologies and international investigative barriers pose unique challenges for deterring cyber threats."
Since Rosenstein signed off on that July 2 report, his status in the nation's second-highest-ranking law enforcement post has come under pressure from Trump.
Trump retweeted an illustration Wednesday of Rosenstein sharing a jail cell with perceived foes of the current administration, from Hillary Clinton to special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Trump's possible ties to Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel in 2017 after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation.
Rosenstein "should have never picked a special counsel," Trump told the New York Post in a recent interview.
Despite incurring Trump's ire, Rosenstein has stayed on as deputy attorney general, even after Trump ousted Sessions from the top DOJ post earlier this month (E&E News PM, Nov. 7).
Rosenstein did not address Trump's comments at the cyber crime conference yesterday. While fielding a question about what threats keep him awake at night, Rosenstein quipped that he "slept a lot better" in his last job as U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland.
"I've come to appreciate the scope and scale of the foreign threats that we face and the cyberthreats in particular," he said. "That's something I certainly didn't fully appreciate before I took this job."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/11/30/stories/1060108295

Return to headline | Return to top

Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

D.C. Circuit Divided on Merits of States' Bid to Force EPA OTC Expansion

Nov 30, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Stuart Parker

Appellate judges at Nov. 28 oral argument appeared divided on the merits of Northeastern states' suit aiming to force EPA to expand the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) of states subject to stricter ozone reduction mandates, with two judges backing the agency's denial of the effort while the third offered some support for the states.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard argument in State of New York, et al. v. EPA, et al., in which a group of nine states are suing the agency over its November 2017 denial of their Clean Air Act section 176A petition asking for the OTC expansion. If two of the three judges rule in favor of EPA it would leave states with Supreme Court appeal as their last chance to undo the denial.
While two of the judges hinted that they backed EPA's deference for deciding how to respond to the petition, the third judge suggested that the denial fell short of necessary “reasoned decisionmaking” requirements.
Section 176A says the agency either by the administrator's decision or on petition from any state “may establish, by rule, a transport region for such pollutant that includes such States” as a strategy for reducing interstate transport of air pollution that is hindering states' ability to attain national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
The Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 established the Ozone Transport Region (OTR), a group of 12 Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states administered by the OTC, which are subject to more-stringent requirements to reduce ozone-forming emissions than elsewhere. States in the OTR must impose “reasonably available control technology” on their stationary sources of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx), must impose controls to limit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which also form ozone, and must further impose tougher vehicle emissions inspection and maintenance programs than elsewhere.
The goal of such regions is to establish interstate programs to satisfy an air law “good neighbor” mandate that requires states to mitigate their air emissions that contribute significantly to other states' problems attaining federal ambient air limits, including measures to do so in their state implementation plans (SIPs) that EPA must approve.
New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont petitioned EPA in 2013 to expand the OTR to add Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and the areas of Virginia not already in the OTR.
Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia and the Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG) group of power generators are intervening in the suit to oppose the expansion.
The petitioning states said the move was vital to help them attain the 2008 ozone NAAQS of 75 parts per billion (ppb), which the Obama administration subsequently tightened to 70 ppb in 2015.
EPA denied the petition by citing other Clean Air Act tools being better suited to curb interstate air pollution, such as good neighbor SIPs, the updated Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) power plant emissions trading program that capped NOx in 22 states, and also petitions filed under air law section 126 for EPA to directly regulate individual sources of air pollution causing interstate air problems.
Divided Panel
The D.C. Circuit panel was divided on the merits of EPA's denial, with Obama appointee Judge Robert Wilkins pressing Justice Department (DOJ) attorney Sonya Shea hard on EPA's delay and missing of Clean Air Act deadlines, which he found contributed to the agency's failure to ensure the air law good neighbor mandate is met.
EPA is subject to air law deadlines to approve or disapprove SIPs, or find them missing altogether, and must replace deficient or missing SIPs with its own federal implementation plans -- something Wilkins said the agency has failed to do on time, often missing deadlines by years and facing many lawsuits to force compliance as a result.
Wilkins said, “EPA never meets those deadlines,” yet the agency in its denial decision “doesn't discuss any of that,” even as it argues that other air law mechanisms such as good neighbor SIPs offer a faster route to curb interstate air pollution than an OTC expansion.
“It seems to me that the EPA is whistling past the graveyard here, and not accounting for . . . an important aspect of the problem,” adding, “We wouldn't be here if EPA acted in a timely fashion with respect to SIPs.”
Wilkins' position appeared aimed at supporting states' position that EPA did not engage in reasoned decisionmaking in denying their petition.
But the two other judges seemed to disagree, with Trump appointee Judge Gregory Katsas underscoring that EPA enjoys a high degree of deference on making its decision.
He noted that the air law says EPA “may” expand the OTR if it finds certain conditions are met. Any decision by EPA is highly discretionary, he said.
Separately, George H. W. Bush appointee Senior Judge A. Raymond Randolph said, “it smacks of prosecutorial discretion.”
In response, DOJ's Shea said “the standard of review . . . is at the high end of deference.”
Competing Claims
Shea said section 126 petitions, for example, are a more “tailored” approach to specific interstate issues, while CSAPR as updated in 2016, cuts NOx to the point where by 2023 all Eastern states will meet the 2008 ozone NAAQS.
Eastern states have filed several section 126 petitions with EPA urging it to force emissions cuts from sources in neighboring states, but the Trump administration has denied several of the requests and they are in ongoing litigation.
Responding to probing questions from Randolph, Shea said reducing NOx is more effective than reducing VOCs in reducing regional ozone, making these other mechanisms more effective than OTR measures which tend to focus more on VOCs, Shea said.
But attorney David Frankel, representing the states that filed the petition, said that in practice, EPA's proffered alternatives have not been adequate to solve the ozone problem.
CSAPR is a “partial remedy,” and under EPA's own projection will not provide for full attainment of the 2008 NAAQS until 2023 -- years beyond a variety of attainment deadlines that apply to OTC-area states, he said. With respect to section 126, Frankel added that “EPA has delayed and denied all recent petitions.”
Nor was EPA able to explain how its regulatory rollbacks will affect the assumptions supporting its denial of the OTC enlargement petition, Frankel said. EPA assumed benefits from application of various rules, but its rollbacks put these benefits at risk, for example through its moves to remove limits on the the number of “glider” trucks that combine old engines with new chassis. The extra NOx emissions from this development, if finalized, would dwarf the NOx benefits of CSAPR, Frankel said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/dc-circuit-divided-merits-states-bid-force-epa-otc-expansion

