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AM ACC 2/1/2019

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Prices for PP, Solid PS Resin Continue to Drop in 2019
Jan 31, 2019 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito

North American selling prices for polypropylene and solid polystyrene resins have begun 2019 in the same way they ended 2018 — with lower prices.
(ACC Mentioned) APR Offers Hard Data on Energy Savings From Recycling
Feb 1, 2019 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson

Recyclers have long touted the environmental benefits of using recovered plastics, pointing to both energy savings and lower greenhouse gas emissions compared with virgin resin use.
(ACC Mentioned) The Laugh’s on Us: How the Trump-Radical Republican Tax Cut Broke the Economy
Feb 1, 2019 | DC Report
By David Cay Johnston

Donald Trump’s tax cut for the rich and the corporations they control is turning out to be a bust for the American economy.
(ACC Mentioned) Trump’s Tax Cuts Haven’t Resulted In The Economic Benefits He Promised
Jan 31, 2019 | Beyond the Beltway
By Doug Mataconis

A new report indicates that the tax reform package that Republicans passed at the end of 2016, which remains the single big piece of legislation that the GOP managed to pass while controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, had almost no impact on business investment hiring:
(ACC Mentioned) Wheeler Adds ‘Red Team’ Climate Review Advocate to Epa Science Panel
Jan 31, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen

Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has appointed John Christy, a prominent critic of mainstream climate science, to the agency’s influential Science Advisory Board.
New EPA Science Advisers Include Climate Skeptic, Agency Vets
Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith

The EPA’s panel of science advisers is getting a slate of new members, including a well-known skeptic of mainstream climate science.

TSCA News

EPA Must Disclose Chemical Safety Studies: House Committee Chair
Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

The Democratic leaders of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce asked the EPA to publicly release all health and safety studies it reviewed on the risks posed by a pigment used in coatings and paints.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) EPA Reconsiders Use of EtO IRIS Value in Rules, Drawing Sharp Criticism
Jan 31, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad

EPA appears to be reconsidering whether to continue using a strict Obama-era risk value for ethylene oxide (EtO) for regulatory purposes, a step that appears to bolster a request from the chemical industry but one that is drawing sharp criticism from congressional Democrats...
Capito Says She’ll Back Wheeler Despite Chemicals Plan
Feb 1, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told POLITICO today she’ll support Andrew Wheeler’s nomination to lead the EPA after a lengthy conversation with him late Wednesday about the agency’s plans not to set limits on two toxic chemicals in drinking water.
Erin Brockovich Goes After Trump Administration For Chemical Deregulation Plan
Jan 31, 2019 | HuffPost
By Sanjana Karanth

Erin Brockovich, known for her environmental and consumer activism, said it was time to “sound the alarm” as the Trump administration considers halting the regulation of two toxic chemicals that are contaminating the tap water of millions of Americans.
EPA Needs Way to Gather Information on Asbestos Use, States Say (1)
Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

he EPA must collect information about the extent to which asbestos and products containing it are used in the U.S., 15 attorneys general told the agency Jan. 31.
Editorial: PFOA Without Limits
Jan 31, 2019 | Albany Times-Union
By Editorial Board

THE ISSUE: The Environmental Protection Agency reportedly plans not to set limits on a toxic chemical in drinking water supplies.
Vermont Proposes ‘Strictest’ Limit on Drinking Water Contaminant
Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel

Vermont is proposing what it says would be the nation’s strictest limits on fluorinated chemicals in drinking water, but environmental groups who sought the standards aren’t satisfied.
New York to Spend $2.2 Billion to Clean Up Lead Paint in Housing
Jan 31, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By John Herzfeld

New York will spend $2.2 billion to clean up lead paint and other problems in public housing as part of a new, enforceable settlement with federal housing and environmental agencies.
Chemours Is Using the U.S. as an Unregulated Dump for Europe’s Toxic Genx Waste
Feb 1, 2019 | The Intercept
By Sharon Lerner

After many years of treating the developing world as its environmental dumping ground, the U.S. is finally getting a taste of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of another country’s dangerous garbage.
NGO Platform: The Hidden Hazards of Chemicals in Plastics
Feb 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Anna Watson

When I buy fruit and vegetables at my nearest supermarket, I can no longer buy loose mushrooms, onions, apples or potatoes.
REACH & CLP Hub: Keeping up With REACH
Feb 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Friederike Danneberg

Six new substances were added to Echa’s SVHC candidate list on 15 January, reminding us that REACH is not only about chemicals and mixtures but also applies to articles (finished goods).
Guest Column: Echa Outlines the Key Priorities for 2019
Feb 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Björn Gaarn Hansen

2019 is the first year after the major regulatory deadlines of REACH and the first year during which Echa will start to implement its new strategic priorities.
Guest Column: Will Brexit Return Control to the UK Chemical Sector?
Feb 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By John Hibbs

The Bacs position is that we fully recognise the need for an effective chemicals management system for the UK.
Feature: Chemical Sector Struggles With Brexit's Uk-REACH Data ‘Nightmare’
Feb 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Caroline Byrne

The prospect of a no-deal Brexit is creating turmoil for chemical companies who must decide whether to spend millions buying rights for UK-REACH data they might not need, or wait for an EU exit deal that may never materialise.

Energy News

Bill Would Boost DOE Role in Pipeline Oversight
Feb 1, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Blake Sobczak

Senate lawmakers introduced legislation yesterday aimed at tightening physical and cybersecurity across the United States' 300,000-mile web of large natural gas pipelines.
Petroleum Reserve Comment Deadline Is Extended Again
Feb 1, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson

The Bureau of Land Management has for a third time extended the public comment deadline for its plans to rewrite the integrated activity plan (IAP) for the 22.1-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
These Dozen States Could Move to 100% Renewable Electricity
Jan 31, 2019 | CBS News
By Irina Ivanova

Last year, California set the most ambitious energy goal in the nation: reaching 100 percent renewable energy in just over 25 years. This year, as many as 13 other states are rearing to join it.
Is 100 Percent Renewable Energy for the U.S. Possible? Yes.
Jan 31, 2019 | Environmental Working Group
By Grant Smith

Across America, devastating hurricanes, hellish wildfires, deadly heat waves and other disasters have brought the climate change crisis close to home. In response, more than 100 cities, counties and states – including the two largest, California and New York...
US Crude Exports to Asia to Swell in Mar, Apr on Cheaper Freight
Feb 1, 2019 | Platts
By Andrew Toh, Oceana Zhou, Wanda Wang, and Gawoon Philip Vahn

US crude exports to Asia are set to swell over March and April as a drop in freight rates makes US cargoes more competitive against barrels from Asia or the Middle East, according to market participants and shipping fixtures Friday.

Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Trump Widens ‘Buy American’ Rule to Infrastructure Projects
Feb 1, 2019 | Roll Call
By Ellyn Ferguson

The Trump administration will use a new executive order to expand “Buy American” requirements to infrastructure projects that receive federal financing as a way to boost the use of American-made products and support U.S. manufacturing and jobs, White House adviser Peter Navarro said Thursday.
Amid Dim Prospects, Democrats Eye Climate Options For Infrastructure Bill
Jan 31, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves and Lee Logan

As House Democrats move closer to unveiling a long-promised infrastructure bill, supporters and other observers are floating options for how the measure can make good on their promise to address climate change, including a new funding mechanism...

Environment News

N.Y. Leads Suit Against EPA Over Rules on Drifting Smog (1)
Jan 31, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid and Erik Larson

New York is leading a half-dozen states suing the Trump administration for allegedly failing to regulate interstate smog they claim is blowing in from upwind states.
EPA Reschedule Utility NSPS Hearing, Extends Comment Deadline
Jan 31, 2019 | Inside EPA

EPA has rescheduled a public hearing for Feb. 14 on its proposal to roll back Obama-era greenhouse gas standards for new power plants after twice postponing the hearing due to the government shutdown, and the agency is also extending the public comment...
This Is What a Climate Emergency Declaration Looks Like
Feb 1, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews and Scott Waldman

President Trump is again weighing whether to declare a national emergency on immigration, and it's prodding some Democratic lawmakers and environmentalists to ponder a similar declaration on climate change.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Prices for PP, Solid PS Resin Continue to Drop in 2019

Jan 31, 2019 | Plastics News

By Frank Esposito

North American selling prices for polypropylene and solid polystyrene resins have begun 2019 in the same way they ended 2018 — with lower prices.
Regional PP and solid PS prices both fell an average of 2 cents per pound in January, according to market sources contacted by Plastics News. Prices for PP continued a slide, that has seen them tumble a total of 18 cents in November and December.
Like previous price drops, the January PP slide was tied into lower prices for polymer-grade propylene feedstock. Those prices have dropped as propylene supplies have increased. North America now has the lowest PGP prices in the world, according to Scott Newell, a market analyst with Resin Technology Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas.
Recent PP demand also has been hurt by higher prices earlier in 2018, he added. "Inventories are high for both monomer and PP [resin]," Newell explained. "We should start to see these [lower] prices attract [PP] demand back to the U.S. in coming months.
The regional PP market in 2018 also was impacted by increased supplies of PP imported from other countries. Tight North American PP supplies and low prices for imported resin led buyers to foreign suppliers.
North American PP sales through November were down a little more than 1 percent, according to the American Chemistry Council, as a drop of 32 percent in exports sales brought down flat domestic sales. Market watchers said actual PP consumption in the region more likely was up 3-4 percent for the year because of increased amounts of imported PP.
Regional solid PS prices slipped an average of 2 cents per pound in January after sliding 7 cents in December. Those moves were tied to lower demand and to lower prices for benzene feedstock, which is used to make styrene monomer.
North American solid PS sales struggled in 2018, dropping almost 5 percent through November. Exports have provided a bright spot, growing more than 13 percent and reducing the impact of a 5.5 percent drop in domestic sales.
https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20190131/NEWS/190139959/prices-for-pp-solid-ps-resin-continue-to-drop-in-2019

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(ACC Mentioned) APR Offers Hard Data on Energy Savings From Recycling

