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AM ACC Clips Report - January 24, 2019
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(ACC Mentioned) Chlorine Market to Register Unwavering Growth During in Global by 2026
Jan 23, 2019 | Crypto News Today
Chlorine derivatives are used for various applications such as disinfection bleaching, organic chemicals, inorganic chemicals, and metal separation. Chlorine is an efficient disinfectant and is widely used for water treatment processes. -
Oil Giants Launch $1.5B Campaign to End Plastic Crisis
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Oil and petrochemical companies have announced a joint campaign to tackle the global ocean plastic waste crisis, and are seeking allies among other corporate giants and elites. -
Industry, Ministry Propose 2030 Spanish Chemicals Agenda
Jan 24, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Spanish authorities, in collaboration with industry groups, have outlined a ‘sectoral agenda’ for the chemicals and refining industry until 2030. -
Bipartisan Group Seeks To Address PFAS But Faces Industry, GOP Hurdles
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
A group of House lawmakers Jan. 23 announced the formation of a bipartisan task force to push legislative, funding and other measures to pressure EPA and other agencies to clean up growing contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), though the group is likely to face pushback from industry and some Republicans. -
Bipartisan Group Forms to Tackle Contamination 'Crisis'
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
Twenty House lawmakers yesterday signed onto a bipartisan group committed to combating the dangers posed by a class of toxic heat- and stain-resistant chemicals tied to drinking water contamination and cancer. -
Hill Task Force on Contaminating Chemicals Seeks Cleanup ‘Focus’
Jan 24, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker and Sylvia Carignan
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers wants to raise the profile of cleaning up pervasive chemicals in U.S. water supplies. -
States Say Shutdown Delays May Affect Drinking Water Rules
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
State officials say the partial government shutdown could potentially undercut EPA efforts to craft rules addressing drinking water contamination, adding to the growing list of state concerns over the adverse impacts of the lapse in government funding. -
Pa. Might Set Maximum Limits on a Toxic Chemical in Drinking Water. Some Ask: What’s There to Decide?
Jan 24, 2019 | StateImpact Pennsylvania
By Jon Hurdle
Joanne Stanton is watching Pennsylvania’s fledgling efforts to curb toxic PFAS chemicals in drinking water, and wondering why PFAS-contaminated water is still being found below several communities in Bucks and Montgomery counties, several miles from the water’s origin on a nearby military base. -
House Launches PFAS Task Force; Rep. Fitzpatrick to Co-Chair
Jan 23, 2019 | The Intelligencer
By Kyle Bagenstose
The bipartisan group says it will push legislation to address the nationwide problem of PFAS contamination. -
Navigating The Many Risks Of PFAS In M&A Transactions
Jan 24, 2019 | Law 360
By Sam Dykstra and Donna Mussio
As the new year begins, the significant attention being paid to poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, by the public and some government regulators continues, and uncertainties regarding the magnitude of... -
Kingfisher to Phase Three Chemical Families out of Own Brand Products
Jan 24, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
European home improvement company Kingfisher has committed to phasing out phthalates, perfluorinated and polyfluorinated chemicals and halogenated flame retardants from its own-brand products by 2025. -
(ACC Mentioned) Appalachian Underground Gas Storage Hub Gov. Justice's 'No. 1 Economic Focus'
Jan 24, 2019 | West Virginia Public Broadcasting
By Brittany Patterson
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said a major underground natural gas liquids storage facility proposed for the Ohio Valley is a top economic priority for his office. -
Colorado Suit Aims to End Practice of Drilling Without Consent
Jan 24, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Colorado is allowing oil and gas companies access to natural gas reserves belonging to other owners, even when those owners object, an activist group said in a lawsuit filed Jan. 23. -
Democrats Urge Interior to Halt Work During Shutdown
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Kelsey Brugger
Democratic senators called on the Trump administration today to halt work on offshore oil and gas development during the partial government shutdown. -
Officials Release Data on 900k Oil and Gas Inspections
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Texas energy regulators yesterday rolled out a searchable database showing inspections of oil and gas wells throughout the state. -
KXL's Make-Or-Break Moment: Deadline Pressure Thrusts Spotlight Back onto Pipeline
Jan 23, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Alexander Panetta and Ben Lefebvre
A courtroom document lays out the sense of renewed urgency to start building the Keystone XL pipeline, describing how the next few weeks will be critical in getting the star-crossed project completed by late 2020. -
Intelligence Plan Warns of Climate, Cyber Threats
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Threats to critical infrastructure will place mounting demands on U.S. intelligence professionals over the next four years, according to a new strategy from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. -
2020 Dems Embrace Climate, but Will Voters?
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
It's just a few weeks into the presidential primary season, and already Democratic contenders are talking far more about climate change than they have in the past. -
As Democratic Field Takes Shape, NRDC Seeks Aggressive Climate Targets
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
As the Democratic presidential primary field begins to take shape, environmentalists are hoping that a new administration will usher in aggressive climate mitigation policies early in the next decade, arguing that action by the United States to get “back on track” toward achieving long-term emissions goals can help meet the objectives of the Paris climate deal. -
Hill Battle Over 'Clean' Energy Looms Over Democrats' Climate Debate
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Democrats' efforts to craft ambitious federal climate policies in the new Congress are reviving debates over whether such measures should focus solely on renewable technologies such as wind and solar or whether they should include a broader suite of low-carbon approaches such as nuclear energy and fossil energy paired with carbon capture and storage (CCS). -
D.C. Circuit Postpones Oral Argument in EPA HFCs Rule Suit
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has postponed until at least March 1 oral argument in an industry lawsuit against a 2016 Obama EPA rule banning certain climate-warming hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants, although the delay is largely due to a scheduling conflict and not the government shutdown. -
EPA Must Quickly Enforce Landfill Climate Rule, States Tell Court
Jan 24, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
A federal district court should require the EPA to quickly begin enforcing limits on methane from landfills, a group of states led by California said. -
States Seek Tight Legal Deadlines On EPA Landfill Methane Implementation
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Democratic states and environmental groups that are challenging EPA’s failure to implement an Obama-era rule to limit emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane at landfills are asking a federal district judge to impose tight timelines for the agency to take a series of steps required by the rule. -
Giant Carbon Sink Could Peak in 40 Years
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Chelsea Harvey
Droughts, heat waves and other extreme climate-related events are growing concerns in a warming world. Studies have found climate change is already fueling an increase in some extreme events and that they're likely to worsen as temperatures continue to climb.
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(ACC Mentioned) Chlorine Market to Register Unwavering Growth During in Global by 2026
Jan 23, 2019 | Crypto News Today
Chlorine derivatives are used for various applications such as disinfection bleaching, organic chemicals, inorganic chemicals, and metal separation. Chlorine is an efficient disinfectant and is widely used for water treatment processes. Growing residential sector and industrial water treatment industry is expected to propel demand for chlorine in water treatment.
The global chlorine market is expected to exhibit significant growth over the forecast period, owing to increasing demand for chlorine from end-use industry. Caustic soda from chlorine industry is used for pulping wood chips and compounds of chlorine are used to bleach wood and paper pulp in paper production process. Therefore, growing paper industry is also expected to fuel growth of the chlorine market. According to Confederation of European Paper Industries, pulp and paper industry turnover in Europe was over US$ 94 million in 2016, with 0.4% increase from 2015.
Major players operating in the global chlorine market include, BASF SE, Occidental Chemical Corporation, Ercros SA, Ineos Group Ltd., Olin Corporation, PPG Industries, Tosoh Corporation, Dow Chemical Company, Westlake Chemical Corporation, Solvay S.A., Akzo Nobel N.V., and Covestro AG
The global chlorine market was valued at US$ 13,948.7 million in 2017 and is expected to register a CAGR of 5.0% in terms of revenue, over the forecast period (2018 – 2025), to reach US$ 20,493.0 million by 2025.
Among end-use industry, chemical segment accounted for the highest market share of 53.7% in 2017 and it is expected to increase during the forecast period. Chlorine is used in plastic and chemical synthesis. For instance, titanium tetrachloride — an inorganic chemical — is further processed to create titanium dioxide — which is used primarily as a filler in pulp and paper manufacturing and as a pigment in paint and plastics manufacturing. Various inorganic chlorides are used in agriculture. For instance, phosphorus and sulfur chlorides are used as an intermediate for agrochemicals such as pesticides and herbicides. According to the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), agrochemical sector in India was valued at US$ 2.2 billion in 2017 and it is expected to reach US$ 7.5 billion by 2019, witnessing a CAGR of 13.18% during the forecast period (2013-2019).
North America accounted for the third largest market share in the global chlorine market in 2017. This is owing to increasing demand for chlorine from end-use industries such as pharmaceutical, chemical, and paper and pulp. Chlorine is widely used by pharmaceutical industry for drug synthesis. According to American Chemistry Council, in 2012, chlorine and its derivatives were used in manufacturing widely sold 100 pharmaceuticals and chlorine was used for manufacturing at least 88% of the prescription pharmaceuticals sold in the U.S. and Canada in 2016.
https://thecryptonews24.com/chlorine-market-to-register-unwavering-growth-during-in-global-by-2026/
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Oil Giants Launch $1.5B Campaign to End Plastic Crisis
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Oil and petrochemical companies have announced a joint campaign to tackle the global ocean plastic waste crisis, and are seeking allies among other corporate giants and elites.
Facing a backlash against single-use plastic products like bottles and bags, a group of some 30 petrochemical and plastics interests launched the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. The companies say they will aim to spend $1.5 billion over the next five years to beef up plastic waste collection and recycling programs, especially in East and Southeast Asia.
The new initiative was launched just ahead of the World Economic Forum now underway in Davos, Switzerland. Plastic pollution was the topic of discussion at a packed forum held there yesterday.
Alliance members have already pledged to spend $1 billion on the problem, "with the goal of investing $1.5 billion over the next five years to help end plastic waste in the environment," said founding member and French energy giant Total SA in a release.
At the Davos debate, Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, argued that it is possible to improve plastic trash collection and recycling programs, even in developing countries where they are either extremely limited or nonexistent. He also defended industries that are often blamed for the problem, suggesting that consumer action and behavior could lead to even greater improvements.
Although industry can organize enhanced collection and recycling, the real trick is to get individuals "to actually take part," he said.
"We tend to point our fingers at large organizations, whether it's the manufacturers or retailers who produce or sell our goods," said Szaky. "But I think what's incredibly powerful is us as consumers; we vote multiple times a day, no matter how old we are, for the future that we want based on what we buy. This is the most powerful mechanism to change this, and to change it incredibly quickly."Dumping 90% of trash
The global movement to combat ocean plastic litter has roughly divided itself into two camps.
