Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 1/4/2019
-
US Senate Confirms Alexandra Dunn as Head of EPA’s Chemical Office
Jan 4, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
The US Senate has confirmed Alexandra Dunn as the head of the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP). The vote on her nomination took place 2 January, after the Senate Committee on Environment... -
Senate Confirms 4 Trump Nominees to Top Environmental Posts in Last-Minute Vote
Jan 4, 2019 | HuffPost (in Mother Jones)
By Alexander C. Kaufman
The Senate voted to confirm at least four of President Donald Trump‘s nominees to top environmental posts Thursday in last-minute votes just hours before the 115th Congress adjourned. The confirmations, which received mixed... -
EPA Is Not Reviewing Chemicals under TSCA Due to Shutdown
Jan 4, 2019 | The National Law Review
By Richard E. Engler, Ph.D. and Margaret R. Graham
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently closed due to the lapse in appropriations, EPA has ceased all work reviewing new and existing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
My EPA Comment On IARC Monograph Leader Kurt Straif Being Nominated To The Science Advisory Committee On Chemicals
Jan 3, 2019 | Science 2.0
By Hank Campbell
The Environmental Protection Agency has requested comments on proposed ad hoc participants on the Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals, which inside EPA will analyze compounds as needed by the Toxic Substances Control... -
Massachusetts Legislature Passes Flame Retardant Ban
Jan 4, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
In the final hours of its 2018 session, the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill to ban 11 flame retardants from several types of consumer products. If signed into law by state Governor Charlie Baker, the measure (H 5024) will bar the sale... -
Of Teflon and A-Bombs, Chicago’s Buried River and Other Great Reads
Jan 4, 2019 | MinnPost
By Ron Meador
If you follow issues of environmental toxins and human health, yet another account of Teflon’s journey from laboratory miracle to drinking-water adulterant may sound like a trudge over familiar ground. -
Feds: Williams Can Begin Service on Expansion Project Supporting Two LNGTerminals
Jan 4, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Sergio Chapa
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has given the Oklahoma pipeline company Williams permission to begin service on an expansion project supporting two liquefied natural gas terminals along the Texas Gulf Coast. -
Two New STB Commissioners Are Officially Confirmed by the U.S. Senate
Jan 4, 2019 | Supply Chain Management Review
Earlier this week, the United States Senate voted to confirm two new Commissioners to the Surface Transportation Board (STB), an independent adjudicatory and economic-regulatory agency charged by Congress with resolving railroad... -
Sen. Thune supports Fuchs’ Surface Transportation Board Confirmation
Jan 4, 2019 | Transportation Today News
By Melina Druga
U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-SD), chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, said Wednesday he supports the Senate confirmation of Patrick Fuchs to the Surface Transportation Board (STB). -
APTA: Commuter Roads Met PTC Deadline Requirements at 2018's End
Jan 4, 2019 | Progressive Railroading
All commuter-rail systems have met the congressional end-of-2018 deadline requirements for positive train control (PTC) implementation, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) announced yesterday. -
NCTD in US Completes PTC Safety System Implementation
Jan 4, 2019 | Railway Technology
North County Transit District (NCTD) has completed the federally-mandated Positive Train Control (PTC) safety system implementation. NCTD is a public transportation agency in the US state of California. -
CSX to Pay $2.7M Over W.Va. Derailment, Spill
Jan 4, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
CSX Transportation Inc. won approval of a $2.7 million settlement to resolve oil spill-related claims stemming from a West Virginia train derailment despite a federal judge’s concerns the amount was too low to discourage future spills. -
California House Democrat to Reintroduce Carbon-Reduction Bill
Jan 4, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) plans to introduce for the third time legislation that would dramatically reduce U.S. carbon emissions. Lieu introduced the bill in 2015 and 2017, but the legislation never gained traction in the... -
Green Groups Threaten to Sue EPA over Utah, Ariz. Plans
Jan 4, 2019 | AP (in E&E - Greenwire)
By Brady McCombs
A coalition of environmental groups filed a notice of intent to sue yesterday, warning EPA it must hold Utah and Arizona accountable for missing deadlines to submit plans to clean up air pollution. -
MATS Proposal Spurs Uncertainty On Role Of 'Co-Benefits' In Future Rules
Jan 4, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's plan to scrap the Obama-era finding that the costs and benefits of the utility air toxics rule make the rule “appropriate and necessary” is spurring uncertainty on how the agency will count “co-benefits” that result from..
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
-
US Senate Confirms Alexandra Dunn as Head of EPA’s Chemical Office
Jan 4, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
The US Senate has confirmed Alexandra Dunn as the head of the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP).
The vote on her nomination took place 2 January, after the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) unanimously voted to approve her. The assistant administrator role puts her at the top of the OCSPP, which is the office that implements TSCA.
Ms Dunn’s confirmation puts an end to the vacancy that has been open since the Trump administration began.
She previously served as the agency’s administrator for Region 1 covering New England. Before joining the EPA, she was executive director and general counsel for the Environmental Council of the States (Ecos), a non-profit organisation that helps state agencies improve environmental outcomes. Committee hearing
At her Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) hearing on 29 November, Ms Dunn said she would follow the law of the updated TSCA, and bring all its provisions "to full effect."
Stakeholders expressed varying degrees of optimism about Ms Dunn’s suitability for the role. In a 3 December letter to the EPW leadership, a coalition of 26 industry associations signalled their support for her nomination. She would, the letter said, "provide OCSPP with the key leadership and experience needed to implement the recently amended TSCA".
NGOs also responded to the confirmation. Liz Hitchcock, acting director of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families highlighted the "big job" facing Ms Dunn. "She will be responsible for ensuring that the Toxic Substances Control Act is implemented as Congress intended, and for restoring the focus on public health and environmental protection that the current programme leadership has ignored," Ms Hitchcock said in a statement.
And Scott Faber senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG) said the organisation is hopeful Ms Dunn will "fulfil her commitments to implement our toxic chemicals laws as Congress intended."
"Americans should be confident that everyday products are not being made with chemicals linked to cancer. To meet those expectations, Alex Dunn will have to clean up the mess created by her predecessors", he added.
President Trump’s initial pick for the role, Michael Dourson, was mired in controversy. After details about his relationship with the chemical industry were exposed in emails published by the New York Times, Dr Dourson withdrew his nomination in December 2017, and subsequently left the EPA a month later.
https://chemicalwatch.com/73031/us-senate-confirms-alexandra-dunn-as-head-of-epas-chemical-office
-
Senate Confirms 4 Trump Nominees to Top Environmental Posts in Last-Minute Vote
Jan 4, 2019 | HuffPost (in Mother Jones)
By Alexander C. Kaufman
The Senate voted to confirm at least four of President Donald Trump‘s nominees to top environmental posts Thursday in last-minute votes just hours before the 115th Congress adjourned.
