Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 12/27/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Austin Congressman Critical of “Extreme Climate Agenda” Retires
Dec 26, 2018 | Statesman
By Asher Price
...Also among the donors were aerospace companies and lobbyists and energy and manufacturing lobbyists and trade associations, such as the American Chemistry Council, whose clients and members stood to benefit from looser regulation... -
EPA's Toxics Office Faces Difficulty Meeting TSCA's 'Challenging' Deadlines
Dec 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's toxics office is grappling with meeting a series of steep deadlines that lawmakers imposed when they revised the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2016, a top official says. -
Attorneys Query EPA's TSCA Prioritization Approach After Low Risk Finding
Dec 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Industry attorneys are questioning the prioritization approach EPA used to select the first 10 chemicals EPA is assessing as part of its new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program for existing chemicals... -
(ACC Mentioned) Ex-Koch Official Steps Away from Formaldehyde Study
Dec 27, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
...The company was described as an "initial member" of the American Chemistry Council's Formaldehyde Panel, according to a 2010 press release. The panel, one of the more vocal groups on EPA's IRIS review of formaldehyde... -
EPA Still Hasn't Acted a Year After Proposing Ban on Deadly Chemical Methylene Chloride
Dec 27, 2018 | CBS News
Many of America's largest retailers, including Amazon, are planning to stop sellingall paint stripping products containing methylene chloride. Fifty-six people have died since 1980 from exposure to paint strippers containing the chemical... -
Minimalist Beauty Isn’t Exactly Simple
Dec 27, 2018 | Nylon
By Jenna Igneri
Minimalism in beauty has been steadily increasing in popularity over the past few years, something that can be credited as a response to the overly contoured and caked-on “Instagram makeup” look made popular... -
Zinke's Drilling Agenda to Outlast Tenure
Dec 27, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Zinke's Drilling Agenda to Outlast Tenure
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will depart at the end of the year, but his conservative supporters and environmental critics both agree his legacy on oil and gas drilling will be long lasting. -
A Critical Protection for Plant and Factory Workers Is Eroding
Dec 27, 2018 | Undark
By Jeff Johnson
Twenty years ago, if a worker was killed in an industrial accident, the task of investigating what went wrong and why fell either to the employer or to the government safety regulator — precisely the two parties most likely to have been at fault. -
CN Meets PTC Installment Deadline; Seeks Two-Year Extension for Full Operation
Dec 27, 2018 | Railway Track and Structures
By Paul Conley
CN says it met its year-end deadline to install positive train control (PTC) equipment across its system. The Class 1 also announced it is seeking a two-year extension “to complete deployment and interoperability.” -
FRA: PTC Round Two Grants Total $46.3 Million
Dec 27, 2018 | Railway Age
By William C. Vantuono
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) on Dec. 21 awarded $46.30 million in grant funding for 11 projects in 10 states to assist with deploying Positive Train Control (PTC) systems, marking the second selection of PTC systems... -
EPA Defends Decision To Scrap 'Once In, Always In' Air Toxics Rule Policy
Dec 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA in a new legal brief is defending its decision to scrap a long-running “once in, always in” policy that required “major” air toxics sources to always comply with rules for such sources even if they reduced emissions below... -
Extending Pause, D.C. Circuit Rejects Calls To Issue Merits Ruling In CPP Suit
Dec 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is rejecting calls by backers of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) utility greenhouse gas rule to issue a decision on the merits in the long-paused litigation over... -
Bloomberg Says He'll Insist Presidential Candidates Have Climate Change Plans
Dec 27, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Rebecca Morin
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is considering a presidential run, but he said he'll also pressure other potential candidates to craft plans to combat climate change following a grim and pessimistic federal report published last month.
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(ACC Mentioned) Austin Congressman Critical of “Extreme Climate Agenda” Retires
Dec 26, 2018 | Statesman
By Asher Price
In a farewell speech on the floor of the U.S. House this month, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, closed by thanking his constituents “for trusting me to represent you all these good years.”
Voters in the liberal Austin precincts of Smith’s 21st Congressional District, drawn like most Austin-area districts to elect a Republican, might beg to differ: Even as Smith regularly rang up double-digit election-night victories, carrying whole counties of the conservative Hill Country, many voters in Austin’s West Campus, Old West Austin, downtown Austin, and a wide swath of South Austin — some of the bluest spots of Texas — found themselves represented by someone who tends to hold views ideologically opposite their own.
Smith, 71, told the American-Statesman he was retiring to spend more time with his grandchildren. His tenure as chair of the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology was coming to an end, anyway, and with a tough election climate ahead — one that spelled an end to a Republican-led U.S. House — he also thought to himself, “It’s a lot better to be in the majority than in the minority.”
He will be replaced by Chip Roy, a former chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and deputy to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Perhaps nowhere was the gap between Smith and his Austin-area constituents as obvious as it was on his approach to environmental regulation, on show in his committee chairmanship.
In early December, a group of Capitol Hill staffers, Congressional colleagues, and friends and family of U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith gathered in Washington for the unveiling of his official portrait to hang in the committee room, in which he had decried the “extreme climate agenda” of some government scientists.
Smith’s portrait, by artist Laurel Stern Boeck, depicts Smith leaning on a desk. On it are a picture of his family, as well as a copy of “Life in the Universe,” a book speculating about the prospect of extraterrestrial life. (A bookish sort — he had gone to Yale, but kept that fact out of his campaign material — Smith has long had a kind of nerdy jones for questions about how soon we might get to Mars or the need for the sort of Space Force envisioned by President Trump. “Quite frankly, future conflicts might occur in space,” Smith says.) In the background, the Capitol is visible, beneath a starry sky.
The Science, Space and Technology committee declined to release details of how much the painting cost, but according to Boeck’s website, her portraits cost at least $15,000.
At the Statesman’s request, Smith disclosed a list of contributors to a private fundraising campaign for the painting. The list of donors included music recording industry lobbyists and companies — Smith had been a vocal proponent of a controversial anti-piracy law favored by recording corporations. Also among the donors were aerospace companies and lobbyists and energy and manufacturing lobbyists and trade associations, such as the American Chemistry Council, whose clients and members stood to benefit from looser regulation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one of the federal agencies Smith’s committee oversees.
It was in the oversight role that Smith, in the last of his 32 years in Congress, drew the most barbs and praise.
In 2015, President Barack Obama signed Smith’s STEM Education Act, passed unanimously in both the House and Senate. The law strengthened science, technology, engineering and math education efforts and expanded the definition of STEM to include computer science.
But, that year, fed up with climate-change naysaying, a few dozen Austinites descended on Smith’s South Austin field office to give him a “Flat Earth” award after he accused federal scientists of altering data to get “politically correct results” and accused them of pushing an “extreme climate agenda.”
The award’s citation said it honored Smith’s “tireless work rejecting well-established and obvious scientific fact in the grand tradition of flat Earth believers everywhere, and his skillful use of Congressional power to undermine uncomfortable and inconvenient scientific research.”
When Trump won the presidency, Smith’s posture on agencies like the EPA was suddenly amplified. In 2017, Smith, a staunch supporter of Trump, who gets more campaign money from oil and gas than any other industry, convened a panel titled: “Making EPA Great Again.”
