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AM ACC 12/7/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Year-End Report Anticipates Rises in U.S. Chemical Output
Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Engineering Online
By Scott Jenkins
The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) today released its 2018 Year-End Situation and Outlook. -
(ACC Mentioned) US Chemical Output Set to Rise in 2019
Dec 6, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
The US will benefit from strong job growth, moderate inflation, and a good investment climate in 2019, according to the American Chemistry Council, the US chemical industry’s major trade association. -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Chemical Industry Poised for Large Increase in Output
Dec 6, 2018 | Powder Bulk Solids
A new report by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) forecasts that American chemical manufacturers will utilize abundant feedstock and energy available in the U.S. to increase domestic output of chemicals through the early 2020’s. -
(ACC Mentioned) Corporate America Goes 0-for-1,500 in Bid to Ease China Tariffs (1)
Dec 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rossella Brevetti and Jasmine Ye Han
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has granted none of the 11,565 requests for relief from stiff tariffs on Chinese imports, and it has denied almost 1,500 of them, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of the most recent available data. -
(ACC Mentioned) Trade Deal Debatable
Dec 6, 2018 | ICIS
Prospects for a grand deal in US-China trade following presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping’s meeting at the G20 lit a fire under global equity markets as well as crude oil, both of which had been on a downward spiral. -
(ACC Mentioned) Bay Area Experts Weighing in What to Do About Plastic Pollution Problem
Dec 6, 2018 | ABC 7 KGO-TV
By Dan Ashley and Jennifer Olney
Recycling plastic can be confusing. Lots of plastics are marked with the chasing arrow, so they look like you can just dump them in the bin. But that's not always true. Sometimes even the pros are stumped. -
(ACC Mentioned) US Chemical Industry Set to Ride High in 2019: 4 Solid Picks
Dec 7, 2018 | Zacks
By Anindya Barman
The American chemical industry is poised for an upswing in 2019 on the back of strength across major end-use markets, higher industrial activities and gains in business investment – according to the newly released “Year-End 2018 Chemical Industry Situatio -
Wheeler Nomination Could Hit Committee Early Next Year
Dec 7, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler could remove the "acting" from his title by early next year. -
(ACC Mentioned) Battle over Science Rages in US
Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Frank Zaworski
For the past two years, the Trump administration has been altering how science is employed in the development of rules and policies at various different US government agencies. -
Snurs and Reformed TSCA
Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Rose Passarella
Some business managers may feel they need to become regulatory experts, especially when dealing with the primary federal chemicals management law in the US, TSCA, as reformed by the Frank R Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. -
EPA Withdraws Rulemaking for 28 Snurs
Dec 6, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has withdrawn the last of seven direct final rules issued in recent months, this one covering 28 TSCA significant new use rules (Snurs). -
Michigan GOP, Bracing for Democratic Governor, Eyes Rollbacks
Dec 6, 2018 | Inside EPA
Bracing for a new Democratic governor next year, Michigan's GOP-led senate Dec. 4 approved legislation that would weaken regulatory protections for wetlands under the state's delegated program and limit Michigan's ability to rely on the most up-to-date toxicity values... -
Dealing with Polymers Under REACH
Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Paul Ashford
In a world that is more sensitive than ever to the consequences of plastics accumulating in the environment, the regulatory focus has turned again towards polymers. -
The Modern Augean Stable
Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Martin Führ
The amended EU waste framework Directive (WFD) has placed a task on Echa’s shoulders comparable to the fifth of the twelve labours of Heracles in Greek mythology, that of cleaning out the Augean stables. -
Cashing in on Biomedicine’s Bonanza
Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Dr. Emma Davies
Biomedicine has benefited enormously from ‘omics’ data, with reams of information being generated on genetics (genomics and transcriptomics), proteins (proteomics) and metabolites (metabolomics). -
Trump’s Pick for Energy Regulator Clears Senate by a Single Vote (2)
Dec 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Senate narrowly confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick for the nation’s top energy regulator, with Democrats voting in a bloc against him over concerns that he would use his position to promote fossil-fuel interests. -
Democrats Get on Board with Manchin for Energy Committee Post
Dec 6, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Anthony Adragna
Senate Democrats are growing more comfortable with giving coal-friendly Sen. Joe Manchin a leading role in shaping climate policy. -
Trump Plans Major Rollback of Sage Grouse Protections to Spur Oil Exploration
Dec 7, 2018 | New York Times
By Coral Davenport
The Trump administration on Thursday detailed its plan to open nine million acres to drilling and mining by stripping away protections for the sage grouse, an imperiled ground-nesting bird that oil companies have long considered an obstacle to some... -
USGS Finds Massive Potential in Permian Basin
Dec 6, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Kelsey Brugger
Portions of Texas and New Mexico's Permian Basin contain much more shale oil and natural gas resource potential than previously known, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey report. -
FERC's Narrow GHG Reviews for Gas Pipeline Approvals Face Court Tests
Dec 6, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) narrow reviews of greenhouse gas and climate issues in its approvals of natural gas pipelines and other energy projects are facing their first tests in a pair of lawsuits in a key appellate court... -
U.S. Oil Exports Are Rising. So Is the Trade Deficit.
Dec 6, 2018 | New York Times
By Binyamin Appelbaum and Jim Tankersley
The United States exported more oil and fuel than it imported last week for the first time in 75 years, a significant milestone in the resurgence of domestic energy production that comes as the Trump administration pushes to increase energy exports even further. -
Cyber Info Sharing Clears Legal Hurdles — Watchdog
Dec 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Federal agencies are ticking the right boxes to protect civil liberties while sharing data on hacking threats, the Government Accountability Office found. -
No New Power Plant Controls to Aid Downwind States, EPA Says (1)
Dec 7, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The EPA won’t impose additional controls on power plants that send pollution across state lines, saying existing restrictions will be enough to clear the air in downwind states. -
EPA Floats Making It Easier for Other Sectors to Skip Climate Rules
Dec 6, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillen
Environmentalists are sounding the alarm about a wonky provision in EPA's newest proposal to ease carbon dioxide limits on new coal plants that could make it more difficult to issue new climate regulations targeting other major emitters. -
It’s Time to Face the Inescapable Truth: We’re Running out of Time on Climate Change
Dec 6, 2018 | Washington Post
By Editorial Board
THE WORLD is heading in the wrong direction, and it does not have much time left to change course. After several years in which global greenhouse-gas emissions leveled off, they spiked to record levels this year, according to projections a group of scientists... -
'Green New Deal' Is 'Aspirational' — Carper
Dec 6, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Nick Sobczyk
House progressives have been talking up a "Green New Deal" platform, with the goal of getting to 100 percent renewable energy in a decade, but Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) today offered a dose of skepticism. -
Critics Decry Administration's Jettisoning of CCS
Dec 7, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
Critics are pushing back on the Trump administration's rejection of carbon capture and storage as an "unproven" technology for cutting carbon emissions from new coal-fired power plants.
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Year-End Report Anticipates Rises in U.S. Chemical Output
Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Engineering Online
By Scott Jenkins
The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) today released its 2018 Year-End Situation and Outlook.
Highlights of the Outlook include the following:
Against the backdrop of “decoupling” global growth, ending a rare period of synchronized expansion around the world, American chemicals output improved during 2018. The world’s major economies have slowed, while in the United States, economic growth has remained dynamic and growth in manufacturing has nearly doubled.
Industrial output is on a roll in 2018, and expected to rise 3.7%, about double the 2017 pace after back-to-back years of declines due to weak export markets, a high dollar, and fallout from the collapse in oil prices. Industrial output is expected to moderate slightly in 2019 and 2020, with growth of 2.7% and 2.2%, respectively.
Industrial output grew strongly in 2018, with gains across a diverse set of chemistry-consuming industries. As a result, output of chemicals (excluding pharmaceuticals) rose by 3.1% during 2018. The U.S. and global economic outlook remains resilient through 2019 before downshifting to a more moderate growth path after 2020.
U.S. chemistry output is expected to rise 3.1% in 2018 and 3.6% in 2019.
Over the next five years, the most dynamic growth will occur in the Gulf Coast region, followed by the Ohio Valley region. American chemistry revenues are expected to surpass $700 billion by 2023.Chemical industry capital spending in the U.S. surged 82% in the subsequent eight years, reaching $37.0 billion in 2018.
https://www.chemengonline.com/acc-year-end-report-anticipates-rises-in-u-s-chemical-output/
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(ACC Mentioned) US Chemical Output Set to Rise in 2019
Dec 6, 2018 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
The US will benefit from strong job growth, moderate inflation, and a good investment climate in 2019, according to the American Chemistry Council, the US chemical industry’s major trade association. Even though it is concerned about rising interest rates and the impact of tariffs, the ACC predicts that US chemical output will rise 3.6% in 2019 following a 3.1% increase this year.
“Expansion across a broad band of industrial sectors is supporting American economic growth this year,” says Kevin Swift, ACC chief economist. Next year, he predicts, US industrial activity will continue to expand, but an economic slowdown now underway in overseas markets, coupled with rising trade tensions, “present a risk of economic disruption.”
On the plus side for US chemical producers are surging domestic energy supplies coupled with increased availability of ethane, a key raw material obtained from natural gas. Because of this shale gas revolution, chemical makers have committed $202 billion since 2010 for 333 new chemical plants, 40% of which are still in the planning stage, notes Martha Moore, the trade group’s policy and economics director.
As that production capacity comes online, US exports will surge, Moore predicts. The US will post a chemical trade surplus of $39 billion in 2018 and $69 billion by 2023, she says, assuming no major trade disruptions.
On the domestic front, light vehicle sales have declined from the highs of 2015 and 2016 but are still robust, Moore says. Each vehicle build represents over $3,250 in chemical sales. Home building is on the upswing, she notes. Each new home accounts for $15,000 in chemical sales.
Outside of the US, predictions are less optimistic as the economic situation deteriorates in many countries. In Germany, Europe’s largest chemical maker, production is likely to rise 1.5% in 2019, according to the German Chemical Industry Association. Production this year is on track to increase 2.5%.
Unlike the ACC’s data, the German association’s forecast includes output of pharmaceuticals, which are set to rise 11.5% this year. Excluding pharmaceuticals, Germany’s chemical production will slip 1.5% this year.
Hans Van Bylen, president of the German association and CEO of Henkel, says the trade conflicts among the US, European Union, and China—along with the UK’s approaching Brexit from the EU—threaten the “trade order” in which the German chemical industry operates. He called on European politicians to help preserve “free world trade and fair competition.”
https://cen.acs.org/business/economy/US-chemical-output-set-rise/96/web/2018/12
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Chemical Industry Poised for Large Increase in Output
Dec 6, 2018 | Powder Bulk Solids
A new report by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) forecasts that American chemical manufacturers will utilize abundant feedstock and energy available in the U.S. to increase domestic output of chemicals through the early 2020’s.
“American chemistry is set for significant growth in output as new production capacity comes online and demand strengthens in key-end use markets,” Martha Moore, senior director of policy analysis and economics at the ACC, said in a release. “In fact, growth rates in U.S. chemistry are expected to surpass average growth over the previous 20 years. Provided that access to export markets remains open to our producers, expanding global demand will be met by shale-advantaged chemistry sourced from the United States.”
Chemical companies have collectively invested about $202 billion since 2010 in 333 projects, according to the ACC. The report, “Year-End 2018 Chemical Industry Situation and Outlook,” points out that production volumes are being lifted in the U.S. as these investments come online.
Total chemical production volume is anticipated to grow at by 3.6% next year and 3.1% in 2020. Production of basic chemicals is expected to rise by 4.8% in 2019 and 4.3% the following year. The volume of specialty chemicals produced is predicted to grow by 2.2% in 2019.
Part of the growth in output is forecasted to be a result from increased demand from the light vehicles and housing markets.
“Housing, business investment, and their supply chains, have momentum. Light vehicle sales have likely peaked for this cycle, but remain at elevated levels. In 2019, industrial activity will expand, but the slowdown overseas is likely to affect the U.S. and rising trade tensions present a risk of economic disruption,” said Kevin Swift, the ACC’s chief economist, in the release.
While mostly optimistic, the ACC report cautioned that disruptions to trade may result in headwinds for U.S. chemical manufacturers.
https://www.powderbulksolids.com/news/US-Chemical-Industry-Poised-for-Large-Increase-in-Output-12-06-2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Corporate America Goes 0-for-1,500 in Bid to Ease China Tariffs (1)
Dec 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rossella Brevetti and Jasmine Ye Han
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has granted none of the 11,565 requests for relief from stiff tariffs on Chinese imports, and it has denied almost 1,500 of them, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of the most recent available data.
Caterpillar, General Motors, Procter & Gamble, GE Appliances, Stanley Black and Decker, Tesla, and Whirlpool are among the companies that have submitted requests to be excluded from tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods.
Manufacturers, importers, and their political allies are complaining months-long delays have caused billions in lost revenues and uncertainty, with small and mid-sized companies impacted the most.
“The process has been very badly flawed. It’s taken way too long,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) told reporters Nov. 28 when asked about the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) process.
No process is yet in place for challenging what’s on the third and most extensive products list, totaling $200 billion, that includes hats, food, leather handbags, cameras, clothing, glassware, and other items suitable for gift-giving this season.
USTR didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The agency may release new data on exclusions as early as the afternoon of Dec. 6. The last update came Nov. 29 and showed that 1,487 requests had been denied.
Confused CompaniesThe absence of approvals has made it difficult to figure out what would pass muster for an exemption, trade attorney Stephen Kho, of Akin Gump, told Bloomberg Law. “Companies are wondering whether it’s even worth it” to file, he said.
In examining requests, USTR has said it may consider whether a product is available from a non-China source, whether additional duties would cause severe economic harm to the requester or U.S. interests, and whether the product is strategically important or related to Chinese industrial programs.
While companies wait, supply chains are being upended. Smaller retailers have few options for mitigating the impact by finding new sourcing locations or using alternative products, National Retail Federation Senior Vice President of Government Relations David French told Bloomberg Law.
The exclusion process should be scrapped along with the tariffs, Freedom Partners spokesman Kevin Schweers told Bloomberg Law. Such tariffs allow Washington to micromanage trade and any exemption process tips the scales by picking winners and losers, he said in an email. Freedom Partners is a nonprofit that promotes the benefits of free markets.
USTR’s process is structured differently from the Commerce Department’s system for requesting steel and aluminum tariff exclusions.
Commerce reviews requests from companies. If one company requests an exemption for steel rods, its competitors would also have to file a separate request.
In contrast, a USTR exemption applies only to products. A request to exempt certain kinds of nails, for example, would include all such products regardless of company, according to USTR.
A comparison of the Commerce and USTR processes showed that Commerce issued 1,345 approvals of requests for steel tariff exemptions within 95 business days of the first filing, compared to USTR’s zero approval rate since the tariffs began in July.Another Product List
What’s more, the administration has resisted pressure to establish an exclusion process for the third and most extensive products list, totaling $200 billion.