Feb 1, 2019 | Plastics News

By Jim Johnson

Recyclers have long touted the environmental benefits of using recovered plastics, pointing to both energy savings and lower greenhouse gas emissions compared with virgin resin use.
But an exact accounting of just how much brand owners and converters can promote those benefits has, for the most part, been lacking.
"We felt very strong that there are significant energy and emissions savings using recycled material in comparison to virgin, but we needed data to support that," Association of Plastic Recyclers President Steve Alexander said.
Newly released research commissioned by APR shows total energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are just a fraction of outputs for virgin resin production, the trade group said.
Total energy savings were 79 percent for PET and 88 percent for both high density polyethylene and polypropylene, APR reports. Emissions reductions were 67 percent for PET and 71 percent for both HDPE and PP.
Those reduction levels were calculated using the "cut-off" method of calculation. The report indicates "all virgin material production burdens are assigned to the first use of the material, and the burdens assigned to the recycled resin system begin with recovery of the post-consumer material" through this method.
The report, authored by Franklin Associates, a division of Eastern Research Group Inc., provides such information for the first time for HDPE and PP and updates past work done by the American Chemistry Council on PET.
"There's never been one as comprehensive as this. And there has never been one for HDPE and for polypropylene," explained Alexander said. "It's one of the most expensive projects that APR has ever undertaken."
APR decided to take a deep dive into the issue about two years ago, devoting about a third of its program budget that year to the effort.
"It took us awhile. We wanted to have three-quarters of the volume in the marketplace [represented]," Alexander said. "We wanted it to be comprehensive and have some integrity and credibility."
The project cost almost "six-figures," Alexander said, and took extra time because there was a lot of back-and-forth communication between researchers and companies to gather the information that had never been requested before.
"It's all part of trying to push the message that recycling and, particularly, recycling of plastics, we believe is the true sustainability metric for plastic packaging," Alexander said.
Between the time APR commissioned the study and now, the issues of ocean plastics, single-use plastics and plastic litter has exploded. And that makes the information even more relevant, he said.
"Clearly, it's more pressing and more important now than when we started this," he said. "As the organization that represents the plastics recycling industry, we recognize we are in competition now," he said, with other approaches such as take-back programs and product bans.
For that reason, Alexander said, it is important for the plastics recycling industry push this type of data into the marketplace.
Plastic recyclers and packaging makers can point to the data to help promote the use of recycled resin. "The story is to make sure that people understand the environmental and energy and emission benefits from using a recycled resin," Alexander said. "The recycling rate, as you know, for certain products, hasn't been really elevated in a couple of years. Markets have been tough. This is another tool that we have to improve the market posture for recycled resin."
"It's really a marketing tool for the recyclers to try and extend and expand demand for our material in the marketplace," he said.
The report is available at https://plasticsrecycling.org/images/apr/2018-APR-Recycled-Resin-Report.pdf
https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20190131/NEWS/190139958/apr-offers-hard-data-on-energy-savings-from-recycling

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(ACC Mentioned) The Laugh’s on Us: How the Trump-Radical Republican Tax Cut Broke the Economy

Feb 1, 2019 | DC Report

By David Cay Johnston

Donald Trump’s tax cut for the rich and the corporations they control is turning out to be a bust for the American economy.
It will, however, burden taxpayers with at least $1.5 trillion more federal debt because, instead of boosting tax revenues through increased economic activity as promised, it has caused a sharp drop in revenue.
In addition, millions of residents of blue states are about to get hit with big federal income tax increases while many American expatriates who own businesses overseas are also facing unexpected new tax bills, especially if they prudently saved for their old age under the systems of the countries where they now reside.
I’ll be speaking about this at a Toronto tax conference on Friday, Feb. 1.
A host of economic indicators show that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act failed to achieve its key promise, a major increase in investments by business that would create more jobs. This is exactly the result that many, including those of us at DCReport, predicted.
We call the 2017 tax law the Trump-Radical Republican tax law because not one Democrat voted for the bill in the House or Senate. It was also passed without a single public hearing. It is a terrible law that benefits the richest among us at the expense of the many—and needs to be fixed.
The Trump-Radical Republican tax law not only cut the corporate tax rate from 35% of profits to 21%. It also allowed corporations to immediately deduct 100% of capital expenditures instead of writing them off on their tax returns over periods from three years to decades.
This kind of corporate tax timing trick has been employed several times since the John F. Kennedy administration in 1962. The effect each time was to create a brief surge in corporate investment, called capital expenditures, followed by a slump.
Looked at over a period of several years, total capital investment was unchanged.
The evidence today shows that the economy is slowing down after expanding since early in Barack Obama’s first term despite the promise that the Trump-Radical Republican tax cut would spur massive new investment.
The National Association for Business Economics found this month that the Trump-Radical Republican tax law has failed to increase business investment and activity.
NABE president, Kevin Swift, who is chief economist for the American Chemistry Council, said that 84% of business economists it surveyed agreed that “one year after its passage the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has not caused their firms to change hiring or investment plans.”
There’s no reason to expect an increase going forward. Rather, economic growth appears to be slowing.
The association said that a majority of those it surveyed in January don’t expect a recession this year. However, fewer members expect robust economic growth in 2019.
It also noted a slowdown in the growth of profit margins as well as rising costs for materials, both signs of an economic expansion that is running out of fuel to keep going.
Manufacturing activity has grown for 116 consecutive months, the last 23 of them under Trump, the Institute for Supply Management’s latest report showed.
But Institute reports also showed a sharp slowdown as 2018 ended despite the Trump-Radical Republican tax cut favors for business. In December, the institute’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) stood at 54.1, down sharply from 59.3 in November.
Much more worrisome was an 11-point decline in the index for future orders, which fell in December from 62.1 to 51.1. That suggests economic growth will slow, perhaps even stall, later this year.
Expect some contraction in consumer spending in the first half of this year as many prosperous Americans get hit with much bigger than expected income tax bills.
Thanks to theTrump-Radical Republican tax cut, millions of families in California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and other high-tax states will owe thousands to tens of thousands of dollars more in federal income tax for 2018 even if their income was unchanged from 2017.
That is because individuals can deduct no more than $10,000 in state and local taxes, known as SALT, on the tax returns due this Spring, and most homeowners will no longer be able to deduct their mortgage interest.
The number of taxpayers who will be eligible to itemize deductions is expected to fall from about one in three to just one in 20.
The taxpayers most affected live in Democratic-leaning blue states, which also happen to be those with better paying jobs. Had the Trump-Radical Republican tax cut bill been examined in public hearings, the public would have known about its partisan provisions, something the Framers of our Constitution warned against and which they tried to prevent with the uniformity clause in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of our Constitution, which says taxes should be uniform across the country.
In addition, many American expatriates are being hit hard by Trump and Congress because their tax-deferred retirement savings plans in some countries are now treated as immediately taxable by the United States. That’s because the law did not distinguish between profits siphoned out of the United States by companies like Apple and the normal course of business for many expatriates complying with the laws where they now live.
Congress taxes Americans, and American-based corporations, on their worldwide income. Other major countries tax people only on income earned within their boundaries.
Similarly, the equity built up in enterprises such as medical practices is treated as immediately taxable under the Trump-Radical Republican tax law. These consequences illustrate a key reason that tax law should not be drafted in secret and voted on without public hearings.
Had Congress held public hearings the tax problems created for American expatriate professionals and business owner differences in the tax rules of other countries could have been spotted and then prevented or minimized.
Now that he Democrats control the House, which our Constitution requires be the origination point for all tax laws, hearings could be held to ameliorate or even eliminate these problems.
https://www.dcreport.org/2019/01/31/the-laughs-on-us-how-the-trump-radical-republican-tax-cut-broke-the-economy/

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(ACC Mentioned) Trump’s Tax Cuts Haven’t Resulted In The Economic Benefits He Promised

Jan 31, 2019 | Beyond the Beltway

By Doug Mataconis

A new report indicates that the tax reform package that Republicans passed at the end of 2016, which remains the single big piece of legislation that the GOP managed to pass while controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, had almost no impact on business investment hiring:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ― The Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion cut tax package appeared to have no major impact on businesses’ capital investment or hiring plans, according to a survey released a year after the biggest overhaul of the U.S. tax code in more than 30 years.
The National Association of Business Economics’ (NABE) quarterly business conditions poll published on Monday found that while some companies reported accelerating investments because of lower corporate taxes, 84 percent of respondents said they had not changed plans. That compares to 81 percent in the previous survey published in October.
The White House had predicted that the massive fiscal stimulus package, marked by the reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, would boost business spending and job growth. The tax cuts came into effect in January 2018.
“A large majority of respondents, 84 percent, indicate that one year after its passage, the corporate tax reform has not caused their firms to change hiring or investment plans,” said NABE President Kevin Swift.
The lower tax rates, however, had an impact in the goods producing sector, with 50 percent of respondents from that sector reporting increased investments at their companies, and 20 percent saying they redirected hiring and investments to the United States from abroad.
The NABE survey also suggested a further slowdown in business spending after moderating sharply in the third quarter of 2018. The survey’s measure of capital spending fell in January to its lowest level since July 2017. Expectations for capital spending for the next three months also weakened.
“Fewer firms increased capital spending compared to the October survey responses, but the cutback appeared to be concentrated more in structures than in information and communication technology investments,” said Swift, who is also chief economist at the American Chemistry Council.
When the tax bill was being debated in Congress, Republicans were all over the media promising that passing the package, which included reductions in both personal and corporate income tax rates, would lead to a stronger economy, jobs growth and increased revenue to the Federal Government. While there have been some positive economic statistics on an isolated basis, those promises have gone largely unfulfilled. Indeed, both economic and jobs growth have, by and large, remained the same as they were during President Obama’s second term. wage growth, which many economists are now saying is the more important number now that we’re nearing the point of full employment, has been stubbornly slow for the past two years. Meanwhile, the corporate expansions that Republicans said would happen have not materialized and many corporations have been using the tax savings they are receiving from the new tax law to fun stock buybacks. Finally and perhaps most disappointing to Republicans, the changes to corporate taxes have not resulted in the repatriation of corporate profits parked overseas that they claimed would occur in the wake of the tax cuts. Instead, corporations have chosen to keep those profits where they are rather than paying additional corporate taxes as a result of repatriation, even if the tax rate is lower than it used to be.
In addition to a decided lack of apparent economic benefit, the tax cut package has also come with the economic bad news. Just months after the tax bill became law, for example, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that it would add $1.9 trillion to the Federal Budget Deficit over the course of ten years. This came at the same time that, independent of the tax cut bill, it was becoming clear that we were heading back toward the $1 trillion budget deficits we saw at the beginning of the Obama Administration when the economy was still recovering from the Great Recession. When the final budget deal was put forward in mid-February of last year, it included massive spending increases in almost every budget category and busted through the controls that had been put in place by the Budget Control Act of 2011, a controversial bill passed during one of the many fiscal showdowns between former President Obama and Congress that occurred after Republicans captured the House in 2010. As The New York Times noted at the time, this effectively means that Republicans have learned to love the deficits and debt they once claimed to abhor. In other words, the Republican Party, which had spent the Obama years railing about spending and deficits, had become the party of deficits and debt. By April of last year, the Congressional Budget Office had officially forecast that we’d be seeing trillion dollars deficits by the end of Fiscal Year 2019 and just a few months later, the national debt crossed a new benchmark and was north of $21 trillion. Finally, earlier this month it was reported that the annual deficit was on a pace to exceed $1,000,000,000,000 for the current Fiscal Year, which ends on September 30th. Add the impact of the tax package into this and it’s clear that the entire package has failed to achieve what Republicans hoped for when they passed it more than a year ago.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the tax package did not have the positive benefit for Republicans that they hoped it would. Initially, Republicans had hoped that the combination of slightly higher take home pay for many workers, bonuses, and a positive impact on the economy would help them stave off a Democratic wave in the midterm elections. As I noted several times during the course of the campaign though (see here and here), it was apparent that the tax bill itself had proven to be so unpopular among voters that most Republican candidates had largely abandoned bringing it up on the campaign trail. The results on Election Day were similarly bad when it came to the so-called “Tax Cuts And Jobs Act,” and that the new law was actually a net negative in states where changes such as the treatment of deductions for property and other state taxes had the most negative impact. Instead, the law clearly hurt Republicans in high income, high-tax districts where residents were upset about the newly established cap on deductions for state and local taxes. As a result, while Republicans did pick up a handful of Senate seats, their losses in the House were the worst the party has suffered since the post-Watergate election in 1974 and nearly as bad as the losses they suffered in the 1930 Congressional Elections.
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/trumps-tax-cuts-havent-resulted-in-the-economic-benefits-he-promised/

