Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - December 13, 2018
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Legislature to Weigh Statewide Plastic Bag Tax, Straw Ban
Dec 13, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
The Oregon Legislature will consider a statewide tax on plastic bags and a ban on plastic straws. -
Environmentalists File FOIA Action To Force Release Of TSCA CBI Studies
Dec 13, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Highlighting their concerns with the data EPA uses under the revised toxics law, environmentalists are filing a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request to force the agency to release two dozen studies that it relies on in its landmark draft assessment of pigment violet 29 (PV29) but which the agency has deemed as confidential business information (CBI) and withheld. -
PFAS Detected in Carpets from Several U.S. Manufacturers
Dec 13, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Courtney Columbus
Chemicals known as PFAS are present in several major carpet products sold in the United States, according to a new report by the Changing Markets Foundation in collaboration with other organizations and researchers. -
UK Study Finds High Levels of Boron in Toy 'Slime' Products
Dec 13, 2018 | Chemical Watch
UK consumer group Which? has found that some children's slime products it tested exceed EU safety standards for boron, an SVHC. -
Texas OKs Air Permits for Rio Grande LNG Export Project in Brownsville
Dec 13, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Texas regulators have OK’d a series of air permits to advance a liquefied natural gas export project in far South Texas near the Mexico border. -
The Oil Industry’s Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules
Dec 13, 2018 | The New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi
When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, automakers, the obvious winners from the proposal, balked. The changes, they said, went too far even for them. -
Ohio EPA Hearing in Shadyside on Cracker Plant Weighs Economic Benefits Against Health Concerns
Dec 13, 2018 | Wheeling Intelligencer
By Alex Meyer
People with varying interests in a proposed ethane cracker plant filled a room Wednesday to discuss a discharge permit that would allow the plant to dump certain chemicals into the Ohio River. -
Layoffs Hit Beaumont-Area Petrochemical Plant
Dec 13, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Marissa Luck
A Sugar Land-based petrochemical manufacturer will lay off 20 percent of its workforce at a Silsbee facility, the company said Thursday. -
Reinstate Panel of Air Pollution Experts, EPA Advisers Say
Dec 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Four of the EPA’s seven air pollution science advisers told the agency Dec. 13 to reinstate a panel of experts to review the air quality standards for particle pollution that was disbanded in October. -
Democrats Shift Toward Impact on Jobs as Climate Change Moves to Front of 2020 Agenda
Dec 13, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Michael Scherer
Spurred by dire scientific warnings and new Capitol Hill protests, Democrats preparing to run for president have been rushing to shift their plans for combating climate change, highlighting an issue once considered a political liability, especially in Midwestern swing states won by President Trump. -
Pennsylvania Auditor Probing State Response to Climate Impacts
Dec 13, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has announced plans for a special report to explore how one of the nation’s leading energy-producing states is responding to climate change. -
From Mars to Ikea, Concerns Emerge About Vague Climate Rules
Dec 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jeremy Hodges
Business leaders at a round of United Nations talks on limiting climate change warned that the rules envoys are drawing up are may be too vague to change the way they work. -
Youth Climate Plaintiffs Urge 9th Circuit to Deny DOJ Appeal
Dec 13, 2018 | Inside EPA
Youth plaintiffs pursuing a high-profile constitutional climate change case against the Trump administration are urging a federal appeals court to reject the Department of Justice's (DOJ) effort to dismiss the case before it goes to trial at a lower court.
Industry and Association News
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Legislature to Weigh Statewide Plastic Bag Tax, Straw Ban
Dec 13, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
The Oregon Legislature will consider a statewide tax on plastic bags and a ban on plastic straws.
The Statesman Journal reports a state Senate committee voted to introduce both legislative concepts, or preliminary bills, during an informational hearing yesterday.
Both bills would help reduce plastic waste that ends up in landfills and the environment.
"From our perspective, nothing we use for 10 minutes should pollute the environment for hundreds of years," said Celeste Meiffren-Swango, state director of Environment Oregon.
One would impose a 5-cent-per-bag tax on single-use plastic bags used by retail stores selling food or alcohol, and require the establishments to provide paper checkout bags.
The tax wouldn't apply to meat and vegetable bags, or other non-checkout bags. And customers who use vouchers and state benefit cards would be exempt.
Money collected would go to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, for a new Plastic Clean-Up and Recycling Fund.
Fourteen Oregon cities have banned single-use plastic bags.
The Legislature previously considered banning plastic bags, in 2010, 2011 and 2012. All three bills died in committee.
This is the first time a tax, rather than a ban, has been proposed. Because the bill would raise revenue, it would require a three-fifths majority approval.
Another measure would prohibit restaurants from providing single-use plastic straws to customers unless they request a straw.
The proposal specifically exempts straws made from sugar cane, pasta and some other natural ingredients.
Violators could be fined up to $25 per day, with a cap of $300 per year. — Associated Press
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/12/13/stories/1060109549
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Environmentalists File FOIA Action To Force Release Of TSCA CBI Studies
Dec 13, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Highlighting their concerns with the data EPA uses under the revised toxics law, environmentalists are filing a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request to force the agency to release two dozen studies that it relies on in its landmark draft assessment of pigment violet 29 (PV29) but which the agency has deemed as confidential business information (CBI) and withheld.
"Failure to release these studies violates section 14 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), reflects a troubling lack of transparency, and will frustrate the ability of interested parties to review and submit comments on the science EPA cites to support its risk evaluation and to participate meaningfully in the peer review process," six environmental groups write in a Dec. 6 letter to EPA.
The letter, which asks that EPA add the studies to the draft assessment's electronic docket "without delay" is signed by officials with the Center for Environmental Health, Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Health Strategy Center, Natural Resources Defense Council and Safer Chemicals Healthy Families.
The groups have also filed a FOIA request for the studies, "to preserve our ability to access them in the event EPA does not respond favorably to this letter."
EPA's recently released PV29 draft assessment is the first such study of an existing chemical under TSCA, as revised by Congress in 2016. The assessment seems likely to pose a test of the new law's data standards as environmentalists and others raised doubts last summer in comments on planning documents for the assessment that the agency has sufficient information to base its conclusion that the substance does not pose an "unreasonable risk." They urged EPA last August to require new toxicity tests of the chemical.