The Statesman reported at the time that Smith, who has called climate science “wishy-washy,” had called far fewer scientists to testify before his committee than people associated with the types of industries the EPA is charged with regulating.
Though he fashions himself a champion of scientific inquiry, Smith has alienated associations of American scientists, who have said subpoenas he has issued to scientists have a chilling effect on research.
“My position is that (industrial emissions) has some impact (on climate change), but far less than alarmists are ascribing to it,” Smith said in the recent interview with the Statesman.
In 2017, after then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt ousted members of the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors, which advises on work by agency scientists, Smith told the Statesman that he supported the move.
“This decision increases transparency, reduces conflicts of interest and ensures balance on expert panels,” Smith said, adding the EPA’s science advisory boards serve as “echo chambers to rubber-stamp costly and burdensome regulations.”
The EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act, which Smith co-sponsored and which passed the House last year but never got a Senate vote, would have barred anyone who has an ongoing EPA research grant from serving on the EPA’s Science Advisory Board and prohibited board members from applying for grants for three years after they step down from the panel.
The measure would have effectively prevented many scientific experts from serving on the oversight board.
Smith has routinely won high ratings from the Legislative Effectiveness Project, a ranking of lawmakers by their ability to advance agenda items through the legislative process. Asked by the Statesman if he had any regrets about his tenure, he said there are “at least a half-dozen votes to increase spending that I probably regret.”
Though a long time fiscal conservative — he was fond of excoriating the Obama administration’s spending policies — he deflected a question about his vote on a major tax cut last year, one that has already inflated the deficit, by saying that he has also voted in favor of balanced budget laws.
“I’m not one of those members of Congress slamming the door and never looking back,” he said.
https://www.statesman.com/news/20181226/austin-congressman-critical-of-extreme-climate-agenda-retires
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EPA's Toxics Office Faces Difficulty Meeting TSCA's 'Challenging' Deadlines
Dec 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's toxics office is grappling with meeting a series of steep deadlines that lawmakers imposed when they revised the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2016, a top official says.
Work in the office “has been crazy,” Iris Camacho, branch chief of a Risk Assessment Division within the toxics office said during a Dec. 11 workshop at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
“It's challenging because there are very tight statutory deadlines and we are working very, very hard to meet our regulatory deadlines,” she added.
Camacho's branch is involved with assessments of existing chemicals, those that were on the market when the original TSCA took effect in 1976, or which EPA has since allowed to enter the marketplace. The group has been focused on the first 10 evaluations of existing chemicals, which the Obama EPA selected in December 2017, triggering a three-year statutory deadline for their completion.
“The first 10 chemicals we are trying to finalize the risk evaluations by December 2019,” Camacho said.
Camacho says that planning and scoping the risk assessments -- efforts which she said OPPT has long undertaken using guides from EPA's Risk Assessment Forum -- are “key because where we start talking about the TSCA uses, the uses define the exposure assessment.”
Camacho is referring to statutory language where a chemical's conditions of use are evaluated to determine whether they present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. If so, EPA must undertake risk management action to address those uses presenting such risk. Camacho explained that the evaluations are being designed to answer these questions specifically, by “understanding the life cycle of the chemical, what type of exposure pathways routes, receptors are related to those uses. And very importantly, the potentially exposed or susceptible populations, by law we have to consider these susceptible individuals.”
“It's very important to say under the TSCA program, fit for purpose will be the norm,” Camacho added. “The complexity of the analysis will be defined at that scoping step. . . . It's challenging particularly for the data rich chemicals you have to start prioritizing your references.”
Camacho also addressed OPPT's new white paper on systematic review, a process for gathering and evaluating scientific evidence to increase the rigor and transparency of chemical evaluations and the topic of the NAS workshop.
OPPT's approach has been criticized by some for its use of numerical scores to asses study quality. Camacho did not address that issue but she pointed out that use of such an approach is not required by the statute, but instead something “EPA felt was important.”
“It's ambitious and I think we recognize this,” she said. We are trying to make a process that is sustainable, that after a number of iterations and lessons learned, we can sustain this, because as you've heard from many speakers, it takes time.”
Risk Evaluations
Camacho explained that the approach is still under development, “because we did not have time to have an a prioriprotocol. The 10 risk evaluations were announced in December and that started the clock. A lot of the method development takes time and we do not have that luxury. And that's why we have a document documenting what we have done at different stages of the process.”
“Eventually we will compile this and have our own protocol,” Camacho said. “It's a lot of work up front, but if you do it well, its going to pay off eventually.”
The systematic review approach has come under criticism from environmentalists, some academics and Democrats, who charge that it removes studies from consideration. Senators sought commitments from EPA's toxics nominee to have the approach peer-reviewed by NAS.
EPA appears to have a different plan. The agency has included a charge question about its systematic review approach in its list of charge questions to its SACC, the new advisory committee to OPPT created by the reformed statue. The committee has been tasked with peer reviewing the first draft assessment OPPT has produced, of pigment violet 29.
The second charge question for the peer review asks advisors to “comment on the approaches and/or methods used to support and inform the gathering, screening, evaluation, and integration of information used in the draft risk evaluation. . . . Please also comment on the clarity of the information as presented related to systematic review and suggest improvements as warranted.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epas-toxics-office-faces-difficulty-meeting-tscas-challenging-deadlines
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Attorneys Query EPA's TSCA Prioritization Approach After Low Risk Finding
Dec 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Industry attorneys are questioning the prioritization approach EPA used to select the first 10 chemicals EPA is assessing as part of its new Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program for existing chemicals, arguing that the selection of Pigment Violet 29 (PV29), which appears to be a low-risk chemical, begs the question of how it could be deemed a priority.
“It's rather puzzling this showed up on the [TSCA] work plan in the first place, it's supposed to be high-risk substances,” Herb Estreicher, a partner with Keller and Heckman, said during the law firm's Dec. 12 webinar. “It's rather puzzling to me this showed up . . . and of all the chemicals [on the work plan of roughly 90 substances], this was one of the [first] 10 that was picked” for evaluation by EPA.
EPA's recently released PV29 draft assessment is the first such assessment of an existing chemical under TSCA as revised by Congress in 2016. The chemical is included in the group of 10 that the Obama EPA selected shortly before leaving office that would be the first assessed under the new requirements of TSCA for existing chemicals, those that were on the market when the original TSCA took effect in 1976.
As directed in the revised statute, EPA selected the first 10 high priority chemicals for risk evaluation from its 2012 TSCA work plan, a list of roughly 90 existing chemicals created by the Obama EPA as it sought to more vigorously enforce existing TSCA in the face of longstanding inertia in Congress.
EPA used existing lists of toxic chemicals generated by other regulatory agencies combined with information about the chemicals' uses and children's and consumers' exposure to them to develop it.
EPA revised the work plan with updated information in 2014, resulting in a slightly shorter list of about 84 chemicals. The TSCA reform statute directs EPA to evaluate all the TSCA work plan chemicals over time, indicating that at least half of the new 20 chemicals that EPA begins assessing each year -- a quota also required by law -- must be drawn from the work plan list.
