Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 1/3/2019
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Senate Approves Nominations of Three Key Environmental Posts
Jan 3, 2019 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson, Christopher R. Bryant, and Margaret R. Graham
In the last hours of the 115th Congress, the Senate on January 2, 2019, approved the nominations of three individuals to serve in key environmental posts... -
What’s After Banning Straws? Going After Rising Plastic Production
Jan 3, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Steven T. Jones
Dozens of U.S. cities made 2018 the year of the plastic straw ban. But if we really want to reduce the plastic pollution rapidly amassing in our oceans, 2019 must be the year we challenge the fossil fuel industry’s plan to aggressively... -
EPS Ban Begins in NYC
Jan 3, 2019 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson
Days are numbered for single-serve expanded polystyrene food service items in New York City as a ban officially takes hold with the new year. Restaurants and other food service locations as well as stores and manufacturers... -
Houston's Westlake Chemical Grows with $256M Deal
Jan 3, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Marrisa Luck
Houston-based Westlake Chemical Corp. is expanding its footprint in Asia and Europe by buying a French chemical company in a $265 million deal that closed Tuesday. -
FERC Commissioner Kevin McIntyre Dies
Jan 3, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darius Dixon
Kevin McIntyre, who relinquished the FERC chairmanship in October because of serious health setbacks, died on Wednesday, according to a source with direct knowledge. -
(ACC Mentioned) "Sicker, Fatter, Poorer": The Cost of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals
Jan 3, 2019 | CBS News
The new book "Sicker, Fatter, Poorer" starts with an ominous comparison of what the children in a New York City playground in the 1960s look like compared to children today. -
Chemours Sues for Duties on Asian Nonstick Chemical Imports
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Flood
The Chemours Co. is challenging the decision not to hit U.S. imports of polytetrafluoroethylene resin from China and India with new duties, according to filings at the Court of International Trade. -
Monsanto Roundup False Label Suit Won’t Be Certified as Class
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Julie Steinberg
Bayer AG unit Monsanto Co. won’t have to face a class action alleging it falsely advertised Roundup by saying the weed killer’s active ingredient, glyphosate, doesn’t affect humans or pets. -
Mich. Governor's First Order Aims to Prevent Another Flint
Jan 3, 2019 | AP (in E&E - Greenwire)
By David Eggert
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer yesterday directed state employees to immediately report any imminent threat to public health, moving quickly to tackle issues that led the previous administration to be accused of causing Flint's... -
Florida Officials Delayed Telling Residents About Tainted Water, Emails Show
Jan 3, 2019 | Tampa Bay Times
By Samantha J. Gross and Elizabeth Koh
Linda Lawson thought little of drinking the water from the decades-old well in her backyard, less than half a mile down the road from the Florida State Fire College in Ocala. That changed when her daughter-in-law answered to state... -
Contaminated Groundwater, a Toxic Legacy of Georgia’s Air Bases
Jan 3, 2019 | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Meris Lutz
For decades, the United States Air Force used a toxic firefighting foam that contaminated water near bases and exposed communities to chemicals linked to cancer and a variety of other health problems. -
EU Committee Publishes Opinion on Salicylic Acid in Cosmetics
Jan 3, 2019 | Chemical Watch
The EU’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) has adopted a final Opinion on salicylic acid in cosmetics. The SCCS concluded that the substance is safe when used as preservative at a concentration of 0.5%, except... -
Fracking Firms in Pa. Are Getting Billed for Millions in Impact Fees
Jan 3, 2019 | Philly.com
By Laura Legere
About 17 natural gas companies are expected to get invoices early this year for millions of dollars of impact fees they owe on low-producing shale wells after a state Supreme Court decision last week. -
New Mexico Governor Prioritizing Renewables Over Oil, Gas
Jan 3, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
Seeking to diversify the economy from its historic dependence on fossil fuel production, which includes substantial output from the Permian Basin, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham wasted no time Tuesday after she was... -
(ACC Mentioned) Regulator Examines Railroads for Hitting Customers With Late Fees
Jan 1, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Paul Ziobro
Federal regulators are scrutinizing fees imposed by Norfolk SouthernCorp. , Union Pacific Corp. and other railroads that are meant to get their customers on board with new procedures to operate more efficiently. -
D.C. Circuit Declares Litigation Over EPA Ozone Standard Moot
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
A federal appellate court has dismissed several lawsuits challenging an abortive 2017 bid by EPA to stall a key compliance step for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard. -
EPA’s Action on Ozone Noncompliance Areas Nets Suit Dismissal
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
The EPA’s recent decision to designate areas not meeting ozone pollution limits means environmental and health advocates’ legal challenge to a planned delay in those designations is moot, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled. -
Trump’s EPA Stops Punishing Big Polluters for Breaking Federal Law
Jan 3, 2019 | Salon
By Igor Derysh
he Environmental Protection Agency has increasingly stopped punishing polluters caught violating federal laws intended to maintain air and water safety, according to a report by the watchdog group Environmental Data and... -
Novel International Greenhouse Gas Commitment Goes Into Effect
Jan 3, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
The United Nations is cheering a first of its kind international climate pact to curb the use of a potent greenhouse gas that went into effect on January 1.
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Senate Approves Nominations of Three Key Environmental Posts
Jan 3, 2019 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson, Christopher R. Bryant, and Margaret R. Graham
In the last hours of the 115th Congress, the Senate on January 2, 2019, approved the nominations of three individuals to serve in key environmental posts:
1. Alexandra Dapolito Dunn -- EPA Toxics Office: The Senate approved the nomination of Alexandra Dunn to serve as the Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP). Ms. Dunn had been serving as the administrator for EPA Region 1. She previously was executive director and general counsel for the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS). Prior to joining ECOS, Ms. Dunn served as executive director and general counsel for the Association of Clean Water Administrators. Ms. Dunn also has extensive experience in environmental education, having served as dean of Environmental Law Programs at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. In addition, she has taught at the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America, and, most recently, as an adjunct associate professor of law at the American University’s Washington College of Law. Ms. Dunn received a B.A. in political science from James Madison University and a J.D. from the Columbus School of Law. More information on Ms. Dunn’s confirmation hearing is available in our blog item Senate EPW Committee Holds Hearing on Nomination of Alexandra Dunn to Lead OCSPP.
2. Mary Neumayr -- CEQ: The Senate also approved the nomination of Mary Neumayr to head the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Ms. Neumayr currently serves as chief of staff for the CEQ. Prior to joining CEQ in March of 2017, she served in a variety of positions with the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the U.S. House of Representatives, including Deputy Chief Counsel, energy and environment in 2017; Senior Energy Counsel from 2011 to 2017; and Counsel from 2009 to 2010. Ms. Neumayr also served as Deputy Counsel for environment and nuclear programs at the U.S. Department of Energy from 2006 to 2009, and Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the environment and natural resources division at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2003 to 2006. Prior to her government service, Ms. Neumayr was in private legal practice from 1989 to 2003. She received her B.A. from Thomas Aquinas College and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
3. Kelvin Droegemeier -- OSTP: Finally, the Senate also approved Kelvin Droegemeier to serve as the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). A meteorologist from the University of Oklahoma, Mr. Droegemeier previously served as Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin’s secretary of science and technology. He was also previously on the National Science Board for 12 years during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/senate-approves-nominations-three-key-environmental-posts
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What’s After Banning Straws? Going After Rising Plastic Production
Jan 3, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Steven T. Jones
Dozens of U.S. cities made 2018 the year of the plastic straw ban. But if we really want to reduce the plastic pollution rapidly amassing in our oceans, 2019 must be the year we challenge the fossil fuel industry’s plan to aggressively expand plastic production.
Yes, those straw bans help. Straws contribute to ocean plastic pollution that’s expected to outweigh all the fish in the sea by 2050. Those who pushed the anti-straw #StopSucking campaign — and journalists who gave high-profile coverage to the plastic-pollution crisis — deserve tremendous credit for the quick adoption of plastic straw bans over the past year. Along with earlier plastic-bag bans and restrictions on Styrofoam packaging, these actions can significantly reduce the flow of plastic into our oceans.
But it’s not enough. These gains could easily be wiped out by dozens of new plastic-production plants being built along the Gulf Coast and in the Rust Belt. They’re part of the fossil fuel industry’s stated goal of increasing plastic production by 40 percent over the next decade.