A comparison of the studies that EPA said it had in its May 2018 problem formulation document appears to be the same as the list of studies included in the draft assessment that the agency released Nov. 14, which found that the substance does not pose an "unreasonable risk" that must be regulated. And now, environmentalists are challenging EPA's decision to withhold studies as CBI -- another aspect of TSCA significantly revised in 2016.
The environmentalists say that 20 of the studies have been previously submitted to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) for compliance with the European chemicals law known as Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACh), with the remaining four "apparently submitted to EPA by an unnamed data owner." While the agency has released the "robust summaries" of the 20 studies that were submitted to ECHA, the environmentalists argue that TSCA requires the entire studies be made publicly available.
"Under section 14(b)(2), the law's restrictions on disclosure of [CBI] do not apply to 'any health and safety study which is submitted under this Act' for a chemical substance which 'has been offered for commercial distribution,'" the environmentalists note, adding that TSCA section 3(8) defines "health and safety study" as "any study of any effect of a chemical substance or mixture on health or the environment or on both, including underlying information and . . . toxicological, clinical and ecological studies . . ."
CBI Protection
The environmentalists argue that the 24 PV29 studies meet the statutory definition of "'health and safety studies' that cannot receive CBI protection under TSCA."
While they say that EPA has not stated its justification for withholding the studies as CBI, they argue that "the only portion of a health and safety study that can be treated as CBI under section 14(b)(2) is information 'that discloses processes used in the manufacture or processing of a chemical substance'" and call on EPA to issue redacted versions of the studies in those instances.
They also take issue with EPA's issuance of the summaries of the 20 studies also submitted to ECHA in lieu of the studies themselves, arguing that "this puts the public in the untenable position of accepting EPA's findings on faith. Without access to the full studies, the public cannot form its own judgments about the quality of the studies and the proper interpretation of the results. Thus, the public cannot meaningfully comment . . ."
The environmentalists also complain that holding the studies as CBI needlessly complicates the upcoming meeting of the Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC), which is scheduled to peer review the draft PV29 assessment Jan. 29 to Feb. 1, 2019.
EPA's Nov. 30 Federal Register notice announcing the meeting says that "[a]pproximately one hour of the TSCA SACC's in-person meeting will be closed to the public for the TSCA SACC to consider and discuss material that has been claimed as CBI and provided to the Committee as background for the draft risk evaluation for PV29. In accordance with FACA section 10(d), and section (c)(4) of the Government in the Sunshine Act, 5 U.S.C. 552b, this approximately one-hour session of the TSCA SACC will be closed to the public to avoid the potential disclosure of CBI, which is protected from disclosure by statute."
The environmentalists argue that doing so "will deny the public full access to the peer reviewers' conclusions and recommendations on a central element of the PV29 evaluation, further blocking meaningful public participation in the review process. It also will constrain the peer reviewers' ability to engage in a robust debate and discussion during the peer review process."
They argue the "irony" of EPA's position on the PV29 studies "while taking a diametrically opposite position" in former Administrator Scott Pruitt's controversial proposed rule of last spring barring EPA's use of any scientific information in regulatory decisionmaking where the underlying raw data is not publicly available. "While our groups have criticized many aspects of the April 30 proposal, EPA's contradictory and selective adherence to its own transparency goals is deeply troubling," the environmentalists write.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/environmentalists-file-foia-action-force-release-tsca-cbi-studies
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PFAS Detected in Carpets from Several U.S. Manufacturers
Dec 13, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Courtney Columbus
Chemicals known as PFAS are present in several major carpet products sold in the United States, according to a new report by the Changing Markets Foundation in collaboration with other organizations and researchers.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have gained attention as they have been detected in drinking water in several states. PFAS have been widely used for decades in a variety of other commercial and industrial products, including firefighting foam and nonstick cookware.
The more widely studied types of PFAS have been linked to a variety of health effects. PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, for example, has been linked to kidney and testicular cancer and thyroid disease.
Researchers at the Department of Environment and Health at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Michigan-based nonprofit Ecology Center and the University of Notre Dame carried out the testing.
They found PFAS in five out of 12 carpet products tested. More than 25 parts per million of total fluorine was detected in a sixth carpet product, suggesting that it may contain PFAS, according to the report.
"Toxics in carpets make our homes, offices, and schools less healthy places to live, work, study, and play," Jeff Gearhart, Ecology Center research director, said in a statement.
"Further, when carpet materials burn, as they did in California's recent fires, the combustion of hazardous chemicals increase the toxicity of the air people breathe. By designing carpets without toxic substances, we can better protect human health and the environment, while making it possible to recycle them into new, safer carpet."
Carpet samples from six of the biggest U.S. carpet manufacturers were tested for a variety of chemicals, according to the report's methodology. Researchers tested each manufacturer's best-selling carpet and a carpet that it marketed as the most environmentally friendly.
The products found to contain PFAS are manufactured by Milliken & Co., Mohawk Industries Inc., Shaw Industries Group Inc. and Tarkett SA.
The companies whose carpets were found to contain PFAS or total fluorine did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The researchers also found toxics including nonylphenol and phthalates in some of the carpet products they tested. "At least one toxic chemical was found in most carpets tested; many products included two or more," the report states.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/12/13/stories/1060109571
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UK Study Finds High Levels of Boron in Toy 'Slime' Products
Dec 13, 2018 | Chemical Watch
UK consumer group Which? has found that some children's slime products it tested exceed EU safety standards for boron, an SVHC.
Which? claims that six out of 13 tested products failed the EU safety standard for toys (EN 71-3). The standard stipulates that boron levels in slime products for children must fall below 300mg/kg and toy putties must have boron levels that fall below 1,200mg/kg.
The toy slimes and putties tested came from a range of high-street and online retailers including Hamleys, Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Argos.
Levels found ranged from 290mg/kg to 1700mg/kg.
In response to the findings, UK toy store Hamleys said it was pulling the product tested from its store. It told Which?: "As a precautionary measure we have made the decision to remove all Goobands Frootiputti from our stores while we investigate this matter further."
Others said they would investigate the findings, and some defended the products they sold saying that they had carried out independent tests and found them to be within EU concentration limits.