The confirmations, which received mixed reaction from environmentalists, fill long-vacant roles and save the White House from having to restart the nomination process with a newly sworn-in 116th Congress.
The nominees, among more than 60 administration officials confirmed in the 11th-hour voice vote, include those picked for executive posts at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the Council on Environmental Quality.
At EPA, Alexandra Dunn was confirmed to lead the agency’s chemical office. Dunn previously served as the EPA administrator for Region 1 in Boston. She won praise overseeing the New England region as an “apolitical” bureaucrat who The Boston Globe described in an August profile as gaining “respect for protecting the environment.”
The position as assistant administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention was left open since 2017, when former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt nominated Michael Dourson, whose consultancy InsideClimate News described in 2014 as the “one-stop science shop” favored by the chemical and tobacco industries. Dourson dropped out as Republican support for his nomination waned.
The other EPA nominee—the Senate’s final confirmation, just minutes before adjourning—faced more intense scrutiny from environmentalists and public health advocates. William Charles “Chad” McIntosh, Trump’s pick for the EPA’s Office of International and Tribal Affairs, came under fire in March when HuffPost reported on his 19-year career as the head of Ford Motor Co.’s environmental compliance and policy divisions.
During his tenure at Ford, degreasing chemicals spilled at a manufacturing plant in Livonia, Michigan, and broke down into vinyl chloride—linked to cancers of the liver, brain, lungs, lymph nodes and blood—and tainted the local groundwater“You can’t ignore these kinds of toxic chemicals in such an enormous quantity on your property, so whoever was in charge of the environmental state of affairs at this plant did not do his job. That’s McIntosh.”
“You can’t ignore these kinds of toxic chemicals in such an enormous quantity on your property, so whoever was in charge of the environmental state of affairs at this plant did not do his job,” Shawn Collins, an attorney representing homeowners whose groundwater was affected, told HuffPost in March. “That’s McIntosh.”
Among the most controversial nominees was Daniel Simmons, a former fossil fuel lobbyist who questioned climate science, to lead the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. After the White House nominated him to the post in June, Simmons backtracked on some of his past criticisms of renewable energy, insisting he “likes” zero-emissions energy sources. But, as Utility Divereported, he previously served as the vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy Research, a coal- and oil-backed think tank, and for the American Energy Alliance, its lobbying arm. The latter organization called for the abolition of the office Simmons will now oversee as recently as 2015.
Among the least controversial was Mary Neumayr, Trump’s pick to lead the Council on Environmental Quality. The presidential initially nominated Kathleen Hartnett White, a die-hard climate denier and fossil fuel ideologue, to run the seldom-discussed White House agency, which oversees the National Environmental Policy Act. But Hartnett White flamed out during her confirmation hearing, delivering one of the most embarrassing performances of any nominee as she withered before senators’ questions about basic earth science.
Neumayr, by contrast, appeared to be a “more middle-of-the-road” pick, theWashington Post surmised in June, citing her “reputation as a pragmatist.” She spent much of her career working for the federal government, including eight years as the chief counsel on energy and environmental issues for the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. During her confirmation hearing, she told senators, “I agree the climate is changing and human activity has a role.”
But unnamed insiders close to Neumayr, who until Thursday served as the Council on Environmental Quality’s chief of staff, told the Post she’s a strong supporter of the president’s deregulatory agenda. ThinkProgress criticized Democrats on the Senate committee that vetted Neumayr’s nomination for going easy on her.
The power of the Council on Environmental Quality changes from administration to administration. But the White House released a 55-page infrastructure plan in February that calls on the council to “revise its regulations to streamline NEPA would reduce the time and costs associated with the NEPA process.” Neumayr would be central to overseeing that process.
EPA declined an interview request, sending an email stating: “Due to a lapse in appropriations, the EPA Press Office will only be responding to inquiries related to the government shut down or inquiries in the event of an environmental emergency imminently threatening the safety of human life or where necessary to protect certain property.”
Neither the White House nor Energy Department immediately responded to requests for comment.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/01/senate-confirms-4-trump-nominees-to-top-environmental-posts-in-last-minute-vote/
-
EPA Is Not Reviewing Chemicals under TSCA Due to Shutdown
Jan 4, 2019 | The National Law Review
By Richard E. Engler, Ph.D. and Margaret R. Graham
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently closed due to the lapse in appropriations, EPA has ceased all work reviewing new and existing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Regarding new chemicals, although the Central Data Exchange (CDX) may still accept submissions, EPA will not process any information submitted via CDX until EPA reopens and it is not clear how EPA will set “Day 1” for TSCA Section 5 notices submitted during the shutdown.
We are unaware of EPA publishing a formal notice that it is suspending the review period of new chemical notices, but EPA will not be making any determinations on such notices during the shutdown. Submitters should continue to submit any required information (e.g., Notices of Commencement) even though EPA will not process or review such submissions.
EPA actions on existing chemicals (including risk evaluations and publication of the updated TSCA Inventory with active/inactive status) will be delayed. As previously reported, the first preparatory meeting on the Colour Index (C.I.) Pigment Violet 29 risk evaluation (scheduled for January 8, 2019) will be canceled if the shutdown continues through January 4, 2019, at 5:00 p.m., which appears probable.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-not-reviewing-chemicals-under-tsca-due-to-shutdown
-
Jan 3, 2019 | Science 2.0
By Hank Campbell
The Environmental Protection Agency has requested comments on proposed ad hoc participants on the Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals, which inside EPA will analyze compounds as needed by the Toxic Substances Control Act. At the bottom is my official statement.
Though a few of the submitted names are problematic, one is alarming - IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) Carcinogen Identification and Evaluation Monograph Program leader Kurt Straif, who is also a fellow at the activist group Ramazzini Institute, where Executive Council President Philip J. Landrigan routinely serves as an expert witness for various plaintiffs' lawsuits against the chemicals he helped get an IARC carcinogen classification.
Ramazzini, which for members has been deemed by legal watchdogs "an advocacy forum for their pro-compensation and aggressive regulation views on social and political issues involving occupational and environmental health" can scare anyone about anything. Cell phones, artificial sweeteners, you name it and if statisticians can correlate a link between it and a disease, Ramazzini and IARC will put a cancer label on it and then cash checks from lawyers.
They already have outsized influence in American policymaking. Linda Birnbaum, director of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), is a member and has so far survived numerous conflict of interest charges, which is how government continues to promote homeopathy about air qualitywhen we have the best air quality in the world in terms of actual pollution.