Even though we’re already dumping about 8 million tons of plastic into our oceans each year — which chokes marine life, absorbs toxins, travels throughout the ocean food web and doesn’t break down for decades — Big Oil wants to make more plastic. These ethane “cracker” plants would use our oversupply of cheap, fracked natural gas to create plastic pellets, the basic building blocks of cheap plastic packaging and products.
Most of that plastic will end up in our oceans, landscapes and landfills. Almost 80 percent of the plastic we produce ends up in our landfills and the natural environment, a figure that could rise now that China has stopped accepting our plastic recycling.
Yet, ExxonMobil, Shell, Dow, Formosa Plastics and other companies are planning to spend $180 billion on increased plastic production in the coming years.
For example, ExxonMobil is now trying to build the world’s largest plastics plant in Texas, in partnership with Saudi Arabia thanks to a deal cut by President Trump, using about $1 billion in subsidies from Texas taxpayers. That means this project is paying a murderous regime and highly profitable oil company to create pollution we’ll all pay for later.
Another massive plastic plant is slated for the banks of the Mississippi River, transforming an agricultural and wetland habitat into a dirty petrochemical plant. People nearby in the community of St. James Parish, Louisiana — in a predominantly African American district already known as Cancer Alley because of the toxins spewed by local petrochemical plants — are fighting the plastics plant proposed by the Taiwanese company Formosa Plastics.
This is a company that has been heavily fined for spilling plastic pellets into Texas waterways, polluting the air in Louisiana, and a 2004 explosion and fire at its plant in Illinois. The fire killed five workers and forced the evacuation of a nearby town.
So even if it doesn’t explode or sicken its impoverished neighbors, even if its industrial runoff doesn’t contaminate the region’s vital seafood industry, even in the best-case scenario where nothing goes terribly wrong, we still end up with a bunch of cheap plastic we don’t want or need.
This plastic buildout is being repeated in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Mississippi and the other states now processing applications for plastic plants and the pipelines that feed them with fracked natural gas. Each project spews pollution into our air and water as it produces endless amounts of plastic.
Now, 2019 will be a critical year in deciding whether we slow down this plastic-pollution juggernaut or simply let the problem get worse and pass it on to the next generations. As National Geographic put it in a special issue this year, it’s time to choose between “plastic or planet.” Let’s choose the planet.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/423606-whats-after-banning-straws-going-after-rising-plastic-production
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Jan 3, 2019 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson
Days are numbered for single-serve expanded polystyrene food service items in New York City as a ban officially takes hold with the new year.
Restaurants and other food service locations as well as stores and manufacturers are no longer allowed to handle such items, but a six-month grace period now kicks in before city officials can start fining those who defy the ban.
While other locations have banned EPS food service items, the fight between the industry and the city has been especially brutal over the years.
The city, under Mayor Bill de Blasio, has made elimination of EPS food service a key part of the city's environmental strategy. Previous efforts to ban the products were struck down in court, but New York ultimately crafted legislation effective Jan. 1 that has stood up to legal challenge.
At the heart of the issue is whether EPS products can be recycled. The city has repeatedly taken the stance that they are unrecyclable, and is doing so again.
"Foam products cannot be recycled, plain and simple, and they have no place in our lives," city Sanitation Commissioner Katheryn Garcia said in a statement as the ban went into effect.
Garcia said banning foam EPS food service items will help the city ultimately achieve its waste reduction goals.
"We have fought for four years to ban these products in favor of reusable, recyclable and compostable alternatives," Garcia said.
EPS supporters scoff at the idea that EPS is unrecyclable, and even offered to create a system to separate and transport the material to an Indiana processing facility for reuse.
Both for-profit and not-for-profit food service establishments, mobile food commissaries and stores are covered under the ban. Manufacturers and distributors are as well.
The band includes single-serve EPS items including cups, bowls, plates, takeout containers and trays, as well as loose-fill packaging, the city said. Prepackaged food sealed before being received by sellers is exempt. Containers used to store raw meat, pork, seafood and poultry sold from a butcher case or "similar appliance" also receive a pass. Foam blocks for shipping protection also are not covered.
The city, in announcing the ban is now in place, repeatedly referred to EPS as "Styrofoam," but that is a Dow Chemical Co. brand name of extruded PS foam typically used in building applications. Styrofoam is typically blue and food service containers, made by other companies, is typically white.
Businesses and nonprofit groups with less than $500,000 in annual revenue can seek exemptions, if they can prove the ban "would create undue financial hardship," the city said.
Starting July 1, those violating the ban will be fined $250 for the first offense, $500 for the second offense and $1,000 for the third and subsequent offenses, according to the city.
https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20190103/NEWS/190109968/eps-ban-begins-in-nyc
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Houston's Westlake Chemical Grows with $256M Deal
Jan 3, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Marrisa Luck
Houston-based Westlake Chemical Corp. is expanding its footprint in Asia and Europe by buying a French chemical company in a $265 million deal that closed Tuesday.
Westlake Chemical, which makes vinyls and plastics, previously announced in September its intent to buy NAKAN, a Reims, France manufacturer of polymer blends, from Los Angeles-based private equity firm OpenGate Capital. NAKAN makes compounding solutions that are used in the automotive, building and construction and medical industries.
"The combination of NAKAN with Westlake's existing compounding business represents an excellent strategic fit. It will allow us to expand our compounding business globally and add important specialty products and technology to our existing portfolio," said Albert Chao, president and chief executive officer of Westlake Chemical Corporation, said in an announcement Tuesday.
Now that the acquisition closed, Westlake's compounding business has facilities in China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, the United States and Vietnam, as well as a research facility in France and several application laboratories, the announcement said.
Westlake reached the Fortune 500 list for the first time in 2018, ranking No. 352 with a previous year's revenue of $8.04 billion, up 58.4 percent from 2016, and profit of $1.3 billion, up 226.9 percent, according to Fortune 500.
Westlake is among Houston's biggest publicly-traded petrochemical and polymer companies. It produces a range of products including: ethylene, polyethylene, styrene, propylene, chlor-alkali and derivative products, PVC suspension and specialty resins, PVC compounds, and PVC building products including siding, pipe, fittings and specialty components, windows, fence, deck and film.
BOLD ACQUISITIONS: No. 1 public: Westlake’s bet pays off — big
In 2016, the company bought Atlanta-based Axiall Corp for $3.8 billion, making it the third-largest chlor-alkali producer and the second largest polyvinyl chloride producer in North America.
The Axiall acquisition more than doubled Westlake's caustic soda production capacity at a time when global supplies began to tighten. Europe implemented stricter environmental requirements that have reduced production capacity there, driving up prices and creating an export opportunity for Westlake.
Westlake reported $308 million in profits in the third quarter and $2.3 billion in net sales, according to its latest earnings report.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Houston-s-Westlake-Chemical-grows-with-256M-deal-13505610.php
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FERC Commissioner Kevin McIntyre Dies
Jan 3, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darius Dixon
Kevin McIntyre, who relinquished the FERC chairmanship in October because of serious health setbacks, died on Wednesday, according to a source with direct knowledge.
McIntyre was nominated by President Donald Trump in August 2017, sworn in at FERC and named chairman four months later. Before joining FERC, McIntyre had been an attorney at Jones Day for more than two decades. He is survived by his wife, Jennifer, and three young children.
FERC did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Signs of his health trouble appeared almost immediately after he took office. Although he was confirmed by the Senate to six years in office, he acknowledged he had received a brain tumor diagnosis and underwent surgery early last year. In a March statement, McIntyre said the tumor was "relatively small," that he "had no symptoms" and that his health was stable.
But in October, he acknowledged “a more serious health setback” that had kept him from agency business, and he gave up the chairmanship to fellow Republican Neil Chatterjee.
WHAT’S NEXT: McIntyre’s passing leaves the commissioner’s seat open for a new member of FERC to be nominated and confirmed by the Senate.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard/2019/01/ferc-commissioner-kevin-mcintyre-dies-2429423
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(ACC Mentioned) "Sicker, Fatter, Poorer": The Cost of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals
Jan 3, 2019 | CBS News
The new book "Sicker, Fatter, Poorer" starts with an ominous comparison of what the children in a New York City playground in the 1960s look like compared to children today. It's not great for today's kids.
