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ACC AM 03/01/18
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(ACC Mentioned) The Negative Effects of Tariffs on U.S. Employment
Jan 3, 2019 | The Economist
U.S. consumers are feeling optimistic about their future – with unemployment at its lowest levels in years, energy prices lower than last season, and a robust economy. -
Ongoing US Government Shutdown Strikes Chemistry
Jan 2, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Andrea Widener
A partial US federal government shutdown is well into its second week and will likely become more disruptive for chemists now that the holiday season slowdown is over. -
For Trump’s Deregulatory Agenda, a Reckoning Nears
Jan 3, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko
The clock is ticking on President Trump’s deregulatory agenda. -
Senate Approves Top Energy, Environment Picks
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Manuel Quinones
The Senate last night approved a series of energy and environment nominees by voice vote in the final full day of the 115th Congress. -
Alexandra Dunn Confirmed to Run EPA Chemicals Office (2)
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern and Dean Scott
Alexandra Dunn was confirmed by the Senate Jan. 2 to lead the EPA’s chemicals office. -
EPA Signals Delays to TSCA Risk Evaluation Due to Shutdown
Jan 3, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
As the partial shutdown of the US federal government nears the two-week mark, the EPA has announced potential delays for the first of its ten draft risk evaluations released under the reformed TSCA. -
New Hampshire to Halve Limit on Nonstick Chemical in Water
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
New Hampshire has proposed cutting nearly in half the amount of a nonstick coating chemical it would allow in groundwater and drinking water. -
A Trump County Confronts the Administration Amid a Rash of Child Cancers
Jan 2, 2019 | The New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi
The children fell ill, one by one, with cancers that few families in this suburban Indianapolis community had ever heard of. -
(ACC Mentioned) Dems Promise 'Dogged' Push for Implementation of Obama Rules
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
During the past two years, the House Energy and Commerce Committee was a font of Clean Air Act foot-dragging. -
(ACC Mentioned) Nuclear Power Subsidies Inch Forward in Pennsylvania As Natural Gas Industry Digs In
Jan 2, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania lawmakers has advanced recommendations for supporting five nuclear power plants in the state that face stiff competition in wholesale electricity markets, setting the stage for a continued battle with the natural gas industry and other interests opposed to any kind of government intervention. -
U.S. Universities, Supermajors Working to Develop New Shale Gas Technologies
Jan 2, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
Researchers from five public universities are working with the oil and gas industry and others to develop new technologies for converting shale gas into transportation fuels and petrochemicals, potentially adding $20 billion annually to the U.S. economy. -
A Crucial Moment Arrives for U.S. LNG Exports
Jan 3, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Christopher Matthews
With global demand for liquefied natural gas accelerating, 2019 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for LNG exporters in the U.S. -
How An Oil Boom in West Texas Is Reshaping the World
Jan 3, 2019 | TIME
By Justin Worland
My view from the window seat of a small regional jet landing in Midland, Texas, is either a testament to the advances of human civilization or a sign of its impending demise, depending on your perspective. -
Ohio Ethane Cracker Clears Final Regulatory Hurdles
Jan 2, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
What would be the Appalachian Basin’s second multi-billion dollar ethane cracker has finally secured all the major regulatory approvals needed to move forward after the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency completed its environmental review and issued the project’s final permits as 2018 came to an end. -
FERC Notches Wins in D.C. Circuit
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Pipeline developers and federal regulators last week clocked victories in appellate court. -
Shell to Link Carbon Emissions Targets to Executive Pay
Jan 3, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Sarah Kent
Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A 1.84% PLC plans to set short-term carbon-emissions targets and link them to executive pay, the company said Monday, capitulating to months of investor pressure. -
Oil Tanks Catch Fire at Noble Well in the Permian
Jan 2, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
There were no injuries when a series of oil tanks caught fire overnight near a Noble Energy well site in West Texas' booming Permian Basin. -
Maryland Board Votes Against Natural Gas Pipeline Project
Jan 2, 2019 | AP (In The New York Times)
A board of high-ranking Maryland officials on Wednesday rejected a proposed pipeline across the western part of the state that would carry natural gas produced in Pennsylvania to West Virginia. -
Groups Protest DOE Rule to Classify Critical Electric Facilities
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
A trio of public interest groups have lodged a protest against a proposed Department of Energy rule to designate critical electric infrastructure. -
Agent Orange’s Other Legacy—a $12 Billion Cleanup and a Fight Over Who Pays
Jan 3, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Peg Brickley and Gretchen Morgenson
The Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, N.J., has been revitalized. -
Lawmakers Introduce Comprehensive Pipeline Legislative Package
Jan 3, 2019 | Daily Local
State Sens. Andy Dinniman, D-19, and Tom Killion, R-9, announced Wednesday that they have introduced a comprehensive legislative package aimed at reforming Pennsylvania’s pipeline regulatory process to improve safety at schools and in local neighborhoods and communities. -
(ACC Mentioned) Feds Are Looking Into Railroad Customer Fees
Jan 3, 2019 | PYMNTS.com
A federal agency is investigating fees imposed by railroad companies that aim to get customers to comply with new procedures. -
Is That An Empty Car on the Train? Yes, But It’s Actually Helping Commuters, NJ Transit Says
Jan 3, 2019 | NJ.com
By Larry Higgs
The weird arrangement of trains has been a little confusing for the commuters who’ve encountered the unusual set-up during the last two weeks. -
Gasoline Spill Cleanup Poised to Begin
Jan 2, 2019 | Albuquerque Journal
By Maddy Hayden
Work to clean up contamination at a site in south central New Mexico, where a quarter of a million gallons of gasoline spilled from a leaking pipeline, is expected to begin next week, state environment officials said Wednesday. -
D.C. Circuit Dismisses Ozone NAAQS Designations Delay Suit
Jan 2, 2019 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has dismissed environmentalists' and states' challenge to the Trump EPA's one-year delay in designating areas as attaining or violating the agency's 2015 ozone air standard, finding the agency's belated issuance of designations renders the case moot. -
Court Lets Suit Over EPA Landfill Methane Rule Implementation Advance
Jan 2, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
A federal district judge is allowing a state coalition to continue its suit against EPA's efforts to delay implementation of an Obama-era rule limiting methane emissions from landfills, rejecting the agency's effort to dismiss and stay the case even as it moves to rewrite the regulation to extend compliance deadlines. -
A Cryin’ Shame: Spilled Bud, Miller Beer Targeted to Clean Air (Corrected)
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Dropping your beer on New Year’s Eve may have helped your hangover, but starting this month beer spills could be more than a headache for Colorado’s two biggest brewers, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV and MillerCoors LLC. -
5 Legal Fights on Climate for 2019
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
The field of lawsuits related to climate change is set to expand in 2019 following a year of setbacks and delays.
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(ACC Mentioned) The Negative Effects of Tariffs on U.S. Employment
Jan 3, 2019 | The Economist
U.S. consumers are feeling optimistic about their future – with unemployment at its lowest levels in years, energy prices lower than last season, and a robust economy. This is due in part to the U.S.’ role as a global energy and innovation leader, which allows consumers more disposable income due to lower energy costs. But in the face of ongoing trade wars and tariffs and quotas still in place on imported goods that could cost U.S. jobs and hurt key U.S. energy and manufacturing projects, will consumers’ optimism endure?
Generally, while consumers feel good about the U.S. economy, and seem to be less educated about the direct impact of tariffs and quotas, the U.S. business community is taking immediate actions to protect itself from the costly trade wars. For instance, Harley Davidson announced this summer that it would move some production overseas due to EU retaliatory tariffs. In October, Ford prepared for layoffs after the tariffs reportedly cost the company $1bn. GM said in November it will close plants and cut jobs as a result of a sales slowdown and high costs due in part to steel tariffs. Numerous small businesses, too, are endangered by the trade war with China, as are America’s farmers. Trade disputes could cost billions of dollars to the agricultural sector, says Farmers for Free Trade, a nonprofit that mobilizes farmers and ranchers to take action to support and expand exports.
Tariffs and quotas on U.S imports – including steel – could increase the costs of everything from Christmas presents to energy. U.S. natural gas and oil production is surging, and new infrastructure like pipelines and export terminals are needed to bring this energy to U.S. and global markets. Restrictions on the availability of imported steel can stop or slow U.S. energy infrastructure projects, which in turn could put upward pressure on the cost of U.S. energy, and therefore increase the costs of manufactured goods and threaten U.S. jobs.
This disconnect between U.S. consumers’ general optimism and the negative impacts of trade restrictions on U.S. businesses can be traced to the macro-labor effects of trade policy. Consumers understand the tariffs will eventually hurt their wallets. (See, Collateral Damage: U.S. Consumers Say They Will Be Victims of Trade Wars) However, they don’t make the leap to how tariffs could also hurt their paychecks. “Because these kinds of tariffs or trade restraints are often hidden, consumers realize higher prices for things will cause them to not purchase as much,” says Laura Baughman, president at Trade Partnership Worldwide, a trade and economic consulting firm. “But they don’t realize that cuts in purchasing ripple through the economy in all kinds of ways to the point that people lose jobs in sectors they can’t even imagine. You can’t see it as directly.”“But [consumers] don’t realize that cuts in purchasing ripple through the economy in all kinds of ways to the point that people lose jobs in sectors they can’t even imagine.”
– Laura Baughman, president at Trade Partnership WorldwideCease-fire uncertainty
When the U.S. and China announced a postponement of additional tariffs at the G20 summit in December, it initially felt like good news. Markets rallied; businesses breathed a sigh of relief. The calm, however, was short-lived, as realization set in that the news amounted to a cease-fire, not an actual peace agreement. Both countries put the escalation of the trade war on hold, but did not end it or agree to dismantle existing barriers – including the U.S.’s Section 301 tariffs on a variety of goods from China, and the associated retaliatory tariffs from China on U.S. goods. Plus, consumers are also dealing with the effects from the already implemented U.S. Section 232 tariffs and quotas on imported steel and aluminum from every country except Australia. What is worrisome is that this on-again-off-again uncertainty is just as much of an impediment to trade as tariffs, says Katheryn Russ, associate professor of economics at University of California, Davis and research associate at National Bureau of Economic Research.
“Uncertainty can act like tariffs,” says Ms. Russ. “It’s still on the table for an extra three months, and we don’t know how it will be resolved or how long it will take afterwards—if it’s resolved. That’s still damaging enough to slow down trade and the overall economy. These tariffs are basically death by a thousand cuts. It’s a little bit here, a little bit there. The cumulative effect across everything can really add up.
That’s certainly true for Robert Heiblim, the owner of three small consumer technology businesses, one of which was directly hit with 25% tariffs. “Uncertainty is a big enemy of growth and business,” he says. “I could plan on moving my production out of China but it would be very expensive and it could take me several years. I don’t want to do that if things get solved. All I can do is batten down the hatches and be more conservative so that I can try and maintain the stability of my businesses. That means lower raises, less hiring, less capital expenditure, slower growth.”
The Tax Foundation, a tax policy nonprofit, estimates the tariffs already in place will shrink the size of the U.S. economy by $30bn and eliminate nearly 100,000 fulltime jobs over the long run. “That’s not to say there won’t be a negative impact in the meantime,” says Erica York, Tax Foundation analyst. “But we estimate that it will take longer for the full effects to filter through the economy to build up to the almost 100,000 job loss. As long as those tariffs stay in place, those effects will remain. And as more tariffs get added, those effects will get worse.”
In theory, tariffs are supposed to protect domestic firms’ market share by raising prices on foreign goods, so consumer demand shifts toward goods made at home. In practice, however, tariffs have significant downsides—they raise prices, expose the economy to trade retaliation and alienate key trade partners, says Jeffrey Kucik Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Arizona. “Tariffs are a high-risk strategy because you’re trying to use this blunt instrument to promote domestic job or wage growth,” he says. “But in doing so, you’re putting more jobs at risk than you’re directly benefitting through the protectionist measure.”
There’s uncertainty with U.S. energy projects, as well, which could have ramifications for U.S. jobs and the economy. For instance, the Cactus II pipeline, which is a $1.1 billion project from Plains All American Pipeline LP to transport crude oil from the prolific Permian Basin, is now having to pay tariffs on steel that is critical to the project. While the majority of the project cost is comprised of U.S. material and labor – including over 2,500 construction jobs – the construction requires line pipe specifications produced by only three steel mills in the world – none of which exist in the U.S. Following the implementation of tariffs on steel imported from Greece, the project has been burdened with an additional $40 million in costs.
“With the U.S. natural gas and oil industry leading the energy and innovation revolution, it is of the upmost importance that the industry continues to operate without market restrictions,” said Kyle Isakower, the Vice President of Regulatory and Economic Policy at American Petroleum Institute (API). “Not only does our industry support over 10 million jobs across the U.S. but American energy has reduced the trade deficit by about $250 billion over the last decade. We’re poised to be a net exporter of crude oil by 2026, which will help continue to close our trade deficit and bring cleaner energy to others around the world. Unfortunately, tariffs and quotas create major uncertainty for the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, and as a result, important energy projects, and the associated jobs, could be at risk.”“Unfortunately, tariffs and quotas create major uncertainty for the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, and as a result, important energy projects, and the associated jobs, could be at risk.”
-Kyle Isakower, the Vice President of Regulatory and Economic Policy at American Petroleum Institute (API)Consumer confusion
While a majority of Americans (82%) are aware of recent news about the trade war and increased tariffs, less than half (46%) feel knowledgeable about them, according a survey of 1,400 Americans fielded by (E) BrandConnect, a commercial arm of The Economist Group, on behalf of API. “What does it take for Americans to fully understand the tariff impact?” asks Sage Chandler, vice president of international trade at the Consumer Technology Association. “When someone they know is directly threatened by a potential job loss.”
Headlines in the media may be adding to the confusion. For example, United Steelworkers, the principal steel workers union, recently ratified an agreement that increases wages for its members by 14% over the next four years. Reports point to this as a positive, noting it increases demand for U.S. steel and stabilizes jobs. But it doesn’t take into account the downstream effect for other industries, says Mr. Kucik. “We’re talking about what analysts estimate to be 140,000 steel workers in the entire country against more than 10 times as many workers who are employed in an industry that consumes or relies on steel in some way,” he says. “We see headlines that say steel workers’ wages are going up, and on the other hand we’ve got six million workers whose jobs or wages are threatened in some way by the increase in steel prices.”The impact on various sectors
“The balance on jobs is hard to say,” says Gary Hufbauer, nonresident senior fellow and trade specialist at the Petersen Institute for International Economics. “But what’s not hard to calculate is that you’re reducing the productivity of the economy. All calculations show that over a period of time, the contributions of globalization of imports and exports, investments as well as trade, have been a big driver in increased productivity in the economy. From the second World War up to 2005, there was huge growth in international trade and foreign direct investment. This was a major contribution to raising living standards in theU.S., Europe and other advanced countries, but also India, China, and Latin America.”