Boron compounds, such as borax, are added to toy slime to give it its gelatinous texture. They are classified as reprotoxic.
https://chemicalwatch.com/72779/uk-study-finds-high-levels-of-boron-in-toy-slime-products
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Texas OKs Air Permits for Rio Grande LNG Export Project in Brownsville
Dec 13, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Texas regulators have OK’d a series of air permits to advance a liquified natural gas export project in far South Texas near the Mexico border.
Houston-based NextDecade Corp. said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) voted to approve three key air permits for the Rio Grande LNG project for the Port of Brownsville [No. 2018-1304-AIR].
“We appreciate the TCEQ’s commitment to the review of our project and are pleased to achieve another significant milestone in our efforts to deliver a safe and reliable LNG facility,” NextDecade CEO Matt Schatzman said. “We look forward to bringing thousands of jobs to the Rio Grande Valley and communities throughout the State of Texas, and to facilitating access to clean-burning, U.S.-produced natural gas for our customers around the world.”
NextDecade is developing a portfolio of LNG projects, including the 27 million metric tons/year (mmty) export facility in Brownsville. In addition, the complementary 4.5 Bcf/d Rio Bravo Pipeline would transport supply from the Agua Dulce hub, also in South Texas near Corpus Christi, to the export project.
As envisioned, the export terminal would entail six liquefaction trains, each with a nominal capacity of 4.5 mmty (i.e., a long-term average of about 0.6 Bcf/d), four LNG tanks (each with a capacity of 180,000 cubic meters), two marine jetties for ocean-going LNG vessels (with capacities of 125,000-185,000 cubic meters), one turning basin, as well as four LNG and two natural gas liquids truck-loading bays.
As proposed, LNG produced at the site also could be loaded onto trucks that would be used solely to supply truck-fueling facilities.
Infrastructure is to include twin 42-inch diameter pipelines running parallel, three 180,000 hp compressor stations, two 30,000 hp interconnect booster stations, six mainline valve sites, four metering sites along a 2.4-mile-long header system, as well as ancillary facilities.
The Rio Grande project remains subject to review by FERC, which in October issued a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the export project and associated Rio Bravo Pipeline. A final EIS is scheduled to be issued in April. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also has established an authorization deadline of July 25.
NextDecade expects to make a final investment decision in 3Q2019.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn filed an open letter with FERC in support of the project, citing economic reasons. "FERC's final approval of this project will unleash the additional natural gas export potential of the U.S. and the state of Texas, driving significant economic, energy, trade and environmental benefits for generations to come," he wrote.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat, also wrote to FERC that he supports the LNG project, citing its environmental benefits. Brownsville is about 360 miles from Houston. However, Turner, who is a member of Climate Mayors, cited the need to reduce air pollution across the state. Climate Mayors, a group of around 300 U.S. mayors, has pledged to uphold the United Nations’ global climate accord reached in late 2015 known as the Paris Agreement.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116773-texas-oks-air-permits-for-rio-grande-lng-export-project-in-brownsville
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The Oil Industry’s Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules
Dec 13, 2018 | The New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi
When the Trump administration laid out a plan this year that would eventually allow cars to emit more pollution, automakers, the obvious winners from the proposal, balked. The changes, they said, went too far even for them.
But it turns out that there was a hidden beneficiary of the plan that was pushing for the changes all along: the nation’s oil industry.
In Congress, on Facebook and in statehouses nationwide, Marathon Petroleum, the country’s largest refiner, worked with powerful oil-industry groups and a conservative policy network financed by the billionaire industrialist Charles G. Koch to run a stealth campaign to roll back car emissions standards, a New York Times investigation has found.
The campaign’s main argument for significantly easing fuel efficiency standards — that the United States is so awash in oil it no longer needs to worry about energy conservation — clashed with decades of federal energy and environmental policy.
“With oil scarcity no longer a concern,” Americans should be given a “choice in vehicles that best fit their needs,” read a draft of a letter that Marathon helped to circulate to members of Congress over the summer. Official correspondence later sent to regulators by more than a dozen lawmakers included phrases or sentences from the industry talking points, and the Trump administration’s proposed rules incorporate similar logic.
The industry had reason to urge the rollback of higher fuel efficiency standards proposed by former President Barack Obama. A quarter of the world’s oil is used to power cars, and less-thirsty vehicles mean lower gasoline sales.
In recent months, Marathon Petroleum also teamed up with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a secretive policy group financed by corporations as well as the Koch network, to draft legislation for states supporting the industry’s position. Its proposed resolution, dated Sept. 18, describes current fuel-efficiency rules as “a relic of a disproven narrative of resource scarcity” and says “unelected bureaucrats” shouldn’t dictate the cars Americans drive.
A separate industry campaign on Facebook, covertly run by an oil-industry lobby representing Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Phillips 66 and other oil giants, urged people to write to regulators to support the rollback.
The Facebook ads linked to a website with a picture of a grinning Mr. Obama. It asked, “Would YOU buy a used car from this man?” The site appears to have been so effective that a quarter of the 12,000 public comments received by the Department of Transportation can be traced to the petition, according to a Times analysis.
Gary R. Heminger, Marathon’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement that the company supported “sound fuel economy standards” and wanted to “help ensure they are achievable and based on existing technology.”
He added, “We appreciate the administration’s willingness to conduct a thorough review in order to ensure future standards are achievable and will actually benefit American consumers.”
A spokesman for Koch Industries, the energy conglomerate led by Mr. Koch, said the company had “a long, consistent track record of opposing all forms of corporate welfare, including all subsidies, mandates and other handouts that rig the system.”
The oil industry’s campaign, the details of which have not been previously reported, illuminates why the rollbacks have gone further than the more modest changes automakers originally lobbied for.
The standards that the Trump administration seeks to weaken required automakers to roughly double the fuel economy of new cars, SUVs and pickup trucks by 2025. Instead, the Trump plan would freeze the standards at 2020 levels. Carmakers, for their part, had sought more flexibility in meeting the original 2025 standards, not a categorical rollback.
The Trump plan, if finalized, would increase greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by more than the amount many midsize countries put out in a year and reverse a major effort by the Obama administration to fight climate change.
The energy industry’s efforts also help explain the Trump administration’s confrontational stance toward California, which, under federal law, has a unique authority to write its own clean-air rules and to mandate more zero-emissions vehicles.