Written by children's environmental health expert Dr. Leonardo Trasande, the book highlights the potentially harmful effects of thousands of chemicals in our food, environment and household and personal care products that could be linked to conditions like obesity, diabetes, brain disorders and fertility problems.
Trasande attributes a lot of those negative effects to four categories of hormone-disrupting chemicals: pesticides used in agriculture; phthalates, which are used in personal care products and food packaging; bisphenol A (BPA), which is used in aluminum can linings and some plastics; and brominated flame retardants, which are used in furniture, electronics and even mattresses.
"Hormones are molecules that our body uses to signal and communicate and hormone disrupters are chemicals that scramble those signals and attribute to disease. We know now of over 1,000 chemicals that are hormone disrupters," Trasande told "CBS This Morning" on Thursday.
While diet and exercise, of course, also have a huge impact on the high rate of obesity in America, Trasande argues that reducing our exposure to hormone disrupters is a very simple step people can take to lower the risk of harm.
"They scramble hormone signals and shift our diet and how it's transformed in our body into fat as opposed into muscle or other categories," he said. "The reality here is that there are safe and simple steps we can take to limit those exposures, which may be easier to accomplish as opposed to changing diet and physical activity, which can be more fundamentally difficult."
He recommended reducing your exposure to bisphenols by avoiding canned foodsaltogether and by looking at the number located on the bottom of plastic containers. According to Trasande, containers numbered 3, 6, and 7 are "not safe for use across the board."
"We have to ask ourselves fundamentally, how we're going to gamble with our health, whether we want to take that gamble. … We need to empower consumers to make up their own minds and take the safe and simple steps they need," Trasande said. CBS NEWS
As for how exposure to these chemicals makes the U.S. poorer, Trasande points to the ultimate economic cost of diseases like obesity and diabetes.
"The reality is that policy predicts exposure, exposure predicts disease and disease ultimately costs our economy. We found that these exposures cost the United States $340 billion a year. That's 2.3 percent of our gross domestic product," he said.
In a statement to "CBS This Morning," the American Chemistry Council trade group said, "to stay below ranges of exposure determined to be safe, consumers should read product labels closely and follow directions carefully."
It also said that "because phthalates are widely used in many consumer products, not just cosmetics and personal care products, their safety has been extensively researched and reviewed."
We not hear back from the FDA because of the partial government shutdown.
"Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future . . . and What We Can Do About It" goes on sale January 8, 2019
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sicker-fatter-poorer-the-cost-of-hormone-disrupting-chemicals/
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Chemours Sues for Duties on Asian Nonstick Chemical Imports
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Flood
The Chemours Co. is challenging the decision not to hit U.S. imports of polytetrafluoroethylene resin from China and India with new duties, according to filings at the Court of International Trade.
PTFE is used to make a number of products including lubricants, gaskets, seals, and insulation, but may be most recognized for its use in nonstick coatings on cookwear. Chemours, a spin-off of DuPont, produces the best known name brand PTFE formula, Teflon.
The U.S. in 2017 imported an estimated $27.5 million and $24.9 million worth of PTFE resin from China and India, respectively, according to Commerce.
Chemours had petitioned for antidumping duties on imports of PTFE resin from the two Asian countries. The Commerce Department found that imports from both countries were sold in the U.S. at less than fair value.
But the U.S. did not impose the new duties, because the International Trade Commission found that the imports weren’t seriously injuring domestic U.S. industry.
Chemours is challenging the ITC’s determination. It has not yet filed a complaint detailing its arguments.
The case is The Chemours Co. FC, LLC v. United States, Ct. Int’l Trade, No. 19-00001, filed 1/2/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemours-sues-for-duties-on-asian-nonstick-chemical-imports
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Monsanto Roundup False Label Suit Won’t Be Certified as Class
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Julie Steinberg
Bayer AG unit Monsanto Co. won’t have to face a class action alleging it falsely advertised Roundup by saying the weed killer’s active ingredient, glyphosate, doesn’t affect humans or pets.
Individual questions about whether proposed class members relied on the herbicide’s label make class certification inappropriate, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin ruled Jan. 2.
Bayer, which acquired Monsanto last year, faces suits by some 8,700 people who blame their cancer on Roundup.
In this consumer suit, Wisconsin resident Thomas Blitz claimed he was misled by the label statement that Roundup “targets an enzyme found in plants but not in people or pets.”
Glyphosate kills plants by inhibiting an enzyme called EPSP synthase, which is also found in beneficial bacteria in the gut of humans and other mammals, he alleged.
Blitz alleged Monsanto violated Wisconsin consumer protection law and sought to represent Wisconsin consumers who bought Roundup products since June 2015.
But a claim under the Wisconsin Deceptive Trade Practices Act turns on whether the alleged misrepresentation deceived each individual Wisconsin consumer, not whether it would have deceived a reasonable consumer, the court said.
Therefore, individual questions concerning whether the Roundup label deceived each member of the plaintiff’s proposed class overwhelm questions common to the class and prevent certification, it said.
Andrus Wagstaff, P.C., the Richman Law Group, and others represented Blitz.
Husch Blackwell, LLP and Winston & Strawn LLP represented Monsanto.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/monsanto-roundup-false-label-suit-wont-be-certified-as-class
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Mich. Governor's First Order Aims to Prevent Another Flint
Jan 3, 2019 | AP (in E&E - Greenwire)
By David Eggert
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer yesterday directed state employees to immediately report any imminent threat to public health, moving quickly to tackle issues that led the previous administration to be accused of causing Flint's water crisis and delaying action to clear it up.
The Democrat issued her first executive directive a day after taking office.
It orders employees who become aware of any "imminent" threat to the public's health, safety or welfare to report it to their department director or agency head, who must assess the information and act if there is a risk. The director must tell Whitmer's chief compliance officer whether there is a threat and — if it is not being addressed adequately or promptly — should share those concerns directly with her.
"I'm confident that the Cabinet that I have assembled ... will put Michiganders first, have an open-door policy and will actually listen," Whitmer said during a news conference at her office. She pledged that her administration will empower state employees "on the front lines" to speak up and will act promptly on any concerns.
She was joined by several employees with the Department of Environmental Quality, including newly appointed Director Liesl Eichler Clark. The agency came under scrutiny for mistakes that led to lead contamination in state-managed Flint's drinking water in 2014 and 2015, during former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's administration.
One of the employees in attendance was DEQ specialist Robert Delaney, whose separate 2012 warning to a former department director about the emergence of pollution from man-made chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, did not prompt a major statewide response for more than five years.
Whitmer said her move is not about any one incident from recent years, but she did not deny that Flint and PFAS were factors in her decision.
"We thought this was an important way to lead on the first day, to tell state employees we listen to them and public health is paramount," said Whitmer, who told state workers in an email Tuesday that she respects their work and is committed to ensuring that they "feel valued and respected." She echoed her past concerns about rebuilding morale. The DEQ and Department of Health and Human Services have seen employees charged criminally over Flint.
Asked yesterday about concerns that the prosecution has left state employees hesitant to make key decisions, Whitmer said the dynamic between the Snyder administration and former Attorney General Bill Schuette (R) — who filed the charges — had a "huge impact I think on what was happening and how state employees felt and how concerned they were about doing their job. We don't have that dynamic anymore. We've got a set of new leaders in my Cabinet."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/01/03/stories/1060110841
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Florida Officials Delayed Telling Residents About Tainted Water, Emails Show
Jan 3, 2019 | Tampa Bay Times
By Samantha J. Gross and Elizabeth Koh
Linda Lawson thought little of drinking the water from the decades-old well in her backyard, less than half a mile down the road from the Florida State Fire College in Ocala. That changed when her daughter-in-law answered to state workers knocking on her door one afternoon. They came to test the water, a worker said.
She only began to worry when Mark Lander, the head of the Marion County Department of Health, came by at 8:30 one evening in early November with word that she shouldn't drink from the well anymore. The unlit dirt path to her Central Florida home almost never received visitors, especially at night, and her husband Tim even pulled out his gun with concern that Lander might be an escaped inmate from a nearby prison.
Lander, who declined to comment for this story, delivered a letter that night informing Lawson's family that chemical levels in their well water were higher than deemed safe. He gave them a couple cases of water and told them to drink only bottled for the foreseeable future before he disappeared back into the night.