Though all advocates say they favor improved recycling, corporate-led initiatives like this new alliance put emphasis on organized recycling and collection. Another vocal side of the debate, with allies at the United Nations, favors instead tackling the problem at its root through drastically reducing the production and consumption of plastics, in particular single-use plastic items like straws, plastic bags and bottles (Greenwire, Dec. 27, 2018).
Proponents of use reduction and product bans say recycling could triple or quadruple in scale, and it still would not be enough to stem the flow of plastic garbage littering the seas. Research they point to suggests that less than 10 percent of global consumer plastic waste is recycled today.
The new corporate anti-plastic trash group says it's looking for new members and allies at Davos and beyond as the companies behind the push try to organize a three-part effort centered on waste collection and cleanup, recycling programs, and consumer education.
Last year, the research and consulting firm IHS Markit Ltd. warned industry that the backlash against ocean plastic trash posed a serious threat to the future of the petrochemical sector, which manufactures the source material for plastics. Analysts there advised companies to either counter the anti-plastics push with a major recycling initiative or deal with plummeting future demand for their products as plastics bans, regulations and changing consumer behavior start to bite.
The industry seems to have taken the warning to heart. Aside from Total, other founding members of the new alliance include Chevron Phillips Chemical, Exxon Mobil Corp., LyondellBasell Industries NV, Formosa Plastics Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd. and more.
Total's representatives said the alliance members will work collaboratively with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
The new initiative has been set up as a "not-for-profit organization that includes companies that make, use, sell, process, collect, and recycle plastics," the company explained. "This includes chemical and plastic manufacturers, consumer goods companies, retailers, converters, and waste management companies, also known as the plastics value chain."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/01/24/stories/1060118215
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Industry, Ministry Propose 2030 Spanish Chemicals Agenda
Jan 24, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Spanish authorities, in collaboration with industry groups, have outlined a ‘sectoral agenda’ for the chemicals and refining industry until 2030.
The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, the Spanish chemicals industry association (Feique) and the Spanish association petroleum products operators (AOP) prepared the agenda as part of the country’s 2030 industrial framework initiative.
An objective is to develop a framework that improves industry competitiveness and environment and human health protection.
The agenda sets eight action points, including the proposal to evaluate the creation of a chemical products unit, which could incorporate a "mixed monitoring body". With sector participation this would oversee the application of "complex existing regulations" and ensure "proper" compliance and propose operational improvements, it says.
It suggests the Secretary of State for the Environment, the General Secretariat of Health and Consumption, and the General Secretariat for Industry and SMEs would oversee the unit's administrative duties.
The other regulatory action points cover:industrial policy, investment and growth;energy and climate change;logistics infrastructure and transportation;trade policy and market surveillance;innovation, digitisation and technological development;labour productivity and talent development; andstimulating demand.Chemicals unit
The country’s administrative bodies, the agenda says, are falling behind other member states in implementing new EU-wide changes.
This has led to delays in technical evaluations necessary to introduce new chemicals to the market, "which in some cases exceed four years".
These setbacks are mainly due to insufficient human and technical resources and the diversification of competencies between different ministries, it adds.
The chemical products unit would "improve and streamline" current procedures to which companies manufacturing and distributing substances and mixtures – including phytosanitary products, biocides and detergents – are subject.
Speeding up market access would boost business competitiveness, the agenda says.
In its report on the second REACH Review, the European Commission announced plans to simplify the REACH authorisation process to make it more workable – a measure welcomed by industry which has complained about the burdensome nature of the process.
The EU executive also recommended accelerating tackling restrictions on imported articles containing substances on Annex XIV – the authorisation list. This would help create a level the playing field.Circular economy
The agenda also puts forward ways to promote measures to ease transition to a circular economy and the role of plastics in this.
For true circularity, it says, it is "fundamental" to promote security of supply.
Raw, renewable and secondary materials – as well as those of biological origin and other alternatives – have their place in a sustainable circular economy, but "they must be accessible at a competitive price to be economically viable".
Therefore, the agenda highlights the importance of guaranteeing equity in grants aimed at promoting use of different alternatives, to try to eliminate commercial barriers preventing access under competitive conditions to international markets. Promotion of research into new technologies is also key, it says.
Circular economy schemes that include reducing hazardous chemicals in recycled materials are taking off in other member states. Earlier in January, the Danish EPA awarded a contract for an innovation centre, which aims to support ideas on reducing harmful chemicals in products and finding better alternatives.
Meanwhile, programmes under Echa’s SVHC substitution strategy are underway, including workshops on alternatives taking place around the EU.
https://chemicalwatch.com/73633/industry-ministry-propose-2030-spanish-chemicals-agenda
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Bipartisan Group Seeks To Address PFAS But Faces Industry, GOP Hurdles
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
A group of House lawmakers Jan. 23 announced the formation of a bipartisan task force to push legislative, funding and other measures to pressure EPA and other agencies to clean up growing contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), though the group is likely to face pushback from industry and some Republicans.
The Congressional PFAS Task Force currently includes 13 Democrats and seven Republicans, and is co-chaired by Reps. Dan Kildee (D-MI) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA).
The task force's members are generally drawn from states where PFAS has emerged as a hot-button issue, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, New York and Ohio.
At a Capitol Hill press conference, members of the group said they plan a multi-pronged effort, including educating other lawmakers about the issue, crafting legislation, meeting with leadership, committee chairs and ranking members “to ensure PFAS is adequately and more urgently addressed,” and fighting for “more robust funding through federal appropriations to clean up PFAS contamination,” Kildee said in a press release.
Kildee, who is also the chief deputy whip for the House Democratic Caucus, told reporters at the press conference that the group needs to “attack this on a number of fronts.”
He said House committees are just now organizing, and added that “our hope is to make sure that on all the committees of jurisdiction that this question is front and center.”
And Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), another member, said that Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) plans to hold a hearing on PFAS.
Kildee also stressed the “strong” support from Republicans and Democrats for the task force effort. “It’s not every issue that you see members of Congress from all parts of the country and both sides of the aisle come together to work on such an important issue.”
“Our effort here today is to begin a coordinated effort to address [PFAS] across committees and across the aisle to try to get solutions on this PFAS crisis,” he said.
Part of the group's effort aims to pressure EPA to both set enforceable drinking water standards and list the chemicals as a hazardous substance under the Superfund law -- which would trigger liability for parties responsible for the contamination, among other measures.
The chemicals, which number in the thousands, are a broad class of widely used non-stick substances that have been linked to a host of adverse effects. Despite widespread contamination, EPA has been slow to take regulatory action, especially on an enforceable drinking water standard -- or maximum contaminant level -- that many states, environmentalists and lawmakers have been seeking.
Last week, three members of the task force -- Dingell, Kildee and Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) -- introduced legislationthat would designate all PFAS as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation & Liability Act (CERCLA).
Chemical Industry 'Not Happy'
While the group marks the first time lawmakers have formally organized an effort to address PFAS, they appear likely to face resistance from some quarters.
Dingell, for example, said “The chemical industry is not happy with anyone standing on this stage.”
While the industry favors EPA taking the lead on the chemicals, avoiding the patchwork of state standards that are emerging, they also back much less stringent drinking water safety levels than the advisory levels that EPA set in 2016 for two of the most common PFAS.
Those levels have been criticized by environmentalists, lawmakers and others as too weak, contrasting with levels that would be derived from a draft toxicological profile that the federal Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry issued last August recommending levels seven to 10 times more stringent than risk values EPA used to set its 70 parts per trillion drinking water advisories.
Industry instead favors drinking water safety levels for the two chemicals perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) akin to Health Canada’s drinking water guidance of 200 and 600 ppt, respectively, according to a chemical industry source.
In addition, some Republicans have not been willing to join with Democrats to address PFAS.
For example, none of the 14 GOP members of the Florida delegation signed on to a recent letter signed by the delegation's 13 Democrats calling on House and Senate committees to oversee the slow pace of EPA actions, according to the Tampa Bay Tribune.
“We respectfully request that you inquire about EPA’s efforts to establish a drinking water standard for PFOS and PFOA and ask how EPA can improve its oversight and support of state drinking water programs,” according to the letter. “Because these are not yet regulated contaminants, a proper system for monitoring, regulating, and sending notifications for contamination events is not yet in place.”
A spokesman for Rep. Dan Webster (R-FL) told the paper he did not sign because he believes the state should address the issue.
When asked about the Republican leadership support on PFAS issues, Fitzpatrick told reporters that one of his jobs in the Republican caucus is to recruit new members to be pro-environment. The leadership was supportive of funding on PFAS last year attached to the defense bill, he noted. He also predicted bipartisan support of the issue when it arises in the Energy & Commerce Committee.
Fitzpatrick said he was not familiar with the Florida letter, but doubted that Republicans would be split over the issue, noting “look at the task force.” Republicans on the task force, in addition to Fitzpatrick, include: Reps. Peter King (NY), Fred Upton (MI), Bill Huizenga (MI), Mike Turner (OH), Tim Walberg (MI), and Jack Bergman (MI).
Democrats on the panel are: Kildee, Ben Ray Lujan (NM), Dingell, Brendan Boyle (PA), Brenda Lawrence (MI), Madeleine Dean (PA), Antonio Delgado (NY), Andy Levin (MI), Haley Stevens (MI), Elissa Slotkin (MI) and Rashida Tlaib (MI), James McGovern (MA), and Chris Pappas (NH).
The group pledged to: sponsor informational sessions to educate congressional members and staff in order to boost awareness of PFAS, develop legislation to address contamination from the chemicals, meet with congressional leadership, committee chairs and ranking members to ensure the chemicals are more urgently addressed, and to “fight for more robust funding” through appropriations aimed at cleaning up PFAS, according to a press release from the task force.
Environmental group Environmental Working Group, which has long advocated for stringent drinking water levels for the PFAS class, applauded the formation of the task force as showing “how urgently PFAS contamination transcends partisan politics.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/bipartisan-group-seeks-address-pfas-faces-industry-gop-hurdles
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Bipartisan Group Forms to Tackle Contamination 'Crisis'
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Corbin Hiar
Twenty House lawmakers yesterday signed onto a bipartisan group committed to combating the dangers posed by a class of toxic heat- and stain-resistant chemicals tied to drinking water contamination and cancer.
"Up until today essentially what you had were a lot of individual members of Congress advocating individually for their specific communities that were impacted by the perfluorinated compound contamination," said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), one of the coalition's leaders.
The group will mainly work to educate their colleagues about the health risks associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), craft legislation to address PFAS contamination, coordinate activity with House leadership and committee chairmen, and fight for more federal funding to clean up PFAS pollution, members of the PFAS Task Force said during a press conference.
"What this task force will do is allow us to collectively speak with one voice on behalf of all people across the country that have been affected by this contamination," Fitzpatrick said. "We'll speak with one voice on legislation, on funding, on best practices and on holding the administration accountable — mainly the EPA."