“The overall conclusion presents low hazard to human health and the environment,” Estreicher said of the PV29 draft assessment. “It's rather puzzling this chemical showed up on the 2012 work plan, survived the amended [2014] work plan, received a high score for aquatic toxicity -- [that] raises some question about the models that EPA used in the first place.”
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 its planning documents that the agency has sufficient information to form the basis of EPA's conclusion that the substance does not pose an "unreasonable risk" to human health or the environment -- the legal test under TSCA for regulating chemicals.
Estreicher questioned this claim, arguing that TSCA, unlike the European chemicals management law Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACh), does not require the exhaustive generation of data on chemicals. “I don't understand why you need long term studies on every endpoint. . . . There is no indication this chemical is problematic. They seems to be arguing that this should be a REACH-type regime. I don't think there is justification for that,” Estreicher said.
“Picking this chemical, given this data set, the lack of any indication for hazard or significant exposure, is more problematic than whether this data set is complete,” Estreicher added.
'Good Opportunity'
Estreicher also criticized the assessment for not making use of non-traditional animal toxicology tests to address some of the data gaps. The reformed TSCA contains language encouraging EPA to use these nascent information sources, both with language requiring it to state its need for new vertebrate animal testing and by requiring EPA to craft a strategic plan on how to incorporate these non-traditional methods.
“This would have been a good opportunity for EPA to showcase the predictive power of non-animal [testing] methods. This would have been a good showcase, that in the absence of long term studies, you can make very valid predictions based on the models,” Estreicher said.
Noting that acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler has called EPA's publication of the PV29 assessment evidence of the agency meeting its responsibilities to meet the TSCA deadlines, Estreicher added, “They certainly issued the draft risk assessment. As far as I can tell, it's reasonable, there is no serious basis for concluding [PV29] poses a risk. But again, if one was going to demonstrate the agency met its promise, there should have been more in this assessment and I suggest the use and demonstration of non-animal methods.”
Environmentalists last week filed a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request to force the agency to release two dozen studies that it relies on in the draft PV29 assessment, but which the agency has deemed as confidential business information (CBI) and withheld.
Six environmental groups in a Dec. 6 letter wrote to EPA that “failure to release these studies violates section 14 of [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.”
The letter states that that 20 of the studies relied on in the assessment have been previously submitted to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) for compliance with 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.
Estreicher finds the situation interesting, in part because it has long been unclear whether and when ECHA would release studies generated and paid for by industry -- often by consortia with complicated ownership -- to EPA.
“The REACh registrant is not the [sole] U.S. company that handles this chemical, so it's interesting that EPA received that information. It's very interesting that EPA required access to the full study reports,” Estreicher said. “There has been a lot of discussion about whether EPA would use the summary reports. They'll look at those, but only to decide if they need to full study. They got those, underwent systematic review, concluded those of medium or high quality.”
Estreicher also said ECHA's “dossier [on PV29 that] they replied on is undergoing a compliance review,” raising questions of why ECHA selected PV29 for such a review, what the result will be and “will it have any effect on [EPA's] review?”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/attorneys-query-epas-tsca-prioritization-approach-after-low-risk-finding
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(ACC Mentioned) Ex-Koch Official Steps Away from Formaldehyde Study
Dec 27, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
David Dunlap, a political deputy in EPA's research office and a former Koch Industries Inc. official, won't take part in the agency's heavily scrutinized review of formaldehyde.
He said in his recusal statement obtained by E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act that he had chosen not to participate in any matters related to EPA's Integrated Risk Information System assessment of formaldehyde. In the draft form of that review, the agency allegedly found the chemical could cause certain cancers, including leukemia.
Further, Dunlap, who serves as EPA's deputy assistant administrator for research and development, said he would not be involved in the assessment during his entire time at the agency.
"Although not necessarily required, I am voluntarily recusing myself from participation in any matters related to the formaldehyde IRIS assessment for the duration of my EPA tenure in order to avoid the appearance of any ethical concerns in my role as Deputy Assistant Administrator," Dunlap said in his recusal, dated Dec. 19.
Asked why Dunlap recused himself from the formaldehyde review, EPA spokesman John Konkus referred E&E News to Dunlap's work on the chemical before joining the agency.
"Because of his previous private-sector work on this issue and as his recusal statement indicates, Mr. Dunlap has voluntarily recused himself from EPA's Integrated Risk Information System assessment on formaldehyde," Konkus said.
Before joining EPA this fall, Dunlap spent more than eight years at Koch Industries. As director of policy and regulatory affairs, he was the lead expert on water and chemicals and worked with "the entire suite of Koch Companies," providing his expertise on everything from petrochemicals to paper, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Koch, through its subsidiary Georgia-Pacific Chemicals LLC, is one of the country's largest producers of formaldehyde. The company, known for brothers Charles and David Koch and their financial support of conservative causes, often pushes back against government regulation.
Formaldehyde is a common chemical that is used in wood products and building materials as well as paper and fertilizers. The chemical is also a global industry with millions of dollars at stake in its regulation.
Jennifer McPartland, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, said it was right for Dunlap to recuse himself from EPA's formaldehyde review.
"Regarding the voluntary recusal, it is entirely appropriate. Frankly, I'm shocked that it is voluntary given his role as director of policy and regulatory affairs for Koch Industries," McPartland said.
"Koch has had a long history of downplaying the health risks of formaldehyde, particularly through its subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific, who is a major producer of formaldehyde," she added.
The company was described as an "initial member" of the American Chemistry Council's Formaldehyde Panel, according to a 2010 press release. The panel, one of the more vocal groups on EPA's IRIS review of formaldehyde, has disputed that the chemical causes leukemia and has met regularly with the agency, according to a spokeswoman (E&E News PM, May 18).
Dunlap himself has been involved with the group.
"Mr. Dunlap participated as a representative of a member of the ACC Formaldehyde Panel," Kimberly White, senior director of the ACC's chemicals products and technology division, said in responses shared with E&E News. The panel represents formaldehyde producers, suppliers and users, as well as trade associations associated with the chemical, according to White.
Asked for the panel's position on the EPA's formaldehyde review, White said the group supports "a science-based process" to assess formaldehyde.
"The published and peer reviewed scientific evidence clearly demonstrates there are safe thresholds for formaldehyde exposure that have been utilized and adopted by international bodies," White said.
Meanwhile, Democratic senators over the past year have pushed EPA to advance its formaldehyde review.
In a letter this May, Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Tom Carper of Delaware said they understood that EPA had completed the draft IRIS assessment in the fall of 2017. They raised concerns that the review had since been stalled at EPA under pressure from political appointees and industry interests, including ACC.
The senators also said in their letter that they understand that EPA's draft review found formaldehyde to be "carcinogenic" with evidence of "nasopharyngeal cancer" and leukemia.
They are still calling for the agency to move the formaldehyde assessment. In a statement earlier this month, Markey said EPA should release its findings on the chemical.
"The EPA has succumbed to pressure from industry for far too long, endangering the public's health. I urge the EPA to ensure that there are no more efforts to delay or block the publication of this assessment," Markey said.
McPartland said EPA's formaldehyde assessment is only at the beginning of a long process as it is reviewed by several parties in and outside the agency.