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(ACC Mentioned) Wheeler Adds ‘Red Team’ Climate Review Advocate to Epa Science Panel

Jan 31, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Alex Guillen

Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has appointed John Christy, a prominent critic of mainstream climate science, to the agency’s influential Science Advisory Board.
Christy, Alabama’s state climatologist, argues that Earth’s climate is more resilient against human-caused warming than climate models project. As far back as 2012, Christy suggested running a "red team-blue team" debate on climate science while criticizing "biased 'official' panels of the climate establishment." Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt suggested holding that type of debate, but his plans were quashed by the White House.
The other seven new SAB members are: Hugh Barton, an independent pharmacology and toxicology consultant who formerly worked for Pfizer; Barbara Beck of environmental risk science firm Gradient; John Guckenheimer, a retired mathematics professor at Cornell University; Brant Ulsh, a health physicist from Cincinnati and a former National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health scientist; Mark Wiesner, an environmental engineer at Duke University; Richard Williams, a former FDA analyst who more recently worked on formaldehyde issues for the American Chemistry Council; and Matthew Zwiernik, an ecotoxicologist at Michigan State University.
SAB advises EPA on a variety of scientific issues and the agency’s use of science in rulemakings.
EPA said Wheeler also planned to renew eight SAB members who previously received appointments during the Obama administration. POLITICO reported earlier this month that EPA had made a similar concession to Senate Democrats as part of a proposed confirmation deal that ultimately fell through.
Wheeler also appointed new members to several SAB subcommittees on chemical reviews, drinking water, agriculture and radiation. A full list of newly appointed members is here.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard/2019/01/wheeler-adds-red-team-climate-review-advocate-to-epa-science-panel-2608370

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New EPA Science Advisers Include Climate Skeptic, Agency Vets

Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Abby Smith

The EPA’s panel of science advisers is getting a slate of new members, including a well-known skeptic of mainstream climate science.
Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Jan. 31 announced eight new nominees to the Science Advisory Board, which reviews and offers input on the science underpinning major agency regulations.
Among them is John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who has frequently testified before Congress questioning mainstream climate science.
“The real world is not going along with that rapid warming,” Christy told the House Science, Space and Technology Committee in 2016, testifying in opposition to the Paris climate agreement. “So that should tell us our understanding is not sufficient to explain what is happening. In the real world, we don’t know how [carbon dioxide] is affecting the climate.”
Wheeler said eight members appointed to the board during the Obama administration were reappointed. Advisers can serve on the Science Advisory Board for two terms of three years.
Others on Wheeler’s list also have frequented Capitol Hill to testify on behalf of Republican lawmakers and are likely to draw criticism from environmental groups.
Richard Williams, for example, is a senior affiliated scholar with the Mercatus Center, who has also been called to testify on ways to trim regulations and improve regulatory cost-benefit analysis.
He has argued for strengthening the role of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which reviews the rules of the EPA and other agencies before publication.
EPA Veterans
Wheeler’s list of new science advisers also includes a few EPA veterans.
For example, Hugh Barton, an independent consultant and retired research fellow with Pfizer, Inc., formerly worked at the EPA’s Office of Research and Development’s National Center for Computational Toxicology. That office works on techniques to move away from animal testing.
Barbara Beck, a principal and toxicologist with Gradient Corp., previously led the air toxics staff in the EPA’s Region 1, which covers the New England states.
Other appointments to the Science Advisory Board include: John Guckenheimer, a mathematics professor at Cornell University; Brant Ulsh, a health physicist with M.H. Chew & Associates; Mark Wiesner, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Duke University; and Matthew Zwiernik, an animal science professor at Michigan State University.
Wheeler said the EPA identified more than 170 candidates interested in serving on the Science Advisory Board.
“In a fair, open, and transparent fashion, EPA reviewed hundreds of qualified applicants nominated for this committee,” Wheeler said in a statement. “Members who will be appointed or reappointed include experts from a wide variety of scientific disciplines who reflect the geographic diversity needed to represent all ten EPA regions.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/new-epa-science-advisers-include-climate-skeptic-agency-vets

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TSCA News

EPA Must Disclose Chemical Safety Studies: House Committee Chair

Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

The Democratic leaders of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce asked the EPA to publicly release all health and safety studies it reviewed on the risks posed by a pigment used in coatings and paints.
“We are deeply concerned that the decision to withhold from the public and label these studies as ‘Confidential Business Information’ (CBI) sets a dangerous and unlawful precedent,” wrote Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), and Paul D. Tonko (D-N.Y.)—chairman of the subcommittee on environment and climate change—in a Jan. 30 letter to EPA.
The legislators focused on 24 health and safety studies in the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft risk evaluation of Pigment Violet 29 (PV-29). EPA determined the chemical would not pose unreasonable health or environmental risks, a conclusion that would not trigger regulatory controls.
EPA has publicly released summaries of those studies, but has only released full versions of the studies to an outside science panel considering the agency’s draft evaluation.
In their letter, Pallone and Tonko gave EPA a Feb. 6 deadline to release “confidential” studies on PV-29.
Core Issue
The request from Pallone and Tonko raises an issue of concern to legislators, chemical manufacturers, and public health and environmental advocates— and a difference in their interpretations of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and its 2016 amendments.
The Democratic committee leaders maintain that TSCA does not allow safety studies of chemicals to be kept confidential, a spokesman told Bloomberg Environment Jan. 31.
Environmental groups agree and point out that the EPA has required the disclosure of chemical health and safety information for decades even when chemical names, and those of the chemical’s producers, are kept confidential.
Chemical manufacturers argue the law does not require the EPA to release health and safety studies.
The agency declined on Jan. 31 to describe its current interpretation of the law’s provisions concerning access to health and safety studies, but did say “we will respond through the proper channels.”
Committee leaders are optimistic the agency will release the studies, and retain as a last resort the option of subpoenaing them, the spokesman said.
Pigment Violet 29 is used in making commercial paints, coatings, plastic, and rubber compounds. About 90 percent of it is used in making other pigments, according to the EPA’s draft evaluation.
Small volumes, estimated to be less than 1 percent of total production, are used in consumer watercolor and acrylic paints, the EPA said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-must-disclose-chemical-safety-studies-house-committee-chair

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) EPA Reconsiders Use of EtO IRIS Value in Rules, Drawing Sharp Criticism

