Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - January 11, 2019
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Wheeler’s Use of EPA Resources for Nomination Prep Draws Fire
Jan 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The EPA’s use of some resources during the government shutdown to prepare Andrew Wheeler as he seeks Senate elevation to permanent agency administrator is drawing fire from Democrats on the committee that will confirm him. -
Senate Democrats Blast Wheeler Confirmation Prep Amid EPA Shutdown
Jan 11, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Senate Democrats are blasting EPA's use of staffing resources during the government shutdown to prepare for acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler's imminent Senate confirmation hearing, charging that the move could be unlawful... -
House Passes Interior-EPA Bill in Bid to Open Agencies
Jan 11, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By George Cahlink
In a largely symbolic move, the House today backed spending legislation that would reopen EPA, the Interior Department and other environmental offices, although White House resistance means the bill won't become law. -
The Politicalization of Professional Medical Organization
Jan 10, 2019 | Independent Women's Forum
By Julie Gunlock
Following up on Charlotte’s excellent overview of the American Psychological Association’s truly nutty guidance that states masculinity is a mental condition in need of a cure, I want to say a word about these medical associations... -
Chemical Makers’ Data Duties Delayed by Shutdown
Jan 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The partial government shutdown is a potentially expensive “inconvenience” for chemical makers, who are awaiting word from the EPA on whether the data they were required to begin collecting Jan. 1 is what the agency actually wants. -
Forecast for U.S. Federal and International Chemical Regulatory Policy 2019: Asia & Australia
Jan 10, 2019 | National Law Review
2018 saw the continued development primarily in China, S. Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam of a wide range of chemical substance and product management statutes. 2019 is expected to bring changes to chemical control legislation in ... -
Forecast for U.S. Federal and International Chemical Regulatory Policy 2019: Mexico, Central and South America and the Middle East
Jan 10, 2019 | National Law Review
In 2018, we witnessed the continued development throughout the region of a wide range of chemical substance and product management statutes, at both the national and regional (e.g., state, municipality) levels. This is expected to... -
Pharmaceuticals in Reverse Supply Chain Now Hazardous Waste
Jan 11, 2019 | Material Handling & Logistics
By David Sparkman
A new rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires that prescription pharmaceuticals sent from healthcare facilities to reverse distributors must be regulated as solid waste and evaluated for hazardous... -
Ann Arbor’s Latest PFAs Test Results Inconclusive Due to Lab Error
Jan 11, 2019 | MLive
By Ryan Stanton
Ann Arbor’s latest PFAS test results are back from the lab, but they’re somewhat inconclusive due to a lab error. The lab only analyzed for some types of the so-called “forever chemicals” found in the city’s drinking water and used a ... -
(ACC Mentioned) H1 Outlook: PE Markets in US Monitor China Trade War Amid Bearish Sentiment
Jan 11, 2019 | S&P Global Platts
By Phillipe Craig
Houston — A year after a record-setting natural disaster led to a lack of clarity for the US petrochemical industry, it again finds itself entering a new year with more questions than answers. No longer feeling the effects of Hurricane... -
The Winners and Losers of Big Oil's Offshore Spending Revival
Jan 10, 2019 | Bloomberg (in the Houston Chronicle)
By Francois de Beaupuy
After four years of cutbacks, oil companies are poised to open their purses again and develop new offshore fields, although the benefits won’t be spread equally across the companies who provide them everything from seismic... -
Colonial Pipeline Explosion Injury Suit Proceeds
Jan 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
A petroleum pipeline inspector seriously injured in an explosion may proceed with negligence and other claims against Colonial Pipeline Co., a federal court in Alabama ruled. Any lack of clarity in John Covey’s allegations... -
Regulators Cite Contractors in Wis. Explosion
Jan 11, 2019 | AP (in E&E - Greenwire)
Federal safety regulators have cited two contractors for failing to locate a gas main that exploded during work in a Madison, Wis., suburb in July. A VC Tech employee punctured the line while installing fiber optics... -
Maryland’s Purple Line Rail Plan Pollutes, Suit Says
Jan 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
Maryland’s plan for disposing of material dredged during the construction of a 16.2-mile light-rail transit line violates the Clean Water Act and shouldn’t have been approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a new lawsuit alleges. -
Metra Adjusts Rock Island Schedule for PTC Impacts
Jan 11, 2019 | Progressive Railroading
Metra has unveiled a new Rock Island District Line schedule that includes necessary changes to accommodate positive train control (PTC) implementation and some service enhancements, such as new express trains. -
Shutdown Ties up Trump’s Fossil Fuel Agenda
Jan 10, 2019 | Roll Call
By Elvina Nawaguna
The partial government shutdown has snagged progress on President Donald Trump’s ambitious agenda to boost fossil fuel use and extraction, including the administration’s repeal and replacement of the Clean Power Plan, which... -
States Fight for Their Right to Follow California Car Rules
Jan 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
States’ efforts to protect their authority to adopt California’s vehicle greenhouse gas limits could be futile if the Trump administration succeeds with its proposal to strip that power from them. The Environmental Protection Agency... -
It’s Time for a ‘Green New Deal’
Jan 10, 2019 | Politico
By Sen. Ron Wyden
There is a groundswell of support in America to tackle the calamity of climate change. Addressing climate change is a national security issue, but renewable energy is also a jobs issue, a health issue and a pocketbook issue for each ... -
One Year Later, NYC’s Climate Lawsuit Wastes Taxpayer Money to Boost de Blasio’s Credentials
Jan 10, 2019 | Real Clear Energy
By Jude Clemente
On January 10, 2018, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he was suing five energy companies, seeking damages to pay for harm the city has faced as a result of climate change. In conjunction, the city also announced that...
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Wheeler’s Use of EPA Resources for Nomination Prep Draws Fire
Jan 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The EPA’s use of some resources during the government shutdown to prepare Andrew Wheeler as he seeks Senate elevation to permanent agency administrator is drawing fire from Democrats on the committee that will confirm him.
“The majority of EPA employees have been furloughed without pay since December 29, 2018,” Sen. Tom Carper (Del.), the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and three other Democrats wrote Wheeler on Jan. 10.
The letter comes as Wheeler prepares for a Jan. 16 committee hearing on his nomination as he seeks to be elevated from acting chief of the Environmental Protection Agency to Senate-confirmed administrator.
The Democrats pointed to the agency’s Dec. 31, 2018, contingency plan, which they said calls for a skeleton crew of employees during a shutdown, including six senior EPA appointees under Wheeler; a dozen deemed necessary to discharge a president’s constitutional duties and powers; and 794 employees needed to protect life and property.
“It is difficult to understand how preparing you for next week’s confirmation hearing credibly falls within any of the categories listed in EPA’s Contingency Plan,” the letter said.
Necessary StepsThe EPA defended the practice, with its general counsel, Matt Leopold, saying using agency resources to prepare a nominee ahead of “a confirmation hearing that has been scheduled by Congress is clearly excepted under Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, opinions.”
Additionally, Leopold said in the Jan. 11 statement, the constitutional appointment power that the executive branch holds “allows for EPA to take the steps necessary to ensure the Acting Administrator is prepared for his hearing,” adding that the agency “coordinates closely on all shutdown activities” with the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The partial government shutdown, now heading into its third week, has slowed or stopped work at Superfund sites, slashed enforcement, and essentially halted chemical and pesticide reviews, the senators wrote.
Also signing the letter with Carper were committee Democrats Ben Cardin (Md.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), and Chris Van Hollen (Md.).
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/wheelers-use-of-epa-resources-for-nomination-prep-draws-fire
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Senate Democrats Blast Wheeler Confirmation Prep Amid EPA Shutdown
Jan 11, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Senate Democrats are blasting EPA's use of staffing resources during the government shutdown to prepare for acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler's imminent Senate confirmation hearing, charging that the move could be unlawful and conflicts with the agency's formal shutdown contingency plan.
“We are concerned that preparations for your confirmation hearing may be occurring using resources that are not described in or authorized under EPA's Contingency Plan,” Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), members of the Senate Environment & Public Works (EPW) Committee, write in a Jan. 10 letter to Wheeler.
EPA's contingency plan notes that the vast majority of agency staff are furloughed, with only “essential” employees required to work without pay during the lapse in funding. The bulk of those staff are “necessary to protect life and property,” the document says.
But EPA officials say the confirmation-related work is considered “essential” and therefore lawful, adding that it is related to the president's constitutional power to nominate top officials.
The letter comes as the committee's Republican majority scheduled a Jan. 16 hearing to consider Wheeler's confirmation, which President Donald Trump sent to the Senate Jan. 9 but has been expected for weeks.
The latest charges further underscore the acrimonious battle that lies ahead for Wheeler's confirmation as Democrats prepare to push back over EPA's deregulatory agenda that is targeting a host of Obama-era climate and other rules, while Republicans appear poised to defend and facilitate the agenda.
Even though most EPA staff are furloughed during the shutdown, the senators say they have “been informed that most EPA political officials as well as some EPA career staff have been supporting your hearing preparations and briefings.”
They note that one agency notary certified Wheeler's ethics form Jan. 9, while five EPA employees have been copied on emails to senators requesting meetings ahead of the confirmation hearing.
Besides conflicting with the agency's shutdown plan, the lawmakers also charge that the hearing preparation could run “afoul” of the Antideficiency Act, which generally prohibits agencies from spending funds not appropriated by Congress.
EPA General Counsel Matt Leopold told the Washington Post that the Justice Department's legal counsel has “clearly” deemed confirmation hearing preparation essential work.
“Additionally, the Constitutional appointment power allows for EPA to take the steps necessary to ensure the Acting Administrator is prepared for his hearing,” Leopold told the Post.
EPA's shutdown plan deems 12 employees as “essential” -- and thus required to work during the shutdown -- because they are “necessary to the discharge of the President's constitutional duties and powers,” according to the senators' letter.
Shutdown Consequences
At minimum, the Democrats' letter seeks to highlight an awkward set of facts regarding the shutdown: Core EPA functions such as pollution inspections, enforcement and engine certifications are being delayed, but political activities such as Wheeler's confirmation are moving ahead.
“The consequences of the shutdown on public health and the environment include the slow-down or cessation of clean-up work at hundreds of toxic Superfund sites across the country, a halt in most EPA inspection and enforcement activities, and a stop to new chemical and pesticide safety evaluations and approvals,” the Senate Democrats write.
The lawmakers ask Wheeler to provide a range of documents, in advance of his Jan. 16 confirmation hearing, detailing confirmation preparation that has occurred since EPA's fiscal year 2019 funding lapsed Dec. 29, including a “legal justification” for each staffer who participated.
Even before the senators released their letter, Wheeler's confirmation was already likely to be contentious. In a statement shortly after his nomination was announced, Carper said he has been “very disappointed” in Wheeler's performance after urging him to “restore public trust” in the agency when he took over from former Administrator Scott Pruitt.
The Democratic National Committee blasted Wheeler in a press release, outlining various ways in which he would be a “disaster” as EPA chief, and environmentalists are sharply criticizing him as well for advancing a broad deregulatory agenda.
Wheeler “should not lead the EPA” because his “fingerprints are all over the very worst environmental proposals of the Trump Administration,” such as climate and toxic-substances rollbacks, said Dominique Browning of Moms Clean Air Force.
Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, added that the “only thing Wheeler is going to protect at the EPA is the profits of polluters. . . . I’m sure corporate board rooms will celebrate this nomination. But for anyone who drinks water, breathes air or cares about wildlife, this will be nothing but awful.”
Despite the strident opposition from environmental groups and Democrats, Wheeler appears poised for confirmation in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-47 edge.
EPW Chairman John Barrasso's (R-WY) decision to schedule a relatively quick confirmation hearing signals that the party hopes to install Wheeler as permanent EPA chief soon, and a range of industry groups are lining up in support of him.
“President Trump has made an outstanding choice for EPA Administrator. Andy’s extensive environmental and natural resource policy background makes him a perfect leader to assume this role in a permanent capacity,” said National Association of Manufacturers President Jay Timmons, in a Jan. 9 statement.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/senate-democrats-blast-wheeler-confirmation-prep-amid-epa-shutdown
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House Passes Interior-EPA Bill in Bid to Open Agencies
Jan 11, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By George Cahlink
In a largely symbolic move, the House today backed spending legislation that would reopen EPA, the Interior Department and other environmental offices, although White House resistance means the bill won't become law.
The fiscal 2019 Interior-EPA legislation passed 240-179 with only a handful of Republicans crossing party lines to support it.
It was the latest step in House Democrats' strategy of trying to pressure the White House to end the partial government closure by passing individual appropriations measures.