“Our members are really chomping at the bit to get an exclusion process for list three,” Ed Brzytwa, American Chemistry Council director of international trade, told Bloomberg Law. “List three is so massive that USTR as an agency is not capable of dealing with the thousands and thousands of requests,” he said, adding that USTR also wants to keep maximum pressure on China.
The 25 percent tariff took effect on a list of goods worth $34 billion in July, and on another $16 billion worth of goods in August. Deadlines for requesting tariff exemptions for products on the two lists are Oct. 9 and Dec. 18, 2018.
Approximately 1,200 companies submitted exemption requests. Arrowhead Electric Products posted the most requests (474) and received the most denials (337). Nissan North America ranks fifth with 240 requests.The vast majority of the total 11,565 requests are in the initial review phase, according to the latest data released Nov. 29 by USTR. Of the total, 582 are in the third phase, where USTR and Customs and Border Patrol decide if the CBP would be able to enforce an exclusion.
The four-stage reviews start after USTR determines the request form is complete. It begins with a comment period for requests posted on Regulations.gov, followed by USTR’s determination whether to grant approvals and then the USTR-CBP consultations. The final step is approval.
The process slowed during Nov. 21-29, possibly due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Total posted requests increased by one. There was no change in denials, and an increase of 30 during the third stage, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis.
A boost in requests during the second phase may indicate progress, although the comment period doesn’t require agency action. Requests move automatically from the first to second stage when the period closes.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/employee-benefits/corporate-america-goes-0-for-1-500-in-bid-to-ease-china-tariffs-1
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(ACC Mentioned) Trade Deal Debatable
Dec 6, 2018 | ICIS
Prospects for a grand deal in US-China trade following presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping’s meeting at the G20 lit a fire under global equity markets as well as crude oil, both of which had been on a downward spiral.
Chemical equities got swept up in the euphoria on 3 December but did not meaningfully outperform the broader markets. Most remain firmly in bear market territory, with declines of well over 20% from their highs. US demands are relatively clear but a big question lingers: What would the US have to offer China in order to strike a deal?
Based on comments from the US administration, China is offering to remove prohibitive 40% tariffs on US auto imports, and to buy massive amounts of US agricultural, energy and industrial products to reduce the US trade deficit with China. The US is also pushing China to halt US intellectual property (IP) theft and forced technology transfers.
However, missing from the conversation is what China wants from the US and what the US would be willing to offer. Just lowering or eliminating existing tariffs is not likely to be enough.
“China cannot climb down without losing face and the US is in no mood for compromise,” said Jeremy Goldkorn, editor-in-chief of independent digital media company SupChina, at the Young & Partners Senior Chemical Executive Conference in New York on 28 November.
Granted, the comments were made just before the latest truce, but the statement hits to the core of the dilemma. The US will demand real concessions from China – a point underscored by the appointment of China hawk US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer as the lead negotiator rather than the moderate US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
The fog of confusion surrounding prior talks with multiple US officials has faded. Now China knows exactly who it is dealing with. Trump is eager to declare a huge victory on trade with China, but Xi cannot allow this without getting something big in return.
With Trump’s willingness to mix politics with business, do not be surprised if a major US concession completely unrelated to trade is given.
CHINA MANUFACTURING SLOWDOWN
China is being pushed to the table as its economic slowdown is exacerbated by the US-China trade war. China manufacturing activity as measured by the Caixin China General Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) at 50.2 for November is languishing just above the 50 level demarcating expansion and contraction.
China has badly lagged US and European manufacturing PMI figures for years. Manufacturing PMIs for the US and Eurozone were 59.3 and 51.8, respectively for November. US activity has been strong in the past year while the Eurozone has slowed markedly.
While overall China manufacturing activity increased slightly in the November PMI reading, “the gauge for new export orders dropped further into contractionary territory in November, indicating the impact of the Sino-US trade friction on exports”, said Zhengsheng Zhong, director of macroeconomic analysis at investment research firm CEBM Group.
China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite has plunged 21% year to date, even after the big recovery on 3 December following the trade truce.
Business sentiment is China is being hit – not only by the US-China trade war, but also from uncertainty arising from the government’s political and social policies.
“The government is getting increasingly repressive, which is impacting all facets of life. People are more worried than ever,” said Goldkorn from SupChina.
“Even the China ‘perma-bulls’ are now less confident. We are in a period of great uncertainty – both political and economic,” he added.
PENCE SPEECH TURNING POINT
US Vice President Mike Pence’s speech on US-China policy on 4 October to the Hudson Institute think tank and the lack of any pushback was a big shock to China, noted Anla Cheng, founder and chair of SupChina, and former senior partner in China-focused private equity firm Sino-Century.
In his speech Pence slammed China’s “Made in China 2025” plan, unfair trade practices, growing authoritarianism and military expansionism.
“After the Pence speech, people were waiting for a counter-response, but the shock was that no one [in the US] went against it. At least they did not disagree. This showed the anti-China sentiment is real,” said Cheng.
However, she is hopeful of some kind of trade deal as China’s economic numbers have softened. “China has always talked about IP (intellectual property) protection, but this time they have to be serious,” said Cheng.
FIRM COMMITMENTS
Whether China’s commitments are on tariffs or technology, they will have to be solid to be acceptable to the US.
“There’s a 100% unanimous view on our economic team that this needs to be a real agreement,” said US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin in an interview with the Financial Times. “These can’t be soft commitments from China. There need to be specific dates, specific action items.”
John Richardson, ICIS senior consultant, Asia, is sceptical such a complex and far-ranging deal amid a wide gap in philosophies can be reached in record-breaking time.
“I suspect that when the initial euphoria has worn off, more and more people will focus on just how difficult reaching a lasting deal will prove to be – especially in the space of just 90 days,” said Richardson in the ICIS Asian Chemical Connections Blog. A grand deal would be a huge benefit to both the US and China chemical sectors.
China is the third largest destination for US chemical exports behind Canada and Mexico, to the tune of $11.5bn in 2017, while China exported $15.5bn in chemicals to the US, according to the American Chemistry Council. These figures do not include finished plastics, many of which are also under tariff.
Under the US-China tariffs, today a total of $10.8bn in US chemical and finished plastics exports to China are under tariff. In turn, a total of $22.0bn in China exports of chemicals and finished plastics are under tariff.
Removing tariffs would benefit not only the chemical industries of the US and China, but also countless downstream sectors and consumers.
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2018/12/06/10291815/trade-deal-debatable
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(ACC Mentioned) Bay Area Experts Weighing in What to Do About Plastic Pollution Problem
Dec 6, 2018 | ABC 7 KGO-TV
By Dan Ashley and Jennifer Olney
Recycling plastic can be confusing. Lots of plastics are marked with the chasing arrow, so they look like you can just dump them in the bin. But that's not always true. Sometimes even the pros are stumped.
Martin Borque of the Ecology Center in Berkeley, "It's got a chasing arrow number seven, so you might think it is recyclable. It's got a chasing arrow on it, but number seven is 'other' plastic. I couldn't tell you exactly what this is or what to do with it."Borque runs the Ecology Center in Berkeley-- one of many Bay Area businesses that pick up your recycling, then sort it and try to find people who will buy the material to make into something else.
Finding buyers for some types of plastic is especially tough. A lot of it use to go to China, but earlier this year China cut off the market for most plastic recycling.
At the same time the production of plastic is soaring there has been a massive increase over the past six decades. That's one reason San Francisco's Recology is spending $14-million to upgrade to a new state of the art sorter-- and it still won't be enough.
Robert Reed of Recology said, "There's literally more than a thousand types of plastic that have been manufactured in the last 50 years. It's too much. No one can recycle all of that."Some plastics do have ready markets, especially water and juice bottles labeled number one.
"It's typically made into fiberfill, clothing, fleece, carpet," said Borque.
Number two bottles, like the ones for milk and detergent also have a solid market. But the rest of the plastic-- not so much.
"The berry containers, the takeout food container, the disposable cup, that stuff we are having much more difficulty processing and selling," said Borque.
Even though it's hard to find buyers most recyclers still do accept those items if they are clean-- because their contracts require it. They're bundled into massive bales of mixed plastic.
Right now, the Ecology Center is paying $75 a ton to send that mixed plastic to a processor in Southern California.
Borque said, "What they are telling us is about 60 percent is being recycled and about 40 percent is going to landfill right now."Mark Murray of Californians Against Waste said, "We are absolutely in a recycling crisis here in California."
Murray points to widespread evidence of environmental problems caused by plastic all over the world.
"By perceiving that we can put all this stuff into the recycling bin, we are continuing to go and buy all this stuff, and we are giving the manufacturers a free ride. They have no responsibility for the environmental impacts of the products and packaging."
We reached out to the American Chemistry Council which often speaks for plastics manufacturers. The council would not do an interview, but referred us to "The Recycling Partnership"-- a non-profit funded by some of the world's largest manufacturers and brands that use plastic. The partnership has spent millions of dollars working to improve recycling around the country.
"What we are is a voluntary producer responsibility organization. We don't have laws here that are governing this, but these companies recognize a responsibility for the materials they are producing," said Dylan De Thomas of the Recycling Partnership.
That's a start, but the California Product Stewardship Council says manufacturers need to do a lot more to make products that are bio-degradable or more easily recycled. Also to pay for problems created by so much plastic in the environment.
The council urges you to think before you buy.
"Vote with your dollars, buy from companies that use recycled content, that don't use plastic if you can avoid it and that reduce their packaging," said Heidi Sanborn of the California Product Stewardship Council.Sanborn is talking about items like wool blankets, which are shipped in a box that is so large it has been stuffed with plastic.
"Get online, tell that company, I don't want this over packaged. I will not buy form you again if you continue to over package. That is a very strong market signal. Companies don't make things if they can't sell them," said Sanborn.https://abc7news.com/society/bay-area-experts-weighing-in-what-to-do-about-plastic-pollution-problem/4850024/
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(ACC Mentioned) US Chemical Industry Set to Ride High in 2019: 4 Solid Picks
Dec 7, 2018 | Zacks
By Anindya Barman
The American chemical industry is poised for an upswing in 2019 on the back of strength across major end-use markets, higher industrial activities and gains in business investment – according to the newly released “Year-End 2018 Chemical Industry Situation and Outlook” by the American Chemistry Council (“ACC”).
The Washington, DC-based chemical industry trade group said that growth in manufacturing and exports markets this year will continue to boost demand for basic chemicals. These factors coupled with growth in construction markets are also expected to drive the specialty chemicals segments.
U.S. Chemical Industry Set for Solid Growth
The outlook for the American chemical industry paints an encouraging picture. The ACC envisions national chemical production (excluding pharmaceuticals) to rise 3.6% in 2019, following a 3.1% growth in 2018. The growth is expected to be spurred by gains in manufacturing and export and sustained demand across light vehicles and housing markets. However, rising trade tensions pose a risk.
The trade group also expects basic chemicals production to expand 2.1% in 2018 and further gain steam with a 4.8% rise in 2019 on the heels of investments in new capacity additions.
According to the ACC, strength in export markets and higher business investment have boosted demand in major chemical end-use markets such as light vehicles and housing. While the automotive sector remains at high levels, housing activity is improving with 1.27 million starts in 2018 and 1.34 million in 2019. Light vehicle sales are expected to remain elevated at 17.1 million in 2018 and 16.8 million in 2019, the ACC added.
The specialty chemicals segment is also expected to see production growth of 3.7% in 2018 and 2.2% in 2019, per the ACC. Improvement in oilfield chemicals, electronic chemicals, coatings, adhesives, cosmetic chemicals, and flavors and fragrances are fueling growth in specialty chemicals. The trade group expects demand for specialty chemicals to grow in sync with gains in industrial and construction sectors in the years ahead.
Rising Capital Spending
The American chemical industry continues to enjoy the advantage of access to abundant and cheap ethane feedstock extracted from shale gas. The shale bounty has provided U.S. producers a compelling cost advantage over their global counterparts, which use oil-based feedstock such as naptha. This is driving investment in chemical production projects to beef up capacity.
According to the ACC, 333 chemical projects (both on new plants and capacity expansions) have been already announced by chemical makers since 2010 worth $202 billion, 68% of which is foreign direct investment or involves an overseas partner. New capacity is expected to provide a boost to chemical production as these investments come on stream.
Strengthening Export Markets
The ACC expects improving export markets to contribute to growth of the domestic chemical industry. Total chemical exports are projected to rise 10% to $143 billion this year while imports are forecast to pick up 7.8% to $105 billion.
Higher exports will result in the U.S. chemical industry having a $39 billion trade surplus in chemicals in 2018, the trade group noted. Moreover, the ACC sees two-way trade between the United States and its foreign partners to expand 9.1% year over year and reach $248 billion this year.
4 Chemical Stocks Set to Run Higher
The U.S. chemical industry is set for solid upside next year on continued demand strength across major end-markets and significant capital investment. Amid such a backdrop, it would be prudent to invest in chemical stocks with compelling growth prospects.
We highlight the following four stocks, armed with a solid Zacks rank, that are good options for investment right now.
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (APD - Free Report)
Pennsylvania-based Air Products carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The company delivered positive earnings surprise in three of the trailing four quarters, with an average positive surprise of 3.9%. It has an expected earnings growth of 9.9% for fiscal 2019. Earnings estimates for fiscal 2019 have been revised 0.4% upward over the last 60 days. The stock also has long-term expected earnings per share (EPS) growth of 11.8%.
W. R. Grace & Co. (GRA - Free Report)
Maryland-based W. R. Grace is another attractive choice. It carries a Zacks Rank #2 and has an expected earnings growth of 10.1% for 2019. The company delivered positive earnings surprise in each of the trailing four quarters, with an average positive surprise of 10.1%. The stock also has long-term expected EPS growth of 12%.
Celanese Corporation (CE - Free Report)
Our next pick in the space is Texas-based Celanese carrying a Zacks Rank #2. The company delivered positive earnings surprise in each of the trailing four quarters, with an average positive surprise of 13.3%. It has expected earnings growth of 1.7% for 2019. Moreover, earnings estimates for 2019 have been revised 2.3% upward over the last 60 days. The stock also has long-term expected EPS growth of 10%.
Innospec Inc. (IOSP - Free Report)
Colorado-based Innospec carries a Zacks Rank #2. It has expected earnings growth of 4.4% for 2019. The company also delivered positive earnings surprise in three of the trailing four quarters, with an average positive surprise of 10.5%.
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https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/341695/us-chemical-industry-set-to-ride-high-in-2019-4-solid-picks
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Wheeler Nomination Could Hit Committee Early Next Year
Dec 7, 2018 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler could remove the "acting" from his title by early next year.
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said yesterday his panel is prepared to move quickly on Wheeler when he's formally nominated, which Barrasso said he expected early in the new Congress.