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) estimates that retaliatory tariffs on U.S. chemical and plastics exports to China put nearly 55,000 jobs at risk. “There are chemical companies that are investing billions into building manufacturing facilities in the United States,” says Ed Brzytwa, director of international trade at the ACC. “But even they don’t want the tariffs because they know they’ll grow more without them. We have members in Texas, Pennsylvania and Louisiana who will bear a disproportionate brunt of China’s retaliatory tariffs. With many US chemical manufacturers investing in the U.S. to export to China, China’s retaliatory tariffs could lead to catastrophic losses in jobs, investment, and new construction.”
Ms. Baughman of Trade Partnership Worldwide estimates between 100,000 and 400,000 potential net job losses if existing tariffs remain for the long term. Steve Lamar, executive vice president of the American Apparel & Footwear Association notes that their companies employ about four million Americans. A lot of people think the apparel and footwear industry no longer exists here because a lot of end stage manufacturing is done off shore, he says. “If you’re a consumer and you’re judging the health of our manufacturing by what’s on the labels hanging in your closet you’re going to get the wrong picture because 70% of the value of an imported garment is attributed to U.S. value creation: the design, expertise, quality control, compliance, branding. All of that occurs in the U.S. Yet the label can only disclose where the end-stage final production occurs.”
There are benefits to moving manufacturing offshore that people seldom talk about, says Rob Limbaugh, vice president for business development at Kicker, an Oklahoma-based maker of speakers and amplifiers for cars and boats. When the business launched 45 years ago, all of its manufacturing was done in the U.S. But as the company grew, it competed on a global stage against others that had significantly lower labor costs. In the1990s, the company moved manufacturing to China, allowing it to price its products on parity with its competitors. “Now our company and payroll are the biggest they’ve ever been because we are competitive,” he says. “So instead of paying someone a relatively small salary to place screws into a board, we’re paying a larger salary to engineers and IT professionals and sales/marketing professionals.” Paying more people a higher wage is a benefit, he notes. “The economy has shifted for the better.”
However, the trade wars are making expansion planning much more difficult. Roughly 20% of its line was impacted by the tariffs. “It’s virtually impossible to do any long range planning for new products,” Mr. Limbaugh says. “It has been a huge opportunity cost as our management team grapples with just what do we do about all of this. Instead of working on new products and new marketing campaigns, it’s been pure defense lately.”
http://tradewarimpact.economist.com/the-negative-effects-of-tariffs-on-us-employment/
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Ongoing US Government Shutdown Strikes Chemistry
Jan 2, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Andrea Widener
A partial US federal government shutdown is well into its second week and will likely become more disruptive for chemists now that the holiday season slowdown is over.
Many vital science agencies are shuttered or plan to close soon, including the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.
“Any shutdown of the federal government can disrupt or delay research projects, lead to uncertainty over new research, and reduce researcher access to agency data and infrastructure,” says Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Agency scientists are forced to stay home or work without pay. Industry and academic chemists who rely on government functions such as paying grant funds or reviewing chemical safety data will be forced to wait until the shutdown is resolved. In addition, many websites are down or not being updated, leaving vital data unavailable.
This shutdown is already one of the top 10 longest in history, and it is not clear when it will be resolved. President Donald J. Trump is demanding funding for a border wall that Congress is, so far, unwilling to provide. Democrats took over the US House of Representatives on Jan. 2, which could spark negotiations to resolve the conflict.
“The American Chemical Society is disappointed that the administration and Congress were unable to come to a bipartisan agreement on a funding bill for 2019,” the organization said in a statement. “ACS calls on both parties to set aside partisan differences and work together to finalize a spending agreement.” ACS publishes C&EN.
Meanwhile, most agency employees are likely eager to get back to work. January and February tend to be a particularly busy time for NSF’s Division of Chemistry, so the shutdown is just creating a backlog. “It puts the federal government workers behind. It is not like the workload softens up,” says Angela Wilson, who until recently was head of NSF’s Division of Chemistry. “It just makes for some pretty challenging times.”
Wilson says her first thoughts are with the agency’s staff, who will not be paid during the shutdown. If the shutdown continues further into January, the closure will likely mean disruptions in grant application deadlines, review panel meetings, funding payments, and more, says Wilson, who recently returned to her academic position at Michigan State University. She currently is waiting for a no-cost extension of a grant, which has been delayed by the shutdown.
Another complicating factor is that the affected agencies still don’t know their budgets for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, 2018, she points out. Any major cuts or changes this late in the fiscal year could be disruptive.
Science agencies are not allowed to lobby Congress. “It is really up to the chemistry community to visit their legislators,” Wilson says, and tell them about the importance of chemistry.”
https://cen.acs.org/policy/research-funding/Ongoing-US-government-shutdown-strikes/97/i1
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For Trump’s Deregulatory Agenda, a Reckoning Nears
Jan 3, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Timothy Puko
The clock is ticking on President Trump’s deregulatory agenda.
The Trump administration has vowed to roll back rules in industries from energy to chemicals to finance, and next year will be a make-or-break time for keeping those promises.HOW TO FIX THE WORLD IN 2019ALEX NABAUM
We want to hear from you: if you had the power to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues, if you had the command of the necessary resources, workforces and energy—what would you do? Share your ideas with us, and we will select the best responses for publication in January.
The year begins with several signature regulatory proposals returning from public comment for final analysis and drafting, and is likely to end with the opening of decisive court showdowns as another presidential election looms. In short, 2019 could determine whether many of Mr. Trump’s policies live beyond his presidency.
Though the administration has had some success, nearly every deregulatory attempt that has faced a legal challenge has lost, raising doubts among allies and critics alike. There are signs the next wave of deregulation could fare better. But experts agree that the Trump administration will need to prove over the coming year that it has learned from its early setbacks, with better legal strategy and execution at key junctures, if its policies are to survive, especially if Mr. Trump fails to get re-elected.
“There’s a learning curve for every new administration,” says Kevin Book, managing director of the analysis firm ClearView Energy Partners LLC. “That was the pregame show. The real issue is what happens [next].”
The Environmental Protection Agency is central to the administration’s failures, and its prospects for a turnaround. Under Scott Pruitt, a brash Oklahoma politician and Washington outsider, the agency attempted to push through many changes—often delays or reversals of Obama administration rules—that failed to clear legal hurdles. It is now pursuing several long-term overhauls.
Federal courts twice in 2017 vacated EPA and Interior Department delays of Obama-era rules to prevent methane emissions. The courts said the Trump administration failed to consider benefits of the rules and how effectively the Obama administration had heard objections.
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MORE IN LEADERSHIPJOURNAL REPORTInsights from The ExpertsRead more at WSJ.com/YearAheadMORE IN THE YEAR AHEADEconomic Forecast: Greater UncertaintyGauging the Impact of TariffsInfrastructure, Take TwoInside U.S.-China Tensions
In August, a federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s effort to suspend an Obama-era clean-water rule. The decision reinstated the rule in about half of the country because the Trump administration failed to take public comments on delaying implementation.
Rule reversals at other agencies have run into similar trouble. Last month a federal court in Charleston, S.C., blocked a permit from the State Department allowing the Keystone XL pipeline, a controversial effort to bring Canadian crude to refineries in the U.S., from Illinois to Texas. In blocking the permit, Judge Brian M. Morris ruled that the administration never fully explained its justification for reversing course on the pipeline and would have to update the federal government’s prior analysis to move forward.
The administration has scored some big successes. The Federal Communications Commission rolled back Obama-era rules requiring internet service providers to treat all traffic on their networks equally and reversed or revised several rules that restricted ownership of local media outlets. Congress has also helped with partial changes to some of the biggest Obama-era laws. It weakened the postcrisis financial rules in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and repealed the Obamacare individual mandate. And despite the early stumbles, the administration is steadfast in its pursuit of further efforts to ease regulation of everything from emissions to offshore drilling.
Mr. Trump’s ambitious agenda has been slowed, however, by unusually high losses in the courts. Since summer 2017, the Trump administration has lost 20 of 22 court cases challenging its deregulatory actions, according to data compiled by the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. That failure rate of about 90% is three times the rate of most executive-branch agencies for similar actions in the courts, the Brookings Institution says.
“They really did spend two years like no other administration on stumbling missteps that delayed everything they’re doing,” says John Walke, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s clean-air director. “It consumed the first two years.”
Even many allies say the administration might have lost too much time to set policies firmly enough in place to survive if Mr. Trump is replaced by an opponent who wants to undo his rollbacks. That is especially true with the Democratic Party now in control of the House: Mr. Trump’s opponents can stretch administration resources by calling investigations and hearings and demanding documents, taking time away from crafting policy.
EPA officials claim success on 31 deregulatory actions since the start of 2017, and say 41 more are under development. “At EPA we are focused on providing clear air and water while reducing burdensome regulations so the economy can grow,” a spokeswoman says in response to questions.
The Trump administration has shown signs of a more deliberate approach of late, filling agency leadership posts with its own legal experts. In the past year, the EPA has added Washington veterans to several positions crucial to the deregulatory process.
This includes Andrew Wheeler, the acting EPA director since Mr. Pruitt stepped down in July after a string of scandals. Mr. Trump has signaled he will nominate Mr. Wheeler to be the next EPA director. Mr. Wheeler has deep experience in how Washington works; he spent 14 years as a Senate staffer, most of it leading Republican staffs on environmental panels with EPA oversight, and nine years as a lobbyist. He is joined by Bill Wehrum, a longtime Washington lawyer who worked for energy interests and now leads the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, central to the administration’s climate-policy rollbacks.
In just a few months, Mr. Wheeler has moved on major proposals, including a replacement for the Obama administration’s climate rules for power plants and less-stringent fuel-efficiency mandates for cars and light trucks. The latter proposal was prepared in collaboration with the Transportation Department. Mr. Wheeler has also promised new definitions of federal waters in an attempt to roll back Obama-era provisions that said some small tributaries and wetlands—headwaters of major rivers and bays—are under federal oversight.
The new power-plant and vehicle rules are signature Trump initiatives, and in 2019 both are slated to complete public-comment reviews and final analyses, steps required to justify final decisions. Both efforts face brighter prospects in court if the Trump administration gives sound legal responses to those comments and justifications for its changes, says Tom Lorenzen, an environmental lawyer at Crowell & Moring LLP.
Courts “tend to be very deferential to agencies’ policy judgments,” says Mr. Lorenzen, who spent 16 years at the Justice Department, most of it defending EPA rules. “The case law says they can change course as long as they can say why and the underlying law permits it.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation has further convinced people in the administration they have good chance of making changes that survive contentious legal challenges that make it to the higher courts, according to lobbyists and administration officials speaking on background.
Steve Lehotsky, senior vice president and chief counsel for the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says he thinks the administration’s regulatory efforts will have more legal standing going forward. “There’s still plenty of time left for the administration to finalize things and have them litigated in court,” Mr. Lehotsky says.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-trumps-deregulatory-agenda-a-reckoning-nears-1543894538?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
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Senate Approves Top Energy, Environment Picks
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Manuel Quinones
The Senate last night approved a series of energy and environment nominees by voice vote in the final full day of the 115th Congress.
The chamber passed Mary Neumayr to head the Council on Environmental Quality. Neumayr, a former Hill aide, has been helping lead CEQ as chief of staff.
The Senate also confirmed Oklahoma extreme-weather expert Kelvin Droegemeier to be director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Lawmakers approved Daniel Simmons to be Department of Energy assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy.
The chamber confirmed Alexandra Dunn to lead EPA's chemicals office. As with Neumayr, the president nominated Dunn after a previous pick, Michael Dourson, failed to advance.
Senators also approved Patrick Fuchs and Martin Oberman for terms on the Surface Transportation Board, and Teri Donaldson for DOE inspector general.
Several other presidential picks failed to advance, including Lane Genatowski for director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and Christopher Fall for director of the Office of Science. The White House will have to renominate any candidates the Senate didn't confirm.
A priority for the administration, however, will be lawmakers approving Andrew Wheeler to lead EPA on a permanent basis and a replacement for former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.Judicial nominees
Judicial picks the Senate left in limbo include nominees to the influential 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a favored venue for opponents of the Trump administration.
The nomination of Eric Miller, a Seattle-based lawyer criticized by the American Indian community for his work on litigation negatively affecting tribes, is set to lapse today, along with that of Bridget Bade, a less controversial Arizona magistrate judge picked for the 9th Circuit (Greenwire, Oct. 24, 2018).
The confirmation hearing for Miller and Bade was scheduled during a Senate recess, a controversial move by Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
The Senate also hasn't voted on Allison Rushing, a nominee for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals whose confirmation hearing also took place during recess.
And nominations are still pending for two divisive picks for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: Eric Murphy and Chad Readler.
Murphy is Ohio's top litigator and was involved in the state's opposition to the Obama-era Clean Water Rule.
Readler is a political official in the Justice Department and has authored briefs for the government in opposition to environmental concerns about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (E&E Daily, Oct. 11, 2018).Attorney general
New Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) yesterday announced hearings for Jan. 15 and 16 for William Barr, nominee to lead the Justice Department.
Barr has worked on energy issues during his long career, including taking part in the aftermath of the BP PLC oil spill (E&E Daily, Dec. 20, 2018).
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/01/03/stories/1060110823
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Alexandra Dunn Confirmed to Run EPA Chemicals Office (2)
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern and Dean Scott
Alexandra Dunn was confirmed by the Senate Jan. 2 to lead the EPA’s chemicals office.
Dunn had been serving as the agency’s administrator for Region 1 in Boston with jurisdiction over the New England states.
She will now be the assistant administrator in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, which implements the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Michael Dourson, President Donald Trump’s first pick for the job, dropped out of the confirmation process after North Carolina’s Republican senators refused to vote for him because of his work with the chemical industry.
Also confirmed by voice vote: Mary Neumayr to lead the Council on Environmental Quality, Teri Donaldson as inspector general of the Department of Energy, and Kelvin Droegemeier to be the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Another Energy Department nominee also was confirmed: Daniel Simmons, who will serve as assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. Neumayr Confirmed to Run CEQ
The confirmations in the final hours of the 115th Congress, with the Republican-controlled Senate, and a new Democratic-controlled House, set to open the 116th Congress Jan. 3.
Neumayr was Trump’s second nominee to lead the environmental council, created under the National Environmental Policy Act to coordinate agency reviews of the impacts that federal projects have on the environment and to work with the White House and agencies on environmental and energy policies and initiatives.