"There are a series of steps that this assessment needs to take and the political leadership is not even allowing the assessment to take the next step, which is an intra-agency review, and then there would be an inter-agency review, and then peer review and so on," she said.
In his recusal, Dunlap also promised to avoid "any particular matter" while at EPA involving his former employer Koch to stay in line with President Trump's ethics pledge. That recusal will last until September 2020, which is two years from when he joined the agency.
Dunlap could, however, participate in meetings with Koch officials, as long they were focused on matters of "general applicability" and were open to five or more parties "who represent a diversity of interests," according to his recusal.
He also said he would not participate in matters that affect Sanofi SA, his spouse's employer, as well as the pharmaceutical sector while at EPA.
To help Dunlap stay true to his recusal, Elizabeth Blackburn, chief of staff for EPA's research office, will screen relevant matters. He also promised to update his recusal if there are any changes in his financial interests or business relationships.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/12/27/stories/1060110585
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EPA Still Hasn't Acted a Year After Proposing Ban on Deadly Chemical Methylene Chloride
Dec 27, 2018 | CBS News
Many of America's largest retailers, including Amazon, are planning to stop sellingall paint stripping products containing methylene chloride. Fifty-six people have died since 1980 from exposure to paint strippers containing the chemical and although the EPA proposed banning it in 2017, the agency has yet to take action.
CBS News correspondent Anna Werner has been investigating this story for the past year, reporting on three young men who died while using products made with methylene chloride since April 2017, and on a new, safer formula that's expected to be on the market in the U.S. soon.
This Christmas wasn't the same for Lauren Atkins. Last February, her 31-year-old son Joshua died while using paint stripper in a bathroom to refinish the fork from his BMX bike.
"He had a smile that lit the sky. He was very generous. He was very kindhearted," Atkins said. "I went up and knocked on the door and he didn't respond. So I opened the door and I found him."
Joshua had been gone for several hours.
"I was heartbroken because none of these deaths needed to occur. All of these were preventable," Lauren said.
Joshua joined victims Kevin Hartley and Drew Wynne, who both died in 2017 -- all young men who lost their lives using common strippers containing methylene chloride.
The chemical is so dangerous the EPA's own scientists decided it should be banned for all consumer and most professional uses, saying it posed an "unreasonable risk." But that was a year ago and the EPA still hasn't taken action. So Lauren Atkins and the other mothers plan to sue the agency next month.
"We've banded together and we're going to continue to be together until our voices are heard and until this is off the shelves," Lauren said.
The Environmental Defense Fund's Richard Dennison said those deaths were avoidable and the EPA must do more.
"It can't cut corners, It can't start creating loopholes that allow the industry to escape the intent of this rule, which is to ban these uses and protect consumers as well as workers. We are concerned that one corner they might cut is to try to exempt from this ban commercial uses of these chemicals," Dennison said.
But some aren't waiting for the government to act. Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Institute developed an alternative they say is safer and works just as well, and a Canadian company has announced it's producing a new product using that alternative formulation.
"The goal is to have it available in every major hardware paint and retail chain in the United States, Canada, and Mexico ... we feel it's a great option to have on the shelves of every retailer," said Greg Morose, a researcher at the institute, earlier this year.
In addition, major chains including Lowe's, Home Depot, Walmart and online retailer Amazon now say they will begin phasing out methylene chloride-based strippers by the end of the year. The changes should save lives
The primary manufacturer of the strippers with methylene chloride has been critical of the researchers' new alternative in the past. They point out it's flammable and say it too is toxic.
The researchers said the solvents in their formulation don't, "cause immediate death from high exposures" like methylene chloride can and that alone, they said, makes the new product much less hazardous. That product is expected to hit store shelves in the U.S. any day.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-still-hasnt-acted-a-year-after-proposing-ban-on-deadly-chemical-methylene-chloride/
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Minimalist Beauty Isn’t Exactly Simple
Dec 27, 2018 | Nylon
By Jenna Igneri
Minimalism in beauty has been steadily increasing in popularity over the past few years, something that can be credited as a response to the overly contoured and caked-on “Instagram makeup” look made popular by YouTube stars and beauty influencers.
But what actually is minimalist beauty? Is it all just a façade presented to us through chic, simple packaging and good marketing, based solely on aesthetic, or does it actually have something to do with the products and formulations themselves? To further explore the topic, we chatted with skin-care experts and board-certified dermatologists to get the low-down on what they think minimalist beauty actually is, and, more importantly, what it should be.
Dr. Cynthia Bailey, president and founder of DrBaileySkinCare.com and diplomate of the American Board of Dermatology, explains that the definition is, currently, a bit blurred, though there are some basic tenets that are followed. “There are no strict or well-established criteria for using this term,” she said before adding:
In my opinion, minimalist beauty would be achieving one’s goal with a minimum of simple tools and a simple approach to both the process and the final result-enhancing one’s natural beauty, not overwriting it. As a skin-care and skin wellness expert, I would say that using a minimum of multipurpose and clean products would be at the heart of minimalist beauty. Simplicity would characterize the process. Moderation would characterize the final appearance, which would be restrained and natural.
While many products perceived to fall into the minimalist category may achieve a natural-looking result or be easy and simple to use (cue in the multipurpose, three-in-one, all-over color products), their formulations are not, in fact, anywhere near being minimal.
Is there a solid number of ingredients that should be used per product type? While opinions varied, the answer was clear: the fewer ingredients, the better. Bailey feels that, in terms of cosmetics, products should have just enough ingredients to achieve the color and final look. “Formulations should be as simple as possible and well-thought-out so that the solution to achieving the final goals is elegant,” she says.
What are examples of some truly minimalist products, in Bailey’s opinion? Certain mineral makeup products, for starters. “Loose powder or a compact should contain not much beyond the powder,” she says. “Fragrance and filler would be omitted. It can be applied dry or wet. They have minimal ingredients that are clean.”
Bailey also champions BB creams as minimalist products. “In one product, you have tinting as a replacement to foundation, sunscreen for sun protection, and hydration. The simplicity of using a BB cream necessitates a more complex product formulation; more ingredients will be necessary to achieve the three goals in one product. However, fragrance, fillers, and extraneous ingredients should be excluded.”
While it’s not really possible to set a particular number of ingredients, as different products yield different results, which would require different ingredients to get them there, Bailey summarizes it as follows: “Minimalist beauty would exclude the superfluous ingredients ubiquitous in most beauty products. Those are fragrances—both natural and synthetic—fillers, fairy dusted ‘actives’ added only to enhance marketing appeal, and excessive packaging done for the same purpose. The exact product formulation would vary depending on the product.”
Elizabeth Trattner, doctor of Chinese and integrative medicine and green beauty expert, has a similar opinion, stating that, to her, minimalist beauty is all about transparency from the brand and clean formulations. “I love the minimal look in packaging, but I am all about transparency and lack of chemicals that can bind up the endocrine system,” she says. “Too many women are getting sick from SLS, petrochemicals, and other chemicals that are bioaccumulative, meaning the chemicals build up in the system.” On her list of non-minimalist ingredients? “Phthalates, parabens, heavy metals, and endocrine disruptors that can cause cancer, including breast and other female-based cancers. Also avoid petrochemicals, sodium lauryl sulfate, and artificial fragrance.”