Jan 31, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Maria Hegstad

EPA appears to be reconsidering whether to continue using a strict Obama-era risk value for ethylene oxide (EtO) for regulatory purposes, a step that appears to bolster a request from the chemical industry but one that is drawing sharp criticism from congressional Democrats, who are urging the agency to “preserve” the value.
In a Jan. 29 letter to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, Democratic lawmakers from Illinois -- where EtO releases from a medical sterilization facility and a chemicals plant are a concern -- criticize EPA's recently released review of the air toxics risks posed by hydrochloric acid production plant for requesting comment on whether the agency should continue to use EPA's 2016 Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of EtO.
The lawmakers, including Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and Reps. Sean Casten, Bill Foster, Daniel Lipinski and Bradley Schneider, urge Wheeler to “publicly commit to at least preserving, if not strengthening, EPA's current risk value of EtO.”
And they ask Wheeler to “please provide our offices with a public commitment that EPA will defend and preserve the independent IRIS determination assessing the carcinogenicity of EtO. Equally important, we request that you publicly promise to rely on updated IRIS risk value determination to guide regulatory activities.”
The letter comes days before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee -- on which Duckworth sits -- is scheduled to vote on whether to advance Wheeler's nomination to serve as EPA administrator to the Senate floor for confirmation, so any commitments from Wheeler could help address the lawmakers' concerns.
The lawmakers fear the proposed “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) Production Residual Risk and Technology Review” (RTR), signals a reversal of EPA's commitment to ensure its air toxics rules for EtO are protective.
“We are alarmed that hidden inside the 103 page RTR was a troubling information request that appears to be a transparent invitation for the public -- including chemical industries -- to weaken EPA’s forthcoming rules intended to protect Illinoisans and Americans throughout the Nation from elevated levels of cancer risk resulting from exposure to [EtO],” the Democrats write.
EPA's 2016 IRIS assessment affirmed long-suspected claims that the chemical, used as an intermediate to make other chemical products like detergent, antifreeze and polyester, and to sterilize medical equipment and foods, causes breast and lymph cancers.
It also classified the substance as a known carcinogen and recommended conservative risk values that are expected to drive stricter regulatory standards.
When coupled with EPA's most recent modeled National Air Toxics Assessment data last summer, the assessment models elevated cancer risk at a pair of facilities that emit EtO in the Chicago area.
In response, EPA launched a review of its Clean Air Act rules governing EtO emissions to determine whether they are adequately protective.
And Illinois Democrats have been pressing EPA and state regulators to assess and address the plants.
ACC Challenge
But the American Chemistry Council (ACC) has sought to have the EtO IRIS assessment withdrawn or redone. The trade association last September filed a request for correction under the Information Quality Act against the assessment, where it argued that the IRIS values “have significant regulatory implications for ACC member companies who produce commercial products of value to consumers using EO. Correcting these deficiencies will result in more accurate estimates of potential risk that will lead to improved regulatory outcomes, the dissemination of more accurate information to the public, and overall reduced misconception.”
But the Democrats say that EPA appears to be backing the industry's effort, citing a passage in the proposed rule that blames the IRIS value for “elevated” risks.
“Although this updated risk value is also responsible for the elevated facility-wide risks calculated here ... these risks are due to emission sources that are not part of the HCl Production source category. Nevertheless, the EPA is interested in receiving public comments on the use of [EtO’s] update[d] risk value for regulatory purposes,” the proposed rule says.
The Democrats note that ACC's efforts “are bolstered by the presence of former employees at the highest levels of EPA,” pointing out that Nancy Beck, EPA's deputy toxics chief, was employed by ACC before joining the Trump administration and “has long been a critic of EPA's IRIS program . . . Ms. Beck has also specifically criticized EPA's ethylene oxide risk assessment.”
EPA has set a 45-day public comment period on the draft RTR, which Wheeler signed Dec. 20, but because of the holidays and partial government shutdown has yet to publish in the Federal Register. The RTR “proposes amendments to the [existing] National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for the [HCl] Production source category,” according to the notice.
Within the RTR, EPA says that the maximum facility-wide cancer [maximum individual risk] is 600-in-1 million, mainly driven by [EtO] emissions from a variety of industrial processes, none of which are part of this source category.”
EPA adds in the RTR that “we intend to evaluate those [EtO] facility-wide estimated emissions and risks further and may address these in a separate future action, as appropriate. In particular, the EPA is addressing [EtO] based on the results of the latest NATA released in August 2018, which identified the chemical as a potential concern in several areas across the country. . . . As noted on the EPA’s NATA website, NATA is a screening tool for state, local, and tribal air agencies and the EPA suggests that NATA results be used cautiously.”
Regarding the EtO risks, EPA adds that it “will work with industry and state, local, and tribal air agencies as the EPA takes a two-pronged approach to address ethylene oxide emissions: (1) reviewing CAA regulations for facilities that emit ethylene oxide -- starting with air toxics emissions standards for miscellaneous organic chemical manufacturing facilities and commercial sterilizers; and (2) getting additional information on ethylene oxide emissions. This information will help the EPA as it evaluates opportunities to reduce ethylene oxide emissions as part of its regulations review, and will help the agency determine whether more immediate emission reduction steps are necessary in any particular locations.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-reconsiders-use-eto-iris-value-rules-drawing-sharp-criticism

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Capito Says She’ll Back Wheeler Despite Chemicals Plan

Feb 1, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Anthony Adragna

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told POLITICO today she’ll support Andrew Wheeler’s nomination to lead the EPA after a lengthy conversation with him late Wednesday about the agency’s plans not to set limits on two toxic chemicals in drinking water.
POLITICO reported earlier this week that Wheeler signed off on an unpublished decision not to regulate the two chemicals, known as PFOA and PFOS, that have been found in the drinking water of millions of Americans. The chemicals were used for decades in products like Teflon and military firefighting foam.
Capito said that Wheeler did not rule out setting a limit on the chemicals, so they were "on the same page."
"The leaked report, I think, didn’t show the whole picture," she said. "He was able to flesh out what that means and then I expressed the desire that they get to a limit. And he expressed to me that might be the direction they go. So that door’s not closed.”
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), whose state also has significant drinking water contamination, told POLITICO he would be concerned if EPA does not issue limits on the chemicals, but saw no reason not to back Wheeler.
“If for some reason, the EPA took that action it would be concerning to me,” Burr said. “I have no reason to question to Wheeler right now unless he gives me reason to do it. He hasn’t done that yet.”
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) plans to hold a vote on Wheeler’s nomination Feb. 5 as planned.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard

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Erin Brockovich Goes After Trump Administration For Chemical Deregulation Plan

Jan 31, 2019 | HuffPost

By Sanjana Karanth

Erin Brockovich, known for her environmental and consumer activism, said it was time to “sound the alarm” as the Trump administration considers halting the regulation of two toxic chemicals that are contaminating the tap water of millions of Americans.
“I think it’s absolutely foolish that the administration does not take water quality seriously,” Brockovich told The Hill on Thursday.

The public health advocate is referring to a Politico report this week that said the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to stop regulating utility companies to test or remove two types of polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from their water supplies. Utilities currently have to abide by those regulations under the Clean Water Act.
PFAS have been used for decades in products like firefighting foam and Teflon, and they contaminate groundwater near hundreds of military bases and chemical plants. The two chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), have been linked to cancer and hypertension, and are found in the bloodstreams of Americans nationwide.
The EPA released a statement Tuesday saying it had not “finalized or publicly issued” a PFAS management plan. But Brockovich said action must be taken now to protect Americans from a contaminated water supply.
“We’re going to have to state by state, agency by agency and people by people continue to push out and fight against this because this is one of the most dangerous chemicals we’ve seen,” she told The Hill.
Brockovich, who famously took on Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in the 1990s, a case that was turned into a hit film, has also recently been vocal about the utility’s plans to go bankrupt, a decision related to damages from the deadly 2017 and 2018 Northern California wildfires. On Tuesday, Brockovich urged California lawmakers to prevent the bankruptcy because it could mean less money for wildfire victims.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/erin-brockovich-trump-toxic-water_us_5c539d7fe4b0bdf0e7d9a2fb

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EPA Needs Way to Gather Information on Asbestos Use, States Say (1)

Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

he EPA must collect information about the extent to which asbestos and products containing it are used in the U.S., 15 attorneys general told the agency Jan. 31.
Unless the Environmental Protection Agency understands ongoing uses of asbestos, neither it nor the states will be able to protect their residents, the attorneys general said in a petition to acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler. They want the agency to develop a mechanism for getting more information on asbestos, whether through a new reporting rule specific to the mineral or by lifting an exemption for asbestos in an existing regulation.
The attorneys general represent California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
Between 2011 and 2015, some 16,420 people were newly diagnosed with mesothelioma resulting in 12,837 deaths, the attorneys general said citing information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Asbestos exposure is the sole known cause of mesothelioma, a rare and highly fatal cancer of the chest or abdominal lining caused by exposure to asbestos fibers.
Asbestos Exemption
The petition points to what they say is a critical failure of the EPA’s Chemical Data Reporting rule—the agency’s vehicle for gathering information on the volumes and uses of chemicals in U.S. commerce. Namely, asbestos is exempted from the reporting requirements because is it a naturally occurring mineral.
“The new asbestos reporting rule that this petition seeks is necessary for EPA to comply with its mandate to conduct risk evaluations for asbestos” under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the petition said. “It also would be an important right-to-know tool to give our states and the public access to information that may be critical for avoiding potentially dangerous exposures to asbestos-containing products.”
Armed with information, the agency has a suite of potential strategies authorized by TSCA that it could use to address the unreasonable risks of injury posed by asbestos, they said.
Asbestos is not mined in the U.S., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Three companies—the Occidental Chemical Corp., Olin Corp., and Westlake Chemical Co.—are known to import asbestos into the U.S. They bring in tons of asbestos each year to make chlorine and caustic soda, according to information the agency already has released.
Yet, the EPA doesn’t require these or other companies to report information to the agency about their asbestos imports or uses. At least 555 metric tons of asbestos were imported into the U.S. in 2018 as of August, according to information from the Department of Commerce.
The EPA also knows “certain asbestos containing products can be imported into the U.S., but the amounts are not known,” the attorneys general said, citing EPA information.
Asbestos can be found in industrial cement products and consumer goods, including automotive brakes and linings, the EPA’s information said.
Their rulemaking petition follows the EPA’s rejection of a similar request made by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, the American Public Health Association, the Center for Environmental Health, the Environmental Working Group, the Environmental Health Strategy Center, and Safer Chemicals Healthy Families.
(Updated with additional information from fourth paragraph through end of article.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-needs-way-to-gather-information-on-asbestos-use-states-say-1

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Editorial: PFOA Without Limits

Jan 31, 2019 | Albany Times-Union

By Editorial Board

THE ISSUE:
The Environmental Protection Agency reportedly plans not to set limits on a toxic chemical in drinking water supplies.
THE STAKES:
The decision would appease the chemical industry but leave millions of American unprotected.
What adjective best describes the Environmental Protection Agency's apparent decision to set no limits on the chemicals that contaminated water supplies in Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh?
We nominate "sickening," which is literal, given that perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and related chemicals are linked to diseases including cancer, thyroid disease, hypertension and weakened childhood immunity.
Sadly, though, the refusal to set PFOA limits for drinking water isn't surprising. Again and again, President Donald Trump's EPA has chosen not to protect Americans' health and safety if doing so might inconvenience industry.
The consequences of such inaction are real and potentially devastating, as residents of Hoosick Falls know. In 2015, the Rensselaer County community was found to have high PFOA levels in its drinking water; similar contamination was later discovered in nearby Petersburgh.
The government response was distressingly lax. At least 14 months passed before Hoosick Falls residents were warned to stop drinking from the village's contaminated wells. Residents remain skeptical that officials can be trusted on the issue. So the EPA needs to prove it is principled. Under Mr. Trump, it surely is not.
Anyone who doubts that should remember that the administration tried to block a federal report concluding that PFOAs are dangerous even at very low concentrations. A presidential aide warned the report would be "a public relations nightmare."
For the chemical industry, maybe so. For citizens, though, truth matters more than corporate PR.
The refusal to set PFOA limits means the chemical will stay unregulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, meaning utilities won't have to face federal requirements to test and remove the chemicals from public water supplies.
Upon reflection, maybe a better adjective would be "unconscionable."
Thankfully, New York is preparing to follow the recommendations of the Drinking Water Quality Council, a panel formed in response to the Hoosick Falls crisis, and limit PFOA in the water supply to a maximum of 10 parts per trillion. Some environmental advocates say that's still too lax, but at least it is better protection than other Americans are going to get.
If there's good news here, it's in Congress, where both Republicans and Democrats, including Rep. Antonio Delgado, the Democrat who represents Hoosick Falls, are demanding answers. Lawmakers should press the EPA to reverse its decision, and the Senate must not confirm acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler's appointment until it does. His deep ties to the coal industry already made him an awful choice to lead the agency, and the PFOA decision does nothing to make anyone think otherwise.
What adjective would describe a government that fails to assure that Americans' tap water is safe?
Heartless, maybe. Or disgraceful.
https://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Editorial-PFOA-without-limits-13579020.php