Return to headline | Return to top
EPA Sends Final CSAPR 'Close-Out' Rule for OMB Review

Nov 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

EPA on Nov. 27 sent its final Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) “close-out” determination for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) pre-publication review, the final step before publication of the determination that will absolve Eastern states of the need to take further steps to meet EPA's 2008 ozone standard.
The agency released the proposed version of the close-out in June, prompting criticism from East coast states who said the move was unlawful and inadequate to address their need to reduce ozone-forming emissions.
The rule as proposed would find that Eastern states that participate in the CSAPR power plant emissions trading program need not take additional steps beyond compliance with the existing rule in order to meet the 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), set by the George W. Bush administration at 75 parts per billion (ppb). The Obama administration in 2015 tightened the standard down to 70 ppb.
The 21 states will not be required to reduce ozone-forming emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) further in order to fulfill their “good neighbor” obligation under the Clean Air Act to mitigate their emissions that contribute “significantly” to problems meeting or maintaining the 2008 NAAQS. Kentucky, another state in the CSAPR trading program, is subject to a separate determination similarly requiring no further action.
Some East Coast states object to the determination on the grounds that it is based on a projection that all CSAPR-area states will attain the 75 ppb limit by 2023, later than their air law-mandated attainment dates. They further argue that EPA's projections are flawed and overly optimistic, and that ozone levels will not recede as much as the agency believes.
OMB review typically lasts up to 90 days, but can be faster or slower, depending on the circumstances. OMB's website projects publication of the final close-out in the Federal Register sometime in December.
The determination will not address states' good neighbor obligations with respect to the tougher 2015 NAAQS. States were under a deadline of Oct. 1 to submit state implementation plans to EPA outlining measures they will take to mitigate their “significant contribution” to interstate ozone pollution. However, EPA projects nearly all areas outside of California will attain the 2015 NAAQS by 2023.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-sends-final-csapr-close-out-rule-omb-review

Return to headline | Return to top
Science Advisers Worry Ozone Review May Be Inadequate