Sure, most of us aware that synthetic fragrance isn’t clean, but even natural fragrances are typically unnecessary and could actually cause adverse effects—and are otherwise not considered part of a minimalist beauty regimen. Dr. Sandy Skotnicki, dermatologist and author of Beyond Soap, mentions that some essential oils—commonly used to scent products naturally—are highly allergic, irritant, or hormone-disruptive.
In general, clean is the way to go, but this doesn’t necessarily mean natural and plant-based—natural, green beauty and minimalist beauty are two very different ideas.
Multiple experts have agreed that solely natural is not always better in terms of minimalism (yes, we gasped too). It’s important to keep in mind that, like with essential oils as natural fragrance, some naturals are also known allergens. For those with sensitive skin, use of a minimal, natural product could end with less-than-desirable results. “Natural products can be problematic—they can lead to allergic reactions or irritant skin rashes just as easily and sometimes more than other products,” says Dr. Melanie Palm, board-certified dermatologist and cosmetic surgeon. “Natural and preservative-free also may mean that these products are more susceptible to microbial contamination, which could cause infections in the skin. Instead, I like the idea of hand-selecting products with clinically proven results and safety. Using a few products maximally is what I consider minimalist beauty.”
So, what really is minimalist beauty? Well, unlike the idea of minimalism itself, it’s pretty complex.
All experts we spoke with mention using the least amount of ingredients that render the product effective, simple application, and a more natural-looking end result as being the main components of the minimalist beauty movement. Yet, many of the products that consumers think to be minimalist (hint, hint: some of the trendier “Instagram brands” of today) are quite the opposite. In many ways, it’s all smoke and mirrors, unclean and unnecessarily complex formulas masked by minimalist packaging in a neutral color palette.
In short, a lot of “minimalist beauty” is essentially bullshit, and, according to the experts, it’s not what minimalist beauty should entail. “The minimalist movement is sometimes more about packaging,” says Skotnicki. “What we want to see, as dermatologists, is fewer ingredients.”
It’s up to us as consumers to not buy into a brand’s packaging and advertising, thinking we’re slapping on quality, effective products. “Consumers have to look behind the packaging,” says Trattner. “Anything can be packaged in a clean white container, but, let’s be real, with the green beauty movement at an all-time high—doubling almost every year—why go halfway?”
Before buying into the movement, then, make sure you’re reading ingredients, researching the brand, and making sure they’re on the same page as your ideals—and that you’re not just getting sucked into a brand’s “cool” aesthetic.
https://nylon.com/what-is-minimalist-beauty
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Zinke's Drilling Agenda to Outlast Tenure
Dec 27, 2018 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Zinke's Drilling Agenda to Outlast Tenure
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will depart at the end of the year, but his conservative supporters and environmental critics both agree his legacy on oil and gas drilling will be long lasting.
Zinke was instrumental in carrying out the Trump administration's "energy dominance" agenda, with the year poised to see more land being openedup to licenses and potentially the first new offshore drilling in decades. His replacement is unlikely to alter course.
“That is clearly something President Trump has sunk his teeth into,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, an energy trade group. “I don’t really see a lot of change.
"Secretary Zinke lead the charge on the energy dominance agenda, but that agenda comes from the very top. And I just don’t see President Trump shifting course. Not when the increased oil and natural gas production in the U.S. has so clearly lead to more jobs and economic growth,” Sgamma continued.
Zinke, who is leaving the administration following a slew of ethics controversies, focused much of his 20 months in the Cabinet on expanding oil and gas drilling on public lands and shrinking the boundaries of two national monuments.
Zinke regularly touted his actions as implementing the president's March 2017 executive order on “Energy Independence.”
“If there’s one thing the President has done with Interior, it’s we’ve given back the local community voice, the state’s voice, in wildlife management, in lands management, in our parks, our recreation opportunities, and oil and gas, too,” said Zinke in an exit-interview he gave to Fox News that aired Friday.
Under Zinke’s tenure, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) made a sweeping change to the way it auctioned off government-owned lands and waters for leasing. Before, the agency focused on sales of small pinpointed clusters of likely oil-rich areas. Under Zinke, the focus shifted to offering thousands of acres for lease in one fell swoop, a change championed by the oil and gas industry.
In March, Interior held the largest oil and gas leasing sale in U.S. history, auctioning 77.3 million acres of offshore waters to drilling across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Many of those gigantic sales ultimately auctioned off only a small percentage of what was offered. The March sale leased just over 1 percent of the tracts offered-- a fact highlighted by environmentalist groups who criticized the sales. And many plots leased to fossil fuel companies last year sold for only the minimum bid price of $2 an acre.
“The values that are driving Secretary Zinke's oil and gas leasing plans have been about maximizing opportunity for drilling without regard to the fiscal benefits to taxpayers. If you had a fiscal conservative in there really trying to both promote oil and gas production and generate the biggest payment, you'd have a very different approach,” said Matt Lee-Ashley, former deputy chief of staff under Obama Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and senior director of environmental strategy and communications and the Center for American Progress.
Yet, with U.S. oil and gas prices hitting record highs and the country’s recent breakthrough as the world’s leading crude oil producer, experts and critics alike agree that the Trump administration’s changes will continue under a new secretary.
Zinke’s last White House meeting to reportedly discuss a soon-to-be-announced five-year drilling strategy, all but cements that legacy.
“I think that’s really the most important legacy that Secretary Zinke will have, is moving back to that multiple use concept on areas of federal land designed for multiple use,” said Dan Naatz, senior vice president of government relations and political affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
“Largely BLM lands are areas that are available for energy production and also available for recreation and agriculture. Our frustration with the Obama administration was they moved much more towards a single use philosophy, and much to the detriment of our members who wanted to use those areas for oil and gas production.”
Chase Huntley, energy and climate program director at The Wilderness Society, thinks that legacy will continue regardless of who replaces Zinke.
“From our perspective, I’m not convinced much of anything is going to change. The president can change the figure heads and the flag flying over Interior, but the policy commitment at Interior to put industry first, runs deep, and whoever is going to sit in the secretary's chair is just going to go along for the ride,” he said.
Potential candidates in the running to replace Zinke—a former Montana congressman—come from similar backgrounds. A majority hail from Western States with big hopes for expanding oil and gas development.
The likely frontrunner, current Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt, has been closely involved in organizing many of the oil and gas leasing sales, including a recently released proposal to begin drilling in Alaska’s arctic.
“Like a CEO and a COO he has been intimately involved in designing the details of these policies and putting them in place throughout the bureaucracy,” said Sgamma. “So he is more than capable.”
Bernhardt worked at Interior in various capacities, including solicitor, during the George W. Bush administration. He has also had multiple stints at the lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, representing clients with business before Interior. Bernhardt will serve as Interior’s acting administrator until Trump makes a formal nomination.
Environmentalists say there’s an opportunity for a new secretary to still embrace drilling while doing so in a more balanced way.
But with Bernhardt staying on, scaling down the agency's drilling agenda seems highly unlikely in 2019.