California has pledged to stick to the stricter standards, together with 13 other states that follow its lead. But President Trump’s plan challenges California’s rule-writing power, setting up a legal battle that threatens to split the American auto market in two.
That is a prospect automakers desperately want to avoid.
But for gasoline producers like Marathon, a shift toward more efficient vehicles poses a grave threat to the bottom line. In October, the company acquired a rival, Andeavor, making it the biggest refiner in the United States, with sales of 16 billion gallons of fuel a year.
Even while doubling down on gasoline, Marathon has projected an environmentally friendly public image. “We have invested billions of dollars to make our operations more energy efficient,” Marathon said in a recent report. The company’s Twitter account recently highlighteda gardening project and the creation of a duck pond at one of its refineries.
On a conference call with investors last week, Mr. Heminger, the Marathon chief executive, was already counting the extra barrels of fuel a Trump rollback would mean for the industry: 350,000 to 400,000 barrels of gasoline per day, he said.
“However, you have another side who doesn’t want to pivot away” from the stricter rules, Mr. Heminger said. “So we have a lot of work to do to keep this momentum going.”
Marathon began its outreach to the Trump administration early, asking to meet with Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency soon after he became its administrator in early 2017. Marathon had been a top donor to Mr. Pruitt in Oklahoma, a state where oil is so prominent that a well stands on the grounds of the capitol building.
“Our CEO, Gary Heminger, would be very glad for an opportunity to visit with the Administrator,” a Marathon lobbyist wrote in an email to Mr. Trump’s transition team on May 8, 2017. “I believe this would be a constructive dialogue.” The E.P.A. helps oversee fuel economy rules along with the Transportation Department.
Mr. Pruitt was scheduled to meet with the Marathon chief at least twice — once in June 2017 as part of a meeting with the board of a powerful fuel-industry group, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, and again in September for a more private talk, according to emails and schedules released in a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club.
A Marathon spokesman, Chuck Rice, said Mr. Heminger did not discuss auto-efficiency rollbacks with Mr. Pruitt. An E.P.A. official did not respond to a question about whether the auto rules were discussed.
Marathon then turned its focus to Congress, hiring the firm Ogilvy Government Relations to lobby legislators in Washington on fuel-economy standards, according to Ogilvy’s disclosure forms. The firm did not respond to a request for comment.
Over the summer, Marathon representatives also approached legislators about an industry talking-points letter, according to six people familiar with that effort. The file properties of a Microsoft Word version of one letter, provided by a Congressional delegation, show that it was last edited by a Marathon lobbyist, Michael J. Birsic, on June 11, 2018.
Mr. Rice of Marathon said the company did not write the letter, and the company declined to say who did. It did not offer an explanation for Mr. Birsic’s digital fingerprint on the document file.
Nineteen lawmakers from the delegations of Indiana, West Virginia and Pennsylvania sent letters to the Transportation Department that included exact phrases and reasoning from the industry letter. The lawmakers’ letters, sent in June and July, all make the point that oil scarcity is no longer a concern.
The Trump administration’s proposed rollback echoes the post-conservation theme. While energy conservation is significant, the proposal says, the downside of additional petroleum consumption would be dwarfed by the rollback’s benefits.
Representatives from the three state delegations either declined to comment or did not respond to requests.
Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, criticized the industry’s campaign. “It appears as though oil interests are cynically trying to gin up support in Congress for the weakest possible standards to ensure that cars and SUVs have to rely on even more oil,” he said.
“If this attempt is successful, the outcome will be a blow to the auto industry, consumers, and our environment.”The Facebook Campaign
The Facebook ads, featuring Mr. Trump waving alongside the message, “SUPPORT OUR PRESIDENT’S CAR FREEDOM AGENDA!,” appeared the week after the administration made public its fuel economy plan in August. At least 10 times during the two-month public comment period on the plan, the ads, which did not state their oil industry origins, asked people to write to the government to back weaker emissions standards.
Public comments matter in federal rule-making. The law requires that citizens’ views be taken into account before a rule is finalized.
“File an official comment to SUPPORT our President’s plan for safer, cheaper cars that WE get to choose,” read one ad, which ran for seven days in early October. The ad leads to a page that provides basic language to submit.
More than 3,300 of the 12,000 public comments that D.O.T. has made public contain language identical to that petition, an analysis of the files showed.
The campaign was a product of the fuel and petrochemical manufacturers trade group, widely known as AFPM. However, neither the Facebook ads nor the site identified the industry group. Instead they name a group called Energy4US, which describes itself as “a coalition of consumers, businesses and workers” promoting affordable energy.
Energy4US has close ties to the industry group. According to internet domain records, Victor Adams, listed as an AFPM web manager, registered Energy4Us.org in 2015 using his work email address. Energy4US lists the group as a coalition member, along with about 50 other groups including energy interests, labor groups, a sheriff’s association and even a recreational fishing alliance.
The AFPM board includes representatives from Exxon, Chevron, Phillips 66, Marathon and Koch Industries. The companies all referred queries to the group.
Derrick Morgan, a senior vice president at AFPM, said the group “regularly works with policymakers, coalition groups and individuals to promote shared goals,” and also will “lead and join groups like Energy4US.”
The Department of Transportation said it was “generally aware” that there were groups urging the public to make comments through online campaigns, but said it does not regulate them.
Taking the Fight On the Road
House bill 1593 is just eight words long: “To repeal the corporate average fuel economy standards.” Koch Industries, a petroleum empire with interests as diverse as gasoline, pipelines, fertilizer and Stainmaster carpets, is the bill’s sole corporate backer.
The measure, which would eliminate fuel standards altogether, is not expected to go far. But it underscores the company’s stance on the matter. And Koch interests are fighting that battle not only in Washington but increasingly in statehouses and even local policy meetings nationwide.
In Dearborn, Mich., at a September meeting on the Trump fuel-efficiency rollbacks, Annie Patnaude of Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded group, spoke in favor. “This is a step in the right direction to protect consumers and workers against government mandates that would limit choice,” she said.
In Iowa, Americans for Prosperity joined the fight over whether to make it easier for gas stations to install chargers for electric vehicles. In Illinois, it discouraged state officials from considering subsidies for electric vehicles.