In August, the Department of Environmental Protection confirmed that flame retardants containing perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) had been used at the Fire College in the past. In early September, the college was told to only drink bottled water.
Lawson's home was one of three well sites — a Marion County fire station and Texas-based mining company Lhoist North America were the others — where preliminary tests indicated the water had elevated levels of the chemicals, which early studies have suggested can be carcinogens. Other impacts in humans include high cholesterol, thyroid disorders, adverse reproductive and developmental effects and some types of cancer.
It took about four months for state health officials to notify Lawson and others in the community about potentially elevated levels of the chemicals, emails obtained by the Times/Herald show. In September state health officials began discussing means of informing the Fire College, but it wasn't until late October that they discussed notifying the rest of the nearby community. While state health officials debated for months how to word messages to those affected and put off informational open houses because of Hurricane Michael, neighbors bickered with local health officials asking when their water would be tested. Some preemptively began buying cases of water each week, fearing their own wells might be contaminated.
Recently, six former employees of the Fire College joined a class-action lawsuit against flame retardant manufacturers, alleging their exposure to toxic chemicals caused serious medical conditions including thyroid disease, breast cancer and kidney cancer — the same chemicals found in Lawson's drinking water.
Les Beitsch, a former deputy secretary in the Florida Department of Health, speculates that health officials delayed notifying Lawson and the two other well users because of the impending election. He was effectively fired in November, he said, because he pushed back against the idea of any delay in notifying well-water users of the problem.
Gov. Rick Scott's office rejected the suggestion that political considerations played any role in the notification timeline and directed reporters to the Department of Health for comment.
Through a spokesman, the Department of Health said it "immediately notified well owners of results" and have "worked diligently to obtain the necessary permissions to conduct additional private well sampling."
"Any assertion that this was not done as quickly as possible is false and irresponsible," said Nick Van der Linden, the department spokesman.
The department notified residents on Nov. 5 — two months after the Fire College started using bottled water and three days after tests results showed contamination in their wells.
Water contamination near the Fire College was made known to officials in early September after results came back from testing done by the state's Department of Environmental Protection. Of the 80 to 90 wells in a mile radius around the college, 17 wells were tested. According to emails obtained by the Times/Herald, levels of chemicals in the water at the college were found to be between 250 and 270 parts per trillion, more than three times higher than the advisable 70 parts per trillion for drinking water.
▪ On Sept. 9, the Fire College was given supplies of bottled water from the Department of Environmental Protection. On Sept. 12, the Fire College stopped using well water to prepare food in its cafeteria. During busy times of the year, about 50 students and 30 staff use the water on campus.
▪ On Oct. 2nd and 3rd, the DOH collected samples from 17 nearby wells, including the Lowell Correctional Institution (a women's prison), a convenience store/gas station, the mining company and seven residences.
▪ An Oct. 16 open house was scheduled to allow members of the public and the Fire College community to ask questions and get information about what was happening in their water supply. The open house was rescheduled due to limited time and resources after Hurricane Michael. It eventually happened on Dec. 4 — three months after the Fire College started using bottled water.
▪ On Nov. 2, the Department of Health got results back from the tests in early October and found four wells, including the Fire College, that showed elevated PFOS and PFOA levels.
▪ On Nov. 5 —two months after the Fire College started using bottled water and three days after test results showed far higher levels of contamination in their wells — letters were sent to notify Lawson and the fire station. On Nov. 6, Election Day, the mining business was notified. The Department of Environmental Protection installed filters for their wells and is providing a regular supply of bottled water for drinking, cooking, bathing and other household activities.
Those letters were supposed to be sent on Nov. 13, Beitsch said, but pushback from him and some of his colleagues spurred the Nov. 5 delivery.
All Lawson could gather from the two-page letter was that the Fire College might be connected to the water problem.
"We've known the Fire College was there. It's been there forever," she said. "I knew they did testing back there — fire drills and stuff like that — but I assumed they did water or whatever. I didn't even know they use a foam."
The flame retardant that contained the perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid particles came in the form of a foam mean to cool the fire and to coat the fuel, preventing its contact with oxygen.
Other residents in the area say that — despite requirements that additional wells be tested — they did not hear for far longer if their wells had been tested or if the same chemicals had been found in their water.
In 2002, the primary U.S. manufacturer of PFOS voluntarily phased it out of production because it was aware of the looming chemical exposure and health effects on the public. In 2006, eight major companies in the PFAS industry voluntarily agreed to phase out production for the same reason. But the chemicals are made up of compounds that don't biodegrade, which allows them to remain in air, soil and groundwater for decades.
Though the health department began bringing Lawson's family five-gallon jugs of water after the letter was delivered, their well water — which tested for levels of PFAS and PFOA at 932 parts per trillion — is still being used for showering and washing dishes. In addition to Lawson, her husband, and their sons' families — eight people in total — they have used the bottled water for their five dogs: Jasper, Harley, Tennessee, Bama and Giz. Their aging horse, Cody, still drinks from the well.
Lawson hasn't noticed any health effects, she said, but she worries about how it might affect her or the children. "Ten years down the line, after we've drank all this water and tea and stuff, what's going to happen?"
When the mining operation received the notice, it stopped using the well water for drinking and notified employees, according to a written statement from the company. The test levels were 12,000 parts per trillion, about 170 times the advisable level.
According to Health Department emails obtained by the Times/Herald through a public records request, the mine's safety manager, Stephen Henrick, requested his home in Ocala be tested shortly after. He declined to comment.
A spokesman for the fire station in Ocala declined to comment as well.
Lawson said she still keeps the letter with her at work, where she weighs trucks for a local limerock company as a scale house operator.
A few more nearby wells were tested on Nov. 8 — a horse breeder, North Marion County Middle School and a carrier company.
On Nov. 28, more workers from the state came to install a filter on Lawson's well, though they were instructed to keep drinking bottled water for at least the next two months until more tests were conducted.
After Lawson heard from the state, she told some other residents. She also told one of her best friends, Miriam Flores, who lives just a few hundred yards from Lawson in a mobile home with her family.
At first, Flores said, she thought she would also hear from the state soon. But as days passed, Flores grew more and more worried. She warned two tenants in another mobile home on her property about the problem and advised them to buy bottled water. She began to call the Marion and Alachua County health departments, who both told her that they thought the issue was "nothing," she recalled.
"I don't think they care. They don't want nobody knowing anything, and it's scary," she said at the time.
After the Times/Herald began inquiring about the testing, officials finally came to test Flores' water Dec. 11 — a month after Lawson was first visited by health officials checking her well, and about three months after the department first learned of the problems in the groundwater surrounding the Fire College.
At Christmas, Flores and her family continued sipping from bottles of Zephyrhills water they had bought by the case: $5 each, two or three a week. Without answers, she increasingly worried about the water from the well her family has consumed for years, or even touching what comes out of the pipes.
She stopped letting her 5-year-old son, Fernando, brush his teeth with it. She even started washing the vegetables with bottled water. "Doesn't it go into your body, into your pores?"
On Dec. 28, an environmental administrator with the Marion County Department of Health finally gave her an answer, she said. Her water did test for levels higher than those at the Fire College: more than 20 times the acceptable level for drinking water.
Her options now are limited, she says. Health officials dropped off two cases of water but gave her no specifics on when they might install a filter on her well or if she might potentially have to pay an additional $30 to $40 a month to tap into the city's main water line instead.
Flores also can't just leave the three acres of property she's lived on for four years. Because of the elevated levels of chemicals, she worries the land is worth far less than what she paid for it.
"My property's value just went to crap," she said after she found out about the test results. "Not even the animals are supposed to drink it."
According to scripts sent to health department employees, when residents ask about using alternative water until the test results come back, the employees they are to say "no."
The script, obtained from the department by the Times/Herald, says employees are to answer:
"There is a very low risk of any effects from short-term exposure to PFOS and PFOA. There is no reason you need to change your daily routine and an alternative water supply is not necessary. If it is your personal preference, you may choose to utilize an alternative water for drinking, cooking or brushing teeth until your results are received."
The former deputy secretary, Beitsch, said he was aware of discussions going on within the department on how and when to test. He said his boss, DOH Secretary Celeste Philip, made it "very clear" that they were not to do "anything right now" at a meeting on Nov. 2. Beitsch said his training as a physician called for "sharing news of this nature in person and immediately," he said.