“There is an opportunity ... [for] an Interior Secretary midterm to do a course correction,” said Lee-Ashley.
“That said, the person really driving the oil and gas leasing program has been Bernhardt, and with him staying on, he seems to be very much at the center of the ‘lease everything’ mantra.”
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/422781-ryan-zinke-drilling-agenda-to-outlast-tenure
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A Critical Protection for Plant and Factory Workers Is Eroding
Dec 27, 2018 | Undark
By Jeff Johnson
TWENTY YEARS AGO, if a worker was killed in an industrial accident, the task of investigating what went wrong and why fell either to the employer or to the government safety regulator — precisely the two parties most likely to have been at fault. Though slow to change, federal lawmakers eventually created the independent Chemical Safety Board (CSB), a small, seemingly insignificant agency funded in 1998 and tasked with determining the root causes of industrial accidents and recommending changes to prevent them. Over its lifetime, CSB has investigated and analyzed more than 130 accidents responsible for more than 200 deaths, 1,200 injuries, and hundreds of billions of dollars in property damage.
Twice, President Donald J. Trump has tried to eliminate that board, threatening to return us to the era when discovering and making public the cause of a refinery or plant accident is left to those responsible for the accident in the first place. Trump should sit down and have a talk with Tammy Miser.
Years ago, Miser’s brother Shawn was injured at work. She remembers receiving the late-night call at her home in Lexington, Kentucky, and speeding five hours to the St. Joseph Regional Burn Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. When she arrived, she rushed inside and was told that an unidentified, badly burned male had come in.
“We hoped and prayed it wasn’t Shawn,” Miser said. “A hospital pastor told me to prepare for the worst. There was no body hair, no physical markings. My Shawn was ultimately identified by body weight and type. They told us his internal organs were burned beyond repair.”
“It was horrible,” she said, “but we took him off life support and watched him take his last breath.”
Miser learned from CSB that Shawn had been killed by an explosion and fire fueled by dust — in this case, common metal shavings. Mixed with the right amount of oxygen and exposed to an ignition source, the seemingly innocuous dust explodes and burns.
The explosion that killed Shawn was one of three deadly dust accidents investigated in 2003 by the CSB. In all, some 200 accidents each year — explosions, fires, leaks, spills — qualify for a CSB investigation under its mandate. Often, it’s not just the workers but also the surrounding communities that are harmed: For instance, a 2012 Chevron refinery explosion in Richmond, California forced 15,000 residents to seek medical aid; a 2014 tank leak in Charleston, West Virginia, contaminated the drinking water of some 300,000 people.
Yet CSB remains perennially underfunded, understaffed, and under attack. Although the agency was established in 1990, it received no funding until 1998, in the wake of a series of deadly accidents that proved too much for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to handle. As it happened, one of the accidents killed five New Jersey workers near the home of the senator who wrote the legislation that created the board. So began a disturbing pattern that continues today: When a horrible accident occurs, support for CSB grows; but as the accident fades from memory, support wanes.
Today, the agency has the resources to investigate only a sliver of the industrial accidents that occur each year. Its budget has never topped $11 million, a pittance compared to the $100 million a year appropriated to the National Transportation Safety Board, on which CSB is modeled. But NTSB investigates transportation accidents, and all of us — Congress members and CEOs included — take trains and airplanes. Most of us do not work in refineries or on factory floors.
The legitimacy of the board and its decisions have been challenged by nearly everyone — companies and trade associations, safety regulators, members of Congress, even labor unions. When a plant blows up, however, everybody wants to know what happened and why, but no one wants the finger publicly pointed at them.
After the Richmond refinery explosion, for instance, Chevron played down the accident and challenged CSB’s authority to investigate. But the investigation moved ahead anyway, in part because the accident was so visible: Black smoke could be seen throughout the San Francisco Bay area, and dangerous particulates were blasted into the nearby community. It was the last straw in a long-running and volatile relationship between the community and the company.
The board found that the explosion was caused by a broken and badly corroded pipe, which released flammable hydrocarbon fluid that subsequently caught fire. The board also found that on at least six occasions spanning more than a decade, Chevron management had been advised by its engineers that the carbon-steel piping was prone to corrosion and should be replaced, or at least subjected to an intense inspection program. However, management ignored the recommendations.
CSB investigations over the years revealed that such mishaps were widespread in the petrochemical industry. Agency reports uncovered fundamental flaws in plant management and government regulatory oversight at facilities nationwide. In 2012 alone, 125 significant accidents — leaking tanks, fires, piping failures — occurred at the nation’s 150 refineries, and financial losses from refinery accidents in the U.S. were three times higher than in other countries.
As a result, CSB staff and board Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso urged sweeping changes in U.S. refinery regulations, beginning with Chevron. The board recommended that the U.S. adopt a “safety case” approach — a regulatory scheme commonly used in Europe that places the onus for safety management on the operator and calls for company-developed regulations to be overseen by the safety regulator and plant workers. The recommendations were backed by residents, safety advocates, and local union leaders. California legislators even adopted CSB’s broad recommendations and used them as the foundation to overhaul the state’s refinery safety regulations. Washington state officials are now considering doing the same.
But for some CSB members, national unions, and Chevron executives, the board’s recommendations went too far. The safety case approach was put on hold, a CSB member quit, and some CSB staff left and brought complaints about the board’s management to Congress.
The squabbles, charges, and countercharges caught the eyes of Republicans on a congressional oversight committee, and the committee began an investigation. The investigation dragged on and eventually members sought Moure-Eraso’s resignation. In a terse statement in March 2015, a White House spokesman announced that the White House had “asked for and received Dr. Rafael Moure-Eraso’s resignation.”
A few months later, the Senate confirmed a new chairperson who had no experience in chemical manufacturing. Years later, the board is still working to rebuild, replenish staff, and increase its investigatory presence.
It does so in an unfriendly political climate. President Trump called to eliminate funding for the CSB in his 2018 and 2019 budget proposals, and he’s shown no indications that he’ll change that stance. Despite his recommendations, Congress has continued to fund the board, albeit at the same low levels it’s received in the past.
Amid the chorus of criticism, one group has consistently supported increased funding for the CSB: family members, like Tammy Miser, who have seen loved ones hurt or killed in industrial accidents. Shortly after her brother’s death, Miser formed the United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities, a nonprofit that helps people whose lives have been devastated by an on-the-job death. She’s also testified to Congress and pressed OSHA to adopt better industrial safety laws. Although the U.S. has yet to adopt regulations to prevent industrial dust explosions like the one that killed her brother, a new industry has sprung up to promote dust safety, she notes.
“None of this would have been possible,” she says, “without the Chemical Safety Board.”
https://undark.org/2018/12/27/a-critical-protection-for-plant-and-factory-workers-is-eroding/
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CN Meets PTC Installment Deadline; Seeks Two-Year Extension for Full Operation
Dec 27, 2018 | Railway Track and Structures
By Paul Conley
CN says it met its year-end deadline to install positive train control (PTC) equipment across its system. The Class 1 also announced it is seeking a two-year extension “to complete deployment and interoperability.”
In a news release, CN said it had installed all its planned 1,662 radio towers, trained all 5,614 employees required for PTC, installed hardware on all 586 locomotives and on 35 required track segments. In addition, the railroad said it has initiated PTC on 19 of those track segments, or 54 percent.