Republicans have rejected the approach, siding with President Trump, who has said he will not sign any new spending legislation unless Congress funds a border wall with Mexico.
"The EPA mission is to protect human health & the environment, the Trump shutdown has furloughed more than 13K EPA employees, stopping inspections of drinking water systems, hazardous waste management facilities, & chemical facilities," tweeted Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), who is expected to lead the House Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, this morning.
Trump showed few signs of backing down from his plans for building a wall. "The Democrats, Cryin' Chuck and Nancy don't know how bad and dangerous it is for our ENTIRE COUNTRY," tweeted the president, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
"The Steel Barrier, or Wall, should have been built by previous administrations long ago," he said. "They never got it done — I will."
With negotiations stalemated, expectations on Capitol Hill are rising that Trump may opt to declare the border crisis a national emergency and have the Army Corps of Engineers build the wall.Diverting emergency funds?
One option the administration has been eyeing is tapping into unspent emergency dollars already appropriated by Congress to pay for it (see related story).
Lawmakers from both parties have been wary of the approach, viewing it as an executive branch overreach that would wind up being challenged in court.
There also is a sense from both parties, though, that the only way to get the government to reopen might be to have the president act and then leave it to the courts to decide whether the wall can be built.Wildfires
Separately, the House rejected an attempt by Republicans, 190-229, to rewrite the Interior-EPA spending bill to boost wildland and forest research accounts by $21 million, a move aimed at signaling frustration with California's forest management and fire prevention.
House Republicans pushed the shift after Trump tweeted earlier this week he might cut FEMA aid for wildfire victims in California if the state did not improve forest management.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/01/11/stories/1060111703
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The Politicalization of Professional Medical Organization
Jan 10, 2019 | Independent Women's Forum
By Julie Gunlock
Following up on Charlotte’s excellent overview of the American Psychological Association’s truly nutty guidance that states masculinity is a mental condition in need of a cure, I want to say a word about these medical associations, which were originally stood up to help professionals communicate within their industries, have better access to information about their field of work, convey best practices and industry standards, and to provide guidance on regulatory issues the industry might face, or need to fight. That’s all good.
Yet, in the last several decades, many of these professional organizations have become increasingly political, specifically radically left wing. While many of these organizations (outside of the medical field) still provide valuable information to their members, in the case of the APA and many other medical organizations, politics trumps good science and proper medical guidance. That makes them dangerous.
Consider the recent guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which last year issued an official statement urging parents to limit their children’s exposure to chemicals found in food colorings, preservatives, and packaging materials. The statement, which subsequently received widespread news coverage, created panic among parents, who obviously regard the AAP as a trusted source of child health and safety information.
Before I discuss why the AAP guidance on preservatives, food coloring and plastic food containers is absurd and unnecessary, it’s important to point out that the official AAP process for releasing policy statements is outdated and it does not reflect—nor even consider—the opinions of its members. In fact, of the 67,000 members (which includes pediatric medical subspecialists and surgical specialists) only 100 AAP staff members are involved in the review process of policy statements (this was confirmed in a conversation I had with an AAP staff member). That’s right. The AAP doesn’t seek approval from its members before publishing these provocative statements yet these statements are meant to reflect the opinions of allAAP members.
According to Dr. E. Stephen Edwards, who was president of the AAP from 2002-2003, some members want the AAP to poll the membership before releasing policy statements but, he explains, “expense, logistics and a historically low voter turnout on other issues, such as elections, make that impractical.” He added: “Typically, only 30% of members vote on any particular matter, including the (election for AAP) president…We couldn’t get a sense of what the membership believes even if we tried to poll members.”
It is, therefore, hardly the consensus among pediatricians that parents should toss all of their plastic food containers and avoid convenience foods that might contain colorings and preservatives, all of which are approved as safe by the Food and Drug Administration. Instead, AAP’s policy statements reflect the opinion a small group within the organization—a group that has become increasingly political and that is actively pushing for European-style precautionary approaches to regulation, which demands onerous regulations on products and manufacturers even in the absence of scientific proof of danger or harm to consumers.
Regarding the specifics of the AAP guidance: it was entirely based on a laughably weak study performed by two radical environmentalists. The study “Food Additives and Child Health” was produced Drs. Leonardo Trasande and Sheela Sathyanarayana. The study claims chemicals like Bisphenol-A (known more commonly as BPA), “…can act like estrogen in the body and potentially change the timing of puberty, decrease fertility, increase body fat, and affect the nervous and immune systems.” That sounds scary except for the fact there has yet to be any study that conclusively shows causation between those conditions and the chemical. Sure, there are flawed studies and studies that show a correlation (which, naturally Tresande and Sathyanarayanacite in their own study), but to date, there exists not one study showing causation.
Interestingly, the AAP statement failed to mention another study on BPA--the just-completed CLARITY study produced jointly by the National Toxicology Program, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration. That study, which cost millions of dollars and was conducted over a five-year period, concluded that “BPA produced minimal effects distinguishable from background…” which means anything that was noted could have occurred naturally.
The CLARITY studyis the single largest, most comprehensive review of BPA ever done yet this reassuring study wasn’t mentioned in the AAP statement. Nor was the fact that several regulatory agencies worldwide, drawing on thousands of studies, have concluded that BPA is safe. So, what we have here is the AAP ignoring the findings of the World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the European Union’s Food Safety Authority, Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Norway’s Scienti?c Committee for Food Safety, France’s Food Safety Agency, Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Canada’s Health Agency, and Australia and New Zealand’s Joint Food Standards Council in favor of some anti-chemical environmental activist. Okay, sounds legit.
Why didn’t the AAP not mention these reassuring facts in its guidance? Even in subsequent media reporting on the issue, the AAP stood firm on its flawed recommendation, leaving out critical and very reassuring information.
The reason is simple: the AAP has become so politically motivated, that it’s promoting flawed scientific studies conducted by two agenda-pushing scientists over providing parents good information on child health.
The AAP also failed to mention the clear conflict of interest in promoting Dr. Sathyanarayana’s research. Sathyanarayana served as a board member of the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (WPSR), a local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, both of which are radicalanti-chemical, green organization that promote a precautionary regulatory approach. Dr. Sathyanayana is also a regular at environmental conferences, where no doubt, she’s paid to promote junk science—mostly her own. Dr. Leonardo Trasande also is a board member and advisor to two green organizations and he too is a regular at environmental conferences. One wonders what motivates these scientists to continue to crank out bad science….hmmm.
In any other industry, this conflict of interest would have to be disclosed—especially to doctors who may provide guidance to parents based on this terrible study. But it isn’t just Trasande and Sathyanarayana’s political activism that should have given the AAP pause. The AAP should have recognized disreputable scientists and studies cited in Sathyanarayana and Trasande’s study.
For instance, one citation wasto a studyconducted Dr. Shanna Swan, whose research is so laughably bad, its been dismissed by the National Toxicology Program. In one of Dr. Swan’s more amusing studies, she claimed Americans are ingesting dangerous levels of chemicals based on urine samples she collected from just ten Mennonite women (TEN—as in, all of them can fit in my minivan!) over a 48-hour period (as in, two days. TWO!). For a moment, let’s dismiss the hilariously small sample size and brief time frame of the study (which essentially makes this study’s conclusions useless) and focus on the fact that Mennonite women eschew modern conveniences, like plastic food containers and processed food. Naturally, these women would have lower levels of chemical residue in their urine.
Yet, Swann’s strategy is to claim that the mere presence of anyresidue, no matter how small, suggests a toxic dose. Since the Mennonite women had less chemical residue than, say, a woman who regularly uses plastic food containers, drives a car, uses a smart phone and lives a modern lifestyle, she concluded that living a simpler life—like the Amish or the Mennonites, is critical to the health of consumers. Yet, toxicologists know that humans can come into contact with certain doses of chemicals with no adverse affects. That’s why we often hear the phrase “the dose makes the poison” when talking about toxicological topics. Yet, that’s not a theory Swan ascribes too, despite that being accepted as fact since Paracelsus said it in the 15thcentury. Nor did Swann mention the fact that the Mennonite and Amish communities generally have many health problems.
Trasande and Sathyanarayanaalso cite a study by Fredrick Vom Saal, who, like Swan, is a well-known anti-chemical activist who has been called out within the scientific community for unscientific tactics in academic research and for ties to trial lawyers and anti-chemical for-profit industries. He’s even been criticized by the scientist who originally raised concern about BPA (and who now criticizes those who profit off producing observational studies that appeal to reporters looking for simplistic and scary headlines.
The study also cites Dr. Philip J. Landrigran, another well-known activist scientist who’s made a career of terrifying parents with the baseless and monstrously cruel claim that chemicals exposure causes autism and ADHD despite experts in those medical fields not yet having determined the actual cause of either condition.
Interestingly, Dr. Landrigan, is a leading member of the AAP (huge surprise there), serving on the Executive Committee of the AAP’s council on environmental health, which is the committee that officially issued the new policy statement. It’s nice to have friends in influential places.
Trasande, Sathyanarayana, Swan, Vom Saal, Landrigan are often cited in each other’s studies and their names often appear on the same list of advisors, board members and contributors to environmental causes.
In short, this clique of activist scientists supports each other’s preposterous studies that suggest death and doom for American consumers. These studies, while considered a joke among many in the scientific cmmunity, are gold to desperate click-hungry reporters (who usually have zero science training) eager to produce scary stories with scintillating headlines. These flawed but dramatic studies have made this cabal of scientists the media darlings of alarmism and mini-celebrities in environmental circles. These activist scientists also understand the massive power of these professional organizations and the willingness of parents to believe that “if the AAP says it, it must be true.”
What many parents don’t know though is that the AAP has become a creature of this minority of activist scientists eager to push through tougher regulations on food and product manufacturers. If the United States does adopt a precautionary regulatory regime, consumers will pay in the form of scarcity, higher prices and lower quality of products. For wealthy doctors like Trasande, paying more for food and common, everyday goods might not be a hardship, but for lower and middle class people, this could be a crippling financial burden.
For too long, the AAP and now the APA has allowed these politically motivated members to drive the agenda and have permitted these figures to use the prominence of these professional organizations to promote flimsy science. This is a violation of both organization’s missions, which is to help people healthy and support doctors who work everyday to accomplish that goal.
Medical organizations like the AAP and the APA need to clean house and create policies that discourage this sort of political activity from it's members--and among those who approve official policies.
https://www.iwf.org/blog/2808390/The-Politicalization-of-Professional-Medical-Organization
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Chemical Makers’ Data Duties Delayed by Shutdown
Jan 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The partial government shutdown is a potentially expensive “inconvenience” for chemical makers, who are awaiting word from the EPA on whether the data they were required to begin collecting Jan. 1 is what the agency actually wants.
Under federal law, chemical manufacturers this year must gather data on key aspects of their operations, such as the volume of compounds they produce or import and the industrial sectors that buy them.
But the government shutdown is delaying direction from the Environmental Protection Agency on the precise type of information chemical makers should be collecting and must submit, starting June 1, 2020. It also is unclear whether the requirement will be expanded beyond chemical manufacturers to other businesses.
“Assuming the proposed changes are not major, the delay in releasing the proposed [Chemical Data Reporting] rule is an inconvenience rather than a block impeding chemical manufacturers ability to do business,” said Kathleen M. Roberts, a vice president at Bergeson and Campbell, P.C. in Washington, D.C.
“The delay may cost chemical manufacturers time and money later in the year as they retrospectively analyze information collected throughout 2019 to ensure it is consistent with the changes, and if it is not, gather the information needed for the proposed changes,” she said.
The EPA uses the information it collects every four years through its Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule to support its oversight of chemicals. The data helps inform its decisions on which chemicals and uses warrant scrutiny to determine their potential risk to public health or the environment.
OMB ReviewA proposed rule to revise the data reporting regulation and specify the information the agency will require was poised to be submitted to a White House office for review prior to the EPA’s shutdown, Roberts said.
But the proposed rule had not appeared on the White House’s Office of Management and Budget’s website as of Jan. 10.
It’s unclear whether the EPA will limit the scope of companies that must comply with the CDR to chemical manufacturers, as it has done since 1986, or expand it to chemical processors, an idea the agency has floated before, said Javaneh Nekoomaram, an associate attorney in Keller and Heckman LLP’s Washington office.
Processors include companies that repackage chemicals into smaller containers as well as those that combine them into mixtures such as paints, glues, and cleaning products.