Trump’s first pick to lead the council, former Texas environment official Kathleen Hartnett White, withdrew amid widespread criticism from Democrats and others about her views on climate change, including comparing it to paganism.
Neumayer is at the council now, serving as its chief of staff and de facto leader while there was a vacancy at the top spot.
(Adds Senate confirmation of Kelvin Droegemeier to head White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.)
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/alexandra-dunn-confirmed-to-run-epa-chemicals-office-2
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EPA Signals Delays to TSCA Risk Evaluation Due to Shutdown
Jan 3, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
As the partial shutdown of the US federal government nears the two-week mark, the EPA has announced potential delays for the first of its ten draft risk evaluations released under the reformed TSCA.
The shutdown began on 22 December 2018, after Congress and President Trump reached a stalemate on both the federal budget for fiscal year 2019, and the potential stop-gap measure of a continuing resolution for temporary funding. And although the EPA had the leftover funds to continue running for a week after most other agencies ceased operations, it officially shut down on 29 December.
Among the many consequences, the move means that EPA advisory committees cannot meet, which is likely to cause delay to the peer review of the first TSCA draft risk assessment for pigment violet 29.
The EPA issued a statement on 31 December indicating that, if the shutdown continues until 5pm EST on 4 January, the virtual component of a TSCA Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) meeting to review PV29 will be cancelled. The discussion of charge questions on the substance’s risk evaluation – which preliminarily determined it poses no unreasonable risk – will be part of the face-to-face meeting instead, scheduled from 29 January to 1 February.
But if the shutdown persists beyond 5pm EST on 11 January, the EPA said it will postpone this four-day peer review of the draft risk assessment entirely.
The SACC will be reviewing each of the first ten draft risk evaluations issued under the reformed TSCA. With a statutory deadline to finalise them looming in late 2019, it was widely anticipated that the nine remaining would be released soon after the new year – actions that could be stalled, particularly if the shutdown is prolonged.Additional delays?
The EPA’s contingency plan indicates that the majority of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) employees are furloughed, or sent home without pay. Only 11 employees are listed as excepted from this.
This is likely to spell delays for ongoing agency activities under TSCA – such as the review of new substances. Other priorities, such as the release of the 20 high- and low-priority chemicals for risk evaluation and finalising an ‘active inventory’ of substances in commerce, could be affected.
The shutdown comes as the EPA works to finalise a number of proposed rules under TSCA, including on significant new use rules (Snurs) covering more than 350 substances, including asbestos, and a section 6 rule to ban methylene chloride paint strippers.
Congress was initially slated to return to Capitol Hill to resume negotiations on the Thursday after Christmas. But no House votes took place the week of the holiday, and the Senate did not return for votes on 2 January.
On 3 January, Democrats take control of the House. The party’s leadership has expressed their intent to pass "strong, bipartisan legislation" to reopen the government at that time.
https://chemicalwatch.com/72983/epa-signals-delays-to-tsca-risk-evaluation-due-to-shutdown
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New Hampshire to Halve Limit on Nonstick Chemical in Water
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
New Hampshire has proposed cutting nearly in half the amount of a nonstick coating chemical it would allow in groundwater and drinking water.
The proposed standard for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) would be 38 parts per trillion, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services announced Jan. 2. The state currently enforces a limit of 70 parts per trillion on PFOA and related per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
New Hampshire is just the latest state to propose stricter limits on PFOA, which was widely used in manufacturing of nonstick coatings. New York now uses a limit of 10 parts per trillion for PFOA. Vermont recently set a standard of 20 parts per trillion for PFOA in drinking water.
Many states, including New Hampshire, use the the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommendation of 70 parts per trillion of PFOA, which has been criticized by some federal scientists as not sufficient to protect human health.
The department proposed no change to the 70 parts-per-trillion limit on another substance, perfluorooctane sulfonate PFOS, and on combinations of PFOA and PFOS.
The EPA, which has no federally enforceable limits for those substances, has linked them to birth defects, liver damage, thyroid malfunction, some cancers, and immune system problems at sufficient levels of exposure.
The state also proposed a limit of 86 parts per trillion for perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) and 23 parts per trillion for perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA). The current limit for each is also the EPA recommendation of 70 parts per trillion.‘Most Recent and Best Science’
The proposed limits were based on the “most recent and best science available,” James Martin, spokesman for the Department of Environmental Services, said in a Jan. 2 statement.
The limits are are designed to be protective of the most sensitive populations over a lifetime, and to take into consideration treatment costs and benefits, according to the department.
The legislature’s Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules still must approve the draft standards before they can take effect. The Department of Environmental Services expects to have a final standard in place by summer 2019.
Several of the chemicals were phased out around 2015, but persist in the environment. In 2016, the chemicals were found in the private drinking water wells of more than 500 families in New Hampshire. About 200 wells in nearby Vermont were also contaminated.
The states traced the chemicals to a former ChemFab Corp. plant in Bennington, Vt., now owned by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics.
Saint-Gobain is reviewing the proposal, spokeswoman Dina Pokedoff told Bloomberg Environment Jan. 2.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/new-hampshire-to-halve-limit-on-nonstick-chemical-in-water
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A Trump County Confronts the Administration Amid a Rash of Child Cancers
Jan 2, 2019 | The New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi
The children fell ill, one by one, with cancers that few families in this suburban Indianapolis community had ever heard of. An avid swimmer struck down by glioblastoma, which grew a tumor in her brain. Four children with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. Fifteen children with acute lymphocytic leukemia, including three cases diagnosed in the past year.
At first, families put the illnesses down to misfortune. But as cases mounted, parents started to ask: Could it be something in the air or water?
Their questions led them to an old industrial site in Franklin, the Johnson County seat, that the federal government had ordered cleaned up decades ago. Recent tests have identified a carcinogenic plume spreading underground, releasing vapors into homes.
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Now, families in a county that voted overwhelmingly for President Trump are making demands of his administration that collide directly with one of his main agendas: the rolling back of health and environmental regulations.The Franklin area is thriving under Trump administration policies, the mayor said. But he also wants more E.P.A. action to fix decades-old contamination.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
ImageThe Franklin area is thriving under Trump administration policies, the mayor said. But he also wants more E.P.A. action to fix decades-old contamination.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
On Wednesday, a group representing dozens of concerned parents called for a federal investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General — the same watchdog that examined the government’s slow response to the water crisis in Flint, Mich. — into why Franklin’s toxic plume of trichloroethylene, or TCE,persists.
The group accuses the E.P.A. of “serious mismanagement” and “significant delays” at the site, even after the dangers became apparent this summer, according to a letter the group said it sent to the E.P.A.’s Office of the Inspector General.
But the parents’ demands also reach well beyond immediate concerns about the chemicals under their feet.
Families across the political spectrum have also spoken out against the Trump administration’s drive to weaken restrictions on TCE, a colorless fluid with a subtle, sweet odor used by as many as four-fifths of the nation’s 65,000 dry cleaners, as well as about 2,200 factories and other facilities. Decades ago, it was used at the Franklin site.
Twice last year, parents from Johnson County traveled to Washington to urge the administration to stick with stronger controls.Editors’ PicksThis City’s Overdose Deaths Have Plunged. Can Others Learn From It?In 12 Minutes, Everything Went WrongThe People of Mbomo Tell Their Stories
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“We are done begging,” said Kari Rhinehart, the mother of Emma Grace Findley, the 13-year-old swimmer who developed brain cancer and died in 2014. “We are demanding the E.P.A. finish what it started and place these restrictions on TCE and other dangerous toxins.”Kari Rhinehart lost her daughter Emma Grace Findley to cancer.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
ImageKari Rhinehart lost her daughter Emma Grace Findley to cancer.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
The E.P.A. confirmed that the chemicals were present near the Franklin site and said that fewer than 10 of 37 homes it had tested had potential air quality issues. The agency said its testing was continuing and that, if necessary, homes would be fitted with devices to clean the air.
Declaring TCE “carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure,” the Obama administration had sought to restrict two of its riskiest uses, as a stain remover and as a degreaser, and had marked it for further review, potentially to ban the chemical altogether. It had also moved to strengthen cleanup rules for hundreds of sites nationwide believed to be contaminated.
But at the urging of industry groups, the Trump administration has stalled some of those moves. In 2017 it indefinitely postponed the proposed bans on risky uses, leaving as many as 178,000 workers potentially exposed. It also scaled back a broad review of TCE and other chemicals so that it would exclude from its calculations possible exposure from groundwater and other forms of contamination — the problems present in Franklin.
In Johnson County, a parents’ group co-founded by Mrs. Rhinehart, If It Was Your Child, has traced at least 58 childhood cancer cases since 2008. At 21.7 cases of pediatric cancer per 100,000 children, Johnson County’s rate puts it in the 80th percentile among counties nationwide, according to data for 2011-2015 from the National Cancer Institute. Both the national and Indiana average are fewer than 18 pediatric cancers per 100,000 children.
“You don’t expect to see so many cancers in a relatively small community,” said Dr. Paolo Boffetta, professor in environmental medicine and public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Even so, he stressed that there was little research linking childhood cancers to TCE. “This doesn’t mean an association doesn’t exist,” he said. “But studies have not been able to confirm it.”
Motria Caudill, a scientist at the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which investigates environmental hazards, said at a community meeting in Franklin in November that it was still too early to draw conclusions. Her agency was still working with others, she said, “just to see what is going on.”What on Earth Is Going On?
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The TCE contamination has been traced to a former factory that, for years, discharged industrial wastewater into a municipal sewer. Amphenol, an electronics maker based in Wallingford, Conn., became responsible for the cleanup after acquiring the site, though it no longer owns the property.
In June, tests by an environmental group, Edison Wetlands Association, working with parents, detected the chemical in the air at two homes and in outdoor air near the site. The findings prompted more tests by local and state government officials, including one by Franklin that found levels more than 250 times state limits around a sewer near the homes. In November, the E.P.A. identified a plume of contamination stretching beyond the site toward nearby homes.Shannon Lisa of the Edison Wetlands Association has been working with parents to investigate the factory site.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
ImageShannon Lisa of the Edison Wetlands Association has been working with parents to investigate the factory site.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
Joseph Bianchi, an Amphenol spokesman, said the company was working “to help ensure the well-being of residents,” and the E.P.A. has promised to team up with the company on a cleanup plan. But at the November community meeting, patience wore thin.
“When will this cleanup be done and gone,” asked Sonya Hallett, a local philanthropy consultant and mother of one, “and not hazardous to people who are living around it?”Trouble Beneath the Grass
The state investigators who descended on Jennifer Clark’s house in October drilled into her basement floor. They sought signs thatchemicals in the ground were turning into a vapor and rising into her home, a phenomenon known as “vapor intrusion.”
Her daughter Chelsea learned when she was 12 that she had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. After chemotherapy, Chelsea, now 18, is in remission; she dreams of working in the beauty industry.
But over the summer, the Clarks received daunting news. Tests at their home on behalf of the Franklin parents’ group detected TCE levels more than 18 times federal limits.
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Testing is tricky. Results can be affected by the weather or even by doors left open, said Kelly Pennell, associate director of the federally funded Superfund Research Center at the University of Kentucky. Indeed, later tests showed lower levels in the house.
Still, the Clarks remain worried. Their youngest daughter is now 12. “This is our forever home right here, where the kids are going to come back with the grandkids,” Mrs. Clark said.
They live about a mile and a half from the former industrial site in Franklin, now a patch of grass bordered by old railroad tracks to the north and neat rows of homes to the south.The site of a former factory is now a grassy field with contamination underground.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
ImageThe site of a former factory is now a grassy field with contamination underground.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York TimesImageAngela Brennan holds photos of her daughter, Karley, diagnosed with cancer in 2012.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York TimesImageMs. Brennan outside her old apartment complex, where another girl was also diagnosed with cancer.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
Amphenol agreed to a cleanup in 1990, installing a “pump and treat” system that was supposed to control the contamination. For decadesAmphenol pumped out groundwater, but contamination remained.
The technology’s apparent ineffectiveness raises questions about hundreds of other sites using it, said Shannon Lisa, program director at Edison Wetlands.
“How many other communities across the United States are facing these very same issues?” she said.One Home, Two Families, Two Cancers
Two girls lived, several years apart, in the same Franklin apartment about a mile from the toxic site. Both developed cancer, one at age 8 and the other at 14.
“You can’t go anywhere, or do anything, without meeting someone who’s been affected,” said Angela Brennan, whose daughter, Karley,was one of those girls. In 2012, the family learned that Karley had cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a rare cancer affecting the skin. Later that year, 14-year-old Madison Newton was told that she had an aggressive form of pilocytic astrocytoma, which causes tumors in the brain and spinal cord.
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Karley, who turns 15 this week, is in remission. Madison died in 2015. And across Franklin, If It Was Your Child yard signs dot the city, where a local TV station, WTHR Channel 13, is doggedly tracking the concerns.
There are conflicting views in Johnson County of the administration’s environmental rollbacks. There is talk that the federal government should get out of people’s lives, even as local officials have called on the E.P.A. to take over the response to the contamination.
“When it comes to public health, we can go against party lines. And I don’t agree with trying to roll back the E.P.A.’s role,” said Steve Barnett, Franklin’s mayor and a Republican. “Back in the day, there weren’t any rules. That’s why there was so much contamination,” he said.
Many members of If It Was Your Child in the Franklin area play down the politics, noting that both parties have let the cleanup fall by the wayside. Nevertheless, their demands come at a time when the Trump administration has weakened the very rules that could prevent another Franklin.
“We should not have to fight Republicans or Democrats to save our children. It’s not a political fight for us,” said Stacie Davidson, a Trump voter who co-founded the parents’ group with Mrs. Rhinehart (who didn’t vote for Mr. Trump).
Mrs. Davidson said, “His loosening of E.P.A. regulations, it’s infuriating.” She added, “We’re ruining the environment for money.”
Mrs. Davidson learned in 2014 that her stepson, Zane, who was 10 at the time, had a rare form of leukemia. He is now in remission. She has traveled to Washington to speak in favor of stronger TCE regulations. “What we’re fighting for is seemingly being undone right now,” she said.
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Still, she said, she did not regret her vote. “Trump’s a businessman. There are great things he can do for our country. But he’s used to building high rises for money,” she said. “He’s not as environmentally savvy. Our hope is that he surrounds himself with people who are more knowledgeable.”Steve Barnett, the Franklin mayor, praises the local economic benefits of Trump administration policies but also wants action from the administration’s environmental regulators.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
ImageSteve Barnett, the Franklin mayor, praises the local economic benefits of Trump administration policies but also wants action from the administration’s environmental regulators.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
Despite the emergence of alternatives to TCE, the Trump administration has stalled action on restricting its use. “There have been greener alternatives to TCE for years,” said Tom Forsythe, an executive vice president at Kyzen, a Tennessee cleaning-materials company, who joined E.P.A. officials in a conference call in August 2017 to lay out other options.