Straif is Head of Section of Evidence Synthesis and Classification of the International Agency for Research on Cancer but he even believes DDT can cause cancer, in defiance of every reputable science body in the world. Despite the fact that formaldehyde is produced in our bodies, he insists it is harmful in even lower levels in foods, so diet soda is killing us.
A weedkiller, glyphosate, with no plausible biological mechanism to impact anything but plants, is a human carcinogen, he claims.
That is why he is a favored epidemiologist by trial lawyer groups and the environmental NGOs they prop up.
His claims never pass the simple four word test toxiciologists, biologists, chemists, and investigators use when statisticians come up with kooky claims; where are the bodies?
They don't exist. Cancer has gone down since the invention of all those things. It remains a lifestyle disease, most often related to smoking and obesity/fitness, and then it has a genetic component. Environmental causes are so small they are accident.
There is nothing to be done about IARC at this point, they appointed a new leader who is so much an Old Guard insider she is married to a member there for 30 years, but we can still prevent EPA from being overrun by similar political activists.
If you agree that EPA science should not be hijacked by expert witnesses for environmental trial lawyers, you can comment until January 14th. It says it has no comments because of the government shutdown but they are being received.
***
Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT)
1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW,
Washington, DC 20460-0001
RE: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OPPT-2018-0605 FRL-9987-41 83 FR 64341 Document Number: 2018-27155 Request for Comments on the Experts Nominated To Be Considered for Ad Hoc Participation and Possible Membership on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC)
Dear Acting Administrator Wheeler:
We applaud the progress being made on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals. As scientific progress continues and new products come to the marketplace (or legitimate concerns about existing ones need further study) it is vital that the public regard EPA as the first line of defense to study compounds of concern while making sure that useful safe products are not undermined by environmentalists who hunger for new products to scaremonger.
That is why IARC Monograph leader Kurt Straif is a problematic candidate for inclusion in SACC and should not be approved.
This needs to be a body considered as ethically neutral as possible and Dr. Straif's work for trial lawyers promoting court cases against common chemicals that are portrayed as endocrine disruptors at trace levels, in defiance of the fundementals of biology, toxicology, and chemistry, instead looks like trial firms will have a "fox in the hen house."
The Toxic Substances Control Act is a vital resource for separating true health threats from health scares and we endorsed the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act modification. We also wrote an analysis of the first 10 chemicals under scrutiny. That is why we express our concern that members not be chosen based on "credentialism" when IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) has shown to be overrun in the last decade by statisticians who have no interest in true chemical safety, but instead, like Freedom of Information Act documents showed about fellow IARC member Chris Portier, get on groups in order to sway votes and then sign expert witness agreements with law firms poised to sue.
Since nominees can participate in SACC’s peer reviews of the EPA’s risk evaluations for chemical substances under TSCA. and even be considered for TSCA SACC membership to fulfill short term needs when a vacancy occurs on the chartered Committee, Straif's inclusion would be a sign that EPA is abandoning its efforts to reduce "secret science" - Straif quite literally changed IARC document verbiage after the Working Group analysis was concluded and held numerous secret meetings to insure that the results were framed as being beneficial for his prospective clients.
That is why wrong message to send to the public. IARC is already in the midst of turmoil because of their scandals and allowing their members to migrate to evidence-based organizations will only allow participants to repair their reputations. It will not help public trust in EPA science.https://www.science20.com/hank_campbell/my_epa_comment_on_iarc_monograph_leader_kurt_straif_being_nominated_to_the_science_advisory_committee_on_chemicals
-
Massachusetts Legislature Passes Flame Retardant Ban
Jan 4, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
In the final hours of its 2018 session, the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill to ban 11 flame retardants from several types of consumer products.
If signed into law by state Governor Charlie Baker, the measure (H 5024) will bar the sale or manufacture of bedding, carpeting, children’s products, residential upholstered furniture and window treatments containing more than 1,000 parts per million (ppm) of the following substances in any component part of the product: TDCPP; TCEP; antimony trioxide; HBCD; TBPH; TBB; chlorinated paraffins; TCPP; pentaBDE: octabBDE; and TBBPA.
The legislation also calls for the state’s environmental protection department to identify and recommend other flame retardants that should be banned every three years.
The bill lists the effective date as 1 January 2019. In Massachusetts, bills normally become law 90 days after the governor signs them. However H 5024 contains an emergency preamble which means it will become effective immediately after Mr Baker signs it.
The preamble says that: "deferred operation of this act would tend to defeat its purpose, which is to regulate certain flame retardants, therefore it is hereby declared to be an emergency law, necessary for the immediate preservation of the public safety."State, local bans
Massachusetts’ action has been taken as similar flame retardant bans come into force elsewhere in the US.
Effective 1 January, Maine has prohibited the sale of residential upholstered furniture containing more than 0.1% of a flame retardant chemical, or a mixture that includes them.
And a flame retardant rule also came into force at the start of the year in San Francisco. This blocks the sale of upholstered and reupholstered furniture and certain juvenile products containing added flame retardants above 1,000ppm. Controversially, this extends also to the electronic components of covered products.
San Francisco’s action sits alongside a newly adopted California law, which bans most flame retardants in residential upholstered furniture, children’s products and the interior foam of mattresses. This is slated to take effect in 2020.
https://chemicalwatch.com/73036/massachusetts-legislature-passes-flame-retardant-ban
-
Of Teflon and A-Bombs, Chicago’s Buried River and Other Great Reads
Jan 4, 2019 | MinnPost
By Ron Meador
If you follow issues of environmental toxins and human health, yet another account of Teflon’s journey from laboratory miracle to drinking-water adulterant may sound like a trudge over familiar ground.
But I can almost guarantee that Rebecca Altman’s elegant and complex essay for Aeon — “How 20th-century synthetics altered the very fabric of us all” — will give you fresh insight and a provocative perspective on this story with deep Minnesota roots.
Scotchgard, Teflon and other perfluorinated compounds of the PFAS group are her main examples of industrial pollution as ubiquitous “body burden.” But she begins the narrative a bit earlier, in 1938, with the placement of a Westinghouse Electric Corp. time capsule on the grounds of the New York World’s Fair.
Artifacts-to-be are listed — light bulb, telephone, nylon, safety pin (!) — but are not quite so interesting, 80 years on, as the sealant that accompanied the capsule into burial: 500-plus pounds of a heated “proprietary blend of pitch, mineral oil and a chemical compound called chlorinated diphenyl, known today as polychlorinated biphenyls (or PCBs).”