The lawmakers disclosed plans for a hearing on PFAS, concerns about the current lack of mandatory limits on the chemicals, and a few plans to dig into industry's role in creating the problem.
The group is also led by Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan and includes 10 other Michiganders as well as lawmakers from places as different as New Mexico and New Hampshire.
"It's not every issue that you see members of Congress from all parts of the country and both sides of the aisle come together," Kildee said.
Although the group is still ironing out the details of its legislative agenda, task force member Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) announced that the Energy and Commerce Committee she serves on is already planning a hearing on the PFAS contamination "crisis."
The chemicals have been used for decades in products ranging from firefighting foams to nonstick cookware, but their links to cancer and other health problems weren't widely known until recently.
"[PFAS] are going to be one of most important issues that we are going to be addressing," Dingell said.
Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) told her before the press conference "you tell them we're having a hearing fast," Dingell recalled.
EPA needs to declare PFAS hazardous, which would require water utilities to test for them and reduce their concentrations in drinking water to safe levels, the members agreed. Currently, EPA has advisory levels for only a couple of the thousand types of PFAS.
"If it goes from advisory to mandatory, that's where liability kicks in," Fitzpatrick said. "Both civil liability and criminal liability, which is important for enforcement and holding people's feet to the fire."
Such a move would "also avoid a patchwork of standards throughout municipalities across the country," he said.
The chemical companies responsible for creating and popularizing PFAS, while potentially downplaying their risks, went largely unmentioned by lawmakers until they were pressed on the issue by reporters at the end of the event.
"Some states, their attorneys general, are initiating actions against those companies that have manufactured this on the basis that they may have had knowledge of its danger and continued to market it," Kildee said. "We're monitoring that pretty closely."
Although the PFAS Task Force appears to be content to let their state partners lead the investigations of DowDuPont Inc., 3M Co., and other major PFAS producers, the lawmakers emphasized that the companies still oppose their congressional efforts.
"The chemical industry is not happy with anybody standing on this stage," said Dingell.
The other task force members are Reps. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Peter King (R-N.Y.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), Mike Turner (R-Ohio), Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.), Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.), Andy Levin (D-Mich.), Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Chris Pappas (D-N.H.).
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/01/24/stories/1060118457
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Hill Task Force on Contaminating Chemicals Seeks Cleanup ‘Focus’
Jan 24, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker and Sylvia Carignan
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers wants to raise the profile of cleaning up pervasive chemicals in U.S. water supplies.
Reps. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) will unveil a task force Jan. 23 to address perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS. The chemicals have been used to manufacture nonstick and stain-resistant coatings in clothing, fast-food wrappers, carpets, and other consumer and industrial products.
The task force has six Democrats and six Republicans: Reps. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.), Fitzpatrick, Kildee, Peter King (R-N.Y.), Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Mike Turner (R-Ohio), Fred Upton (R-Mich.), and Tim Walberg (R-Mich.).
“It’s a bipartisan effort to sort of bring some focus to all of the disparate conversations,” Kildee told Bloomberg Environment.
The task force will work to educate House members and staff on the latest science and regulatory changes to curb the chemicals.
“This is an effort to bring some direction and some order to our efforts here,” Kildee said.
Kildee, with Upton and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), introduced a bill Jan. 14 (H.R. 535) to set a deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency to start ordering the cleanup of PFAS chemicals through Superfund law. States currently carry the burden of finding and asking parties to pay for cleanup, creating uneven consideration of water quality standards across the country.
‘Completely Inadequate’Many of the members represent districts with military installations where PFAS chemicals were used in firefighting foam.
“What’s been committed so far [for Department of Defense sites] is completely inadequate,” Kildee said.
Delgado represents Hoosick Falls, N.Y., where state officials hid from residents for over a year that high levels of the chemicals were present in groundwater.
H.R. 535 would give the EPA power to force cleanups of PFAS contamination. The EPA had been considering whether to designate the substances as hazardous under the Superfund law but hasn’t yet made a decision.
“EPA has not been aggressive on the issue of PFAS,” Kildee said.
The EPA didn’t respond to a request for comment due to the government shutdown.
PFAS can cause health problems, including liver tissue damage, immune system or thyroid issues, and changes in cholesterol, according to the EPA.
The EPA’s recommended exposure limit for the combination of two PFAS compounds, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), is 70 parts per trillion in drinking water over one’s lifetime.
States, especially those on the East Coast, are setting their own limits for PFAS compounds in drinking water that are stricter than the EPA’s. The chemicals have caused concern because no consensus exists on how much is safe to consume, despite their widespread use.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/hill-task-force-on-contaminating-chemicals-seeks-cleanup-focus
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States Say Shutdown Delays May Affect Drinking Water Rules
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
State officials say the partial government shutdown could potentially undercut EPA efforts to craft rules addressing drinking water contamination, adding to the growing list of state concerns over the adverse impacts of the lapse in government funding.
In a Jan. 18 statement on its website, the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators (ASDWA) warns of potential delays to planned EPA efforts to revise a 1991 rule setting limits for lead and copper in drinking water and to propose standard for contamination from the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate in drinking water.
The statement also backs a recent Inside EPA report where state regulators overseeing clean water and air quality said they are growing increasingly concerned about the adverse effects of EPA's shutdown on a wide range of their operations, undermining federal reviews of state permits and water quality measures, joint air quality planning for the upcoming wildfire season and possibly certifications for state air quality monitoring equipment.
“Impacts to drinking water are starting to accumulate,” ASDWA says.
“Besides nobody at EPA to call with questions, nobody really knows how long the ‘restart’ will take and how long some regulations such as perchlorate and the Long-Term Revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule (LT-LCR) that were scheduled to be proposed in 2019 will be further delayed,” ASDWA says.
The group notes that EPA faces an April 30 court-ordered deadline to propose a rule setting a drinking water standard for perchlorate, and that the proposed rule deadline already has been extended once.
In a Dec. 10 order, issued 11 days before the shutdown began, Judge Edgardo Ramos of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, granted a six-month extension for EPA to propose a perchlorate standard, and said that he “expects that the EPA will work diligently to meet its revised deadline."
ASDWA also says the shutdown may soon lead to the cancellation of two drinking water meetings scheduled for early January. The meetings are of the Area Wide Optimization Program in Michigan where states collaborate on existing surface water treatment processes, and of the Safe Drinking Water Information System Prime, which seeks to bolster EPA’s supervision of public water systems.
The drinking water officials’ remarks back concerns that Association of State Drinking Water Administrators Director Julia Anastasio raised in a Jan. 17 interview with Inside EPA, that if the shutdown continues much longer, states may write a letter urging lawmakers or the White House to reopen the government, though she added that such a step would come from governors or state environment commissioners.
The shutdown started Dec. 21 and has no clear end in sight, as President Donald Trump and lawmakers are at odds over how or whether to fund Trump's call for $5.7 billion to build a border wall.
The Senate is slated to vote Jan. 24 on two separate bills that could reopen the government though early reports raise doubts that either measure could reach the 60-vote threshold. One bill, backed by the White House, provides the $5.7 billion Trump is seeking along with several other immigration measures and funding for EPA and other agencies through the end of the fiscal year.
The other bill is a short-term continuing resolution, which has already cleared the House, which would fund the government through Feb. 8.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/states-say-shutdown-delays-may-affect-drinking-water-rules
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Jan 24, 2019 | StateImpact Pennsylvania
By Jon Hurdle
Joanne Stanton is watching Pennsylvania’s fledgling efforts to curb toxic PFAS chemicals in drinking water, and wondering why PFAS-contaminated water is still being found below several communities in Bucks and Montgomery counties, several miles from the water’s origin on a nearby military base.
Stanton, a member of the Buxmont Coalition for Safer Water, says she’s tired of waiting for the federal government to say whether it will tighten health standards on the chemicals. She doesn’t understand why the military hasn’t yet cleaned up water and soil from the former Naval Air Station at Willow Grove on the border of the two counties; the Navy says it’s focusing on the most-contaminated soil. And she’s skeptical that Gov. Tom Wolf’s new PFAS Action Team will set standards on the chemicals any time soon.
Like other clean-water campaigners, Stanton is mystified that the team has no explicit plans to set maximum contaminant limits (MCLs) for any of the chemicals. Several states, including New Jersey, are using such standards. And she’s not happy that Wolf’s team consists of the heads of seven state departments but does not include representatives of affected communities like hers.
Residents of Horsham and other towns near the base now have drinking water with low PFAS levels, but that’s thanks to local government efforts, Stanton said.
Wolf’s spokesman, J.J. Abbott, said the team is participating in the Commonwealth’s efforts to evaluate “defensible” PFAS drinking water limits but declined to say whether the panel is pursuing MCLs to hit those goals.
Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Neil Shader, speaking for the team’s Chairman, DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell, said the team might propose maximum contaminant levels as a way of protecting public water supplies, but if it did, that would have to be achieved through the normal regulatory process involving the Environmental Quality Board – which adopts DEP regulations — or through legislation.
Shader said the environmental protection department is developing a sampling plan to identify impacted sites, and will work with any public water systems where the chemicals are found to make sure contamination doesn’t exceed the EPA’s health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for two of the most common PFAS chemicals, PFOA and PFOS.
“The PFAS Action Team is taking a holistic look at PFAS chemicals and possible contamination to ensure that recommendations for regulatory or legislative actions address the problem as a whole,” he said.
In the absence of its own regulations, Pennsylvania follows the EPA’s non-enforceable advisory limit, which many activists say is too high to protect public health.
There are seven Pennsylvania sites, including the Willow Grove base, where PFOA and PFOS have been found in ground water above the EPA’s limit and that are being managed by the DEP, or jointly by the EPA and Department of Defense. Shader said the environmental protection department is investigating 13 other sites where the chemicals have been found at some level, mostly in soil, Shader said.
Military bases including Willow Grove are a major source of PFAS contamination nationwide because they used firefighting foam containing the chemicals for decades.
Tracy Carluccio of the environmental group Delaware Riverkeeper Network said any progress toward curbing PFAS in Pennsylvania is being hindered by the lack of an MCL mandate by Wolf’s team, and by the failure of the Environmental Quality Board so far to hire a toxicologist who could make the scientific case for such a limit.
She said the team has a “blind spot for the most essential action” — setting MCLs that would require the removal of toxic chemicals from drinking water. The riverkeeper network asked the Environmental Quality Board in 2017 to develop a limit for PFOA. McDonnell told the board last June that the DEP needed more time to review that request.
Both Shader and Abbott said the administration has been “eagerly” awaiting the EPA’s national management plan on PFAS, which the agency said it would release by the end of 2018. It has yet to appear.