And last month an Americans for Prosperity representative trekked to a public hearing in Colorado, where regulators were thinking about becoming the 13th state to follow California’s stricter standards. The representative, Shari Shiffer-Krieger, a field director for the group, argued that people in the rugged state wanted SUVs, not tighter emissions rules. “Coloradans deserve much better,” she said.
The oil industry lost that fight. Colorado allied itself with California.
But Americans for Prosperity said fights like these get to the heart of its free-market philosophy. “We believe in a level playing field so all Americans have the equal opportunity to succeed,” said Bill Riggs, a spokesman for the group, in a statement. The organization will keep fighting “mandates that unfairly pick winners and losers in any industry,” he said.Drafting Pro-Oil State Legislation
On August 6, a Marathon lobbyist, Stephen D. Higley, emailed a Wisconsin state representative an explainer of American fuel economy law. The memo didn’t mince words.
“It’s a relic,” the memo said, particularly at a time when the United States was “poised to become the largest oil producer in the world.”
The Wisconsin representative, Mike Kuglitsch, participates in the American Legislative Exchange Council, a Koch-funded group that helps companies write model legislation for state lawmakers to use as a basis for their own laws.
Emails obtained by the Times show that Marathon has been working with members of the legislative exchange council to build support for the Trump fuel-efficiency rollback in state legislatures and to denounce California’s power to write its own rules for cars. The emails were made public under Wisconsin’s open records law to Documented, a watchdog group that tracks corporate influence in public policy.
California’s special authority could effectively split the American auto market in two, since 13 other states — representing roughly 35 percent of nationwide car sales — have agreed to follow California’s stricter rules. That means automakers might find themselves making cars to two competing standards.
“Who should decide what cars and trucks consumers should buy, consumers themselves or unelected bureaucrats in Sacramento, California or Washington, D.C.?” the memo sent by Marathon said.
In a statement, Bill Meierling of the legislative exchange council said that mandating fuel economy was a rule that “many state legislators believe doesn’t make sense for working Americans.”
Just days after the emails between Marathon and the Wisconsin lawmaker, some 1,500 state legislators and other officials from across the country gathered in New Orleans to cheer on Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Transportation, at the legislative exchange council’s annual convention. Marathon sponsored the event.
The Transportation Department was determined to cut government regulations, said Ms. Chao, a former fellow at the Heritage Foundation, which has received Koch funding and has long opposed the fuel economy rules.
Mr. Trump’s proposed rollback, she said, “ranks as one of the most significant regulatory reforms that this administration is undertaking.” The room erupted in applause.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/climate/cafe-emissions-rollback-oil-industry.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
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Ohio EPA Hearing in Shadyside on Cracker Plant Weighs Economic Benefits Against Health Concerns
Dec 13, 2018 | Wheeling Intelligencer
By Alex Meyer
People with varying interests in a proposed ethane cracker plant filled a room Wednesday to discuss a discharge permit that would allow the plant to dump certain chemicals into the Ohio River.
Some touted the economic benefits of PTT Global Chemical’s proposed plant, while others talked about environmental and health risks that could be associated with it. About 100 people attended a public hearing held by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency regarding the wastewater discharge permit for the plant, which would be built at Dilles Bottom.
“People need long-term, productive employment and a healthy and safe way of doing it and this may or may not be it,” said the Rev. Michael Ziebarth, of Martins Ferry. “All I have to say to the EPA and to elected officials, help us trust you. Help us find a way and a reason to trust the future of our children and grandchildren in what you’re doing.”
The hearing, which took place at the Shadyside Community Center, centered on modifications to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for the plant. Such permits regulate discharges of pollutants into waterways.
Ashley Ward, a permit supervisor for Ohio EPA, began the hearing with a presentation on the modifications to the permit, which was originally issued in December 2016. Those changes include rerouting stormwater into the river and decreasing the mass of wastewater pollutants being discharged into the river per day, she said.
“Our permits are designed to be protective of human health and the environment,” said Ohio EPA Public Involvement Coordinator Kristopher Weiss, who ran the hearing with Ward. “We would not issue a permit that did not meet the criteria spelled out in state and federal laws.”
The cracker plant would process ethane, a liquid form of natural gas, to create ethylene, a key component of plastic. As a result of that process, the plant would discharge chemicals such as phosphorous, zinc, cadmium, copper, chlorine, low levels of mercury and dozens of others of chemicals into the river, according to the permit. About 30 people testified regarding the potential impact of the proposed plant at Wednesday’s hearing.
“The informed, concerned residents of Belmont County are standing in opposition of this dangerously polluting facility,” Jill Hunkler said. “Clean air and water are needed even more for the economic future for this valley. Why hasn’t anyone asked us what kind of jobs we want?”
Several people who spoke in opposition to the proposed plant, including Hunkler, spoke of the health effects of petrochemical plants in an area of Louisiana dubbed “cancer alley,” where they said cases of cancer are reported to be higher.
Michelle Fetting, a representative of the Pittsburgh-based BreatheProject.org, who said she is a survivor of Hodgkin’s lymphoma and breast cancer, said that Ohio EPA also should consider that the river already is polluted. She spoke of dangers associated with gas wells and disposal of waste from such wells.
“Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania should be working together to create a thriving economy that builds upon the basic building blocks of life: clean air, clean water, clean food, good jobs and a healthy place to live and raise our families,” Fetting said.
Others spoke in favor of the cracker plant and the jobs it would create. Edward Minger, president of Upper Ohio Valley Central Labor Council and a 30-year resident of Shadyside, said he’s seen conditions on the river improve thanks to the EPA.
“I think we need to encourage and trust people to produce these permits,” said Minger, who is also a member of Local 83 Plumbers & Steamfitters in Wheeling. “We need to support them. These things work. I’ve seen this stuff work.”
Jeffrey Greenley, superintendent of the Switzerland of Ohio Local School District, said the plant would provide opportunities for his students, who often lack good job prospects.
“Even the whisper of this plant has sparked a great deal of interest in our kids,” Greenley said. “They’re excited about it, they look forward to the jobs that might be created.”