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Vermont Proposes ‘Strictest’ Limit on Drinking Water Contaminant

Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Adrianne Appel

Vermont is proposing what it says would be the nation’s strictest limits on fluorinated chemicals in drinking water, but environmental groups who sought the standards aren’t satisfied.
They want the state to specify a corresponding treatment standard as well.
The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources announced its proposed limit of 20 parts per trillion combined for any of five common fluorochemicals, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), in public and private drinking water systems and wells.
The limits would apply to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluoroheptanoic acid (PFHpA), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS).
The chemicals, widely used in firefighting foam and as a nonstick and stain-resistant compound in a number of consumer products, have been detected in drinking water nationwide and have been linked to thyroid issues, cancer, and immune system problems.
The Conservation Law Foundation had petitioned Vermont to require water systems install sophisticated equipment called treatment technique to filter out any of 3,000 compounds detected at 1 ppt or more. The group said in its petition that its second choice was for the agency to make the 20 ppt emergency rule a permanent limit.
Too Costly
The state said the treatment standard was too costly, and other methods are available.
The proposed 20 ppt standard is an important first step but “there are thousands of these harmful substances, and CLF will continue to fight to get them out of our water,” Jen Duggan, director of the foundation in Vermont, said Jan. 28 in a statement.
Vermont has been using the 20 ppt limit as an emergency health advisory since July. Many other states rely on an unenforceable U.S. Environmental Protection Agency health advisory of 70 ppt combined for the compounds.
A number of factors played into Vermont’s decision to begin a rulemaking for the PFAS limits. For one, its Department of Health concluded they present a public health risk. Also, the federal EPA has not set its own limits for the contaminants and doesn’t seem likely to do so anytime soon, the state agency said.
Group’s Petitions
The agency also is required to respond to the Conservation Law Foundation’s Oct. 25 petition.
The group submitted similar petitions in almost every New England state, Jake O’Neill, spokesman for the group, told Bloomberg Environment Jan. 31.
So far, Connecticut denied its petition entirely, and New Hampshire declined to regulate beyond the four PFAS the legislature agreed on last year, O’Neill said.
Massachusetts is still considering the treatment standard sought by the group, and Maine has yet to respond, he said. The group plans to petition Rhode Island soon, O’Neill said.
Saint-Gobain Agreement
The state also announced a $30 million agreement with Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, concerning fluorochemical contamination of about 150 backyard wells in southern Vermont. The contamination, discovered in 2016, was traced to a manufacturing plant now owned by Saint-Gobain and led the state to focus more on this class of chemicals.
As part of the agreement, the company will extend municipal water service to homes and businesses in Bennington, Vt. In 2017, the company agreed to pay about $20 million to extend municipal water to about 200 other Bennington families whose well water was contaminated with PFOA.
Vermont’s proposed limit on the contaminants will get a public airing over the next 30 days as the agency meets with interested groups as part of the rulemaking process, the agency said in a Jan. 25 statement.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/vermont-proposes-strictest-limit-on-drinking-water-contaminant

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New York to Spend $2.2 Billion to Clean Up Lead Paint in Housing

Jan 31, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By John Herzfeld

New York will spend $2.2 billion to clean up lead paint and other problems in public housing as part of a new, enforceable settlement with federal housing and environmental agencies.
The deal calls for a city-paid federal monitor to supervise a multi-year plan by the New York City Housing Authority to address the deteriorating conditions of its properties, which house 400,000 tenants. It was announced Jan. 31 by U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, joined by Mayor Bill de Blasio (D).
The settlement also preserves a city commitment to spend more than $1 billion in the next four years and $200 million in each of the next six years to fix problems with lead paint, mold, pests, inadequate heat, and broken-down elevators. That’s on top of $4 billion in city capital and expense funds already budgeted through fiscal year 2027.
The city’s financial commitments were part of an early settlement that Judge William H. Pauley III of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected in November. The judge cited “fatal procedural flaws” and a lack of an enforcement mechanism in throwing out the initial deal.
The revised agreement, an administrative settlement between the city and HUD, doesn’t require court approval and takes effect immediately, the Justice Department said. The federal complaint in the case will be dismissed.
New Standards
The new agreement’s terms go beyond the prior settlement proposal “by providing strict, enforceable standards” with deadlines, Berman said in a statement.
That includes immediate remediation of lead paint in apartments with children under six years old and eventually “100 percent abatement of all lead paint” in the authority’s properties. The deal also calls for a change in housing authority leadership.
De Blasio Jan. 28 announced a LeadFReeNYC program aimed at ending all childhood lead exposure in the city.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/new-york-to-spend-2-2-billion-to-clean-up-lead-paint-in-housing

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Chemours Is Using the U.S. as an Unregulated Dump for Europe’s Toxic Genx Waste