Initially Westinghouse labeled its container a “time bomb,” which turned out to have been rather apt:
Today, PCBs are a notorious class of global pollutants and carcinogens capable of interfering with human fertility, development, cognition and immunity. Though human-made, biology recognises and can even interact with them. PCBs are everywhere, and by design, they endure. Banned by international treaty, they nonetheless live on in relic electrical equipment such as light ballasts and transformers, in riverbeds, and even in creatures of the extreme deep. Scientists now call most PCBs legacy contaminants — enduring poisons from the past.
The next stop on Altman’s tour is the Manhattan Project and its triumph, an actual bomb with the brand-new capability to keep killing people long after its detonation.
Refining fissionable ore for the world’s first atomic weapons required an awkward process of turning it into a gas — uranium hexafluoride — using primitive, ad hoc contraptions with a high risk of exploding. Also required: one of the new fluorocarbon compounds developed by the chemist Joseph H. Simons for his employer, then known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.
Chemists soon descended on Columbia [University] to work on “Joe’s stuff.” Fumes wafted from the university’s windows, corroding the metalwork and shrivelling its iconic climbing ivy. Meanwhile, Simons would split his time between Oak Ridge — the secret Atomic City that the Manhattan Project built in eastern Tennessee — where he worked on fluorinated war gases, and Pennsylvania, where he endeavoured to develop a safer method for producing fluorocarbons.
He worked in parallel with the Manhattan Project, and at a fever pitch, as if the future of humanity hung in the balance. His kids rarely saw him. His health would soon plummet. What he achieved didn’t look like much, just a covered cauldron — a clunky, awkward metal vat “about as unimpressive as a washtub,” as Popular Mechanics put it. But it could brew up complex batches of fluorocarbons to help the cause.
Altman draws clear parallels between two toxic legacies — one radioactive and widely recognized, the other less obvious but far more pervasive (in Rachel Carson’s words, “a new kind of fallout”):
PFOA exposures have been associated with a number of adverse health outcomes including ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and cancers of the testes and kidney. The International Agency for Research on Cancer now names PFOA as a Level 2B carcinogen. The US National Toxicology Program recognises PFOS and PFOA as toxic to the immune system. Animal studies provide further indication that PFASs are biologically active molecules. Even at trace levels, they engage the endocrine system, and can partake in the physiological processes that fall under its dominion….
In addition to West Virginia, Ohio and Minnesota, there are known hotspots in New York, Alabama, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Michigan; in Antwerp in Belgium; in Osaka in Japan; in Arnsberg in Germany; in Veneto in Italy; as well as in regions of China, New Zealand and Australia, with more uncovered each year. From samples collected by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most Americans, about 98 per cent of the population, archive PFOS in their blood, and 99.7 per cent carry PFOA — both trends likely to bear out worldwide.
Simons’ personal story is another important narrative thread here, and Altman sees the toxic burden of PFAS compounds (and PCBs) as potentially fulfilling a futuristic and dystopian novel that the chemist wrote toward the end of his life, in which nuclear waste and industrial pollution have made humans extinct and Earth uninhabitable. Moreover, she observes, the taint has made us kin to Westinghouse’s PCB-sealed archive, as “walking, talking time capsules of 20th-century technologies.”
***
Another fascinating endeavor of human hubris, gargantuan in a different way, is rendered by Henry Grabar for Slate in “Chicago Dug the World’s Biggest Flood-Stopping Tunnel. What if the City Got It Wrong?”
Somehow I had managed to overlook Chicago’s second massive effort to monkey with the watery advantages of its location on Lake Michigan. In addition to making the Chicago River run backwards in the 1890s, so as to flush its sewage into the Mississippi River basin instead of municipal beaches, the city has been building for the last 53 years a new, underground river to keep floodwater from filling its basements (also, from fouling the lake and the views from Gold Coast apartment towers).
But the Deep Tunnel picks up sewage, too:
On rainy days, this subterranean passage, a conduit that can hold more than 1 billion gallons of wastewater, welcomes a roaring torrent of shit, piss, and oily runoff from the downtown streets. This megasewer, a filthy hidden portrait to the Chicago River’s Dorian Gray, is dynamic enough to create its own wave action if not properly supervised. That’s what happened on Oct. 3, 1986, when a geyser blasted through a downtown street, lifting a 61-year-old woman’s Pontiac Bonneville into the air like a toy, nearly drowning the driver in dirty water.
Altogether, 109 miles of subway-size tunnel lie beneath Chicago and its suburbs, covering more miles than the L, culminating in three suburban reservoirs (not the kind you drink from). This is the Deep Tunnel, formally the Tunnel and Reservoir Plan, and it may be the world’s most ambitious and expensive effort to manage urban flooding and water pollution. It is a project, in the visionary tradition of Chicago engineering, to bottle rainstorms.
So how is it working out? Depends on how you frame the question, and where you direct it. City officials claim that it protects 1.5 million structures from flooding, and has prevented damage estimated at $100 million to $200 million per year.
Before the project, as little as a one-third of an inch of rain could overwhelm the city’s sewers, sending wastes into the river as well as basements, and this tended to be a problem on about one day out of three. As Kevin Fitzpatrick, an engineer on the Deep Tunnel for 15 years, tells Grabar:
To have today’s types of storms without this capacity, I don’t think we could function as a modern city. A modern city shouldn’t have people’s homes flooded with sewage. It shouldn’t have a dead river without fish in it.
But even when the project is finished — the pipeline is complete, the final receiving reservoirs will need another decade — urban flooding will continue, according to Fitzpatrick. So the city is also pushing smaller-scale remedies on the order of rain barrels and green roofs. And keeping a wary eye on the shifting precipitation patterns that accompany a changing climate:
In the Midwest, for example, the amount of rain falling in the heaviest storm events increased 37 percent between 1958 and 2012. Big two-day storms are 53 percent more frequent….
Chicago is vulnerable. Of the 15 largest metros in the United States, only Houston and Miami have higher rates of flood-insurance adoption. There were more than 181,000 flood-insurance claims in Chicago between 2007 and 2011 amounting to $773 million in damage, according to a 2014 report by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a Chicago think tank.
The figures almost certainly underestimate the problem, because not all insurance companies release flood-claim data, and many homeowners don’t have policies that cover street flooding or sewer back-ups. A separate study by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources recorded $2.3 billion in damage between 2007 and 2014, with more than 85 percent of payouts occurring in the Chicago metro area.
Nevertheless, Grabar finds, the decidedly limited success of Chicago — a metropolis built on flat, swampy land, whose history “can be told as a series of escapes from wastewater, each more ingenious than the last” — is inspiring imitation in such cities as Philadelphia, Milwaukee, St. Louis, the District of Columbia, London and Guangzhou.
***
Some of that wastewater would no doubt be welcome in Arizona’s Mohave County, where changing land use is threatening a new era of crisis in a state that thought it had managed its way to sustainability decades ago.