Ohio EPA held another public hearing Nov. 27 regarding a draft air pollution permit-to-install for the proposed plant. That permit states that the plant could release 396 tons of volatile organic compounds and the equivalent of about 1.8 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.
http://www.theintelligencer.net/news/top-headlines/2018/12/ohio-epa-hearing-in-shadyside-on-cracker-plant-weighs-economic-benefits-against-health-concerns/
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Layoffs Hit Beaumont-Area Petrochemical Plant
Dec 13, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Marissa Luck
A Sugar Land-based petrochemical manufacturer will lay off 20 percent of its workforce at a Silsbee facility, the company said Thursday.
Trecora Resources said it is going through a reorganization at its South Hampton Resources facility just north of Beaumont, a subsidiary that specializes in high purity hydrocarbons and other petrochemical manufacturing.Recommended Video
"Trecora is dedicated to the safety of our employees, the reliability of our assets, the quality of our products and the overall competitiveness of our company. Today, we are implementing a reorganization of our Silsbee, Texas, facility to become a leaner organization, focused on execution that improves our cost position," said CEO Patrick Quarles in a statement.
RELATED: Struggling Houston oil company is warned it could be delisted
"This reorganization will have a direct and significant effect on our financial performance, resulting in an annual cost savings of approximately $2.5 million," he added.
The reorganization will result in a reduction of about 20 percent of the Silsbee workforce and a charge of approximately $400,000 in the fourth quarter 2018, the company said. In 2014, the company said it had 175 employees in Sugar Land and Silsbee but more recent numbers weren't immediately available.
The South Hampton plant previously announced that it would raise prices of all grades of solvents starting Oct.1 "due to rising costs associated with logistics, energy and feedstocks." The company said its average per-gallon cost of petrochemical feedstocks jumped 37 percent year-over, according to its third quarter results.
The Silsbee layoffs come roughly two weeks after Quarles was appointed president and CEO by the Trecora board of directors. Quarles – who replaced outgoing CEO Simon Upfill-Brown – joined the board earlier this year "after a very successful career leading change and performance enhancements at Celanese and LyondellBasell," said Nick Carter, chairman of Trecora in a Nov. 30 release.
Trecora Resources generated $73.4 million in revenue in the third quarter, up 19 percent from the year earlier. However higher-than-normal costs dinged profits. The company reported gross profits of $6.8 million in the third quarter, compared with $9.9 million the same time last year.
Operating income plunged to $0.3 million in the third quarter from $4 million a year earlier.
Founded in 1967, the company previously was called Arabian American Development Co. but rebranded to Trecora Resources (NYSE: TREC) to remove confusion about its Saudi Arabia-related name.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Layoffs-hit-Beaumont-area-petrochemical-plant-13463363.php
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Reinstate Panel of Air Pollution Experts, EPA Advisers Say
Dec 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Four of the EPA’s seven air pollution science advisers told the agency Dec. 13 to reinstate a panel of experts to review the air quality standards for particle pollution that was disbanded in October.
The members of the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee fear they lack the diversity in scientific expertise needed to weigh the complicated science without input from subject matter experts.
The move comes a day after more than two dozen people, including former advisers to the Environmental Protection Agency, urged the committee to reinstate the panel to provide a credible review of particulate matter.
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler appointed three of the four advisers who are calling for the particulate matter panel to be reconvened. Their nominations came at the same time Wheeler disbanded the expert panels to review ozone, a known lung irritant, and fine particulate matter.
“We need to be clear that we want the panel to review particulate matter, not an ad hoc group of scientists because that won’t address the needs of this review, and it will set a bad precedent for reviews of other pollutants,” Mark Frampton, a University of Rochester professor emeritus specializing in pulmonary medicine, said.
No Sound Explanation?Timothy Lewis, an ecologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, agreed with Frampton, noting that the EPA a day earlier never “really gave a sound explanation” for why the panel was dropped. Lewis was particularly concerned that he was asked to review a chapter that dealt with climate effects of particulate matter when his expertise lay in ecology, not atmospheric chemistry.
Newly appointed member Steven Packham, a toxicologist with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, and James Boylan, program manager with Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Air Protection Branch, were the other two who asked for the particulate matter panel to be reinstated.
“I am in favor of having extra expertise, but not just one or two more scientists but several of them,” Boylan said.
Committee Chairman Tony Cox, president of Denver-based Cox Associates, didn’t voice his own opinion on the subject, except to note that “there’s broad agreement on the process” and moved on to discussing the draft of EPA’s integrated scientific assessment on this airborne pollutant.
The recommendations will now be included in a letter to Wheeler, with details of the concerns, which is expected in the coming months.
The EPA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/reinstate-panel-of-air-pollution-experts-epa-advisers-say
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Democrats Shift Toward Impact on Jobs as Climate Change Moves to Front of 2020 Agenda
Dec 13, 2018 | The Washington Post
By Michael Scherer
Spurred by dire scientific warnings and new Capitol Hill protests, Democrats preparing to run for president have been rushing to shift their plans for combating climate change, highlighting an issue once considered a political liability, especially in Midwestern swing states won by President Trump.
Aides to a half-dozen senators considering a 2020 campaign met with supporters of the Green New Deal, an effort pushed by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) that could turn into a litmus test for Democratic candidates, organizers said. Other potential candidates are weighing activist demands to swear off donations from the political action committees or executives of companies involved in fossil fuel production.
At least three potential candidates, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have made clear that they intend to make climate change a central issue of their campaign if they do run.
“It just simply has to move into the front tier. It has to become a primary force of our economic growth policy,” Inslee said in an interview, one day after announcing ambitious carbon-reduction goals for his state this week.
Merkley said he would introduce his own version of a Green New Deal proposal next year. “We absolutely have to make sure this is part of the conversation going into 2020,” he said. “Mother Nature is sending this message, and the youth have doubled down on the message.”
At the core of the push is a broader effort by some party leaders to reframe the political debate over climate away from policies that would impose new costs on carbon pollution — through taxes or a cap-and-trade program — toward a focus on investing in energy conservation and efficiency as a way to spark economic development, especially in economically depressed areas.
This rejection of the last major Democratic push for economywide climate legislation in 2009 is the premise of the Green New Deal proposal that House Democrats have been steadily embracing in recent weeks. It has been presented as an alternative to legislation focused on imposing a carbon tax and then refunding the money to households in the form of checks, a move that would most benefit lower- and middle-class households because of the progressive tax code.
“Given the magnitude of the current challenge, the tools of regulation and taxation, used in isolation, will not be enough to quickly and smoothly accomplish the transformation that we need to see,” reads the draft proposal posted on Ocasio-Cortez’s website.