Feb 1, 2019 | The Intercept

By Sharon Lerner

After many years of treating the developing world as its environmental dumping ground, the U.S. is finally getting a taste of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of another country’s dangerous garbage. DuPont-spinoff Chemours is sending industrial waste from the Netherlands to North Carolina. The waste in question comes from the production of the toxic chemical GenX, DuPont’s replacement for the surfactant PFOA, which was long used in the production of Teflon and many other products.
Unlike the Netherlands, the U.S. has so far declined to regulate GenX waste, so disposing of the material is comparatively easy.
Chemours has been transporting the GenX waste from its plant in Dordrecht, Netherlands, to Fayetteville, North Carolina, according to documents that surfaced last week and were first reported in NC Policy Watch. In December, the Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to a representative of the Dutch Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate, temporarily objecting to the import and asking for clarification about where exactly the waste was being sent.
According to the EPA letter, citing a “letter of intent,” some of Chemours’s GenX waste from the Netherlands was supposedly destined for an incinerator in El Dorado, Arkansas, which is run by a company called Clean Harbors. But Phillip Retallick, senior vice president of Clean Harbors, said that his company is not receiving the material. “We are not in any way shape or form involved with the reclamation of the waste from the Fayetteville facility,” said Retallick.
As The Intercept reported this week, the incineration of PFAS compounds, the class to which GenX belongs, may raise safety concerns.
The EPA letter also indicated that the Fayetteville plant was sending waste to a deep well injection plant run by Texas Molecular in Deer Park, Texas. Deep well injection, a technique pioneered by DuPont in the 1950s, involves storing toxic waste far below ground. Deep wells have repeatedly leaked, resulting in contamination of both groundwater and drinking water.
When asked whether his company was receiving the GenX waste, Texas Molecular’s president, Frank Marine, declined to comment. According to its website, Texas Molecular, whose motto is “deep commitment,” provides “responsible and safe treatment and disposal solutions for even those most challenging industrial hazardous aqueous waste and wastewaters.”
DuPont developed GenX and introduced it in 2009 to replace PFOA, which persists indefinitely in the environment and is linked to cancer and other illnesses. GenX presents many of the same health and environmental problems, and causes cancer in lab animals, as The Intercept reported in 2016.
From 2014 until at least 2017, Chemours had been sending at least some of its GenX waste from the Netherlands to Miteni SpA, a chemical company in the Veneto region of Italy. Last year, tests revealed GenX in groundwater and wells near the Italian plant, contamination that has already led to health effects. Regional authorities then suspended some of the company’s operations. Miteni SpA, which was already under fire for causing massive PFOA contamination, filed for bankruptcy in October and ceased operation.
Chemours did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story or answer questions from The Intercept about how much of the waste it is importing to the U.S. and other places around the world. But a company spokesperson told NC PolicyWatch that the bankruptcy of a European company that had been recycling its waste from The Netherlands “requires us to take responsible actions to ensure we continue to recycle the vast majority of the GenX.”
According to a document obtained by The Intercept that a spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality confirmed was notes from a call about the waste between the DEQ and the EPA, Chemours is “reporting an upper limit of 90 metric tons in about 20 shipments of unknown concentration for 2019.” The document states that the GenX arrives at the Fayetteville plant as a “sludgy liquid” from which the company removes “GenX salts,” but doesn’t say what happens to those compounds.
The North Carolina DEQ document raises several concerns about the waste, including that the material might be discharged into the river near the Fayetteville facility, and that Chemours might be importing it “to circumvent European regulations.”
Linda Culpepper of the North Carolina DEQ sent a letter to Chemours on January 18 asking for more information about the waste. Chemours responded the following week and stated that the substance it is importing is not hazardous according to the law “and that Chemours (and DuPont before it) has notified the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) of these reclamation activities on multiple occasions.” The Chemours letter said the company planned to send both the EPA and the state agency more information on February 5.Growing Outrage Over PFAS Inaction
While much remains to be learned about how Chemours has been importing this waste and what exactly has been happening to it, there is little question as to why the company would send its dangerous chemicals to North Carolina instead of disposing of them at its Dutch plant. While PFAS waste is regulated in Europe under the Basel Convention, it is not regulated in the U.S., which has declined to sign the treaty.
And because GenX itself has not been declared hazardous by federal environmental authorities, the only restrictions on the compound in the U.S. come from a 2009 consent order with the EPA, which The Intercept obtained via FOIA in 2016. “There’s a gaping hole in the consent order because it doesn’t limit how GenX is disposed of or recycled,” said Eve Gartner, an attorney at Earthjustice. In addition, the agreement applies only to Chemours. “So Chemours can enter a contract with an incinerator company,” Gartner pointed out, “but there’s no guarantee that the incineration is going to destroy it.” While the consent order with the EPA remains in effect, the state of North Carolina is in the process of negotiating its own consent order with the company.
The EPA had been considering using the Safe Drinking Water Act to put safety standards in place for PFOA and PFOS, the two best-known PFAS compounds, but is now expected to shelve those plans, according to a report in Politico. The story sparked outrage from environmentalists and senators, who have questioned Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler about the EPA’s inaction on the chemicals as part of the process of confirming him to lead the agency.
“It’s frankly shameful that this is still where things are in the U.S. some 18 to 19 years after the research started on the regulatory level on these chemicals,” said Rob Bilott, the attorney who first brought PFOA to light in a class-action suit against DuPont. Bilott, who represented residents of West Virginia and Ohio whose water contained PFOA, said that without regulation, others will continue to be exposed to PFAS chemicals at dangerous levels.
Several states have begun to regulate these chemicals on their own. “What worries me are the folks living in states that have refused to take any action, because they’re waiting for the federal government to act,” said Bilott.
In a statement provided to The Intercept, the EPA denied that a decision had been made about the regulation of PFOA and PFOS. “Despite what is being reported, EPA has not finalized or publicly issued its PFAS management plan, and any information that speculates what is included in the plan is premature. The agency is committed to following the Safe Drinking Water Act process for evaluating new drinking water standards, which is just one of the many components of the draft plan that is currently undergoing interagency review.”
But the U.S. is already trailing behind Europe in the regulation of PFAS chemicals. And that lag makes this country a natural choice to dispose of PFAS waste. “There’s an irony here,” said Kevin Hannon, an attorney whose firm has filed class-action claims against DuPont and Chemours over GenX in North Carolina. “We’ve been sending our waste to third-world countries and poisoning kids because it was cheaper to send it there,” said Hannon. “And now we’re being treated by Chemours like those third-world countries.”
In Europe, outrage has been mounting over the disposal of GenX and related compounds. In June, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management released an investigation into Chemours’s disposal process, determining that “Chemours takes no measurements to determine whether [GenX-related] substances are in the waste,” and that the “substances are consequently emitted into the environment at various places in the chain.” The report also noted that only incineration in a kiln at “a sufficiently high temperature” can destroy the material, but that not all of the GenX-related waste streams were disposed of by incineration.
Dordrecht residents, who have had to contend with both PFOA and GenX contamination of their water, have repeatedly expressed frustration with the company. In September, Chemours said it would invest 75 million euros to reduce GenX emissions from the Dordrecht plant.
Meanwhile, the Italian government declared a state of emergency over the PFAS contamination last year and an investigation into Miteni SpA resulted in criminal charges. The recent discovery that the Dutch had been sending them their GenX waste sparked angry protests and a second investigation, which is ongoing.
TThe North Carolina DEQ document raises several concerns about the waste, including that the material might be discharged into the river near the Fayetteville facility, and that Chemours might be importing it “to circumvent European regulations.”
Linda Culpepper of the North Carolina DEQ sent a letter to Chemours on January 18 asking for more information about the waste. Chemours responded the following week and stated that the substance it is importing is not hazardous according to the law “and that Chemours (and DuPont before it) has notified the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) of these reclamation activities on multiple occasions.” The Chemours letter said the company planned to send both the EPA and the state agency more information on February 5.Growing Outrage Over PFAS Inaction
While much remains to be learned about how Chemours has been importing this waste and what exactly has been happening to it, there is little question as to why the company would send its dangerous chemicals to North Carolina instead of disposing of them at its Dutch plant. While PFAS waste is regulated in Europe under the Basel Convention, it is not regulated in the U.S., which has declined to sign the treaty.
And because GenX itself has not been declared hazardous by federal environmental authorities, the only restrictions on the compound in the U.S. come from a 2009 consent order with the EPA, which The Intercept obtained via FOIA in 2016. “There’s a gaping hole in the consent order because it doesn’t limit how GenX is disposed of or recycled,” said Eve Gartner, an attorney at Earthjustice. In addition, the agreement applies only to Chemours. “So Chemours can enter a contract with an incinerator company,” Gartner pointed out, “but there’s no guarantee that the incineration is going to destroy it.” While the consent order with the EPA remains in effect, the state of North Carolina is in the process of negotiating its own consent order with the company.
The EPA had been considering using the Safe Drinking Water Act to put safety standards in place for PFOA and PFOS, the two best-known PFAS compounds, but is now expected to shelve those plans, according to a report in Politico. The story sparked outrage from environmentalists and senators, who have questioned Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler about the EPA’s inaction on the chemicals as part of the process of confirming him to lead the agency.
“It’s frankly shameful that this is still where things are in the U.S. some 18 to 19 years after the research started on the regulatory level on these chemicals,” said Rob Bilott, the attorney who first brought PFOA to light in a class-action suit against DuPont. Bilott, who represented residents of West Virginia and Ohio whose water contained PFOA, said that without regulation, others will continue to be exposed to PFAS chemicals at dangerous levels.
Several states have begun to regulate these chemicals on their own. “What worries me are the folks living in states that have refused to take any action, because they’re waiting for the federal government to act,” said Bilott.
In a statement provided to The Intercept, the EPA denied that a decision had been made about the regulation of PFOA and PFOS. “Despite what is being reported, EPA has not finalized or publicly issued its PFAS management plan, and any information that speculates what is included in the plan is premature. The agency is committed to following the Safe Drinking Water Act process for evaluating new drinking water standards, which is just one of the many components of the draft plan that is currently undergoing interagency review.”
But the U.S. is already trailing behind Europe in the regulation of PFAS chemicals. And that lag makes this country a natural choice to dispose of PFAS waste. “There’s an irony here,” said Kevin Hannon, an attorney whose firm has filed class-action claims against DuPont and Chemours over GenX in North Carolina. “We’ve been sending our waste to third-world countries and poisoning kids because it was cheaper to send it there,” said Hannon. “And now we’re being treated by Chemours like those third-world countries.”
In Europe, outrage has been mounting over the disposal of GenX and related compounds. In June, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management released an investigation into Chemours’s disposal process, determining that “Chemours takes no measurements to determine whether [GenX-related] substances are in the waste,” and that the “substances are consequently emitted into the environment at various places in the chain.” The report also noted that only incineration in a kiln at “a sufficiently high temperature” can destroy the material, but that not all of the GenX-related waste streams were disposed of by incineration.
Dordrecht residents, who have had to contend with both PFOA and GenX contamination of their water, have repeatedly expressed frustration with the company. In September, Chemours said it would invest 75 million euros to reduce GenX emissions from the Dordrecht plant.
Meanwhile, the Italian government declared a state of emergency over the PFAS contamination last year and an investigation into Miteni SpA resulted in criminal charges. The recent discovery that the Dutch had been sending them their GenX waste sparked angry protests and a second investigation, which is ongoing.
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/01/chemours-genx-north-carolina-netherlands/

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NGO Platform: The Hidden Hazards of Chemicals in Plastics

Feb 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch - Briefing

By Anna Watson

Dr Anna Watson, CHEM Trust head of advocacy, describes how scientists at the Food Packaging Forum established a comprehensive database of chemicals used in the production of plastic packaging
When I buy fruit and vegetables at my nearest supermarket, I can no longer buy loose mushrooms, onions, apples or potatoes. They all come wrapped in plastic – a close-to-home reminder about how the use of plastic packaging is increasing in our daily lives. Of the 380m tonnes of plastics produced worldwide each year, more than 40% are used in packaging, with the majority of that used in food packaging.
Plastic packaging does not just cause environmental problems with its use of resources, litter and degradation to smaller particles; it is a source of chemical exposure to consumers and workers.

The chemicals used in packaging can migrate into foods and the environment during manufacturing, use, disposal and recycling. It is therefore vital for us to know what chemicals are present in plastic packaging and what the associated risks are, so that we can restrict chemicals that cause harm and replace them with safer alternatives.
Plastic packaging database
Since the summer of 2017, CHEM Trust has been part of a collaboration of NGOs, including the Food Packaging Forum, ChemSec and academic scientists, to:
·       identify which hazardous chemicals are used in the manufacturing of plastic packaging and in the end product;
·       compile information on their applications and toxicity; and
·       identify which substances should be prioritised to be substituted for safer alternatives.
However, it has not been straightforward to determine which chemicals are used in the production of plastic packaging, as there is no single registry for this information. Scientists at the Food Packaging Forum started by trawling through data to establish a comprehensive database.
The scientists faced considerable barriers when building the database due to a lack of information concerning the use of chemicals in plastics manufacturing and the chemicals’ function and presence in final products.

This was often caused by information not being publicly accessible through standard search methods or not being accessible at all. In addition, plastic packaging contains impurities, degradation products, and contaminants which cannot be exhaustively compiled because many of these chemicals are not yet identified.
The chemicals associated with plastics packaging database (CPPdb), containing 4,283 substances, was the result of this extensive study. Information on their toxicity and uses in plastic packaging, as well as additional regulatory information such as authorisation for use in food packaging is also included. The 906 substances which are most likely to be associated with plastic packaging have been published on the Data Commons website.
Hazardous chemicals and prioritisation
At least 148 of the 906 chemicals most likely to be associated with plastic packaging were identified as particularly hazardous both to human health and the environment based on several harmonised hazard data sources. Sixty-eight chemicals were identified as particularly hazardous to the environment and 63 chemicals were identified as particularly hazardous for human health.
The next step in the project was to identify which chemicals in plastic packaging should be a priority for the industry to find alternatives.
To achieve this prioritisation, a set of criteria was agreed, combined with the expert judgment of the project partners. It is worth noting that different prioritisation processes will have different outcomes and the result is strongly dependent on the available information.
All the chemicals identified following the prioritisation criteria were ortho-phthalates. Benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP) was selected as the highest-priority substance for environmental hazards in the context of this research project. Five phthalates, including BBP, were selected as the highest priority substances for human health.
The others were: dibutyl phthalate (DBP); diisobutyl phthalate (DiBP); bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP)and dicyclohexyl phthalate (DCHP).
Ortho-phthalates
All of the prioritised ortho-phthalates in the study are used as plasticisers, adhesives or printing inks in plastic packaging. In Western Europe, we produce about 1m tonnes of phthalates each year, of which approximately 900,000 tonnes are used to plasticise PVC. And, according to the industry, a large proportion of this PVC is used to make rigid and flexible films for packaging.
Phthalates are a well-known problematic group of chemicals for human health, which is why some of the uses of certain phthalates in toys and other children’s products are partly restricted in the EU.
The EU has also decided to restrict the use of four of the ortho-phthalates prioritised in our project: DEHP, DBP, BBP and DIBP. Their use in many consumer products will be restricted, due to their toxic effect on reproductive health and the endocrine system. This partial ban takes into account the cumulative effects of combined exposure to the four phthalates. This as a welcome and long overdue measure.
However, the restriction does not prevent these chemicals being used in food contact materials such as conveyor belts and pipes used during food production, plastic gloves worn to handle food, and containers and wrappings used for food packaging. This is a glaring loophole and it must be closed as soon as possible.

Restrictions are also being discussed in the US. Since 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration has been reviewing a petition by public interest organisations to remove approval of 30 phthalates in food contact materials. However, on 14 November 2018 the FDA said it was also considering a petition from an industry group, Flexible Vinyl Alliance, claiming that only four phthalates (DEHP, DCHP, diisononyl phthalate and diisodecyl phthalate) are used in contact with food, including final packaging.
The petition requests that the agency de-authorise the remaining 26 phthalates because their use as food contact substances has been abandoned.
What should the industry do?
What do the findings of this project mean for industry and regulators? First, the project has exposed how difficult it is to get hold of chemical-use information. We need far more transparency from the industry on the chemicals they are using to produce plastic packaging.
Second, industry must move away from using groups of known hazardous substances such as the phthalates; other research by CHEM Trust has highlighted that bisphenols are a similar problem group. By regulating one chemical at a time the regulators allow the industry to move from one problematic chemical to the next within a group, rather than solving the problem.
We know that the industry can rise to this challenge. In March 2018, food brands in the US, such as Nestlé, and food packaging supply chain companies published the Food Packaging Product Stewardship Considerations. It contains a list of chemicals that these companies do not want to see in their packaging. Ortho-phthalates, including the ones our project has identified, are at the top of the list.
Third, our project identified more than 4,000 chemicals that are likely to be associated with the manufacture of plastic packaging. However, there will be many more chemicals present than we can identify – the so-called non-intentionally added substances (Nias). Not only have most of these chemicals not been identified, they have generally not been risk assessed. We simply cannot say that any plastic packaging is safe without this information.
Ultimately, in order to address the Nias issue, the industry must use fewer chemicals and ensure production processes are controlled in such a way that Nias are identified and appropriately assessed for their health and environmental impacts.

https://chemicalwatch.com/72879/ngo-platform-the-hidden-hazards-of-chemicals-in-plastics

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REACH & CLP Hub: Keeping up With REACH

Feb 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch - Briefing

By Friederike Danneberg

Dr Friederike Danneberg of Dr Knoell, based in Mannheim, Germany, discusses the key points producers, importers and suppliers of articles need to know about SVHCs and finished goods
Six new substances were added to Echa’s SVHC candidate list on 15 January, reminding us that REACH is not only about chemicals and mixtures but also applies to articles (finished goods).
While this fact has mainly interested NGOs in the past, obligations concerning articles under REACH are becoming more widely known.
Article producers, importers and suppliers are confronted with numerous questionnaires from customers and compliance statements by their suppliers. National authorities increasing enforcement activities on chemicals in articles have certainly contributed to this development. An example of such work is the enforcement project REACH-En-Force-4 (Ref-4) whose main focus is restrictions on substances in articles.
SVHC obligations
Although attention to articles has grown under REACH, knowledge of the actual obligations under the legislation is lacking. What does the presence of a SVHC in an article mean for a company?
First, companies need to know whether the concentration of the substance is above 0.1%. This not only applies to a final article but – in the case of complex articles – to every single part of it.
If the concentration is above the threshold value, information about the presence of this substance and on the safe use of the article has to be communicated down the supply chain (REACH, Article 33).
If the total amount of the SVHC contained in the products exceeds one tonne per year, article producers and importers must notify Echa (Article 7(2)). As long as all obligations concerning SVHCs are fulfilled, marketability is not affected. However, as the use of the substance may become subject to authorisation in the future, it might be a good idea for companies to look for possible substitutions.
Restrictions and authorisation obligations
While SVHCs are usually part of compliance questionnaires and statements, other obligations concerning articles are often overlooked. Producers of articles should be aware that 43 of the 197 SVHCs on the candidate list are subject to authorisation and cannot be used (for example, incorporated into an article) without this, after the sunset date.
Article importers are free from this requirement as they do not "use" the substance. However, they, too, should be aware of another key part of REACH: restrictions.
Annex XVII of REACH restricts the use and presence of hundreds of substances, as many entries cover whole groups of these. Some of the restrictions only apply to substances and mixtures but many are also valid for articles – sometimes articles in general, sometimes only specific product groups like jewellery.
Phthalates: closing the loopholes
Echa is using all of the above-mentioned obligations to close loopholes concerning groups of substances, such as DEHP, DBP and BBP, three phthalates previously used widely as plasticisers.

On the candidate list from the very beginning of REACH, they have been subject to SVHC requirements since 2008. They are also listed in REACH Annex XIV and subject to authorisation.
These measures did not prevent imported articles containing DEHP, DBP and BBP from flooding the European market, so a restriction for toys and childcare articles was introduced (entry 51 of Annex XVII).

This has been expanded to articles in general, with only a few exemptions. An additional restriction that includes DIBP will be effective from July 2020.
This example shows that the addition of a substance to the candidate list is often only the first step – so companies should start looking for alternatives as soon as they become aware of the presence of an SVHC in one of their articles. This will also help to prevent losing customers that shy away from products containing them.Know your articles
In spite of pressure from Echa to phase out the three phthalates, many noncompliant products are being marketed and may end up on the EU's Rapid Alert System for dangerous products (Rapex) list if authorities find them.

While some companies may import these products knowingly, others simply do not know their products well enough. Knowing the exact composition of an article is, of course, the easiest way to keep up with the twice yearly additions to the candidate list, or new restrictions that can be added to Annex XVII at any time.

Full material knowledge is difficult for producers of complex articles with parts coming from various suppliers and almost impossible for importers of articles, however.

For those companies, active communication up the supply chain, agreements with suppliers and – when there is no other option – testing for certain SVHCs is critical, because they are liable for fulfilling their obligations under REACH.

And it is not only REACH that regulates the use of chemicals in articles. Suppliers should have their eyes on Regulation (EC) 850/2004 on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and know other regulations that apply to their product types, for example, the RoHS Directive for electrical and electronic equipment (EEE).
Lead: false friends
Compliance with regulations and directives is difficult and most often a laborious process. In addition, lack of knowledge on obligations can lead to a false feeling of security.

This may be the case for many suppliers of electrical and electronic devices. As their products already have to comply with the RoHS Directive 2011/65/EU which prohibits – alongside other substances – the use of lead, many might have ignored the addition of lead to Echa’s candidate list in June last year, assuming their products do not contain it.

This assumption may be incorrect, however. The RoHS Directive has a huge number of exemptions for the use of lead and these are used for a great number of products. Thus, importers and retailers of EEE in particular should make sure they are informed of the presence of lead in articles by their suppliers.
Ecolabels: staying one step ahead
One option, not only to keep track with regulatory changes but to stay a step ahead, is to apply for an ecolabel and ensure products meet their requirements.

There are various ecolabels for numerous types of articles. In the EU, the most well-known are probably the EU Ecolabel, the Nordic Swan and the Blue Angel or – for textile articles – the STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX®.

These not only require compliance with existing legislation but prohibit the use of chemicals that, due to their hazardous properties, are likely to become subject to regulatory obligations in the future, thereby focusing on substances relevant to the specific product group.
To carry the label, SVHCs are usually prohibited above a concentration of 0.1%. Companies adhering to their criteria are likely to be, therefore, less easily caught out by new restrictions on chemicals.
Conclusion
Ensuring that articles comply with relevant chemical regulation like REACH is an ongoing process. Complicated supply chains, insufficient information and overlapping legislation are only three of the problems producers, importers and suppliers of articles may face.

Solutions are easy to discuss but harder to achieve. They include staying up to date on regulatory changes, keeping informed about chemical substances in your supply chain, and trying to stay ahead of new developments – for example, by meeting requirements for an ecolabel.

Phasing out critical substances will not only help fulfil legal obligations, it will also strengthen your customer’s trust in the brand.
https://chemicalwatch.com/73805/reach-clp-hub-keeping-up-with-reach

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Guest Column: Echa Outlines the Key Priorities for 2019