Nov 29, 2018 | Inside EPA

By Alex Guillen

EPA is not giving its science advisers the tools they need to determine if new air quality standards for smog-forming ozone will adequately protect public health, several members of a key advisory committee said Thursday.
The Trump administration hopes to have a new ozone standard in place before the end of the president's first term, but that pace may not allow for the type of full review the law requires from EPA's seven-member Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. National ambient air quality standards determine the point at which air pollution becomes unhealthy. But if the committee is unable to fully review the science, it could cause legal trouble for the Trump administration down the line if environmentalists challenge the rule as too weak.
Several members of the committee also rebuked acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler's decision not to bring in new outside experts to help manage the review.
The Clean Air Act requires EPA to review national ambient air quality standards every five years, although the agency frequently misses that deadline. The next ozone standard is due by October 2020, but former Administrator Scott Pruitt did not launch EPA's latest review until May of this year, at which point he set a December 2020 deadline to complete it.
Jim Boylan, a CASAC member representing the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, said EPA should slow down its review to allow committee members to gather all of the information they will need.
“I believe that getting high-quality documents is much more important than meeting the deadline of October 2020, and if that means pushing back to get high-quality documents, I think that’s important,” Boylan said.
Boylan and two other members of the committee said EPA should establish asubordinate panel of experts with specific expertise on ozone pollution to advise the main CASAC’s review work.
“The panels in these reviews provide invaluable expertise and different perspectives that greatly strengthen the process and the resulting documents,” Mark Frampton, a pulmonologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said Thursday on a public teleconference to discuss the complex, multiyear ozone review plan.
“As a CASAC, we should and hopefully unanimously request that EPA create an ozone review panel,” Frampton added.
CASAC member Tim Lewis, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, also said EPA should convene a panel of outside experts.
But Chairman Tony Cox stopped short of endorsing that proposal on the call Thursday. He said he hopes the existing committee can produce high-quality reviews while still meeting EPA’s “aggressive schedule.”
“If it turns out that we can’t both maintain high-quality and do this with only one pass, I will acknowledge that and request whatever changes or help might be necessary so we guarantee we end up with a quality product,” he said.
Compared to the less than three years EPA plans to spend on its new review, the Obama administration worked on the 2015 ozone rule for nearly five years.
EPA has frequently formed panels of subject-matter experts to advise the main CASAC on specific air quality issues. But in October, Wheeler assigned all of the ozone review duties to the main CASAC. Wheeler also disbanded an expert panel that had been set up to review separate standards for particulate matter, drawing complaints from environmentalists and public health experts.
Sabine Lange, the head of toxicology at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, did not directly weigh in on whether an outside panel was warranted, but she also expressed concern at the pace EPA expected.
"I want to make sure comments we are giving are given enough time to be considered in the next series of documents," Lange said.
Cox replied that he will talk to EPA about how to ensure comments are properly incorporated given the tight timeline.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/11/science-advisers-worry-ozone-review-may-be-inadequate-1000163

Return to headline | Return to top
Carbon-Neutrality Backers Push Pennsylvania Toward Cap and Trade

Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Leslie A. Pappas

Pennsylvania should consider an economywide greenhouse gas trading program that would make the state that’s the third largest source of the gases carbon neutral within 35 years, a coalition of environmental advocates, attorneys, and businesses said.
Frustrated with the state’s failure to curb emissions, the 62-member coalition, led by the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council, presented the state’s Environmental Quality Board Nov. 27 with a draft 258-page regulation that would go far beyond Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) pledge to join a Northeastern carbon dioxide trading program for power plants.
Backers of the proposal, who consulted state environmental regulators while drafting it, want to bypass the Republican Legislature, which is resistant to climate change efforts.
The move comes as envoys from nearly 200 countries prepare to meet in Poland to discuss global warming. A four-year assessment from the U.S. Global Change Research Programsaid climate change left unchecked could cost the country billions of dollars. And a United Nations report recently concluded that global emissions are getting worse and political will to change the trajectory is flagging.
The Trump administration’s refusal to respond to such warnings prompted the petition, said Robert B. McKinstry, Jr., an environmental lawyer and lead author of the regulatory package. McKinstry has been working on the regulation since March 31 when he retired from Ballard Spahr LLP, where he was in charge of the firm’s climate change and sustainability initiative.
“I decided I could retire and do something,” McKinstry told Bloomberg Environment. “I could no longer sit by while Nero twiddled with Twitter and Rome burned.”
State law requires the Department of Environmental Protection to review the petition and make a recommendation to the Environmental Quality Board about whether to accept it, Neil Shader, the department’s press secretary, told Bloomberg Environment.
The next board meeting is in December, but the petition likely won’t be considered until April, Shader said.
The proposal would cap greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2018 and decline annually. The reductions would put the state on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2052, consistent with goals defined in the Paris climate agreement.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/carbon-neutrality-backers-push-pennsylvania-toward-cap-and-trade