Types of InformationIn past years, the EPA has required chemical manufacturers to submit the volume of each chemical they make in or import into the U.S., the number of sites that produce each chemical, the industries that use it, the forms—pellets, dry, liquid, powder—in which each chemical is sold, and the numbers of workers exposed to it.
But the chemical production volumes that trigger reporting requirements have varied greatly over the years that companies have had to comply with the rule, previously known as the Inventory Update Reporting rule.
Industry CategoriesThe agency also has floated the idea of changing the industry categories chemical manufacturers use to describe the customers that use their products, Roberts said.
The EPA lists 48 potential industrial sectors that may use a chemical.
It can be challenging to figure out which industrial categories use a chemical, Roberts said.
Companies often need guidance to comply with each CDR reporting cycle, and the EPA needs time to prepare that guidance, said Tom Berger, a partner in Keller and Heckman’s Washington office.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/colonial-pipeline-explosion-injury-suit-proceeds
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Forecast for U.S. Federal and International Chemical Regulatory Policy 2019: Asia & Australia
Jan 10, 2019 | National Law Review
II. KEY GLOBAL CHEMICAL MANAGEMENT PREDICTIONSC. ASIA
1. Chemical Substance Management in Asia
2018 saw the continued development primarily in China, S. Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam of a wide range of chemical substance and product management statutes. 2019 is expected to bring changes to chemical control legislation in S. Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
1.1 China
China is expected to continue its legislative changes and regulatory development as mandated in 2016 in its 13th Five Year Plan for Economic and Social Development. It is certain that more regulations and national/industrial standards will be released and more enforcement campaigns will be carried out in 2019. Enterprises should pay close attention to the upcoming regulations for their activities, such as substance notification and transport/storage of hazardous products, which may be affected.
Chinese government agencies went through major reorganization through mergers and setting up new offices in 2018. The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) was rebranded and expanded to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), while also assuming some responsibilities previously assigned to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Agriculture, and Ministry of Land and Resources. The Ministry of Agriculture was rebranded and expanded to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) to oversee agriculture, rural development, and land uses, including registration and supervision of pesticides, fertilizers, and veterinary medicine. The Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM) was established to be responsible for work safety issues and natural disasters, assuming the responsibilities of the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), including registration, licensing, and management of hazardous chemicals. The National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) and State Council Leading Office on Reform of the Medical and Health System were merged into the National Health Commission (NHC) to oversee healthcare, including registration and management of drinking water-related products, and food-related products such as food additives, and FCMs and articles. The China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA), the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine (AQSIQ) were merged into the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), a new competition law enforcement agency that takes over the anti-monopoly enforcement functions previously spread among the NDRC, Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), and SAIC. The SAMR is also responsible for food safety and the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) under the SAMR is responsible for registration and supervision of medicines, medical devices, and cosmetics.
(a) Industrial Chemicals
The China State Council published on September 28, 2018, a Plan to Optimize Environmental Protection Regulations with an intention to improve environmental quality. The optimization plan includes repeal, consolidation, and optimization of current regulations, national/industrial standards, and normative documents regarding environmental protection to decrease inconsistencies and contradictions and ensure consistent alignment of local, provincial, and central legal stipulations. The regulations on chemicals will certainly continue evolving based upon the commitment to a greener future that was laid out in the 13th Five Year Plan and the Belt and Road Ecological and Environmental Cooperation Plan in 2017.
The 13th Five Year Plan requires the MEE to develop strategies and regulatory measures for greener environment and protection of the ecosystem by 2020, which includes establishing a hazardous chemical database, capacity, and capability for hazard identification and risk assessment, management of hazardous chemicals and wastes, and improving control of toxic chemicals. Several new regulations have already been released or updated in 2018, including the List of Priority Control Chemicals (First Batch), the List of Toxic Chemicals Strictly Restricted (2018), and GB 36700.1-.8-2018 Guidance on Hazard Classification to the Aquatic Environment.
The implementation of the List of Priority Control Chemicals (First Batch) will gradually phase out products contained in the list. The first batch of priority chemicals contains 22 categories of chemicals that are mainly intrinsically hazardous and highly bioaccumulative, and have the potential to pose great risk to the environment and human health; many of these chemicals are also listed in Annex XIV of REACH. The list will be updated periodically, and the “Guideline for Screening Priority Chemicals” is expected to be released by 2020. It has been suggested that some of the priority chemicals may be incorporated into product-specific regulations in the future.
The List of Toxic Chemicals Strictly Restricted for Import and Export (2014), which contains 162 categories of chemicals, was replaced by the List of Toxic Chemicals Strictly Restricted (2018). The 2018 revision is mainly based on the Stockholm and Rotterdam Conventions and contains ten categories of toxic chemicals. The uses of these toxic chemicals are prohibited, except for some special permitted uses, due to their serious adverse effects to human health or the environment.
The national standards, GB 36700.1-.8-2018 Guidance on Hazard Classification to the Aquatic Environment, provide supplementary classification guidance on aquatic environmental hazards. GB 36700.1-.7-2018 is based on Annex 9 of Revision 4 of the UN GHS and will become effective on April 1, 2019; GB 36700.8-2018 relates to Annex 10 of UN GHS Revision 4 and became effective on January 1, 2019. The GB 36700.1-.8 plus already implemented GB 30000.28-2013 enable China to align fully with the UN GHS Revision 4 with respect to aquatic environmental hazard classification.
Strengthening the enforcement of regulations was one of the key governmental efforts for improvement of environmental quality in 2018. MEE has conducted several enforcement campaigns against water and air pollution in 2018, which have resulted in the shutdown of thousands of factories and global shortages of many raw material supplies, including some pesticides and preservatives such as benzisothiazolinone (BIT). (Reisch MS, Shortage of BIT, A Key Preservative, Looms. C&EN. Volume 96(36) (Sept. 10, 2018), available at https://cen.acs.org/business/consumer-products/Shortage-BIT-key-preservative-looms/96/i36.) The Jiangsu provincial government announced on September 4, 2018, the closing of 1,000 chemical factories over the next three years. A new chemicals inspection campaign was also initiated in Shanghai to enforce registration and annual reporting of new chemicals.
The Environmental Management of New Chemical Substances (MEP Order No. 7), that has been in force since 2010 and is a revision of the 2003 regulations of new chemical substances, is currently under revision. The revised draft version has been under internal review since fall 2017 and is expected to be released in the first half of 2019.
SAWS drafted a new law called the Law on the Safety of Hazardous Chemicals for internal review in 2017. It was expected that the law might replace the current State Council Decree 591 Regulations on Safe Management of Hazardous Chemicals, which provides a legal framework for hazardous chemicals, including general provision for production, uses, licensing, and registrations of hazardous chemicals, GHS promulgation, and transport of dangerous goods. SAWS was, however, dissolved and its responsibilities were assigned to the newly established MEM in the overhaul of the executive branch of the Chinese government in early 2018, which will likely delay the progress of the proposed Law on the Safety of Hazardous Chemicals.
The Rules on Restriction of the Use of Hazardous Substances in Electrical Appliances and Electronic Products (China RoHS2) became effective on July 1, 2016. Its implementation requires the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to develop a standard achieving management catalogue and a list of its exemptions. The Standard Achieving Management Catalogue for the Restriction of the Use of Hazardous Substances in Electrical Appliances and Electronic Products (First Batch)and the Exemption List for the Restriction of the Use of Hazardous Substances of the Standard Achieving Management Catalogue have been released and will be implemented on March 12, 2019.
The Standard Achieving Management Catalogue (First Batch) includes refrigerators, air conditioners and filters, washing machines, electric water heaters, printers, copy machines, fax machines, television sets, monitors, personal computers, handsets for wireless communication, and telephones, totaling 12 types of products that must comply with the hazardous substance restriction limits, set out in national standard GB/T 26572-2011. The Exemption List contains details on 39 products or component parts that are exempt from the hazardous substance restrictions of China RoHS2, and their limits, if applicable; for example: mercury in certain lamps, lead in certain glass, alloys, or lamps, cadmium in certain electronic products, and hexavalent chromium as an anticorrosion agent of the carbon steel cooling system in absorption refrigerators.
China is gradually phasing out ozone-depleting substances (ODS). The uses of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC) will also be phased out as were uses of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), halons, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform, and methyl bromide. MEE announced that the uses of dichlorofluoroethane (HCFC-141b) as a foaming agent for the production of refrigerators, freezers, refrigerated containers, and electric water heaters will be banned as of January 1, 2019.
New legislation addressing soil contamination, the Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law, became effective on January 1, 2019, and sets out general principles for soil pollution prevention, risk management and control, pollution liability, public participation, supervision, and enforcement. The law introduces a series of soil pollution prevention and control management systems, including a soil environment database and information sharing platform, a management system for cropland, controls for pesticides and fertilizers, an inventory of construction land subject to risk control and remediation, and a directory of entities subject to key supervision for soil contamination.
(b) Agricultural Chemicals
China revised its pesticide regulations in 2017, which significantly changed the pesticide registration requirements and process in China. The revisions significantly impact foreign/multinational entities. Two requirements in particular are noteworthy: the requirement that chemistry and toxicology tests completed in countries without a MAD agreement with China must be repeated in China, and that foreign entities cannot directly distribute or sell pesticides in China, but must distribute or sell pesticides through either their own distribution entity in China or engage pesticide distribution agents in China.
Chinese MARA will gradually phase out highly toxic pesticides and complete the first 15-year registration review and reevaluation cycle by 2022. There are 40 banned and 32 restricted pesticides in China currently; four additional pesticides will be banned, including the production and use of sulfluramid on March 25, 2019, the marketing and use of phorate, aldicarb, and acesulfame on October 1, 2020, and of their production on October 1, 2023. Five of the restricted pesticides will have additional restrictions, including prohibition of agricultural use of bromomethane and endosulfan starting on January 1, 2019, and March 26, 2019, respectively, and banned uses of acephate, carbosulfan, and dimethoate on vegetables, fruits, tea leaves, fungus, and Chinese medicine herbs starting on August 1, 2019. It is expected that methylisophosphorus, phosphine, omethoate, and aluminum phosphide will be phased out by 2020 and carbofuran, methomyl, and chloropicrin will be phased out by 2022. The initial ten pesticides for the first 15-year registration review and reevaluation cycle are glyphosate, carbendazim, triazophos, atrazine, imidacloprid, alachlor, butachlor, dimethacarb, metolcarb, and quintozene.
Eighty-nine agricultural standards, including NY/T 3283-2018 Criteria for Technically Equivalency of Chemical Pesticide Technical Material and Technical Concentrate and NY/T 788-2018 Guideline on Pesticide Residue Trials on Crops, were published in MARA Proclamation No. 50 and became effective on December 1, 2018. Several new draft agricultural standards for environmental risk assessment of pesticides, ecotoxicology testing of pesticides in earthworm, fish, daphnia, avian, and amphibian, and pesticide metabolism and residue testing in livestock were released for public comments in the ICAMA Notice No. [2018]145 on September 25, 2018, and the ICAMA Notice No. [2018]152 on October 22, 2018.
(c) Food Contact Regulations
The Chinese regulatory system for FCMs and articles is comprised of a series of national food safety standards (NFSS) for FCMs, including GB 4806.1-2016 on general requirements, GB 9685-2016 on the use of 1,294 approved additives for FCMs, GB 5009.156-2016 general principles of pre-treatment methods for migration test, GB 31604.1-2015 general principles of migration tests, GB 31603-2015 general hygienic practice for FCM production, material standards, and test guidelines for individual substances under the Food Safety Law. GB/T 14251-2017 General Technical Standard for Metal Container of Canned Food became effective on October 1, 2018.
China’s NHC announced on May 9, 2018, that the draft NFSS on Food-contact Starch-based Plastic Materials and Articles and the draft NFSS on Food-contact Composite Materials and Articles were available for public comment. The draft standards define the FCMs and impose manufacturing and migration testing requirements. The China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment (CFSA) is drafting several new FCM NFSSs, including standards for adhesives and printing ink, and migration tests for several substances, which are expected to be released in 2019. Several existing FCM standards are also under revision, including GB 31604.1-2015, GB 4806.6-2016 on plastic resins, GB 4806.7-2016 on plastic materials and articles, GB 4806.8-2016 on paper and cardboard, GB 4806.9-2016 on metal and alloy, GB 4806.10-2016 on paints and coatings, GB 4806.11-2016 on rubbers, and GB 31604.7-2016 on decolonization test.