Railways operating in the U.S. are required by law to install PTC equipment, secure needed radio spectrum, and deploy PTC on more than half of required territory by Dec. 31.
The law allows railroads that meet that deadline to seek an extension of as much as 24 months from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to make PTC fully operational. CN says it applied Nov. 7 for such an extension. That would give the railroad until Dec. 31, 2020, to complete PTC work. CN expects to spend a total of $1.4 billion to install PTC on approximately 3,100 route-miles in the United States.
News of CN’s PTC equipment achievement comes days after the FRA announced $46 million in grants for PTC projects in 10 states.
Positive train control (PTC) is a system of functional requirements for monitoring and controlling train movements. PTC generally improves the safety of railway traffic.
PTC uses signals and sensors along the track to communicate train location, speed restrictions, and moving authority. If the locomotive is violating a speed restriction or moving authority, onboard equipment will automatically slow or stop the train.
https://www.rtands.com/cs/cn-ptc-positive-train-control-equipment/
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FRA: PTC Round Two Grants Total $46.3 Million
Dec 27, 2018 | Railway Age
By William C. Vantuono
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) on Dec. 21 awarded $46.30 million in grant funding for 11 projects in 10 states to assist with deploying Positive Train Control (PTC) systems, marking the second selection of PTC systems deployment projects under the Fiscal Year 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act administered via the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program, collectively totaling $250 million.
“These grants not only help railroads continue to make progress implementing PTC, but they also show that we’re steadfast in our commitment to make investments in passenger rail and rural communities,” said FRA Administrator Ronald L. Batory.
The CRISI Program was authorized by the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act to provide funding “to improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of intercity passenger rail and freight rail transportation systems.” The FY 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act provided $592.6 million for the CRISI Program, with $250 million to be made available for PTC system deployment. On Aug. 24, 2018, FRA announced $203.7 million in grant awards for PTC implementation to 28 projects in 15 states.
In this second round of FY 2018 PTC CRISI grants, 100% of the funds will benefit passenger rail, with about 31% ($14 million) benefiting rural projects. The CRISI grant program “directs much-needed critical investment—at least 25% of available funds—to rural America,” FRA noted.
The awards will fund many aspects of PTC system implementation for intercity passenger or commuter rail and freight rail transportation, including back office PTC systems; wayside, communications, and onboard PTC system equipment; personnel training; PTC system testing; and interoperability.
FRA awarded grants in the approximate amounts below to the following programs and entities:
· AK – GPS Precision Upgrade for PTC (Up to $2,530,618); Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC). For this rural project, ARRC will procure a platform with software to improve the accuracy and functionality of the global positioning system (GPS) in ARRC’s locomotives and on-track equipment, and implement the vital functions for its Interoperable Electronic Train Management System (I-ETMS).
· CA – PTC Configuration Management and Office Segment Failover (Up to $3,976,560); Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (Caltrain). To implement Caltrain’s I-ETMS PTC system, this grant will fund the completion of a Caltrain PTC Configuration Management (CM) Plan and PTC Data Management Procedure; development of a CM tool that generates an audit trail for changes to configuration data and CM training on the configuration control and CM process; completion of the backup central control facility (BCCF) and Central Control Facility Failover Design and Test Plan; and completion of the design, test results, and as-built system for an Emergency Operation Center at the existing BCCF in Menlo Park, Calif.
· CA – Leveraging PTC to Increase Capacity and Reduce Headways and Alternative Vendor Analysis (Up to $3,150,000); Southern California Regional Rail Authority (SCRRA or Metrolink). This project will include a study for leveraging PTC to increase capacity and reduce headways, software development, PTC component upgrades, and/or corridor infrastructure upgrades to support the future implementation of Higher Reliability and Capacity Train Control (HRCTC) along Metrolink’s congested Orange County Line from Los Angeles Union Station to Oceanside, Calif.
· CO – PTC Installation for the Amtrak Southwest Chief on BNSF Railway Through Colorado and Kansas (Up to $9,157,600); Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). This rural project from CDOT, in collaboration with the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) and BNSF, includes the design, installation, and testing of I-ETMS PTC wayside technology on approximately 179 miles of a predominantly single-track route between Dodge City, Kan., and Las Animas, Colo.
· IL – PTC Kits and Spare Parts for 24 Additional Locomotives at Metra (Up to $2,058,163); Commuter Rail Division of the Regional Transportation Authority (Metra). The project includes purchasing and installing onboard I-ETMS PTC equipment on Metra’s 24 recently purchased locomotives.
· MA – MBTA PTC Implementation (Up to $7,548,335); Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). This project on the Needham Branch, Franklin Branch, and Worcester Line, includes two components: 1) Testing of Automatic Train Control (ATC), where the previously installed PTC/ATC equipment on each line is already wired, and the software is loaded, connected to the signal system, and activated. The testing is intended to confirm the equipment functions as designed and is ready for testing with a test train. 2) “Completion of Commissioning for the ATC Lines,” where final acceptance testing is performed, including interoperability and ATC system testing.
· NC – NCDOT Rolling Stock PTC Commissioning (Up to $584,080); North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT). The project includes installing, testing, commissioning, and certifying I-ETMS PTC onboard technology on three NCDOT locomotives for operation in the Piedmont intercity passenger rail service, which operates between Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C.
· NJ – PTC Installation on Multilevel Cab Cars (Up to $6,542,353); New Jersey Transit Corporation (NJT). This project will install and test Advanced Speed Enforcement System II (ASES II) PTC onboard equipment on 33 new NJT multilevel cab cars for deployment along the Northeast Corridor, Montclair-Boonton, and Morris & Essex Lines in New Jersey.
· NM – New Mexico Rail Runner Express PTC/Wi-Fi Integration Project (Up to $2,496,842); Rio Metro Regional Transit District (Rio Metro). This rural project will restore the New Mexico Rail Runner Express (NMRX) system’s Wi-Fi network from an end-of-life, proprietary WiMAX system to a cross-compatible Long-Term Evolution (LTE) system, providing a redundant path of communication for its I-ETMS PTC system. The project will install 26 towers along the 96 miles of the NMRX system between Belen, N.M. and Santa Fe, N.M., including approximately 74 miles of the Albuquerque Subdivision and 22 miles of the Santa Fe Subdivision. Nine NMRX cab cars, 13 coach cars, and 15 NMRX stations will be equipped with the Wi-Fi technology necessary for its PTC system.
· NY – MTA Metro-North Railroad PTC Communications Testing (Up to $2,300,000); NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). This project will involve PTC system testing to measure communications system performance to predict, identify, and replicate communications issues affecting MTA’s Metro-North Railroad’s operations, as well as develop and validate mitigation approaches to address communications challenges along the Northeast Corridor.
· TX – Capital Metro E-ATC PTC Wayside Installation Project (Up to $5,957,151); Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Capital Metro). This project includes the design, installation, and verification of the Enhanced Automatic Train Control PTC wayside system on the new tracks along Capital Metro’s Red Line in the cities of Austin, Cedar Park, Leander, and the surrounding Texas communities. The new project spans a 21-mile section along the Red Line on Capital Metro’s commuter rail corridor.