The EPA says PFOA and PFOS are linked most often to elevated cholesterol, but can also cause cancer, low infant birth weights, thyroid hormone problems and immune system effects. Despite the warnings, the agency’s health limit is not enforceable, and has led an increasing number of states to set their own regulations amid gathering concern about the chemicals’ risks to public health.
PFAS chemicals were once used in consumer products such as nonstick cookware and flame-retardant fabrics. They are no longer made in the U.S., but don’t break down in the environment, and are widespread in humans.
Last year, New Jersey became the first state to adopt a maximum limit for another PFAS chemical, PFNA, but has since come under fire from activists for being slow to act on tough new limits for two other PFAS chemicals, as recommended by state scientific advisers.
On Wednesday, U.S. representatives including Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican, and Brendan Boyle, a Democrat, announced the formation of a bipartisan task force on PFAS to craft legislation, fight for funding, and educate other members of Congress.
Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that advocates for tighter PFAS rules, said the new group shows that the issue transcends partisan politics.
“It’s time for Congress to stop new PFAS chemicals from going on the market, require monitoring to determine the extent of the current crisis, and make the investments necessary to clean up the mess,” the group said.
While Pennsylvania officials look at ways of regulating the chemicals, one lawmaker is hoping the Legislature will back two bills that would set strict limits on four of them.
Newly-elected State Sen. Maria Collett, a Democrat representing parts of Bucks and Montgomery counties, plans to introduce the bills early this year that would set MCLs of 10 ppt for four of the chemicals – two of which would be subject to much tighter limits than advocated by the EPA – and to list all four as hazardous substances under Pennsylvania’s Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act. The bills are based on legislation that was introduced in the 2017-18 session.
In an interview, Collett described her proposed 10 ppt limit as a starting point for negotiations in the Legislature, but said it’s clear the EPA’s level — 70 parts per trillion of PFOA and PFOS combined — is too high to protect public health.
“Unfortunately, there’s not enough research letting us know that 70 is safe,” she said. “We don’t know what the limit is that’s going to minimize the effect on people but we know that right now in our drinking water it’s too high.”
Collett said she would welcome any move by the EPA to regulate the chemicals, but since that’s not happening, it’s time for Pennsylvania to make its own rules.
“We can’t wait any longer,” she said. “The Commonwealth has got to move in the direction of taking care of its citizens.”
https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2019/01/23/pfas-toxic-chemicals-drinking-water/
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House Launches PFAS Task Force; Rep. Fitzpatrick to Co-Chair
Jan 23, 2019 | The Intelligencer
By Kyle Bagenstose
The bipartisan group says it will push legislation to address the nationwide problem of PFAS contamination.
Is there power in numbers?
A group of House Representatives intends to find out, launching a bipartisan task force Wednesday to tackle PFAS, a family of unregulated chemicals affecting congressional districts across the country.
Few areas have been hit harder by the chemicals than Bucks and Montgomery counties, where the drinking water supplies of more than 70,000 current residents, and uncounted past residents, was found to be contaminated in recent years. Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, R-1, of Middletown, will co-chair the newly minted Congressional PFAS Task Force, while local representatives Madeleine Dean, D-4, of Abington, and Brendan Boyle, D-2, of Philadelphia, are also members.
Seventeen representatives from six other states will join them, totaling 13 Democrats and seven Republicans.
“What this task force will do is allow us to collectively speak, with one voice,” Fitzpatrick said during Wednesday’s news conference, which was broadcast on Facebook from Capitol Hill. “It’s a big problem. It’s very pervasive.”
In past congressional sessions, lawmakers have patched together piecemeal legislation addressing the chemicals, which according to some estimates are found in the drinking water of tens of millions of Americans. Legislation pushed by Boyle, Fitzpatrick, and Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, have ultimately awarded more than $100 million to help pay for clean up costs at military sites and upcoming health studies.
But the white whale has become federal regulation of the chemicals, particularly PFOS and PFOA, the two most known substances from the chemical family. Key goals touted by lawmakers Wednesday are the creation of a formal drinking water standard and the addition of the chemicals to official hazardous substances lists, including for Superfund sites.
“Any clean up that happens is (currently) voluntary,” Boyle said.
The Environmental Protection Agency has ramped up efforts to address PFAS over the past year, stating in the summer it would develop an action plan to, among other items, consider the creation of a formal drinking water limit and designating the chemicals as hazardous substances. But acting administrator Andrew Wheeler said during his recent Senate confirmation hearing that the release of the plan had been delayed and that he couldn’t commit to a formal drinking water limit being set.
“We believe the EPA should be moving forward on an enforceable standard,” said task force co-chair Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Michigan.
Several task force members also said they’d make it a priority to determine a single safety standard. The EPA has set an advisory health limit of 70 parts per trillion of PFOS and PFOA in drinking water, but other federal and state agencies have put forth lower safety levels, which Fitzpatrick called a “patch-work” approach.
Lawmakers said they plan to force the issue through upcoming legislation. They also offered an assurance from Energy & Commerce Committee chair Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey, that PFAS was a high priority for committee hearings.
But they also acknowledged the challenges the chemicals present, including their near indestructibility.
“We don’t have the technology right now to eliminate PFAS. It doesn’t exist,” Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, D-Michigan, said. “It is really serious. ... We’ve really got a crisis.”
They also hinted at a likely backlash. The chemicals were used for decades in a variety of products used by the military and private industry, and their pervasiveness means there will likely be few areas of the country untouched by contamination hot spots. Fitzpatrick said he believes the manufacturers of the chemicals should ultimately be held responsible.
“The chemical industry is not happy with anyone standing on this stage,” Dingell said during the news conference.
https://www.theintell.com/news/20190123/house-launches-pfas-task-force-rep-fitzpatrick-to--co-chair
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Navigating The Many Risks Of PFAS In M&A Transactions
Jan 24, 2019 | Law 360
By Sam Dykstra and Donna Mussio
As the new year begins, the significant attention being paid to poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, by the public and some government regulators continues, and uncertainties regarding the magnitude of...
Access to full text unavailable – subscription required.
Story can be found here: https://www.law360.com/publicpolicy/articles/1120843/navigating-the-many-risks-of-pfas-in-m-a-transactions
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Kingfisher to Phase Three Chemical Families out of Own Brand Products
Jan 24, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
European home improvement company Kingfisher has committed to phasing out phthalates, perfluorinated and polyfluorinated chemicals and halogenated flame retardants from its own-brand products by 2025.
The company says the substances will be removed from products on the shelves of its more than 1,300 stores across Europe, Russia and Turkey. These include B&Q and Screwfix outlets in the UK and Ireland, and Castorama and Brico Dépôt in France.
It adds that they will replace the substances with "more sustainable alternatives".
Some compounds from the three groups are regulated under the EU’s REACH, such as PFOA, the halogenated flame retardant decaBDE, and phthalates DEHP and DIBP. The groups, however, consist of a wide range of substances, many of which do not fall under regulatory measures.
The company decided on a blanket phase out of the chemical groups because many of the substances can be found in home improvement products, such as paint, textiles and PVC flooring. It has also "identified them as harmful" in its own ongoing review of the chemicals in its supply chain, which considers risks for consumers, factory workers and the environment.
Another factor, says Kingfisher, is that safer alternatives have been identified and are "available for use in our product ranges".
The company has already started to replace substances, according to a Kingfisher spokesperson. It is working with third parties, such as US organisation the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (GC3), to assess viable alternatives. "We are working collaboratively with our suppliers to progressively use these alternative substances in more of our products," he said.
Kingfisher's Sustainable Growth Plan, which sets out its 2025 goals including those on chemicals, says it will "start by replacing five substances with green alternatives".
However, the spokesperson said the company is not yet in a position to disclose details about these, or the alternatives, as it is "commercially sensitive and will require scaling into the market".
In addition to replacing the targeted substances, it will consider using different materials to avoid their use.
The spokesperson confirmed that it was Kingfisher's ambition to expand the phase out beyond own-brand products, once it has achieved its 2025 target. Chemicals roadmap
The commitment is part of Kingfisher’s chemicals roadmap, which sets out plans to phase out the most high-risk chemicals. The roadmap is an element of the company's Sustainable Growth Plan.
Paul Ellis, Kingfisher’s head of sustainable chemicals management, said: "We have developed our chemicals roadmap to provide customers with sustainable products that respond to their desire for fewer and less harmful chemicals in their homes, while continuing to stay ahead of regulation and lead on sustainable chemical management in Europe."
"Achieving this aim takes time and requires collaboration across the global value chain and we welcome like-minded retailers to join us on this journey," said Mr Ellis.
https://chemicalwatch.com/73584/kingfisher-to-phase-three-chemical-families-out-of-own-brand-products
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(ACC Mentioned) Appalachian Underground Gas Storage Hub Gov. Justice's 'No. 1 Economic Focus'
Jan 24, 2019 | West Virginia Public Broadcasting
By Brittany Patterson
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said a major underground natural gas liquids storage facility proposed for the Ohio Valley is a top economic priority for his office.
Speaking at the annual winter meeting of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia in Charleston Wednesday, Justice said administration officials spoke this week to a “major player” involved in the development of the Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub, although he did not offer specifics. Justice said he would be reaching out to federal officials shortly to continue advocating for its development.
"The number one economic focus on my office today is the natural gas hub," Justice said.
If built, the hub would allow more natural gas liquids to remain in Appalachia. Storage is a key infrastructure investment needed to attract petrochemical manufacturers to the region.
Justice touted his relationship with President Donald Trump and Energy Secretary Rick Perry as reasons why he was confident storage hub, which has been in development for almost a decade, would be built.
He said the hub is crucial to the state’s future prosperity.
"The hub ensures, the hub ensures job boom in West Virginia forever," he said. "It ensures our security forever, the way I see it. Forever. "
The project would be built with a combination of private investment and a $1.9 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, which is being applied for by the project's developer, the Appalachia Development Group, LLC.
ADG's CEO Steve Hendrick told meeting attendees he had growing confidence in the hub becoming a reality.
"Something that many people may have thought was a pipedream just a few years ago, no pun intended," he said. "Something that many may still think is a dream, well I'm here to tell you, and any doubters who might be still out there, that the hope I've carried with me since we got this started and enganged in the effort, which shockingly was some nine years ago, this hope is based in reality and opportunity that is right on the tips of our fingers."
A year ago, the project got approval for the first of two application phases for a $1.9 billion U.S. Department of Energy loan. Last summer, ADG annouced it was hiring an outside firm, Parsons Corporation, to help with the second phase and data collection.
Speaking at the conference, Hendrick said a number of sites have been selected for consideration, including in West Virignia.
A new report fedeal report released in December found developing ethane storage in Appalachia could provide a boost for the entire petrochemical industry. The American Chemistry Council estimates the hub could attract up to $36 billion in new chemical and plastics industry investment and create 100,000 new area jobs.