The proposal instead calls for a special committee in the House to draft a plan by 2020 for a historic multitrillion-dollar federal spending and loan program with the goal of building a “100 percent greenhouse gas neutral power generation system” and providing millions of jobs in low-income areas. The plan recently gained the support of the incoming chairman of the House Rules Committee, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), and the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Given Republican control of the Senate and likely opposition by President Trump, there is little expectation that the effort will pass into law before the upcoming presidential election, though organizers hope it will shape the debate in the interim.
“There is no doubt that there has been some movement now that [congressional] offices are being occupied,” said Sean McElwee, a co-founder of Data For Progress, a group that drafted an early version of the Green New Deal in September. “The reason offices are being occupied is because for a long time it seemed like we were heading into the 2020 presidential primary with no one talking about this.”
Recent natural disasters and new research has also lent urgency to the conversation, and expanded its audience. A federal National Climate Assessment released last month found that climate change would cause dramatic harm to every region of the country, costing billions of dollars from increasingly debilitating hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, heat waves and floods. Another recent report from the United Nations found that the world has only a dozen years to take drastic action to respond to the threat.
Sanders, who previously endorsed a large carbon tax plan, has said he will also announce a plan next year to create millions of jobs as part of an effort to combat climate change.
“The U.N. report made clear that the timeline we have to avoid the worst impacts of climate change is just different from the timeline people were thinking about in years past, so rethinking these policies is something everyone should be thinking about,” said Ari Rabin-Havt, a Sanders adviser. “The conversation has moved to this concept of the Green New Deal.”
Young climate activists say that simply signing on to ambitious policy proposals will not be enough. Organizers of the Sunrise Movement, the group that has been staging climate protests at the Capitol, plan to demand that Democratic 2020 candidates take a further step of promising to refuse campaign donations from executives and political committees of fossil fuel companies.
Merkley joined Sanders this week as the second potential presidential contender to have signed on to the pledge.
“If any of them want to be taken seriously by our generation, they need to show they are willing to stand up to the fossil fuel polluters who have stalled action on climate change our whole life,” said Stephen O’Hanlon, a spokesman for the Sunrise Movement. “In 2019 we are going to be putting pressure on all of them.”
He said the group has been meeting with representatives of Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Merkley and Sanders — all of whom are pondering presidential runs.
“We’ve been supportive of the goals of the Green New Deal,” said Lily Adams, a spokeswoman for Harris.
The failure of a November statewide ballot effort to tax carbon in Washington state and the recent protests over a new fuel tax in France have shown the continued political challenge of addressing climate change.
Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.), the only declared congressional Democrat running for president, has said politicians still need to lead with market-based solutions such as a carbon tax, while emphasizing that the “dividends” from new taxes will be distributed back to the public.
“Whatever approach you take, it will inevitably be a big jobs program,” he said of a recent carbon tax bill he introduced in the House.
But climate change solutions could create problems for Democrats in Midwestern states that continue to rely heavily on fossil fuels for electricity generation and jobs. Trump, who has repeatedly denied the climate threat and boosted the fossil fuel industry, has made clear the promotion of oil, natural gas and coal is likely to be a major part of his reelection effort.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a potential presidential candidate, boasted during his 2012 campaign about his support for “coal jobs,” the recent growth in coal production in the state and his efforts to resist new regulations of coal power plants. President Barack Obama also supported “clean coal” during his 2008 election campaign and backed an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy in 2012.
Brown was one of several Democrats who expressed concern in 2009 about the House-passed effort to impose a cap-and-trade system that would have put a price on carbon emissions, though he has supported raising fuel economy standards, preserving Obama’s “Clean Power” regulations and providing tax credits for wind, solar and biofuel generation.
“I’ve never bought that you play off workers against the environment, because what I have seen is good environmental policy means more good jobs,” he said recently on Pod Save America, a liberal podcast, when he was asked about the Green New Deal. He said he did not know enough about the particulars of the proposal to take a position on it.
Tom Steyer, an investor and environmental activist who is also considering a presidential campaign, has argued that the worst thing Democrats can do to tackle climate change is to push top-down solutions such as a carbon tax. His recently released five-point political platform makes no mention of the warming planet, referring instead to clean air, water and a living wage.
“The only way to win on energy is to talk about justice,” Steyer said in a recent interview. “You can’t talk about climate. You have got to talk about jobs and health. This has to be simply related to human beings.”
In the House, the new approach marks a return to the idea that federally subsidized green jobs could be a primary way of rehabilitating economically depressed areas of the country. The idea was floated in the run-up to the 2008 election and became a central part of the 2009 stimulus plan championed by Obama. Many of the activists now pushing the idea, including Ocasio-Cortez, were teenagers at the time.
Van Jones, a former Obama administration official, recently presented Ocasio-Cortez with a copy of his 2008 book “The Green Collar Economy,” which argued that climate change would lead to an employment boom in economically depressed areas. Jones used the term “green new deal” as far back as 2008.
“She wasn’t aware that I had written the book. The idea’s time has come,” said Jones, who now hosts a show on CNN.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-shift-toward-impact-on-jobs-as-climate-change-moves-to-the-front-of-the-2020-agenda/2018/12/12/26aa3246-fd5b-11e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.html?utm_term=.00495ba98d2d
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Pennsylvania Auditor Probing State Response to Climate Impacts
Dec 13, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has announced plans for a special report to explore how one of the nation’s leading energy-producing states is responding to climate change.
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Story can be found here: https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116772-pennsylvania-auditor-probing-state-response-to-climate-impacts
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From Mars to Ikea, Concerns Emerge About Vague Climate Rules
Dec 13, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jeremy Hodges
Business leaders at a round of United Nations talks on limiting climate change warned that the rules envoys are drawing up are may be too vague to change the way they work.
From the Swedish furniture supplier Ikea to candy maker Mars Inc. and telephone network operator BT Group Plc, companies are looking for a guide on where government policies on the environment are headed. Delegates from almost 200 nations have been working for almost two weeks in Poland to write the rules accompanying the landmark Paris Agreement.