"Doesn't seem that that's going to happen in the next two weeks," Barrasso told reporters. "I think it will be at the beginning of the next Congress."
President Trump has said he plans to nominate Wheeler for the permanent post, though he has yet to formally send his paperwork to the Senate.
Wheeler's confirmation fight for the deputy post took six months, and environmental groups have already lined up to oppose him, in part due to his past lobbying work for coal giant Murray Energy Corp.
Across Capitol Hill, meanwhile, Democrats are laying out their first fights with Wheeler as they prepare to take over the House in January.
Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee, led by incoming Chairman Frank Pallone of New Jersey, yesterday wrote Wheeler to demand information about EPA's lagging enforcement of programs aimed at combating climate change.
"We are concerned that historically low staffing levels, combined with a series of recent actions taken by EPA management, undermine the agency's enforcement capability," Pallone wrote in a letter with Reps. Diana DeGette of Colorado and Paul Tonko of New York.
The missive lays out their opposition to EPA's regulatory rollbacks under the Trump administration and requests documents related to actions by the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance and the agency's proposed Clean Power Plan rollback.
"The tragic human and financial costs of unchecked climate change are high and increasing fast, and unfortunately the Administration's actions for the last two years are only exacerbating these conditions," the lawmakers wrote.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/12/07/stories/1060109023
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(ACC Mentioned) Battle over Science Rages in US
Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Frank Zaworski
For the past two years, the Trump administration has been altering how science is employed in the development of rules and policies at various different US government agencies.
With regards to chemical regulation, the three areas most impacted by official attitudes towards science are:
· the transparency of scientific data;
· the 2016 amendments to TSCA; and
· the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS).
The administration’s stated goal is to reduce what it considers to be a mountain of burdensome regulation on industry. Many NGOs, however, regard this as an assault on science itself. In particular, they claim, established scientific advisory panels at the EPA have been eliminated and respected scientists replaced by unqualified executives from industry.
"The fix is in," says Gretchen Goldman, research director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). "Every action taken by the EPA’s political leadership has been aimed at pushing independent science out of the process, so they can gut the rules that protect the public from pollution. They’ve stacked the advisory boards, proposed restrictions on what science the EPA can consider and limited the voice of independent scientists."
The Sierra Club has echoed this, saying the administration is taking away the power of watchdog agencies. "The EPA is transferring power to corporate polluters and ignoring science; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will no longer conduct climate research; and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is removing the guarantee that patients will get full and accurate information about their healthcare from their doctor."
Industry groups representing chemicals, fuels and others, meanwhile, are continuing to work with the administration and do not share this view. "Every administration experiences changes in personnel and policy. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) always seeks to work constructively with EPA and other executive agencies, no matter what the affiliation is of the president," says an ACC spokesman.
"Just as we were able to work with the Obama administration and both sides of the aisle in Congress to pass the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act (LCSA), we continue to work constructively with the Trump administration and both parties in Congress to help ensure the effective and efficient implementation of the law."
Transparency
On 30 April, the EPA proposed a rule that, it said, "will ensure that the regulatory science underlying its actions is publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation. Where available and appropriate, the EPA will use peer-reviewed information, standardised test methods, consistent data evaluation procedures and good laboratory practices (GLP) to ensure transparent, understandable and reproducible scientific assessments."
Joanne Carney, director of government affairs at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), said in response: "The scientific community came out against the proposal as it will not help the environment. Rather, it will result in the exclusion of valid and rigorous science from the regulatory process."
Ms Carney explains that many scientific studies submitted to the EPA are conducted under confidentiality clauses with the sponsors of the study. Companies do not generally want such data shared publicly. "The EPA should access as much science as possible," Ms Carney adds. "This will restrict the amount of science they see."
The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) trade association says that it supports the transparency proposal in principle, because its "open process" supports a more cohesive approach to the development and implementation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
"However, we recommend that the proposal be further clarified to enhance safeguards of private, sensitive and confidential information, tailor its requirements to appropriate rulemakings and provide an exemption process that robustly assesses studies, without excluding them from the rulemaking process. We also encourage EPA to further develop transparent methodologies for use in future research either performed or funded, or both, by the agency," the association says.
The AFPM adds that the EPA must balance the transparency proposal’s policy goals with its own legal obligation to be a good steward of private, sensitive, and confidential business information (CBI). In the association’s view, the agency can further clarify its information protections by explicitly stating that regulations arising from it do not assert authority under the law to disclose such information.
While some critics of the rule voiced concern about its effects on personal privacy, the ACC says, it is important to note the rule also specifically states: ‘Where the agency is making data or models publicly available, it shall do so in a fashion that is consistent with law, protects privacy, confidentiality, CBI and is sensitive to national and homeland security."
The proposal, it says, will strengthen the EPA’s regulatory process by "helping ensure that it is relying on the best available science, which is reliable and unbiased" but still makes the underlying research and data publicly available in ways that protect these principles.
Not surprisingly, many NGOs do not share industry’s view. Richard Denison of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) said, before EPA director Scott Pruitt resigned in July, that the proposal would allow industry to pollute the environment without fear of accountability because Mr Pruitt was telling scientists not to use the best science.
"Pruitt’s proposal would add huge amounts of red tape to the process of scientific inquiry," Dr Denison said at the time. "It would mean, for example, that the EPA could ignore long-term studies in decisions because not all of the underlying data could be made public, or could not or should not be replicated."
TSCA
As amended by the LCSA, TSCA requires the EPA to rely on ‘best available science’ and ‘reasonably available information’, and to make decisions consistent with the ‘weight of scientific evidence’. NGOs say that the proposed science transparency rule may belie the first requirement. More than 500,000 individuals and organisations have weighed in on this, with most reiterating concerns that the proposal could require the agency to discard legitimate science.
The Environmental Protection Network, a group of former EPA employees, commented that, although Congress detailed the types of science that the EPA should use in TSCA, "availability of sufficient underlying data for the public to ‘validate’ or ‘reproduce’ study results is not even among the factors the agency is to consider, much less a determinative factor nullifying all those enumerated".
The American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC), a network of business associations which in turn represents more than 250,000 businesses, agreed with NGO comments that the rule would run counter to TSCA’s ‘best available science’ mandate. "The more research the EPA considers, the more informed and appropriate its response can be to findings about harmful effects of chemicals," said the business coalition.
"With regard to EPA’s implementation of the 2016 amendments to TSCA, ACC has generally supported the agency’s approach, and we believe it has been consistent with congressional intent," the ACC says. The agency, it adds, has established a track record of meeting stringent but achievable deadlines required by the law. "ACC and our member companies will continue to engage the agency in constructive ways to help ensure the efficient and effective implementation of TSCA."
The council also says that its goal is to "make sure [TSCA] continues to achieve what Congress intended: protecting human health and environment, enhancing public confidence in the federal chemical regulatory system and enabling our industry to continue to innovate, create jobs and grow the economy."
IRIS
The IRIS programme is another area where science transparency becomes problematic, particularly in its use of mechanistic data in the regulatory hazard assessment of chemicals. This is essentially the ‘how’ of toxicology, looking at how a particular effect is caused by a particular exposure, as opposed to general studies that investigate whether there is an association between a chemical exposure and some adverse effect.
The proposed rule could bar the use of much of this data in regulatory hazard assessments, which have traditionally been dominated by data from toxicity studies of animals as model organisms and large-scale epidemiological studies of humans. In recent years, mechanistic data has become central to the discourse for several long-running assessments.
It is, for example, key to the claim that formaldehyde does not cause leukaemia, which the ACC has maderepeatedly in relation to the assessment of the substance under IRIS. The association has called on the EPA to emphasise the importance of incorporating mechanistic data in problem formulation. The agency, it says, should consider organising the step dealing with problem formulation around such data, even if the mechanism is not entirely clear from the outset.
However, a group of 33 scientists has called on the EPA to clarify that mechanistic data, if available, can only be used to increase, not decrease, confidence in a body of evidence. This means that if the other data indicates a certain hazard, it is inappropriate to use conflicting mechanistic data to reduce confidence in that finding. They said the EPA had "correctly" recognised that mechanistic data is not required for hazard assessment, although overall they were damning about the framework.
The days ahead
The midterm elections on 6 November saw the Democrats retake control in the federal House of Representatives, but also win state legislative and gubernatorial races nationwide, although the Republicans strengthened their grip on the Senate. On 3 January, the Democrats will assume oversight of federal agencies, including the EPA.
"I would expect to see more oversight hearings in terms of setting policies," says Ms Carney of AAAS, because oversight hearings by Democrat-led committees will challenge the administration’s current and proposed science policies, possibly resulting a change of tack on certain policies.
"Pent-up energy among House Democrats will translate into an aggressive oversight agenda that will hark back to the days of Chairman John Dingell (D-Michigan), with his impressive oversight infrastructure, and Henry Waxman (D-California), who ousted Dingell to lead Energy and Commerce and struck fear in all industries with his merciless investigations", according to an election analysis bulletin from law firm Arnold & Porter.
In an American Chemical Society (ACS) webinar on the impact of the midterms on science and chemistry regulation, Anthony Pitagno, director of government affairs and alliances for the ACS, and Ben Pershing, editor of the National Review, said vigorous oversight will be key to the Democrats’ approach.
"Scientific integrity will be a top issue," said Mr Pitagno. "TSCA is a little less clear. I could see a Democratic House wanting to press the EPA on how they are actually implementing TSCA, but I think the scientific integrity issues will be first out of the gate."
It seems certain that the House Congressional Committees that oversee agencies plan to scrutinise administration policies more than has been in the case the past two years. However, most observers recognise that, as long as President Trump resides in the White House, real change will be hard to achieve. Federal scientists on political influence
In March, the UCS, in partnership with the Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology at Iowa State University, surveyed more than 63,000 scientific experts employed by the federal government about working under the Trump administration.
The results showed that:· 79% of respondents reported workforce reductions during the past year;
· 87% said these made it more difficult for agencies to fulfil their missions;
· scientists widely agreed that the influence of political appointees presents a major barrier to science-based decision making;
· 20% of all respondents named either ‘influence of political appointees in your agency or department’ or ‘influence of the White House’ as one of the greatest barriers to science-based decision making; and
· 50% of all respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that consideration of political interests hindered their agency’s ability to make science-based decisions; and
· 81% of EPA scientists agreed or strongly agreed that political influence was a hindrance, with a third naming it as a top barrier, to such decisions.
https://chemicalwatch.com/72669/battle-over-science-rages-in-us
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Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Rose Passarella
Some business managers may feel they need to become regulatory experts, especially when dealing with the primary federal chemicals management law in the US, TSCA, as reformed by the Frank R Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. That not being practical, it may be better to know some of the things that may affect bringing a new product or an improved one containing a new chemical substance, to market.
The main objectives of TSCA are to assess and regulate new commercial chemicals before they enter the market and to regulate existing ones that pose an ‘unreasonable risk to health or to the environment’. When chemicals are found to pose an unreasonable risk, the EPA, which administers the Act, will regulate their distribution and use.
Where restrictions are being considered, a submission is likely to take longer, due to the required supplementary review by the EPA’s ad hoc committee. In addition to this, if the agency is considering any restrictions, it may be necessary to negotiate a significant new use rule (Snur). While Snurs are mainly issued for new chemical substances, they can also be for existing ones if new information creates a concern with a new use.
What are Snurs?
If the EPA determines that a new chemical or ‘significant new use’ is not likely to present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, including to a potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulation, under the conditions of use, it will notify the submitter and publish its findings. The agency can determine that a use of a substance is a ‘significant new use’ by rule after considering all relevant factors, including:
· projected volume of manufacturing, processing, distribution and disposal;
· extent to which a use changes the type or form of exposure of humans or the environment; and
· extent to which a use increases the magnitude and duration of exposure of humans or the environment.
The Snur itself may include such conditions as:
· testing for toxicity or environmental fate, once a certain production volume or time period is reached;
· use of worker personal protective equipment (PPE);
· new chemical exposure limits (NCELs) for worker protection;
· hazard communication language;
· distribution and use restrictions;
· restrictions on releases to water, air and/or land; and
· record keeping.
Because detailed communication takes place between the EPA and submitters during the review period, the agency generally issues Snurs as ‘direct final rules’. These can be used to move non-controversial regulations forward on an expedited timeline. However, if a rule is met with significant adverse reactions, the EPA must withdraw the direct rule and start the full rulemaking process, which includes notice and comment periods.
This may not sound like a significant detail, but there may be substantial consequences for business strategies. The situation may arise where a decision is reached on a new chemical substance, but the risk assessors determine that it must be accompanied by a Snur. The submitter still has to wait for the EPA to receive comments, respond to these and possibly revise and publish, and the agency will not release the final decision until the Snur is published.
It can take over 60 days for the EPA to publish a decision and thus for the submitter to be able to act on it. Alternatively, the risk assessors can decide that a chemical substance should be subject to a Snur, but that the decision is not contingent on one. Here, the agency will issue a follow-up Snur. In this case, the submitter is free to manufacture or import as soon as it receives the decision and the EPA will issue the Snur later.
Consent orders
In the not-too-distant past, the EPA may have issued a consent order, applicable only to the submitter, rather than a Snur, which is applicable to all. It may have determined that it did not have enough information, without which the use of the chemical substance may present an unreasonable risk. In these cases, they would use a consent order to require further action from the submitter. This usually involved a request for data, or reduced exposures or releases.
Since the reform consent orders are not generally being granted. In a presentation given at a public meeting on 6 December 2017, the director of the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Jeff Morris, stated that it can be more efficient for the EPA to address concerns associated with reasonably foreseen conditions of use by issuing a Snur that applies to all parties, including the submitter, rather than an order to the submitter addressing activities he does not intend to undertake, and then taking an additional regulatory action to issue a Snur. This statement was reaffirmed at Chemical Watch’s Global Regulatory Summit in Arlington, Virginia, on 31 October.
The ability to issue a Snur during or after the review period can enable the EPA to focus its technical analysis on the intended conditions of use of a chemical. It can then defer further analysis of reasonably foreseen conditions of use until such time as the submitter (or any other entity) actually intends to undertake them.
While in principle the objective is laudable, the implementation seems to be taking longer than initially anticipated. As such, it is yielding key learnings on how improvements could be made. It should be noted that, even in situations where a company receives a contingent Snur, it may petition to enter into a consent order agreement with the EPA in order to avoid the additional 60 or more days needed to publish the Snur.
Why is the EPA issuing more Snurs?
In that same December 2017 public meeting, Mr Morris reminded those present that the new law "requires EPA to make an affirmative finding on new chemicals or significant new uses of existing chemicals, before those chemicals can enter the market".
This positive assertion seems to be moving the EPA’s risk assessment in a more conservative direction and contains an element of the precautionary principle, although perhaps not equal to how strongly Echa applies it. This principle has generally been defined as having two main components: preventive action in the face of uncertainty and reversing the burden of proof. Following the reform, the EPA actions do seem to be more ‘conservatively’ proactive and issuing more Snurs is an example of this.