Environmental groups have expressed concern the storage hub would turn the Ohio Valley into a petrochemical manufacturing center, which could negatively affect public and environmental health.
http://www.wvpublic.org/post/appalachian-underground-gas-storage-hub-gov-justices-no-1-economic-focus#stream/0
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Colorado Suit Aims to End Practice of Drilling Without Consent
Jan 24, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Colorado is allowing oil and gas companies access to natural gas reserves belonging to other owners, even when those owners object, an activist group said in a lawsuit filed Jan. 23.
The lawsuit brought by Colorado Rising, an anti-fracking group, on behalf of mineral owners in a subdivision of Denver seeks to end the practice of “forced pooling,” in which small tracts of land are combined—often against the will of those owning the mineral rights—to get a permit for natural gas drilling.
The lawsuit was filed Jan. 23 in the U.S. District Court in the District of Colorado.
An oil and gas driller may buy or lease a parcel of land to extract natural gas that may be trapped in pockets beneath neighboring tracts through the fairly recent technique of horizontal drilling.
“This technology allows an operator to drill at least two miles horizontally in any direction from the well pad” and target the minerals of others, including those who don’t want the gas extracted, the lawsuit said.
The owners of the mineral rights in the subdivision got letters requiring that they either elect to “voluntarily participate in the large-scale residential fracking project or have their minerals pooled into the project and suffer a hefty penalty despite their myriad objections to the residential fracking project,” the complaint said.
Colorado allows forced pooling if operators own or have leased any acreage within the relevant drilling unit, the lawsuit said. Thus, they can force pool multiple neighborhoods and thousands of people, even if they only have direct access to one acre.
Pooling Essential: Oil GroupDan Haley, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said in an email to Bloomberg Environment that pooling is essential.
“Make no mistake, Colorado Rising is all about shutting down energy production,” he said. “Whether it’s their failed ballot initiatives or frivolous lawsuits meant to gum up our legal process, their stated intent is to end Colorado’s oil and natural gas industry and put working families on the unemployment line.”
Colorado Rising was the chief promoter of a failed November 2018 ballot initiative that would have increased to 2,500 feet the state setback—the minimum distance between wells and occupied buildings such as homes, schools and hospitals.
The current setback is 500 feet from homes and 1,000 feet from other occupied buildings.
Constitutionality ChallengedThe suit challenges the constitutionality of the forced pooling provision of the Colorado Oil and Gas Act and related state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission regulations.
It cites Extraction Oil and Gas Inc.'s filing applications with the commission in June 2016 to create the largest drilling project in the history of Broomfield, about 20 miles north of Denver.
Colorado Rising, through a local group called the Wildgrass Oil and Gas Committee, said other states require a threshold—usually a majority—of mineral rights owners to voluntarily participate in the fracking project before the operator can force the non-consenting owners to participate.
But Colorado severely penalizes the non-consenting mineral owners by limiting the royalty they are given and requiring them to pay two times what consenting owners pay for some costs of the fracking project.
“The practice is clearly an egregious violation of property rights and must end,” Anne Lee Foster of Colorado Rising said in a statement.
The case is Wildgrass Oil & Gas Cmte. v. Colo., D. Colo., No. 19-CV-190, 1/23/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/colorado-suit-aims-to-end-practice-of-drilling-without-consent
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Democrats Urge Interior to Halt Work During Shutdown
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Kelsey Brugger
Democratic senators called on the Trump administration today to halt work on offshore oil and gas development during the partial government shutdown.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and a group of colleagues questioned the legality of the Interior Department's decision to call federal employees back to work last week to advance the outer continental shelf program, also known as the five-year plan.
The Cardin-led missive is the latest objection from Democratic lawmakers to Interior's work on oil and gas drilling activities at a time when 800,000 federal employees are furloughed.
At noon on Capitol Hill tomorrow, Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee will convene a forum "on the Trump administration's blatant favoritism toward the oil and gas industry during the government shutdown."
Witnesses include officials from the Wilderness Society, All Pueblo Council of Governors Natural Resources Committee and Center for American Progress, according to a notice.
Interior released the first draft of the offshore drilling plan last January, and proposed opening up vast expanses of federal waters.
The newest draft was expected this month, with the final version anticipated later this spring. But the government shutdown has muddied the waters.
Last week, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management officials ordered 40 "on-call" employees back to work on the five-year plan and related environmental review, according to an updated contingency plan, dated Jan. 8. The plan said the employees would be paid with "carryover" funds.
"The newfound characterization of these projects as essential paints a troubling picture of an agency dedicated to mitigating the consequences of a shutdown for a powerful and well-connected corporate lobby at the expense of the American people," the Democratic senators wrote.
They also demanded to know why the updated shutdown strategy differed from last month's plan, which "excepted" just eight employees. The new plan "excepted" 84.
The letter co-signers include Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
An Interior spokesperson said officials would respond to the letter in a timely manner. "As the letter clearly states, Senator Menendez and his colleagues are opposed to any offshore oil and gas development in the United States, regardless of whether or not we are experiencing a partial government shutdown," the spokesperson said.
Last Friday, administration officials met with Democratic staffers on the Natural Resources Committee to discuss Interior employees working on oil and gas drilling activities during the shutdown.
Also last week, Democrats held forums about the shutdown's impacts on public lands, national parks and Native American communities as well as the border wall and its potential effects on the environment (E&E Daily, Jan. 16).
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/01/23/stories/1060118223
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Officials Release Data on 900k Oil and Gas Inspections
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
Texas energy regulators yesterday rolled out a searchable database showing inspections of oil and gas wells throughout the state.
The state Legislature has pushed the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees the oil and gas industry rather than trains, to make its operations more transparent. The commission staff finished the disclosure project months ahead of a deadline set when lawmakers reauthorized the agency in 2017 (Energywire, May 19, 2017).
"It's the same data our inspectors are looking at. I think this is a great step in transparency for the general public," said Executive Director Wei Wang during a commission meeting yesterday.
The database, known as the Online Inspection Lookup (OIL), shows the results of more than 900,000 inspections conducted since August 2015. The information will be updated weekly, and users can also download the complete database.
The Railroad Commission has struggled for more than a decade with its inspection regime. A 2007 report by the state auditor's office said the commission had inspected only 53 percent of Texas' oil and gas wells in the previous five years.
The Legislature required the commission to publicize more data on its inspection regime and improve its inspection rate when it reauthorized the agency in 2017 (Energywire, June 7, 2018).
As of 2017, the inspection rate had fallen to 43 percent, but the commission planned to inspect 100,000 wells a year, putting it on track to check all the state's 434,000 wells within five years.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/01/24/stories/1060118243
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KXL's Make-Or-Break Moment: Deadline Pressure Thrusts Spotlight Back onto Pipeline
Jan 23, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Alexander Panetta and Ben Lefebvre
A courtroom document lays out the sense of renewed urgency to start building the Keystone XL pipeline, describing how the next few weeks will be critical in getting the star-crossed project completed by late 2020.
Left unsaid in that legal filing by pipeline maker TransCanada Corp. this month before a Montana district court: A political storm is approaching, and there's a race to start digging before it hits.
A confluence of political factors in both countries threatens to crank up the heat on Keystone XL, once the most burning topics in Canada-U.S. relations, after a few years of relative calm.
"It's the pipeline that never dies," said Bill McKibben, an early U.S. opponent, and founder of the the environmental group 350.org. "Long after every car on the planet runs on electricity, some TransCanada executive will still be demanding we build KXL. ... It zombies on."
For now.
At the moment, the pipeline has a powerful ally in the White House who wants to see it built. Any further delay could jeopardize that by pushing the two-year construction process deep into 2021.
Some of the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination already have made clear their opposition to the pipeline. Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) all have blasted President Donald Trump's decision to grant the permit, casting themselves in the same camp as Barack Obama, who previously rejected it.
That risks thrusting them onto a collision course with another campaigning politician: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau has an election of his own; he's under intense political pressure to get a pipeline built; and he supports Keystone XL.
It's an awkward political spot for Trudeau, no matter how he plays it.
On the one hand, Trudeau has no interest in antagonizing U.S. Democrats. He shares ideological affinities with them. American Democrats are deeply popular in Canada. And, given that his Liberals need to consolidate the left-wing vote this fall, Trudeau can't afford to have smaller progressive parties in his country labeling him an ally of Trump — after all, the U.S. president is, to put it mildly, not popularin Canada.
On the other hand, Trudeau needs a pipeline. Badly. Canada's landlocked oil is dragging down the economy and stoking his political opposition.
As Democrats hit the Iowa hustings this fall, not far from the proposed route of Keystone XL, Trudeau will be running on his record. A central piece of that record Trudeau's promise of a grand bargain in 2015 — one that has so far gone unfulfilled. Trudeau promised a price on carbon, arguing that a greener attitude would dampen opposition to pipelines.
He claimed both would go hand in hand.
If Canada took action on climate change, Trudeau vowed, the energy economy would benefit: "The environment and the economy, they go together like paddles and canoes. Unless you have both, you won’t get to where you are going, because you can’t have a strong economy without a healthy environment."
Four years later, Canadians have a carbon tax, but they don't have any major new pipelines.
Meanwhile, the Canadian oil industry is hurting. Alberta has even had to cut production, a measure that would have until recently been unthinkable. Some there are so furious they're even talking separation.
The political context isn't mentioned in TransCanada's court filing.
What the filing does do is clarify the technical calendar.
The company asks a Montana district court to allow it to immediately start preliminary non-digging work while it awaits the latest court-ordered environmental study from the U.S. State Department. TransCanada said it needs to start preliminary activities Feb. 1, start construction June 1, finish construction and testing in late 2020 and then get oil flowing in early 2021.
Things get progressively worse after Feb. 1, according to the court filing. The company could in theory meet its target dates with a few more weeks' delay, but it would cost more than $155 million to accelerate construction. March 15 is characterized as the drop-dead date for starting the two-year construction phase this year.
"If TransCanada cannot resume pre-construction activities before March 15, 2019, and cannot begin construction on August 1, 2019, then it will be unable to perform any construction in 2019," the document says.
One of the groups challenging TransCanada in Montana said the company is being overly rosy in suggesting it's on the cusp of digging.
Doug Hayes, senior attorney at the Sierra Club, said there are steps outside the courtroom the company needs to take, including obtaining permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“Any investment or resource they’ve committed, even before they get their necessary federal approvals, assumes a risk if those approvals don’t go forward,” Hayes said. “TransCanada is not entitled to start building Keystone XL in 2019, especially if they don’t have their permits in place.”
That Montana court fight also has been affected by politics: Department of Justice lawyers didn't show up at the last hearing because of the U.S. government shutdown.
The judge promised a decision on whether to allow preliminary work. The Sierra Club expects that decision — just one more step in the fight — soon.
But, because of the shutdown, federal courts only have only enough money to keep working through January 31.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2019/01/kxls-make-or-break-moment-why-deadline-pressure-will-thrust-spotlight-back-onto-pipeline-1106973
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Intelligence Plan Warns of Climate, Cyber Threats
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Threats to critical infrastructure will place mounting demands on U.S. intelligence professionals over the next four years, according to a new strategy from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The 2019 National Intelligence Strategy warns that "cyber threats are already challenging public confidence in our global institutions, governance, and norms," while endangering America's overall economic health.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats cast the 36-page document as a "roadmap" for protecting the country and "speaking the truth to our policymakers and the American people."
The strategy addresses a range of hazards likely to cross the desks of top U.S. intelligence officials, from human trafficking to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Its emphasis on emerging cyberthreats builds on the 2014 National Intelligence Strategy, which warned of challenges in tying online attacks back to particular hacking groups or foreign governments.
"Despite growing awareness of cyber threats and improving cyber defenses, nearly all information, communication networks, and systems will be at risk for years to come," the 2019 strategy notes.
The document calls out several "traditional" U.S. adversaries, including Russia, Iran, North Korea and China. It also warns that technological breakthroughs will allow a wider range of actors to acquire "sophisticated capabilities" to threaten U.S. interests.
"The DNI recognizes that national economic prosperity is one of the biggest threats from cyber attack; which puts the U.S. position on par with other countries like the UK and Estonia," said former NSA intelligence analyst Sergio Caltagirone, vice president of threat intelligence at industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos Inc., in a chat message.
The updated strategy urges U.S. intelligence agencies to "attract and retain the right, trusted, agile workforce" needed to address cyberthreats and other "future mission challenges." The U.S. intelligence community includes 16 distinct military and civilian agencies, from the CIA to the Department of Energy's nuclear-focused Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence.
The document also warns of the effects a shifting climate could have on U.S. national security, warning that migration and urbanization from "areas threatened by climate changes" could breed pockets of radicalization.
"All of these issues will continue to drive global change on an unprecedented scale and the IC must be able to warn of their strategic effects and adapt to meet the changing mission needs in this increasingly unstable environment," the NIS said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/01/24/stories/1060118357
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2020 Dems Embrace Climate, but Will Voters?
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman
It's just a few weeks into the presidential primary season, and already Democratic contenders are talking far more about climate change than they have in the past.
But do Democratic voters care?
Historically, climate has not been a top priority listed by voters — including Democrats. But the first two years of the Trump administration have seen a significant shift, according to those who track voter trends, propelled in part by rollbacks of climate regulations.
The shift also comes as voters are experiencing climate change or seeing that it is happening around the country, said Karyn Strickler, the founder and president of Vote Climate U.S. PAC. A series of deadly extreme storms and wildfires that were influenced by climate change has newly engaged some Democratic voters on the issue.
Some experts say voters are increasingly driving the politicians and that a robust plan to address climate change will be a necessity for the eventual winner in the crowded field of Democratic candidates.
"Voters lead politicians, not the other way around," Strickler said. "Climate change may not have been the top issue at the ballot box, but voters have been urging action in polls, in marches, in constituent lobby meetings, and Democratic candidates are finally picking up the mantle and taking voter positions."
Strickler's organization launched a voter's guide last year that gave candidates across the midterm elections a "climate calculation" rating their positions and voting record on the issue. The group plans to launch a similar guide for the presidential primaries.
Certainly, the 2018 midterms showed mixed results for climate votes. On the one hand, there were major defeats: Voters rejected both a new carbon fee on greenhouse gases in Washington state and a Colorado initiative that would have banned fracking near buildings and protected lands. On the other, voters in Arizona and Nevada approved ballot measures that are poised to dramatically increase the share of renewables powering the grid. Democrats, many of whom had a strong climate policy message, took control of the House after a night of historic wins.
Ahead of the midterms, liberal Democrats ranked climate policy and environmental protection as a top issue, according to a poll conducted by Yale University and George Mason University. Notably, liberal voters placed climate policy above education, the income gap, the economy and even Russian interference in the election, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
"Global warming is no longer a mid- to bottom-tier issue among the Democratic base. It's No. 4, and environmental protection is No. 3," he said. "That's up there with health care and gun policies.
"That's stunning," he added. "That was not the case five years ago."
Climate change also rose with more moderate and conservative Democrats, who ranked environmental protection eighth and global warming 16th, as well as with moderate Republicans, who ranked them 11th and 23rd, respectively. That was an increase for all groups, and a sign that the electorate is already changing on climate change, Leiserowitz said.
There are other signs that more voters could be swayed by climate change in the primary and presidential elections, compared to past elections. Climate change is an issue that doesn't divide younger voters the way it does older generations, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis released last week. Pew found that Generation Z — those aged 13 to 21 in 2018 — are more likely to accept that humans are warming the planet.
What's more, Generation Z Republicans, as well as millennials, want the government to do something about it, Pew found.
"The youngest Republicans stand apart in their views on the role of government and the causes of climate change," Pew found. "Gen Z Republicans are much more likely than Republicans in older generations to say government should do more to solve problems. And they are less likely than their older counterparts to attribute the earth's warming temperatures to natural patterns, as opposed to human activity."
Before November 2020, more extreme storms and wildfires will likely affect Americans, record temperatures will likely continue to hit cities and carbon dioxide emissions will likely continue to rise, experts say.
The more the Trump administration ignores or downplays climate change, the more some Democratic voters will be engaged, Leiserowitz predicted.
"Politically, Trump has been one of the best things to happen to the climate movement," he said. "Trump doesn't understand that the more he says the things he does, the more he draws attention to it, and the more he rallies the opposition around, he helps bring focus to it."'We're heading ... for a recession'
Indeed, two new polls released this week show that about 3 in 4 voters are worried about climate change and that Democrats and Republicans alike are more concerned than ever that global warming could affect their families. In particular, voters have been influenced by images of extreme weather in the media, as well as their own experiences.
The likelihood that climate change will remain in the news will ensure that Democrats keep using it as a wedge issue that could peel away some small part of the undecided electorate, said Norm Ornstein, a political scientist and resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
But it remains an open question as to how strongly even Democratic candidates will embrace climate policy. Several contenders have expressed support for climate policies, but only Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has made it his central message (Climatewire, Jan. 23).
And voter embrace of climate policy will differ sharply in red and blue states, as well as in key swing states that Trump and his challenger will need in order to claim the presidency, Ornstein said. That may mean that even if climate policy becomes a part of the Democratic primaries, it will get lost during the general election, he said.
In general, candidates who run one way in the primary election often pivot sharply when it's time for the general election, Ornstein noted. He added that the stream of news about Trump will likely overtake the issue in the final months before November 2020, particularly if the economy weakens or Democrats impeach the president.
"I think it becomes an issue that you promote during a fall campaign because of the contrast between the parties and the hope and expectation that you can put the other side on the defensive, at least some of them," he said. "But in terms of whether corruption in government, the catastrophe of Trump is a more dominant theme. We're heading at some point, probably before the election, for a recession."
Nonetheless, groups pushing voters to care about climate plan to increase their activity headed into election season.
The Sunrise Movement has been instrumental in pushing for a "Green New Deal" to decarbonize the economy and boost renewable energy. Eight in 10 voters support the idea, including two-thirds of Republican, according to recent Yale polling. The earliest crop of Democratic presidential candidates is already endorsing the idea, which has the potential to be stronger than any of their previous climate policy proposals. A number have also pledged to reject donations from fossil fuel companies.
Activists plan to push candidates further on climate pledges at campaign events and will time their activities to create voter awareness during hurricane and wildfire season, when the effects of climate change are most visible, said Stephen O'Hanlon, a spokesman for the Sunrise Movement (Climatewire, Jan. 15).
"The 'Green New Deal' is not just a climate policy, it's a policy to transform our economy, to tackle poverty, lift up the people who have been left behind by the economic recovery over the past 10 years with programs like a jobs guarantee," O'Hanlon said. "We see that as really critical to building broad support and melding climate change with jobs, which is a perpetual concern for Americans."
He added: "If candidates want to be taken seriously by young people, want young people to turn out in the ways they turned out in 2018, they need to back the 'Green New Deal' and reject fossil fuel money."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/01/24/stories/1060118451
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As Democratic Field Takes Shape, NRDC Seeks Aggressive Climate Targets
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
As the Democratic presidential primary field begins to take shape, environmentalists are hoping that a new administration will usher in aggressive climate mitigation policies early in the next decade, arguing that action by the United States to get “back on track” toward achieving long-term emissions goals can help meet the objectives of the Paris climate deal.
“What the next administration will need to do is clearly put on the table stronger climate targets for 2030 and beyond, and deliver a set of measures to put the U.S. back on track, given the slippage that will have occurred due to the Trump administration,” said Jake Schmidt, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) international program, during a Jan. 23 press call.
Climate must be a “top agenda item for the next administration,” he added, arguing that officials cannot “slow walk” efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.
His remarks come as the Democratic primary field to take on President Donald Trump in the 2020 election is starting to take shape, with top candidates placing varying degrees of emphasis on climate policy.
For example, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) recently announced her candidacy but offered little in the way of a climate agenda while former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is still mulling a bid, would make climate a centerpiece.
The remarks are also in line with widespread assessments that a renewed focus on climate by the new Democratic majority in the House is aimed at building political momentum ahead of the 2020 elections and the new Congress that would begin the following year.
Scaled-up climate ambition in the U.S. is one of two dozen broad measures included in a new report from NRDC and the NewClimate Institute that assesses the measures' GHG-reduction potential and how they can help meet the long-term temperature goals of the Paris Agreement.
The report focuses on “practical and realistic” solutions that do not require technological breakthroughs or theoretical advances. It looks at specific sectors -- such as renewable energy, deforestation, short-lived climate pollutants and electric vehicles -- while also assessing the potential of major emitting countries such as China, the U.S., India and Europe.
For the U.S., the report says that getting on a trajectory to meet “deep decarbonization” goals by mid-century could produce 1.2 gigatons (GT) of annual GHG cuts by 2030.
While the report does not express that as a specific GHG target for that year, NewClimate's Takeshi Kuramochi told the press call that such a pathway would be slightly stricter than the country's current Paris target of reducing emissions 26-28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. A 2030 goal likely would “go below 30 percent reductions,” he said, while adding that there is uncertainty about emissions tied to land use.
Obama's Insufficient Policies
NRDC's Brendan Guy added that experts have long noted that existing policies from the Obama era were insufficient to meet the country's current Paris target. Adding to the challenge is the fact that the Trump administration is not taking any explicit steps toward meeting that goal and is rolling back a suite of EPA climate rules for power plants, vehicles and oil and gas equipment.