Return to headline | Return to top
Lame-Duck Session Grounds Senators From Poland Climate Talks

Nov 29, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Dean Scott

Democratic senators who long have jetted to United Nations climate summits are grounded this year.
The senators are staying in Washington, because their votes may be crucial to keeping the government open in the lame-duck session. This year’s U.N. climate summit runs Dec. 2-14 in Katowice, Poland.
The likely no-shows for the U.S. congressional delegation—which in some years has included Democrats and Republicans—stands in contrast to 2015, when 10 Democratic senators arrived in Paris to urge nearly 200 nations to seal the international agreement on limiting greenhouse-gas emissions.
The official U.S. delegation to Poland—made up of White House and State Department officials as well as a trio of EPA staff—will include Wells Griffith, tapped in the spring to a top White House international climate adviser post, according to several Trump administration officials.
Scheduling Constraints
But it’s a different story for the usual congressional climate-watchers. Congress faces a Dec. 7 deadline to finish a budget package to keep government running through next fall.
“It’s the schedule—I would go otherwise. It’s just too uncertain, in terms of what votes are going to be needed here,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) told Bloomberg Environment.
Other senators who made the trip to recent climate summits—including Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Chris Coons (D-Del.)—said they’ll be no-shows this year. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said they’re undecided but doubtful.
Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who some speculate are eyeing 2020 presidential campaigns, said they aren’t planning to go, but wouldn’t rule it out.
U.S. Footprint
While President Donald Trump wants the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, the White House and State Department will still have a significant footprint at this year’s summit.
The U.S. can’t technically get out of the Paris deal until after the 2020 presidential election and for now remains at the table as nearly 200 nations work out rules and objectives to implement the climate accord.
Griffith, the Trump administration climate appointee, is to be the top White House official on the ground at the two-week Poland summit. He’ll be joined by three Environmental Protection Agency staffers and a team of State Department negotiators likely headed by Judith Garber, an acting assistant secretary who headed the negotiating team at last year’s talks in Bonn, Germany.
Two long-time State Department negotiators—Trigg Talley and Kim Carnahan—will address what are mostly technical issues on the table in Poland, such as ensuring nations are transparent in reporting their emissions and the actions they are taking to reduce them.
Three EPA representatives are slated to attend: Alex Dominguez, a policy analyst from the EPA administrator’s office; Mandy Gunasekara, senior climate policy adviser to EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler; and James Hewitt, an EPA spokesman, according to a Trump administration appointee familiar with the planning.
Renewed Interest in Climate
At the Poland talks—known as the 24th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change—negotiators will be addressing how nations are to offer updated pledges to address their greenhouse gas emissions in the years ahead.
In Washington, the Democratic takeover of the House is putting climate change back on the front burner there for the first time since Democrats lost control of the chamber in 2010.
That means some Democratic House aides will be in Poland to brush up on the talks as part of the congressional delegation.
Staff It Up
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce, is among those sending representatives, according to a Democratic committee aide.
Republican congressional members are a rarity at climate summits, and the Katowice, Poland, talks won’t be an exception. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)—who has been to several—told reporters this week he’ll stay home.
“Well, let’s just say, it’s not quiet here,” he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/lame-duck-session-grounds-senators-from-poland-climate-talks