Snurs and business strategy
Should the apparent increased use of Snurs factor into companies’ business strategies? The answer is yes. Mostly, these aim to be proactive rather than reactive. To be proactive, a strategy needs to incorporate the current regulatory situation. Considerations with regard to TSCA include:
protracted timetables: it is impractical to factor the statutory 90-day review period into strategy timings. The EPA is asking many questions which may require timeline extensions. If a Snur is issued, the final decision may be held until its publication;
additional testing: even though there is usually no requirement for specific test data, it may be wise, at least, to model the chemical substance to determine weather there are any endpoints over which the EPA may have concerns. If so, perhaps there is a test that could be done to deliver empirical data, rather than have the agency use a conservative assumption for modelling;
focused uses: although it may be best from a business point of view to have the largest breadth of uses, perhaps it can be more advantageous to narrow the focus of a submission to the most important, in order to progress those and satisfy financial imperatives; and
possible substitution: lastly, if possible, submitters should look for a substitute for the new chemical substance where hazard concerns exist. This may not be possible, because product development is a careful balance of all the attributes needed and different chemical substances may not keep this balance. Still, it might be wise to ask the question early in the R&D process.
Conclusion
While you do not have to become a regulatory expert to manage your business, planning demands an awareness of the current regulatory situation. Snurs are becoming the new normal. Identifying and addressing Snur requirements will enable managers and their teams to continue to foster innovation, as well as protect human health and the environment.
Rose Pasarella is the Senior manager, regulatory –chemicals, health, environmental and regulatory services at Intertek.
https://chemicalwatch.com/72673/snurs-and-reformed-tsca
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EPA Withdraws Rulemaking for 28 Snurs
Dec 6, 2018 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has withdrawn the last of seven direct final rules issued in recent months, this one covering 28 TSCA significant new use rules (Snurs).
The rule was initially issued on 10 October, but – like six others that preceded it – it has been withdrawn in response to adverse comments. The agency, instead, will address the substances through the proposed rule that it issued alongside the direct final rule.
The Snurs address a variety of substances that were brought to market in the second quarter of the year.
Two non-profit organisations filed substantive comments in response to the proposed rules: the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and the Environmental Defense Fund.
As has been the case with other rulemakings, the PCRM raise concerns around the use of vertebrate animal testing, while the EDF flagged up a host of issues related to the agency’s application of its chemicals programme policies and guidance.
Nanotechnology firm Ocsial also provided feedback on a Snur related to a single-walled carbon nanotube substance.
The comment period for the 28 Snurs ended on 9 November.Ongoing Snur activity
With the last of the direct final rulemakings withdrawn, the EPA must now finalise nine proposed rules covering 362 Snurs.
The groupings, largely based on when the new substances were brought to market, are as follows:
· 145 Snurs, proposed on 1 August;
· 27 Snurs, proposed on 17 August;
· 29 Snurs, proposed in two batches on 27 August;
· 28 Snurs, proposed on 17 September;
· 26 Snurs, proposed on 3 October;
· 28 Snurs, proposed on 10 October;
· 13 Snurs, proposed in the absence of 5(e) consent orders on 16 October; and
· 66 Snurs, proposed on 15 November.
The comment periods have closed on all but the final grouping, which has a 31 December deadline.
https://chemicalwatch.com/72645/epa-withdraws-rulemaking-for-28-snurs
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Michigan GOP, Bracing for Democratic Governor, Eyes Rollbacks
Dec 6, 2018 | Inside EPA
Bracing for a new Democratic governor next year, Michigan's GOP-led senate Dec. 4 approved legislation that would weaken regulatory protections for wetlands under the state's delegated program and limit Michigan's ability to rely on the most up-to-date toxicity values in deciding cleanup levels for perflourinated chemicals and other substances.
According to the news outlet MLive.com, the senate took the action during the lame-duck session of the state's legislature. It occurred just before outgoing Gov. Rick Snyder (R) will be replaced by Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer (D), and other top officials will shift from Republicans to Democrats -- though the legislature will remain Republican-controlled.
The bills come amid charges from Democrats and others that the GOP-led legislature is moving on various pieces of legislation during the lame-duck session to limit Democrats' power as they take over senior executive branch positions.
“This 11th hour power grab by Republicans in the lame duck legislature is an absolute disgrace. Having lost at the ballot box in the last election, Republicans in the Michigan Legislature are pushing legislation that seeks to overturn the will of the voters and protect special interests,” Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) said in a Dec. 5 press statement in response to the moves.
The Senate in a 23-14 vote Dec. 4 approved SB 1211, which would overhaul the state's wetlands program, scaling back the universe of wetlands regulated by the state's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), MLive says.
The environmental group Michigan Environmental Council says the bill would push the state further out of compliance with the Clean Water Act, further degrading water quality and eliminating lakes and wetlands key to ecological health and recreation.
“If this bill were to go into effect, close to 70,000 wetlands and over 4,000 inland lakes will be deregulated in Michigan,” Tom Zimnicki, the council's agriculture policy director, said in a press release. “Fundamentally, this bill diminishes the ability for the state to protect the endangered and threatened species that live in these areas, strips regulatory protections away from wetlands and smaller water bodies that are essential for outdoor recreation, and weakens the ability to manage stormwater events and deal with local flooding.”
Environmental groups told a Michigan senate committee last month they would go so far as urging EPA to rescind Michigan's delegated authority under the Clean Water Act if the bill is enacted, according to Bridge Magazine, a non-profit news outlet.
The senate also in a 23-14 vote Dec. 4 passed SB 1244, which would compel the DEQ to rely on EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database of toxicity values when determining cleanup levels for a contaminated site, MLive says.
Business organizations support the bill, but opponents “say it would lock the DEQ into using scientific studies that may be outdated,” MLive says.
“Because the IRIS database doesn't have values for certain emerging contaminants like [per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)], critics worry the bill would nullify new state-specific PFAS standards set by DEQ in January, leaving nothing in place until the DEQ promulgated new rules -- an already lengthy process made more complex by new governor-appointed review panels with the power to veto proposed DEQ rules,” MLive says.
In his statement, Kildee noted that SB 1244 would “restrict the state from considering scientific studies when addressing toxic PFAS chemicals. Ignoring science will jeopardize public health and hurt progress in cleaning up PFAS contamination around the state."
He added, “The science shows that these chemicals are harmful to humans and we need to be doing everything we can to expedite remediation.” He urged Snyder to veto this and other limiting bills.
Snyder last year launched a high-profile, multi-agency action team aimed at ensuring a timely, uniform and comprehensive response to mitigating PFAS in the state, responding to concerns over PFAS from military firefighting sites as well as manufacturers. Among its actions, the state has undertaken a comprehensive sampling effort to identify PFAS in water supplies throughout the state, and in January adopted EPA's health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion as a starting point by using it as a combined standard for the two most common PFAS for groundwater remediation.
But MLive reported earlier this year that DEQ had withheld a report with important information about PFAS for nearly six years, prompting an uproar from local community activists and the Michigan League of Conservation Voters.
The 2012 report found high levels of PFAS in Lake Erie and Oscoda, MI, and advised MDEQ to create a plan to address PFAS contamination, MLive reported.
"However, MDEQ officials failed to take action and withheld the report from the public," Michigan LCV says in a July 12 press release, citing MLive's coverage.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/michigan-gop-bracing-democratic-governor-eyes-rollbacks
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Dealing with Polymers Under REACH
Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Paul Ashford
In a world that is more sensitive than ever to the consequences of plastics accumulating in the environment, the regulatory focus has turned again towards polymers. Even the environmental NGOs recognise that these have important societal functions and that concerns should be focused on single-use plastics, where the throw-away culture is seen at its worst.
The simple point now being made is that there is no such place as ‘away’.The basic inertness and longevity of most widely used thermoplastics make our decisions on material selection and disposal highly significant. There are increasing calls for a circular economy, but this is not yet happening to the extent it should, primarily because of the lack of regulation or financial incentive.
Taxation is being considered on single-use plastics to counter this, but the situation is made even more difficult by the complexity of the polymer arena. The number in commerce is estimated at between 400,000 and over one million.
The environmental fate of polymers is a major focus of attention in this situation, with particular concern emerging about microplastics and microfibres. While these are almost intractable issues when all sources are considered, regulators have realised that they can at least target the intentional addition of plastic microbeads to consumer-facing products in the cosmetics and personal care sector, where they are used as viscosity modifiers and application enhancers.
More surprising to the European polymer industry and its supply chain has been seeing REACH used as a vehicle for the introduction of a proposed Restriction in this area. Echa will be making a recommendation on this as early as January 2019. This follows a call for evidence and additional exchanges with industry earlier this year.
Part of the surprise has arisen from a chemical regulation in effect being leveraged to address a physical environmental challenge. We have seen similar trends in the use of REACH to address the physical characteristics of materials in human health, with the classification of hazards relating to poorly soluble particulates. However, this raises the question about whether a substance-based regulation like REACH can be used to address classes of materials like plastics and particulates.
Polymer identity: the challenge for REACH
As regulators consider how to accommodate restrictions on microplastics within REACH, the discussion on what one is has moved centre-stage. Debate on the definition is still ongoing, but most of it has focused on physical form. Little attention has been paid to the chemical composition outside of biodegradability and source (natural v. synthetic), both of which are polymeric properties rather than identifiers.
Indeed, allocating polymer identifiers has been a challenge for the world’s regulators for several decades now. The introduction of a global definition for a polymer – by the OECD in 1993 – has only added to the complexity of the challenge. One of the unintended consequences was the creation of a class of substances previously considered to be polymers, now being classed as ‘no longer polymers’ (NLPs).
Most polymers in commerce are sold as mixtures: thermoplastics have additives like antioxidants, UV-stabilisers, plasticisers and flame retardants, while thermosetting (reactive) polymers are likely to have solvents, catalysts and other reactive species to facilitate further polymerisation at later stages of the value chain. The OECD definition only addresses the polymeric component of such mixtures and speaks in terms of ‘monomer units’ (the reacted form of the monomer) rather than the monomers themselves. This is consistent with other legal rulings under REACH, which have considered them as ‘substances in their own right’ until they are polymerised.
Reconciling positions
Some other world regulatory regimes have historically glossed over the polymer identity question by avoiding the need to distinguish between polymers as defined by the OECD and polymeric mixtures as sold on the market. REACH, however, forced a more rigorous investigation because of the need to decide what a ‘polymer substance’ is in order to align with the Regulation’s approach at substance level.
Echa and industry consulted on this when the agency sought to draft its original polymer guidance back in 2007. The dominant voice at that time was that of the thermoplastics industry.
It was understandably less concerned about residual monomers in its polymers, since these were typically present at very low levels in otherwise high molecular weight (MW) polymers. As such, they were considered to be impurities and, in line with the REACH substance definition, part of the polymer substance. The guidance therefore followed this template.
The same argument could be applied to fully cured thermoset matrices where the residual monomers would be at very low levels too. However, typically thermosetting resins are sold by the manufacturer to the producer of the final article. Any monomer present is there to facilitate further polymerisation in the next step of the process; it is not a residual impurity but there to perform a technical function. In line with legal interpretations of the monomer as a ‘substance in its own right’ until polymerised, it would clearly be considered as part of a mixture.
After 2007, a number of thermoset industry trade associations pointed this out to Echa and it, plus some legal precedents, caused a reissuing of the Echa polymer guidance in 2012. However, the document did not manage to reconcile the two interpretations and an uninformed reader could consider it self-contradictory.
Against this backdrop, Cefic decided it needed to facilitate some further discussions between thermoset and thermoplastic polymer companies, in order to agree a consistent narrative that reflected both scenarios and avoided any contradictions of the type outlined. Dialogue between 2012 and 2014 led to an informal agreement on the distinction between a ‘residual monomer’ (with no technical function) and an ‘unreacted monomer’ (with one). In the former case, this would be an impurity in the polymer substance; in the latter, it would be a component in a polymer mixture (Figure 1).
Thermosets as a reactive continuum
As discussed, thermosetting resins are processed along the value chain, with the polymer mixtures typically becoming less and less hazardous as MW increases and other mixture components, such as unreacted monomers, are consumed.
Since virtually all of these resins are classified according to ‘mixture rules’, taking into account the hazard of the unreacted monomers, there is no lack of protection along the value chain. The classification, labelling and packaging (CLP) Regulation and related communication through the provision of a safety data sheet (SDS) ensures this. The green section of Figure 1 illustrates MW build-up until any remaining monomer has no further technical function and becomes a ‘residual monomer’.
On polymer identity, the regulatory challenge arises because there is no current way of delineating low MW polymers from high MW polymers of the same chemistry. Einecs does not extend to the naming and numbering of polymers. This means that the only available option is the Cas number system. Since this issue emerged, discussions have taken place with Cas about the application of their system to polymer identity.
However, their response is always that the system was introduced solely to distinguish between chemistries, not to differentiate polymers by MW. Thus those who use Cas to distinguish polymers on the basis of their hazard profile do so at their own risk. Echa has already noted this situation in the context of non-polymeric chemistry, but it takes on an even greater importance where there are no alternative nomenclature options.
Ongoing challenge for REACH
Article 138(2) of REACH provides for an ongoing review of the ‘risks posed’ by polymers, with a view to identifying those that display equivalent concern to other substances. This clause has acted as a trigger for a number of studies requested by the European Commission. The first was conducted in 2012 by RPA, which sought to gain an overview of the polymer sector and the hazards and risks associated with it.
In 2014, Bio-Intelligence was commissioned to assess the potential for grouping polymers (to reduce the sheer number to be considered) and criteria to define ‘polymers of low concern’. This principle had been adopted in other parts of the world, although not with the same sensitivities about specific polymer identity issues. Bio-Intelligence was therefore able to assemble a significant body of information on approaches adopted elsewhere, although this only tangentially addressed the central issue facing REACH.
In the Commission’s latest initiative, a further study has been launched to determine the criteria for ‘polymers of concern’. This clearly plays more closely to the agenda identified under Article 138(2) but stresses even more the need for clarity on how polymer substances are identified. It will not be possible to gloss over the identity issue as may have been possible for ‘polymers of low concern’. Much more will be at stake.
Indeed, with substance identity profiles (SIPs) being such an integral part of the REACH registration process for non-polymers, there may be much debate among polymer manufacturers and importers about sameness criteria in any resulting pre-Siefs or equivalent. To some extent, the Commission foresees this in the scope of the study, which it breaks down into three areas:
· to find criteria based on hazard properties and exposure for deciding whether a polymer is of concern or not;
· to look at ways of grouping polymers (or substance ID for polymers); and
· to find the appropriate information requirements for polymers of concern (also in the function of tonnage bands).