Writing for E&E News, Jeremy P. Jacobs takes us to the countryside around Kingman, where Trump won 73 percent of the vote in 2016 and MAGA hats remain popular, for “It was ‘Land of the Free.’ Then the water disappeared.” That’s where state Rep. Regina Cobb, a dentist and conservative Republican, tells a forum:
We wanted to be able to put wells where we wanted to. We didn’t want monitoring. We didn’t want metering. We didn’t want government coming in and telling us what to do. Until we saw the number of wells that were being put into the ground.
Kingman is a city of 30,000 people and the seat of Mohave County, “one of the largest in the country, bigger than the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Delaware and Rhode Island combined.” Groundwater supplies all of its needs, and one recent forecast suggests it might run out in 55 years.
Just seven years ago, Mohave had no significant water problems. Population growth was slow and steady; large-scale farming and development were essentially absent.
That changed in a big way when a Las Vegas real estate developer, East Coast investors and California nut farmers were lured to the area by its nonexistent groundwater regulations. They snatched up thousands of acres and poked industrial wells more than 1,000 feet into the ground. Since 2011, then drove at least 163 wells, according to county officials.
Withdrawals for agriculture have quadrupled but recharge rates are unchanged, resulting in groundwater “mining.” The pace toward potential disaster is in the hands of the new farmers, many of whom have not yet begun to operate at full scale, but could do so at will and without notice. And Mohave isn’t the only part of Arizona in this predicament.
In neighboring La Paz County, a Saudi Arabian dairy bought an existing, nearly 10,000-acre farm and planted hay for export in 2014. In Cochise County, east of Tucson, private wells are pumping up sand. It’s an unexpected turn for a state that has the nation’s most robust groundwater management law.
Then there’s climate change and a pattern of deepening drought, which are threatening the state’s principal surface-water resource, the Colorado River.
If a shortage is declared on the river for the first time — a 50-50 proposition next year, according to forecasters — Arizona will be the first state to see its portion of the river’s water dialed back significantly in 2020. That has led to another fear in Mohave County and other rural areas of the state: Water managers in the booming metropolitan areas of Phoenix and Tucson will come for their groundwater.
The 1980 state law that mandated sustainable management of the state’s main aquifers includes provisions for monitoring groundwater levels and limiting drawdowns for irrigation. It created a two-tier regulatory system; depending the category, a landowner might be required to return as much water as had been withdrawn, or prohibited from expanding irrigated acreage, or made to prove that new developments had access to a water supply that would last 100 years. Farmers, a state official told Jacobs, were forced to trade their right to add new irrigated land for the right to continue pumping groundwater.
About 80 percent of Arizona’s population is within the management areas covered by the law. But Mohave County, with few people and little farming back in 1980, was left out of the plan and its protections. The law was written to allow expansion of the management zones by order of the governor, but it has never happened.
Meanwhile, Kingman’s aquifer in the Hualapai Basin is rapidly enlarging its deficit:
According to USGS, about 15,500 acre-feet of water per year historically was removed from the basin, while only about 9,900 acre-feet is recharged by snow and rain runoff, creating a net loss of about 5,600 acre-feet. (An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or as much as a Los Angeles family uses in a year.) Kingman alone generally pulls about 8,000 to 8,600 acre-feet per year.
In 2014, agricultural irrigators were also pumping 8,000 acre-feet per year, about the same as the city; two years later, that had quadrupled to 32,000. Since then two developers have said their projects will require 20,000 and 70,000 acre-feet, respectively, each year. As Nick Hont, a civil engineer, explained to Grabar, the math involved in forecasting the impact of those scenarios isn’t so difficult:
If users take 8,000 acre-feet per year, you have water for 400 years. If users pump 80,000 acre-feet, you have water for 40. It’s that simple.
https://www.minnpost.com/earth-journal/2019/01/of-teflon-and-a-bombs-chicagos-buried-river-and-other-great-reads/
-
Feds: Williams Can Begin Service on Expansion Project Supporting Two LNGTerminals
Jan 4, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Sergio Chapa
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has given the Oklahoma pipeline company Williams permission to begin service on an expansion project supporting two liquefied natural gas terminals along the Texas Gulf Coast.
In an order issued on Wednesday, FERC officials approved a request from Williams' Houston subsidiary, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co., to put its Gulf Connector Expansion Project into service.
Transcontinental, known as Transco, recently completed construction on three compressor stations in Wharton, Victoria and San Patricio counties.
The compressor stations will boost capacity along the natural gas pipeline and allow it to feed Cheniere Energy's Corpus Christi LNG facility and Freeport LNG's facility in Brazoria County.
FERC's decision comes when both Cheniere and Freeport are expected to put their Texas Gulf Coast LNG export terminals into commercial service over the next 18 months.
Cheniere recently sent the first shipment from the first production unit at its Corpus Christi LNG facility and has received permission to begin testing a second unit.
Freeport is expected to put two production units at its facility into service by the end of 2019 and a third unit into service by summer 2020.
With many nations around the globe switching power plants to natural gas, LNG is viewed as a growth industry for U.S. energy producers. Although natural gas burns cleaner than coal, environmentalists contend that LNG's key ingredient, methane, is a potent greenhouse gas.MoreCommentsPrint
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Feds-Williams-can-begin-service-on-expansion-13506973.php?src=hp_totn
-
Two New STB Commissioners Are Officially Confirmed by the U.S. Senate
Jan 4, 2019 | Supply Chain Management Review
Earlier this week, the United States Senate voted to confirm two new Commissioners to the Surface Transportation Board (STB), an independent adjudicatory and economic-regulatory agency charged by Congress with resolving railroad rate and service disputes and reviewing proposed railroad mergers.
The new Commissioners are Patrick Fuchs, senior professional staff member for the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and Martin Oberman, a Chicago-based attorney and former chairman of the board of directors for Metra.
Fuchs and Oberman were nominated by the White House for these positions last year.
In December, the Rail Customer Coalition (RCC), a large coalition of trade associations representing the manufacturing, energy, and agricultural industries reliant on railroads, penned a letter to President Trump, calling for the “urgent need” to fully staff the STB.
“A fully-staffed STB is essential to achieving freight rail policy reforms that will streamline overly burdensome regulatory procedures and promote greater competition in the rail sector,” the RCC letter stated. “The STB has been without a functioning complement for almost two years and subsequently American workers and businesses-manufacturers, small businesses, farmers, and energy producers-continue to face increasing costs and a lack of competitive options as the STB is unable to act.”