GB 2763 NFSS -- Maximum Residue Limits (MRL) of Pesticides in Food has been updated every two years since 2012. The latest version (GB 2763-2016) was implemented on June 18, 2017. The NHC published GB 2763.1-2018 NFSS -- MRLs of 43 Pesticides in Food on June 21, 2018, with the implementation date of December 21, 2018. Draft MRLs for 105 pesticides were notified to the WTO on Technical Barriers to Trade on February 19, 2018, with no implementation date provided. China’s MARA also released for public comment in 2018 several NFSSs on MRLs; these limits will be integrated into the next revision of GB 2763 and are expected to be implemented in 2019.
1.2 New Zealand
The New Zealand Environmental Protection Authority (New Zealand EPA) announced in October 2018 that it would be “ramping up” its chemical reassessments program and taking action on a priority chemicals list to ensure that risks to people and the environment continue to be managed effectively. When New Zealand EPA approves a chemical for use in New Zealand, the approval does not expire and can be amended or revoked only through formal action. New Zealand EPA states that it has already established the grounds for reassessment and completed a call for information for the herbicide paraquat. On October 29, 2018, New Zealand EPA announced that it is investigating products containing synthetic pyrethroids as part of the reassessments program. The call for information on such products will close February 1, 2019.
A sub-group of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Decision-Making Committee will consider further grounds for other chemicals on the priority list “in the near future.” If the sub-group decides that grounds exist to reassess a chemical, and an application is made for the reassessment to progress, then New Zealand EPA will consider issues such as manufacture and import volumes; use and application information; environmental exposure mitigation measures; scientific and technical information; cultural impacts; and the existence of alternatives. The sub-group will make a decision about the reassessment, and could make no change to the existing approval; increase or change the controls, or rules, around the chemical’s use, or revoke the existing approval and ban its use.
1.3 South Korea
2019 is expected to be a busy time in S. Korea resulting from substantial revisions of the chemical control legislation in the country that imposes new requirements on stakeholders. The amended Act on the Registration and Evaluation of Chemicals (K-REACH) is expected to come into force on January 1, 2019. After the implementation date, any person who intends to manufacture or import a new substance, or an existing chemical substance in quantities of one metric ton or greater per year must register under K-REACH. New substances must be registered before manufacture or importation. To ease the registration process, all new chemical substances manufactured or imported in quantities less than 100 kilograms per year will require only a notification, which includes administrative information but not a hazard evaluation of the substance.
All existing chemical substances manufactured or imported at greater than or equal to one metric ton per year shall be registered within given grace periods. There are different deadlines for each tonnage tier. The first deadline of December 31, 2021, is for existing chemical substances greater than or equal to 1,000 metric tons per year and for existing chemical substances at greater than or equal to one metric ton per year that are CMR. The next deadline, December 31, 2024, is for existing chemical substances within the 100-1,000 metric tons per year band. By December 31, 2030, existing substances from 1-100 metric tons per year shall be completed.
Before registration, existing substances must be notified to the Ministry of Environment (MoE) in advance to benefit from the grace periods. The pre-notification period will start on January 1, 2019, and end on June 30, 2019. This pre-notification will require the company’s information, substance name, volume, classification, and end uses. During this time of pre-notification, one can manufacture or import the pre-notified substances without full registrations. A S. Korean-based OR shall be appointed for foreign manufacturers who import chemical substances that require pre-notification or registration.
1.4 Taiwan
In Taiwan, the full legislature passed on December 21, 2018, a bill amending the Toxic Chemical Substance Control Act (TCSCA). As reported in our 2018 Forecast, in 2017, the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (Taiwan EPA) proposed and approved revisions to the TCSCA. The changes were sent to the national legislature for review in 2017 and expected to be adopted in 2018, but instead were forwarded to the Social Welfare, Health, and Environmental Protection Affairs Committee (Committee) for review. In 2018, during the Committee’s review, the Committee revised the bill to include the creation of a National Chemical Substances Control Board. Under the legislation, the Board will be tasked with policy related to chemical substances; decision-making; and cross-ministerial policy coordination. The Committee also revised the legislation to strengthen the toxic chemical disaster response and reporting systems and improve the insurance and liability provisions. Under the bill, the TCSCA will be renamed the Toxic and Chemical Substances of Concern Control Act. A rider to the legislation calls for Taiwan EPA to draft a bill within one year to regulate the existing chemicals manufactured, imported, and used in Taiwan. Once the legislation is signed into law, Taiwan EPA is expected to review over 30 subordinate laws and proposed updates as necessary.
As reported in Acta’s May 11, 2018, Global Regulatory Update, Taiwan EPA notified the WTO of proposed amendments to the regulations regarding the registration of new and existing chemical substances on March 31, 2018. The major amendments include designating the first 106 priority existing chemicals (PEC) that will be subject to the registration of existing chemical substances. The proposed amendments were expected to be promulgated by the end of 2018. Taiwan EPA planned to adopt the amendments almost a year earlier, with registration for the PECs beginning January 1, 2019, and annual reports on the volumes of PECs sold due in 2019. The delay means that registration will begin July 1, 2019, and the annual reports will be due in 2020instead of 2019. The list of PECs is available in the English translation submitted to WTO.
1.5 Vietnam
Vietnam has spent several years developing a National Chemicals Inventory that will list existing chemicals in commerce in Vietnam. The first draft Inventory, released by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) in 2016, contained approximately 3,000 chemical substances, while the most recent draft National Chemical Inventory, released in September 2018, contains over 31,000 chemical substances. Once MOIT issues a final National Chemicals Inventory, chemicals not included on the list will be considered new, and companies will be required to conduct an assessment and register the new chemical before import or manufacture.
In 2017, Vietnam replaced a number of regulations under the Law on Chemicals with Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP specifying and providing guidelines for implementation of certain articles of the Law on Chemicals and Circular No. 32/2017/TT-BCT clarifying the Law on Chemicals and Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP. Decree No. 113/2017/ND-CP, which took effect November 25, 2017, lists chemicals that are:Subject to conditional production or import (Appendix I);Restricted from production or trade (Appendix II);Prohibited (Appendix III);Required to have incident prevention and response plans (Appendix IV); andSubject to mandatory declaration (Appendix V).
Circular No. 32/2017/TT-BCT, which took effect December 28, 2017, includes information on the classification and labeling of chemicals and guidance on compiling SDSs, as well as declaring imported chemicals. In 2019, Vietnam intends to continue with administrative reforms and improve the permit system for chemicals. Vietnam will also review the implementation status of the Law on Chemicals since its adoption in 2007.2. GHS Initiatives
2019 is not expected to bring significant changes to GHS within the region. Summaries of some specific changes to GHS in the region are provided below.
2.1 Japan
In Japan, the government launched the GHS Inter-ministerial Committee. This committee began to exchange information to establish GHS-related domestic laws, promote the classification of substances in Japan, and implement the GHS classification of substances requiring a SDS under the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) Law, the Industrial Safety and Health Law (ISHL), and the Poisonous and Deleterious Substances Control Law (PDSCL). The National Institute of Technology and Evaluation (NITE) also provides GHS classifications performed by relevant Japanese Ministries in accordance with GHS Classification Guidance for the Japanese Government. The NITE list was last updated in May of 2018. 2019 is not expected to bring any significant changes to Japan’s approach to GHS.
2.2 The Philippines
2019 will see the completion of GHS implementation in the Philippines. Philippines Joint Administrative Order No. 1 of 2009 (JAO) established the coordinated effort to implement GHS. Eight governmental agencies that are part of the JAO are required to implement GHS. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issued a draft order in 2009 with expected transitions in various stages for industrial chemicals. The DENR Administrative Order No. 2015-09 was issued in May of 2015. Implementation is phased, with mixtures to be completed by 2019. The implementation is criteria-based according to Revision 3 of the UN model. No hazard classes or categories appear to have been excluded.
2.3 Vietnam
Vietnam’s Law on Chemical (Law 06/2007HQH12) was implemented in 2007. Subsequent Decrees and Circulars have been issued in support of the GHS framework. In late December of 2017, Decree 113/2017/TT-BCT, Decree 34/2017/ND-CP, and Circular 32/2017/ND-CP were issued by MOIT. The Decrees and Circular allow the use of classification in accordance with any version of the UN model from Revision 2 to current. Vietnam is allowing companies tremendous flexibility. Appendix 7 of Circular 32/2017/ND-CP includes exact guidance for those that do not wish to choose which revision of GHS to follow and appears to be in alignment with Revision 6 of the UN model. On July 31, 2018, the Vietnam National Chemical Database (CDAI) became available. The implementation of this database provides non-mandatory classifications mostly based on compiled lists from Japan, the United States, Europe, and other foreign companies operating in Vietnam. It also provides support and administrative procedures for the management of chemicals, sharing information between various departments in the chemical field, evaluating statistical data on chemical assessment, and providing information in response to chemical incidents.D. AUSTRALIA1. Timing of Australia’s New Regulatory Scheme for Introducing Industrial Chemicals Is Uncertain
As of this writing, the Australian Industrial Chemicals Introduction Scheme (AICIS) is still scheduled to begin July 1, 2019. The Australian government began work in 2015 to reform the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS). As reported in our November 9, 2015, memorandum, “Australia Implementing Reforms to the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS),” the aim of the reforms is to rebalance post- and pre-market requirements to reflect the risk of a new chemical, to streamline the current risk assessment process for new and existing chemicals, to use better international assessment materials, and to create a more appropriate compliance tool. In 2017, the Australian government submitted to Parliament a package of six bills that will establish the new regulatory scheme. The Industrial Chemicals Bill 2017 describes the legislative framework for AICIS, a reformed, risk-based regulatory scheme for Australia to continue to regulate the introduction of industrial chemicals. In 2018, NICNAS held public consultations on the following draft documents that, together with the Industrial Chemicals Bill 2017, will form the scheme for the introduction of industrial chemicals in Australia:Industrial Chemicals (General) Rules 2018: The General Rules contain details on how the introduction of industrial chemicals will be regulated under the new framework;Industrial Chemicals Categorization Guidelines: The Categorization Guidelines contain the technical details and requirements that industrial chemical importers and manufacturers will need to categorize their chemical introductions under the new scheme; andIndustrial Chemicals (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Rules 2018: The Transitional Rules describe how processes under the previous laws will transition to the new scheme.
The House of Representatives passed the legislation without amendment on October 17, 2017, and the legislation is awaiting debate in the Senate in 2019. As a result, the bills may not be accepted until mid-2019. The General Rules, Categorization Guidelines, and Transitional Rules have not been issued in final.
In 2019, Safe Work Australia (SWA) will continue its review of workplace exposure standards (WES). According to SWA, the review will result in recommendations for WES values, notations, and the list of chemicals. After reviewing comments received in 2018 on the consultation regulation impact statement for the WES framework, SWA plans to release the decision regulation impact statement in early 2019. SWA began its evaluations of individual chemicals in 2018 and intends to complete its evaluations, as well as an independent peer review process, in May 2019. By the end of 2019, SWA intends to have completed its review and issue final, revised WES for airborne contaminants.
The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources began a public consultation in December 2018 on proposed changes to regulations for agricultural and veterinary chemicals regulated by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA). The proposed amendments are intended to balance better regulatory effort with risk, improve the flexibility and responsiveness of the regulatory framework, and remove unnecessary restrictions. Draft measures include extending the range of applications that can be assessed as timeshift applications and broadening the range of application types that allow an active constituent to be approved with a product registration. The proposed changes would amend the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Administration) Regulations 1995, Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Regulations 1995, and Agricultural and Veterinary Chemical Products (Collection of Levy) Regulations 1995. The Department anticipates that further regulatory amendments, including those related to other measures in the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Streamlining Regulation) Bill 2018 (such as extending data protection as an incentive to register priority uses), will follow.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/forecast-us-federal-and-international-chemical-regulatory-policy-2019-asia-australia
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Jan 10, 2019 | National Law Review
II. KEY GLOBAL CHEMICAL MANAGEMENT PREDICTIONSE. MEXICO, CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA
1. Chemical Substance Management in Mexico, Central America, and South America
In 2018, we witnessed the continued development throughout the region of a wide range of chemical substance and product management statutes, at both the national and regional (e.g., state, municipality) levels. This is expected to continue in 2019.
1.1 Central and South America
In 2019, we anticipate continued focus on waste minimization and waste management policies and related legislation in the region. For the last several years, this topic has garnered significant media attention in the region, most notably with the visual broadcast worldwide of polluted waterways used to host sailing, rowing, and related sports for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This attention has focused the deliberative bodies of countries in the region to offer several legislative approaches to minimize and remediate these types of situations.