The consultant on this project, Wood, will need clear guidance on the substance identity question, before even starting to determine the hazard and exposure properties of the polymers being considered. There will also be a need to cross-read between information obtained on polymers ‘as sold’ (typically mixtures, even for thermoplastics where additives are used) and the hazard profiles of the substances themselves.
Concluding thoughts
REACH imposes a level of substance specificity on chemicals not seen in other comparable regulations. When applied to polymers, any assessment under Article 138(2) will require very clear guidance on how a substance is identified. While thermoplastics are the dominant form in terms of volume, thermosetting and other reactive polymers are dominant in number. Accordingly, dealing with the naming of reactive systems will be a key issue, which is likely to require going beyond the existing Cas framework.
The latest polymer study will need to address this early in its development. Although it is anticipated to run until the end of 2019, industry experience suggests that discussions on polymer identity at substance level may take much longer. The challenges are very different to those posed by the wider plastics discussion, which is focused solely on physical characteristics. Therefore, it will be important not to confuse or conflate the two issues.
Paul Ashford is the Managing director of Anthesis-Caleb
https://chemicalwatch.com/72674/dealing-with-polymers-under-reach
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Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Martin Führ
The amended EU waste framework Directive (WFD) has placed a task on Echa’s shoulders comparable to the fifth of the twelve labours of Heracles in Greek mythology, that of cleaning out the Augean stables. The agency has to set up a database to host entries from each and every supplier in the various supply chains when an article contains a substance of very high concern (SVHC) at above 0.1% w/w. This covers the entire EU internal market for all sorts of products, ranging from pencil sharpeners to textiles, toys, cars and more.
The legislators aim to reduce the content of hazardous substances in materials and products, including recycled materials. What they seek to do is nothing short of ‘detoxing’ the whole range of industrial material flows linked to physical products. It can thus be seen as a modern version of the Augean stables myth, but with a twist: they are not addressing biodegradable dung, but highly problematic chemicals.
Echa has to organise and store vast amounts of data electronically and "provide access to that database to waste treatment operators" and "to consumers upon request", as required by Article
9 (2) of the WFD. When transposing the Directive into national legislation, member states have to "ensure that any supplier of an article" (as defined by REACH) provides the information on SVHCs in articles to Echa from 5 January 2021.The scope of the requirements refers to Article 33 (2) of REACH and stipulates that identical data should already be being provided to every downstream "recipient of the article" since 2008. The supplier has to transfer "sufficient information, available to [them], to allow safe use of the article including, as a minimum, the name of that substance".
This far-reaching impact caused an outcry from industry associations during the legislative process. The trilogue, however, continued regardless. Four months after publication in the EU Official Journal, Echa presented a strategy paper and invited stakeholders to a workshop in Helsinki on 22 October. There, a group of European trade associations called on the agency to reconsider its plans to develop the database and instead asked for more encouragement to invest in recycling technologies.
Industry actors also presented this viewin the plenary Q&A session. This began with a statement claiming that the legal text only obliges industry to send an email to Echa listing all affected articles. Other comments highlighted the complexity of the supply chains and the huge amount of articles affected. Several proposals to ease the demands were presented. However, some recyclers said that they expected to receive data at a granular level.
In the Greek myth, Eurystheus handed Heracles the task of cleaning out the Augean stables in order to humiliate him. It seemed impossible because of the sheer amount of dung produced by 3,000 cattle, whose stables had not been cleaned in over 30 years. Heracles solved the issue
by looking at the task from a ‘bigger picture’ perspective. He rerouted two rivers to wash out the filth. The labour lying ahead of Echa can be seen as a reverse version of the myth.The agency has to steer streams of data into its stables in an organised manner in order to store this in a structured way. The legal text speaks of a ‘database’, which implies that a dunghill of emails would not serve the purpose. Thus Echa is entitled to define appropriate identifiers, for example, of the supplier’s identity, the (sub-)article containing the SVHCs or related safe use information.
In this respect the definition of an article under REACH and the related ‘once an article, always an article’ ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2015 both apply. The idea of ‘closing the loop’ via material recovery is jeopardised by the problematic substances fed into second-hand raw materials. This problem can be labelled ‘riskcycle’, as per the title of a Framework Project 7 project, which was sub-titled ‘Risk-based management of chemicals in a circular economy’. Echa’s task is to collect and structure data on articles which potentially pose a risk to human health and the environment during their use and the post-use phases.
The database gives an additional incentive to look for "suitable alternative substances or technologies" for SVHCs, as already foreseen in Article 55 of REACH. Thus it contributes to the overarching aim of "a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment", under Articles 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and 191(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The purpose of REACH, as Articles 1(1)
and 3 state, "is to ensure" this level of protection, "underpinned by the precautionary principle".Ultimately, this is all in line with the Johannesburg 2020 goal on a global level and is incorporated as a core element of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, to "ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns", in particular SDG 12.4. By contributing to these goals, the modern version of the myth might gain a glamorous reward.
After the regency was handed over to Augeas’s son Phyleus, the Olympic Games were established. A similar event to enhance innovation towards a circular economy remains to be invented. Industry actors should consider whether they base their strategic approach on Augeas’s habit of idleness or start to clean up their supply chains in order to be prepared not only for January 2021 but also for
the market challenges deriving from enhanced traceability and transparency on substances in articles.https://chemicalwatch.com/72672/the-modern-augean-stable
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Cashing in on Biomedicine’s Bonanza
Dec 7, 2018 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Dr. Emma Davies
Biomedicine has benefited enormously from ‘omics’ data, with reams of information being generated on genetics (genomics and transcriptomics), proteins (proteomics) and metabolites (metabolomics). Now chemical regulators are looking at ways to apply the same techniques to regulatory risk assessment, aided by advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).
Echa is looking for approaches that "enrich our knowledge to see if we can be faster, more efficient, more human-relevant and safe," says Mike Rasenberg, head of computational assessment at the agency. "Ultimately by doing that, we can reduce animal testing."
As part of this drive, Echa is working with Ben Brown, John Colbourne and Mark Viant at the University of Birmingham, UK, to delve into the world of metabolomics, transcriptomics and machine learning. "Biomedicine has really exploded in terms of applying ‘omics’ to understand what health means. What we are trying to do is help Echa use the same technologies to understand how exposure to chemicals interrupts processes that are necessary for health," says Professor Colbourne.
One problem for regulators is that there is no agreed best practice for generating and analysing metabolomics data. Professor Viant co-chairs the European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals (Ecetoc) project on metabolomics standards initiative in toxicology (MERIT). This brings together industry, government agencies, regulators and academics from Europe and the US, including the EPA, to accelerate the use of metabolomics technology to improve safety assessment.
The academic community is good at managing and sharing metabolomics data, much of which is housed at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in Cambridge, according to Professor Viant. The MERIT team has identified a need for ‘cross talk’ between the academic and regulatory toxicology communities to produce a framework for dealing with data.
Echa’s Iuclid database and the OECD harmonised templates that it uses cannot yet handle ‘omics’ data. Nevertheless, BASF has already submitted metabolomics data to Echa to support a read-across case, where information requirements for target substances are predicted using test information on related chemicals. The company collected the data while analysing blood samples from standard in vivo tests.
"We believe that the use of metabolomics data is a powerful tool to substantiate read-across under REACH" says Hennicke Kamp, who heads BASF’s experimental toxicology and ecology services. "At the moment, we do not apply machine learning tools to our metabolomics data. However, we are considering such approaches for the future."
In 2016, BASF carried out a case study on metabolomics as a read-across tool, using blood samples collected during a 28-day rodent test so that the procedure did not interfere with the study outcome. "It is conceivable that other technologies, such as transcriptomics, could also be combined with regulatory OECD studies without compromising their validity," said the write-up in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology.
The Birmingham team has found that a multi-omics approach is more useful than focusing on metabolomics alone, making it easier to identify genetic pathways leading to adverse health effects following chemical exposure. The researchers are working on combining metabolomics with transcriptomics. The ultimate aim is to hunt out biomarkers that point to key events in adverse outcome pathways (AOPs), which describe the chain of biological events leading to toxicity.
Much genetic test data is not relevant for risk assessment. "You get a bunch of genes and you don’t know what they do," says Professor Brown. "But if you try to predict some of the metabolome as a function of the transcriptome, then you are more likely to identify genes that correlate with metabolites, as a function of toxicity."
Data challenge
The challenge with multi-omics data is that only a very small subset of data links to the relevant AOP, according to Professor Brown. "If genes worked independently and metabolites weren’t in complex networks, then it wouldn’t be so bad," he says. "Statistics just isn’t the right tool, but machine learning is capable of dealing with complex systems."
Machine learning is changing the way that the team designs experiments. "Now we want experimental designs that will be useful for the machine learning tools that we have at our disposal. So there has been this really delightful cross-pollination of multi-omics modalities, machine-learning modalities and new concepts in experimental design to create studies that allow you to learn things like modes of action, molecular key events and AOPs," he says.
Qsars in the press
In July, computational toxicology catapulted into the mainstream media with news that machine learning software trained on chemical safety data could give more accurate toxicity predictions than animal studies, according to Thomas Hartung’s team at the Centre for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) at Johns Hopkins University in the US.
Together with safety science firm Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the team created a large chemical database and computer models to predict hazards from a substance’s similarity to others. This uses classification and labelling (C&L) information published by Echa, together with data from PubChem and a dataset on acute oral toxicity curated by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP).
The team describes the technology as combining read-across with Qsar to give read-across structure-activity relationship (Rasar). Picking relatively simple endpoints, from acute oral and dermal toxicity to eye irritation, the team published an article in Toxicological Sciences, suggesting that computational methods could provide predictive capacity "similar to that of animal testing models and potentially stronger in some domains".
The article had a mixed reception. "It struck a nerve with a number of us in the community who interact with regulators," says Ivan Rusyn, professor of integrative biosciences at Texas A&M University. Together with toxicologist colleagues from other institutions, he submitted a letter to the editor of Toxicological Sciences, calling for more information on Rasar. "We felt that there were a number of questions left unanswered," he says.
At the heart of their concerns is a statement that the Rasar model could provide results with a very high level of accuracy. They argue that a Qsar model’s predictive capability cannot exceed the experimental uncertainty of the results that it is based on. Differing levels of uncertainty for data used to build predictive models make it difficult to quantify accuracy, they suggest.
In their published response, Professor Hartung and his colleagues emphasise that "the Rasar models are not traditional Qsars, wherein a highly curated, small training dataset is used to predict a single property based on chemical descriptors". They point out that the model uses data on over 100,000 chemical structures and calculates over five billion similarities.
Echa’s Mr Rasenberg, meanwhile, does not see these computational models replacing higher tier or more complex animal tests any time soon. Although machine learning models are useful for making sense of test data, such as high-throughput test data or metabolomics, using them to model data to replace a 90-day repeated dose toxicity study is "really far in the future, if at all possible", he says.
However, machine learning is a useful tool for prioritising chemicals requiring further testing, while another "more exploratory and long-term application" is for harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) proposals. Echa is already using grouping approaches. "We are considering if and how there could be ways to use these approaches, for instance for CLH proposals for groups of chemicals. It’s an area where we have started to play with new approaches, machine learning and AI," says Mr Rasenberg.
Ruili Huang, lead informatics scientist on the toxicity profiling team at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (Ncats), agrees that machine learning and AI are most useful for prioritisation. "You cannot completely replace experiments with machine learning," she says, but "it is useful as a prioritisation tool because you can run the models for very, very large compound libraries."
Dr Huang’s team is also looking at deep learning tools "because they seem to perform better than traditional machine learning methods". Such models use a layered structure of algorithms, similar to the human brain’s neural network. "Deep learning takes into account more data but is also more time- and resource-consuming," Dr Huang adds. She is happy with current machine learning tools. "I think the limitation is the data part," she says. "When you have good data, you can apply any machine learning technique and get very good predictions."
The key to improving predictions is to use better data covering wider biology, Dr Huang suggests. For this reason, the consortium behind Tox21 – the EPA, the NTP, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – is working on expanding the biological space covered by the tests. "We do see an improvement in the predictions when we have more and more assays" says Dr Huang, who co-chairs Tox21’s bioinformatics working group.
Back at CAAT, Professor Hartung’s team is also looking into using deep learning techniques. "Deep learning is going to move us into an even more intense use of computational power but it promises to really close the gap and improve the methods even further," he says.
Regulators will always need to be able to understand how a prediction has been made; to see into a model’s decision layers. "Being able to explain what the models are using to make predictions is a big challenge for all of AI and deep learning," says Craig Rowlands, senior scientist at UL. The Rasar team was able to add transparency by systematically removing data streams and repeating predictions.
"This was hard work to do, but going forward we want to build that in automatically," he says. "AI has hidden layers. As we go forward, we will have more hidden layers and we will have to spend a lot more time and effort to determine what those are and how much they truly contribute to the predictions.
"The next push now – everybody wants this – is repeat-dose chronic toxicities: reproductive, developmental and cancer," says Dr Rowlands. "There is less publicly available data for building those endpoint-trained models on, which is why it’s really important to start using other in vitro data."
Machine learning can help to direct which assays to focus on when collecting new data for these endpoints. "We can use an AI system to decide which assays are very informative," says Dr Rowlands. "You can say: this assay gave a lot of information so you might commission further testing," adds Professor Hartung.
Dr Rowlands predicts that "we are going to break out of our silos in toxicology and medicine." The models are taking researchers to new data sources, which in turn improve predictions. "We are going to have to expand our minds in terms of what is useful and not useful. We can’t just go in with our own biases any more."
https://chemicalwatch.com/72675/cashing-in-on-biomedicines-bonanza
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Trump’s Pick for Energy Regulator Clears Senate by a Single Vote (2)
Dec 6, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Senate narrowly confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick for the nation’s top energy regulator, with Democrats voting in a bloc against him over concerns that he would use his position to promote fossil-fuel interests.
Bernard McNamee, a Republican Energy Department staffer who played a role in Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s ill-fated plan to subsidize coal and nuclear plants, came under fresh fire when a video surfaced in which he equated the environmental movement with tyranny and criticized renewable energy.
Those comments were enough to dissuade even coal-state Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) from supporting him. Still, the Senate approved his nomination to join the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in a 50-49 vote. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) was the only senator not voting.
“Throughout his career, Mr. McNamee has been manifestly biased in favor of the fossil fuel industry, and biased against renewable energy sources, so much so that one cannot believe he would be a fair arbiter on these issues,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said during a procedural vote Dec. 5.
However, Republicans said they were confident that McNamee would be an independent regulator.
“I thought he tried to hit a reasonable balance, saying we need good environmental stewardship and we’ve got to develop more energy,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told Bloomberg Environment about McNamee’s testimony before the committee.
Likewise, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), told Bloomberg Environment, “I don’t see any reason to vote against him.”
Special Interests
Other Senate Democrats raised concerns about McNamee’s role in Perry’s coal bail-out effort, which was ultimately rejected by the energy commission early this year. The independent panel, which is charged with overseeing the U.S. electric grid, is supposed to be fuel-neutral.