Return to headline | Return to top
Belief in Global Warming Grows Despite Trump

Nov 30, 2018 | E&E Climatewire

By Daniel Cusick

Climate change skepticism may be alive and well at the White House, but nearly 3 in 4 Americans believe there is "solid evidence" that global warming is occurring, according to new survey data released by Muhlenberg College and the University of Michigan.
That 73 percent of respondents agree average atmospheric temperatures are rising reflects growing public confidence in climate science, experts said, especially after 2014, when the Obama administration's Climate Action Plan resulted in an upwelling of conservative opposition to federal greenhouse gas reduction programs.
"In a way, we've really moved back to what we saw about a decade ago, before there was this huge [negative] shift in public opinion around climate policies," said Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy and director of the University of Michigan's Center for Local, State and Urban Policy, which co-directs the biannual National Surveys on Energy and Environment (NSEE).
"It's clear that during that period, there was an aggressive and coordinated effort to deny climate science and an equal effort to thwart any federal or state policies to deal with greenhouse gas emissions," he added.
NSEE polling from spring of 2010, for example, showed that only 52 percent of Americans believed there was "solid evidence" of warming, while 36 percent said there was "no solid evidence." The proportion of respondents saying they were "not sure" about warming has held at an average 12 percent since the fall of 2016.
At the same time, public opinion about renewable energy has seen an upward positive trend over the last several years. In the latest poll, 88 percent of respondents said they "strongly" or "somewhat" support the expansion of solar energy in their states, while 82 percent supported greater use of wind power.
More than 3 in 4 Americans also support state policies that require utilities to increase their use of renewable energy, while an equal percentage support state government increasing subsidies for renewable energy. The gap between Democratic and Republican support for such policies was wider and more varied than for renewable energy generally.
For example, more Democrats stressed the public health and economic development benefits of renewable energy, while Republicans were more likely to associate increased use of renewables with reduced reliance on foreign oil.
On the thorny issue of carbon taxes, majorities of both parties said they would support the implementation of a federal program if they had a clear understanding of how the revenues from such a tax would be used.
Support was generally stronger for reinvesting carbon tax revenues in renewable energy projects or energy efficiency improvements, but was less robust for reinvesting in transportation infrastructure or returning tax dollars directly to households in the form of a cash dividend.
Legislation introduced this week by a bipartisan group of House lawmakers advocates for a carbon fee of $15 per metric ton of emissions, rising by $10 per ton each year. Net revenues would be returned to taxpayers in the form of a dividend (E&E Daily, Nov. 28).
Sponsors of the bill, including Republican Reps. Francis Rooney of Florida and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, say the measure could slash emissions by one-third in 10 years and 90 percent by 2050 compared to 2015 levels. It remains unclear whether the bill will garner enough support to advance in the House or Senate.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/11/30/stories/1060108303

Return to headline | Return to top
Ocasio-Cortez to Join Bernie Sanders for Climate Change Town Hall

Nov 29, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Avery Anapol

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) will join Sen. Bernie Sanders(I-Vt.) next week for a town hall on climate change.
Sanders is hosting the town hall on Monday in partnership with a number of progressive media outlets, including NowThis and The Young Turks. The event is also partnered with The Guardian news outlet.
The town hall, which will be held at the U.S. Capitol and live-streamed online nationally, is “aimed at addressing the global threat of climate change and exploring solutions that can protect the planet from devastation and create tens of millions of good-paying jobs,” according to the Facebook event posting.
“Fight for the planet, fight for our lives,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “Let’s do this.”
Fight for the planet, fight for our lives.

Let’s do this https://t.co/fKwTU20iv8— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) November 29, 2018
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez will be joined by actor and activist Shailene Woodley, CNN host Van Jones and other climate activists, scientists and officials.
Ocasio-Cortez, who ran for office calling herself a Democratic socialist, has vowed to make climate change a key issue during her time in office.
Sanders said the incoming lawmaker will discuss her proposal for a Green New Deal, which endeavors to get 100 percent of the nation’s electricity from renewable energy sources.
Ocasio-Cortez participated in a sit-in protest at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) Capitol Hill office earlier this month to demand Congressional action on climate change.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/418980-ocasio-cortez-to-join-bernie-sanders-for-climate-change-town-hall

Return to headline | Return to top
Trump’s ‘Energy Dominance’ Doctrine Is Undermined by Climate Change