Yet delegates and observers to the discussions say what’s emerging from the meeting in Katowice is likely to fall short on specifics such as when more of the $100 billion a year in promised climate aide will flow and how a global carbon market might be revived. With U.S. President Donald Trump and the government in China pushing priorities other than the environment, companies along with pressure groups are voicing unease about the direction of the UN talks and the deal they are due to produce this weekend.
“What we have been trying to push here is the urgency,” Andreas Ahrens, head of climate at Ikea, said in an interview in Katowice. “We just need to go to work. We do need the rulebook.”
Three years ago with the support of then-President Barack Obama, these talks produced the first-ever pledge from all nations rich and poor alike to rein in fossil-fuel emissions. Diplomats left the details of how that pact would be implemented to a later meeting and hope to produce what’s known as the Katowice Rulebook this week.
“Weak rules create uncertainty,” said Jake Schmidt, who watches the talks for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. advocacy group. “If we have countries showing that they are delivering on their targets but the atmosphere sees rising emissions, then we will know that our weak rules led to runaway climate change.”
There are a number of sticking points:
On carbon markets, envoys deliberated how a specific project can qualify as one that has cut emissions, how to avoid double-counting those cuts and what baseline is acceptable to use as a comparison.
Debate over a Sustainable Development Mechanism was holding up the promise of expanding a global cap-and-trade market covering carbon emissions.
Developing nations are seeking more certainty on when richer nations will meet their pledge to channel $100 billion a year in climate-related aid. An official report showed those funds are at least $30 billion short at the moment.
Envoys and environmental groups joined business in expressing frustration that the process wasn’t moving faster, saying the lack of specifics at the meeting dubbed COP24 would hold up investment.
“If COP24 does not agree a pathway to empower business, then the world risks seeing its climate goals slip out of reach, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet,” said Edson Duarte, the environment minister for Brazil.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres returned to the meeting on Dec. 12 urging delegates to compromise, saying “the window of opportunity is closing.” Polish officials helping coordinate the discussion acknowledged they’re behind schedule and on Dec. 12 proposed a series of texts to break the deadlock.
“I can see that current approach to negotiations is exhausted,” said Michal Kurtyka, the Polish envoy running the negotiations, said on Dec. 11. The discussions are due to conclude on Dec. 14.
Many businesses are waiting for specifics about how government regulations on pollution will change before they make emission cuts a bigger priority.
“We need the government gentleman to stop worrying about the rule book and start worrying about enabling action, and that will only happen if they get the rulebook out of the way,” said Anirban Ghosh, the chief sustainability officer at Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., which runs $21 billion of businesses ranging from vehicles to telecommunications and holiday resorts in India. “If they don’t get it out of the way, that’s all they will talk about and that’s all they will think about.”
In Germany, for example, the Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is drawing up proposals on how quickly it should phase out coal and nuclear plants. Power generators led by RWE AG and Uniper SE are continuing to operate their facilities until the rules change.
“It is important for business to have support for ambitious climate goals from policymakers,’’ said Gabrielle Giner, head of environmental sustainability at BT Group Plc. “It drives faster action across the entire business community and that reinforces our own efforts, allowing us to make further and faster progress.”
In the U.S., many companies are pressing ahead with paring back their own emissions even as the Trump administration seeks to encourage use of coal.
“Clear rules provide the clarity, motivation and confidence companies need to ramp up climate action,” said Ashley Allen, an official at the candy maker Mars Inc. working on climate issues. “The stronger and more comprehensive the guidance, the clearer the runway is to ambitious climate action at scale.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/from-mars-to-ikea-concerns-emerge-about-vague-climate-rules
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Youth Climate Plaintiffs Urge 9th Circuit to Deny DOJ Appeal
Dec 13, 2018 | Inside EPA
Youth plaintiffs pursuing a high-profile constitutional climate change case against the Trump administration are urging a federal appeals court to reject the Department of Justice's (DOJ) effort to dismiss the case before it goes to trial at a lower court.
The Dec. 10 filing in Juliana, et al. v. United States, et al., in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, argues that endorsing DOJ's request for an interlocutory appeal will contribute to a “miscarriage of justice.”
The youths' attorneys submitted the opposition after DOJ sought to appeal over the district judge's objection for the fifth time, prompting Judge Ann Aiken of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon to finally certify DOJ's request Nov. 21, allowing it to go forward and staying the case.
“The uncontradicted evidence is that every passing day is crucial for the ability of these young Plaintiffs to protect their fundamental rights to life, liberty, and property from the 'direct existential threat' of climate change,” the filing says. “Defendants' ongoing systemic conduct in controlling and perpetuating a fossil fuel energy system has led to . . . an already dangerous climate system. Granting interlocutory appeal will continue the present path of burdensome, layered, inefficient, and lengthy appellate review before the facts have been presented to the” district court.
It adds that granting interlocutory appeal “will not serve the interests of justice and has the undisputed likelihood of denying a remedy” for the plaintiffs, who want to “avoid runaway climate change. . . . If this Court grants interlocutory appeal and maintains the stay, these children will have no choice but to seek injunctive relief pending appeal to prevent the worsening of their status quo.”
The brief also argues that granting DOJ's appeal request will “extend the ultimate termination of the litigation, not hasten it, with delay resulting in extreme prejudice to Plaintiffs. Only a merits decision that Plaintiffs lack standing can stop their case from proceeding to trial, and standing is not a proper question for this Court to determine in the first instance on interlocutory appeal.”
Attorney Julia Olson, who represents the youths, says the government's delay tactics “are not about seeking out justice or protecting Americans, they're about keeping their illegal conduct in promoting coal, oil and gas away from judicial review.” She says she will advise the youths to seek an injunction against defendants if the case -- which had been scheduled to go to trial in late October -- is further delayed.
DOJ on Nov. 30 asked for permission to appeal with the 9th Circuit, after winning Aiken's approval to move forward. That filing replaces its earlier request for mandamus relief, but it makes similar arguments for why the court should grant the request, including that “immediate appeal will advance the termination of the litigation.”
At the same time, the youths on Dec. 5 asked Aiken to lift her stay on some of the pretrial proceedings during the 9th Circuit deliberations, and cited the Fourth National Climate Assessment -- released Nov. 23 by the Trump administration and predicting dire impacts of inaction -- as one reason to continue with the pretrial work.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/youth-climate-plaintiffs-urge-9th-circuit-deny-doj-appeal
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