But a few months later, in October, when E.P.A. officials visited the Integer medical devices factory in Minneapolis, Minn., the agency received a different message.
“According to Integer, there are no effective alternatives,” read an E.P.A. memo about the visit, which was arranged by a chemicals group, the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance. Dry cleaners have also lobbied against a tightening of protections, arguing among other things that substitutes could harm clothing.
“Yes, we have spoken to E.P.A. about our desire not to have TCE banned — as is our right of free speech,” said Faye Graul, the chemical group’s executive director. TCE “is used in tightly controlled industrial settings,” she said, “with controls in place so that no workers are harmed.”Kristie Dell and her son, Caleb, live in a Franklin apartment that was home to two girls who developed cancer. “We would move if we could but we don't have the money,” she said.CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times
ImageKristie Dell and her son, Caleb, live in a Franklin apartment that was home to two girls who developed cancer. “We would move if we could but we don't have the money,” she said. CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York TimesLooking to the Future
Johnson County bills itself as the festival county. In December, it hosted a holiday parade and a drive-through Nativity with live actors. And the economy is strong. A technology park measuring nearly a million square feet is soon opening in Franklin.
“I see good things that Trump has done,” said Mr. Barnett, the mayor, emphasizing his town’s future. “The economy’s good. There’s been a lot of investment into our city.”
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Recently, though, Mrs. Rhinehart has been thinking of the past. Four Christmases ago, her daughter Emma Grace suffered two severe seizures.
“She said, ‘Mommy, something’s not right,’ and I knew we weren’t going to get much more time,” Mrs. Rhinehart said, recalling their final conversation. “I gave her some medication and she drifted off to sleep.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/climate/tce-cancer-trump-environment-deregulation.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Dems Promise 'Dogged' Push for Implementation of Obama Rules
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
During the past two years, the House Energy and Commerce Committee was a font of Clean Air Act foot-dragging.
The committee approved bills to delay implementation of EPA's 2015 ozone standard, to delay implementation of air toxics regulations on brick kilns, to delay compliance with emissions limits for new wood stoves and to carve out a regulatory exemption for a niche group of coal-fired power plants.
Those days are over.
With the panel now under Democratic control, it's instead likely to become a barrier to any attempt to ease application of existing air quality regulations.
"We'll be dogged in our determination to make certain that the laws that have been advanced over the decades are applied and forcefully implemented," Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) said in an interview late last month.
Tonko, who spent the past two years as the ranking member on the E&C Subcommittee on Environment, is vying to head the panel in the 116th Congress that takes office today.
Environmental groups are "not going to be on defense the way that we were during the last Congress," said Elizabeth Gore, senior vice president for political affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Alongside opportunities to boost funding for programs at EPA and other agencies, Gore said, "hopefully we'll be able to advance some efforts to push back on the steps that the administration has taken to undermine some of our bedrock environmental laws."
That could mean more oversight of attempts by EPA to roll back or undercut regulations such as the Obama-era limits on power plants' emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants.
But major industry organizations such as the American Chemistry Council and National Association of Manufacturers say they still plan to pursue objectives including an overhaul of New Source Review permitting requirements.
And opportunities to advance legislation favored by environmental groups will run into the reality that the Senate remains in Republican hands.
Any bid to curb greenhouse gas releases, for example, will have to get past Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, who represents the nation's top coal-producing state and will continue to lead the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Asked about Barrasso's priorities on the air quality front in the next two years, spokesman Mike Danylak said he will reintroduce the "Utilizing Significant Emissions With Innovative Technologies Act." The legislation aims to boost technologies that remove carbon dioxide both from fossil fuel emissions and from the atmosphere.
The bill, while opposed by some environmental organizations, sailed through the EPW Committee last spring with bipartisan backing and "is supported by a very broad group of stakeholders including environmental groups and energy providers," Danylak said in an email.
The 115th Congress was notable for House Republicans' success in pushing narrowly tailored legislation that would have bent deadlines on several Obama-era regulations aimed at brick makers and other select industries.
But the most potentially far-reaching was H.R. 806, the "Ozone Standards Implementation Act" introduced by Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas). Not only would the bill have pushed back enforcement of the 2015 standard well into the next decade, it would have made lasting changes to the Clean Air Act's machinery for setting ambient air quality limits for a variety of pollutants.
Olson's measure passed both the E&C Committee and the full House on largely party-line votes, only to die in the Senate. The other bills to benefit specific industries also failed to win final congressional passage.
Olson, with an eye to reintroducing his legislation, is in discussions with stakeholders on what it will look like, according to a spokeswoman. But the previous version of the bill was steadfastly opposed both by Tonko and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who is now chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Asked whether the legislation has any chance of clearing the committee, Ross Eisenberg, vice president of energy and resources policy at NAM, which strongly backed the earlier measure, was noncommittal.
"I think it's too early to tell," he said. "We really need to get a better sense of where the leadership of the committee plans to take things."
Attempts to get comment from Pallone's office on his agenda for air pollution issues were unsuccessful. But with little indication that the Trump administration is planning major legislation, "that keeps the ball in the agency's court," Eisenberg said.
Among the projects EPA is now pursuing are recently launched reviews of the standards for ozone and particulate matter. While those assessments are required under the Clean Air Act, they are playing out under new ground rules imposed last year by then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Both promise to be contentious. Some scientists have already questioned the ability of an agency advisory committee to do its job (E&E News PM, Dec. 12, 2018). At the same time, EPA is moving to grant regulatory breaks to the same industries that were unable to gain them from Congress.
The agency has already offered brick manufacturers a one-year extension on the air toxics regulations and is collecting public feedback on the option of delaying next year's deadline for the wood stove industry to meet tighter emission limits (Greenwire, Dec. 14, 2018).
As part of its bid to revoke the justification for the 2012 regulations on power plant mercury emissions, the agency is also exploring the option of relaxing requirements for the small niche of electricity producers that burn waste coal for fuel (Greenwire, Jan. 2).
Yet to be seen is whether House Democrats, struggling to set oversight priorities, will take an interest in such gambits. But although the administration's relook at the mercury rule is troubling, "the story's not completely written yet," Gore said.
"That is such an overreach by the EPA and the administration that, even with a Republican Senate, we may see some pushback," she said.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/01/03/stories/1060110825
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(ACC Mentioned) Nuclear Power Subsidies Inch Forward in Pennsylvania As Natural Gas Industry Digs In
Jan 2, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania lawmakers has advanced recommendations for supporting five nuclear power plants in the state that face stiff competition in wholesale electricity markets, setting the stage for a continued battle with the natural gas industry and other interests opposed to any kind of government intervention.
The policy prescriptions were included in a 42-page report authored by the Nuclear Energy Caucus that was sent to all members of the general assembly and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf as 2018 came to an end. According to the report, the current federal, regional and state landscape leaves Pennsylvania with only a handful of options to help its nuclear power plants compete with other fuels such as natural gas, including subsidies.
“As state lawmakers, we take seriously our obligations to set energy policies that help promote Pennsylvania’s economy and protect our environment,” said Republican state Sen. Ryan Aument, who co-chairs the caucus along with another Republican and two Democrats. “The loss of these plants would be a devastating and permanent blow to Pennsylvania’s communities, economy and environment, so we took a hard look at what could and should be done to prevent this, and future, devastation.”
Exelon Corp. and FirstEnergy Corp. have said that without state or federal policy reforms they would close the Three Mile Island Generating Station (TMI) and the Beaver Valley Power Station in Pennsylvania by 2021. Both companies have been pushing for assistance for the nuclear plants, which the natural gas industry staunchly opposes as it’s gained market share with abundant, low-cost supplies that have prompted power generators to burn more of the fuel.
The caucus was formed in March 2017 to explore the role nuclear energy plays in the state and the problems it faces as wholesale energy markets have shifted dramatically to favor natural gas and renewables. It now has more than 79 members. Other states in the region are exploring the issue as well. Ohio lawmakers have floated similar proposals for nuclear subsidies.
Meanwhile, four courts in Illinois and New York have upheld subsidies for nuclear power plants. Under zero emission credit (ZEC) programs in those states, utilities or power producers that generate with coal or natural gas are required to purchase a certain number of credits from nuclear facilities that produce zero-emissions electricity. Subsidized nuclear generators receive the value of their credits in addition to what they earn in the wholesale markets. Connecticut and New Jersey have passed similar legislation.
Opponents argue that the ZEC programs allow subsidized generators to bid below cost during power market auctions, putting other generators at a competitive disadvantage. John Shelk, CEO of the Electric Power Suppliers Association, which mainly represents independent gas-fired power generators, warned a shale industry conference in Pittsburgh in October that the Appalachian Basin is the new battleground for power market subsidies after the nuclear energy industry waged successful campaigns in the other states.
“It’s important at the outset just to make sure everyone is aware of how serious the threat is and how terribly important it is for all of you to get engaged in this effort with all of us and the broad coalition we have to prevent your hard-earned market share and the benefits you’re bringing to this three-state region from being eroded by folks outside the region trying to use politics,” Shelk said during remarks at the Marcellus Shale Coalition’s Shale Insight conference, referring to Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Gas-fired power plants are proliferating in the region. In PJM, which operates the nation’s largest wholesale power grid in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, including shale-rich Appalachia, there are 26 gas-fired facilities under construction or being upgraded.
ZEC programs and similar legislation in other states were designed to preserve the baseload electricity produced by nuclear facilities. Proponents argue that the credits better value the resiliency, consistency and smog-free attributes of nuclear facilities.
According to the Nuclear Energy Caucus report, Pennsylvania’s five nuclear facilities provide nearly 40% of the state’s electricity production and just over 93% of its zero-emissions energy. The report said the state can do nothing to help the plants, but cautioned that such a move would put them “on a trajectory to early retirement.”
Among the other recommendations put forward by the report is a proposal to modify the state’s alternative energy portfolio standard (AEPS) to “put nuclear generation on equal footing with other zero-emission electric generation.” The report also suggests modifying the AEPS with a “safety valve” that would allow the state to adopt a new capacity construct proposed by FERC that is designed to accommodate state programs that support preferred generation resources. The latter would largely depend on the outcome of a closely-watched proceeding before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that involves PJM and efforts by the grid operator to better accommodate state subsidies.
The report also recommends establishing a ZEC program or a carbon pricing program.
More recently, Shelk told NGI that some of the data the caucus used to author its report is outdated. He pointed to an analysis released in November by PJM’s independent market monitor that found Pennsylvania’s nuclear facilities, with the exception of Exelon’s TMI, were all on track to generate millions of dollars in surplus funds by the end of 2018.
Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts, a group whose members include more than 20 organizations and companies, including the Marcellus Shale Coalition and the American Chemistry Council, was equally critical of the report, saying the caucus heard primarily from the nuclear industry during meetings and testimony.
“While we appreciate that the Nuclear Energy Caucus was formed to better understand Pennsylvania’s competitive energy markets, this report takes a singular view of a complex issue without input from consumer groups, state and federal regulators, independent power generators and, most important, ratepayers, who are benefiting from the state’s deregulated electricity markets.”
While a fight over subsidies has been shaping up for years in Pennsylvania and other parts of the basin, a decided turn could be ahead in 2019 as the caucus pushes the state legislature to consider taking action, which might be a stretch for some lawmakers in the nation’s second-largest gas producing state.
“The report is incredibly thorough and clearly reflected the hard work the caucus has done over the past year learning as much as they can about nuclear energy and the potential impacts of closure,” said Christine Csizmadia, director of state governmental affairs and advocacy at the Nuclear Energy Institute. “The report does provide legislative suggestions, which the legislature will absolutely have to consider and act on if it wants to avoid the devastation of losing TMI and Beaver Valley.”
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116938-nuclear-power-subsidies-inch-forward-in-pennsylvania-as-natural-gas-industry-digs-in
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U.S. Universities, Supermajors Working to Develop New Shale Gas Technologies
Jan 2, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
Researchers from five public universities are working with the oil and gas industry and others to develop new technologies for converting shale gas into transportation fuels and petrochemicals, potentially adding $20 billion annually to the U.S. economy...
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Story can be found here:
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116936-us-universities-supermajors-working-to-develop-new-shale-gas-technologies
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A Crucial Moment Arrives for U.S. LNG Exports
Jan 3, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Christopher Matthews
With global demand for liquefied natural gas accelerating, 2019 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for LNG exporters in the U.S. A number of them will soon decide whether to move ahead with multibillion-dollar projects to ship the bounty of American shale to foreign markets.
There are currently just three operational terminals in the U.S. to export LNG: Dominion Energy Inc.’s D -0.39% Cove Point in Maryland and Cheniere Energy LNG 1.71% Inc.’s two plants in Louisiana and Texas. There are a handful of plants and expansion projects under construction, which were approved by regulators several years ago, but analysts say they aren’t enough to meet rapidly growing demand.HOW TO FIX THE WORLD IN 2019ALEX NABAUM
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There are about 25 proposed U.S. LNG export projects, 13 of which could have regulatory approval within the next year. While not all of the projects will be built, the world needs at least a handful of them to satisfy demand. The U.S. could ultimately account for 20% to 30% of global LNG supply, analysts say.
The unexpectedly strong growth of demand over the past year is giving a boost to the U.S. export industry, which some had feared would stall. U.S. exporters could add 57 million metric tons or more of annual supply next year to the LNG market, nearly doubling the amount available for export, according to analysts.
American LNG exporters are competing for customers with suppliers in Canada, Qatar, Russia, Australia and elsewhere. But the U.S. companies believe the country’s vast natural-gas reserves, some of the largest in the world, and relatively low prices will make them competitive. A glut of natural gas has kept the U.S. benchmark price for LNG near or below $4 per million British thermal units for years. Asian LNG prices are more than double that, while European prices have been higher than U.S. prices by around 40% or more over the past few years.
Michael Sabel, co-chief executive of Venture Global LNG Inc., says his company will move forward with its estimated $4.5 billion project in Louisiana near the Gulf of Mexico. The company hasn’t previously announced its final decision to build the plant.
“Customers are starting to think there will be a production shortfall by 2021 or 2022, and that has ramped up contracting activity,” Mr. Sabel says.
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The company’s Calcasieu Pass facility will be able to supply about 10 million metric tons a year of LNG, or about 1.3 billion cubic feet a day, and will take around three years to build. The company will make a formal announcement on the project in late January after it receives final approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Mr. Sabel says.