These confirmations were timely in that the confirmation of these nominees, for unrelated reasons, had stalled and run the risk they would be unconfirmed at the end of the 115th Congress, which was the case, but was quickly remedied with this week’s vote.
What’s more, the RCC letter added that the term and holdover year of STB Vice Chairman Deb Miller was set to expire at the end of 2018 and would have left the STB with just one of five Board members had Fuchs and Oberman not been confirmed.
These confirmations received a strong endorsement from Ian Jeffries, President and CEO of the Association of American Railroads (AAR).
“The freight railroad industry congratulates the new STB Commissioners on their well-deserved confirmation,” Jeffries said in a statement. “As Congress helps the Board get closer to a full complement of five members, we believe that the agency is now one step closer to realizing its Congressional charter to maintain a proven economic framework that allows the industry to earn the revenues it needs to serve a vast set of customers, while providing appropriate regulatory protections for these same rail shippers. We are confident that these new STB Commissioners will govern sensibly and be driven by sound economic principles. We hope that after careful review of pending proposals that the Board forgoes measures that limit the rail industry’s ability to invest for the future. The AAR and its members look forward to robust and transparent dialogue with the STB.”
http://www.scmr.com/article/two_new_stb_commissioners_are_officially_confirmed_by_the_u.s._senate/news
-
Sen. Thune supports Fuchs’ Surface Transportation Board Confirmation
Jan 4, 2019 | Transportation Today News
By Melina Druga
U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-SD), chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, said Wednesday he supports the Senate confirmation of Patrick Fuchs to the Surface Transportation Board (STB).
“I congratulate Patrick on his confirmation to serve on the Surface Transportation Board,” Thune said. “His knowledge and expertise as a member of the Commerce Committee staff has been a vital asset over the past four years. I wish him the best of luck and look forward to working with him in his new role.”
Fuchs has been a professional staffer on the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security since January 2015. He is the subcommittee’s senior professional staffer.
He previously served with the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Fuchs was confirmed along with Martin Oberman and will serve with Chairwoman Ann Begeman. Michelle Schultz’s nomination to the board was not advanced.
The STB is responsible for economic oversight of the U.S. freight rail system and has regulatory jurisdiction over railroad rates, mergers, new rail-line construction, line abandonment, line acquisitions, service, and other rail issues.
The bipartisan STB has five members who serve five-year terms and currently has two open seats.
https://transportationtodaynews.com/news/11557-sen-thune-supports-fuchs-surface-transportation-board-confirmation/
-
APTA: Commuter Roads Met PTC Deadline Requirements at 2018's End
Jan 4, 2019 | Progressive Railroading
All commuter-rail systems have met the congressional end-of-2018 deadline requirements for positive train control (PTC) implementation, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) announced yesterday.
As of Dec. 31, commuter railroads had installed all PTC hardware (wayside and onboard equipment); acquired all necessary radio spectrum; completed all employee training; initiated PTC testing in at least one territory; and submitted a revised plan and alternative schedule to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), APTA officials said in a press release.
"Installing and implementing PTC is an unparalleled technical challenge in scale, complexity and time required. The commuter railroad industry has made extraordinary efforts to meet the 2018 deadline and will continue their focus and hard work to complete full implementation before or by December 2020," said APTA President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Skoutelas.
Over the next two years, one of the biggest challenges facing commuter railroads to implement PTC — which is estimated to cost them more than $4 billion — is interoperability, APTA officials said. Commuter-rail systems will need to ensure their systems work seamlessly for both host and tenant operators, they said.
The North County Transit District (NCTD) already has fully adopted PTC. The agency announced it implemented the technology by 2018’s end along the 58.5 miles of track it controls within the San Diego County portion of the Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo (LOSSAN) rail corridor.
NCTD is one of only four commuter railroads that completed PTC implementation by the federally mandated deadline.
On Sept. 21, 2018, the FRA provided conditional approval of NCTD's PTC safety plan and conditionally certified its system, which was developed by Herzog Technologies Inc. Those moves enabled the agency to begin interoperability testing with Metrolink, Amtrak, BNSF Railway Co. and Pacific Sun Railroad, NCTD officials said in a press release.
On Dec. 27, NCTD notified the FRA it had achieved full implementation based on its completion of testing to demonstrate interoperability between its system and all passenger and freight trains operating within the San Diego portion of the LOSSAN corridor.https://www.progressiverailroading.com/ptc/news/APTA-Commuter-roads-met-PTC-deadline-requirements-at-2018s-end--56427
-
NCTD in US Completes PTC Safety System Implementation
Jan 4, 2019 | Railway Technology
North County Transit District (NCTD) has completed the federally-mandated Positive Train Control (PTC) safety system implementation.
NCTD is a public transportation agency in the US state of California.
The agency has implemented the PTC safety system for 58.5 miles of track within the San Diego County portion of the Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor (LOSSAN). Railway contractor Herzog was associated with this PTC implementation project.
PTC is an integrated command, control and communications system designed to prevent train-to-train collisions and derailments.
The system is capable of alerting engineers about potential hazards ahead, as well as provide notifications about excessive speed and unauthorised entries.“The enhanced safety that it brings to our customers and train crews is unmatched.”
NCTD Board of Directors chair Rebecca Jones said: “To finally be able to say that this system is fully implemented is so rewarding. The enhanced safety that it brings to our customers and train crews is unmatched.”
In September last year, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) conditionally approved NCTD’s PTC Safety Plan and its PTC system.
The conditional approval enabled NCTD to begin interoperability testing with railway operators Metrolink, Amtrak, BNSF and Pacific Sun Railroad and validate integration with its system.
The testing and commencement of the Interoperable Revenue Service Operation (RSO) with all operators was completed by 27 December last year. Subsequently, NCTD informed the FRA on the full implementation.
All trains are operating on the NCTD San Diego subdivision with PTC protection.
According to the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, all railway tracks that carry passengers or toxic-by-inhalation materials are required to install PTC systems on tracks.
https://www.railway-technology.com/news/nctd-in-us-completes-ptc-safety-system-implementation/
-
CSX to Pay $2.7M Over W.Va. Derailment, Spill
Jan 4, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
CSX Transportation Inc. won approval of a $2.7 million settlement to resolve oil spill-related claims stemming from a West Virginia train derailment despite a federal judge’s concerns the amount was too low to discourage future spills.
The settlement, approved by the Southern District of West Virginia, includes $2.2 million in civil penalties under the Clean Water Act and an additional $500,000 that will be used to upgrade local water treatment facilities.
Judge Joseph R. Goodwin, in approving the consent decree, said he was “concerned that a civil penalty totaling only $2,200,000 is insufficient to deter future oil spills.”
“Despite this concern, I nonetheless find that the proposed consent decree is not unreasonable or inadequate,” he said.