Beitsch, who is also a department chair at Florida State University's College of Medicine, stepped into the deputy secretary role last fall at Philip's request, he said. He retained his professorship at the university, which also covered his salary for the state government role.
"This absolutely crossed a line. It's disregarding possible human health consequences for whatever reason," Beitsch said. "To be doing it for reasons that are bad, like political process and elections, that would be intolerable, unacceptable and shouldn't be permitted."
Beitsch's boss at FSU, College of Medicine Dean John Fogarty, said the news that Beitsch's services were no longer required came "out of the blue."
"Dr. Philip called me and said 'Dr. Beitsch and I have had some disagreements and I think it's time to sever that relationship,' " he said.
Fogarty said Beitsch is "not shy about expressing [his opinions]," but is "very experienced, very mature and has a pretty good worldview on problems and issues."
Beitsch says he grew vocal to protect people like Flores, because "that's what public health is supposed to be about." He said it made him furious that people who don't have neighbors like Flores were — and are — still drinking contaminated water. He compared the whole situation to the lead-contaminated water in Flint, Mich.
"This is about being sure that our government organizations and agencies can do our job, that it's not politics governing science and it's not interfering with what's the right thing to do," he said. "That's been trampled on, overlooked."
Almost a week after Flores found out her well tested for substantially higher levels of the chemicals, she said she still doesn't know when officials will be back to address the situation. The well is supposed to serve her, her husband, her son and daughter, the two tenants, a friend and her baby who came to stay with them two weeks ago — but all of them will continue using bottled water until they hear otherwise.
Flores said she is frustrated it took nearly five months from when officials first suspected an issue at the Fire College for her to confirm that her water was contaminated. "They were trying to cover it up," she worried. "Why should I have to look on the Internet for answers?"
Days after the New Year, she said officials still kept telling her — even after giving her the well results — that the water issue was "not a big deal." She doesn't know when or if she will be able to drink water out of her own faucets again, and that her weeks of pleas for assistance will continue to go unaddressed.
"They didn't do what they're supposed to do," she said. "They're supposed to help people but they're not helping us. They messed up. They need to fix it."
https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2019/01/03/florida-officials-delayed-telling-residents-about-bad-water/
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Contaminated Groundwater, a Toxic Legacy of Georgia’s Air Bases
Jan 3, 2019 | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Meris Lutz
For decades, the United States Air Force used a toxic firefighting foam that contaminated water near bases and exposed communities to chemicals linked to cancer and a variety of other health problems.
Recent tests at Georgia’s three air bases show extensive environmental contamination of groundwater caused by the foam.
Despite Air Force assurances that Georgia’s drinking water is safe for the thousands of people living around its installations, experts and neighboring residents are questioning those findings, claiming the military’s review was too narrow and failed to test any water off-base.
“Given that there are concentrations of these compounds on site, over time they’re going to move off of the site. That’s just common sense,” said Jamie DeWitt, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at East Carolina University. “No contaminant obeys property lines.”
In more than a dozen other states, the Air Force has acknowledged contaminating drinking water in communities close to its bases.
Over the years, Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Cobb County, Robins Air Force Base in Houston County and Moody Air Force Base in Lowndes County used the firefighting foam in training exercises and to put out fires when planes crashed. The foam also sometimes leaked out of its storage tanks.
All told, thousands of gallons of foam soaked into the ground or washed into creeks and wetlands, killing fish and imperiling those who use the affected waterways for fishing, swimming and boating.
The contamination, which is linked to a class of chemicals known collectively as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, was laid out in a series of site inspection reports completed by the Air Force last year.
Those reports concluded that despite high levels of groundwater pollution, there was no immediate risk to human health through contamination of drinking water.
That claim was met with skepticism, particularly in rural areas where many people rely on wells for drinking and irrigation.
“Everything in this area depends on groundwater,” said John Quarterman, the Suwannee Riverkeeper in Lowndes County, where Moody is located. “I’m not saying that Moody necessarily did make enough contamination to be a problem, but I can’t tell from this report, and I don’t think it’s our responsibility to determine that they didn’t.”
In a statement, the Air Force said its response is constrained by a lack of regulation for PFAS chemicals. The two that are the focus of most testing are known as PFOS and PFOA.
“Because PFOS/PFOA are unregulated and Georgia or federal entities have not established standards for non-drinking water sources, we cannot expend government resources on those water sources,” the Air Force said.
Its authority to mitigate contamination “does not extend to risks posed to livestock and agriculture, to include indirect threats to humans through ingestion of plants and animals,” it added.
Swimmable, fishable, drinkable waters
Surrounded by cotton fields and low-lying wetlands, Moody recorded the highest levels of groundwater contamination out of the three Georgia installations—more than 5,000 times the screening level.
The base, which started as a flight training facility during World War II, sits 14 miles northeast of Valdosta. It’s bisected by Beatty Branch creek, which ultimately flows into the Withlacoochee River. Surface water from the base runs south into Grand Bay Swamp, a protected wildlife refuge and the state’s second largest blackwater wetland after the Okefenokee Swamp, home to fish, alligators and migrating birds.
Tests of Moody’s drinking wells showed no reportable contamination. In a news release published last May, the base celebrated the fact that its drinking water had been deemed safe, emphasizing that its wells plunge down more than 400 feet into a protected aquifer.
But local residents say their wells don’t go nearly as deep, and the Lowndes County public water system has not been tested for the chemicals.
“I’m very concerned, because I live practically adjacent to the base,” said Debra Tann. Tann, an educator married to a retired Navy veteran with family ties to the area, has lived on Radar Site Road, less than a mile from Moody, for more than 20 years. Her well only goes down 230 feet, which could make it more vulnerable to contamination.
Tann added that her husband often fishes from local creeks and rivers that could have been polluted with cancer-causing chemicals. Although the Air Force is not focused on environmental impacts, the site inspection report for Moody found that recreational activities on affected waterways, “could provide an exposure pathway to humans through dermal contact, ingestion of impacted water, and ingestion of fish.”
“Moody needs to be forthright, certainly, with information,” Tann said.
In response to questions, a spokesperson for the Air Force wrote that “since results showed no drinking water impacts on base and indicated there was not a pathway or proximity to off-base drinking water supplies, we did not sample outside the installations.”
Quarterman, who lives just a few miles from Moody on the same land where his family has lived for generations, finds the Air Force’s limited testing troubling.
As a riverkeeper, he monitors water pollution and organizes boat trips that encourage locals and visitors alike to reconnect with the natural world.
“I’m concerned with swimmable, fishable, drinkable waters,” Quarterman said. “I don’t quite understand how anyone can release harmful chemicals and not be concerned about the affects on wildlife, especially fish that people eat.”
Site inspections of Dobbins and Robins also found groundwater contamination and pollution of creeks that flow from the bases into the Chattahoochee and Ocmulgee Rivers.
But, as was the case at Moody, the Air Force said it was only authorized to address drinking water, and it did not detect contamination in its own drinking water. Therefore, it did not test any water off-base.
“They measured what they measured,” Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said of the Air Force’s review. “I do think they’re underestimating the scope of the problem and there really should be nationwide testing because this stuff is everywhere, and we know that the health impacts are pretty severe.”
A public relations ‘nightmare’
PFAS have been dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not break down naturally over time in the environment.
Instead, they accumulate in living tissue, making their way up the food chain from water to plants to animals to people.
Scientific studies have linked these chemicals to a number of harmful health effects in humans, including kidney and testicular cancer; high cholesterol; thyroid disease; reproductive problems; and a weakened immune response to vaccines in children.
In addition to firefighting foam, the chemicals have been used since the 1950s in a variety of industrial and household products, including non-stick pans; stain-resistant carpets and fabrics; and cleaning solutions.
The Air Force’s own research decades ago suggested the chemicals had negative health impacts on lab animals.
A series of lawsuits starting in the 1990s against the manufacturer of the toxic chemicals and the companies that used them helped bring the issue to light. The lawsuits revealed that the companies for decades tried to suppress the true nature of the chemicals.
Later, nationwide testing of large public water systems confirmed that the drinking water of millions of Americans had been compromised.
In 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a provisional health advisory on the subject. Since then, the Air Force has been testing the water at more than 200 bases, both in the U.S. and across the world, to determine the extent of the contamination. So far, it has completed site inspections of about a third of the bases it identified as potential sources of contamination.