The surge in global LNG demand is being driven by China’s push to cut carbon emissions, in part by shifting from coal-fired power plants to natural gas. Net Chinese imports of LNG will jump from five billion cubic feet a day in 2017 to nearly eight billion this year, according toCitigroup Inc., C 2.82% which expects China’s demand for natural gas to grow an average of 13% a year through 2021. One billion cubic feet is enough gas to fuel around five million U.S. homes for a day.
Some had feared the 10% tariff China imposed on imports of LNG from the U.S. earlier this year amid trade tensions with the Trump administration could stall the U.S. export industry. But China’s faster-than-expected demand growth is tightening supplies everywhere, meaning the world needs U.S. LNG to help fill the void.
“Over the last 12 to 18 months the global market has really tightened up,” says Kristy Kramer, a researcher at energy consultants Wood Mackenzie. “We expect 2019 to be a record year globally” for investment decisions on LNG terminals, she adds.
The Boom Heads Abroad
LNG imports for selected nations and regions in billion cubic feet a day (rolling 12-month average). China's imports have surged.
U.S. companies approved plans for many LNG export-terminal projects in 2014 and 2015, but underinvestment in the years since in the U.S. and elsewhere may crimp global supply.
That shift may spur other major proposed projects in the U.S. to move forward, say analysts, including Tellurian Inc.’s TELL 2.30% $27.5 billion Driftwood LNG project and the $10 billion Golden Pass LNG Terminal, a joint venture of Qatar Petroleum, Exxon Mobil Corp.XOM 2.20% and ConocoPhillips . COP 1.65% The companies have said they could make a final decision on the projects, both of which are on the Gulf of Mexico, in 2019.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-crucial-moment-arrives-for-u-s-lng-exports-1543755600?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3
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How An Oil Boom in West Texas Is Reshaping the World
Jan 3, 2019 | TIME
By Justin Worland
My view from the window seat of a small regional jet landing in Midland, Texas, is either a testament to the advances of human civilization or a sign of its impending demise, depending on your perspective. Countless oil wells, identified by their glowing red flames, dot the dark landscape.
We are descending into the Permian Basin, the heart of American oil country, where the massive oil and gas boom is changing not just Texas but also the nation and the world.
This year the region is expected to generate an average of 3.9 million barrels per day, roughly a third of total U.S. oil production, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. That’s enough to make the U.S., as of late 2018, the world’s largest producer of crude. The windfall has turned a nation long reliant on foreign oil into a net exporter in a few short years.
Not even the plunge in oil prices in recent months, which led some companies to scale back their plans for the Permian, has stopped the enthusiasm. Analysts predict the region’s output will expand in coming years, thanks to cost-reducing advances in hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, to release oil from shale, plus changes in U.S. export policy. By 2025, U.S. oil production is expected to equal that of Saudi Arabia and Russia combined, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The power of the Permian oil and gas boom is easy to spot in the basin itself, which stretches across more than 75,000 sq. mi. of scrubby ranchland in West Texas and New Mexico. So-called man camps–hastily constructed short-term housing for oil-field workers–have sprung up everywhere, amid new luxury construction projects and shiny billboards advertising Rolexes to laborers pulling in six-figure salaries. But the impact extends far beyond the region.
During the past three years, the boom in these parts has transformed the U.S. economy, upended the international energy industry, undermined global environmental efforts and tilted the balance of power among Beijing, Moscow and Washington. In places like Saudi Arabia, uncertainty over future oil profits driven by rising U.S. production contributed to a rethinking of the economy. In theory, less reliance on Saudi oil also gives the U.S. more leverage in other areas, like the war in Yemen, although the Trump Administration hasn’t prioritized such efforts. The vast new U.S. oil reserves have provided cover for the imposition of tough sanctions against nations like Iran and Venezuela, moves that at other times might have crippled global supply. And around the world, the boom in the U.S. has inspired other countries to race to develop their own shale resources. “In a shale revolution world, no country is an island,” says Fatih Birol, who leads the IEA. “Everyone will be affected.”
The question is how. Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama have championed the nation’s growing oil and gas markets. Abundant new shale reserves have driven economic growth and regional job creation while reducing costs for American consumers and manufacturers.
But analysts across the political spectrum caution that the energy windfall presents profound challenges as well. Neither energy markets nor national security are simple, and they overlap in complex ways here. In the long term, the boom actually threatens to undermine bipartisan efforts to establish U.S. energy independence. It could destabilize international partnerships, make the U.S. vulnerable to trade retaliation and raise formidable new hurdles in the ongoing effort to curb climate change. The nation’s response to the opportunities and risks raised by the Permian Basin boom will shape our economic, environmental and geopolitical prospects for generations.Oil workers, known as roughnecks, extracting oil at a Midland rig in May 2018; many laborers earn six-figure salaries because of high demand Benjamin Lowy—Getty Images
There’s nothing quite like oil country in boom times. Across the Permian, gas stations, retail shops and fast-food restaurants advertise perks like $15-per-hour pay and 401(k) benefits as they compete to lure workers. Bare-bones motels charge hundreds of dollars a night. Local restaurants, patronized by women clutching designer handbags, charge $18 for a salad.
The surge in production in the Permian came at a propitious time. In the aftermath of the 2008 recession, oil demand spiked just as drilling technology unlocked layers of rich shale. Locals are eager to tout the spoils. In Odessa, Texas, entrepreneur Toby Eoff shows me the defunct theater the city is paying to renovate to house stage productions. Next door, Eoff and his wife are building a $79 million Marriott and conference center. Collin Sewell, who runs a group of car dealerships in the region, points out the window of his brand new office to the lot full of Ford trucks his employees serviced that day. When I visited him in September, his sales were up 50% from 2016.”When it’s good, it’s awesome,” Sewell says.
A couple hours away, in Hobbs, N.M., population 37,000, Mayor Sam Cobb gave me a tour of a brand new, $61 million recreation center, supported by the city’s growing tax base. It’s 158,000 sq. ft., with two four-story-tall water slides that loom over a giant pool, a soccer field and basketball and racquetball courts. Residents work out on Technogym equipment, the Rolls-Royce of exercise gear.
While previous oil booms have ended in busts that devastated the region, local officials say this time is different. In the past, high oil prices fueled short-lived enthusiasm that dwindled when the price of crude dropped. But recently, drillers have flocked to the Permian despite low oil prices, in part because fracking and other technological advances have made extraction so cheap. Drillers strike crude in areas inaccessible just years ago. “We’re not looking for hydrocarbons, because the hydrocarbons are there,” says Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum. “The Permian will continue for many years to come.” A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimates that new Permian oil wells break even around $50 a barrel–far less than the $80 that Saudi Arabia spends on average, according to the International Monetary Fund, to extract the same quantity of crude. “We don’t use the B word,” says Bobby Burns, president of the Midland Chamber of Commerce. “Boom doesn’t really describe it.” The Permian, he says, will be a force for a generation.
The main problem at this point, energy executives say, is there’s not enough infrastructure to handle all the oil and gas coming out of the ground. As a result, many drillers simply burn off valuable natural gas rather than capturing and selling it. Companies are also struggling to ship oil. In 2017, more than a quarter of U.S. oil exports–112 million barrels of crude–left from the port of Corpus Christi, Texas. The world would have taken much more, which is why a $327 million expansion is under way, the centerpiece of a slew of projects that could double the port’s export capacity in the coming years. When it’s completed later in 2019, a new crude-oil pipeline planned by a partnership of three companies will link the Permian oil fields and Corpus Christi, winding some 730 miles through Texas backcountry, picking up cargo along the way. It’s expected to transport 550,000 barrels of crude every day to ships that will carry it around the globe.
Environmental groups have opposed the new pipelines and expansions. The more oil and gas that’s pulled from the earth, transported, exported and burned, they argue, the faster the climate warms. But energy executives point to the region’s vast reserves and to demand. “It’s got to go somewhere,” says Brad Barron, the CEO NuStar Energy, a pipeline company operating in the Permian and Corpus Christi.
All this has come with costs. The man camps and other temporary housing facilities have been marred by crime and drug abuse. Home prices have soared. Roads and highways, many designed for ranchers, have become overrun by trucks and tankers, making them some of the most dangerous in the country. (During a violent storm in September, I pulled to the side of the highway in Andrews County, Texas, for half an hour, uncomfortable with careening big rigs in low visibility.)
But the most detrimental effects may be the hardest to see. Some locals, like Sharon Wilson, worry about the ramifications of nonstop fracking operations in their backyard. A Texas native and former oil company employee, Wilson is an organizer with Earthworks, a Washington-based environmental group. Using an infrared camera to capture images of gas leaks, she says she regularly detects dangers leaking from wells, including methane, a greenhouse gas that is responsible for about a quarter of global warming worldwide. Some locals have also suffered from exposure to other substances, she says, including benzene, a chemical in crude classified as a carcinogen. While it’s difficult to measure the broad scale of the Permian’s environmental impact, or its localized effect on health, Wilson says the leaks in the basin today are the worst she has seen in her years of tracking leaks. “Nothing can even come close,” she says. “It’s unimaginable what’s happening out there.”Pipes at NuStar Energy’s facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, a key port linking oil from the Permian Basin to the world. Brandon Thibodeaux—The New York Times/Redux
The Permian boom transformed America’s place in global energy markets almost overnight. Until recently, federal law forbade American producers from exporting crude oil at all, a policy holdover from the 1970s, when energy shortages racked the nation. But in the first decade of the new millennium, fracking and horizontal drilling opened vast new reserves of previously untapped oil. Public policy changed too. In December 2015, Obama signed a bill negotiated by congressional leaders that lifted the four-decade ban on exporting crude.
The resulting explosion in oil production has remade swaths of the U.S. economy and acted as something of a nationwide stimulus package. By helping keep the price of oil and gas low, domestic energy production aided other industries as well, tamping down the cost of air travel, trucking and even agricultural goods, because of the reduced cost of the diesel fuel many farmers rely on.
But determining the economic value of all this new oil and gas requires complex calculations. Using oil production as a pillar of the economy sounds good when prices are low, but it could hurt down the road. Consider energy security. Policy experts across the ideological spectrum have long insisted the best way to curb oil dependency is to develop diverse energy sources. That’s why President George W. Bush, who lived in Midland as a child, signed a bill imposing more stringent fuel-economy standards, and it’s one of many reasons Obama embraced funding for renewable energy. It also explains why GOP lawmakers who champion fossil fuels and express skepticism about climate change have also supported research into alternative energy.
These measures make sense no matter how much oil the U.S. produces, especially because the price of crude is sensitive to global events. Instability in Iraq or a burst pipeline in Canada can bump the price at the pump for U.S. consumers. The abundance generated by the Permian may obscure the risks posed by our reliance on oil, says Jason Bordoff, who advised the Obama Administration on energy and climate policy and now heads Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “It’s not just boom and bust that hurts,” he says. “Volatility itself hurts people.”A gas flare shown here in May 2018 burns off excess gas in Midland, Texas, part of the Permian Basin, where an oil boom has remade the landscape. Benjamin Lowy—Getty Images
Moreover, while the U.S. is now a net oil exporter, the boom may have given political and industry leaders a false sense of security. One reason is that the U.S., despite the treasure trove beneath the Permian, doesn’t have the ability to process much of what it produces. Many of the refineries sprinkled across the Gulf Coast aren’t built to work with U.S. crude oil, which is lighter than the product the U.S. imports from countries like Venezuela and Canada. As long as that’s the case, the U.S. has to continue importing oil even if, in theory, it’s producing enough of its own.
For decades, safeguarding access to imported oil has been a pillar of U.S. foreign policy. That’s meant carefully maintaining relations with petrostates like Saudi Arabia and using the military to ensure stability in resource-rich regions. Under Trump and Obama, the U.S. has sought to strengthen ties with countries that import oil and gas as well. It’s unclear how this new dynamic will shape U.S. relations abroad.
George David Banks, a former Trump Administration energy adviser, says the Permian windfall has expanded U.S. soft power. “The whole transformation has put us back into a role to help define the policy of global energy production and not just as a consumer,” Banks says. But others analysts worry that if the economy becomes dependent on crude exports, the U.S. could become increasingly vulnerable to retaliatory tactics. Washington officials saw a glimpse of that in 2018, when China threatened to impose tariffs on U.S. oil and gas amid the trade war between the two superpowers.
All these questions set aside the primary challenge arising from the U.S.’s newfound oil reserves. Burning fossil fuels causes climate change, and the more oil and gas the U.S. produces and exports, the faster the world will warm. Many Americans see the issue through a moral lens: by drilling in the Permian Basin today, we contribute to a sicker world for future generations. Research has shown the world needs to halve greenhouse gas emissions by about 2030 to keep temperatures from rising to unsafe levels. That will be hard enough without unabated drilling in the Permian or anywhere else.
Trump has dismissed such concerns. Since taking office, his Administration has systematically slashed environmental regulations and sought to open vast new areas to drilling, including coastlines and federal lands. In theory, those moves help U.S. oil and gas companies. And while many industry leaders have praised the policies, others see reasons for long-term alarm. As Europe and the rest of the world impose increasingly stringent regulations on imported oil and gas, American energy companies–particularly large multinational corporations–could find themselves pariahs on the global market. French President Emmanuel Macron suggested last year that high-carbon products from countries that aren’t committed to addressing climate change could face additional trade barriers, an idea that has gained attention among stakeholders working to deal with the issue.
Perhaps it’s no surprise then that a handful of energy companies, including Shell and Chevron, have begun to change some of their climate policies, including calling for measures like a carbon price. ExxonMobil asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in December to uphold an Obama-era rule on methane emissions that the Trump Administration has sought to weaken. “Reasonable regulations help,” the company said in a letter to the EPA.
Hollub, the CEO of Occidental, whose company is one of the biggest drillers in the Permian, has chosen to focus on capturing and storing CO[subscript 2], even as the Trump Administration has rejected calls for a carbon tax or other forms of carbon pricing. The company benefits from a tax incentive for doing so. But Hollub also says she sees a long-term strategic advantage. “Ultimately, there will be a carbon price,” she told me in an interview at the company’s Houston headquarters.
A carbon price is just one way to manage the boom that struck the Permian. And whether you see the boom as a testament to human ingenuity, a threat to civilization or maybe a little of both, it needs to be managed.
http://time.com/5492648/permian-oil-boom-west-texas/
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Ohio Ethane Cracker Clears Final Regulatory Hurdles
Jan 2, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
What would be the Appalachian Basin’s second multi-billion dollar ethane cracker has finally secured all the major regulatory approvals needed to move forward after the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency completed its environmental review and issued the project’s final permits as 2018 came to an end...
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https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116939-ohio-ethane-cracker-clears-final-regulatory-hurdles
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FERC Notches Wins in D.C. Circuit
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Pipeline developers and federal regulators last week clocked victories in appellate court.
Judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied petitions to review the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's authorizations of two proposals to upgrade or modify pipeline systems in New England and Pennsylvania. The court heard oral arguments in both cases last month.
One challenge centers on Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC's "Orion project," which would add 12.9 miles of new pipe near its existing 300 Line in Pennsylvania. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network argued last month that FERC did not adequately analyze an alternative option to build a compressor station instead (Energywire, Dec. 14, 2018).
That alternative course of action was included in an internal document, but not in the agency's final environmental assessment.
FERC's exclusion of the compression alternative and its decision not to explain the differences between the draft and final reviews was not "arbitrary and capricious" under the Administrative Procedure Act, the court wrote in a Dec. 27 judgment.
The judges also dismissed claims that the company improperly segmented review of Orion's impacts.
"FERC appropriately regarded Tennessee's application for the project as functionally independent from other projects," according to the judgment.
Maya van Rossum, head of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said yesterday that an appeal in its lawsuit is unlikely.
"We are forced to turn back to Congress," she said.
The group is calling on lawmakers to toughen oversight of FERC activities and to make changes to the Natural Gas Act (NGA), which authorizes the agency to approve natural gas pipelines. Van Rossum said she is hopeful that the arrival of new legislators this year will help the group gain traction on its requests.
"We are frankly pleading with the legislative branch," she said.
Kinder Morgan Inc., which owns the Tennessee Gas pipeline system, said it is pleased, but not surprised, by the court's findings.
"On the merits, the court correctly held that FERC properly issued a final Environmental Assessment, accounted for cumulative impacts, and viewed the Orion Project as functionally independent from other projects," spokeswoman Katherine Hill wrote in an email.
The D.C. Circuit last week issued a separate judgment finding that FERC properly approved a set of upgrades to the Algonquin and Maritimes & Northeast pipelines in New England. The Atlantic Bridge project includes pipeline replacements, facility modifications and the construction of a new compressor station in Weymouth, Mass.
FERC violated neither the NGA nor the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it authorized the proposal, according to the court's Dec. 27 judgment.
During oral arguments, petitioners said that the project does not serve the public interest because half of the gas is earmarked for export to Canada. The judges found that because half of the gas is slated for domestic use, and because the United States has a free-trade agreement with Canada, the project is still eligible for a certificate of public convenience and necessity.
The judges were not swayed by arguments that FERC fell short of its obligations under NEPA. They did not find that FERC had overstepped state approvals or climate goals.
"FERC's certificate order allows Algonquin to begin construction only after obtaining approval from Massachusetts," according to the judgment.
Enbridge Inc., which owns the project, applauded the ruling.
"Atlantic Bridge will allow for the transport of significant and diverse natural gas supplies to end use markets in the New England states and Canadian Maritime provinces and is expected to provide reliable energy throughout the region and to help generate savings for homeowners, businesses, and manufacturers," spokeswoman Marylee Hanley wrote in an emailed statement.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/01/03/stories/1060110813
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Shell to Link Carbon Emissions Targets to Executive Pay
Jan 3, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Sarah Kent
Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A 1.84% PLC plans to set short-term carbon-emissions targets and link them to executive pay, the company said Monday, capitulating to months of investor pressure.
The decision marks a step toward delivering on ambitious long-term climate goals by one of the world’s biggest oil companies, though details of Shell’s exact plans remain vague.
The company said it would provide three- to five-year targets beginning in 2020 to reduce its net carbon footprint on an annual basis. It plans to incorporate the targets into a revised remuneration policy, which will be subject to a shareholder vote in 2020.
The move marks an about-face in Shell’s view on targets, and comes after ambitious long-term goals to reduce the company’s carbon footprint—including emissions by drivers who burn Shell fuel—faced criticism for lacking more immediate accountability.
As recently as May, Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden defended the company’s stance and pushed back against firm targets, describing them as “onerous and cumbersome.”
But months of engagement with institutional investors have helped soften the company’s outlook, sending a clear signal to other big oil companies about the kind of pressure and investor demands they can expect to face going forward.
While other large European oil companies have already set near-term targets to reduce emissions, Shell’s long-term goals are among the most ambitious in the industry. Its plans to link those targets to executive pay also put it at the forefront of industry action on climate change.
For instance, Norwegian oil company Equinor AS A, formerly known as Statoil, already counts the carbon intensity of its oil and natural-gas production as a key metric when deciding its chief executive’s pay. But Shell’s plans could make it the biggest oil company yet to link executive pay to specific climate targets.
The company has also suggested its new compensation structure could go further than competitors’ existing policies, requiring executives to meet ambitious commitments that incorporate total emissions associated with the company.Newsletter Sign-up
The announcement comes as governments meet in Poland for climate-change talks to complete rules for how the Paris Climate Agreement will be implemented.
Investors have also been stepping up their engagement with companies, reflecting concerns over the risks associated with holding fossil-fuel producers.
Shell’s announcement was made in conjunction with Climate Action 100+, a group of more than 300 investors with over $32 trillion in assets under management. Launched last year, the group’s aim is to push the biggest corporate emitters to cut emissions and improve disclosure and governance on climate issues.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/shell-to-link-carbon-emissions-targets-to-executives-pay-1543843441?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3
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Oil Tanks Catch Fire at Noble Well in the Permian
Jan 2, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
There were no injuries when a series of oil tanks caught fire overnight near a Noble Energy well site in West Texas' booming Permian Basin.
Three oil production tanks went ablaze at about 3:45 a.m. Wednesday in Reeves County. The emergency shutdown system from the well feeding the tanks was activated. The Reeves County Fire Department responded and secured the area.
WHAT THE FUTURE MAY HOLD: Researchers say Texas may be able to quit coal. Find out what will replace it only at HoustonChronicle.com.
Houston-based Noble said it is isolating the wells that feed into the nearby pipeline systems to ensure the integrity of the oil-gathering pipelines.
The company said it will conduct an investigation to determine the fire's cause.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Oil-tanks-explode-at-a-Noble-Energy-well-in-the-13503183.php
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Maryland Board Votes Against Natural Gas Pipeline Project
Jan 2, 2019 | AP (In The New York Times)
A board of high-ranking Maryland officials on Wednesday rejected a proposed pipeline across the western part of the state that would carry natural gas produced in Pennsylvania to West Virginia.
The Board of Public Works voted 3-0 against an easement for TransCanada's pipeline. It would run under the Potomac River near Hancock, Maryland, and extend about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from Columbia Gas' network in Pennsylvania to Mountaineer Gas' distribution system in West Virginia.
Comptroller Peter Franchot, a Democrat, cited testimony that the pipeline could bring Maryland environmental problems without economic benefits. The board also includes Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, and Treasurer Nancy Kopp, a Democrat.
Environmentalists and residents have been vocal in opposing the pipeline.
"Marylanders and many of their leaders have consistently opposed the threats fracked gas pipelines pose to our health, water, climate, and communities," said Josh Tulkin, Sierra Club Maryland chapter director.
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Scott Castleman, a spokesman for TransCanada, said the company will consider its options over the coming days to keep the project on track.
"For nearly two years, our project has been studied and scrutinized by groups including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources," Castleman said. "This extensive process has confirmed that through proper design and construction our project can be completed in an environmentally responsible and safe manner."
The board's vote came after more than 60 lawmakers sent a letter urging board members to reject the proposal. The lawmakers noted that Maryland approved a law, which Hogan signed in 2017, to ban the hydraulic fracturing drilling process known as fracking in Maryland. The process is used to extract natural gas. Maryland was the first state where a legislature voted to bar the practice that actually has natural gas reserves.
"Given that Maryland has banned fracking, it defies our state's existing energy policy to bring the same public health risks to our residents by way of a pipeline," the letter said. "Moreover, enabling fossil fuel production runs counter to our state's goals of increasing renewable energy production."
The letter, which was sent this week, also noted that the pipeline would affect at least 10 wetlands and 19 streams, in addition to the Potomac River.
While the board delayed a vote on the easement at its last meeting, Hogan said the unanimous vote would have happened without the letter from lawmakers.
"It had nothing to do with any letter from the legislature," Hogan said at Wednesday's board meeting.
Anne Havemann, an attorney for Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said she hopes the board's vote marks an end to the proposal.
"We'll see if (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) gets involved or the courts get involved, but for now it's a welcome delay and we hope a permanent end to this pipeline," Havemann said shortly after the vote.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/01/02/us/ap-us-gas-pipeline-potomac-river.html
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Groups Protest DOE Rule to Classify Critical Electric Facilities
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
A trio of public interest groups have lodged a protest against a proposed Department of Energy rule to designate critical electric infrastructure.
The rule proposed in October laid out how DOE would employ its authority to designate critical electric infrastructure under the Federal Power Act.
It effectively would allow unclassified filings from U.S. utilities to earn "pre-designation" as "Critical Electric Infrastructure Information (CEII)," immediately shielding the material on power plants and transmission facilities from public view and exempting it from disclosure under federal freedom-of-information laws (Energywire, Oct. 30, 2018).
Under 2015's Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and DOE were authorized to designate CEII.
In a 2016 rulemaking, FERC established criteria for such designations for both itself and DOE, but "the designation procedures in the rulemaking were limited to FERC. Thus, the Department proposes to establish its own designation procedures," DOE said in its proposed rule.
DOE describes its proposal as a way to "harmonize" its procedures with FERC procedures as much as possible.
"On its face, the proposal appears to be little more than an attempt to hide the Department's decision-making process from public scrutiny and obfuscate judicial challenges to the Department's authority," said joint comments filed Dec. 28 by Earthjustice, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Citizen.
"As such, we find the proposal offensive to the basic principles of good governance and public participation," they said.
As of the Dec. 28 deadline, just six comments on the proposed rule had been received by DOE. As of yesterday, none had been made public yet on the Regulations.gov website.
The new rules are necessary as a complement to the Trump administration's efforts to focus on maintaining and improving the resilience of the nation's bulk power and distributions systems, Catherine Jereza, DOE's deputy assistant secretary for transmission planning and technical assistance, said in July at a meeting of DOE's Electricity Advisory Committee in Arlington, Va.
The rules will also play into the department's nascent development of a model of the North American grid to help cope with any number of deliberate or accidental threats to the nation's power supply, Jereza said.
It is the nexus with Trump administration efforts on grid resilience that gives the three groups pause.
In September 2017, Energy Secretary Rick Perry proposed to FERC a "Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule" providing for subsidies to nuclear and coal power plants that were unable to compete in the market in the face of low natural gas prices.
FERC in January 2018 rejected Perry's idea and instead launched a broad inquiry into the resilience of regional transmission grids. That proceeding is still open and unresolved.
"For the last year and a half, Trump has tried to ram through a massive, multibillion-dollar bailout of uneconomic nuclear and coal power plants, using national security as an excuse," said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program.
Slocum pointed to a leaked memo from DOE to the National Security Council that described the Trump administration's efforts to use a national security justification for its bailout of uneconomical nuclear and coal power plants.
Under current regulations, DOE lacks the authority to designate infrastructure as critical to national security, and the proposed rule would give it such power, Slocum asserted.
The Edison Electric Institute, whose utility members would be eligible to propose infrastructure to be deemed critical, said in comments that it generally supports the DOE proposal.
"As the need to promote greater public/private sector coordination to protect national security grows so does the importance for government agencies to develop information sharing protocols that encourage private sector entities to share sensitive information with the government," EEI said.
But it recommended that DOE "specify how it will evaluate information submitted as CEII, including the criteria used by the DOE Offices to designate CEII."
The trade group also suggested that DOE "clarify the marking requirements for machine-to-machine electronic information and information pre-designated as CEII; the delegation and coordination process to ensure that the designation, protection, and sharing of CEII is consistent and understood by stakeholders; the notification procedures for unauthorized CEII disclosures and CEII designation changes; and how the Department will determine which CEII requests are legitimate."
The Electric Power Supply Association, which represents owners of merchant power plants, did not file comments, said EPSA President and CEO John Shelk.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/01/03/stories/1060110805
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Agent Orange’s Other Legacy—a $12 Billion Cleanup and a Fight Over Who Pays
Jan 3, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Peg Brickley and Gretchen Morgenson
The Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, N.J., has been revitalized. The tree-lined river that runs beside it has not.
Half a century ago, the herbicide Agent Orange was manufactured along the banks of the Passaic River. Poison hosed off factory floors drained into the waterway, where it sank to the bottom and became toxic sludge. The estimated cost of cleaning it up and compensating for environmental damage could run as high as $11.8 billion.
Who will pay the bill? That’s now a question for a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware. And its answer could determine whether other companies with billions of dollars in environmental liabilities can use the U.S. bankruptcy system to avoid them.Dioxin pollution in the Passaic River in Newark, N.J., dates back to the Vietnam era, when Agent Orange was manufactured on its banks. PHOTO: MARK KAUZLARICH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
YPF SA, an Argentine state oil company, took over the Agent Orange site in 1995 as part of its acquisition of Maxus Energy Corp., an oil-and-gas company. Over the years, YPF sold off Maxus’s oil-and-gas holdings, then put the unit into bankruptcy in 2016. YPF says it isn’t responsible for covering the cost of the cleanup. And the bankrupt subsidiary, it says, has no money to pay for it.
Other interested parties, including another company that shares the liability, are up in arms over the maneuver. They say the subsidiary was a puppet company emptied of value and left to take the fall for the Passaic River. Creditors sued YPF in June, alleging it improperly bled Maxus dry, intending to use its subsidiary’s bankruptcy filing to ditch its cleanup obligations.
YPF, for its part, accuses its critics of the same sin. According to YPF’s lead lawyer, James F. Conlan of Sidley Austin LLP, the lawsuit is an attempt by Maxus’s largest creditor, Occidental Chemical, which shares the liability, to avoid being stuck with the cleanup bill itself. He says YPF will “strongly defend against the lawsuit.” YPF’s bid to have the case thrown out is scheduled for argument on Dec. 18 in bankruptcy court.
Many other companies are watching the case, none more closely than the 100 or so the Environmental Protection Agency says may share responsibility for polluting the Passaic with byproducts from the manufacture of paints, pesticides and other chemical products. If YPF doesn’t pay, billions of dollars of Agent Orange cleanup costs would fall first to other companies, and then, possibly, taxpayers.The estimated cost of cleaning up the Passaic River and compensating for environmental damage could run as high as $11.8 billion. PHOTO: MARK KAUZLARICH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Since 1980, federal law has made it difficult for U.S. companies to escape paying for environmental contamination. In recent years, some companies have used chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code to minimize environmental liability, says Joshua Macey, a research fellow at Cornell Law School who co-wrote a paper on the topic to be published by the Stanford Law Review.