Nov 29, 2018 | New York Times

By Lisa Friedman

It’s been a defining phrase of the Donald Trump presidency, “Energy dominance,” a doctrine that emphasizes the expansion of coal and oil production as well as the weakening of environmental regulations, including those that address climate change.
But at every turn, according to a broad scientific report on climate changeissued last week, rising global temperatures threaten to undermine the president’s vision of an energy-dominant America. The blackouts and other energy disruptions of Hurricane Harvey were just harbingers, the report said. Across the United States, every element of the country’s energy infrastructure, like oil wells and nuclear power plants, will be stressed by droughts, heat waves, rising seas and fiercer storms.
“Climate change disrupts everything, including Trump’s agenda,” said Alice Hill, a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution think tank who served as senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council under President Barack Obama.
When it comes to fossil fuel production, the disruptions are particularly serious. And there’s a fundamental irony at play. Even as emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are warming the planet, the consequences of that warming will make it harder to drill for oil, mine for coal and deliver fuel through pipelines.
Mr. Trump wants to boost oil and gas drilling on public lands in the West, but drought is expected to affect the water necessary for hydraulic fracturing, the technique of injecting vast amounts of liquid into the bedrock to force out natural gas or oil. In the Arctic, where Mr. Trump has plans to open sensitive areas to oil drilling, equipment built to withstand Alaska’s freezing temperatures is particularly vulnerable to permafrost melting as the state warms at twice the rate of the rest of the country.
Coal-burning power plants are at risk as well. Rising temperatures from extreme heat events, the report notes, are expected to reduce their capacity to generate power and hamper the efficiency of the transmission grid.
The national climate report, mandated by Congress and made public by the White House, makes the case that global warming “is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health.” Soon after publication, however, President Trump and several members of his cabinet disavowed it. “I don’t believe it,” Mr. Trump said of the findings.
President Trump’s call for energy dominance has been a central ambition of his administration. He hit on the slogan in the early days of his presidency, predicting a “golden era of American energy” that would be asserted via the country’s booming natural gas, coal and petroleum exports.
Cabinet officials have taken up the mantra.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in announcing last year a lease sale of nearly 80 million acres of federal waters off the Gulf of Mexico, described it as “a pillar of President Trump’s plan to make the United States energy dominant.” Energy Secretary Rick Perry has described energy dominance as “exporting freedom,” particularly by delivering America’s liquefied natural gas and developing offshore oil drilling.
Even at the Environmental Protection Agency, where the core mission is to ensure clean air and water, Andrew Wheeler, the acting administrator, has heralded ways he and his staff have advanced the president’s energy dominance agenda by saving polluting industries billions of dollars in regulatory costs.
The findings from the National Climate Assessment, issued by 13 federal agencies, come as the new House Democratic majority prepares to conduct oversight next year into Mr. Trump’s rollbacks of federal climate change policies. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, who is expected to chair the House Science Committee, is part of a group of lawmakers planning two days of hearings in January into ways to both reduce planet-warming emissions and prepare for the consequences of rising temperatures.
“Our rapidly changing climate, and the Trump administration’s efforts to take us in the wrong direction, seriously jeopardize our future,” Ms. Johnson said.
Energy infrastructure is an expensive part of the problem, according to the assessment. The report does not provide firm estimates of expected costs. It does cite the fact that Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which resulted in gasoline lines stretching for miles, inoperable refineries and electricity outages affecting 8.7 million people, prodded utility companies in New York and New Jersey to invest billions of dollars in upgrades like elevating equipment and redesigning electrical networks to withstand extreme weather.
The report notes that Con Edison and Public Service Electric and Gas have invested about $2 billion in repairs in response to recent hurricanes. It also points out that the costs to reconstruct Puerto Rico’s electricity systems in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria are estimated around $17 billion.
And while the report notes that energy companies and utilities are increasingly taking steps to harden their infrastructure — like planning for sea-level rise when building infrastructure — experts said the federal government needs to do more.
“When you lose access to energy, your entire economy grinds to a halt,” said Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former White House energy adviser to President Obama during Hurricane Sandy.
“The report lays out clearly the extent to which so many aspects of the nation’s critical infrastructure are at risk from climate change,” Mr. Bordoff said.
Energy systems in the Southeast are particularly vulnerable, the report said, with some 200 power plants and oil refineries exposed to flooding from hurricanes and fiercer storm surges. Scientists estimate, if sea levels rise nationally 3.3 feet (a figure it describes as on the “high end of the very likely range” for what the country could see by 2100), it could expose dozens of power plants currently considered to be in safe zones to risks of 100-year floods. That would jeopardize about 25 gigawatts of operating power capacity, or power for about 18 million homes.
Along the Gulf Coast — home to a significant proportion of the United States oil production and refining industry — energy infrastructure faces a similar and more immediate risk. A sea level rise of less than 1.6 feet could double the number of refineries in Texas and Louisiana vulnerable to flooding by the end of the century.
Yet energy analysts cautioned against expectations that the effects of climate change will cause irreparable harm to the fossil fuel industry or make oil, gas and coal production fundamentally unattractive to investors. Sarah Ladislaw, an energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted that the oil and gas sector has a long history of managing risks, including figuring out how to operate in politically unstable countries and prodding governments to loosen regulations they find too burdensome.
Climate change will add “headwinds” to fossil fuel companies, make production more costly in some areas and less competitive in others, Ms. Ladislaw said. But, she added, “If you’re waiting for climate impacts to be the end of the oil and gas industry, that’s not going to happen.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/climate/trump-energy-dominance.html

Return to headline | Return to top

Add recipients

Suggested