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ACC PM 24/12/18
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US EPA to Keep Running Despite Government Shutdown
Dec 24, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
The US government has partially shut down until Congress and President Trump can agree on a fiscal year 2019 budget. -
Details on Perfluorinated Chemicals’ Health Study Expected Next Year
Dec 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The public and researchers can expect details over the next year about the the first national study of how perfluorinated chemicals could affect people’s health. -
Diacetyl Distributor Emoral to Be Part of ‘Popcorn Lung’ Trial
Dec 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Martina Barash
A former popcorn-plant worker has marshaled enough evidence against diacetyl distributor Emoral Inc. to let a jury decide its liability for the man’s respiratory condition, a federal court ruled. -
Industry Can Curb Pollution Controls if Toxic Releases Fall: EPA
Dec 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Power plants, refineries, and other industrial sources of toxic air pollution don’t have to use the best controls available if they emit below limits spelled out in the Clean Air Act, the EPA told a federal appeals court.
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US EPA to Keep Running Despite Government Shutdown
Dec 24, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
The US government has partially shut down until Congress and President Trump can agree on a fiscal year 2019 budget. However, due to its carryover funds, the EPA will remain open for the week of 24 December.
The EPA's acting administrator Andrew Wheeler indicated as much in a 20 December message, but said that they will have to reevaluate if the shutdown is still in place on 28 December. If the EPA runs out of money at that point, it is likely that most agency activity — including activity related to the implementation of TSCA— will be put on hold.EPA funding
The shutdown is the result of an impasse. Mr Trump has demanded that funding for a border wall is included in the budget - at a cost of approximately $5bn - and Democrats in the Senate have refused. Though Republicans retain a majority in the Senate, they would need a supermajority (60 votes) to pass the legislation without Democrats onboard. Mr Trump also refused to sign a continuing resolution, which would have been a way of kicking the decision down the road until February.
With no compromise forthcoming, the government shut down at midnight on 21 December. It is possible that it will last until 3 January, when a new session of Congress will begin — this time with a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, making the border wall even more unlikely.
During a shutdown, all non-essential functions are stopped entirely. This means that employees are furloughed — sent home without pay — and those that are considered ‘essential’, such as law enforcement officers, homeland security employees, or firefighters, work without pay. Most functions in the EPA are considered non-essential.
The EPA has prepared a contingency plan outlining how it will proceed during a shutdown, which indicates that only 11 employees in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention are excepted from the shutdown. The office has 981 exempted staff members, who are only allowed to continue working if the remnants of the current budget carry over. In this case, it was determined that "the EPA has sufficient carryover funds to operate for a limited period of time."TSCA
If the EPA does shut down after 28 December, there are several TSCA-related activities that could be impacted — these are nonessential but time-sensitive. These include:the final versions of ten risk evaluations to be issued under the amended TSCA;the list of 20 high- and low-priority chemicals;pre-manufacturing notices (PMNs) and new chemical review more broadly;and the ‘active inventory’ of substances.
While none of these have explicit deadlines in the near future, many have soft deadlines for drafts or other action in January 2019, assuming the EPA plans to stick to the its statutory deadlines later in the year.
For instance, the EPA has a three-year statutory deadline for finalising the first ten risk evaluations for existing chemicals under TSCA, which ends December 2019. However, it may seek a single six-month extension. The first of these, for pigment violet 29, has received a preliminary determination of no unreasonable risk.
https://chemicalwatch.com/72974/us-epa-to-keep-running-despite-government-shutdown
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Details on Perfluorinated Chemicals’ Health Study Expected Next Year
Dec 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The public and researchers can expect details over the next year about the the first national study of how perfluorinated chemicals could affect people’s health.
The details will be released “sometime in 2019,” the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry told Bloomberg Environment in a Dec. 21 email.
Meanwhile, 21 senators are pushing the agency to include firefighters in its planned study.
Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) spearheaded a Dec. 13 letter with that request signed by Democrats, Republicans, and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The letter follows the Senate and House agreement to provide $20 million for a national health study of the chemicals through budget bills both the House and Senate approved earlier this year for fiscal years 2018 and 2019.
Yet firefighters will not be part of that study, which will focus on communities that have been exposed to a group of more than 3,000 chemicals, called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which have been detected in drinking water sources serving more than 6 million Americans.
The toxic substances agency, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, said it will reply to the senators. Multisite Assessments
The agency is developing the criteria it will use to select communities for the multisite health study, it said.
“It is our intention to look at all available data, the exposure assessments, and any other PFAS biomonitoring data available from other groups when selecting locations for the multisite study,” it said.
Such factors helped spur the agency to choose the Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth, N.H., as a pilot test site to evaluate survey designs, participant outreach efforts, and tools it would use at future sites.
Locations for the multisite health study will be selected through a competitive grant process. The approach taken to select sites will be shared publicly once the selections have been made, the agency said. PFAS Chemicals
Concerns about PFAS are spurred by information scientists have generated on just two specific chemicals in that large group: perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Those studies show that people exposed to these substances have higher cholesterol, increasing their risk of heart disease. They also show an increased risk of cancer, thyroid problems, and a weakened immune system, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
PFAS chemicals have been used for decades because they make other chemicals and products grease-, heat-, and water-resistant.