“This is not a question of the fox guarding the henhouse,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Dec. 5. “This is a question of putting a fox inside the henhouse.“
McNamee has responded to those concerns by pledging to be an “independent arbiter” who will arrive at decisions based on the law and facts. He also promised to consult with the agency’s ethics official.
Still, critics have called on McNamee to recuse himself from any commission matters in which there might be a conflict of interest. Harvard University’s Electricity Law Initiative plans to file a brief with the energy regulator recommending that McNamee be disqualified from any matters concerning rates for “fuel secure” generators.
“FERC Commissioners must be impartial adjudicators, but as a matter of law, Mr. McNamee is incapable of meeting that standard with regard to matters that he worked on while serving as an attorney at the Department of Energy,” Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative, said in a statement.
Certain environmental groups strongly opposed McNamee’s nomination because of his anti-renewable comments.
“The Senate’s reckless decision to place Bernard ‘coal bailout’ McNamee on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is a major threat to the Commission’s independence and integrity,” Mary Ann Hitt, senior director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, said in a statement.
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. Bloomberg BNA, including Bloomberg Environment, is an affiliate of Bloomberg L.P.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, which didn’t take a formal stance the nomination, said it hopes FERC remains fuel-neutral.
“As America’s interstate energy regulator, FERC is supposed to care about the reliable delivery of electricity at ‘just and reasonable’ rates, not about the source of the electrons powering the grid,” John Moore, director of NRDC’s Sustaintable FERC Project, said in a statement.
Coal Bailout
At Trump’s direction, Energy Department officials have proposed a new plan to extend the life of money-losing power plants, which they argue are essential to national security.
Under the strategy outlined in a May agency memo, the president would use sweeping authority under the 68-year-old Defense Production Act to force grid operators to buy electricity from specific power plants at risk of closing. Perry in September said that the agency was awaiting a final decision.
Depending on how the plan is structured, it may or may not come before the energy commission. Still, the degree of controversy over the proposal has drawn more attention than usual to the political leanings of the agency’s members.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told Bloomberg Environment she’s concerned about McNamee’s continued role in the Trump administration’s attempt to revive the coal bailout.
“He is one of the architects, if you will, of that strategy and seems to be in his personal views very committed to it as well. They are going to keep coming at it,” she said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/trumps-pick-for-energy-regulator-clears-senate-by-a-single-vote-2
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Democrats Get on Board with Manchin for Energy Committee Post
Dec 6, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Anthony Adragna
Senate Democrats are growing more comfortable with giving coal-friendly Sen. Joe Manchin a leading role in shaping climate policy.
The West Virginian's expected promotion to ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee had set off alarm bells among liberal activists who said his pro-coal views were out of sync with the grassroots energy pushing Democrats to do more to champion aggressive policies to confront climate change and elevate the issue on the 2020 campaign trail.
But those worries have not been echoed by Manchin's Democratic colleagues in the Senate, who say they are confident he will work well with other members of the party. Manchin’s surprise decision Wednesday to oppose FERC nominee Bernard McNamee over his views on climate change also encouraged his colleagues.
"He may be the ranking member, but he’s part of a team when it comes to issues of climate change, issues of the environment," Sen. Cory Booker, a likely presidential candidate, said of Manchin Thursday. "I have a lot of confidence I can work with him to fight for a far more aggressive agenda for dealing with the planetary crisis of global warming."
While there is virtually no chance of major new legislation to reduce carbon emissions being enacted with President Donald Trump in office and the GOP controlling the Senate, activists worry that Manchin would be in position to water down a future climate bill if Democrats win the Senate and he becomes energy chairman. But his fellow senators point out that the energy panel would be one of several venues to write climate legislation, along with committees like Environment and Public Works, Agriculture, Finance and Commerce.
Democrats also made clear that the caucus would not welcome sidestepping seniority to install someone more progressive on climate issues in Manchin's place.
“Joe and I don’t see on eye-to-eye on a lot of issues, but he’s a really important member of our caucus. He wouldn’t be the only leader on issues of climate,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told reporters. “On climate, we're going to make decisions collectively as a caucus. Nobody in our caucus has a veto over climate policy — whether they’re a ranking member on a committee or not.”
With the more senior members of the Energy committee expressing no interest in blocking Manchin from the post, his rise to ranking member appears all but assured.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is widely expected to depart her current ranking member position on the Energy Committee, though she remained publicly undecided Thursday. None of the other senators with more seniority than Manchin — Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) — have expressed interest in leaving their posts as ranking members of the Finance, Budget and Agriculture committees, clearing the way for the West Virginia Democrat to step into the energy position.
Cantwell expressed confidence in Manchin’s ability to represent the broader Democratic caucus on climate and energy issues should he get the post.
“I think Joe gets and understands we need to move forward on a diverse set of energy needs,” she told reporters. “I would look forward to working with him in whatever capacities.”
For his part, Manchin said he hadn’t felt any blowback from his possible promotion and dismissed the notion that his vote on McNamee was intended as an olive branch to environmentalists who objected to his support for the GOP nominee in a committee vote last week. Because McNamee "outright denies the impact that humans are having on our climate, I can no longer support his nomination. ... Climate change is real, humans have made a significant impact, and we have the responsibility and capability to address it urgently," Manchin said Wednesday in a statement explaining his decision.
“I’ve been pretty consistent about how I’ve felt on climate,” he told reporters Thursday.
Manchin also said he expects the caucus will continue to follow seniority rules in the ultimate selection of top Democrat on the energy committee.
“There are rules that we need to abide by,” he said. “I’ve always abided by them.”
That's not to say Manchin's likely promotion has been universally welcomed in the caucus. One Democratic senator, who requested anonymity to speak about internal discussions, pointed out the caucus has previously held votes on contested chairmanships, notably voting to let Sen. Joe Lieberman keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security in 2008.
The senator said Manchin would likely win a caucus vote if one were held today due to respect for seniority, but that lawmakers were looking for ways Manchin could allay concerns with his possible promotion, such as with his about-face on McNamee.
“At this point, the guy deserves a chance to prove himself,” the senator said. “He’s got a very real prospect of being able to allay concerns sufficiently to move forward.”
Whether that was what he intended or not, Manchin’s move against McNamee was welcomed by other Democrats as an olive branch.
“If he does get it, he could well have the potential to grow into the role,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) told reporters. “You know you’re a senator from a state who likes coal and wants to push that, but that committee is all energy. You have to have a broader view.”
The lack of public criticism from Senate Democrats of Manchin possibly moving up is likely to further enrage liberal activists who have been pushing Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to somehow block the move.
“Sen. Joe Manchin’s last minute change of heart on Bernard McNamee doesn’t erase a career spent defending the fossil fuel industry,” Lukas Ross, senior policy analyst with Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. “As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer muses about who should lead the committee at the center of the climate debate, he faces a tough decision that will directly reflect how seriously he takes the threat of climate change.”
Republicans, for their part, can barely contain their excitement at the possibility Manchin becomes Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (R-Alaska) partner atop the Energy Committee.
"I think it’s great," Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told POLITICO. "Joe Manchin holds views that are very consistent with the ones that I hold."
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/canada/article/2018/12/democrats-get-on-board-with-manchin-for-energy-committee-post-1014354
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Trump Plans Major Rollback of Sage Grouse Protections to Spur Oil Exploration
Dec 7, 2018 | New York Times
By Coral Davenport
The Trump administration on Thursday detailed its plan to open nine million acres to drilling and mining by stripping away protections for the sage grouse, an imperiled ground-nesting bird that oil companies have long considered an obstacle to some of the richest deposits in the American West.
In one stroke, the action would open more land to drilling than any other step the administration has taken, environmental policy experts said. It drew immediate criticism from environmentalists while energy-industry representatives praised the move, saying that the earlier policy represented an overreach of federal authority.
“This is millions and millions of acres of Western land that stretch across the spine of this nation,” said Bobby McEnaney, an expert in Western land use at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group. “With this single action, the administration is saying: This landscape doesn’t matter. This species doesn’t matter. Oil and gas matter.”
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, an association of independent oil and gas companies based in Denver, said in an email, “These plans will conserve the sage grouse without needlessly stifling economic activity.”
The plan is the latest in a series designed to promote more oil and gas drilling on public land in support of what President Trump has called a policy of American “energy dominance.” Last December, Mr. Trump signed a law that opened the vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, and the administration has since moved with unprecedented speed to allow exploratory work to begin there. In January, the Interior Department proposed opening up almost the entire American coastline to offshore drilling.
Last December, the administration also slashed the size of two major national monuments in Utah, reducing Bears Ears, a sprawling region of red rock canyons, by 85 percent, and Grand Staircase-Escalante to about half its former size, with the intent of opening the land to drilling and mining. But that move opened up only two million acres, compared with the nine million acres in the sage grouse decision.
The opening of great swaths of land and water to drilling could become tough to reverse once companies start leasing the land or sinking rigs into the ground, Patrick Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School, said. “It’s a major step,” he said. “It’s practically irreversible once you have the commitment of these lands to industrial uses.”
In reducing protections for the sage grouse, which has been a candidate for endangered-species protection in the past and has habitat in 10 oil-rich Western states, the government would be freeing up land that oil and gas companies have long thirsted after.
Under a plan put forth in 2015, during the Obama administration, oil and gas drilling was banned or limited in 10.7 million acres where the bird lives, under a stringent designation known as “sagebrush focal areas.” Known for its distinctive mating dance, the land-dwelling grouse has seen its numbers sharply decline in recent decades.
In cases where drilling was permitted in the habitat, it came with restrictions such as bans on drilling during mating season. The Obama plan also limited construction of drilling infrastructure, such as pipelines and roads, in sage grouse habitat and required companies that drill in restricted areas to pay into a fund to preserve and protect other habitat areas.
The new Trump proposal, which is expected to be finalized next year, would limit that highly protected area to 1.8 million acres and eliminate the requirement that companies pay into the habitat preservation fund, although companies could pay into it voluntarily.
A spokeswoman for the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, which published the proposal, said the new plan would not strip away all protections of sage grouse habitat. It would remove the “sagebrush focal areas” designation from the nine million acres, but she said it would leave other conservation measures in place.
“Taking away the ‘sagebrush focal area’ protection would be removing just one of multiple layers of protection,” said the spokeswoman, Heather Feeney. There would still be buffer zones banning the destruction of sage grouse habitat near nests, and drilling and mining companies would have to apply for waivers to destroy habitat.
Environmentalists, however, said that would amount to a major weakening of environmental protections, and noted that it might be relatively easy for companies to receive the waivers from an administration that is actively promoting new drilling.
“It’s true that there are still some conservation measures in place,” Nada Culver, a lawyer with the Wilderness Society, said. “But now, if a company says, ‘I don’t want to comply with those protections,’ then the Interior Department can just give them a permit that says, ‘Go ahead, you’re allowed to destroy the habitat.’”
States could opt to keep the Obama-era protections in place, and could also require companies to pay in to similar state-level funds. At least two states, Montana and Oregon, are expected to keep the protections in place, but other states, including Idaho and Utah, plan to follow the loosening of the federal rules.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who would implement the revised sage grouse plan, has repeatedly said that the new plans would not harm the bird. “No one loves the sage grouse more than I do,” Mr. Zinke said in response to a question in 2017.
Environmentalists have dismissed that claim, calling the rollback of the sage grouse protections a gift to the oil and gas industry. “It’s hard to pretend at this point that Zinke is a steward of America’s public lands,” Mr. McEnaney said.
Experts on endangered birds also criticized the proposal’s scientific underpinnings, echoing a criticism of the Trump administration’s approach toward the use of data and research in policy proposals.
“Today’s announcement is not based on any new science that changes the picture of what biologists regard as absolutely necessary to keep sage grouse off the endangered species list,” John W. Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said. “The Department of Interior is disregarding its own best available science.”
Government watchdog groups were critical of the role played by Mr. Zinke’s deputy secretary, David Bernhardt, in drafting the sage grouse plan. People familiar with the yearlong process say that much of the substantive work was performed by Mr. Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist. Since his confirmation to his position last year, Mr. Bernhardt has attracted criticism that his work creates a conflict of interest, given that he oversees proposals that could directly benefit his former clients.
As a partner in the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, Mr. Bernhardt lobbied for the oil companies Cobalt International Energy and Samson Resources. His legal clients have included the Independent Petroleum Association of America and Halliburton Energy Services, the oil-and-gas extraction firm once led by former Vice President Dick Cheney.
In March, a group of oil companies, including the Independent Petroleum Association of America, wrote to Mr. Bernhardt to thank him for his work on actions “that rescinded and revised mitigation policies that far exceeded statutory authority.” The groups also listed policies they hoped that Mr. Bernhardt would change, including the Obama sage grouse plan.
“Many of Bernhardt’s former clients stand to benefit from this plan,” said Jayson O’Neill, deputy director of the Western Values Project, a nonprofit public lands advocacy group.
However, Mr. O’Neill and others acknowledge that since loosening the environmental restrictions would most likely benefit hundreds of companies and numerous industries — not just Mr. Bernhardt’s former clients — it is difficult to claim he was acting with the specific intent to help the former clients.
Ms. Feeney, the spokeswoman for the Interior Department, declined to make Mr. Bernhardt available for an interview.
In a statement released Thursday, Mr. Bernhardt said, “We know the successful conservation of the greater sage grouse requires the shared stewardship vision of the states, private citizens, landowners and federal land management agencies including those within the Department of the Interior.”
Some environmentalists pointed out one case in which the Trump administration’s actions could, in the long term, actually make drilling more difficult on sage grouse habitat: if the population declines so much that the bird gets placed on the endangered species list.
“It’s ironic,” said Mark Squillace, an expert on environmental law at the University of Colorado Law School. “If the species is listed, it will trigger all kinds of federal actions.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/climate/trump-sage-grouse-oil.html
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USGS Finds Massive Potential in Permian Basin
Dec 6, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Kelsey Brugger
Portions of Texas and New Mexico's Permian Basin contain much more shale oil and natural gas resource potential than previously known, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey report.
The report found that the Wolfcamp Shale and overlying Bone Spring Formation in the Delaware Basin portion of the Permian contain up to 71 billion barrels of oil and up to 491 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
"Christmas came a few weeks early this year," Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement.
The advent of hydraulic fracturing a decade ago has created a goldlike rush in the Permian Basin, and oil executives plan to keep drilling for years to come.
"It should be making significant global news," said Robert McEntyre of the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association, adding that the new survey data build on several indicators showing the Permian has emerged as one of the top oil and gas plays in the world.
"I don't think many people had this kind of number in mind," McEntyre added. "It's certainly more significant that what was initially believed."
He said the capital costs to drill in the Permian are considerably lower than for offshore operations, and there has been major investment and activity in the area. Oil companies currently use conventional vertical well technology as well as horizontal drilling and fracking.