“We're definitely going to need to [put the] pedal to the metal in the early 2020s,” Guy said, adding that policymakers should stop any climate policy rollbacks occurring now. Even so, he argued that GHG cuts on the scale contemplated in the report in 2030 are “feasible with sustained and aggressive effort starting in the early 2020s.”
The U.S. emissions potential is included in a suite of measures that the report says have achieved some progress but need to “scale up” and speed implementation.
Overall, the environmental groups found that implementing all 24 measures in the report could cut GHGs by 19 GT annually by 2030, which is “on a pathway” toward the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting average global warming to 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels. More action would be needed to reach the deal's more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees.
Implementing the 19 most feasible measures -- omitting what the report describes as steps that “need focus” -- could still yield 16 GT in emissions cuts and put the world “on the upper end of a 2-degree pathway,” according to Kuramochi.
In some sense, the report underscores the wide scope of the climate problem. For instance, its projected GHG-reduction potential for action in just one sector in China -- capping coal consumption by 2025 -- is 1 GT by 2030, which is just slightly below the overall potential outlined for the U.S. Capping coal use in China three years earlier could boost the GHG cuts to 1.5 GT, outstripping the 2030 potential in the U.S.
Additionally, the report foresees 2.2 GT of annual reductions from deploying renewable energy across the globe in line with recent market trends. That potential rises to 6 GT if renewables are deployed “faster” and in line with “leading jurisdictions.”
NRDC's Guy said that renewables have the “greatest potential of any single action” outlined in the report, adding that he expects countries to take advantage of the sector's recent cost reductions and technology improvements when setting a new round of Paris targets in 2020.
Another 1 GT could come from implementing the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which seeks to phase out hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants that act as potent GHGs. Speakers on the call noted that the treaty has wide support, including from industry, and that there are signs that countries are moving faster than they initially projected when crafting the deal.
Another measure that the report sees as “on track” is deploying low-carbon energy in India, which is now the world's third-largest GHG emitter and is rapidly developing. Madhura Joshi of NRDC's India program told reporters that renewables have “strong political support” in the country, and the report projects 0.6 GT in annual GHG cuts by 2030 from those efforts.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/democratic-field-takes-shape-nrdc-seeks-aggressive-climate-targets
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Hill Battle Over 'Clean' Energy Looms Over Democrats' Climate Debate
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Democrats' efforts to craft ambitious federal climate policies in the new Congress are reviving debates over whether such measures should focus solely on renewable technologies such as wind and solar or whether they should include a broader suite of low-carbon approaches such as nuclear energy and fossil energy paired with carbon capture and storage (CCS).
A new wave of progressive climate advocates are pushing for a shift to 100 percent renewable electricity over the next dozen years or so, but others are adopting a bigger tent approach, with several sources expecting increased talk of low- or no-carbon policies that embrace “clean,” but not exclusively renewable, power.
“The federal government must immediately end the massive, irrational subsidies and other financial support that fossil fuel, and other dirty energy companies (such as nuclear, waste incineration and biomass energy) continue to receive both domestically and overseas,” states a Jan. 10 letter from hundreds of progressive environmental groups that highlights the split.
The letter is addressed to House lawmakers, calling for “visionary and affirmative action” to address climate change, with signers including Climate Justice Alliance, Friends of the Earth, Center for Biological Diversity and scores of local groups.
Many of the groups are pushing a “Green New Deal” in the new Congress which broadly calls for a transition to an entirely renewable electricity sector by 2030, lower carbon emissions and an increase jobs in the process.
But the renewables-centric approach is facing pushback from others who say such demands are both politically unrealistic and could slow more comprehensive strategies that yield carbon reductions.
“Such suggestions are not only complete nonstarters as actual legislation, they are dangerous because they provide political fodder for Republican climate deniers who will attempt to scare the public and prevent progress,” writes Progressive Policy Institute strategic adviser Paul Bledsoe in a recent Forbes op-ed.
Bledsoe's op-ed, for example, criticizes some of the more “draconian” policies around the Green New Deal advocacy such as calling for a complete phaseout of fossil fuels by 2030.
He also anticipates that House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) would take up several climate proposals, including a zero-carbon energy standard Bledsoe suggests could be more feasible than those spelled out in the Green New Deal.
Bledsoe urges that an energy standard include “all types of zero-carbon electricity production, including not only wind, solar and hydro-power, but also nuclear generation and coal and natural gas with carbon capture.”
A Pallone spokesman did not respond to a query on the lawmaker's plans, though one source tracking the issue expects introduction of a “clean energy standard” proposal in the Senate in the coming months, adding that the issue could see discussion in both chambers.
Green New Deal
In a similar vein, seven energy-related labor unions are urging Congress to revisit the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade climate bill that passed the House in 2009 in lieu of both a carbon tax and the “Green New Deal.” The unions last month crafted a position paper that expresses worries about the job implications of a carbon tax and "grave concerns about unrealistic solutions" in the Green New Deal.
In particular, the unions seek to revive “bonus” credits for CCS deployment that were included in Waxman-Markey, seeing that as the “best means to ensure widespread commercial use of CCS technology” at fossil fuel power plants.
Potentially complicating the issue even further, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the lead proponent of the 'Green' deal, says her plan could incorporate a carbon tax.
“A carbon tax bill isn't going to be called a Green New Deal. It could be part of a Green New Deal,” she told PoliticoJan. 22.
Her comments come as she and her supporters are in the "drafting phase" of a resolution that would define the scope of a Green New Deal.
The new Congress gives House Democrats the chance to debate major climate legislation, after almost a decade when GOP control of the chamber put the brakes on most such discussions.
But early attention to the issue has focused on the Green New Deal, which serves almost as much as a rallying cry as a set of specific policies.
The youth-oriented Sunrise Movement, for example, which earlier held sit-ins outside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) office to call for a strong select climate committee, has seized on a goal of shifting to 100 percent renewable energy within the next 12 years.
However, the source tracking the issue suggests that this advocacy does not reflect where many larger environmental groups stand due to their reading of climate politics as well as analyses showing that deep decarbonization goals will require a focus -- both substantively and politically -- on carbon reductions from all sectors.
In line with such views, a September study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that pairing renewables like wind and solar with other alternatives -- nuclear, geothermal, bioenergy, and natural gas with carbon capture -- could lower the costs of decarbonizing the power grid anywhere from 10-62 percent.
It backed the notion that such costs cuts are not just necessary for the sector itself but to make electricity an “attractive substitute for oil, natural gas and coal in the transportation, heat, and industrial sectors, where decarbonization is typically even more challenging than in electricity,” according to a summary.
In other words, cheaper efforts to reduce carbon in the power sector could make it politically and substantively easier for policymakers to require greater electrification in a range of other emitting sectors such as transportation and buildings.
A separate September report by the progressive think tank Data for Progress similarly adopts a broader focus on the power sector while reviewing Green New Deal policy options. It urges a shift to 100 percent “clean and renewable electricity” by 2035 and a goal of zero net emissions from fossil fuels by 2050.
The report embraces a role for “geothermal, sustainable biomass, and renewable natural gas, as well as clean sources such as nuclear and remaining fossil fuel with carbon capture.”
And a June report by the center-left group Third Way examining state energy polices highlights over two dozen states and the District Columbia with renewable portfolio standards, arguing that many of those states and others could exercise greater climate leadership by adopting broader clean energy standards that embrace nuclear and other resources.
California has since implemented a standard that omits nuclear power but does include biomass and waste-to-energy projects.
'More Climate Friendly'
Roger Ballentine, president of the firm Green Strategies and a former Clinton administration climate adviser, tells Inside EPA that he expects ramped up discussion of a federal clean energy standard.
Coupled with that debate will be “predictable pushback from some on the right” who will either claim such approaches are not necessary or they are not an appropriate domain for the federal government.
But the “more interesting debate,” he says, will be over what types of energy counts as “clean” and with what caveats, adding that will arguably be the more consequential discussion.
“A broader clean energy standard is greener and more climate friendly than a narrow renewable energy standard. But the politics may be misaligned” with that conclusion, he says.
Ballentine says it will also be interesting to watch whether the dispute over what qualifies as “clean” surfaces between the Energy & Commerce Committee, which has legislative authority over climate policy, and the revived House select climate committee, which can make policy recommendations but does not have authority to move legislation on its own.
At the same time, the source tracking the issue suggests that the number of advocates pushing a renewables-only approach -- excluding CCS or nuclear -- may be getting smaller over time. The source notes, for example, that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has supported both nuclear and CCS.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/hill-battle-over-clean-energy-looms-over-democrats-climate-debate
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D.C. Circuit Postpones Oral Argument in EPA HFCs Rule Suit
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has postponed until at least March 1 oral argument in an industry lawsuit against a 2016 Obama EPA rule banning certain climate-warming hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants, although the delay is largely due to a scheduling conflict and not the government shutdown.
Oral argument previously scheduled for Feb. 7 in Mexichem Fluor, Inc., et al. v. EPA will now be rescheduled for a later date, but the shutdown creates uncertainty over when that will happen. In addition to granting the request for argument delay -- because an attorney for intervenor Chemours Company FC is on vacation -- the court in an order earlier this month also extended the deadline for filing final briefs in the case from Jan. 7 until Feb. 6. EPA requested the filing deadline delay because of the shutdown.
The case contests EPA's 2016 rule changing the status of some HFCs in different end-uses to "unacceptable." Chemical companies Mexichem and Arkema petitioned the court to remand and partially vacate the rule to conform to an earlier D.C. Circuit ruling that vacated a 2015 Obama EPA HFCs rule.
While EPA broadly agrees with the arguments put forward by the petitioning companies, the petitioners are opposed by rival chemical companies Chemours and Honeywell, in addition to environmental group the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The court in its 2017 ruling in the earlier case, known as Mexichem I , faulted the Obama EPA's interpretation of the Clean Air Act allowing the agency to mandate replacement of HFC refrigerants under the significant new alternatives (SNAP) program with new chemicals less prone to warm the climate.
The air law's provisions on substitution of refrigerants for older chemicals are restricted to ozone-depleting substances harming stratospheric ozone, which HFCs do not, industry petitioners argued in Mexichem I. The D.C. Circuit in a 2-1 majority opinion found EPA may not require substitution of refrigerants that have already replaced ozone-depleting chemicals.
Environmentalists unsuccessfully appealed the case to the Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. Circuit's opinion, but the high court declined to hear the suit. Meanwhile, the Trump EPA is reconsidering the agency's position on refrigerant replacement rules.
EPA in its Sept. 28 opening brief in the present suit, known as Mexichem II says the agency largely agrees with Mexichem and Arkema, and opposes attempts by environmentalist and industry intervenors to overturn the precedent set by Mexichem I.