On February 16, 2015, a CSX train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed near Mount Carbon, W. Va., causing twenty-seven railcars to leave the tracks.
Many of the railcars exploded and caught fire, while damage to the remaining railcars caused oil to spill into the Kanawha River and Armstrong Creek.
The derailment caused a widespread power outage, shut down a water intake system serving 2,000 people, forced a four-day evacuation of nearby communities, and destroyed a neighboring house, the court said.
The federal and state government filed the Clean Water Act suit against CSX on July 23, 2018.
The parties filed a proposed consent decree on July 24, 2018.
Hunton and Williams LLP represented CSX.
The case is United States v. CSX Transp., Inc., S.D. W.Va., No. 18-cv-01175, 1/3/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/csx-to-pay-27m-over-wva-derailment-spill
-
California House Democrat to Reintroduce Carbon-Reduction Bill
Jan 4, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) plans to introduce for the third time legislation that would dramatically reduce U.S. carbon emissions.
Lieu introduced the bill in 2015 and 2017, but the legislation never gained traction in the Republican-held Congress. That could change now that Democrats hold the majority—though its prospects in the GOP-controlled Senate remain considerably dimmer.
The bill would mirror California’s 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, which seeks to reduce emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels. It would ramp up renewable energy production and set targets for energy efficiency. Energy suppliers could reach carbon reduction goals by trading credits through an emissions trading system similar to California’s.
The legislation is “one of the most aggressive climate change bills in Congress,” Lieu told Bloomberg Environment Jan. 4.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said at a Trinity Washington University event Jan. 4 that the House will take up legislation based on a 2009 cap-and-trade bill that passed the House but failed in the Senate.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act, better known as the Waxman-Markey bill after former Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman (Calif.) and Ed Markey (Mass.), would have created a system in which carbon emitters could buy carbon credits to comply with a cap on emissions.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/california-house-democrat-to-reintroduce-carbon-reduction-bill
-
Green Groups Threaten to Sue EPA over Utah, Ariz. Plans
Jan 4, 2019 | AP (in E&E - Greenwire)
By Brady McCombs
A coalition of environmental groups filed a notice of intent to sue yesterday, warning EPA it must hold Utah and Arizona accountable for missing deadlines to submit plans to clean up air pollution.
The announcement came just as a new layer of dirty air settled in over Salt Lake City in the latest winter inversion, a phenomenon in Utah's urban corridor caused by weather and geography.
The groups, led by the Center for Biological Diversity, filed the notice as the first step to legally challenge EPA, said Robert Ukeiley, the organization's senior attorney. EPA now has two months to act or a lawsuit will be filed, he said. The notice also asks that Arizona be held accountable for missing its deadline for an air quality plan for Pinal County.
Inversions hover over Salt Lake City as cold, stagnant air settles in the bowl-shaped mountain basins, trapping automotive and other emissions that have no way of escaping to create a brown, murky haze.
Doctors warn that breathing the polluted air can cause lung problems and other health concerns, especially for pregnant women and people with respiratory issues.
The legal filing comes a day after Utah's air quality board approved the plan it was supposed to submit last summer. Utah Division of Air Quality Director Bryce Bird said the plan was delayed because of technical issues with the model being used but should be submitted to EPA in the coming weeks. That should prevent the filing of the actual lawsuit, he said.
The Utah plan lays out actions implemented in recent years, including a requirement that only environmentally friendly water heaters and certain consumer products such as hair spray and nail polish be sold. It also details an existing ban on wood burning on the worst air quality days and a requirement that chain burger restaurants add equipment to limit pollution when using contained ovens, or broilers.
Additionally, the plan explains how an estimated $98 million will be spent by private companies and the U.S. government to add emission-reducing equipment at refineries and rocket propelling manufacturers and replace old boilers at Hill Air Force Base, Bird said.
EPA spokesman Richard Mylott didn't return an email and phone call seeking comment yesterday. His message said he was out of the office because of the government shutdown. Arizona Department of Environmental Quality spokeswoman Erin Jordan said she cannot comment on potential litigation.
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) said in a statement that officials recognize the need to improve air quality, which is why he recommended $100 million in his latest budget for the issue.
The state's air quality issues could get a new round of scrutiny if Salt Lake City is awarded the 2030 Winter Olympics. A decision by the International Olympic Committee is expected in several years.
Deeda Seed, a field campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity, said residents are grateful that many Utah officials take the issue seriously but said the results are lacking. The coalition that also includes the Center for Environmental Health and the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment wants EPA to issue a formal notice that Utah and Arizona missed the deadlines.
"This is really about holding the EPA accountable for the job it's supposed to do to protect our air," Seed said. "This about bringing attention to this issue. This is a critical time for us."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/01/04/stories/1060110955
-
MATS Proposal Spurs Uncertainty On Role Of 'Co-Benefits' In Future Rules
Jan 4, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's plan to scrap the Obama-era finding that the costs and benefits of the utility air toxics rule make the rule “appropriate and necessary” is spurring uncertainty on how the agency will count “co-benefits” that result from reductions in non-target pollutants to justify future rules' costs because the plan downplays such benefits but does not prohibit their consideration.
Industry and GOP critics of the 2012 mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) rule have long criticized the underlying cost-benefit analysis for counting the co-benefits from indirect reductions in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) the rule will achieve -- even though it only targets air toxics and does not directly target criteria pollutants like PM2.5.
They argue that removing the “co-benefits” of PM2.5 reduction from the cost-benefit analysis shows the costs of the rule are not justified.
"EPA is not saying that it can’t consider PM2.5 co-benefits when it makes regulatory decisions,” Jeffrey Holmstead of Bracewell who served as EPA air chief in the George W. Bush administration, said in a written statement on the proposal.
Instead “[t]hey’re just saying that, in this case, where virtually all the benefits are 'co-benefits' of reducing a pollutant that is supposed to be regulated under other Clean Air Act programs, we can’t use these co-benefits to justify a regulation that is only supposed to be about hazardous air pollutants."
A second energy sector attorney agrees, saying that the agency has in fact left the door open to future use of co-benefits, even if they are essentially discarded as the basis for the current proposal.
Supporters of the rule were fearful the agency's proposal, released Dec. 28, would undo not only the appropriate and necessary finding but also the entire air toxics rule.
Although EPA is proposing to leave the rule in place, these observers say it creates doubts on whether the agency can count co-benefits in future rulemakings.
An environmental attorney, who previously served in the Obama EPA, fears the proposal signals an attack on counting co-benefits in rules. The source fears this could lead to weaker health protections because discounting co-benefits could make it easier to claim the costs of more-stringent rules do not justify the benefits they would achieve.