Argentina is expected to vote on a series of bills in both the lower (Cámara de Diputados; Chamber of Deputies) and upper (Senado; Senate) houses of its Congress in 2019 to accomplish this strategy. Senado Bill 2965/18 would create a National Strategy for the Reduction, Reuse, and Recycling of Household Waste, while Cámara de Diputados bills 5390-D-2018 and 5563-D-2018 would prohibit the “pre-programmed obsolescence” of electrical and electronic products, as well as legal requirements to manage waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), respectively. At the city level, Buenos Aires plans to vote on Bill 2711-2018 addressing the disposal of household medications that are past their established shelf life.
With respect to industrial chemicals, Brazil has the most legislation on the cusp of implementation. Arguably the most anticipated regulation to be implemented in 2019 will be Brazil’s Regulamento Químico Industrial (Industrial Chemicals Regulation; Regulamento), the bill expected to serve as a national chemical substance inventory and notification process in the country. The final text of the Regulamento was agreed upon in September 2018. The Regulamento is presently undergoing a judicial review of the text. Once completed, it is expected to receive signatures from the relevant Ministries (Environment, Health, Labor and Industry) before being sent to the Ministro-Chefe. The Ministro-Chefe will analyze the text again and, once it is validated, will send it to the Congress. Then the legislative voting process will start. We expect the text to be sent early in 2019 when President-Elect Jair Bolsonaro’s new government will be in place, although expected governmental changes may well delay this.
Additionally, Brazil’s draft resolution regulating governing the use of hazardous substances used in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is expected to be released in its final form sometime in 2019. The draft is based on Directive 2011/65/EU, the “Restrictions on the use of Certain Hazardous Substances,” and as such is colloquially known as “Brazilian RoHS.” The draft sets forth proposed restrictions on the use of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, binefil polybromate (PBB), diphenyl polybromate ether (PBDE), and four types of phthalates.
2019 is expected also to bring a consolidation of sorts in the Brazilian government, with respect to chemical substance management. The Ministério do Meio Ambiente(Ministry of Environment) of Brazil will merge with the Ministro da Agricultura(Ministry of Agriculture). This merger is anticipated to delay the legislative review process for the Regulamento. The two Ministries are of immense national relevance and have their own agendas, which overlap only a small fraction of their competencies. As such, the integration time and efforts are expected to be considerable.(a) Product Stewardship Initiatives
In early October 2018, Chile became the first country in the region to ban plastic shopping bags. In 2019, Brazil’s Senado is scheduled to debate Bill 382/2018, a measure that would place an outright ban on the production, sale, and import/export of plastic bags in the city limits. A similar bill in the Peruvian Congress (No. 03278/2018-CR) would ban commercial-use plastic bags but would replace them with biodegradable ones. Additionally, a bill before the Colombian Cámara de Diputados(Bill 123/18) aims to place a prohibition on the manufacturing, sale, and use of single-use plastic containers in the food and beverage industry, while Costa Rican Bill 20.958 would set requirements for the reduction and prevention of all types of plastic pollution. Finally, Peru is expected to further develop a decree that bans the purchase and use of single-use plastic bags, straws, or containers made of polystyrene.
Finally, the countries of Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Granada, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Peru, St. Lucia, and Uruguay have each signed on to the UN’s “Clean Seas” program. The program aims to reduce the “production and consumption of non-recoverable and single-use plastic.”(b) GHS Initiatives
Latin America has been slow to adopt the GHS. The lack of infrastructure and in-country support has resulted in few countries in the regions adopting GHS. Those that have adopted tend to follow the UN model with little to no derivations. This is primarily because many of the countries lacked a robust regulatory framework for classification previously. 2019 is not expected to bring significant changes to GHS within the region. Summaries of the current state of GHS are provided in more detail below.
Chile has not officially adopted GHS. In 2017, the Health Ministry finished and published the draft version of the GHS regulation, Draft Reglamento de Clasificación, Etiquetado y Notificación de Sustancias Químicas y Mezclas (Regulations on the classification, labeling and notification of chemical substances and mixtures). The draft regulation was approved on October 26, 2018. The regulation, once it is approved, will implement the UN GHS and will provide a transition period for the updating of the SDSs and labels.
Chile will accept GHS classifications in accordance with Chilean Standard NCh2245:2015. NCh2245:2015 indicates GHS classification, including the appropriate pictograms, signal words, hazard statements, and precautionary statements, is allowed in Section 2 of the SDS and on labels, but additional standards should be consulted to determine if additional information specific to Chile is required. In 2019, Chile could finalize the proposed regulation, publish it in the country’s Official Gazette, and provide the transition period for updating the SDSs and labels.
Colombia recently entered into the OECD in 2018. Becoming a member of OECD required Colombia to implement GHS. The Colombian Ministerio de Trabajo(Ministry of Labor) has issued final legislation adopting the Sixth Edition of GHS. Decree 1496 was published on August 6, 2018. The responsible Ministries -- Labor, Agriculture, Transportation, and Health -- will establish the transition period(s) and date(s) for implementation.
Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare published the Harmonized System for the Identification and Communications of Hazards and Risks from Hazardous Chemicals in the Workplace (NOM-018-STPS-2015) on October 9, 2015. NOM-018-STPS-2015 is a UN GHS Rev 5 implementation. All hazard classes and categories were included in the NOM with the exception of the environmental hazard classes. No additional hazards were added. The transition period for mandatory compliance ended October 9, 2018. With the transition period ending in 2018, 2019 should be a relatively quiet one for Mexico.F. MIDDLE EAST1. Chemical Substance Management in the Middle East
The Middle East historically has been considered to be at a relatively nascent stage with regard to the development and implementation of chemical substance regulations. There may be a variety of reasons for this perception, ranging from a lack of fluency in Arabic, Hebrew, or Urdu, to a somewhat insular culture within the region, and to the tendency to focus on geographic regions with more robust commercial and business operations. There are, however, chemical regulations in force, many of which have been in place for several decades. There is little legislative development on the horizon for 2019except in three key areas -- the development of a GHS-type regulation, the implementation of a cosmetic substance directive, and the potential enactment of a ban on non-degradable plastic products.1.1 GHS
On May 24, 2018, OECD adopted the “Decision-Recommendation of the Council on the Co-operative Investigation and Risk Reduction of Chemicals” (Decision-Recommendation). As noted in our October 25, 2018, “Clients and Friends Memorandum,” Article IX mandated “that Adherents shall implement the GHS in order to further hazard communication in the supply chain.” As such, Israel, the only Middle Eastern OECD Member State, has elected to begin the implementation process in 2019.
Israel has submitted two drafts of legislation that would implement GHS in the country to the WTO. The two drafts encompass aspects relating to substances and mixtures, and to transportation.
“SI 2302 Part 1 - Dangerous Substances and Mixtures: Classification, Labelling, Marking and Packaging” replaces the December 3, 2013, draft that was predominantly based on EU Regulation 1272/2008, colloquially known as the CLP regulation. There is, however, some uncertainty about the GHS version Part 1 is based upon; for example, Part 1 identifies “flammable aerosols” and not “aerosols” as an endpoint, which would appear to make it based on the Third Revision. Additionally, hazard classifications H229, H230, and H231, which were first introduced in the Fourth Revision, are included in Part 1. “SI 2302 Part 2 - Dangerous Substances and Mixtures: Transportation -- Classification, Labelling, Marking and Packaging” remains largely unchanged.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has begun developing plans to implement GHS among its Member States (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman), with work potentially beginning in mid-2019. This follows efforts by the Gulf Standardization Organization made in 2018, in partnership with the Gulf Petrochemical and Chemicals Association’s Responsible Care Committee, to implement a Code of Practice relating to chemical hazard communication. The Code of Practice proposed data and rules used to classify such substances, as well as directed the format of SDSs and product labels. The Committee largely based its classification criteria on the CLP regulation, as it is an extremely robust source of information. The GCC views adoption of this Code of Practice by its Member States as the first step to implementing GHS.1.2 Product Stewardship
Somewhat similar to countries in Central and South America, the Middle East is beginning to make legislative inroads into waste reduction. In 2019, the Kingdom of Bahrain is expected to promulgate a National Technical Regulation (TR) to phase out the import, sale, or distribution of non-degradable plastic products. The proposed TR sets out the requirements with respect to specifications, licenses, labeling, and other requirements for such products.1.3 Chemical Substances
While a comprehensive chemical substance regulation at the national level continues to be a distant goal, the countries of Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have each announced that they plan to incorporate the GCC’s draft regulation for cosmetic products into their respective national laws, sometime in 2019. This regulation, “Cosmetic Products - Safety Requirements of Cosmetics and Personal Care Products,” addresses the general safety requirements and parameters, as well as labeling and packaging requirements, for all cosmetics and personal care products. The regulation specifies six functions, or purposes, of use for cosmetic and personal care products: to clean, to perfume, to change the appearance, to protect, to keep in good condition, and to correct body odors.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/forecast-us-federal-and-international-chemical-regulatory-policy-2019-mexico-central
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Pharmaceuticals in Reverse Supply Chain Now Hazardous Waste
Jan 11, 2019 | Material Handling & Logistics
By David Sparkman
A new rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires that prescription pharmaceuticals sent from healthcare facilities to reverse distributors must be regulated as solid waste and evaluated for hazardous classification at the healthcare facility before they are shipped.
First proposed four years ago, the final rule was signed in December 2018 by EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler and is expected to become effective in June. “This rule will impose significant new obligations on healthcare providers, including pharmacies and long-term care providers, as well as forward and reverse distributors of pharmaceuticals,” state attorneys for the law firm of Foley & Lardner.
In the 1980s and 1990s, EPA’s position in policy memoranda was that pharmaceuticals in the reverse distribution chain were “not considered wastes until a determination has been made to discard them.” That approach worked well for healthcare providers, who frequently relied on reverse distributors to determine whether their unused prescription and over-the-counter medications could be credited/reused/reclaimed or should be discarded, the lawyers note.
The EPA during the administration of President George W. Bush proposed classifying returned pharmaceuticals as “universal waste” entitled to relaxed management standards, but never finalized that rulemaking after concerns were raised regarding the potential diversion of narcotics and other medications regulated by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
The Obama Administration proposed the current rule in September 2015, offering an entirely new set of management standards for unused pharmaceuticals. In the subsequent three years, industry representatives, EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget held discussions about how far such a rule should go.
It sounds like someone gave the impression of being entirely too comfortable with the status quo. In the December publication of the final rule, EPA noted its concern that many industry participants have come to disregard the intent behind the agency’s prior guidance, and erroneously believed that it was a blanket statement that no pharmaceuticals going through reverse distribution were considered solid waste.
The upshot is that the final rule now treats prescription pharmaceuticals—but not non-prescription drugs—as having been “discarded” by a pharmacy, hospital, or other healthcare provider when it decides to ship the material to a reverse distributor. Upon being “discarded,” those pharmaceuticals become solid waste, triggering management obligations under the Resource Conservation and Restoration Act (RCRA).
This applies to pharmaceuticals that are characteristically toxic, or that meet the definition of certain “listed” wastes, such as P and U listed acutely hazardous substances. Chemicals on the P list are considered acute hazardous wastes and those on the U list are identified as toxic wastes. Some chemicals on both lists may also be designated to have other properties.Industry-Specific Requirements
To accommodate the unique market arrangements for pharmaceuticals, EPA’s final rule establishes an industry-specific set of requirements for prescription pharmaceuticals under RCRA, the Foley & Lardner attorneys point out.
When it comes to non-prescription pharmaceuticals, EPA took a different approach and will continue to allow healthcare providers to ship potentially reusable and reclaimable over-the-counter drugs and dietary supplements as recyclable materials outside the RCRA waste regime to reverse distributors, where the actual decision to reuse/reclaim or discard the material will be made.
The pharmaceutical waste management standards establish requirements for healthcare facilities (a term broadly defined to include hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and long-term care facilities) as well as third-party logistics providers. Healthcare facilities that dispose of prescription drugs must register with EPA. They also are required to separate listed or characteristically hazardous (toxic, flammable, reactive, or corrosive) pharmaceuticals from unlisted, non-hazardous pharmaceuticals.
“Healthcare facilities will need to adopt training programs for staff to comply with the rule, and will need to dispose of hazardous pharmaceuticals within one year of their being determined to be a waste,” the attorneys stress.
The rule also creates an exemption from certain existing requirements for containers of medications that would be considered acutely hazardous when made a waste, such as Coumadin, so that facilities no longer have to tally the weight of Coumadin packaging and consider it acutely hazardous waste.
For reverse logistics providers changes from the earlier proposal include authorization to accumulate hazardous waste pharmaceuticals for up to 180 days, rather than 90 days as proposed; an exemption for managing materials subject to recall or a litigation hold; and authorization to complete the initial sorting process within 30 days, rather than the 21 days proposed.
The Foley & Lardner attorneys add that the final rule includes four other significant elements. It bans the practice of flushing hazardous waste medications down the toilet (“sewering”). The rule exempts Food and Drug Administration-approved nicotine replacement therapies, such as patches and gum, from hazardous waste disposal requirements.
The rule also exempts medications collected during drug take-back programs and events, placing them within the Congressionally-created household hazardous waste exemption. In addition, it eliminates the dual regulation of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals under RCRA if they are also regulated by the DEA as controlled substances.
“The final rule fundamentally changes EPA’s long-held position on the point at which a pharmaceutical product is considered a solid waste under RCRA,” according to the attorneys. “That change will create significant regulatory uncertainty and potential liability for entities in the pharmaceutical distribution chain that suddenly find themselves evaluating compliance with the new rule.”
https://www.mhlnews.com/transportation-distribution/pharmaceuticals-reverse-supply-chain-now-hazardous-waste
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Ann Arbor’s Latest PFAs Test Results Inconclusive Due to Lab Error
Jan 11, 2019 | MLive
By Ryan Stanton
Ann Arbor’s latest PFAS test results are back from the lab, but they’re somewhat inconclusive due to a lab error.
The lab only analyzed for some types of the so-called “forever chemicals” found in the city’s drinking water and used a method with higher limits of detection than the city wanted, city officials said, so the city has sent new water samples to the lab for testing.
As a result of the error for the December water samples, it’s unclear if the elevated levels of PFAS found in the city’s drinking water last fall have persisted, but the levels of at least one type of PFAS did notably go down.
PFAS are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances that have links to cancer, liver damage, birth defects and autoimmune diseases.
On Nov. 21, the last date for which the city has full PFAS test results for its treated drinking water, the levels stayed between 51.4 and 56.4 parts per trillion, on par with where they were in September and more than quadruple the levels from last April.
The levels spiked in October, reaching as high as 88.1 ppt in the treated drinking water and 119.6 ppt in the city’s raw intake water from the Huron River, which is contaminated with PFAS.
The city has started posting total PFAS detections on its website after The Ann Arbor News/MLive obtained several months of previously unreleased test results under the Freedom of Information Act.
The city was posting totals for only two types of PFAS before — PFOS and PFOA — but at least seven types have been detected in the drinking water delivered to roughly 125,000 customers.
At least 7 types of PFAS in Ann Arbor’s drinking water, reports show
As Ann Arbor officials seek to better understand and address the threats posed by toxic PFAS chemicals in the city’s drinking water, much remains unknown.
Without established health standards for some of the compounds, city officials say they don’t fully know what to make of the total numbers, but they point to a 70-ppt health advisory for PFOS and PFOA, a level some scientific experts now consider outdated.
The fact that Ann Arbor saw PFAS in its drinking water steadily climb from 12.6 ppt to between 53.2 and 88.1 ppt in 2018 is problematic and poses a health risk, Richard DeGrandchamp, a University of Colorado toxicology professor, said in an interview last month.
“The problem with these compounds is once they get in the body, it’s the end of the story,” he said, noting the compounds bind tightly to protein in the blood and stay in people’s bodies for decades.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established the 70-ppt lifetime health advisory level for PFOS and PFOA in 2016. DeGrandchamp argues science now shows the chemicals are more dangerous than previously believed and the limit should be much lower, in the single digits or low teens.
Ann Arbor’s combined PFOS and PFOA detections in treated drinking water ranged between 12 and 22 ppt in October and November.
While there are thousands of types of PFAS, analytical capabilities exist to test for only a fraction of them, city officials note.
PFAS investigation has state looking at new site near Ann Arbor
Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials say they’re continuing to investigate potential sources of PFAS pollution in the Huron River and they have some leads.
The city regularly tested for 21 different types of the compounds in 2018 and said last month that was going up to 24.
But the city’s contracted lab only tested for six types of PFAS in December, city records show.
Since the city lacks in-house capability to test for PFAS in its water, the city sends monthly water samples to an out-of-state lab for analysis, and it can take about a month to get results back.
There’s a high demand for analytical services, so there are backups at the lab, said Brian Steglitz, the city’s water plant manager.
“There are more and more labs coming online that are capable, but it’s a pretty rigorous certification process,” he said during a recent tour of the city’s plant, where the city is in the middle of installing new carbon filtersto try to better filter out PFAS.
City water samples collected on Dec. 5 were sent to Pace Analytical Services LLC, located in Ormond Beach, Florida. That included raw intake water from the Huron River and treated drinking water.
The lab notified the city of the results in a Jan. 4 letter, records obtained by The Ann Arbor News/MLive under FOIA show.
Ann Arbor water official explains why city didn’t report PFAS totals sooner
As total PFAS levels in Ann Arbor’s drinking water steadily climbed this year, many residents didn’t know.
In the raw intake water, it found PFOS at 17 ppt (down from 33-48 ppt in October and November), PFOA at 2.6 ppt, and PFHpA at 8.1 ppt. The last two readings were consistent with previous readings.
In the treated drinking water, PFHpA was at 4.3 ppt, while PFOS was somewhere below an 8.7-ppt detection limit (down from 13-22 ppt in October and November) and PFOA was below a roughly 1-ppt detection limit.
Others were below detection limits that ranged from 5.6 ppt for PFNA to 5.8 ppt for PFHxS to 43 ppt for PFBS.
PFBS was consistently detected in the city’s drinking water at levels ranging from 1.8 to 5.3 ppt in 2018.
The lab did not test for PFBA, which was in the drinking water at levels ranging from 5.1 to 8.2 ppt in October and November; PFPeA, which was between 19 to 29 ppt in October and November; or PFHxA, which was between 9.7 and 14 ppt in October and November.
The incomplete PFAS test results for the Dec. 5 samples are now reported with asterisks on the city’s website, along with the note: “When notified of the error, the city immediately resampled and will report those results when they are available.”
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2019/01/ann-arbors-latest-pfas-test-results-inconclusive-due-to-lab-error.html
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(ACC Mentioned) H1 Outlook: PE Markets in US Monitor China Trade War Amid Bearish Sentiment
Jan 11, 2019 | S&P Global Platts
By Phillipe Craig
Houston — A year after a record-setting natural disaster led to a lack of clarity for the US petrochemical industry, it again finds itself entering a new year with more questions than answers.
No longer feeling the effects of Hurricane Harvey, polyethylene markets in the US are now instead fixated on Asia and a simmering trade war with China, all the while wondering when key export markets will reopen and bearish sentiment will subside.
All three grades of commodity-grade PE assessed by S&P Global Platts reached 2018 highs late in the first three months of the year, as high-density PE film peaked at $1,477/mt FAS Houston on March 14, a day after low-density PE reached a peak of $1,400/mt FAS. Butene-grade linear-low-density PE, meanwhile, was assessed at its highest point of the year on February 5 with a close of $1,345/mt FAS Houston, according to Platts data.
US PE markets spent much of the first quarter of 2018 recovering from Harvey's impact on production and logistics, with domestic and export PE prices rising as a result. By March, they saw an opening salvo in the US' ongoing trade war with China, with President Donald Trump announcing import tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum.
China responded swiftly and severely via retaliatory tariffs, with the two global powers subsequently ratcheting up the blows to $50 billion apiece and including petrochemicals. And while China's tariffs on US-origin PE did not take effect until August, the impact on demand and pricing was felt almost immediately after China in April announced plans to target PE.
Not too long after that, export and domestic pricing in the US began to feel pressure from several angles -- including weaker buying sentiment tied to uncertainty surrounding the trade war. Depressed global PE pricing made US-origin resins somewhat uncompetitive in the early part of the second quarter of the year, and a decrease in exports to Asia began to take hold in June and July when China increased the pressure.
By December, all three grades of PE had reached record lows and some traders began to plan for the long haul with no resolution in sight.
LDPE export pricing entered January at $926/mt FAS Houston, down 21.5% compared with the first assessment of 2018, while butene-grade LLDPE was down 22.8% at $893/mt FAS Houston, according to Platts data.
HDPE grades also opened the year at record lows, skidding between 14.3%-19.8% compared with the first assessments of 2018, with film opening at $1,058/mt FAS Houston; blowmolding at $937/mt FAS Houston; and injection at $904/mt FAS Houston, according to Platts data.
China's initial shot at the US petrochemical industry in April targeted only LDPE, which is by far the nation's smallest PE sector, relatively speaking. After a resolution with the US could not be reached and President Trump doubled down with more tariffs, China responded by replacing LDPE with LLDPE and HDPE, both of which are more widely used globally and account for a considerably higher share of total existing and planned US capacity.
The 25% Chinese tariffs on LLDPE and HDPE took effect in late August, but trade flow shifts began in the months that proceeded as US-based traders and buyers in Asia began to grow weary of the potential for additional costs.
US exports of PE to China peaked at 74,295.1 mt for all grades combined in July, but dropped steadily to 22,564.3 mt in October, according to the most recent US International Trade Commission data. The shift came as the US was seeing record PE exports, the result of a surge in production and weak domestic demand.
US exports of all grades of PE totaled 441,232.1 mt in October, up 13.2% month on month and 70.9% year on year as well as being an all-time high, USITC data show. Total US PE capacity, meanwhile, rose 19.7% from the beginning of 2017 through the end of the third quarter of 2018, from around 20.3 million mt/year to around 24.4 million mt/year, according to the most recent American Chemistry Council data.
USITC data for November and December is not expected to be released in the immediate future due to the ongoing partial US government shutdown, but the figures available from the ACC paint a bearish picture for US producers.
US inventory for all grades of PE rose by 5.4% between the conclusion of October and end of November, while domestic production fell by 0.8% in the same period. PE sales, meanwhile, fell 5.1% in the domestic market and 6.9% in the export market, ACC data show.
US producers were heard settling domestic US contracts at consecutive 3-cent/lb ($66/mt) decreases for November and December, the result of soft demand and struggles in the export market, sources said.
Those same producers, however, have started the new year with proposed domestic contract price increases of 5-6 cents/lb ($110-$132/mt) on the table, although the overwhelming feedback from the market is no support for a hike.
Instead, buyers entered January with ideas of another multi-cent decrease or at worst a rollover from December.
The US-China trade spat remaining unresolved at a time that even more additional PE capacity is slated to come online is a factor, sources say.
"Unless we get this thing with China sorted out and soon, there will just continue being a race to the bottom of the pricing barrel," a US-based trader said. "Projects are too far along now to adjust or abandon, and markets like Latin America and Vietnam can only take so much of what China is leaving on the US table."
To that end, there have been some shifts in global PE trade flows, with China sourcing material from non-US origins that in turn replenish their supplies with imports, sometimes from the US.
These "musical chairs," as some PE traders have termed it, just lead to more logistics and additional freight costs, further pressuring pricing.
As for how long the US and China keep up their tariff dance while the global PE industry's game of musical chairs drags on, sentiment is shifting away from expectations of a short-term resolution.
Many market players who initially viewed the tariffs as a negotiating or leverage play are now resigned to a more prolonged struggle, leading to more bearish sentiment and indecision.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/petrochemicals/011119-h1-outlook-pe-markets-in-us-monitor-china-trade-war-amid-bearish-sentiment
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The Winners and Losers of Big Oil's Offshore Spending Revival
Jan 10, 2019 | Bloomberg (in the Houston Chronicle)
By Francois de Beaupuy
After four years of cutbacks, oil companies are poised to open their purses again and develop new offshore fields, although the benefits won’t be spread equally across the companies who provide them everything from seismic surveys to pumps and turbines.
The long-awaited spending rebound will re-energize oil-services providers that have survived the deepest crisis in a generation thanks to cost cuts, mergers and sometimes painful debt restructuring. But for some debt-laden suppliers, the investment pickup may come too late.
Notwithstanding recent oil-price volatility, spending on offshore oilfield services will rise by 6 percent in 2019 reaching $208 billion, before surging by another 14 percent in 2020, according to Norwegian consultancy Rystad Energy AS. That’s after almost halving since 2014.
Subsea Leads Rebound
Oil producers will probably commit to 110 new undersea projects this year, up from 96 in 2018 and just 43 in 2016 -- when the industry slashed capex as oil slumped.
The market for subsea equipment may expand by between 13 percent and 14 percent each year through 2023, said Audun Martinsen, head of oilfield service research at Rystad, in an interview. This is in part as suppliers resume to hike prices.
Oilfield surveyors and providers of support and maintenance services should rebound at a slower pace as an overcapacity of vessels continues to glut the market and the rigs sector, the worst performing segment in offshore last year, should improve at last, Martinsen said.
London-based oilfield services provider TechnipFMC Plc forecast that 2019 revenue at its subsea division will climb but margins may fall. This year the company is anticipating “continued strong activity” for investment decisions in small-to-mid-size projects, and “an increasing number of the larger greenfield subsea projects,” Chief Executive Officer Doug Pferdehirt said in December.
“A lot of these offshore projects are located at deep waters,” benefiting subsea gear makers such as TechnipFMC and Subsea 7 SA, Rystad’s Martinsen said.
Oilfield Surveyors Follow
While oil and gas companies press ahead with new developments, they may initially focus on already-discovered fields, while keeping a cautious stance on riskier exploration projects, for which returns are harder to reap, forcing surveyors and drillers to send more vessels and rigs to scrap.
“With oil prices trading below $60 per barrel, there continues to be some uncertainty on 2019 E&P spending, particularly offshore,” Kristian Johansen, CEO of Norwegian oilfield surveyor TGS Nopec Geophysical Co. ASA said on Jan. 9.
However, TGS should benefit from its “solid balance sheet,” while Petroleum Geo-Services ASA may face “challenges ahead in terms of an oversupplied seismic vessel market and approaching debt maturities,” Nordea analysts Glenn Lodden and Even Mostue Naume wrote in a note this month. France’s CGG SA should be more attractive once it completes a plan to shed its remaining seismic vessels. Although restructuring takes time and the company may incur additional costs, the analysts said. A CGG spokesman declined to comment.
From HoustonChronicle.com: Shale rules, but offshore poised for comeback, says construction executive
There should be a “slight rise in demand from drilling,” meaning that just 30 percent of deepwater rigs may remain idle this year, down from 35 percent last year, Mhairidh Evans, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said in an interview. “Some more overcapacity needs to be taken out of the supply chain.”
Transocean Ltd, which last month announced an $830 million drilling contract, may benefit from the rebound as it focuses on deepwater, while Shelf Drilling Ltd. may also gain from its exposure to the Middle East, said Rystad’s Martinsen.
Petroleum Geo-Services is “cautiously optimistic” that last year’s market rebound will continue this year, a spokesman said.
Still Hard Times
On the other hand, the market for equipment used on shallow water platforms such as pumps, turbines and heat exchangers provided by the likes of General Electric Co., ABB Ltd. and National Oilwell Varco Inc. may lag, partly because they tend to be ordered later in project cycles, Martinsen said.
Bourbon Corporation, a French operator of support vessels for offshore industry, is also looking for signs of recovery as persisting low rates has forced it to suspend the payments of its debt. Bourbon’s situation is “worrying” as it operates in an oversupplied market, said Kevin Vo, an analyst at AlphaValue in Paris. Bourbon declined to comment.
“As a company sanctions a project or an exploration campaign, that cash doesn’t flow through the supply chain until perhaps one or two or three years, so the supply chain isn’t out of the woods yet,” said Woodmac’s Evans. “So 2020 looks like the year where many parts of the supply chain will start to feel better.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/The-Winners-and-Losers-of-Big-Oil-s-Offshore-13525972.php
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Colonial Pipeline Explosion Injury Suit Proceeds
Jan 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
A petroleum pipeline inspector seriously injured in an explosion may proceed with negligence and other claims against Colonial Pipeline Co., a federal court in Alabama ruled.
Any lack of clarity in John Covey’s allegations are properly resolved by an amended complaint, not dismissal of the entire case, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama said Jan. 10.
Covey, an employee of a third-party inspection firm hired by Colonial for two pipeline excavation sites in Alabama, was badly injured in 2016 when a track hoe ignited gasoline fumes after striking a pipeline attachment.
Covey sued Colonial on negligence, premises liability, and breach of contract claims, but Colonial moved to dismiss the case as a collection of legal conclusions unsupported by facts.
The Apharetta, Ga.-based company transports petroleum products from Houston to New York through a system of underground pipes and aboveground storage tanks.
Colonial was correct that Covey’s complaint recited only an outline of the circumstances that led up to the explosion and failed to allege his causes of action in separate counts.
An amended complaint proposed by Covey more clearly conveyed his theory that Colonial failed to warn him of hazardous conditions at the site, but not his breach of contract and third-party liability claims, or how Colonial’s conduct caused the pipeline strike, the court said.
It granted Covey another opportunity to amend each claim in the complaint to “conform the the requirements laid out in this memorandum opinion” to avoid dismissal.
Magistrate Judge John H. England III wrote the decision.
The Drake Law Firm represented Covey. Butler Snow LLP represented Colonial.
The case is Covey v. Colonial Pipeline Co., 2019 BL 9037, N.D. Ala., No. 18-cv-01121, 1/10/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/colonial-pipeline-explosion-injury-suit-proceeds
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Regulators Cite Contractors in Wis. Explosion
Jan 11, 2019 | AP (in E&E - Greenwire)
Federal safety regulators have cited two contractors for failing to locate a gas main that exploded during work in a Madison, Wis., suburb in July.
A VC Tech employee punctured the line while installing fiber optics, resulting in a blast that leveled half a city block in Sun Prairie and killed firefighter Cory Barr.
The Department of Labor announced yesterday that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited VC Tech and the contractor that hired the firm, Kansas-based Bear Communications, $12,934 each on Jan. 4. The citations assert neither contractor contacted We Energies, the utility that owns the line, or Diggers Hotline to ascertain the main's location.
Email and voicemail messages left at Bear Communications weren't immediately returned. No listing for VC Tech could be found.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/01/11/stories/1060111683
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Maryland’s Purple Line Rail Plan Pollutes, Suit Says
Jan 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
Maryland’s plan for disposing of material dredged during the construction of a 16.2-mile light-rail transit line violates the Clean Water Act and shouldn’t have been approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a new lawsuit alleges.
The Maryland Transit Administration failed to demonstrate the impracticability of less harmful disposal methods in building the Purple Line from Bethesda to New Carollton, Md., the complaint filed Jan. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland says.
The Friends of Capital Crescent Trail, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving park land and open spaces in Montgomery County, Md., contends the Corps of Engineers abused its discretion in not requiring MTA to conduct “meaningful, independent review of less harmful project alternatives,” as required by the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The Purple Line project will divert water, traverse streams, and affect tributaries of the Anacostia River, but rests on a set of environmental harm assumptions that’s too narrow, the complaint states.
The group further contends that MTA’s methodology was deficient because it “cannot begin to support the inference that a broad spectrum of practicable alternatives had been considered.”
The action seeks a declaratory ruling that a Clean Water Act violation occurred, invalidation of the disposal permit granted to MTA, attorneys’ fees, and other relief.
The Army Corps of Engineers didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Knopf & Brown represented the plaintiffs.
The case is Friends of the Capital Crescent Trail v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, D. Md., No. 19-cv-00106, 1/10/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/marylands-purple-line-rail-plan-pollutes-suit-says
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Metra Adjusts Rock Island Schedule for PTC Impacts
Jan 11, 2019 | Progressive Railroading
Metra has unveiled a new Rock Island District Line schedule that includes necessary changes to accommodate positive train control (PTC) implementation and some service enhancements, such as new express trains.
To start on a trial basis Jan. 28, the new schedule incorporates comments from more than 800 people who emailed the agency about the initial proposed schedule and suggested adjustments, Metra officials said in a press release. Operations and ridership patterns will be evaluated over the next few months, they added. The line runs from points in Chicago to Joliet, Illinois.
To handle many passengers during both the morning and evening rush periods, Metra needs to quickly turn trains around at downtown stations or in the suburbs. This process of flipping a train will take longer because of PTC implementation, Metra officials said.
"To flip a train, the engineer must move from the cab car to the locomotive or vice versa, and the crew must clear the train, perform a brake test and conduct a job briefing. With the added task of initializing the PTC system, these flips are expected to take more than 10 minutes," they said.
The agency is responsible for creating the back office system and installing onboard equipment for PTC, while the freight railroads are responsible for the trackside equipment and back offices for the Metra routes they host.
PTC already is fully operational on the BNSF Line, and Union Pacific Railroad has begun implementation on its three lines, agency officials said. PTC is expected to be fully installed on other Metra lines in 2019 and 2020."Similar schedule changes will be needed on other lines with tight flips as PTC is implemented," Metra officials said.
https://www.progressiverailroading.com/ptc/news/Metra-adjusts-Rock-Island-schedule-for-PTC-impacts--56491
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Shutdown Ties up Trump’s Fossil Fuel Agenda
Jan 10, 2019 | Roll Call
By Elvina Nawaguna
The partial government shutdown has snagged progress on President Donald Trump’s ambitious agenda to boost fossil fuel use and extraction, including the administration’s repeal and replacement of the Clean Power Plan, which has a March deadline.
Over the last two years, the Trump administration set in motion an aggressive deregulatory agenda, easing emissions regulations and making it easier for energy companies to extract fossil fuels from public lands. Some of the regulatory rollbacks that have been in the works are due to be finalized in the next two months but are now facing delays — such as cessation of public hearings — because of the shutdown, now in its third week.
The administration moved quickly to replace former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which put nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. According to the White House’s unified agenda, the EPA’s deadline to finalize the repeal is in March.
The agency had also planned by March to complete a rule repealing Obama administration carbon emission limits for new power plants, as well easing tailpipe emission standards for cars and light trucks of 2021-2026 models after declaring that the previous administration’s regulations were unreasonable and based on outdated data.
“I don’t think agencies are necessarily going to be able to pick up where they left off,” said Jeff Holmstead, a partner at the law firm Bracewell LLP. “It’s now gone on long enough that there are certainly starting to be concerns by industry.”
Holmstead served as EPA air administrator in the George W. Bush administration.
Unraveling those regulations has been a key part of Trump’s attempts to fulfill a campaign promise and to purse his “energy dominance” agenda. Conservatives view the rules mostly written under the Obama administration as overreaching and stifling to industry and job creation. And congressional Republicans have cheered the administration on as it overhauls the way the government regulates the environment and the use and extraction of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.
Hearings halted
While the government is shut down, public hearings and commenting processes for some of the regulatory rollbacks have been halted, including for the Clean Water Rule, which vastly expanded federal authority over waterways and scheduled for March finalization, and a revision of an Obama administration’s New Source Performance Standards, or NSPS, which sought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new, modified and reconstructed energy facilities.
“The current government shutdown has caused the public hearing and comment process for the proposed NSPS update to be delayed,” Michelle Bloodworth, chief operating officer at American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, said in an emailed response. “We are hopeful that once government funding is restored that the EPA will again move quickly to advance regulations that take into account the important role the coal fleet plays, including the NSPS proposal that will set standards for the next generation of coal plants.”
The group advocates “at the federal and state levels on behalf of coal-fueled electricity and the coal fleet.”
Holmstead, who has opposed some of the previous administration’s rules in court, including the Clean Power Plan, says uncertainty over whether Trump could win a second presidential term in 2020 is causing some supporters of his energy and environment agenda to be concerned that if the deregulatory actions are delayed, there might not be enough time for the administration to complete or defend their outcomes.
“There are some people who really support the regulatory reforms and are concerned that the administration is already behind on some things,” Holmstead said. “The longer it drags on, the more challenging it will become. There’s no doubt that keeping the government shut down for too much longer certainly puts at risk some of the things that they’re trying to do.”
‘Disruptive’
During the shutdown, 94 percent of the EPA’s 13,900 workers are furloughed, according to the agency’s contingency plan, and most operations are on hold. Clean-ups of toxic Superfund sites continue where the EPA says failure to maintain operations would pose an “imminent threat to life.” Some work in its laboratories involved in toxicity testing as well as essential law enforcement activities continue.
The House is expected to take up legislation later this week that would fund the EPA, Interior Department and other similar agencies, although the chance for passage in the GOP-led Senate looks dim.
Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was among seven Republicans who voted with Democrats on Jan. 3 to pass a six-bill spending package that aimed to pressure the Senate GOP to open the rest of the government while holding separate discussions on Trump’s desired border wall.
“It’s very disruptive,” he said of the shutdown. “And that’s the reason why I’m one of those trying to get the government to open and still maintain border security.”
Upton said he plans to vote again with the Democrats on the Interior-Environment bill when it comes up for a floor vote.
Even though environmental advocates oppose the administration’s rollbacks and have accused Trump of pandering to polluters, they find nothing to celebrate in an EPA shutdown, because they say, it comes at the expense of other public health programs, including grants to states for air quality monitoring.