In 2008, Congress mandated implementation of PTC systems on the main lines of Class I railroads and entities providing regularly scheduled intercity or commuter rail passenger transportation over which hazardous materials are transported, or over which intercity or commuter rail passenger transportation is regularly provided. In October 2015, Congress extended the original PTC system implementation deadline from Dec. 31, 2015, to Dec. 31, 2018. In addition, Congress requires FRA to approve a railroad’s request for an “Alternative Schedule” with a deadline for full implementation beyond Dec. 31, 2018, but not later than Dec. 31, 2020, if the railroad demonstrates it has met the congressionally mandated criteria for an alternative schedule.
https://www.railwayage.com/cs/ptc/fra-ptc-round-two-grants-total-46-3-million/
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EPA Defends Decision To Scrap 'Once In, Always In' Air Toxics Rule Policy
Dec 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA in a new legal brief is defending its decision to scrap a long-running “once in, always in” policy that required “major” air toxics sources to always comply with rules for such sources even if they reduced emissions below the major source threshold, saying the Clean Air Act authorizes the decision and that it is not subject to judicial review.
Environmentalists and California are pursuing litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit over EPA air chief Bill Wehrum's Jan. 25 memo scrapping the 1995 policy. Critics say it will spur increases in air toxics and contradicts years of Clean Air Act policy and agency practice.
But the Department of Justice (DOJ) on behalf of EPA in its Dec. 21 opening brief in California Communities Against Toxics, et al. v. EPA, et al. says the Wehrum memo amounts to non-binding guidance for states and EPA regions, and is not therefore “final agency action” subject to judicial review.
EPA’s policy shift allows major air toxics sources -- those emitting 10 tons per year (tpy) of one hazardous air pollutant (HAP) or 25 tpy of a combination of HAPs -- to escape regulation under EPA’s maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards if they cut their emissions to below these thresholds. Sources would then become “area sources” subject to less-stringent regulation. Industry groups that lobbied for the change, such as the American Forest and Paper Association, say this is legal and a fair recognition of efforts to cut pollution.
But critics, including the groups suing and Democrats in Congress, say it will allow numerous sources to reduce their emissions to just below the thresholds and remove emissions controls, which will result in emissions rising, not falling. This, they argue, is contrary to the intent of Congress in the Clean Air Act.
In its brief, DOJ says that Wehrum's memo “merely communicates EPA’s plain-language reading” of the air law, “which will, in turn, be applied in subsequent administrative actions -- it is neither a legislative rule that required notice and comment nor a final action subject to immediate judicial review.”
Critics say that EPA violated air law procedural requirements to give notice and take public comment, but DOJ rejects this, saying the policy guidance is not subject to those mandates.
Nor can EPA’s decision be considered final, DOJ argues. The guidance “is not the end of the Agency’s decision-making process on this subject. The Agency is about to undertake a rulemaking addressing (among other things) the same interpretive issue presented here.” EPA has announced its intent to craft a formal rule in 2019 based on the guidance, which will likely attract fresh legal challenges.
If the D.C. Circuit decides that Wehrum's memo can be considered a final agency action subject to judicial review, DOJ says the court should uphold the decision on its merits.
“Congress’ definitions of ‘major source’ and ‘area source’ contain no cut-off date or other temporal language having a similar effect. They therefore do not permit EPA to bar regulated sources from reclassifying from ‘major’ to ‘area’ (or the other way around) after a certain point in time,” DOJ says.
The department also says that claims EPA’s decision will increase toxics emissions lack technical or legal support. “That conclusory claim lacks evidentiary support. In any event, Petitioners’ contextual and policy arguments are misplaced where the statute speaks clearly.”
The court has not yet scheduled oral argument in the case.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-defends-decision-scrap-once-always-air-toxics-rule-policy
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Extending Pause, D.C. Circuit Rejects Calls To Issue Merits Ruling In CPP Suit
Dec 27, 2018 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is rejecting calls by backers of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) utility greenhouse gas rule to issue a decision on the merits in the long-paused litigation over the rule, and is instead continuing to hold the case in abeyance while the Trump EPA crafts its narrow replacement policy.
The D.C. Circuit's brief Dec. 21 per curiam order extends the court's practice of issuing 60-day abeyances in the original CPP litigation, West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, et al., which has now been on hold for nearly two years.
Of note, the opinion was joined by all of the D.C. Circuit judges participating in the case, even though some of the judges had earlier expressed unease with a continued abeyance, given that the underlying rule remains stayed by the Supreme Court pending resolution of the litigation.
That spurred states and environmental groups that support the CPP to aggressively urge the D.C. Circuit to rule on the merits of the challenge. The full court in September 2016 heard marathon oral arguments in the case, but it paused the suit shortly after the Trump administration took office and began reconsidering the rule.
Trump EPA officials have sought to extend the West Virginia abeyance as they develop their replacement rule, known as the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. The agency took comment on its proposed ACE plan through the end of October and has been on an aggressive schedule to finish the measure by March.
ACE has narrow GHG targets based on coal plant efficiency projects, compared with the CPP's more stringent requirements based on generation-shifting from coal to natural gas and renewables.
The D.C. Circuit's latest order is thus a win for EPA and a loss for environmentalists. It extends the pause in the suit until late February, requiring EPA to file status reports on ACE every 30 days.
CPP supporters were cautiously optimistic that the court would uphold the Obama-era rule, if it were to issue a merits ruling. Such a move would potentially force the high court to grapple with its underlying regulatory stay, and it could have briefly re-imposed the CPP's requirements on states and the power sector -- at least until the ACE rule is completed.
CPP proponents had argued that EPA has taken "undue advantage" of the abeyance and high court stay to avoid imposing GHG limits on the power sector, in violation of EPA's Clean Air Act duty.
But EPA said it was neither "flouting" a mandatory duty nor engaging in a "perpetual dodging" of judicial review.
Given the court's latest decision, it appears likely that the pause in West Virginia will extend until the agency finalizes ACE, meaning that an inevitable court fight would shift to a challenge to that rule.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/extending-pause-dc-circuit-rejects-calls-issue-merits-ruling-cpp-suit
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Bloomberg Says He'll Insist Presidential Candidates Have Climate Change Plans
Dec 27, 2018 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Rebecca Morin
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is considering a presidential run, but he said he'll also pressure other potential candidates to craft plans to combat climate change following a grim and pessimistic federal report published last month.
“I think that any candidate for federal office better darn well have a plan to deal with the problem that the Trump science advisers say could basically end this world," he said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," which will air on Sunday. A partial transcript was released Thursday.
The National Climate Assessment, which was put together by federal scientists, in November predicted economic losses due to climate change, warning that a number of projected impacts are irreversible. President Donald Trump has dismissed the report.
Bloomberg, who said he has yet to make his decision on a 2020 run, has appeared in Iowa, where he also focused on climate change and going up against the coal industry.
"I can tell you one thing, I don't know whether I'm going to run or not, but I will be out there demanding that anybody that's running has a plan," he said in the "Meet the Press" interview. "And I want to hear the plan, and I want everybody to look at it and say whether it's doable."
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