"Because Mexichem I controls this case in all respects, EPA agrees that the Court should remand and partially vacate the 2016 Rule to the same extent," EPA says.
But NRDC, Chemours and Honeywell in their Nov. 9 brief say, "This Court lacks jurisdiction to review the petitions because they challenge a regulation adopted in 1994 and thus are untimely."
Further, petitioners "assert that Mexichem I forecloses this Court from addressing this jurisdictional flaw. Not so. Mexichem I did not address, or state any holding on, the Court’s jurisdiction to invalidate the regulatory prohibition on any person’s use of a substitute in a use listed as 'unacceptable,' which was promulgated in the 1994 Rule, not in the 2015 Rule."
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/dc-circuit-postpones-oral-argument-epa-hfcs-rule-suit
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EPA Must Quickly Enforce Landfill Climate Rule, States Tell Court
Jan 24, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
A federal district court should require the EPA to quickly begin enforcing limits on methane from landfills, a group of states led by California said.
The states—California, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont—are urging the court to set a rigid timeline for the Environmental Protection Agency to begin implementing the 2016 rule. That schedule would require the EPA to review and approve or deny state plans to implement the standards that have already been submitted within 30 days and issue a federal plan for states that didn’t write their own within five months, the states said in a legal filing late Jan. 22.
The states also want the court to require the EPA to give updates every 60 days on the rule’s implementation.
But if the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sets the timeline proposed by the states, it could complicate the EPA’s efforts to delay the deadlines of the Obama-era rule, which set new emission limits on the potent greenhouse gas methane from landfills.
Methane warms the Earth at more than two dozen times the rate of carbon dioxide, and landfills are the third largest emitter in the U.S., according to the EPA’s annual greenhouse inventory.
The EPA has tried to argue its plans to delay the rule make the states’ lawsuit unnecessary, but Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. rejected that notion. Gilliam also denied a recent request by the EPA to delay its deadline to respond to the states’ Jan. 22 motion.
‘Flagrantly Violated’The group of states said the EPA has acknowledged it hasn’t implemented the rule.
“For well over a year, EPA has openly and flagrantly violated nondiscretionary regulatory duties through a sustained effort to unlawfully undermine the Emissions Guidelines—a regulation to protect human health and welfare that EPA is bound to faithfully execute (and has conceded it was required to implement),” the states wrote.
The agency has also violated the Clean Air Act’s “cooperative federalism regime by refusing to review plans duly developed and submitted by states, and by encouraging states to violate their duties to submit plans,” the states added.
The EPA in October proposed a rule that would delay until Aug. 29, 2019, the deadline for states to submit plans to strengthen pollution controls on landfills. The Obama-era rule had required those plans by May 30, 2017.
Just four states—Arizona, California, ew Mexico, and West Virginia—have submitted plans to date, according to the states’ legal filing. The EPA has had two of those plans, from California and New Mexico, for more than a year and a half, the states said.
The EPA must respond to the states’ filing by Feb. 19. Gilliam set a hearing in the case for April 25.
The case is California v. EPA, N.D. Cal., No. 4:18-cv-03237-HSG, motion for summary judgment 1/22/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-must-quickly-enforce-landfill-climate-rule-states-tell-court
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States Seek Tight Legal Deadlines On EPA Landfill Methane Implementation
Jan 23, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Democratic states and environmental groups that are challenging EPA’s failure to implement an Obama-era rule to limit emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane at landfills are asking a federal district judge to impose tight timelines for the agency to take a series of steps required by the rule.
The state and environmentalist coalition outlines its requested timeline in a Jan. 22 motion for summary judgmentin State of California, et al. v. EPA, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, in which they are challenging the Trump EPA's lax implementation of the 2016 landfill methane standards.
Specifically, they urge the court to order EPA to “review the four previously submitted state [compliance] plans” within 30 days of the court's order, “promulgate a federal plan within five months of the Court’s order,” and “review any newly submitted state plans within [60] days of their submission.”
They are also urging the court to require EPA to submit status reports on its progress every 60 days, which is “appropriate in light of EPA’s statutory and regulatory mandates, the nature of the problem the Emission Guidelines seek to address, the public interest, and additional circumstances.”
Such a remedy is necessary due to “EPA’s failure to carry out its nondiscretionary duties, and in light of EPA’s demonstrated refusal to perform those duties (as well as the impossibility of complying with deadlines that have long passed),” the states and environmental groups say in the filing.
They add that it is “neither necessary nor appropriate to reset the clock” for state and EPA action under the rule because “doing so would exacerbate the harm to Plaintiffs from dangerous emissions of greenhouse gases and other harmful pollutants and would reward EPA for its unlawful conduct.”
EPA has until Feb. 19 to file an opposition and cross motion after Judge Hayward Gilliam Jr. on Dec. 21 rejected its request to dismiss and stay the case as it moves forward with a new proposal that would significantly extend the rule's compliance deadlines.
Instead, the judge found that the plaintiffs can continue to challenge the agency’s failure to follow deadlines in the 2016 rule and laid out a tight schedule for the case to proceed. After EPA's next filing, states would have until March 18 to file a reply, followed by an April 2 EPA reply and an April 25 hearing on the cross motions.
Shutdown Impact
After Gilliam issued that order, EPA filed a Jan. 16 motion to continue the briefing schedule and delay the hearing date, citing the ongoing lapse in EPA and Justice Department appropriations. “Therefore, although we greatly regret any disruption caused to the Court and the other litigants, EPA hereby moves that all remaining deadlines and the hearing date in this case be continued until Department of Justice attorneys are permitted to resume their usual civil litigation functions and EPA technical and legal staff are permitted to resume work,” the filing says.
But Gilliam rejected the request in a Jan. 17 notice in the court docket. “Given the pending rulemaking, a continuance of these proceedings is not feasible,” he wrote.
The case was brought last May by Democratic attorneys general (AGs) from California, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The Obama EPA finalized the rule at issue to limit methane and other air emissions from existing landfills in August 2016 and set a May 30, 2017, deadline for states to submit compliance plans. The Trump EPA signaled it would not aggressively enforce that deadline, and only four states -- California, Arizona, New Mexico and later West Virginia -- submitted compliance plans.
The Trump EPA on Oct. 23 signed a new proposal that would extend the rule's deadline for state plans until August 2019. However, that rulemaking work is also stalled due to the shutdown.
The states in the lawsuit argue that EPA missed its statutory deadline for issuing federal compliance plans for delinquent states, and that if the rule were in place it would have already prevented release of 7.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.
Many of the same states and environmental groups involved in the lawsuit also filed Jan. 3 comments urging EPA to drop its plan to extend the deadlines.
“Now already one-year overdue, EPA here proposes to further delay implementing the guidelines by an additional four years,” said the joint state comments led by California AG Xavier Becerra (D).
Also, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Clean Air Task Force and the Environmental Defense Fund said in joint comments that EPA tries to “downplay the consequences of adopting the proposal, claiming repeatedly that '[t]his regulatory action is a procedural change,' and therefore 'does not have any impact on human health or the environment,' including the health of children. . . . But . . . that claim is patently false.”
One surprising criticism of EPA came from West Virginia -- which is usually allied with the Trump administration on environmental issues. That state said in its November comments that it submitted a compliance plan in September and it opposes the portion of EPA’s proposal that would require the four states that did submit plans to re-submit them under extended deadlines.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-seek-tight-legal-deadlines-epa-landfill-methane-implementation
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Giant Carbon Sink Could Peak in 40 Years
Jan 24, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Chelsea Harvey
Droughts, heat waves and other extreme climate-related events are growing concerns in a warming world. Studies have found climate change is already fueling an increase in some extreme events and that they're likely to worsen as temperatures continue to climb.
Now, new research suggests the reverse may also be true — these events, themselves, could also worsen climate change.
Weather and climate events tend to affect the amount of moisture contained in the soil, according to the study published yesterday in the journal Nature. Unusually hot or dry periods, for instance, will temporarily lead to drier earth. And these fluctuations in soil moisture can have a huge impact on the amount of carbon the Earth is able to absorb, the study found.
Using earth system models, the authors calculated land might actually absorb about twice as much carbon if it weren't for the fluctuations caused by these unusual weather and climate events.
That's a big deal for the climate. A substantial proportion of the greenhouse gas emissions humans put into the atmosphere — as much as 25 percent, by some estimates — get reabsorbed into the Earth's soil and vegetation.
"The concern is if these events became more commonplace, and then ecosystems didn't have the time to recover between events, that they could take a larger toll on overall carbon flux," said Julia Green, lead study author and a doctoral student at Columbia University.
The researchers say plants — which naturally take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — are strongly affected by changes in soil. A severe dry period can stress the local vegetation, or even cause some plants to die off, leading to less productivity and less carbon storage.
Furthermore, research suggests plants can take a long time to bounce back after such an event. Even if a drought is followed immediately by a period of heavy rainfall, it may not be enough to offset the effects.
Scientists expect climate change to make these kinds of events worse in many places.
Additionally, climate change may cause some regions not just to experience an increase in individual extreme events but also to become drier overall on a year-round basis. That could have a strong effect on the type of vegetation land can support and how much carbon it can take in.Uncertainty
For now, research shows that land worldwide is still taking up carbon at increasing rates — in other words, the carbon sink is still growing bigger, faster. But the new study suggests this could change within a matter of just decades if humans don't soon cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Under a severe climate change scenario, in which emissions continue through the end of the century at their current rates, the land carbon sink may hit its peak within about 40 years, according to the study. After that, it could start taking in less carbon than before, leaving more in the atmosphere and causing global warming to accelerate.
And in that case, global climate goals like the 2 degree Celsius target could approach faster than previously estimated.
The research "shines a bright spotlight on just how important water is for the uptake of carbon by the biosphere," said carbon-cycle expert Chris Schwalm of the Woods Hole Research Center in a statement on the new research.
The study reaffirms that changes in the Earth's natural carbon sinks are hugely important for the global carbon cycle and the future impact of climate change. That said, it's still one of the most challenging research areas for climate scientists. There's a lot of uncertainty about what will happen to the land carbon sink in the future and how it might respond under different climate change scenarios.
For instance, some studies have shown that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may actually be a boon to carbon-guzzling plants, helping to increase their productivity. Other research warns the benefits of increased carbon dioxide may only be temporary, tapering off after a few decades.
Many scientists also point out that other consequences of climate change — including the kinds of droughts and heat waves the new study highlights — may offset these benefits in many places.
The new research could help scientists make better predictions about the land carbon sink in the future. For one thing, the findings could help improve the way models represent plants and their response to water stress.
"Models right now tend to not include a lot of processes that are related to soil moisture and plant water stress, and so really what we're stressing in this paper is that this should be a priority," Green said, "because soil moisture is obviously having huge impacts on the overall ability of the biosphere to store carbon."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/01/24/stories/1060118327
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