Zinke said he has long been "bullish" on oil and gas production. "Now, I know for a fact that American energy dominance is within our grasp as a nation," he said.
USGS Director Jim Reilly added: "Knowing where these resources are located and how much exists is crucial to ensuring both our energy independence and energy dominance."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/12/06/stories/1060108989
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FERC's Narrow GHG Reviews for Gas Pipeline Approvals Face Court Tests
Dec 6, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) narrow reviews of greenhouse gas and climate issues in its approvals of natural gas pipelines and other energy projects are facing their first tests in a pair of lawsuits in a key appellate court, after that court earlier required broad GHG considerations for a separate pipeline.
The first suit is Appalachian Voices, et al. v. FERC in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It challenges the adequacy of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) GHG review supporting FERC's approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), among other issues.
The litigation is relatively far along, with oral arguments set for Jan. 28. Most recently, a host of industry groups weighed in to support FERC's narrow GHG considerations.
The second suit, Ostego 2000, et al. v. FERC, et al., also in the D.C. Circuit, challenges the NEPA review of the New Market gas transmission upgrade project in New York. That litigation has just begun briefing with arguments not yet set. This week, states and environmental groups filed amicus briefs opposing the commission's attempt to administratively curtail the need for broader reviews, arguing FERC is in violation of the precedent-setting 2017 ruling the D.C. Circuit issued in Sierra Club, et al. v. FERC, et al.
There, the court rejected FERC's approval of the Sabal Trail pipeline network in the Southeast, ordering FERC to conduct a new NEPA review assessing the downstream GHGs that would be released when the piped gas is burned to make electricity.
But in the MVP case, industry groups filed Nov. 27 amicus briefs backing FERC -- including one from the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute, and a second brief from the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA).
“An unfavorable ruling in this case, where FERC has properly applied NEPA regulations to conclude that downstream [GHGs] are not indirect effects, would create negative precedent that could have broader effects on amici’s members,” the first filing says.
The associations argue that FERC “properly determined that additional downstream [GHG] emissions were not reasonably foreseeable and thus not indirect effects of its certificate of the [MVP project.] Contrary to Petitioners’ contention, there is no bright-line rule that these emissions are indirect effects of FERC’s authorization of the construction and operation of a pipeline project.”
Instead, they argue the scope is determined on a case-by-case basis and here FERC “reasonably determined that available information would not allow it to develop a meaningful forecast of downstream” GHGs.
Environmental petitioners argued in their Sept. 4 opening brief that FERC failed to adequately assess the downstream GHGs created by “burning 2.0 billion cubic feet of gas per day. FERC's [environmental impact statement (EIS)] estimated downstream emissions but devoted only one paragraph to the Project's massive emissions, and failed to engage in the required discussion of significance and cumulative impact. FERC incorrectly concluded that downstream effects were outside the scope of its NEPA analysis.”
SCC Claims
They also argued that FERC “arbitrarily refused” to use the Obama-era carbon damages tool known as the social cost of carbon (SCC) to evaluate the downstream emissions, “despite acknowledging it is an appropriate tool for informing federal agencies' decision-making.”
FERC in its Nov. 20 reply says it reasonably decided not to use the SCC, and that in the underlying order, it “extensively discussed why it believes the [SCC] is not appropriate for use in project-level NEPA reviews. With respect to the tool itself, the Commission found that 'no consensus exists on the appropriate [discount] rate to use.'”
INGAA's brief defends FERC's SCC rejection, arguing the tool cannot “evaluate a project's indirect environmental impacts.” It also cites the D.C. Circuit's July 2016 decision in EarthReports, et al. v. FERC, et al., rejecting environmentalists' challenge to a liquified natural gas export terminal, which upheld FERC's decision not to use the SCC in its analysis.
“The Court should adhere to the same position here,” INGAA says. “The [SCC] was not created to use with NEPA and was not intended to be used to determine how a project could affect the surrounding environment. Instead, it was 'specifically designed for the rulemaking process,'” the group says, citing the federal working group that created it.
Meanwhile, in the Ostego case, petitioners' Nov. 26 opening brief argues FERC's failure to evaluate indirect and cumulative upstream and downstream GHG emissions in the NEPA review was arbitrary and capricious; that the court should require FERC to prepare a supplemental analysis; and that FERC abused its discretion in issuing a new policy statement applicable to all future projects on the scope of GHG analysis without notice or comment.
The petitioners won support from New York, which filed a Dec. 3 amicus brief with Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. The Sierra Club also filed a Dec. 3 amicus brief.
The filings come after New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood (D) charged that FERC deliberately sought to avoid judicial review of its precedent-setting decision not to analyze upstream and downstream GHGs, which was part of a May 18 rejection of requests to reconsider its certificate for Dominion Transmission for the project.
Because FERC raised the GHG issues for the first time in the denial, Underwood said it would be difficult to file suit over the decision, but the petitioners filed suit July 16 regardless.
'Reasonably Foreseeable'
FERC's rehearing denial concluded that the commission was not required to consider the downstream GHGs caused by the project under NEPA because they were not “reasonably foreseeable.” It sought to distinguish the Dominion project from the Sabal Trail pipeline network, arguing the Southeast project has specific gas plant consumers while Dominion has no consumers identified, and that it would not necessarily boost natural gas production.
In a Dec. 4 statement accompanying the filings, the environmentalists note they are challenging FERC's 3-2 decision that it would stop analyzing “the full range of climate impacts of gas pipeline projects,” which “circumvents the D.C. Circuit's holding in Sierra club's successful Sabal Trail case.”
While FERC's May decision was limited to the New Market project, the environmentalists' statement notes that the commission majority has already applied its rationale to other pipeline projects.
The lawsuit seeks to halt that practice. “It is a shame that climate action advocates and states have to go to court to force a Federal agency to follow a court order, but here we are,” the group says.
The states' brief argues that FERC improperly announced a “new and incorrect interpretation of NEPA in an adjudicatory proceeding” and sought to “circumvent a pending policy proceeding directly addressing how FERC should evaluate” upstream and downstream GHGs under NEPA, referencing a separate, ongoing FERC review of its pipeline approval process.
That effectively “shut off public comment and participation on a matter of great importance,” because in the rehearing denial order FERC said “as a legal matter, it will no longer evaluate or consider the vast majority of upstream and downstream greenhouse gases caused by the natural gas infrastructure projects it reviews.”
The states add that FERC has since said its Dominion rehearing order creates a precedent supporting orders for other projects, which they also contend is unlawful.
Sierra Club's brief adds: “FERC's refusal to consider the full set of climate impacts caused by its projects flies in the face of its responsibilities under NEPA and this Court's decision in Sabal Trail.”
FERC's position is “a dangerous abdication of responsibility of a federal agency in charge of fossil fuel projects that will produce millions of tons” of GHGs.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/fercs-narrow-ghg-reviews-gas-pipeline-approvals-face-court-tests
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U.S. Oil Exports Are Rising. So Is the Trade Deficit.
Dec 6, 2018 | New York Times
By Binyamin Appelbaum and Jim Tankersley
The United States exported more oil and fuel than it imported last week for the first time in 75 years, a significant milestone in the resurgence of domestic energy production that comes as the Trump administration pushes to increase energy exports even further.
To President Trump, increased sales of oil and gas are a way to rebalance trade and close the gap between what the United States buys from foreign countries and what it sells. So far, however, that strategy is not working.
The rise in oil exports is not reducing the trade deficit. Instead, as Americans buy less foreign oil, they are buying more of other foreign goods and services. In October, the monthly deficit hit $55.5 billion, the highest monthly level in 10 years.
The United States surpassed Russia this year as the world’s largest oil producer. Domestic production has more than doubled over the past decade as technological improvements facilitated the extraction of oil from shale formations. Natural gas production also has increased drastically.
As domestic production increased, the federal government lifted a longstanding ban in 2015 on crude oil exports, allowing American oil to flow outside its borders. Those sales — combined with the existing ability to sell refined products such as gasoline — has helped to shift the balance of energy imports and exports. A decade ago, net energy imports still equaled more than a quarter of domestic energy consumption. This year, that figure has fallen below 5 percent. The Energy Department projects the United States will become a net energy exporter by 2022.
In theory, the rise of domestic energy production was supposed to help narrow the trade gap. Edward L. Morse, a prominent energy economist at Citigroup, predicted in 2012 that the annual trade deficit would be reduced by 60 percent by 2020. “The energy sector in the next few decades could drive an extraordinary and timely revitalization and reindustrialization of the U.S. economy, creating jobs and bringing prosperity to millions of Americans,” he wrote.
Instead, the size of the trade deficit has continued to grow.
The basic explanation is that the United States’ appetite for foreign investment, including the financing of the federal debt, is driving the country’s consumption of imports. The dollars that the United States borrows from foreign countries are the dollars that the United States spends on foreign products.
Under Mr. Trump, the combination of tax cuts and spending increases is causing a rapid expansion in the government’s borrowing. “It is pretty much a recipe for increased trade deficits,” said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who previously served as the chief economic adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
A reflection of the demand for dollars is that a key measure of the foreign exchange value of the dollar this week reached the highest level since 2002. The “trade weighted” measure multiplies the dollar’s value in foreign currencies by the share of the United States’ foreign trade with each currency area.
The rise in the dollar’s value reduces the relative cost of foreign goods and services while increasing the relative cost of domestic goods and services. The effect is to discourage foreign customers from buying American products, while encouraging American customers to buy foreign products.
Since spending on foreign oil is falling, it follows that other industries are bearing the brunt.
A wide range of companies outside the oil sector have warned that the dollar’s recent strength is likely to reduce profits, including the appliance maker Whirlpool, Carnival Cruise Line and Coca-Cola.
Investment growth under Mr. Trump has leaned much more heavily on oil and gas than it did under his two immediate predecessors. Under President George W. Bush, investment in resource extraction accounted for about 8 percent of total investment growth in the United States economy. Under President Barack Obama, the figure was about 10 percent. Under Mr. Trump, it is running at about 30 percent.
And the administration is seeking to intensify the trend. Larry Kudlow, the director of Mr. Trump’s National Economic Council, said in a recent interview that the administration is drawing up a new proposal for infrastructure development that revolves around expanded construction of oil and gas pipelines, liquefied natural gas export terminals and other energy projects.
Mr. Kudlow said the government would seek to reduce regulatory barriers, while the private sector would provide the financing. The largest advocacy arm for oil and gas companies in Washington, the American Petroleum Institute, estimated in a report last year that fossil fuel infrastructure investments could add as much as $1.3 trillion to the American economy over the next two decades.
“I want a lot of the infrastructure build out to be based on the energy industry,” Mr. Kudlow said. “Oil and gas pipelines. Coal transportation. L.N.G. terminals. Things that the private sector will finance, but will add to our energy dominance.” He cast the effort in both economic and national security terms, predicting that it would be a “gigantic” job creator and that it would allow the United States to “undercut the Russians” in selling natural gas to European allies such as Germany.
Mr. Trump, said Mr. Kudlow, was enamored of the plan: “The president loves this stuff.”
Indeed, Mr. Trump has cited energy sales as part of the agreement reached with President Xi Jinping of China over the weekend, saying that China had committed to buying American products, like liquefied natural gas. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said China agreed to buy $1.2 trillion worth of American exports, though the Chinese have not yet confirmed that amount or indicated what they might buy.
The emphasis on oil- and gas-related investment partly reflect the weakness of investment in other parts of the economy. During Mr. Trump’s tenure, year-over-year capital investment growth has averaged 5.9 percent per quarter. Excluding mining investment, that growth falls to 4.6 percent.
Any new oil and gas investment is likely to be aimed toward foreign buyers. Domestic energy consumption has stayed flat in the United States for several years, Energy Department statistics show. Energy exports, though, have doubled since the end of the Great Recession. Natural gas exports, by themselves, have doubled since 2015.
As part of the administration’s efforts to expand energy exports and find new markets for its products, the Treasury Department has started reaching nonbinding agreements with Latin American countries, including Chile, Argentine, Panama and Jamaica, to offer technical assistance on energy infrastructure projects.
The initiative — known as “America Crece,” a Spanish phrase meaning “The Americas Grow”— is aimed at increasing demand for American energy exports, and to
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/us/politics/us-oil-exports-trade-deficit.html
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Cyber Info Sharing Clears Legal Hurdles — Watchdog
Dec 7, 2018 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Federal agencies are ticking the right boxes to protect civil liberties while sharing data on hacking threats, the Government Accountability Office found.
Now they just need more private companies to show up to the information-sharing party.
GAO reviewed seven agencies' handling of legislative requirements in the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, which was aimed at getting the word out on cyberthreats both inside and outside government. The 3-year-old law offers legal protections for companies that opt to share hacking attempts among themselves, or with agencies like the departments of Homeland Security and Justice.
But a leading DHS cyber information-sharing program, dubbed Automated Indicator Sharing, or AIS, has attracted just seven participants from the private sector, an agency spokesperson confirmed yesterday. By contrast, nearly 300 federal and nonfederal government entities and a dozen international computer emergency response teams use AIS, according to the most recent DHS data.
U.S. security officials and lawmakers have long pushed for more cyber information sharing among the federal government and private critical infrastructure organizations like power utilities and oil companies. Organizations can use snippets of cyberthreat data to lock down their own networks. Over the long term, fast information sharing can raise costs for hackers by making it harder for them to reuse techniques across multiple targets. Burn one avenue of attack or malicious internet protocol address, the thinking goes, and hackers have to spend time crafting a new tool or finding new sites with which to stage intrusions.
Despite these benefits, lawmakers and civil liberties groups raised concerns that certain cyberthreat information, if improperly redacted and widely shared, could endanger personal privacy. So CISA included provisions for seven agencies — DOJ; DHS; the departments of Defense, Commerce, Energy and the Treasury; and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — to craft policies for sharing hacking information without stepping on individual rights.
GAO concluded that "the government-wide policies, procedures, and guidelines collectively met the act's provisions." The watchdog also analyzed use of DHS's automated sharing program and didn't find any cause for concern.
Still, the report included a warning on federal agencies' and critical infrastructures' reliance on potentially vulnerable information technology networks.
"The security of these systems and data is vital to public confidence and national security, prosperity, and well-being," GAO said in an introduction to yesterday's report. "Yet, cyber-based intrusions and attacks on federal and nonfederal systems have become not only more numerous and diverse, but also more damaging and disruptive."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2018/12/07/stories/1060108999
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No New Power Plant Controls to Aid Downwind States, EPA Says (1)
Dec 7, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The EPA won’t impose additional controls on power plants that send pollution across state lines, saying existing restrictions will be enough to clear the air in downwind states.
The Environmental Protection Agency in its second update to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, signed Dec. 6, made it clear that the 20 states covered won’t need to submit plans for additional steps to stop ozone-forming pollutants from blowing across state lines.
The original 2011 regulation created an air pollution trading program designed to address the interstate transport of ozone-forming pollutants.