The agency is "hard at work suppressing the value of the benefits of reducing air pollution" across the board, the source says.
In the proposal, EPA says that the Obama administration's counting of PM2.5 co-benefit reductions in the cost-benefit analysis for MATS was “flawed as the focus” of air toxics emissions cuts.
The agency says the analysis is at odds with the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in Michigan v. EPA that faulted the original MATS for not considering cost in the appropriate and necessary finding. The Obama EPA subsequently crafted that analysis, justifying the finding in part on PM2.5 cuts -- even though PM2.5 is not a hazardous air pollutant (HAP), and EPA issued MATS under CAA section 112 that applies only to HAPs.
Although the Obama EPA revised its finding in 2016, the revisions failed to adequately reflect the court's emphasis on cost, EPA now says. It argues that under Michigan, "consideration of cost would not be met if the cost analysis did not 'ensure cost-effectiveness' or 'prevent the imposition of costs far in excess of benefits.'"
'Highly Illogical'
EPA says that although "reductions in HAP can have the collateral benefit of reducing non-HAP emissions and vice versa," this "provides no support for the proposition that any such co-benefits should be the Agency’s primary consideration when making a finding under CAA section 112(n)(1)(A),” which is the provision that requires an appropriate and necessary finding before crafting an air toxics rule for a specific sector.
“Indeed, it would be highly illogical for the Agency to make a determination that regulation under CAA section 112, which is expressly designed to deal with HAP, is justified principally on the basis of the criteria pollutant impacts of these regulations,” the agency claims. Further, "if the HAP-related benefits are not at least moderately commensurate with the cost of HAP controls, then no amount of co-benefits can offset this imbalance for purposes of a determination that it is appropriate to regulate" under section 112.
EPA also notes that Congress in the Clean Air Act, as amended in 1990, left regulation of utility air toxics until after implementation of the CAA section 110 national ambient air quality standards program that regulates criteria pollutants such as PM2.5. This process provides "support for the conclusion that it is not proper to place much weight on the co-benefits of further criteria pollutant reductions" in the appropriate and necessary determination,” EPA says, because it shows Congress believed such findings should be based “primarily” on assessment of the utility sector's HAP emissions.
In a cost analysis memo EPA says it "believes that for purposes of the appropriate and necessary finding, the most appropriate basis for comparison is the relative size of the target pollutant benefits, both quantified and unquantified, relative to the costs imposed by the rule." That comparison is drawn from the Obama EPA's original 2011 regulatory impact analysis (RIA) for MATS which estimated implementation costs at up to $9.6 billion annually versus quantified HAP benefits of only up to $6 million.
Although EPA says it is legitimate to consider non-quantified HAP benefits, the agency does not attempt any reanalysis of these -- even though MATS supporters say these benefits could be in the billions of dollars.
EPA's focus on not giving "equal" value to non-target pollutant co-benefits, and not making them the "primary" focus of rules, is couched in terms of the specific section 112 provisions, unique to power plants, legal observers note. The agency also appears to be trying to make the MATS proposal comply with Executive Order 12866, which says agencies' "analysis should look beyond the direct benefits and direct costs of your rulemaking and consider any important ancillary benefits and countervailing risks. An ancillary benefit is a favorable impact of the rule that is typically unrelated or secondary to the statutory purpose of the rulemaking."
But EPA in the proposal says, "Although an analysis of all benefits and costs in accordance with generally recognized benefit-cost analysis practices is appropriate for informing the public about the potential effects of any regulatory action, as well as for complying with the requirements of Executive Order 12866, this does not mean that equal consideration of all benefits and costs, including co-benefits, is appropriate for the specific statutory appropriate and necessary finding called for under CAA section 112(n)(1)(A)."
A second environmental attorney says, "I assume they are trying to give a nod to longstanding executive orders and [White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB)] guidance that all benefits and costs caused by the policy should be considered, but the proposal fails persuasively to explain why giving 'equal' weight to co-benefits is impermissible.”
“The basis for decreeing that the PM benefits should be excluded or discounted is extremely thin, and certainly nothing in the Michigan decision requires or even supports that approach."
The source also warns that undoing the appropriate and necessary finding could give critics of MATS an opening to seek a court ruling undoing the entire rule. EPA's revised analysis is an attempt to “hide the ball” by not assessing the adverse health impacts of undoing MATS, therefore the proposal is “un-candid,” the source says.
Co-Benefits Analysis
The first environmental attorney, meanwhile, argues that the agency is saying that "[n]on-HAP pollutants just don't count, specifically when acting under section 112(n)(1)(A). This renders quantitative analysis of co-benefits simply irrelevant. It also explains why the proposal focuses on interpreting a specific statutory provision, rather than broad principles, in excluding co-benefits."
By entirely abandoning co-benefits in consideration of rulemakings, EPA can avoid a new, quantified cost-benefit analysis, the source argues. "I think that it is the case that the EPA is waging a campaign to use as many opportunities as possible to suppress the value of the benefits of reducing pollution.”
The source notes that the agency has indicated objections to including co-benefits in analyzing pollution control options, such as its use of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) metric, which generally monetizes the climate-related damages stemming from releases of an incremental ton of carbon dioxide.
Such estimates could be considered benefits in rules that cut greenhouse gases. Trump officials in several rulemakings floated “interim” SCC estimates that are drastically lower than the prior administration's values, largely by using a higher discount rate and by considering only domestic damages, rather than global risks that could be considered co-benefits.
The agency also June 13 published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on cost-benefit analysis, which seeks input on potential new approaches to address co-benefits.
Further, EPA's reliance solely "on the specifics of section 112 in this particular case does not mean that the EPA is not also hard at work suppressing the value of the benefits of reducing air pollution, including excluding co-benefits," the source says, echoing claims from environmentalists that the agency is seeking to downplay the health and other benefits of stringent regulation in order to advance its deregulatory agenda.
EPA is expected to face legal challenges if it finalizes its proposal, but the source says it is unclear how courts might rule on the revised regulation. While the current Supreme Court with its enhanced conservative majority might welcome an attempt by the agency to limit its own authority, "in Michigan the majority posited that 'appropriate and necessary' was a 'capacious' phrase, so even this Court would have to strain at least a bit to find an interpretation of 'appropriate and necessary' as precluding consideration of co-benefits,” the source says.
"I also think the EPA is going to have trouble justifying pegging costs to the 2011 projections as opposed to the lower actual MATS compliance costs and ignoring post-2011 science showing the damage caused by mercury when it concludes the benefits of reducing HAPs don't compare well with the costs of compliance," the source says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/mats-proposal-spurs-uncertainty-role-co-benefits-future-rules
Industry and Association News
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested