Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - January 14, 2019
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Shutdown: Use of EPA Staff for Wheeler Confirmation Questioned
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
A group of US Senate Democrats has questioned President Trump nominee Andrew Wheeler’s use of EPA staff to prepare for his upcoming hearing during a partial government shutdown. And they have suggested that diverting the ... -
Divided Congress May Actually Lift Energy Bills, Lawmakers Say
Jan 14, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
You might think a Democratic-controlled House and GOP-controlled Senate means inaction on climate and energy legislation. Not so, says Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a freshman senator—and energy adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016... -
New Direction for Us Chemical Regulation or Status Quo?
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt Erickson
Environmentalists are hoping to see a shake-up in 2019 at the US Environmental Protection Agency office that evaluates the potential risks of chemicals and pesticides. That office will get a new leader this year, Alexandra Dunn... -
Methylene Chloride Restrictions Sit During US Government Shutdown
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt Erickson
he US Environmental Protection Agency sent two rules related to methylene chloride in paint strippers to the White House for approval on Dec. 21. The agency has yet to reveal the content of those rules, but environmental groups... -
Trump’s EPA Sued for Failure to Finalize Ban on Deadly Paint Strippers
Jan 14, 2019 | Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
By Jamie Nolan
Environmental and public health advocates and the mothers of two young men who recently died from methylene chloride exposure today filed a lawsuit against Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler and the U.S. Environmental... -
What Is the Price of Fire Safety?
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
Straight out of college, Ted Schaefer’s first assignment at 3M Canada was to provide technical support and formulate firefighting foams. It was 1980, and 3M was the dominant producer of fluorosurfactant-containing foams used to... -
Detection of PFAs Pollution Globally Expected to Increase
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
Hot spots of drinking water contaminated with toxic fluorocarbons in Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, and the US grabbed headlines last year. In 2019, expect scientists to look for—and find—more areas polluted with nonpolymeric... -
When It Comes to Flame Retardants, New Chemicals, New Problems
Jan 14, 2019 | KQED Science
A new study of compounds in San Francisco Bay is illustrating a case of chemical whack-a-mole. Fifteen years ago, California banned a class of toxic fire retardants called PBDEs, which were put in household items like furniture and... -
PFAs Response Agency Continues Without Director or Edict
Jan 14, 2019 | The Detroit News
By Beth LeBlanc
A multi-agency state task force assembled to tackle a ubiquitous chemical contaminant across Michigan continues to operate under the Whitmer administration, but without a director or the executive directive that created it. -
New Analysis Raises Questions About EPA’s Classification on Glyphosate Weed Killer
Jan 14, 2019 | Environmental Health News
By Carey Gillam
A little more than a month ahead of a first-ever federal trial over the issue of whether or not Monsanto's popular weed killers can cause cancer, a new analysis raises troubling questions about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's... -
UK Commissions Brexit Supply-Chain Impact Study
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical Watch
The UK government has commissioned a new study to assess the impact on chemical supply chains of Britain's planned departure from the European Union. With just over two months until Brexit day on 29 March, it remains highly... -
Big U.S. Rail-Safety Upgrade Spurs Feud Over Crash-Halting Tech
Jan 14, 2019 | Bloomberg
By Christopher Yasiejko
Two companies battling for a share of more than $14 billion in mandated safety upgrades on U.S. railroads are set to collide in federal court to resolve a dispute over technology that prevents train accidents. Germany’s Siemens AG... -
Residents Return to Town After Chemical Train Crash
Jan 14, 2019 | NTD
By Chris Jasurek
Residents of Bartow, Georgia, are returning to their homes, which they fled after a train derailment released toxic chemicals. Some 500 homes had to be evacuated after a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed near Bartow shortly... -
Ocasio-Cortez Calls for Paving the Way for New Green Deal
Jan 14, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sahil Kapur
A quartet of young Democratic women, new to Congress and unafraid to push boundaries, is making an audacious attempt to set their party’s agenda and shape the 2020 presidential campaign. New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez... -
Conservatives Submit Select Committee Wish List
Jan 14, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Nick Sobczyk
Conservatives want Republican leaders to select a skeptic of man-made global warming for the top GOP spot on the climate change select committee to offer a counter to Democratic messaging and progressives pushing the "Green... -
Pennsylvania Emissions Order Warily Eyed by Natural Gas Industry
Jan 14, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry had mixed reactions to Gov. Tom Wolf’s recent executive order to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with some on edge about the policies that could follow and others pointing to the role that the... -
Working During a Shutdown — 'It's Just Weird'
Jan 14, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
A small number of EPA employees are still working away during the partial government shutdown that closed the agency two weeks ago. Democrats on Capitol Hill and union officials have begun to dig into who those EPA employees...
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Shutdown: Use of EPA Staff for Wheeler Confirmation Questioned
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
A group of US Senate Democrats has questioned President Trump nominee Andrew Wheeler’s use of EPA staff to prepare for his upcoming hearing during a partial government shutdown. And they have suggested that diverting the agency’s thin staff to such work could magnify "the already dire consequences of the shutdown on public health and the environment".
Mr Wheeler was nominated for the position of EPA administrator – a position he has held in an acting capacity since July – despite the partial government shutdown which has kept the agency closed since 29 December. Now the longest in US history, this has most EPA staff furloughed, meaning they are barred by law from working until the government is functioning again.
However, Senate Democrats on the Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) alleged in a 10 January letter that Mr Wheeler is using the some 812 exempted workers in preparations for his 16 January hearing. This, they said, potentially violates the EPA’s shutdown contingency plan.
Senators Tom Carper (D-Delaware), Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) said that this does not credibly qualify as one of the permitted uses elaborated in the EPA’s contingency plan, which generally covers activities "necessary to protect life and property".
The senators asked for detailed information about his use of both exempted and furloughed employees and the potential redirection of resources in light of his nomination, in advance of his hearing with the EPW.
It is unlikely that the federal government will be reopened by the time the Senate hears Mr Wheeler’s nomination.
https://chemicalwatch.com/73362/shutdown-use-of-epa-staff-for-wheeler-confirmation-questioned
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Divided Congress May Actually Lift Energy Bills, Lawmakers Say
Jan 14, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
You might think a Democratic-controlled House and GOP-controlled Senate means inaction on climate and energy legislation.
Not so, says Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a freshman senator—and energy adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign—who landed a prized energy committee spot. Cramer is betting he and other fossil-fuel backers can capitalize on enthusiasm that House Democrats have for clean energy and climate bills.
“I think divided government presents the perfect opportunity for all of us to accept the reality that if we want something, we have to give something,” Cramer, a three-term House member who toppled Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) in November, told Bloomberg Environment. “I’m an eternal optimist, but I actually do think from a strategic standpoint, I do see a pathway.”
Other senators said they’ve already been thinking of ways a Democratic-controlled House ready to tackle clean energy and climate bills could improve the odds of getting some bipartisan bills through. Historically, differences over energy policy have broken more along regional than political lines.
Ideas that Cramer would put on the table include boosting tax incentives for capturing carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas; increasing existing credits for operations that refine poorer-quality coal into more efficient coal; and more funding for Energy Department research.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said the elevation of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) to top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee could help as Hoeven tries to resurrect their 2018 bill allowing federal buildings to keep using natural gas to meet more stringent energy-efficiency requirements.
Manchin, a fossil-fuel supporter, “gives us some help to advance that legislation out of the Senate, so right there, that could create some opportunities with the House,” Hoeven, also an energy panel member, told Bloomberg Environment.
Hurdles RemainSenators itching for energy policy progress concede hurdles remain for compromises, given that House Democrats are talking far more about renewable energy and other policies to combat climate change—an agenda many Republicans and even some Democrats in the Senate aren’t inclined to support.
But they hope they can build on the previous Congress, which saw the passage of more modest bills showing areas on which Democrats and Republicans can agree. They included increased incentives in 2018 for capturing carbon.
The effort was led by an unlikely alliance of Republicans wanting to support oil and gas operators, such as Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.) and Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), and Democrats who see carbon capture as a tool to fight global warming, such as Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Brian Schatz (Hawaii).
“We are kind of puzzling through how we can capitalize on the new energy behind climate action and how we can fit our efforts together between the two chambers,” Schatz said.
Collin O’Mara, the National Wildlife Federation’s CEO, said he sees “a sweet spot” going forward: legislation that further boosts carbon capture efforts and clean energy as well as improvements in energy efficiency and climate resilience.
House Momentum ClearIn December, both chambers also passed a bill (S. 512) to begin laying the regulatory framework for advanced nuclear reactors, a Barrasso measure co-sponsored by Whitehouse and a half-dozen other Democrats. Trump had not yet signed the measure as of Jan. 11.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said senators interested in making deals see opportunity in the momentum on energy and climate bills in the House, even if they think those bills go too far.
“Look, bills will pass out of the House,” creating “momentum that has not been present on these issues since the Republicans have controlled the House and Senate,” Markey said.
“That then creates a different dynamic over here in the Senate, especially as it relates to, say, tax breaks for wind, and solar, or all-electric vehicles, batteries,” Markey said,
Those ideas either have some Senate Republican support or can be easily meshed with any Republican-led tax bill in the Senate, he said.
New Role For West Virginia DemocratManchin, who survived an effort by climate advocates to block his rise to the top Democratic slot on the Energy and Natural Resources panel, said he’ll have common ground with Western fossil fuel state lawmakers to draw from in pushing energy legislation.
“Carbon capture and sequestration is a must, we can get there,” he said, adding that he’ll be focusing on finding ways to make the technology commercially deployable at power plants.
Manchin also said his backing of his state’s coal industry doesn’t mean he’ll stand in the way of bills that cut planet-warming emissions.
“I think we have a responsibility, and on top of that we have the ability, to make significant changes,” he said.
Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), also holds out hope for agreement on climate legislation.
“It hasn’t been this way for a lot of years, but I do think there’s an emerging consensus on climate that’s bipartisan,” Casey said. “I think Republicans here are starting—starting— to come around to the idea that we’ve got to take action. Maybe we can couple that with House action.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/divided-congress-may-actually-lift-energy-bills-lawmakers-say
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New Direction for Us Chemical Regulation or Status Quo?
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt Erickson
Environmentalists are hoping to see a shake-up in 2019 at the US Environmental Protection Agency office that evaluates the potential risks of chemicals and pesticides. That office will get a new leader this year, Alexandra Dunn, who could take implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in a new direction.
Several environmental groups and members of Congress want the EPA to change course in how it is implementing TSCA, which was revised in 2016. Advocates for change claim that under the Trump administration, the EPA has been approving the use of chemicals with insufficient toxicity data and failing to evaluate all uses of chemicals.
In 2017, a coalition of environmental and public health groups challenged the EPA rules for prioritizing and evaluating chemicals under the updated TSCA. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is expected to rule in the case this year, and the court’s decision will likely dictate the direction that EPA’s chemical office takes.
In the meantime, lawmakers are expected to keep a close eye on the EPA’s actions related to several chemicals. Some Democrats are concerned about the agency’s handling of asbestos under the revised TSCA. Lawmakers are also pushing the EPA to finalize a ban on trichloroethylene in degreasers and dry-cleaning spot removers, eliminate polychlorinated biphenyls from light fixtures in schools and childcare facilities, and release an overdue assessment of the health risks of formaldehyde.
Republican leaders in the Senate are asking for limits on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which contaminate many US military bases and drinking-water supplies. They are also calling for the EPA to make a decision quickly about methylene chloride in paint removers, which can be fatal when used without proper ventilation.
The EPA will likely face increased pressure to act on those chemicals as well as meet several deadlines under the amended TSCA. The agency’s top priority is to complete risk evaluations for 10 substances by the end of the year, as required by the law. The EPA announced the 10 chemicals in December 2016 and released a draft human health risk assessment for one of them—pigment violet 29 (PV29)—in late 2018. Assessments on the other nine, which include asbestos, methylene chloride, and trichloroethylene, are expected soon.Environmentalists predict that the EPA will not find any health risks associated with the chemicals because the agency’s current process underestimates exposure, they say.
But environmentalists predict that the EPA will not find any health risks associated with the chemicals because the agency’s current process underestimates exposure, they say.
In the case of PV29, the EPA relied on a personal communication with an employee of a PV29 manufacturer to estimate a maximum workplace air concentration. “Based on this questionable calculation, EPA concludes definitively that workers face no risk from PV29 inhalation,” Richard Denison, a lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental advocacy group, says in a recent blog post.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/World-Chemical-Outlook-2019-Environmental-forecast/97/i2
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Methylene Chloride Restrictions Sit During US Government Shutdown
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt Erickson
he US Environmental Protection Agency sent two rules related to methylene chloride in paint strippers to the White House for approval on Dec. 21. The agency has yet to reveal the content of those rules, but environmental groups speculate that one of them would ban methylene chloride in paint strippers sold to consumers. The other rule, listed as a prerule, proposes to establish a training, certification, and limited-access program for workers who use methylene chloride in paint and coating removal.
The EPA proposed to ban methylene chloride in consumer and commercial paint strippers during the final days of the Obama administration. The move followed reports of men who died while using such products without proper ventilation. Now, the agency appears to have limited that rule to include only consumer uses, according to environmental groups. The EPA addresses commercial uses of methylene chloride–based paint strippers in a separate proposed rule that could take several years to finalize, they say. The EPA cannot publish either rule until the partial government shutdown ends.
“For the families around the country who have lost loved ones to methylene chloride exposure, this is at best a half-step forward in getting these deadly paint strippers off the market,” Lindsay McCormick, project manager at the environmental advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. “Rather than waiting for EPA to act, most major retailers have already removed or pledged to remove these products from their shelves. But that doesn’t protect most workers, and now it looks like EPA won’t either.”
https://cen.acs.org/policy/chemical-regulation/Methylene-chloride-restrictions-sit-during/97/i2
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Trump’s EPA Sued for Failure to Finalize Ban on Deadly Paint Strippers
Jan 14, 2019 | Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
By Jamie Nolan
Environmental and public health advocates and the mothers of two young men who recently died from methylene chloride exposure today filed a lawsuit against Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for their failure to finalize a ban on the use of the lethal chemical in paint strippers. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Vermont.
“One life is one too many to have been lost to this deadly chemical. We have lost loved ones due to the chemical industry’s and the EPA’s inaction to ban methylene chloride. Retailers have stepped up to save lives. How many more people will the EPA allow to die before they ban methylene chloride?” said Wendy Hartley, whose 21-year-old son Kevin died from methylene chloride exposure on April 28, 2017.
“No parent should ever have to bury their child. No one else should have go through what I’m going through because of a paint removal product. The EPA must get these products off store shelves,” said Lauren Atkins, whose 31-year-old son Joshua died from methylene chloride exposure on February 12, 2018.
EPA estimates that 1.3 million Americans are exposed to methylene chloride from paint strippers in their homes and workplaces each year. Acute exposure to methylene chloride is known to cause asphyxiation, heart failure, and sudden death, while long-term exposure presents an increased risk of cancer, liver disease, and other serious health effects.
Methylene chloride is responsible for more than 60 reported deaths, including at least four since EPA proposed banning methylene chloride paint strippers in January 2017. However, the Trump EPA has violated its public commitments and legal obligations by failing to finalize that ban, leaving consumers and workers exposed to the chemical’s dangers.
“Since EPA proposed its methylene chloride ban, at least four American families have lost loved ones. In light of the Trump EPA’s continued failure to act, eleven retailers have announced that they will stop selling these dangerous products. EPA must follow the home improvement industry’s lead and ban these deadly paint removers from store shelves and workplaces nationwide,” said Safer Chemicals Healthy Families Director Liz Hitchcock.
The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the country’s principal chemical safety law, requires EPA to regulate chemicals that present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. In January 2017, the Obama Administration determined that methylene chloride places consumers, workers, and bystanders at unreasonable risk of injury and proposed to ban its use in paint strippers. In May 2018, EPA promised to finalize that ban “shortly.”
In the absence of federal action, eleven major North American home improvement and auto parts retailers have taken action over the past year to protect their customers from the chemical, announcing plans to ban methylene chloride-based paint strippers from thousands of store shelves nationwide.
“These chemicals can be deadly, whether you’re on the job or a home do-it-yourselfer. There’s just no excuse for the government’s failure to follow through in protecting both workers and consumers,” said Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
https://saferchemicals.org/newsroom/trumps-epa-sued-for-failure-to-finalize-ban-on-deadly-paint-strippers/
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What Is the Price of Fire Safety?
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
Straight out of college, Ted Schaefer’s first assignment at 3M Canada was to provide technical support and formulate firefighting foams. It was 1980, and 3M was the dominant producer of fluorosurfactant-containing foams used to quell hydrocarbon fires after aircraft crash landings and to put out fires at oil refineries, chemical plants, and storage-tank facilities.
From the 1970s through the 1990s, 3M’s Light Water fire suppressant—and other fluorosurfactant-based firefighting foams like it—were the “highest performing” foams available, recalls Schaefer, who earned a degree in chemistry from the University of Waterloo. The foams seemed to have few, if any, drawbacks.
A concentrated formula, diluted with water, forms a heat-resistant foam blanket that rapidly cools and smothers most hydrocarbon-fueled fires. The fluorine content helps create a low-surface-tension film that rapidly spreads across the surface of a flammable liquid. A foam’s quick action in a fire can mean the difference between life and death.
Fluorosurfactants are a class of fluorine-based chemicals also used in fabric-protection sprays sold under names such as Scotchgard and Teflon and, previously, as processing aids in the manufacture of nonstick pots and pans. But because firefighting foams are applied in the outdoor environment, they are a major vector for the release of fluorochemicals into drinking water, where their presence is associated with diseases including cancer.
Schaefer recalls asking fellow 3M scientists how fluorosurfactants degrade in the environment. “I was told that fluorosurfactants are nonreactive, inert materials,” he says. “They should be thought of as ‘chemical rocks.’ ” His colleagues assured him that the surfactants would do no harm when they got into the environment.
The 3M scientists were wrong. In 2000 the company admitted that surfactants based on perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), which were used in Light Water, were accumulating in the environment and showing up in humans and animals at levels that raised health questions. Similar fluorosurfactants based on perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), another eight-carbon fluorochemical, have been linked to human health concerns as well.
However, many firefighting experts, including US military scientists, consider fluorosurfactant-containing foams essential to preserving life and property because they suppress fires more quickly than alternatives, such as old-style protein foams containing hydrocarbon surfactants and ground animal hooves.
Layered on top of the safety debate are lawsuits from firefighters and people claiming illness from drinking water contaminated with PFOA- and PFOS-based fluorosurfactants and their six-carbon replacements—compounds that together are known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). States and municipalities have also filed lawsuits seeking to recoup costs for water filtration systems.
A 2016 Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health study using US Environmental Protection Agency data found PFAS in drinking water at 664 military training facilities and 533 civilian airports. A Department of Defense report to Congress in late 2017 acknowledged 393 active and closed military installations where the department knows or suspects itcontaminated drinking water with PFOA or PFOS compounds.
Last year, the state of Washington passed legislation to ban PFAS-containing firefighting foamsbeginning in 2020. Fire trucks will no longer be able to use them on fuel spills and car fires, though use will continue at airports, military bases, petroleum refineries, and chemical plants.
In October, President Donald J. Trump signed the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2018 requiring the FAA to allow civilian airports to use fluorine-free foams by 2021. Rules now require US airports to use military-grade foams that contain PFAS. Public-interest groups such as the Environmental Working Group and the International Persistent Organic Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN) want an end to the use of PFAS in all firefighting foams.
For their part, fluorochemical suppliers such as Chemours, Dynax, and AGC Chemicals and foam makers such as Perimeter Solutions and Solberg are calling for a more measured approach. With few exceptions, all have turned to C6 fluorosurfactants, which they consider safer and less likely to bioaccumulate than surfactants based on PFOA and PFOS.
To limit environmental exposure, foam makers have also called on all users to stop training exercises using fluorosurfactant-containing foam. Others champion fluorine-free foams that they consider just as good as the fluorosurfactant types. Though not everyone agrees that fluorine-free foams are up to the task, pressure is mounting to severely restrict fluorosurfactants or remove them completely from firefighting foam.
A high standard
“I feel badly if I did something that led to people being hurt,” says Schaefer, the former 3M fluorochemical foam formulator.In 2003, while still working for 3M, he developed and patented the first modern fluorine-free foams. 3M later decided it no longer wanted to be involved in firefighting foams, and in 2007 it sold the patents to Solberg.
Shortly after the sale, Schaefer joined Solberg. Until his retirement in 2015, he led the formulation and sale of fluorine-free foams in Australia, where he had worked for 3M since the late 1980s. “The technology of fluorine-free foam that I developed utilized a lot of organic chemicals, including complex sugars and starches,” Schaefer says. “These add heat resistance and stability to the foam.”
Schaefer’s work garnered Solberg a Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award in 2014 for its fluorine-free foams. The EPA presents the award to recognize technologies that prevent pollution and match or improve the performance of existing products.
Eduard Kleiner, president of Dynax, a C6 fluorosurfactant maker, disagrees that fluorine-free foams are up to the task. A former director of corporate research at Ciba-Geigy, a onetime fluorosurfactant producer, he refers to himself as “the old man in the field.” Kleiner founded Dynax in 1991.
“The fluorine haters are looking for any possible deficiency” to remove fluorosurfactants from foams, Kleiner says. “They ignore the fact that fluorine-free foam can’t meet the most stringent performance specifications” demanded by the US military.
The haters, Kleiner says, lump all fluorosurfactant chemistries together, but the C6 compounds have a much better toxicological profile than PFOS- and PFOA-related materials, he claims.
Many foam formulations containing C6 fluorosurfactants now meet US military specifications, Kleiner says. None of the fluorine-free foams can do that, he notes. “If 200 passengers burn up in a crash landing because firefighters use fluorine-free foam, I’m willing to testify this could have been foreseen and likely avoided by the use of C6 fluorosurfactant-based foams.”
Kleiner acknowledges that fluorosurfactants, including C6 types, persist in the environment. But he says the C6-based surfactants do not bioaccumulate. He supports the use of alternatives for small hydrocarbon fires and says firefighters should not use fluorine-containing foams in training exercises. “I personally think it is good” that military scientists “are searching for fluorine-free foam meeting military specifications,” he says.
Researchers at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) who write the specifications for firefighting foams are actively looking at fluorine-free alternatives, but they say they haven’t found any that meet performance standards that include extinguishing a 2.6 m2 test fire in as little as 30 s.
John Farley, director of fire test operations at NRL, says the lab has qualified 16 firefighting foams containing C6 chemistry. They are mostly updated recipes for PFOA-based materials. “We need to come up with fluorine-free foam. But what’s available now can’t meet specification,” he says.
Katherine M. Hinnant, a chemical engineer who leads NRL research on firefighting foams, says fluorinated foams “outperform fluorine-free foams by a factor of four to five,” by containing a fire and suppressing vapors that can reignite. Fluorine-free foams are stable for 3 min, she says, while the fluorosurfactant kind can last 30 min.
In the search for more effective fluorine-free foams, Hinnant says she is evaluating hydrocarbon surfactants, silicones, and sulfonated surfactants. “Fluorine is really amazing,” she says, but “we are focusing on eliminating fluorine.”
Safety versus the environment
Hinnant and other government researchers are well aware that ineffective firefighting foams contributed to the deaths of 134 sailors on board the navy’s USS Forrestal in 1967. It was in an effort to avoid similar catastrophes that the navy developed a fluorosurfactant-containing foam with 3M.
However, some who use firefighting foams in critical situations claim that fluorine-free foams already perform as well as fluorine-containing ones. London’s Heathrow Airport switched to fluorine-free foams in 2013 after a 15-month evaluation project, says airport fire regulation and oversight manager Graeme Day. He has no qualms about performance. “It’s been absolutely excellent,” he says.
Two incidents at the airport, both in 2013, convinced Day that he had made the right choice. In the first, an Airbus 319 en route to Oslo, Norway, from London had to make an emergency landing at Heathrow after covers blew off both engines, knocking out one and setting the other on fire. The pilot landed the plane with the one good engine “fully involved” in fire, Day says.
Firefighters were able to quell the fire with the fluorine-free foam in less than 3 min after the plane touched down. They also safely evacuated all 80 people. “That incident boosted our confidence” in fluorine-free foams, Day says.
Afterward, maintenance crews washed the runoff into drains feeding the airport’s water treatment plant, Day says. A 2008 incident using a fluorosurfactant-containing foam required collection and disposal of the effluent to prevent release of the persistent ingredient into the environment, he says.
In the second, less serious incident, firefighters quickly put out a fuselage fire in a parked Boeing 787 Dreamliner using a fluorine-free foam.
Day acknowledges that putting out large fuel-tank fires isn’t part of his job.Firms such as BP, ExxonMobil, and Shell that do deal with such fires have banded together in a group called the Large Atmospheric Storage Tank Fires project to reduce the risk of tank fires and to test foam performance.
“Fluorinated foams are a major issue,” says project coordinator Niall Ramsden. “Our priority is to get an end-user picture of what can and what cannot be done with various foams. We see the way the world is going. Our current testing focus is on foams that do not contain fluorosurfactants.”
So far, tests show fluorine-free foams perform as well as the fluorine-containing kind for smaller tank fires, Ramsden says. But for large tanks (those with a diameter of 100 m or larger), he indicates that fluorochemical-containing foams still perform best.
Despite growing skepticism over fluorosurfactant foams, Perimeter Solutions, a leading foam maker, has yet to see a drop in US demand for C6 foams. Still, many customers in northern Europe and Australia are shifting to fluorine-free foams, CEO Edward Goldberg says. Goldberg expects an eventual shift in the US as well, given recent legislation in Washington State and at the federal level.
The firm started in the fire-retardant business as a maker of phosphate-based retardants used on forest fires. It acquired the Spanish C6 foam maker Auxquimia in 2014. And Perimeter is now offering fluorine-free foams. Earlier this month, it completed the acquisition of Solberg, the firm that bought Schaefer’s patents on fluorine-free foams.
The move from C6 fluorochemical foams to fluorine-free versions “is a natural evolution of the market,” Goldberg says. However, the shift will involve a trade-off, he says. “Fluorine-free foam can’t match the performance of C6 foams. When life and property are at risk, you want to put the fire out as quickly as possible,” and that currently requires fluorosurfactant chemistry in many cases, he says.
In fact it was a Solberg representative that made the case for C6 fluorochemical foams at the Washington State foam legislation hearings in February 2018. “The fluorine-free foams are very effective on spill fires,” Mitch Hubert, Solberg’s global product development vice president, told the legislators. But when those foams are used on fuel-tank fires, the foam plunges below the surface, picks up fuel, and contributes to the fire, he said.
“You don’t want a situation like they had in Buncefield, England,” he said, “where one tank caught on fire and then another one caught on fire... and you had a huge ecological disaster from their inability to extinguish the first fire.”
News reports described the 2005 Buncefield fuel-depot fire, which involved 20 big fuel tanks, as the largest of its kind in Europe since World War II. A delay in spraying fluorochemical-containing foams on the flames, in part because of ecological concerns, allowed the fire to grow. The local water utility closed a nearby pumping station after PFOS contamination was found in groundwater nearby.
Firefighters weigh in
Users of fluorochemical-containing foams are worried about what exposure to the foams means for their health. Testifying to Congress in September 2018 before it passed the legislation allowing civilian airports to use fluorine-free foams, Timothy Putnam, a 24-year civilian firefighter for the navy, said he recalled using fluorine-containing foam—in the days before scientists raised safety flags—“as a substitute for vehicle soap to wash fire department vehicles. We also used [it] to clean the fire station floors.”
Now, Putnam said, he is worried about “human impacts” of the exposure. And he didn’t accept the argument that C6 fluorosurfactants are safer than PFOA- and PFOS-containing foams. Though the C6formulas “are generally less toxic and less persistent in the environment compared to the longer-chain PFOA... they are likely to contain trace amounts of PFOA as a by-product,” he said.
Other firefighters are worried as well. In October, lawyers filed a class-action suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio against fluorosurfactant makers, including 3M and Chemours, seeking unspecified relief for health-related injuries. The case, which names firefighter Kevin D. Hardwick as the lead plaintiff, doesn’t restrict plaintiffs to firefighters. All individuals residing in the US who “have a detectable level of PFAS materials in their blood serum” are named as members of the class.
One feature of the case is a request that the presiding judge appoint a panel of scientific experts to evaluate evidence and determine probable links between PFAS exposure, including C6fluorosurfactants, and health problems. A panel appointed as part of a similar 2004 class-action case against DuPont, Chemours’s former parent, found probable connections between PFOA and health problems, including thyroid disease, testicular and kidney cancers, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and ulcerative colitis.
The panel’s findings ultimately led DuPont and Chemours to pay $670 million to settle 3,550 lawsuits by residents living near a PFOA plant in West Virginia. Claimants said that drinking PFOA-contaminated water made them ill.
The Hardwick case is one of more than 70 firefighting-foam-related cases that a panel of federal judges is reviewing for consolidation. Cases include claims against 3M, Tyco Fire Products, Chemguard, and other firms that have made PFOA- and PFOS-containing firefighting foams.
Whether the fluorosurfactants used in foam are based on PFOA, PFOS, or C6 chemistry, “these are tough chemicals,” says Stephen Korzeniowski, a consultant who earlier worked as a fluorotechnology expert for Chemours and DuPont. The molecules’ carbon-fluorine bonds “are one of the toughest bonds known. That can be both a blessing and a curse,” he says.
Those tough bonds mean the fluorosurfactants are chemical and heat resistant—and also environmentally persistent, Korzeniowski says. But in work for the FluoroCouncil, which represents fluorochemical users and makers, researchers found that C6 fluorosurfactants are not bioaccumulative (Regul. Toxicol. Pharmacol.2019, DOI: 10.1016/j.yrtph.2019.01.019) and have a “significantly better” toxicological profile than PFOA- and PFOS-based surfactants, he says.
Environmental groups say they are concerned about the use of any fluorosurfactant foams.
The C6 products appear to be less bioaccumulative than those containing PFOS and PFOA, acknowledges David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group. But the C6surfactants are still environmentally persistent and have toxicity end points similar to those of PFOS and PFOA types, Andrews says. EWG estimates that up to 110 million Americans could have PFAS in their drinking water. “Fluorine free is the much better option,” he says.
When the United Nations Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants banned PFOS in 2015, it made an exception for use in firefighting foam. Governments are now considering lifting the exception for PFOS foams and adding a ban on PFOA foams.
IPEN, a Sweden-based public-interest group, released a report recommending that governments ban all PFAS surfactants, including the C6 chemistries, in firefighting foam. IPEN science adviser Sara Brosché, a chemist, says PFAS are “too dangerous to deal with one at a time, and countries should take action to address them as a class and remove all of them.”
If governments vote in favor of such a ban, that would mean the end to PFAS in firefighting foams. However, such a ban is unlikely. IPEN points out that China still produces large quantities of PFOA, and industry experts say PFOA is still widely used to make firefighting foams in Asia.
Schaefer, the father of fluorine-free foams, says he is confident that continued research and testing will yield fluorine-free foams that can meet the most demanding requirements. “I expect the pressure will continue and even US defense forces will get away from fluorosurfactants,” he predicts. If that happens, fluorine-based firefighting foams could become a thing of the past.
https://cen.acs.org/business/specialty-chemicals/price-fire-safety/97/i2
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Detection of PFAs Pollution Globally Expected to Increase
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
Hot spots of drinking water contaminated with toxic fluorocarbons in Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, and the US grabbed headlines last year. In 2019, expect scientists to look for—and find—more areas polluted with nonpolymeric per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in those countries and across the world.
“It’s going to seem to the public like the problem is getting worse,” says Ginny Yingling, a research scientist at the Minnesota Department of Health and a PFAS expert. But scientists will just be identifying existing contamination through better analytical methods, says Yingling, who coleads the US Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council’s PFAS team.
Scientists are also likely to identify additional PFAS besides well-known legacy compounds, such as perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorohexanesulfonic acid, that were used industrially for decades, Yingling adds. Data indicate that at least some of these legacy chemicals, which have been found in people’s blood, can cause reproductive, developmental, liver, and immunological effects in laboratory animals. Few toxicity data are available on many PFAS that replaced the older ones.
More widespread detection of these chemicals will likely trigger more calls from the public for cleaning up PFAS contamination, Yingling says.
In the US, states facing contamination problems will be under pressure to act on their own. That’s because the acting head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, has said the EPA is weighing only the need for a federal drinking-water limit for certain widespread PFAS.
Researchers and regulators are increasingly concerned that these substances are spreading into the food supply through polluted water and the use of treated sewage sludge to improve soils. Australia warned people living where drinking water is tainted with PFAS from nearby military installations not to eat leafy greens harvested from gardens or home-raised poultry, eggs, beef, or lamb.
In 2019, Yingling expects to see advances in treatment technology for PFAS-tainted water supplies, moving beyond today’s standard of activated carbon filters.
Meanwhile, financial liability is expanding for militaries and companies that make or use PFAS—or formerly did so. Utilities are seeking money from polluters to pay for cleaning up PFAS-contaminated drinking-water supplies.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/World-Chemical-Outlook-2019-Environmental-forecast/97/i2
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When It Comes to Flame Retardants, New Chemicals, New Problems
Jan 14, 2019 | KQED Science
A new study of compounds in San Francisco Bay is illustrating a case of chemical whack-a-mole. Fifteen years ago, California banned a class of toxic fire retardants called PBDEs, which were put in household items like furniture and electronics. A year later, PBDEs were banned nationwide.
But now, along with these old flame retardants, the new chemicals used to replace them can also be found in the bay.
Rebecca Sutton is a senior scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, which conducts studies for the Regonal Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay. She talked with KQED's Brian Watt about concerns over this new class of flame retardants. Here's what she had to say, edited for length and clarity.
PBDEs were banned in the 2000s. What did they do and why were they banned?
Polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, were used in really large quantities in a number of consumer products in order to meet some well-intentioned flammability standards set by California. The compounds were meant to make some products, such as couches, less flammable, so that people could escape in the event of a house fire.
But it turns out they didn't work so well. Plus we started to see them in the environment and building up in our bodies. They were pretty toxic.
How successful was the ban on PBDEs?
It's actually been a huge success story for the bay. We've seen a one-third decline of these chemicals in the sediment at the bottom of the bay. In bay fish, we're seeing half the levels we used to.
So what's the problem, then?
When manufacturers couldn't use PBDEs, they still had to meet the state's flammability standards. So they switched to other chemicals, some of which are used in really large quantities in some typical consumer goods.
When we went out to the bay in 2013-14, we checked the water and sediment, as well as mussels and harbor seals, for a wide array of flame retardants. The types of flame retardants we saw that really caught our eye were those that are phosphate-based. They're really water-soluble; they can go right through a wastewater treatment plant and enter the bay. And they're building up in our water and in our sediment.
What effects does this newer class of chemicals have on people and the environment?
There are a number of different effects, depending on the species. One of the overarching findings that's of particular concern is that these chemicals can have endocrine-disrupting impacts. They can affect how estrogen works or block the path of estrogen in the body of a person or a fish. There have been a number of lab studies showing this, in fish in particular. But there are definitely concerns for people, too. And this can happen at very low levels of the chemicals, because the hormones are active in our bodies at very low levels.
So what happens next?
Well, a lot of manufacturers would like to not use flame retardants at all. They're primarily using them because of California's flammability standards. Here in our state, we changed one of these standards a few years ago, to where it no longer requires use of these compounds. The new standard is actually more effective in terms of protecting people in house fires. So people are starting to examine the standards to figure out whether these chemicals are actually working, whether we need them in the first place.
https://www.kqed.org/science/1936670/when-it-comes-to-flame-retardants-new-chemicals-new-problems
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PFAs Response Agency Continues Without Director or Edict
Jan 14, 2019 | The Detroit News
By Beth LeBlanc
A multi-agency state task force assembled to tackle a ubiquitous chemical contaminant across Michigan continues to operate under the Whitmer administration, but without a director or the executive directive that created it.
Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder’s edict that formed the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team expired on Dec. 31. The group’s director, Carol Isaacs, retired from the task force around the same time.
Despite that, MPART continues to sample, test and respond to sites with known or a potential contaminant, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Scott Dean said.
Likewise, the state Department of Health and Human Services is continuing to collect blood serum samples from residents in Kent County to study the link between drinking water with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, and the resulting increase in a person’s body.
“We continue to operate as before, but what the multi-agency team calls itself and how we’re organized will be something the new administration decides,” Dean said, noting that Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has emphasized the importance of clean drinking water and PFAS response.BY NERDWALLETIf You Can Qualify for Any Credit Card, These Are the Top 6See more →
"The governor is closely reviewing this important matter to determine her approach moving forward," said Tiffany Brown, a spokeswoman for Whitmer.
Created at the tail end of 2017, MPART tested hundreds of community water supplies, school water supplies, day care centers and some private wells in 2018 for PFAS, a chemical long used in firefighting foam, tanneries, metal platers, Scotchgard and Teflon.
PFAS has some links to health risks such as thyroid disease, increased cholesterol levels, and kidney and testicular cancers.
The group said the testing was some of the most extensive in the nation and led to the identification of sky-high PFAS levels in Parchment and a school in Grand Haven. MPART also surveyed more than 1,000 fire stations and airports for the PFAS-containing firefighting foam.
The state has issued do-not-eat fish advisories for several Michigan waterways because of PFAS contamination and warned people not to eat deer in the Clark’s Marsh area of Oscoda in October.
The state’s PFAS Science Advisory Committee in December issued a 90-page report after studying the issue for months. It noted that the levels of PFAS lower than 70 parts per trillion — the current state and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency health advisory level for drinking water — can hurt human health.
The report stopped short of recommending a new level, but promoted a new level based on a combination of both toxicological and epidemiological data. Former Director Isaacs at the time said a new standard could be developed in “a matter of weeks.”
The state has urged the EPA to provide guidance, or even a new federal standard, for safe PFAS levels in drinking water. But the guidelines are unlikely to arrive anytime soon because of the partial federal government shutdown.
The panel’s recommendation came more than a year after then-Democratic Rep. Winnie Brinks of Grand Rapids had introduced a bill that would lower the drinking water health advisory level from 70 ppt to 5 ppt. The bill by Brinks, who is now a state senator, never gained a committee hearing.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/01/14/pfas-response-agency-continues-without-director-edict/2551943002/
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New Analysis Raises Questions About EPA’s Classification on Glyphosate Weed Killer
Jan 14, 2019 | Environmental Health News
By Carey Gillam
A little more than a month ahead of a first-ever federal trial over the issue of whether or not Monsanto's popular weed killers can cause cancer, a new analysis raises troubling questions about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) handling of pertinent science on glyphosate safety.
According to the report, which examines the opposing positions taken by the EPA and an international cancer research agency on glyphosate-based herbicides, the EPA has disregarded substantial scientific evidence of genotoxicity associated with weed killing products such as Roundup and other Monsanto brands. Genotoxicity refers to a substance's destructive effect on a cell's genetic material. Genotoxins can cause mutations in cells that can lead to cancer.
The EPA classifies glyphosate as not likely to be carcinogenic while the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is part of the World Health Organization, classifies it as "probably carcinogenic."
The paper was authored by Charles Benbrook, a former research professor who served at one time as executive director of the National Academy of Sciences board on agriculture, and was published in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe on Monday. It is based on Benbrook's review of EPA and IARC records regarding the types and numbers of glyphosate studies each organization evaluated.
"Clearly, compared to EPA's genotoxicity review, the IARC review is grounded on more recent, more sensitive, and more sophisticated genotoxic studies, and more accurately reflects real-world exposures," Benbrook told EHN.
Benbrook testified as an expert witness in the first lawsuit to go to trial against Monsanto over claims its glyphosate herbicides cause cancer. The plaintiff in that case, Dewayne "Lee" Johnson, won a unanimous jury award of $289 million last year that the judge in the case cut to $78 million. Thousands of additional cancer victims have sued Monsanto and the second trial begins Feb. 25 in federal court in San Francisco. Benbrook is also expected to testify for the plaintiff in that case.
Monsanto is seeking to exclude Benbrook's testimony at trial, saying he has no expertise in any physical science or field of medicine and no training or degree in toxicology and has never worked at the EPA or other regulatory body.
The EPA did not respond to a request for comment. The agency has maintained, however, that its review of glyphosate has been robust and thorough. Glyphosate has low toxicity for humans and glyphosate products can be safely used by following directions on labeled products, according to the EPA.
In the new analysis, Benbrook is critical of the EPA's scrutiny of glyphosate herbicides, noting that little weight was given to research regarding the actual formulations sold into the marketplace and used by millions of people around the world. Instead, the EPA and other regulators have mostly pointed to dozens of studies paid for by Monsanto and other companies selling glyphosate herbicides that found no cancer concerns. The EPA has given little attention to several independent research projects that have indicated the formulations can be more toxic than glyphosate alone, according to Benbrook.
Indeed, the EPA only started working in 2016—some 42 years after the first glyphosate herbicides came to market – with the U.S. National Toxicology Program to evaluate the comparative toxicity of the formulations. Early results disclosed in 2018 supported concerns about enhanced toxicity in formulations.
Several scientists, including from within the EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD), and from a panel of scientific experts convened by the EPA, have cited deficiencies and problems with the EPA's decision to classify glyphosate as not likely to be carcinogenic to humans. But Benbrook's analysis is the first to look deeply at how and why the EPA and IARC drew such divergent conclusions.
Benbrook looked at the citations for genotoxicity tests discussed in the EPA and IARC reports, both those that were published in peer-reviewed journals and the unpublished ones that were presented to the EPA by Monsanto and other companies.
Some studies looked at glyphosate alone, and/or glyphosate-based herbicide formulations and some included findings about a substance called aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), which is glyphosate's primary metabolite.
Benbrook's analysis found that within the body of available evidence, the EPA relied on 151 studies, 115 of which showed negative results, meaning no evidence of genotoxicity, and only 36 that had positive results. IARC cited 191 studies, only 45 of which showed negative results and 146 of which showed evidence of genotoxicity.
IARC said within these studies it found "strong evidence that exposure to glyphosate or glyphosate-based formulations is genotoxic…"
Benbrook's analysis reports that over the last three years at least 27 additional studies have been published addressing possible mechanisms of genotoxic action for glyphosate and/or formulated glyphosate-based herbicides and all but one of the 27 studies reported one or more positive result. There were 18 positives arising from DNA damage, six associated with oxidative stress, and two with other genotoxicity mechanisms, his paper states.
According to Benbrook, the EPA's failure to focus on formulated glyphosate-based herbicides is dangerous because these formulations "account for all commercial uses and human exposures (no herbicide products contain just glyphosate)."
More research is needed on real-world exposures, Benbrook concludes.
https://www.ehn.org/glyphosate-cancer-epa-2625974133.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
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UK Commissions Brexit Supply-Chain Impact Study
Jan 14, 2019 | Chemical Watch
The UK government has commissioned a new study to assess the impact on chemical supply chains of Britain's planned departure from the European Union.
With just over two months until Brexit day on 29 March, it remains highly uncertain whether the UK can strike a deal on the terms of exit, or will crash out in a no-deal scenario.
MPs are expected to vote down on 15 January a divorce deal put forward by Prime Minister Theresa May.
The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the objectives of the research are:to assess the impact of the post-Brexit chemicals regulatory regime on the operation of a broad range of businesses in the chemicals value chain; andto inform future strategy for implementation and communication of regulatory changes that are developed post EU Exit.
Collection of baseline data and analysis relating to the existing operations of chemicals businesses will be completed by the end of March, Defra said. Additional information will be gathered from key stakeholders across England through face-to-face or telephone interviews.
Businesses may also be asked to take part in follow-up interviews after the UK withdraws, "to allow exploration of the changes that have actually taken place, their costs and benefits, and recommended actions for government to take in future".
Defra has appointed a consortium led by Risk & Policy Analysts (RPA) to carry out the study.
Britain wants to remain an associate member of Echa after Brexit, but has said that in a no-deal scenario it will put in place its own REACH equivalent legislation. This will be run by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
https://chemicalwatch.com/73361/uk-commissions-brexit-supply-chain-impact-study
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Big U.S. Rail-Safety Upgrade Spurs Feud Over Crash-Halting Tech
Jan 14, 2019 | Bloomberg
By Christopher Yasiejko
Two companies battling for a share of more than $14 billion in mandated safety upgrades on U.S. railroads are set to collide in federal court to resolve a dispute over technology that prevents train accidents.
Germany’s Siemens AG accuses U.S. rival Wabtec Corp. of using patented technology without permission and is demanding royalties, along with possible reimbursements for lost profits for its TrainLink products. A trial starts Monday in Wilmington, Delaware. Wabtec denies that it infringes and contends the patents are invalid.
The two companies compete for contracts from freight and passenger railroads required to upgrade with a system known as positive train control (PTC). The technology can automatically stop a train by predicting rail conditions ahead and taking control when needed, such as if the train is going too fast around a curve or continuing into an area where it should have stopped.
“The federal PTC mandate is the single-largest regulator cost ever imposed on the rail industry” by the Federal Railroad Administration, Siemens said in its initial 2016 complaint.
The government mandated rail operators implement the systems by Dec. 31, 2018, anywhere passenger trains operate or on all passenger lines or those where hazardous materials are transported. The impetus for the upgrade was a 2008 head-on collision in California between a freight train and commuter train that killed 25 people.
But as of Dec. 31, just four of 41 railroads had implemented a PTC system, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Thirty-three sought compliance extensions of as much as two years, with the Federal Railroad Administration approving nine. In September, the FRA conditionally approved a request by New Mexico Rail Runner Express for a deadline of Dec. 31, 2020.
Antitrust Accusations
Siemens sued Wabtec in April 2016. Wabtec, in turn, accused Siemens of infringing three of its own patents related to the technology. Those counterclaims were severed from the case, and Wilmerding, Pennsylvania-based Wabtec re-filed them in a separate lawsuit, which is pending in Delaware.
Siemens, in its response to those allegations, said Wabtec’s patents are invalid and accused it of violating antitrust laws. Wabtec has a “pattern of exclusionary distribution and tying practices to maintain monopoly control” over the markets for the train-safety technology, Siemens said in a heavily redacted filing. Siemens also accused Wabtec of making false and deceptive statements about Siemens products.
Wabtec in 2017 had sales of about $322 million related to train control and signaling, which includes PTC, the company said Nov. 21 in a financial filing.
Freight rail operators are expected to spend more than $10 billion on development and deployment of the systems by the time it’s fully operational nationwide, according to the Association of American Railroads. The commuter railroad industry’s cost to implement the systems will exceed $4.1 billion, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
Philadelphia Crash
The technology would have prevented the derailment on May 12, 2015, of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia after the engineer went too fast around a curve, according to investigators with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. The accident killed eight people and injured more than 200.
Amtrak has since installed the system on the lines it controls between Washington, D.C., and Boston, the so-called Northeast Corridor, which in fiscal 2017 carried some 12 million passengers.
Wabtec has sold its systems for use in Alaska, Denver, California, Illinois and Washington state, according to the complaint. Bombardier Inc. on Jan. 9 said it won a $669-million contract with New Jersey Transit Corp. to provide 113 commuter rail cars equipped with PTC technology.
The case is Siemens Mobility Inc. v. Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corp., 16-cv-284, U.S. District Court, Delaware (Wilmington).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-14/big-u-s-rail-safety-upgrade-spurs-feud-over-crash-halting-tech
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Residents Return to Town After Chemical Train Crash
Jan 14, 2019 | NTD
By Chris Jasurek
Residents of Bartow, Georgia, are returning to their homes, which they fled after a train derailment released toxic chemicals.
Some 500 homes had to be evacuated after a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed near Bartow shortly after 8 p.m. on the night of Jan.6.
According to WRDW, some of the train’s chemical tank cars split open, spilling hydrogen peroxide and hydrochloric acid that spread in a toxic cloud from the crash site.
The train included tank cars carrying chlorine, but none of those ruptured.
In all, 39 cars came off the track.
Initially, everyone within seven miles of the derailment site was ordered to leave. Shelters were set up at various sites including Cross Community Church Jefferson County Recreation Center in nearby Louisville, about 10 miles from Bartow, and at Mt. Moriah Campground in Matthews.
The evacuation order was lifted by 9:25 a.m. on Jan. 7, even though emergency crews were still cleaning up the spills.
“The air monitoring is continuing, the water monitoring is continuing with EPD and we’re in the process of just monitoring the train traffic and making sure the tracks are laid and are solid,” Jim Anderson, former director of Emergency Services for Bryan County, told WRDW.Four First Responders Injured
None of the residents near the wreck were hurt by the toxic cloud, but four first responders had to be hospitalized.
Sgt. M. Hudlow, Cpl. D. Kurtz, Dep. B. Brown and Bartow Chief of Police J. Jones were taken to Jefferson Hospital after reporting ill effects from being exposed to the toxic chemical cloud while going door-to-door to warn people to leave their homes.
Hudlow was transported by ambulance to the Joseph M. Still Burn Unit at Doctor’s Hospital in Augusta. At the time of publication, he was still being treated for chemical exposure.
Kurtz was flown by medical helicopter to Doctor’s Hospital Burn Unit. He is currently still being treated.
Brown was treated for chemical exposure and was released by the Jefferson Emergency Room staff.
The current status of Jones is unknown.
Compensation for Evacuees
Norfolk Southern Railroad is offering to pay for expenses incurred by people forced to leave their homes on Jan. 6 because of the chemical spill following the train derailment.
The train company is also working with an NGO, the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, to track levels of hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide in the affected area.
Evacuees were asked to bring receipts and proof of residence to the Jefferson County Emergency Services center in Louisville.
The company does not seem to be trying to minimize the impact of the wreck and the subsequent evacuation.
One couple from Bartow told WRDW that though they only had $150 in receipts, Norfolk Southern wrote them a check for $500.
“I think they’re doing their job,” said evacuee Carolyn Davis. “I think they’re learning from this.”
“I love my life and I’m not ready to go nowhere,” Davis added.
According to local officials, it could have been a lot worse, reported WRDW, adding that people in Jefferson County are happy they’re not reliving the Graniteville tragedy in South Carolina.
Two Norfolk Southern trains collided in 2005 in Graniteville, resulting in nine deaths and over 250 treated for toxic chlorine exposure. The accident was determined to be caused by a misaligned railroad switch.
https://www.ntd.com/residents-return-to-town-after-chemical-train-crash_273804.html
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Ocasio-Cortez Calls for Paving the Way for New Green Deal
Jan 14, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sahil Kapur
A quartet of young Democratic women, new to Congress and unafraid to push boundaries, is making an audacious attempt to set their party’s agenda and shape the 2020 presidential campaign.
New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has floated tax rates as high as 70 percent on top incomes to fund a Green New Deal and end fossil fuels. Boston’s Ayanna Pressley wants to clear the way for passing legislation without regard for its impact on the deficit. Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar secured a House rule change that let her wear a religious head scarf in the chamber. Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib drew rebukes for a profanity-laced call to impeach President Donald Trump.
“Everything we do has some element of transforming the conversation,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview. “We’re the party of the New Deal and that’s the kind of Democrat that I am, and so I’m of course going to be advocating for those viewpoints.“
These women reflect the changing face of a party that’s becoming younger, increasingly diverse, and more progressive. All four are are younger than 45. Pressley is black, Ocasio-Cortez is of Puerto Rican descent, and Tlaib and Omar are Muslim. They are active on social media, where they promote causes like Medicare for all and free public college, all aimed at stretching the perception of what’s possible and transforming the national debate.
2020 InfluenceTheir more radical proposals are a long way from taking root, and many Democratic colleagues are concerned that they are defining the party for the broad swath of voters who generally are more conservative. Still, some of the ideas they are championing—proposals like a Green New Deal and expanding Medicare eligibility—are finding favor in the field of Democrats considering a 2020 presidential run who will have to win the party’s liberal-leaning base that turns out for primaries and caucuses.
“I just hope to do what I can to influence the overall conversation, and do my best to contribute and to introduce new ideas because that is what the American people are really asking for,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Omar said moving the national debate is “the core of the reason I ran” for Congress.
‘Shift the Narrative’“I want to shift the narrative of who belongs in these halls,” Omar, a Somali American who grew up in Kenya at a refugee camp, said in an interview. “I also want to shift the narrative around immigrants, refugees, make sure people understand that their hopes, dreams, struggles, aspirations are the same as everyone else’s.“
Tlaib said she isn’t “at all” deterred by the criticism of her remarks about impeaching Trump neither are her constituents. “I’m here to work and be their voice. But I love the fact that my residents don’t expect me to be perfect or that polished politician,” she said. “They wanted somebody real, and they have someone.”
The quick prominence of the new lawmakers will pose challenges for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she seeks to unify her left and centrist flanks around legislation to keep a divided government functioning while also conveying the party’s vision to 2020 voters.
Public MegaphoneHouse Democratic leaders are keenly aware of their megaphone and ability to affect the conversation. Ocasio-Cortez, who joined a protest in Pelosi’s office before even being sworn in, now has more followers on Twitter than the speaker of the House.
Tlaib stirred a controversy when was recorded saying “we’re gonna go in and impeach the motherf-----,” referring to the president, which flew in the face of attempts by Pelosi to tamp down impeachment talk and gave Republicans an opening for attack.
But Pelosi told MSNBC that while Tlaib’s stance doesn’t reflect the position of House Democrats, her language wasn’t “anything worse than what the president has said.“
House Democratic Conference Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, a New Yorker, heaped praise on the new freshman class. “They are definitely a great asset to advancing our agenda,” he said.
But some rank-and-file Democrats, veterans and newcomers, are wary of their outspokenness and willingness to break convention. Only a few have publicly criticized them. After Tlaib’s profane call for Trump’s impeachment, Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver chided her in a tweet.
‘Flat-Out Wrong’“In this new Congress, we must do what is right and not what is easy. So I’ll say what needs to be said: My colleague was flat-out wrong,” Cleaver tweeted.
They’re still only four women in a caucus of 235, which includes many lawmakers in relatively conservative districts who consider their ideas unrealistic and prefer to focus on modest proposals that can become law in a time of divided government. But they have their finger on the pulse of a passionate liberal base and presidential hopefuls are paying attention.
“She is challenging the status quo. I think that’s fantastic,” California Sen. Kamala Harris, a potential 2020 candidate, said of Ocasio-Cortez on ABC’s The View. Harris rejected the notion that Ocasio-Cortez’s socialist views risk splintering the Democratic Party. “She is introducing bold ideas that should be discussed, and I think it’s good for the party.“
Another liberal woman lawmaker, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, has become a frequent Trump target, most recently in a Jan. 13 tweet in which he invoked one of the worst American Indian massacres to mock her announcement of her presidential exploratory committee, saying it would have been a “smash” if done “from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen.”
Leading Democratic White House contenders like Warren and Beto O’Rourke have signaled support for the concept of a Green New Deal involving large investments in renewable energy. Presidential hopeful Julian Castro voiced openness to a higher top rate on the ultrawealthy to pay for policies such as a climate agenda after Ocasio-Cortez floated the idea.
Swing DistrictsOther Democrats are keeping their distance from talk of steep tax hikes and rejecting the idea of a single-payer health care system. The Democratic takeover of the House last November’s midterm turned on victories in purple or red districts where the electorate is more conservative than Bronx or Boston.
“It is certainly true that the wealthy pay too little in taxes, but we’re not ready to stipulate that that rate should be set at 70 percent,” said Matt Bennett, a spokesman for Third Way, a group seeking to steer the Democratic Party in a more centrist direction. “We think Medicare for All and other ideas at the core of the democratic socialist agenda that Senator Sanders was running on last time are a mistake for Democrats,” referring to Bernie Sanders, the 2016 presidential candidate.
“That is not the direction voters in swing districts want,” he said.
But that may not apply to core Democratic voters.
Liberal ShiftA Gallup poll released last week found that the share of Democrats who self-identify as “liberal” has shot up from 25 percent in 1994 to 51 percent in 2018, while moderates and conservatives in the party fell by double-digits. Among Americans overall, those who identify as “liberal” rose from 17 percent to 26 percent over that same period, but self-identified conservatives still rank higher at 35 percent.
“This is the tension that is within the Democratic Party. Do you go strongly progressive or do you stay in that center?” said Donna Edwards, a former Democratic congresswoman who served from 2008 to 2017.
She said Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, and Tlaib are having “an outsize impact on the conversation” in the party.
“It is going to put increased pressure on anyone who wants to be the standard bearer of the party to be able to speak that language. It’s a language that reflects where the base of the party is,“ Edwards added.
Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, an activist group with ties to Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, said Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are “growing out of touch with where the center of energy is in party” because they hail from an era when Democrats were “scared of Republicans constantly.“
“It’s why a bartender from the Bronx has set the climate for the 2020 election,” he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/ocasio-cortez-calls-for-paving-the-way-for-new-green-deal
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Conservatives Submit Select Committee Wish List
Jan 14, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Nick Sobczyk
Conservatives want Republican leaders to select a skeptic of man-made global warming for the top GOP spot on the climate change select committee to offer a counter to Democratic messaging and progressives pushing the "Green New Deal."
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has drawn up a list of candidates for ranking member of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis created by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Democrats.
"Our main goal is that the person who is chosen as ranking needs to be someone who is willing to take the grief — because they will be attacked all the time — and is willing to do the work," said Myron Ebell, director of global warming and international environmental policy at CEI. "As far as I can tell, as long as it's a talking shop, they're likely to have a lot of hearings."
Pelosi has already picked Florida Rep. Kathy Castor to lead the Democratic side of the panel. But the open question is whether Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will select from the large pool of climate skeptics in his caucus or the handful of GOP climate hawks, amid increasing pressure from progressives, the eco-right and the general public to address global warming.
Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) has already told McCarthy he's interested in serving on the panel, but he said Friday he hasn't heard back. Rooney was the co-sponsor on a pair of carbon tax bills last year, and the Washington Examiner reported last week that he's in line to co-chair the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus.
CEI and other conservative groups, however, are looking for leadership to go in the opposite direction, though Ebell said he hasn't heard much in response from McCarthy either.
The idea is to offer a counterperspective to what Ebell called "the ridiculous agenda" of the "Green New Deal," a broad set of proposals aimed at moving the country to 100 percent renewables in 10 years.
"We particularly want to make sure the ranking member is not a member of the Climate Solutions Caucus, and in fact, we would prefer not to see anyone from the Climate Solutions Caucus on the Republican side," Ebell said.
CEI's proposed candidates include Reps. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) and Bill Flores (R-Texas), both members of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Also on the list are Reps. Brian Babin (R-Texas) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who both have experience on the Science, Space and Technology Committee, and Reps. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) from the Natural Resources Committee.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who led an unsuccessful effort in 2017 to drop climate language from a major defense bill, rounds out CEI's wish list.
Ebell added that Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who served as ranking member of the last climate select committee formed in 2007, should be considered for the revived version of the panel. But the top spot, Ebell said, should go to someone else who has not already had a shot at the role.
Not all of CEI's candidates are pure skeptics of science pointing to man-made climate change in the style of Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.).
For instance, in a statement praising the Trump administration's withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, Flores acknowledged climate change and said the solution is to have "the federal government focus on basic research in the areas of energy storage in order to make renewable power dependable, on advanced nuclear power solutions to produce zero-emissions electricity and on finding ways to reduce emissions from today's conventional fuel sources."
But ultimately they would be tasked with countering the "Green New Deal," which Ebell said offers both benefits and potential risks for conservatives.
Progressive plans "shouldn't be hard to counter," Ebell said, but as the policy proposals move left, more centrist ideas, such as the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, might start to look more appealing.
"That might start to look kind of reasonable if you're confronted with a bunch of people who are jumping up and down and holding their breath and saying, 'We have to have it all right now,'" he said. "So I think that's the danger."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/01/14/stories/1060112887
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Pennsylvania Emissions Order Warily Eyed by Natural Gas Industry
Jan 14, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry had mixed reactions to Gov. Tom Wolf’s recent executive order to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with some on edge about the policies that could follow and others pointing to the role that the fuel plays in helping to meet climate protection goals.
While it’s limited in scope, Wolf announced the state’s first-ever executive order “in the absence of leadership from the federal government” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 26% by 2025 and by 80% by 2050. The goals put the state closer in line with states that include New York, New Jersey and Maryland, all members of the U.S. Climate Alliance formed after President Trump announced his intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
“It is aimed at state agencies, which is about all it could be aimed at as an executive order, it really can’t be any broader than that,” said former Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer. “What I think it translates to is the state government should be using more natural gas than it is already,” he told NGI’s Shale Daily.
While Wolf acknowledged the importance of natural gas to the economy and energy independence during an event in Pittsburgh, he made no mention of gas factoring into the new targets.
“It’s critical to recognize that the safe and strongly regulated development and expanded use of clean natural gas to power our economy is dramatically improving air quality and public health,” said Marcellus Shale Coalition President David Spigelmyer.
The gas industry is a significant source of methane emissions and the largest industrial source of volatile organic compound emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Burning natural gas, however, produces nearly half as much carbon dioxide as coal.
The U.S. oil and gas industry has invested an estimated $339 billion since 1990 toward improving its environmental performance, according to the American Petroleum Institute(API). In 2016 alone, API estimates that $17.1 billion was spent on the environment and $15.3 billion was spent implementing new technologies, creating “cleaner” fuels and funding ongoing environmental initiatives.
“The United States is leading the world in GHG reductions and no other industry has done more to reduce carbon in the U.S. than America’s natural gas industry,” said API-Pennsylvania Executive Director Stephanie Catarino Wissman, in response to Wolf’s announcement.
Spigelmyer added that given the strides the free market has made, policymakers should “support common sense energy and climate-related solutions that encourage responsible natural gas production and use given the overwhelmingly clear benefits” of the resource.
Wolf’s order has no immediate impact on the gas industry. Rather, it directs state agencies to purchase more renewable energy sources to offset at least 40% of their annual electricity use. It would also target replacing 25% of the state’s passenger car fleet by 2025 with electric battery and plug-in hybrid cars. The order also calls for state agencies to reduce overall energy consumption from 2017 levels by 3% annually and by 21% by 2025.
Wolf, a Democrat, issued the order after winning reelection by a wide margin in November. He set targets for state agencies the same week as newly-elected Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis pledged that 100% of that leading gas-producing state’s electricity would come from renewables by 2040. The actions follow a campaign season in which Democrats featured climate protection prominently in their runs for office.
Environmentalists hailed the order. PennFuture CEO Jacquelyn Bonomo said it reenergizes the state’s “moribund climate policy that hasn’t significantly changed in over a decade.” PennFuture was joined by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in calling on state policymakers to expand upon the order, pressing for legislation to curb emissions from the power sector, like other states that have passed laws and regulations to do so more effectively.
“Moving forward, developing enforceable climate pollution limits for both carbon and methane will be critical to ensure that Pennsylvania achieves these goals,” said EDF’s Mandy Warner, senior manager of climate and policy.
Wolf cautioned that his order would not likely be followed by legislation, as the general assembly remains firmly in control of Republicans, who mostly favor the free market over state mandated programs. He did not rule out additional regulations.
The possibility of what comes next has some concerned. Executive Director Dan Weaver of the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association argued that the industry is already heavily regulated. Wolf’s administration implemented a methane reduction strategy in 2016, including stronger permitting requirements for new unconventional gas wells and some midstream facilities that were rolled out last year. State regulators are also at work on draft regulations to curb emissions from existing production and midstream operations.
“I would agree to the point that there’s no immediate impact,” Weaver said, warning that if the state is starting to target more emissions reductions, then in the long-term, it’s eventually going to involve the gas industry. “That’s our concern..this is kicking in the door as to what’s to come.”
Pennsylvania is the nation’s second largest gas-producing state behind Texas. Unconventional operators were on track to produce 6 Tcf as 2018 came to an end. The low-cost supplies have accelerated coal-to-gas switching in the region, creating additional in-basin demand.
If additional regulations are implemented to better incentivize the market for competing fuels, it could eventually erode some of those gains. A more tangible pathway to emission reductions might be through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a market-based program among states in New England and the Mid-Atlantic to cap and reduce GHG from the power sector. New Jersey recently proposed draft regulations to cut emissions so it can rejoin the initiative. While Wolf floated the idea for Pennsylvania to join during his 2014 campaign, he hasn’t mentioned it since.
The 2025 and 2050 targets in his order do mirror those in the DEP’s draft Climate Action Plan released in November, which is required by a 2008 law and must be revised every three years. Among the strategies highlighted in the report for helping the state cut its emissions are preventing the state’s nuclear power plants from closing.
Wolf’s announcement comes at a time when state lawmakers are debating the merits of advancing subsidies for ailing Nuclear Power Plants that have faced stiff competition from low-cost natural gas. Despite the ire of gas-fired generators, a group of bipartisan lawmakers released a report late last year urging legislative action to better value the baseload and near-zero emission attributes of nuclear facilities.
After Wolf issued the executive order, another former DEP secretary, John Hanger, took the opportunity on Twitter to stress the importance of those facilities in a preview of the firepower Wolf’s order might lend to the sector’s cause. “Keeping PA’s nuclear plants, including [Three Mile Island] operating is essential to meet these goals,” Hangar said of Wolf’s GHG reduction targets.
Krancer disagreed, saying the battle unfolding between the gas and nuclear industries over subsidies is a totally different issue.
“I think it’s apples and oranges,” he said. “The nuclear subsidies fans have their own platform in which they’re championing the clean air aspects of nuclear, the zero emissions and all of that. I don’t think they’re really that related.”
He added, however, that “the executive order makes good press, and it’s limited in its effectiveness to state agencies, but it’s certainly a meaningful exercise,” that raises broader questions about the state’s energy policies moving forward.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/117060-pennsylvania-emissions-order-warily-eyed-by-natural-gas-industry
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Working During a Shutdown — 'It's Just Weird'
Jan 14, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
A small number of EPA employees are still working away during the partial government shutdown that closed the agency two weeks ago.
Democrats on Capitol Hill and union officials have begun to dig into who those EPA employees — deemed "excepted" under the agency's contingency plan — and what they are doing during the shutdown. Now, interviews as well as documents offer some clues on who makes up the agency's skeleton crew until the budget impasse is resolved.
On its shutdown website, EPA posted a list of senior career officials at the agency. The names highlighted in yellow are considered "excepted," meaning they are working during the funding lapse at the agency.
Those officials are there to help answer ethics questions from furloughed employees, including those who are seeking outside employment to help pay the bills during the shutdown. Included among those officials listed as "excepted" are senior managers from EPA's program offices — like its air, chemicals, enforcement, research and water offices — as well as its 10 regional offices across the country.
The list, posted online for ethics purposes, is not comprehensive and shows only a small percentage of EPA's "excepted" employees.
EPA's shutdown plan says the agency has 812 "excepted" employees. That includes six Senate-confirmed officials, another 12 considered necessary to the discharge of the president's consitutional duties, and 794 needed to protect life and property.
In addition, EPA has 53 public health safety officers deemed "exempted" from furlough. Those individuals come from the U.S. Public Health Service and are assigned to work at EPA.
Meanwhile, roughly 13,000 EPA employees have been furloughed during the shutdown.
Working at the agency with the majority of its workforce sent home can be strange. EPA veterans of the last lengthy government shutdown in 2013 say it was a lonely place.
"It's just weird. The phone doesn't ring. No one is there. You can't do anything. You are basically there just in case there is a genuine emergency," said Stan Meiburg, who was the acting regional administrator for EPA Region 4 at the time.
Others also remember it as a bizarre time at the agency.
"Almost no one was at EPA during the shutdown. Just a handful — mostly the Senate-confirmed people, and some people working on cases that required immediate action to protect public health," said an Obama-era EPA official.
"I answered the phone and responded to questions from people outside the agency, explaining why no one was here to address their problem," the official said.
Bob Kavlock, who retired from EPA in 2017 after 40 years at the agency, including as acting head of EPA's research office, remembers being furloughed during the 2013 shutdown. "We had very strict policies about who was allowed into the building to work," he said.
"Those allowed in were only to maintain ongoing experiments or to keep cell cultures alive. There was no starting of new experiments. Those who could come in, had to do the minimal amount of work necessary and then had to leave," Kavlock said.
He added that shutdowns "are terrible for morale" and have "long-term impacts" on EPA's research programs.
Meiburg, now a sustainable studies professor at Wake Forest University, said the agency tried to have fewer rather than more people at work. He remembers being on a conference call with other EPA senior officials during that shutdown, but he tried to refrain from internal email.
"I didn't want to create any sense of obligation for staff that they needed to respond to the boss," said Meiburg, who focused on preparations for a disaster.
"You compile your list of who would be needed to respond to an emergency and if an emergency does happen, you can deem them as 'excepted' and they can come back to work," he said.Cleaning up after wildfires
EPA union officials said there are agency staff helping with emergency response. Some of the agency's regional offices have sent employees, considered "excepted" from the shutdown, to help with cleanup from the California wildfires that blazed last year.
Dave Christenson, vice president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3607, which represents EPA Region 8 employees, said about 40 to 50 employees from EPA are still helping to clean up from that disaster. EPA's role is to clear damaged or destroyed buildings of hazardous materials, like car batteries and propane tanks, he said.
"About a half-dozen of them are from the Denver office," Christenson said. "It's 'excepted,' and we're doing what the government does, which is help people who are in need."
Mike Mikulka, president of AFGE Local 704, which represents EPA Region 5 employees, said staff from there also helped with cleanup from the California wildfire. Back in the Chicago office, some functions are still being manned.
"We have staff in the office in case of an environmental emergency," Mikulka said. "They are manning the spill line and would go out in the field to respond to an emergency such as an oil spill, fish kill, train derailment, tanker accident which involved hazardous chemicals."
At EPA offices across the country, other emergency response personnel and investigative agents have been spotted during the shutdown, according to union officials.
"A couple [Criminal Investigation Division] agents were seen, as well as a couple on-scene coordinators," said Jeanne Schulze, president of AFGE Local 1003, which represents EPA Region 6 employees. "That's all I know."
Doug Parker, who served as director of EPA's Criminal Investigation Division, said criminal investigators who were working cases in the field and a small number of special agents who were managers were deemed "excepted" as law enforcement officers during the 2013 shutdown.
"Shutdowns at the EPA are pretty much a ghost town," said Parker, now president of E&W Strategies. "Very few people on board and working, so the functions of [government] you need to do your job as a criminal investigator are not there — it's not exactly treading water, but the [criminal] program is not able to work at full speed without its colleagues who are attorneys, forensic scientists or those that provide administrative support."
Information on who is working and doing what during EPA's shutdown has been hard to come by. Bethany Dreyfus, acting president of AFGE Local 1236, which represents EPA Region 9 employees, said she has tried to find out which employees are "excepted" in the agency's San Francisco office.
"I will note that for the 2013 shutdown, we had a full list of who would be excepted and why about five days before the shutdown deadline," Dreyfus said.Hearing prep
Senate Democrats have questioned EPA on who is "excepted" and why during the shutdown — specifically when it comes to who is helping acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler prepare for his confirmation hearing this week.
In a letter last week, Democratic members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee asked for the names and titles of those helping with that hearing preparation.
They also noted that five EPA employees had been copied on emails seeking meetings with Democratic senators and the agency's senior counsel for ethics as well as an EPA notary had helped certify Wheeler's ethics paperwork (Greenwire, Jan. 11).
EPA has said work in preparing for a congressional hearing is "excepted," considering it's part of the agency's constitutional duties. Further, in an email obtained by E&E News, Office of Management and Budget General Counsel Mark Paoletta told EPA General Counsel Matt Leopold that such work was "an excepted activity" during the shutdown.
"First, it falls under the President's constitutional authority under the Appointments Clause and is necessary for the President's discharge of such authority," Paoletta said in the email sent Saturday.
"And, second, as the legislative branch has enacted appropriations for FY 2019 and is not subject to the lapse in the appropriations, acting Administrator Wheeler's participation in the scheduled hearing is necessary for the Congress's funded function to be effective (and his absence from his own confirmation hearing would significantly damage the Committee's confirmation hearing), and is therefore necessarily implied to continue during EPA's lapse in appropriations."
EPA had to deal with congressional hearings during the 2013 shutdown. On the first day of that funding lapse, then-Deputy EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to discuss John Beale, the former EPA official caught impersonating a CIA spy.
A former EPA official said Perciasepe received help from agency staff who were deemed "excepted" to prepare him for the hearing — some of whom were then furloughed after the hearing was over.
The former official remembered when EPA staff left for the hearing, people were still in the building to get their furlough notice, set up out-of-office messages on their phones and email accounts, and shut down their workstations.
"By the time we returned when the hearing was over, they were all gone," said the former official. "It was definitely surreal, especially knowing you had to go home and not come back to work either."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/01/14/stories/1060112897
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