The rule and its update are intended to help states meet the 2008 federal ozone standards. Ozone exacerbates breathing conditions such as asthma.
The EPA said its latest round of modeling and monitoring of air pollution showed all eastern U.S. areas will meet the ozone standards by 2023.
Once the rule is fully implemented, the EPA said, “upwind states in this region are not expected to contribute significantly to nonattainment or interfere with the maintenance of the 2008 ozone standards in any downwind state.”
Court MandateThe U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in New York v. Pruittordered the agency to come up with a federal plan by Dec. 6 to address ozone-forming pollutants that blow into downwind states from power plants in Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. That decision came in response to a lawsuit brought in January by Connecticut and New York.
Those states said they are unable to meet the ozone standards because of nitrogen oxides, an ozone precursor, blowing in from upwind states. Coal-fired power plants are the largest sources of nitrogen oxides.
The Northeastern states—particularly Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and New York—have taken other steps to prod the EPA into addressing pollution from upwind states, including filing petitions under the Clean Air Act’s “good neighbor” provision.
They also have asked the EPA to expand the region charged by Congress to tackle ozone. The EPA has so far denied all those requests, prompting some states to sue.
‘Bad Neighbor’“EPA is ignoring its responsibility to address ozone transport, which will make it nearly impossible for the New York City area to attain the 2008 ozone standard,” Jared Snyder, deputy commissioner of New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Division of Air Resources, Climate Change and Energy, told Bloomberg Environment in a Dec. 6 statement.
New York state, which has been waiting on EPA to respond to its March petition, has adopted strict ozone control programs for its sources, Snyder said. However, the New York City area still won’t meet the ozone standard by itself, because upwind pollution reductions are needed to address up to 95 percent of the ozone problem, he said.
The Environmental Defense Fund, Earthjustice, Sierra Club and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation accused the EPA of creating “a bad neighbor rule,” especially as 49 counties with more than 36 million people in the Eastern U.S. and Texas suffer from ozone levels that exceed the 2008 ozone standard.
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Environment is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.
(Updated last three paragraphs with reaction from New York state and environmental groups.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/no-new-power-plant-controls-to-aid-downwind-states-epa-says-1
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EPA Floats Making It Easier for Other Sectors to Skip Climate Rules
Dec 6, 2018 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillen
Environmentalists are sounding the alarm about a wonky provision in EPA's newest proposal to ease carbon dioxide limits on new coal plants that could make it more difficult to issue new climate regulations targeting other major emitters.
EPA acknowledged its rollback of Obama-era rules requiring any future coal plants to capture and bury their carbon emissions would lead to little or no new coal generation being built in the U.S., but the proposed rulemaking may ultimately open the door to avoiding future climate rules or even revoking existing ones.
At issue are a series of questions EPA lays out in the proposed coal plant rule that critics say would let it shirk responsibility to fight climate change. For example, the agency asks whether it should revisit an earlier conclusion that power plants "significantly contribute" to carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere, a question that is in line with criticisms from the Trump administration that U.S. policies have little effect compared with rising global emissions.
“If revoked, that means the end of Clean Air Act regulation of CO2 from new or existing power plants, the second-largest climate polluter in the country (after cars and trucks),” David Doniger, senior strategic director for the NRDC's Climate and Clean Energy Program, said in a tweet.
By posing the questions the way it did, the Trump administration appears to be looking for a legal rationale to justify relaxing carbon limits, said Bob Perciasepe,president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and a former deputy and acting EPA administrator in the Obama administration.
"Most of those questions are designed to make it possible ... for them to do very little, or maybe nothing," Perciasepe said.
The Clean Air Act requires EPA to determine that power plants or other broad source categories "cause, or contribute significantly to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."
But neither Congress nor EPA ever defined what a “significant” contribution is, providing an opening for the Trump administration to consider its own interpretation. A high threshold could allow other sources to avoid carbon limits in the future, but the agency says it is not proceeding with a specific goal in mind.
“It’s a nuanced legal issue,” said Mandy Gunasekara, the principal deputy assistant administrator in EPA's air office and a former aide to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.).
“A lot of us come from working on the Hill, and we know the back-and-forth discussions of a single comma, much less a word like ‘significant,’ would have meaning,” she added. "Our desire is to build that discussion out.”
EPA said it might also circle back and apply the question to new coal plants. The proposal asks whether the agency has a “rational basis” for regulating new coal plants, “and whether it would have a rational basis for declining to do so at this time.”
The agency noted that reduced use of coal has lowered emissions from the electric power sector, and that it expects few to no new coal plants to be built. That “raises questions about whether new coal-fired [power plants] contribute significantly to atmospheric CO2 levels.”
Other industries are responsible for comparatively fewer emissions than cars or power plants, the two leading sources. If EPA determines their emissions do not “significantly” contribute to air pollution, those industries might be able to avoid climate regulation. Refineries, cement-makers, chemical manufacturers and other sectors that send greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are seen as potential future targets for emissions rules.
“As the next regulated sector, it’s very important to us we at least get an answer there so that we know who’s going to be regulated, how they’re going to be regulated,” said Ross Eisenberg, vice president of energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers.
EPA is also considering how other sources of carbon pollution should be targeted for regulation to begin with. In the first year of the Obama administration, the agency determined that such emissions from automobiles were a threat to public health, opening the door to the first-ever federal greenhouse gas rules. A few years later, it extended that so-called endangerment finding to power plants.
But the new coal plant proposal questions whether EPA should go back to the drawing board whenever the agency considers regulating another sector, such as cement or chemicals, instead of expanding existing findings directly. Greenhouse gases may be “different in salient respects from traditional emissions” such as particulate matter or sulfur dioxide, which may require a new endangerment finding, EPA said Thursday.
"It’s really appalling that EPA seems to be cracking this door open for questions, whether they are legally obligated to regulate carbon pollution," said Tomás Carbonell, director of regulatory policy at the Environmental Defense Fund. "If EPA did actually take any final action reflecting the thinking that’s in that footnote, it would be contrary to the law and contrary to this really massive record that supported their original decision."
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2018/12/epa-floats-making-it-easier-for-other-sectors-to-skip-climate-rules-1014953
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It’s Time to Face the Inescapable Truth: We’re Running out of Time on Climate Change
Dec 6, 2018 | Washington Post
By Editorial Board
THE WORLD is heading in the wrong direction, and it does not have much time left to change course. After several years in which global greenhouse-gas emissions leveled off, they spiked to record levels this year, according to projections a group of scientists released Wednesday. Along with some major developing nations, emissions in the United States are projected to grow substantially. So much for all those assurances that the market would take care of the problem.
The news comes just after the United Nations released a report finding that climate change will disrupt human society, kill many people and permanently reshape the Earth unless stemmed aggressively, and soon.
The inescapable truth: The transition from fossil fuels is essential, it is going to be hard, and the United States must step up.
Overall, global emissions are projected to rise by 2.7 percent this year, up more than a point from last year’s growth rate. China’s emissions are up 5 percent, and India’s 6 percent. China remains the world’s largest emitter. Even so, its emissions intensity — that is, how much carbon dioxide it spews into the air relative to the size of its economy — has declined substantially in recent years, and the country is still on track to meet the landmark target it set in the Paris climate agreement. India, meanwhile, has lots of poor people struggling to emerge from miserable poverty, who will naturally use more energy as they improve their standard of living. Yet that country is poised to exceed its Paris commitment.
The United States is not, and the country does not have the excuse that its economy is still developing. U.S. emissions are up by 2.5 percent from last year, and it is one of seven major nations lagging on their Paris goals. Canada is also behind, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just announced an ambitious carbon-tax plan. The European Union, too, needs to do more to meet its Paris commitment, but its emissions were down this year, and the bloc has worked hard to cut its carbon footprint.
The Trump administration, on the other hand, is trying to push the United States backward. The day after the latest emissions numbers emerged, the Environmental Protection Agency announced another rollback of a regulation on coal-fired power plants, the greatest villains in the climate change story.
The reason for the United States’ surge in emissions appears to have been higher energy use to heat and cool homes this year. As the world warms, people will want to use more air conditioning — producing more emissions unless the country gets its energy from low- or zero-carbon sources. This is just one of the many, many factors that make it more sensible to combat climate change before it worsens rather than waiting until it becomes an emergency. World leaders have missed their chance to avoid the warming already here and built into the system. The Trump administration would have humanity miss its window entirely.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-time-to-face-the-inescapable-truth-were-running-out-of-time-on-climate-change/2018/12/06/d8452156-f99f-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html?utm_term=.11dd90aea6f8
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'Green New Deal' Is 'Aspirational' — Carper
Dec 6, 2018 | E&E News PM
By Nick Sobczyk
House progressives have been talking up a "Green New Deal" platform, with the goal of getting to 100 percent renewable energy in a decade, but Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) today offered a dose of skepticism.
"As an aspirational goal, is that a good goal? Yes, it is," the Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member told reporters. "Is it all that realistic? Probably not in the environment where we work. Certainly not now."
As the top Democrat on the Senate panel overseeing EPA and environmental legislation, Carper will likely be a key ally on climate issues in the next Congress for Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and other progressives.
Ocasio-Cortez wants to create a select committee in the House tasked with drafting broad climate legislation by 2020. Goals include the 100 percent renewables target, massively decarbonizing industry and building a national "smart" grid.
She's built nearly two dozen supporters in the House, as well as a handful across Capitol Hill, including Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who chaired the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming during his time in the House.
Carper, for his part, has largely focused on the Trump administration's regulatory rollbacks, especially its proposed freeze of fuel economy standards, over the past year.
Carper has pitched the administration on a compromise version of the clean car standards, and he said today that "some people within the administration are open" to his proposal (E&E Daily, Dec. 6).
But heading into the next Congress, he suggested it may be good to have progressives pushing the party on climate change, calling the "Green New Deal" a "good aspirational goal."
"It's serious," he said. "It's really serious, so I think having an aspirational goal like that is just fine."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2018/12/06/stories/1060108985
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Critics Decry Administration's Jettisoning of CCS
Dec 7, 2018 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
Critics are pushing back on the Trump administration's rejection of carbon capture and storage as an "unproven" technology for cutting carbon emissions from new coal-fired power plants.
Yesterday, EPA released its proposed replacement for the New Source Performance Standards for new and modified power plants. The new rule would give power plants greater leeway to emit more carbon and no longer considers CCS the "best system of emissions reductions."
In his introduction to the proposed rule, acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler implied that the agency had little choice but to ditch CCS in its latest rule.
"We are supposed to set standards that are adequately demonstrated, and that is what we are doing," he said at an EPA event yesterday.
The proposal also raises the amount of carbon emissions large power plants are allowed to emit, from 1,400 pounds per megawatt-hour to 1,900 pounds (E&E News PM, Dec. 6).
Wheeler maintained the new rule would not result in significant carbon dioxide emissions or costs.
Proponents of stricter emissions standards argued yesterday that the Clean Air Act was intended to push industry to become more innovative and aggressive in the way it reduces pollution levels. Under the CAA, EPA has to evaluate the best available pollution controls and develop a standard based on that technology.
Sean Hecht, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA's School of Law, said lawmakers saw Section 111 of the Clean Air Act, the section of the law the proposed rule is written under, as a "technologically forcing statute" aimed at both industry and the companies that develop emissions-reducing technologies. If EPA waited for technology to become cheaper and more widely available before promoting its use, it would no longer be acting in a technology-forcing way, he added.
"It's one of the reasons why cars and oil refineries have gotten cleaner," he said. "If technologically and economically you can predict that the technology can be commercialized, that's enough to consider it economically demonstrated."
In the case of new power plants, the Obama administration identified partial CCS as the most advanced and best system for cutting emissions. But the Obama standard also did not explicitly require coal-fired power plants to use CCS to cut emissions. Rather, it calculated emissions reduction targets based on what could be achieved through the use of the technology.
Jay Duffy, legal associate at the Clean Air Task Force, noted that the Obama rule only envisioned between 16 and 23 percent carbon capture, depending on the type of coal being burned, and that power plants could also have used other strategies like integrated gasification, or co-firing with a small amount of gas.
"Even Obama's standard was fairly conservative," Duffy said.
Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, saw the latest rule change as another example of the Trump administration's efforts to halt or at least delay what it has characterized as a "war on coal."
"They want to have less stringent standards," he said. "Weaker standards for power plants would make it easier for new power plants to come online."
He noted that scientists have already shown that CCS is both available and a proven technology.
In an amicus brief Burger filed last year over stalled litigation on the Obama rule, experts on CCS science and technology illustrated how CCS technology has been in use for decades.
They pointed to the success of the Boundary Dam coal-fired retrofit project in Canada, which has captured 2.2 million metric tons of CO2 since 2016. They also note that thousands of CO2 pipelines already exist, providing more than enough infrastructure to carry captured carbon for storage.
"[T]he NSPS is already attainable, but technological advances will make it even easier to meet this standard in the near future," they wrote.
As of 2017, there were 15 large-scale integrated CCS projects in operation. Only two of them are operating coal plants, but they are not new builds. NRG Energy Inc.'s Petra Nova project in Texas is the only one in the United States (Energywire, Jan. 10, 2017). SaskPower's Boundary Dam project in Canada, which opened in 2014, is the other.
There is legal precedent for EPA to require sectors to use technology that is commercially available for use but is not widely deployed.
The legal experts' brief points to two decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the 1970s (Essex Chemical Corp. v. Ruckelshaus and Portland Cement Association v. Ruckelshaus), which found that an "adequately determined" system did not have to be used routinely. The main concern was whether it was "available" to be installed.
"The fact that it has been demonstrated in other contexts, the fact that there are no existing plants with precisely this technology doesn't mean EPA can't set a standard at precisely that level," Hecht said.
Whistling in the wind?
Hecht suggested another reason EPA is releasing a new proposal for coal-fired power plants. Under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act, EPA has to draft a rule for new sources in order to release a rule for existing sources.
Even as debate continues about the content of the rule, few expect much new development of coal-fired power plants, as fossil fuels struggle to compete against cheap natural gas and renewables.
This week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration released a report projecting that U.S. coal consumption would decline by 8 percent in 2019, following a 4 percent dip this year. It also predicted the United States would only build one new coal-fired power plant, with a 17-megawatt capacity, by the end of next year. That plant would be too small to fall under the requirements of the newly proposed rule, said David Doniger, senior strategic director of the climate and clean energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Matt Gray, a senior analyst of power and utilities at the Carbon Tracker Initiative, saw little chance of new coal plant development in the coming years.
"I think with regard to the U.S., the prospects are vanishingly small, mainly because it is not competitive and virtually all utilities acknowledge that," he said.
"Whatever the Trump administration tries to do, whether it relaxes regulations or is providing subsidies to new builds, I don't think that will incentivize new coal because gas and renewables are far cheaper," he added.
Reporter Christa Marshall contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2018/12/07/stories/1060109009
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