Exposure to PFAS results from decades of their use in products ranging from firefighting foams to medical, electronics, and oil and gas drilling equipment, although some research also shows that people can be exposed to PFAS through cosmetics, food packaging, and other sources.
Manufacturers including 3M Co., the Chemours Co., DuPont Co. that have produced PFOS and PFOA and still produce newer PFAS chemicals will be interested in the national study’s results.
A number of lawsuits have been filed by local or state governments seeking clean up costs and by people alleging that PFAS exposures have harmed their health.
Manufacturers such as Wolverine World Wide Inc., which used PFAS to waterproof footwear, also have been targeted.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/details-on-perfluorinated-chemicals-health-study-expected-next-year
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Diacetyl Distributor Emoral to Be Part of ‘Popcorn Lung’ Trial
Dec 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Martina Barash
A former popcorn-plant worker has marshaled enough evidence against diacetyl distributor Emoral Inc. to let a jury decide its liability for the man’s respiratory condition, a federal court ruled.
The passage of time and Emoral’s intermediary role don’t protect it from trial, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa said Dec. 21.
Marlin Herbst alleges butter flavorings containing diacetyl, distributed with inadequate warnings and information, caused his bronchiolitis obliterans, according to the court. The condition is known as “popcorn lung.”
Popcorn plant workers have filed numerous lawsuits over diacetyl since the early 2000s, when the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health determined that it could be causing the airway-scarring condition. One plaintiff obtained a $7.2 million verdict, while another’s $30.4 million verdict was reversed on appeal.
Herbst alleges he was exposed to diacetyl while working at the American Popcorn Co. plant in Sioux City, Iowa, between 1991 and August 1993. Claims against the butter-flavor maker, Givaudan Flavor Corp., a major target in popcorn-lung litigation, also survived summary judgment.
Herbst’s experts may testify and he presented enough evidence of fraudulent concealment to pursue claims against Givaudan 24 years after his exposure, the court said in a pair of recent rulings in the same case.
Emoral also argued claims against it are untimely under Iowa’s statute of repose.
But the court said Herbst mustered sufficient evidence of misrepresentation or fraudulent concealment to proceed.
Emoral argued its customers, Givaudan and another supplier of flavors to the popcorn plant, were sophisticated users that didn’t need to be warned. And it said its role as a wholesaler gives it immunity under Iowa law.
But the court sided with Herbst, saying a reasonable jury could reject its intermediary defense and could consider it an “assembler” rather than a mere distributor that lacked any control over the product.
Trial is set for March 11, 2019.
Smith & McElwain Law Office and Humphrey Farrington & McClain PC represent Herbst.
The Klass Law Firm LLP and Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP represent Emoral.
The case is Herbst v. Givaudan Flavors Corp., N.D. Iowa, No. C 17-4008-MWB, 12/21/18.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/diacetyl-distributor-emoral-to-be-part-of-popcorn-lung-trial
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Industry Can Curb Pollution Controls if Toxic Releases Fall: EPA
Dec 24, 2018 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Power plants, refineries, and other industrial sources of toxic air pollution don’t have to use the best controls available if they emit below limits spelled out in the Clean Air Act, the EPA told a federal appeals court.
If a power plant or other pollution source is emitting below that threshold, it can relax its pollution-control requirements, the Environmental Protection Agency toldthe U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit late Dec. 21, defending changes it made early this year to a decades-old air toxics policy.
California and a coalition of environmental groups sued EPA for changing its approach to regulating hazardous air pollution at major industrial sources without seeking public comment, claiming the change would result in greater toxic air pollution.
Clean Air Act emissions control requirements for toxics kick in for large “major” industrial facilities that emit at least 10 tons per year of a single hazardous pollutant, or 25 tons of two or more air toxics. If the facilities emit below that limit, they are classified as “area sources” that don’t have to meet the most stringent pollution control requirements.Once In, Always In
The case centers on EPA air chief, Bill Wehrum’s memo that the agency intended to revoke the 1995 “once in, always in” policy.
Manufacturers, refiners, and electric power generators have long advocated for relaxing the policy, saying companies can’t be held to the same stringent standards if their emissions have dropped below the threshold.
Wehrum, who spent a decade representing industry groups, agrees with this stance. He plans to issue a proposal as early as February 2019 to codify the memo he wrote in January.
The EPA argues that under the Clean Air Act a “major source that reduces its hazardous air pollutant emissions and potential to emit below the 10/25 tons-per-year thresholds is an ‘area source,’ regardless of when it does so.”
The agency is now urging the court to dismiss the lawsuit. It said the guidance is neither a rule subject to notice and comment nor a final agency action.
The coalition challenging the EPA policy includes the Sierra Club. 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.
D.C. Circuit judges Karen LeCraft Henderson, Sri Srinivasan and Gregory Katsas haven’t set a date for oral arguments.
The case is Calif. Cmties. Against Toxics v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 18-1085, brief filed 12/21/18.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/industry-can-curb-pollution-controls-if-toxic-releases-fall-epa
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