“I’m concerned that a process that’s already chaotic in terms of environmental protections would get even more complicated,” said Elgie Holstein, senior director for strategic planning at the Environmental Defense Fund.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/shutdown-trump-fossil-fuel-agenda
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States Fight for Their Right to Follow California Car Rules
Jan 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
States’ efforts to protect their authority to adopt California’s vehicle greenhouse gas limits could be futile if the Trump administration succeeds with its proposal to strip that power from them.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates vehicle emissions, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with jurisdiction over fuel efficiency, want to eliminate state authority to deviate from federal standards as part of a broader push to freeze fuel economy limits nationwide at 2020 levels.
In its August proposal, the EPA suggests reinterpreting the Clean Air Act to strip away states’ authority to adopt California’s tailpipe standards, even if those limits are upheld.
The proposed change tees up a high-stakes legal fight over states’ role in tackling Earth-warming emissions from transportation, the biggest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S.
‘Very Heart of a State’s Ability’If the EPA succeeds, it would be a huge blow to the coalition of more than a dozen states that see a strong fuel economy program as critical to their climate goals. These states make up more than a third of the U.S. auto market.
“This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, environmental issue for a number of these states because it goes to the very heart of a state’s ability to address pollution within its borders, particularly in the absence of any strong federal push to do so,” Elizabeth Klein, deputy director of New York University School of Law’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, told Bloomberg Environment.
More than half of those states have taken regulatory steps to secure their link to California’s program, even if the federal government reverses course. Those steps could be moot if the EPA’s proposal moves forward.
The majority of major automakers—including Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., and American Honda Motor Company Inc.—have urged the Trump administration to back away from their proposed plan.
Instead, the companies favor striking a deal on one national program. Automakers’ worst-case scenario, they say, would be uncertainty brought on by yearslong litigation and separate greenhouse gas standards for cars in different parts of the country.
The steps that states are taking to protect their emissions programs could factor into future litigation, too.
They are showing “these standards are achievable,” Meredith Hankins, an environmental law and policy fellow at the UCLA School of Law, told Bloomberg Environment. “It turns into a factual dispute: California and the Section 177 states versus EPA over whether automakers are able to comply.”
Air Law AuthorityCalifornia can obtain a waiver under the Clean Air Act to set its own tailpipe greenhouse gas standards stricter than federal limits. The EPA and NHTSA are also seeking to eliminate that authority.
Other states can adopt California’s rules under Section 177 of the law. To date, 13 states and the District of Columbia have done so.
But the EPA has now proposed to reinterpret Section 177 of the Clean Air Act to exclude greenhouse gases.
The agency argued that section of the law deals specifically with areas not achieving federal limits on criteria pollutants, such as ozone and nitrogen oxides. Criteria pollutants have national air quality standards that define allowable concentrations in the air. That doesn’t include greenhouse gases.
“It’s the one-two punch: withdraw the waiver, and then reinterpret Section 177 to ensure that even if the waiver survives, no state besides California could then adopt California’s standards,” Caitlin McCoy, a climate, clean air, and energy fellow with Harvard’s Environmental and Energy Law Program, told Bloomberg Environment.
McCoy added that the Section 177 states should band together to fight the EPA’s move.
Prepping Legal FightStates are doing just that. State attorneys general have begun to lay out their legal arguments.
The agency’s justification for reinterpreting Section 177 is thin, contrary to past practice, and in violation of the agency’s obligations, the attorneys general for 20 states wrote in comments to the agencies last fall.
The coalition included attorneys general from California and nearly all the states that follow its standards, as well as top litigators from states that don’t, such as Virginia, Minnesota, New Mexico, and North Carolina.
California UpdateRegulators in the Section 177 states are lining up to preserve their authority by adopting into state law a change California made to its vehicle rules in December.
These steps are to make it clear the states “are not tied to the hip of the federal government” if it weakens national limits, Ben Grumbles, Maryland’s top environment official, told Bloomberg Environment.
California air regulators adopted an update to its rules Dec. 12 clarifying its “deemed to comply” provision. Crafted during the Obama administration, the provision stated that compliance with the EPA’s vehicle greenhouse gas limits would also meet California’s rules.
But the update said the provision doesn’t apply if the Trump administration weakens federal standards from the Obama-era levels through 2025, which California has already adopted.
State RegulationsColorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington have formally adopted that change, according to a Bloomberg Environment review of state documents and conversations with state regulators.
Maine and Pennsylvania don’t need to take a formal step to adopt the changes, because their regulations will automatically incorporate the most updated California standards, environment officials in those states said.
Rhode Island is still reviewing California’s update, but it would need to undertake a regulation to adopt the changes, Mike Healey, chief public affairs officer for the state’s environment agency, said.
Environment officials from Delaware and New York didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg Environment’s request for comment. New York environment regulators appear to be moving forward with a vehicle standards-related proposal, with a hearing scheduled for March 11, but details weren’t available.
Making a StatementEnvironmental advocates say the changes made by California and the other states are small but significant clarifications to sever ties to the federal limits, even before they see the Trump administration’s standards.
The moves make a statement that chips away at Trump administration arguments that the current standards aren’t feasible.
It is hard to predict how much judges would value the states’ regulatory steps, but they are sending a signal that the technology is possible and the standards are within their authority, Irene Gutierrez, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Bloomberg Environment.
“If more states join that legal fight, the clearer the signal gets,” she added.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/states-fight-for-their-right-to-follow-california-car-rules
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It’s Time for a ‘Green New Deal’
Jan 10, 2019 | Politico
By Sen. Ron Wyden
There is a groundswell of support in America to tackle the calamity of climate change. Addressing climate change is a national security issue, but renewable energy is also a jobs issue, a health issue and a pocketbook issue for each American family. Constantly improving technology means that low-carbon renewable energy is cleaner, cheaper and safer than burning fossil fuels.
Congress needs to kick the carbon habit. We need a “Green New Deal” that helps all Americans take advantage of this fundamental change — as workers and manufacturers, consumers, builders and inventors. And much like the original New Deal — when President Franklin D. Roosevelt worked with Congress to pass 15 major bills in 100 days — a comprehensive “Green New Deal” will require swift action on several legislative proposals to meet its goal.
As the 116th Congress convenes, one essential legislative proposal it should move on quickly is to throw in the trash the 44 separate energy tax breaks, anchored by advantages for big oil companies that get billions of dollars in beneficial tax treatment.
The dirty relics of the past century should be replaced with just three new energy tax incentives: one for clean energy, one for clean transportation fuel and one for energy efficiency. Under this new system, benefits would be received only if carbon emissions are decreased or eliminated. The cleaner it is, the greater the benefit. These reforms will not only set off a wave of investment and innovation in clean and renewable energy, they will also cut subsidies and save Americans money.
Research by economists from across the spectrum shows that nothing drives behavior in the American marketplace like the right incentives — which millions of American now say should help green, not dirty, energy. Rewarding investment based on carbon emissions ensures a transition away from fossil fuels and provides flexibility for new technologies to enter the market. The result? Cleaner energy, lower electricity bills and more clean energy jobs across the country.
It’s time to end tax promotion of extracting, importing and burning fossil fuels and shift to support for an innovative, low-carbon economy. The Clean Energy for America Act, a proposal I first unveiled in 2015 and will reintroduce this Congress, would finally put the tax code in sync with 21st-century energy needs.
This one bill not only addresses climate change, it will start unraveling the disasters wrought by President Donald Trump’s tax law, which tilted the playing field even further in favor of Big Oil. Four of the largest oil companies expect to rake in nearly $15 billion in benefits from Trump’s corporate tax cuts. It’s been a year since Trump signed the Republican tax bill into law, and those benefits are being hoarded by senior executives and wealthy investors. In just the first half of 2018, Fortune 500 oil companies authorized nearly $13 billion in new stock buybacks. These buyback schemes artificially inflate stock prices, increasing compensation for Big Oil CEOs and enriching foreign shareholders.
The U.S. tax code is now stacked against renewable energy; it’s stacked against technologies that can lower energy carbon outputs and it’s stacked against taxpayers. The Clean Energy for America Act ends these skewed priorities at a time when poll after poll show that a majority of Americans want climate action.
Scientists are sounding the alarms. Citizens are demanding more than the status quo. Urgency is everything. Failure to act spells dire consequences for our economy, the health and safety of our families and most vulnerable communities, and the future of our planet.
Let’s take a first step for a “Green New Deal” by bringing the spirit of FDR to fix our broken tax code.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/10/green-new-deal-congress-ron-wyden-223910
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One Year Later, NYC’s Climate Lawsuit Wastes Taxpayer Money to Boost de Blasio’s Credentials
Jan 10, 2019 | Real Clear Energy
By Jude Clemente
On January 10, 2018, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he was suing five energy companies, seeking damages to pay for harm the city has faced as a result of climate change. In conjunction, the city also announced that it planned to divest its pension fund from fossil fuels. A year later, the city is seeking to revamp its legal strategy after the lawsuit’s swift dismissal in federal court and is no closer to divesting than it was before its big announcement.
While New York City has failed to achieve actionable results on these fronts, Mayor de Blasio has succeeded in one regard: boosting his liberal credentials as he contemplates a 2020 presidential run, a goal that may have been the motivation behind both announcements in the first place.
U.S. District Judge John Keenan dismissed New York City’s lawsuit shortly after it was filed, in part citing the hypocrisy of the city suing companies for producing a product it continues to rely on. “Does the city have clean hands?” Judge Keenan asked the city’s attorney, noting that Mayor de Blasio’s government, too, produces the emissions they say are responsible for the city’s climate change-related impacts.
Judge Keenan was not the first to rule in favor of the energy companies either. Less than one month before the New York City judge made his decision, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup dismissed nearly identical lawsuits brought in California by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland. All three lawsuits are now being heard on appeal. Although, a recent change of counsel in California suggests that the New York case could stand less of chance now than it did the first time around.
In late November, the plaintiffs’ firm representing all three cities when they first filed their cases, Hagens Berman, was fired by San Francisco and Oakland and replaced with Sher Edling, Hagens Berman’s direct competitor in the climate litigation space. Mayor de Blasio, meanwhile, has continued to retain Hagens Berman, perhaps unconcerned with the final result of his case, so long as it attracts positive headlines praising his “climate leadership.”
That’s the take of at least one group who issued a statement critical of Mayor de Blasio on the anniversary of his announcement. “City officials, including Mayor de Blasio, have made clear that the true purpose of the lawsuit is to attack manufacturers and manufacturing workers,” said Linda Kelly, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the National Association of Manufacturers.
Indeed, shortly after the city filed its climate lawsuit, Mayor de Blasio appeared as a guest on U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’s (D-VT) podcast where he spoke about the case. “Let’s help bring the death knell to this industry that’s done so much harm,” Mayor de Blasio said of the recent announcements. His sentiments were echoed by New York City’s chief environmental lawyer, Susan Amron, who told a friendly crowd at last year’s Climate Week NYC, “[R]eally what we’re trying to do is affect the bottom line - the financial equation for the use of fossil fuels.”
This language – both from Mayor de Blasio and Amron – would seem to contradict the language of the city’s lawsuit. The case’s complaint reads, “The City does not seek to impose liability on Defendants for their direct emissions of greenhouse gases, and does not seek to restrain Defendants from engaging in their business operations.” New York City’s lawsuit explicitly denies that the city is seeking to restrict ongoing business operations, but Mayor de Blasio and Amron have both made comments publicly that imply otherwise.
Speculation that Mayor de Blasio has larger political aspirations – including a run for the White House – in his sights has been a through line throughout his tenure- a fact New Yorkers were quick to note at the time that his lawsuit was filed, calling it “more posturing than substance.” Before he seeks out Pennsylvania Avenue, however, Mayor de Blasio reportedly has room to focus on fulfilling the duties of his current office.
A recent article from The New York Times slammed “New York’s Vanishing Mayor” for being absent from work, finding that he averaged ten days in City Hall per month in 2018 and consequently “the practical mechanics of government are running less smoothly.” De Blasio responded by saying he has a “huge, ambitious agenda,” which he was working “at a great level of intensity…to get it done.”
There’s no doubt about the mayor’s ambitions, but attacking the energy companies that will keep his constituents warm through the winter and fuel his caravan of SUVs is a misguided approach to tackling climate change. There are many actions that can be taken to mitigate and address its effects. Spending taxpayer money to boost Mayor de Blasio’s national profile surely isn’t one of them.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2019/01/10/one_year_later_nycs_climate_lawsuit_wastes_taxpayer_money_to_boost_de_blasios_credentials_110381.html
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