High concentrations of PFAS at military installations and industrial sites can pose a serious threat to the health of surrounding communities. But the chemicals are so pervasive as to be ubiquitous: According to one study, 98 percent of Americans have traces in their blood.
“Babies are born pre-polluted with these chemicals,” said Tom Bruton, an environmental chemist at the Green Science Policy Institute.
Despite established health risks, PFAS, including PFOS/PFOA, are unregulated chemicals. Air Force officials said they rely on other government agencies to set regulatory standards.
The EPA’s health advisory is an unenforceable guideline.
In response to questions, the EPA said it is working to develop a management plan for this class of chemicals, which it hopes to release “as soon as possible.” But it offered no timeline for completion.
Earlier this year, the Union of Concerned Scientists released emails showing that the White House and EPA sought to block publication of a federal study showing the chemicals were harmful at much lower levels than previously thought.
“The public, media, and Congressional reaction to these numbers is going to be huge,” an unidentified White House aide wrote in one of the emails, referring to a “potential public relations nightmare.”
Bruton said there is valid disagreement among scientists over what the threshold should be for evaluating the risk of PFOA/PFOS, but the research follows a clear trend with studies showing the chemicals, even at relatively lower levels, can pose health risks.
“What I’ve seen is that over time, the levels tend to go down as more studies are done,” Bruton said. “The health advisory levels are dropping as our understanding of the toxicity increases.”
In the absence of federal regulation, some states, such as Massachusetts and New Jersey, have taken initiative by testing private drinking wells and issuing consumption advisories for some types of fish that have been found to be contaminated.
A spokesperson for the Georgia Environmental Protection Division said he was unaware of any action in the state on the issue.
Replacement foam ‘still toxic’
Between 2013 and 2015, public water systems across the country that serve more than 10,000 people were required to test for PFAS as part of a federal monitoring program. That testing confirmed that millions were drinking water that had been contaminated with PFAS from both industrial and military sources.
Among the water systems tested were several that serve residential areas close to Air Force bases in Georgia. Cobb County, Smyrna, Marietta, Atlanta, Warner Robins and Valdosta were all tested and did not report measurable levels of contamination.
But Elsie Sunderland, a professor of environmental chemistry at Harvard University, said the government’s reporting limit was too high for this class of chemicals, and much higher than what she uses in her lab.
“Just because it was tested and they said ‘below detection,’ doesn’t mean you know that you have no PFAS in your drinking water,” she said. “The test was not sensitive enough to see the PFAS in the water at levels we might be concerned about.”
The Air Force said it has taken several preventative measures aimed at reducing the potential for contamination of drinking water, including switching to a newer formulation of fire-fighting foam that the military said may be less toxic and persistent in the environment. The the foam used on bases has to meet specifications for suppressing petroleum-based fires.
But the EPA’s latest assessment reveals chemicals in the new foam are still quite harmful.
In fact, they could be worse: The replacement chemicals are more soluble in water, meaning they spread faster and are harder to remove, said Bruton.
“There ought to be a high bar for showing they’re safe, and in my mind that bar has not been met,” he said.
DeWitt, of East Carolina University, expressed similar reservations. She pointed out that most fire-fighting foam products are proprietary and could contain hundreds of different types of PFAS chemicals, many of them understudied.
“The phrase ‘less toxic,’ or ‘more favorable toxicological profile,’ doesn’t really give me any more comfort,” she said. “It’s less toxic, but it’s still toxic.”
By the numbers:
Since 2016, the Air Force tested soil and water at three installations in Georgia to determine whether its special firefighting foam had contaminated drinking water. They used the EPA’s drinking water advisory level of 70 parts PFOS+PFOA per trillion parts water to screen samples.
Moody Air Force Base: Testing conducted at eight sites on base revealed contamination in 22 out of 34 groundwater samples, as well as in surface water of Beatty Creek.Moody’s groundwater contained as much as 375,000 parts per trillion—more than 5,000 times the EPA’s advisory level.
Dobbins Air Reserve Base: The Air Force tested 59 groundwater samples at 16 locations at Dobbins in Cobb County.Thirty-nine of those samples were contaminated, with one reading as high as 80,770 parts per trillion—more than 1,000 times the advisory level.Surface water at Big Lake and two spills ponds was also affected. Groundwater on the base flows south toward the Chattahoochee River.
Robins Air Force Base: The Air Force tested 30 locations on the base and found contamination in 62 out of 77 groundwater samples, as well as some surface water samples, according to a site inspection report from this year.One sample was found to contain contaminants at 352,000 parts per trillion—more than 5,000 times the screening level.The report also said that in 2007, between 20,000 and 23,000 gallons of fire-fighting foam were released and flowed directly into the wetland north of the base, causing a documented fish kill in Echeconnee Creek.
https://www.ajc.com/news/local/contaminated-groundwater-toxic-legacy-georgia-air-bases/sKLbYPA7ucd7ojDr5NvtFI/
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EU Committee Publishes Opinion on Salicylic Acid in Cosmetics
Jan 3, 2019 | Chemical Watch
The EU’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) has adopted a final Opinion on salicylic acid in cosmetics.
The SCCS concluded that the substance is safe when used as preservative at a concentration of 0.5%, except for sprayable and oral products other than lipstick.
The committee also said that salicylic used for other purposes is unsafe at concentrations above 3% for cosmetic rinse-off hair products and 2% for other products.
However, in some products, such as body lotions, eye shadow, mascara, eyeliner, lipstick and roll on deodorant, the acid is only safe to use as a preservative and within the specified limit.
According to the classification provided by companies in REACH registrations, it is harmful if swallowed and causes serious eye damage.
Meanwhile, a study carried out by the Danish environment ministry said that salicylic acid is also an endocrine disruptor. The study, which also analysed eight other substances, was published in November last year and based on "solid scientific evidence", the ministry said.
https://chemicalwatch.com/73029/eu-committee-publishes-opinion-on-salicylic-acid-in-cosmetics
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Fracking Firms in Pa. Are Getting Billed for Millions in Impact Fees
Jan 3, 2019 | Philly.com
By Laura Legere
About 17 natural gas companies are expected to get invoices early this year for millions of dollars of impact fees they owe on low-producing shale wells after a state Supreme Court decision last week.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission is in the process of generating invoices for shale gas producers who disputed and did not pay impact fees on some wells in recent years based on a legal debate about what counts as a “stripper well” that is exempt from the annual fees.
Judges disagreed about whether a well had to produce more than 90,000 cubic feet of natural gas per day for one month of the year — or every month of the year — for the fee to be imposed.
The state Supreme Court settled the debate Dec. 28, ruling that only wells that fall below the production threshold every month of the year can be considered stripper wells
The decision confirmed the PUC’s interpretation but was a blow to the Armstrong County-based natural gas producer Snyder Brothers Inc. and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association, which had argued that the law’s exemption for stripper wells was more expansive.
Now the PUC is readying to collect fees that were left in limbo during the years-long case.
“We estimate that the recent Pa. Supreme Court decision will involve hundreds of wells with outstanding impact fees totaling millions of dollars,” PUC spokesperson Nils Hagen-Frederiksen said. The agency does not yet have precise figures.
Last June, Mr. Hagen-Frederiksen said 17 producers disputed that they owed fees on more than 300 wells due to the stripper well debate. That reduced the impact fee collection for 2017 by $6.1 million.
Producers disputed impact fees on 160 wells for 2016 and 35 wells for 2015, according to PUC records, although it is not clear if all of those disputes had to do with the stripper well definition.
PIOGA’s general counsel Kevin Moody said producers who agreed with the association’s interpretation of the stripper well definition had little choice but to withhold fees for their disputed wells while the case was being considered, because the law does not allow for refunds once fees are paid.
The Wexford-based trade organization is “extremely disappointed” and plans to ask the high court to reconsider its decision.
Among other issues, he said, the court appeared to ignore the law’s definition of a stripper well as one that is “incapable of producing” more than the threshold amount of gas in a month — and therefore accepted the PUC’s “absurd” position that drillers could otherwise simply choose to cut production for one month after 11 months of robust output to avoid paying impact fees.