Coal-mining companies have reduced their environmental obligations in bankruptcy proceedings. In 2015 and 2016, Alpha Natural ResourcesInc., Arch Coal Inc. and Peabody Energy Corp. persuaded state regulators to reduce the amount the companies had committed to reclaim mines by nearly $1.9 billion during their bankruptcy cases. Those obligations rose again for the latter two companies when they emerged from bankruptcy, illustrating how tough it is to shake off environmental costs completely.
The dioxin pollution in the Passaic River dates back to the Vietnam era, when the U.S. military used Agent Orange to kill Vietnamese crops and vegetation. Demand for the toxic herbicide ran high. A company called Diamond Alkali, whose name was later changed to Maxus Energy, manufactured it in a factory along the river.
Workers spoke of factory floors so slick with Agent Orange byproducts that it was treacherous to walk, according to a 1992 New Jersey court decision in a lawsuit Diamond filed against dozens of insurance companies, seeking coverage for the environmental damage. A lethal Agent Orange byproduct called dioxin flowed into trenches that emptied into the Passaic, the workers said in court papers.
The tidal river carried dioxin upstream and down, tainting a 17-mile stretch of riverbed in one of New Jersey’s most populous areas. The contaminants reached to Newark Bay and other waterways, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which has designated the area a Superfund site. To this day, crabs and fish from the river are too contaminated for human consumption.During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military used Agent Orange to kill Vietnamese crops and vegetation. PHOTO: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
In 1983, New Jersey declared the Passaic River site a state of emergency. The EPA sent crews in biohazard suits into the Ironbound neighborhood to test for dioxin on streets and in yards.
The looming potential liability for the pollution hung over much of the deal making that followed.
In 1986, Occidental Chemical, a unit of Occidental Petroleum Co. that is widely known as OxyChem, bought the chemicals business then owned by Diamond. Concerned about the Agent Orange liability, it didn’t buy any part of the Newark site, but it still was liable as a successor owner of the business. As part of the deal, it got indemnity from Diamond, meaning that it would have to be reimbursed for any money spent on cleanup.
In 1995, YPF bought the rest of the company, which had changed its name to Maxus Energy, for $750 million, eager to own its prized oil-and-gas assets in Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Indonesia and the U.S. Along with those holdings came the Agent Orange factory site in Newark and its liabilities.
The risk of a multibillion-dollar environmental liability didn’t weigh heavily in the deal, according to documents cited in the current lawsuit by creditors. Shortly after the purchase, however, a Maxus lawyer warned that the contamination carried “the potential for total destruction of the company it had just purchased,” the lawsuit said.
According to the suit, it wasn’t long before YPF executives recognized that costs associated with the Passaic cleanup were a threat. YPF developed a legal strategy with an endgame that included bankruptcy, according to YPF memos that surfaced in litigation brought by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection against YPF, Maxus and OxyChem.The Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, N.J., borders the contaminated river. PHOTO: MARK KAUZLARICH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The plan was called “Project Jazz” for a New York nightclub where the company and its lawyers worked out final details, creditors said in their lawsuit. YPF would sell off Maxus’s oil-and-gas assets over an extended period, mostly to itself or to a big shareholder. That is what happened, depleting Maxus of valuable assets and revenues and leaving it dependent on its parent and loaded with Agent Orange liabilities.
For the bankruptcy strategy to work, YPF had to keep Maxus alive for years after the last significant transaction, waiting out the period when creditors were allowed to challenge the deals, the company’s lawyers advised in a later memo.
The state of New Jersey sued Maxus and OxyChem in 2005, accusing both companies of delaying the cleanup. New Jersey reached settlements with Maxus, YPF and OxyChem that covered the $220 million the state had spent cleaning the Passaic, but the settlement didn’t cover the cost of finishing the job.
The claim filed by the EPA in Maxus’s bankruptcy case says remaining cleanup costs could exceed $6.3 billion. The EPA pegged the natural-resource damages at $5.5 billion, bringing the total bill for what Agent Orange did to the Passaic River to $11.8 billion.
“The Passaic is hard because the contamination is so heavy, it’s so close to where people live, and the polluters have fought EPA every step of the way,” says Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/agent-oranges-other-legacya-12-billion-cleanup-and-a-fight-over-who-pays-1543850435?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2
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Lawmakers Introduce Comprehensive Pipeline Legislative Package
Jan 3, 2019 | Daily Local
State Sens. Andy Dinniman, D-19, and Tom Killion, R-9, announced Wednesday that they have introduced a comprehensive legislative package aimed at reforming Pennsylvania’s pipeline regulatory process to improve safety at schools and in local neighborhoods and communities.
“For years, I’ve been working to protect our communities from the potential safety risks of the Mariner East pipeline project. Along the way, I’ve identified several areas that are in dire need of improvement in the Commonwealth,” Dinniman said. “These bills are a result of that ongoing effort and a necessary starting point to refocus and re-energize our efforts in the new year. I am committed to working in the spirit of bipartisanship and for the sake of Chester County residents and families to achieve real and lasting pipeline safety reform in the 2019-2020 legislative session.”
“Pipelines are transporting highly flammable and toxic materials under high pressure through densely populated areas. Having new laws in place to ensure the safety of families living in pipeline communities is long overdue,” Killion said. “I look forward to working with Senator Dinniman on passing these bills. Pipeline industry oversight and public safety are top concerns for our constituents, and I’m pleased to be partnering with him on these important issues.”
The bipartisan package consists of 12 bills, six sponsored by Dinniman and six sponsored by Killion. Both senators also serve as first prime co-sponsor of each other’s bills. They are as follows:
Pipelines Located Near Schools (Dinniman) – Outlines types of information that pipeline operators must share with schools that fall within 1,000 ft of hazardous liquids and natural gas pipelines, including how to respond to a leak. Currently, pipeline operators are not required to provide this information. This bill was previously Senate Bill 1257 of 2018.
Pipeline Siting Review (Dinniman) – Requires pipeline companies to submit a detailed application to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) prior to construction of a new pipeline. It also requires approval from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the local governing body of a county and the local emergency management organization coordinators in evaluating each metric, and at least two public hearings in each county where the construction would take place. This bill was previously Senate Bill 928 of 2017.
Pipeline Emergency Response Fund (Dinniman) – Authorizes counties to enact an ordinance to impose a fee on all covered pipelines in the county. If the county does not enact an ordinance, each municipality in the county is authorized to impose the fee on the pipelines in the county. The funding is distributed only to those counties or municipalities based on the total distance of pipelines in each county or municipality. This bill was previously Senate Bill 929 of 2017.
Pipeline Emergency Notification (Dinniman) – Requires public utility facilities transporting natural gas or natural gas liquids to meet with the county emergency coordinator entrusted to respond in the event of natural gas release and provide vital emergency response and evacuation information. This bill was previously Senate Bill 930 of 2017.
Pipeline Safety Valves (Dinniman) – Calls for incorporating automatic or remote shutoff valves on pipelines that impact high consequence areas throughout Pennsylvania. This bill was previously Senate Bill 931 of 2017.
Regulation of Land Agents (Dinniman) – Holds pipeline land agents accountable by defining their role and requiring registration with the Pennsylvania Real Estate Commission. In addition, the bill calls for allowing public access to a listing of registered agents, requiring criminal history background checks, and providing the commission with the authority to revoke or suspend them for reasons such as fraud or misrepresentation. This bill was previously Senate Bill 835 of 2017.
Pipeline Safety Inspection (Killion) – Centralizes pipeline safety inspection within the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) and requires PennDOT to apply to the federal government for designation as an Interstate Agent in the inspection of interstate pipelines traversing Pennsylvania. This bill is similar to Senate Bill 604 of 2017.
Pipeline Impact Fee (Killion) – Establishes a pipeline impact fee calculated based on the acreage of linear feet plus right-of-way width of a pipeline using the county average land value in an affected area. The funds would be collected by the PUC and deposited into a Pipeline Impact Fund where they would be distributed to the counties and municipalities impacted. This bill is similar to Senate Bill 605 of 2017.
Pipeline Safety – Notification Requirements (Killion) – Requires pipeline companies to provide notification to residents, municipalities and other applicable parties affected by drilling at least five days in advance of the initiation of any project. This bill is similar to Senate Bill 1027 of 2018.
Pipeline Safety – Mandatory Study Requirement (Killion) – Requires pipeline operators to conduct proper studies and hydrological investigations of aquifers that may be potentially impacted by pipeline construction. This bill is similar to Senate Bill 1028 of 2018.
Pipeline Safety and Advanced Leak Detection (Killion) – Requires Pennsylvania and the DEP to develop clear permit conditions and siting guidelines to increase the focus on pipeline safety and pipeline infrastructure siting to reduce the dangers of improper siting, improper safety management and wasted resources.
Establishing a Commission to Study Pipeline Construction and Operations (Killion) – Establishes a special bipartisan legislative commission to recommend safety, oversight and interagency coordination improvements for the transport of oil, natural gas and other hazardous liquids through pipelines in this Commonwealth. This legislation is similar to Senate Resolution 373 of 2018.
https://www.dailylocal.com/news/local/lawmakers-introduce-comprehensive-pipeline-legislative-package/article_9fe483ce-0ed0-11e9-a19b-0f81e28c5703.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Feds Are Looking Into Railroad Customer Fees
Jan 3, 2019 | PYMNTS.com
A federal agency is investigating fees imposed by railroad companies that aim to get customers to comply with new procedures.According to the Wall Street Journal, companies such as Norfolk Southern Corp., Union PacificCorp. and others have revised their operating plans in an attempt to boost efficiency. As a result, they are charging fees to customers that cause slowdowns on the network, including taking too long to unload railcars and failing to have their facilities ready for pickups.
Now the U.S. Surface Transportation Board is looking into the fees. “I just want to make sure they’re commercially fair to the shippers they’re serving,” said Chairwoman Ann Begeman, who has requested that large operators provide quarterly reports on how much revenue they’ve generated from the fees.
Paul Verst, chief executive of Kentucky-based Verst Logistics Inc., a provider of warehousing and transportation, contacted the agency after Norfolk Southern wanted to slash the allotted time to unload cars from 48 to 24 hours before a charging a $150-a-day fee.
“What they’re asking us now is not fair and reasonable,” Verst said.
Norfolk Southern CEO James Squires defended the move in a letter to the STB, explaining that the new charges will encourage quicker unloading of railcars and improve overall performance. Railroad companies are offering credits to shippers when they are late to pick up railcars, and Squires added that his company will increase those credits if the railroad experiences problems.
“We are demonstrating to them our increased confidence in our service product, which should in turn cause them to further improve asset utilization, creating a virtuous cycle,” he wrote.
But Jeff Sloan, senior director of regulatory and technical affairs for the American Chemistry Council, a trade group, points out that shippers “have not yet really seen the benefits to these operational changes but they certainly have suffered the service problems and are seeing new costs being added on. It seems awfully one-sided.”
https://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2019/railroad-fees-federal-agency/
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Is That An Empty Car on the Train? Yes, But It’s Actually Helping Commuters, NJ Transit Says
Jan 3, 2019 | NJ.com
By Larry Higgs
Why is there an empty rail car that is unavailable to commuters in front of the locomotive on your NJ Transit train?A@FastCity
NEC 3920... first car is closed. I am so confused why they would attach this train car to the cab like this.... anyways... the looks on people’s faces when they walk ALL THE WAY past the cab and realize that car is unusable. 1:44 PM - Jan 2, 2019See A's other TweetsTwitter Ads info and privacy
The weird arrangement of trains has been a little confusing for the commuters who’ve encountered the unusual set-up during the last two weeks. But there is a logical reason for it.
Some trains have arrived with a locomotive that’s sandwiched between passenger cars.
The cab car in the front of the train overshoots the station platform because it’s not open to passengers. That’s confused some riders, especially when they realize the lead car is closed and have to sprint back to the ones that are open.
But there’s a good reason for the out-of-order trains. NJ Transit is doing it to reduce the number of trains cancelled because equipment isn’t available. A cab car equipped with positive train control is placed ahead of a locomotive that hasn’t had the safety system equipment installed in it yet.
PTC automatically stops a train if the operator fails to obey speed limits or signals.
“It has allowed us to operate trains that would not have been able to operate without those cab cars,” said Jim Smith, an NJ Transit spokesman.
There are 282 cab cars and locomotives that were PTC equipped by a Dec. 31, 2018.
There are roughly 150 other cab cars and locomotives left that need PTC equipment installed on them during the next two years. That doesn’t include equipment that’s out-of-service for routine maintenance, repairs or inspections.View image on TwitterPaul Mckeon@irishpaulnyc
NJ Transit
You had one job
(Zoom in on picture to see it)111:14 PM - Dec 28, 2018See Paul Mckeon's other TweetsTwitter Ads info and privacyOfficials couldn’t say if this has helped reduce the number of trains canceled due to lack of equipment. Roughly 13 trains were canceled during the Wednesday morning commute because not enough equipment was available, according to NJ Transit alerts.
“That is a difficult number to quantify precisely as it changes daily,” Smith said. “Each train set runs a different number of scheduled trips.”
Due to PTC installation requirements, customers may see a cab control car located next to a locomotive. In these cases, the cab control car will not be accessible for customer use. Click here for more information: http://bit.ly/2BiqR33 810:17 PM - Dec 14, 2018See NJ TRANSIT's other TweetsTwitter Ads info and privacy
“We’re pursuing creative, “out-of-the-box” solutions and expending every available resource to maximize service delivery,” Smith said.
That includes leasing locomotives that a neighboring transit agency recently held a retirement ceremony for. Seven older electric locomotives that were retired by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority are being leased by NJ Transit, said Andrew Busch, SEPTA spokesman. Those engines are equipped with Positive Train Control apparatus, he said.
NJ Transit officials did not immediately answer questions about how the leased SEPTA locomotives would be deployed.
https://www.nj.com/traffic/2019/01/is-that-an-empty-car-at-the-head-of-the-train-yes-but-its-actually-helping-commuters-nj-transit-says.html
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Gasoline Spill Cleanup Poised to Begin
Jan 2, 2019 | Albuquerque Journal
By Maddy Hayden
Work to clean up contamination at a site in south central New Mexico, where a quarter of a million gallons of gasoline spilled from a leaking pipeline, is expected to begin next week, state environment officials said Wednesday.
A pipeline owned by Kinder Morgan spilled more than 250,000 gallons of gasoline on Dec. 13, most of which emptied into an unlined irrigation ditch in a rural area of Doña Ana County.
Justin Ball, the acting program manager of the New Mexico Environment Department’s Remediation Oversight Section, said Kinder Morgan will begin excavating an approximately 150-foot long stretch of contaminated soil beginning Monday.
” … We’ll have a better estimate on soil excavation in the next few weeks,” Kinder Morgan spokeswoman Katherine Hill said in an email.