Impact fees are distributed to state agencies, spent on statewide environmental projects, and sent to county and local governments to offset impacts to roads and services from drilling.
http://www.philly.com/business/fracking-pennsylvania-impact-fees-supreme-cout-20190103.html
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New Mexico Governor Prioritizing Renewables Over Oil, Gas
Jan 3, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
Seeking to diversify the economy from its historic dependence on fossil fuel production, which includes substantial output from the Permian Basin, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham wasted no time Tuesday after she was sworn-in to outline her priorities for education, jobs and renewable energy.
During a 30-minute inaugural address in Santa Fe, Lujan Grisham talked about reforming the state's public education system and modernizing its oil-dependent economy, stressing more focus on climate change and regulating the state’s booming oil and gas industry.
She said New Mexico should serve as a "national example of what a clean energy revolution looks like," endorsing a goal of generating 50% of the state's electricity with renewables by 2030. The state's current renewable goal calls for 20% by next year.
The governor’s staff characterized the remarks to as "optimistic and tough-minded," stressing that the state needs to develop industries that "will put New Mexicans to work."
While the speech was relatively light on specific references to energy policy, there was one reference that supported the governor's campaign message when she indicated her support for a state rule to reduce methane emissions.
Lujan Grisham said her plans for a methane mitigation rule "will not only protect our health, it will deliver more money for the state and create meaningful jobs. We will finally, finally be economically proactive...As world economies turn to clean energy, we will embrace our destiny as a global leader -- and in the process we will put New Mexicans to work."
She said dramatically increasing renewables would "insulate" New Mexico from "future oil busts" while helping protect the environment. “That means we will produce 50% of our energy from renewable sources by 2030 and set the course for 80% 10 years after that."
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116947-new-mexico-governor-prioritizing-renewables-over-oil-gas
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(ACC Mentioned) Regulator Examines Railroads for Hitting Customers With Late Fees
Jan 1, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Paul Ziobro
Federal regulators are scrutinizing fees imposed by Norfolk SouthernCorp. , Union Pacific Corp. and other railroads that are meant to get their customers on board with new procedures to operate more efficiently.
The large U.S. railroad operators are overhauling operating plans to streamline the movement of locomotives and railcars across their networks, emulating the turnaround plan implemented during the past two years at CSX Corp. , which operates a rail network in the Eastern U.S.
To encourage customers to go along, railroads are imposing fees when customers take too long to unload railcars, don’t have their facilities ready to pick up shipments and take other actions that could cause slowdowns on the rail network.
The Surface Transportation Board, which oversees freight rail service and rates in the U.S., is examining the practice. Chairwoman Ann Begeman said that while the body understands the need to improve service, it questions the fairness of a system in which shippers can get hit with fees but railroads aren’t penalized when their service is subpar.
“I just want to make sure they’re commercially fair to the shippers they’re serving,” Ms. Begeman said at a recent industry conference.
The railroads say they do offer credits to shippers when they are late to pick up railcars.
But the STB plans to track the fees more closely. Ms. Begeman has requested that all of the large railroad operators provide quarterly reports on how much they’ve tallied from the fees.
The STB has followed the spread of so-called precision scheduled railroading since Chief Executive Hunter Harrison began implementing the strategy at CSX before he died in 2017. The abrupt changes to the Jacksonville, Fla.-based railroad operator—including layoffs, closed facilities and idled equipment—initially caused gridlock across the network that delayed deliveries and disrupted the operations of some factories.
The STB fielded complaints from shippers about service, held regular meetings with railroad executives and convened a hearing in October 2017 about the problems and CSX’s response. CSX’s service has improved over the past year, as it has moved more product at faster speeds with fewer assets.
However, other railways, notably Union Pacific, have struggled with additional volumes and crew shortages that have caused service issues and congestion on parts of their networks.
Now they are following CSX with their own plans to improve service. Union Pacific, based in Omaha, Neb., in October began a new operating plan based on precision scheduled railroading.
Norfolk Southern, which competes with CSX in the Eastern U.S., in February plans to detail operational changes as well.
But as those changes take place, shippers have questioned the fees, which some view as a way to make money rather than improve service.
Paul Verst, chief executive of Verst Logistics Inc., a provider of warehousing and transportation based in Walton, Ky., reached out to the STB after Norfolk Southern, which provides rail service to his warehouses, proposed cutting the amount of time to unload cars from 48 to 24 hours before a $150-a-day fee would kick in. Previously, the fee was $100.
He saw the new fee structure, which went into effect Jan. 1, as purely a way to generate revenue. Sometimes he may need more time to unload cars because the railroad will drop off more cars than expected, he said.
“What they’re asking us now is not fair and reasonable,” Mr. Verst said.
In a letter to the STB, Norfolk Southern CEO James Squires said the new fee structure is intended to encourage quicker unloading of railcars so they can be put back in use and keep the railroad running smoothly. He said Norfolk Southern will increase the credits it will provide customers 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,” Mr. Squires wrote.
Other rail shippers say the higher fees are an undue burden, given the problems they have endured, and they are encouraged by the STB taking a closer look.
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,” said Jeff Sloan, senior director of regulatory and technical affairs for the American Chemistry Council, a trade group. “It seems awfully one-sided.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/regulator-examines-railroads-for-hitting-customers-with-late-fees-11546354801
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D.C. Circuit Declares Litigation Over EPA Ozone Standard Moot
Jan 3, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
A federal appellate court has dismissed several lawsuits challenging an abortive 2017 bid by EPA to stall a key compliance step for its 2015 ground-level ozone standard.
Because EPA has since dropped that bid, the suits, brought by a long lineup of advocacy groups and states, are now moot, according to an order issued yesterday by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The panel denied EPA's request for attorney fees, writing that the agency had not met the threshold set by federal law.
The court's decision furnishes a quiet coda to the fracas triggered by then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in June 2017 when he abruptly imposed a one-year blanket delay on attainment designations for the 70 parts per billion standard (Greenwire, June 6, 2017).
Under the Clean Air Act, those designations, which start the clock for states to devise cleanup plans for areas that are out of compliance, were due by October 2017. Pruitt cited a waiver in the act that allows for a delay when EPA needs to collect more information in pushing that deadline back to October 2018.
Critics denounced the move as a spurious attempt to aid polluters at the expense of public health; thousands of pages of records later released to E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act showed that EPA career staff were prepared to make the attainment designations on time.
Pruitt, reportedly under White House pressure, reversed himself two months later, saying that the information gaps were not as wide as first thought (Greenwire, Aug. 3, 2017). In the meantime, however, the American Lung Association and other groups, followed by attorneys general for 15 states and the District of Columbia, had challenged the attempted delay before the D.C. Circuit.
EPA has been trying ever since to win dismissal of the suits; however, the court continued to keep the consolidated litigation alive. In yesterday's order, the panel of judges — including Judith Rogers, David Tatel and Patricia Millett — also denied the plaintiffs' motion to formally vacate the June 2017 designations delay on the grounds that the circumstances didn't warrant it.
In response to a court-ordered timetable in a separate suit brought in U.S. district court by many of the same states and advocacy groups, EPA completed the attainment designations last July.
Ozone, a lung irritant that is the main ingredient in smog, is produced by the reaction of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in sunshine. EPA tightened the national standard to 70 ppb in October 2015 on the grounds that the previous threshold of 75 ppb, set in 2008, wasn't adequate to protect the public.
Business groups, noting that significant chunks of the United States are still out of compliance with the 2008 limit, have lobbied for a pause in implementation of the 2015 standard. In 2017, the House passed H.R. 806, a bill introduced by Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) that would have rolled back attainment designations for the standard until 2025, but the measure died in the Senate. Olson intends to reintroduce some form of the legislation in the 116th Congress, which officially starts today, according to a spokeswoman (E&E Daily, Jan. 3).
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/01/03/stories/1060110867
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EPA’s Action on Ozone Noncompliance Areas Nets Suit Dismissal
Jan 3, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
The EPA’s recent decision to designate areas not meeting ozone pollution limits means environmental and health advocates’ legal challenge to a planned delay in those designations is moot, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled.
EPA withdrew its notice to extend the deadline for designation of areas of the U.S., and instead issued a final designation of areas that exceed national ozone standards set at 70 parts per billion in 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Jan. 2.
The agency’s move effectively moots the appeal by the American Lung Association, the Sierra Club, and other organizations who argued the delay was illegal. The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. Bloomberg BNA is an affiliate of Bloomberg L.P.
EPA had announced in June it planned to delay decisions on regions of the country that fail to meet the national ozone standards.
Areas that exceed the standards can be required to impose a variety of pollution control requirements, such as restrictions on vehicles and industrial facilities, to come back into compliance with the Clean Air regulations. The ability of companies to secure permits to open or expand industrial facilities in certain regions can be slowed in such areas.
Parts of at least 22 states were identified as likely to exceed the ozone limits at that time, according to a Bloomberg BNA survey of state environmental agencies.
Judges Judith W. Rogers, David S. Tatel, and Patricia A. Millett participated in the decision.
Earthjustice represented the plaintiffs.
The case is Am. Lung Ass’n v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 17-1172, 1/2/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epas-action-on-ozone-noncompliance-areas-nets-suit-dismissal
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Trump’s EPA Stops Punishing Big Polluters for Breaking Federal Law
Jan 3, 2019 | Salon
By Igor Derysh
he Environmental Protection Agency has increasingly stopped punishing polluters caught violating federal laws intended to maintain air and water safety, according to a report by the watchdog group Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI).
The group found steep drops in the EPA’s enforcement of environmental laws in 2018, particularly in the EPA’s Region 8, which is made up of Colorado, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and the Dakotas, as well as 27 Indigenous nations. According to the EPA’s internal numbers, the agency opened 53 percent fewer enforcement cases in the region in 2018 compared to the previous year. The agency concluded just 53 cases in the region, less than half of the cases closed in Region 8 in every year going back to at least 2006. Between 2010 and 2015, the region saw more than 100 cases settled each year, Pacific Standard reported.
Nationwide, EDGI reports that EPA enforcement saw a 38 percent drop in orders compelling polluters to comply with the law and a 50 percent drop in fines.
“It’s another iteration of EPA’s industry-friendly approach,” EDGI’s Marianne Sullivan, a public health expert at William Paterson University, told High Country News. “It says we’re prioritizing industry’s needs and desires over the health of our environment and the health of our communities.”
The EPA’s attempts to roll back regulations have largely been caught up in the courts so the agency appears to be doing its own internal rollback, declining to police the laws it is responsible for enforcing by essentially ignoring the violations.
The EPA denied ignoring the law.
“There has been no retreat from working with states, communities, and regulated entities to ensure compliance with our environmental laws,” EPA spokeswoman Maggie Sauerhage told High Country News. “Focusing only on the number of federal lawsuits filed or the amount of penalties collected fails to capture the full range of compliance tools we use.”
But David Janik, who managed the EPA’s Region 8 legal enforcement program, said that focusing on compliance instead of enforcement “is a way of saying, ‘We might make people get back into compliance, but we’re resistant to the idea of punishment.’”
Janik told High Country News that enforcement is what helps achieve compliance.
“If I go 90 and I get caught, I’m paying $200 for punishment,” he said. “If one chemical company has a big case and they pay $40 million to settle it, other companies will say, ‘Maybe I should hire another guy to make sure we don’t slip into noncompliance.’ ”
The rollback of enforcement has helped companies save tens of millions of dollars in fines in some cases.
In 2015, the EPA and Colorado settled a case with Noble Energy after its gas storage tanks were found to leak volatile organic compounds. The VOCs were linked to smog on Colorado’s Front Range that has had alarming respiratory health effects. Under the settlement, Noble had to pay a $5 million fine and spend $60 million to reduce the leaks. Two similar cases resulted in substantial fines for the violators.
But three similar cases ended in much better terms for the violators after Scott Pruitt, Trump's first pick as EPA chief, took over. In all three cases, EPA declined to assess any violations at all and it’s unclear whether the companies involved were asked to do anything to address the problem.
The Noble settlement was part of an Obama administration program called National Enforcement Initiatives, which sought to limit the air pollution from oil and gas drilling. This year, EPA announced that the program would be renamed “National Compliance Initiatives” and would no longer target the oil and gas industries.
“It’s really about who’s going to benefit,” Sullivan told High Country News. “If industry doesn’t have to capture as much pollution, that may be good for their bottom line. But it puts the burden on the public. You can’t pollute for free. Either industry pays to capture it, or people pay with their health.”
https://www.salon.com/2019/01/03/trumps-epa-stops-punishing-big-polluters-for-breaking-federal-law/
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Novel International Greenhouse Gas Commitment Goes Into Effect
Jan 3, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
The United Nations is cheering a first of its kind international climate pact to curb the use of a potent greenhouse gas that went into effect on January 1.
The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, negotiated under the Obama administration in 2016, went into effect at the beginning of the year and binds the 65 countries who ratified the amendment to dramatically decrease their hydrofluorocarbon (HFCs) emissions.
Restricting ozone depleting pollutants was a main tenant of the Montreal Protocol signed in 1987. HFCs are organic compounds often used in air conditioners and refrigerators as alternatives to ozone-depleting substances. While they don’t directly harm the ozone layer, HFCs are hundreds of times more potent as greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide.
“The world has taken an important step on the road to drastically reduce the production and consumption of powerful greenhouse gasses known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and limit global warming,” the U.N. said in a press release Thursday.
Under the amendment, countries are expected to reduce their production and consumption of HFCs by more than 80 percent over the next 30 years.
It’s estimated that if adopted by all governments globally, the agreement can help avoid up to 0.4°C temperature increase due to climate change by the end of this century.
Those in support of the pact include the European Union, Japan, Australia, Canada and Mexico.
Despite the Obama administration’s integral part in negotiating the deal, the Trump administration has remained undecided on its support. Last February, George David Banks, Trump’s adviser for international environmental policy, said that he and his colleagues were still analyzing the 2016 pact to see if they’d recommend the president to support it.
“We understand that there’s broad industry support. But we really want to understand, in a more concrete way, a few things: how this benefits U.S. companies, how it preserves and creates U.S. jobs and how it can help the trade balance and help foster exports to other countries,” Banks said at a gathering at the time.
Banks said that if Trump were to support the agreement, he would first submit it to the Senate for ratification, which would require a two-thirds majority vote.
It’s been a frustrating series of heel dragging by the Trump administration for environmentalists and industry representatives alike who have fought for the United States to stay committed to the Kigali Agreement.
A joint April report from the trade groups Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute and the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, said that the deal will strengthen U.S. exports.
“Without Kigali ratification, growth opportunities will be lost along with the jobs to support that growth, the trade deficit will grow, and the U.S. share of global export markets will decline,” the report read.
In June, 13 GOP senators led by John Kennedy (La.) and Susan Collins(Maine) wrote to Trump asking him to submit the treaty amendment for Senate approval. They said the Kigali Amendment would increase manufacturing jobs by 33,000 and boost exports by $4.8 billion.
Yet other conservatives view the treaty, which was signed in Kigali, Rwanda, as a leftover from the Obama administration that should be done away with.
In a letter sent in July, 20 national and state conservative groups including the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Heritage Action asked Trump to pull the U.S. out of the agreement.
The groups argued that the agreement would increase the cost to U.S. consumers, saying it "would impose restrictions on production of the affordable refrigerants currently used in most types of air conditioning and refrigeration units and necessitate their likely replacement with more expensive alternatives."
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is also seeking to reverse previous plans to regulate the use of HFCs nationwide.
In September, the agency announced it would abandon restrictions on the use of HFCs in refrigerators and other cooling units across the United States. The draft rule also notably stripped out language on how climate change affects children.
The new rule would rescind a 2016 regulation that would have phased out the use of HFCs in appliances. EPA said the new rule is based off the agency’s own determination that the previous rule “exceeded its statutory authority” by extending a refrigerant management requirement meant for ozone depleting substitutes to the gas, which in itself does not contribute to ozone depletion.
Taken to task over the legality of the Obama regulation by two refrigerant manufacturing companies, the Trump administration defended the rule but lost in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in August 2017. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who sat on that court at the time, authored the ruling that overturned the EPA HFC rule, arguing that the federal government did not have the jurisdiction to regulate the gas under the Clean Air Act.
Environmentalist groups, among other organizations, appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court, but the Trump administration later announced that the appeal was unnecessary as it planned to change the regulation. It asked the court to not take up the case.
The Supreme Court later announced that it would not take up the appeal, on the same day that Kavanaugh started on the Supreme Court. He was not made part of that decision.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/423703-novel-international-greenhouse-gas-commitment-goes-into-effect
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