Ball said he anticipates the soil work will take several weeks to complete.
Kinder Morgan cleaned up around 170,000 gallons of gasoline not absorbed into the soil in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
But Ball said the groundwater at the site may have been contaminated, as the water table is only 11 to 12 feet below the surface. The site is also just a mile from the Rio Grande.
“I’ve encouraged Kinder Morgan to remediate the spill aggressively to minimize the long-term effects,” Ball said.
Ball said there are no drinking water or irrigation wells near the spill, just monitoring wells used by the Elephant Butte Irrigation District.SPONSORED CONTENTHow to pay off your house ASAP (It's so simple)By LendingTreeAmericans could save thousands by taking advantage of this government program
The pipeline, which runs around 288 miles from El Paso to Tucson has since been repaired and returned to normal operations.
The cause of the spill is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
The DOT issued a Notice of Proposed Safety Order to Kinder Morgan executive chairman Richard Kinder on Dec. 28.
“Based on our preliminary investigation, it appears that conditions potentially related to the cause of the failure may exist on other segments of the … pipeline,” the report reads.
Sections of the exposed pipeline were heavily corroded, including the site of the two-foot-long split, according to the report.
The DOT proposed a number of corrective measures, including reducing pressure in the area of the failure and testing of the pipeline’s exposed sections.
“We are aware of the notice and are complying with all elements of the document,” Hill wrote.
https://www.abqjournal.com/1263922/gas-cleanup-near-anthony-set-to-begin-next-week.html
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D.C. Circuit Dismisses Ozone NAAQS Designations Delay Suit
Jan 2, 2019 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has dismissed environmentalists' and states' challenge to the Trump EPA's one-year delay in designating areas as attaining or violating the agency's 2015 ozone air standard, finding the agency's belated issuance of designations renders the case moot.
In a Jan. 2 per curiam order, the court finds that it cannot offer an “effective remedy” to petitioners in the suit, American Lung Association, et al. v. EPA, and also declined to vacate the agency's original decision to initially delay the designations.
In the litigation, environmentalists and some states challenged former Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's decision to delay by one year the issuance of area designations for the Obama administration's toughened ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) of 70 parts per billion (ppb). The limit is stricter than the prior standard of 75 ppb set in 2008 by the George W. Bush EPA.
Pruitt published notice of the delay in July 2017, only to withdraw it in August 2017 after protests from environmentalists, some states and others that the blanket delay would postpone needed public health protections and was not supported by a legally defensible rationale. Opponents of the delay pursued litigation anyway, noting that EPA missed its Oct. 1, 2017, Clean Air Act deadline to designate areas by many months.
EPA maintained that the case was moot because it withdrew the delay decision, but petitioners claimed that EPA could reimpose a delay, and hence the agency's behavior was "capable of repetition" while "evading review" by the courts, warranting a ruling to vacate the original July 2017 delay.
But the D.C. Circuit panel hearing the case, composed of Judges Judith Rogers, David Tatel and Patricia Millett, in its order finds this argument unpersuasive. EPA in 2018 completed all of its area designations, albeit around nine months late for the final areas of the country to receive their designation.
Hence, the "challenged notice extending the deadline for promulgating final attainment status designations has been withdrawn and [EPA] has issued the final designations. The court can no longer provide an 'effective remedy' because petitioners have 'already obtained all the relief' sought, and these cases are moot," the court finds.
Further, "Petitioners have not sufficiently shown that the 'capable of repetition yet evading review' exception to the mootness doctrine applies to these cases. Although the challenged extension may 'evade review,' . . . petitioners have not demonstrated that the legal wrong complained of is reasonably likely to recur."
However, the court denies EPA's request for legal fees, which the agency sought on the basis that petitioners' continuation of the suit was "unreasonable" after designations were complete.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/dc-circuit-dismisses-ozone-naaqs-designations-delay-suit
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Court Lets Suit Over EPA Landfill Methane Rule Implementation Advance
Jan 2, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
A federal district judge is allowing a state coalition to continue its suit against EPA's efforts to delay implementation of an Obama-era rule limiting methane emissions from landfills, rejecting the agency's effort to dismiss and stay the case even as it moves to rewrite the regulation to extend compliance deadlines.
The Dec. 21 order in State of California, et al. v. EPA, et al. by Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California says the states can continue to challenge the agency's failure to follow deadlines in the 2016 rule.
The case was brought in May by Democratic attorneys general (AGs) from California, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The Obama EPA finalized the rule at issue to limit methane and other air emissions from existing landfills in August 2016 and set a May 30, 2017, deadline for states to submit compliance plans. The Trump EPA has signaled it would not aggressively enforce that deadline, and only three states -- California Arizona and New Mexico -- submitted compliance plans.
EPA on Oct. 23 also signed a new landfill methane proposal that would extend the deadline for state plans until August 2019.
The states in the lawsuit argue that EPA missed its statutory deadline for issuing federal compliance plans for delinquent states in the original rule, but the Department of Justice (DOJ) say the agency had discretion not to act, and asked Gilliam to dismiss the case in August.
DOJ also flagged the new EPA delay plan in an Oct. 23 filing that notified the court that EPA had signed a revised landfill proposal. It then filed a Nov. 5 motion to stay the case pending conclusion of the rulemaking, expected in April.
But Gilliam in his order says the court “declines to exercise its discretion to stay the case. . . . To start, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have made a credible assertion of possible harm that could result from a stay. Even if EPA exercises complete diligence in passing the proposed regulation, that diligence does not eliminate the ordinary uncertainty in the rulemaking process.”
The order rejects the stay request as well as DOJ's August motion to dismiss. Gilliam notes that “well after this litigation began and on the eve of the hearing on the motion to dismiss -- EPA commenced proposed rulemaking that, in part, intends to amend the regulations at the heart of this dispute. . . . As is relevant here, EPA's proposal” would extend the state plan submission deadline until Aug. 29, 2019, provide the agency a six month review period and another 12 months to approve or disapprove such plans, and then give it another two years to promulgate a federal plan for states that need one.
He adds: “Shortly after initiating this proposed rulemaking, EPA filed the current motion to stay this action until April 30, 2019, pending the anticipated conclusion of the rulemaking procedures.”
'Long-Overdue' Duties
A Maryland official testified at an EPA hearing in November on the landfill proposal, warning against the delay and noting the pending lawsuit at issue here.
In response to Gilliam's order, California AG Xavier Becerra (D) said in a Dec. 21 statement, “We are pleased that the court has upheld our right to address EPA's long-overdue mandatory duties to control emissions from landfills. Noxious landfill emissions affect everyone, but disproportionately hurt our most vulnerable communities, impacting their health, environment, and standard of living. And given the role landfill emissions play in exacerbating climate change, EPA’s ongoing efforts to delay implementation of these regulations is unacceptable. We look forward to holding the EPA accountable for its failure to perform its mandatory duties under the Clean Air Act, and for its unwillingness to protect public health.”
Becerra notes that landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States, and that EPA is required by the Clean Air Act to regulate all stationary source categories that contribute significantly. The Obama rule would have prevented 7.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, among other benefits, he says.
The judge's order set a Jan. 22 deadline for the states to submit a motion for summary judgment and a Feb. 19 deadline for EPA's opposition and cross motion. Any state reply is due March 19, and EPA's reply is due April 2. Gilliam will hold an April 25 hearing on the cross motions.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/court-lets-suit-over-epa-landfill-methane-rule-implementation-advance
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A Cryin’ Shame: Spilled Bud, Miller Beer Targeted to Clean Air (Corrected)
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Dropping your beer on New Year’s Eve may have helped your hangover, but starting this month beer spills could be more than a headache for Colorado’s two biggest brewers, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV and MillerCoors LLC.
Colorado Air Quality Control Commission air pollution rules kick in Jan. 14, and target spilled beer—typically from container breakage and other production losses—that creates ozone pollution when ethyl alcohol evaporates.
The Anheuser-Busch brewery in Fort Collins, and the MillerCoors brewhouse in Golden are the only facilities above the threshold of 100 tons per year of volatile organic compounds emitted, at which point the rules kick in.
The new rules do not affect Colorado’s famous microbrewery sector, with about 350 establishments.
Neither Anheuser-Busch, whose beers range from Budweiser to Busch to Goose Island IPA; nor MillerCoors, makers of beers from Coors to Miller Lite to Grolsch, immediately responded to requests for comment.Beer Fouls the Air
Evaporation of ethyl alcohol is the largest source of emissions of volatile organic compounds at a brewery, Leah Martland, an environmental protection specialist in the Air Pollution Control Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, told Bloomberg Environment.
Volatile organic compounds also form when beer bottles, cans, and other containers are filled, she said.
The compounds contribute to the formation of ozone. Breathing ozone can cause health problems, especially for children, the elderly, and those who experience asthma. The Denver metro Front Range area currently violates federal air quality standards for ozone.
The rules place limits on allowable breakage during the packaging process. They focus on reasonably available control technology requirements for the brewers to be included in Colorado’s state plan to meet the ozone requirements.
The rules also include a section addressing a wood furniture maker, Elkay Manufacturing Co. in Aurora, as a major source of volatile organic compounds.
(Corrects third paragraph to note rule applies to facilities with 100 tons per year of volatile organic compounds emitted.)
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/a-cryin-shame-spilled-bud-miller-beer-targeted-to-clean-air-corrected
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5 Legal Fights on Climate for 2019
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
The field of lawsuits related to climate change is set to expand in 2019 following a year of setbacks and delays.
President Trump elevated climate change last year by denying the science around it. That collided with a string of court cases alleging that oil companies are making the oceans rise and with investigations by state attorneys general over potential fraud by Exxon Mobil Corp. A group of fishermen entered the fray by claiming that emissions from Big Oil are affecting their livelihood.
There were also stumbles.
Youth plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States, a landmark challenge against the government over its role in heating the planet, face indefinite delays in going to trial. Federal judges dismissed cases in New York and California about the costs of adapting to climate change. And a Swiss court rejected an argument from a group of older women — the "Swiss grannies" — who claimed that they were particularly vulnerable to heat waves.
Here are five themes on climate law to follow in 2019:Going global
Vanuatu, the low-lying Pacific island nation, may file a lawsuit against major fossil fuel companies and wealthy countries that consume their products.
Speaking in November in Wellington, New Zealand, Vanuatu Foreign Minister Ralph Regenvanu said the country was looking into "all avenues" in the court system to sue for climate damages. It comes as island nations face growing perils from sea-level rise.
"It's just a constant state of emergency, basically," Regenvanu said (Climatewire, Dec. 12, 2018).
Greenpeace, Oxfam and other advocacy groups sued the government of France last month for failing to adequately address climate change. And Catherine Gauthier, the head of an environmental group in Quebec, sued the Canadian government for "infringing on the rights of younger citizens."
The outcome of those kinds of cases is checkered. Some are successful, others aren't.
The Dutch government lost in an appeals court in October over a lower court ruling that it must sharply reduce its emissions.
But a Swiss court dismissed an argument from the "Swiss grannies," a group of more than 450 older women who sued the national government for exposing people older than 75 to greater health risks related to warming. Juliana v. United States: What's next?
A trial in the landmark case was supposed to be well underway.
Had it begun as scheduled in October, the plaintiffs, a group of 21 American children and young adults, would have already delivered their testimony and government attorneys would be just about to begin the government's defense.
Instead, the case has bounced from a federal court in Oregon to an appeals court in San Francisco and to the Supreme Court. Its future is unclear.
The delay is a temporary victory for the government, which wants to get the case tossed from court. For the plaintiffs, it's an irritation — at a minimum. It has prevented them from presenting a cache of documents to a district court in Eugene, Ore., that show how the government knew about warming since the 1960s, at least.
"The government has used the power of their office and the depth of taxpayer coffers to waste precious time and resources to avoid trial in this case, and now the court has capitulated with little scrutiny," Julia Olson, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said last week.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals approved the government's request a week ago to appeal lower court rulings.
With President Trump as a foil, the case has catapulted to national attention. Still, if the case does land in the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs face an uphill climb.
The conservative-leaning court is unlikely to grant the relief they want: a science-based plan to phase out fossil fuels nationwide.Reeling in a new advocate
The outcome of environmental fights often comes down to who's doing the campaigning.
To many conservatives, former Vice President Al Gore is a partisan whose messages are easily dismissed.
But what about blue-collar workers?
Commercial fishermen in California and Oregon sued dozens of oil and gas companies in November, accusing them of overheating the water that sustains their catch (Climatewire Nov. 15, 2018).
Defendants include Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., BP PLC, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and ConocoPhillips — whose researchers have known for decades that humans are warming the planet.
"It's industry to industry, one harming another with the causal connection to prove it," said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "If the fishermen were causing this much harm to the public, we should get shut down."
Lawyers for the oil companies are trying to get the case moved from a state court in California to federal court, where they believe they have a stronger position.
Wherever the case lands, the fishing industry is a different type of environmental advocate, and it's not easily dismissed as partisan.Brussels and Washington gear up
Government officials in the European Union and the United States will take a hard look at the fossil fuel industry in 2019.
"How do you feel about the fact that your lies have put at risk both human civilization and the possibility for your grandchildren to live a normal life?"
That's the question that Molly Scott Cato, a member of the European Parliament, said she plans to ask in March, when Exxon is scheduled to appear before E.U. officials in Brussels.
In 2016, Food & Water Watch pressed for a hearing to examine the role that it says Exxon played in deceiving the public about climate change.
Across the Atlantic, Democrats in Washington will take over the House. They plan to create a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
The panel will lack subpoena power, but it could still wield a broad mandate that includes calling witnesses from fossil fuel companies to appear in Congress.
The Sunrise Movement, an environmental advocacy group, would like to see plans for a so-called Green New Deal — a massive jobs and clean technology program — emerge from Congress.Climate nuisance cases stay pesky
More nuisance lawsuits over climate change will almost certainly be filed in the United States this year, adding to a swath of active cases.
Federal judges in New York and San Francisco threw out three cases against fossil fuel companies last year, arguing that the benefits of fossil fuels must be weighed against their detrimental effects.
Climate nuisances cases are also pending in California, Washington state, Baltimore, Rhode Island and Colorado.
Lawyers in those cases argue that physical changes — rising sea levels, heat waves, drought and acidifying waters — would not have occurred if major energy companies had not released greenhouse gas emissions.
In court papers filed in September, Exxon and Suncor Energy Inc., defendants in the Colorado case, said they were not at fault because fossil fuels are ingrained in modern life.
They added that the plaintiffs — which include Boulder and San Miguel County — bear responsibility for climate change, too, because they "combust fossil fuels — the alleged root cause of their injuries."
That case and at least eight others in the United States are still pending.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/01/03/stories/1060110799
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