Feb 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch - Briefing

By Björn Gaarn Hansen

Björn Hansen, Echa's executive director, discusses the agency’s 2019 priorities including managing the risks of substances of concern
2019 is the first year after the major regulatory deadlines of REACH and the first year during which Echa will start to implement its new strategic priorities.
Our first strategic priority is to identify and manage the risks of substances of concern. Under this, the interplay between the registration, evaluation and risk management processes under REACH and CLP will be streamlined and will make up a substantial part of the agency’s work throughout 2019.
At the same time, the two other strategic priorities – improving supply chain communication with a view to increasing safe and sustainable use of chemicals and substituting substances of very high concern, and ensuring the consistency and integration of the EU regulatory system on chemical safety – will remain at the core of the agency’s work.
To this end, Echa will support industry in implementing the ENES tools, making more information on uses and exposure available and creating an effective cycle of information to manage chemicals safely. In addition, the agency will continue to implement its substitution strategy, which aims to boost the availability and adoption of safer alternative substances and technologies throughout the EU.
In 2019, we will continue pursuing robust technical solutions for managing data, building up the EU observatory for nanomaterials, taking the first steps towards an EU legislation finder on chemicals, and building on the successful start in developing occupational exposure limits.
Ensuring REACH compliance
The REACH Review carried out by the European Commission concluded that REACH is an effective instrument, but not yet working efficiently enough. It highlighted several areas of REACH where improvements are needed, and 2019 will see us move more concretely to putting such actions into practice.
One of the key improvements we need to make in 2019 is to do more to ensure REACH compliance.
Back in October 2018, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) published a report which showed that around one-third of registration dossiers in the highest tonnage bands do not comply with REACH requirements. This is a message that we hear loud and clear from various sources, but also echoes our own findings.
More compliance checks ahead
Checking the regulatory compliance of registration dossiers has been one of Echa’s core tasks since the early days of the agency. However, it has become clear that the 5% compliance check of registration dossiers in each tonnage band has not had the desired effect.
Back when REACH was being developed, a certain level of non-compliance was expected, but the issue here is the extent.
The crucial point about non-compliance is that there may be some effects of a chemical that go unnoticed. While this is not the case for all non-compliant dossiers, it is an underlying cause for concern.
In 2019, we will therefore need to focus more heavily on compliance checks, making it an agency-wide priority. This means freeing up resources to carry out more dossier compliance work, and making the most of our staff’s experience to increase efficiency.
In addition, we will interact and collaborate more proactively with sectors on groups of substances, aiming to come up with solutions to dossier compliance issues which can reduce or eliminate the need of further regulatory steps.
Restriction and authorisation processes
Another aspect of the REACH Review that we will concentrate on during 2019 is clarifying and improving the restriction and authorisation processes.
In practice, we will identify which points in the restriction dossier or authorisation applications are crucial for determining the outcome and where more information is needed.
We believe that having a better understanding here will enable more straightforward decision making.
Achieving this will require greater levels of cooperation with the Commission, Member States, experts, NGOs and industry, and discussions on how to achieve this are already taking place.
The activities implementing BPR and PIC [Biocidal Products Regulation and Prior Informed Consent Regulation] will continue to be as important as ever in ensuring the safe use of substances. We expect intensified assessment of biocidal active substances with potential endocrine-disrupting properties, and continued increases in the number of PIC export notifications during 2019.
Finding ways to be efficient
While working on these areas, we will also be adjusting to our new organisational structure. The changes to our structure better reflect our working environment, and will help us take on new tasks and face future challenges.
One such challenge is, of course, the need for resources. We are a large agency with the potential to do a lot of good work, but there are limitations to how much more we can do without increasing our resources.
The reorganisation will help us to find ways to be more efficient and effective and to develop staff competence to handle the existing workloads under REACH, CLP, Biocides and PIC as well as integrate the new tasks we receive – but to make a real difference, we need to re-discuss the resources at our disposal.
Brexit
Another element we are facing is the UK’s imminent withdrawal from the EU. We are fully prepared for this and have been informing industry both in the UK and in the remaining EU-27 of the things they need to consider and act upon.
So, we have a fully packed agenda for 2019 – but I am confident that together we will manage it successfully.
https://chemicalwatch.com/73138/guest-column-echa-outlines-the-key-priorities-for-2019

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Guest Column: Will Brexit Return Control to the UK Chemical Sector?

Feb 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch - Briefing

By John Hibbs

John Hibbs, business development manager at Belgium-based Solvay and chair of the British Association for Chemical Specialities (Bacs), discusses Bacs’ concerns for a no-deal Brexit, data sharing and the future of EU-UK trade post 29 March.
The Bacs position is that we fully recognise the need for an effective chemicals management system for the UK. And we welcomed the ‘cut and paste’ approach to this because it is potentially the least disruptive way to establish a national regulation. We know that the majority of our members have supply chains that cross international borders, mainly with the EU. Replicating REACH in the UK means less work and therefore a more efficient and cost-effective compliance effort.
Where the current proposals create issues is the request to provide a "full data package" within two years of leaving the EU.
For the original EU REACH registration, registrants did not submit a full data set, but purchased a letter of access which entitled them to use data owned by third parties, to support their registration.
Defra [the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] knows that this data exists, and has been a part of the process of collecting and evaluating it. Data summaries and the outcomes of these evaluations are freely available.
The reasoning for asking for full data submission is far from satisfactory. It has ranged from "a legal requirement" – please show us the legal arguments – to "we are transferring the principle of no data, no market" from EU-REACH. The data exists, and the industry classifies and manages its substances according to that already submitted, so this seems a weak argument.
Defra's 'cake and eating it' policy
We are also seeing suggestions that UK-REACH would waive this ‘legal necessity’ where providing data would involve animal testing. Abhorrent as it may be, animal data is still the only data regulators will accept for more complex endpoints – which often relate directly to human health and environmental impacts.
It has been suggested that Defra would not ask for new data to be generated, if a UK registrant is unable to access the original data used for REACH. How is this consistent with a legal necessity to hold data? This could be seen as a ‘having your cake and eating it’ policy.
Bacs has no objection to dual submission for new registrations, assuming that the data requirements stay reasonably aligned. The burden in terms of work and cost for UK industry to resubmit data for existing registrations seems totally disproportionate to the benefits (which are zero to industry, and very poorly defined for the regulators!).
We see that incurring additional costs (which we have estimated as averaging £70,000 per substance, per company), plus the resource demands will further reduce the competitiveness of UK chemical businesses, at a time when they will already face the disadvantage of extra duties on raw materials and export sales. We expect that the costs involved could make some substances commercially unviable for the UK market.
One-sided proposals
We have also expressed strong concerns about the one-sided nature of the proposals. The UK government is making it easy for EU companies to continue to sell into the UK after Brexit. Current guidelines would give an EU-based company 180 days to complete an only representative (OR) registration. Alternatively, they can provide limited data to their UK customers (who would notify their use), which would give at least two years of cost-free access to the UK market. No reciprocal arrangement has been made with the EU. And in the event of an exit without a deal, trade from the UK into the EU in chemicals and chemical products would stop overnight.
Bacs is also concerned by the logistics of the proposal. EU-REACH was implemented over a 12-year period – from the adoption of the Regulation in 2007 to the completion of the registration phase-in last year.
UK-REACH suggests that a task, similar in scale and complexity, can be accomplished in two years on a completely unproven IT system. The UK scheme places a high reliance on downstream users becoming importers, and therefore registrants.
From discussions with Bacs members, ‘formulator’ companies have neither the skills nor the resource to undertake the additional duties – they range from small businesses importing and reselling gardening chemicals, which have no regulatory resource, to large consumer goods companies which become responsible for their portfolio of 1,000 substances. The numbers just don’t add up.
A no-deal UK-REACH
In all of our dealings with government and regulators, discussions on the hard practicalities of UK-REACH have tended to emphasise that this is a fall-back scenario in the unlikely even of a no-deal exit, and that government is fully committed to maintaining access to Echa membership. As a result, companies have taken very few steps towards the implementation of UK-REACH. We note that recent guidance has removed the word "unlikely".
A key frustration for all trade associations is the extreme uncertainty about what happens after 29 March. If we have a transitional period, then there will be at least two years of relative stability in which to plan and make changes. In a no-deal scenario, then major changes need to happen very quickly at substantial cost.
Bacs has been unable to give any clear guidance to its members, other than understanding their supply chain and considering what impact a no-deal exit could have. To have taken concrete steps for the eventuality of a no-deal would have been a gamble, and potentially a very expensive one.
Post-29 March worries
My greatest concern is the possibility of a no-deal, bringing the potential loss of EU-REACH registration (and therefore access to the EU market) for UK exporters. The chemicals sector is the UK’s second-largest generator of export revenue, with the EU its biggest export market.
The current proposals give no credible mechanism for that trade to continue without major disruption in the event of no-deal. EU companies will continue to sell into the UK without regulatory barriers, while UK companies are potentially unable to sell into the EU until new registrations are in place.
Taking back control? It seems not.
The views expressed in this article are those of the expert author and are not necessarily shared by Chemical Watch.
https://chemicalwatch.com/73353/guest-column-will-brexit-return-control-to-the-uk-chemical-sector

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Feature: Chemical Sector Struggles With Brexit's Uk-REACH Data ‘Nightmare’

Feb 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch - Briefing

By Caroline Byrne

The prospect of a no-deal Brexit is creating turmoil for chemical companies who must decide whether to spend millions buying rights for UK-REACH data they might not need, or wait for an EU exit deal that may never materialise.
If Britain leaves the EU without an agreement, companies operating in the UK will need to register under a new UK-REACH system at a cost, on average, of about £70,000 per substance, per company, the British Association for Chemical Specialities (Bacs) estimates. The total bill could rise to £1bn (€1.13bn).
Conversely, should the UK sign a deal, chemical companies may not have to pay anything at all if Britain can negotiate a data-sharing agreement with Echa.
"The biggest legal nightmare flows from the prevailing uncertainty about whether there will be a deal or no-deal outcome, two very different outcomes which makes it harder for companies to decide how best to react," says Pinsent Masons lawyer Guy Lougher.
As a minimum, lawyers are telling clients to review their rights to access data required for UK-REACH, analyse the supply chain and assess their needs. Some companies may want to set up a company in continental Europe, while others will need to negotiate data-sharing agreements for the UK, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
"The frustrations are coming through loud and clear and some of the language is getting rather choice," says Peter Newport, chief executive of the Chemical Business Association (CBA).
"I’ve known normally sanguine and measured people getting very hot under the collar ... They cannot plan a way out of it without potentially wasting large sums of money doing preparatory work that might suddenly become totally unnecessary."
The UK’s Health and Safety Executive has offered guidance for companies and Echa will expand on its advice in the coming weeks (see box below) but the situation is changing rapidly.
Bubbling disputes
With only ten weeks to go, all eyes are on Prime Minister Theresa May and the UK parliament this week. Tuesday’s ‘meaningful’ vote is expected to determine whether or not MPs support Mrs May's Brexit deal, which outlines the terms of Britain's EU exit and a declaration on the outline of future UK-EU relations.
In the event of a deal, chemical companies can defer data decisions during the two-year transitional stage while Britain seeks to maintain an associated membership of Echa, which oversees the registration of European chemical data.
"Companies won’t have to do anything at first, but they will need to keep it [data decisions] in mind because as we approach the end of the transitional period we could still be facing a no-deal scenario," says Anita Lloyd of law firm Squire Patton Boggs.
If Britain fails to either approve a deal, revoke Article 50 or come to another arrangement by 29 March, chemical companies doing business in the UK will have to provide initial information on substances for a new UK-REACH regime within 60 or 180 days, depending on their circumstances, and the full data package within two years of Britain leaving the EU.
Cefic expects REACH compliance problems in a no-deal scenario to hit all sectors, up and downstream, and all companies having businesses in the EU-27 and the UK: "There is a high risk that value chains will be disrupted," Cefic said in a statement.
"The time periods foreseen in UK-REACH to receive a full registration are challenging for UK-based producers and importers and even more so for non-UK based suppliers, who have to rely on only representatives [ORs] or the respective importers into the UK for registration purposes," the chemical industry association said.
While the UK government is keeping time frames for UK-REACH registration under review, the more pressing problem for many companies is that they don’t own full datasets about their substances and acquiring legal rights is not straightforward.
Negotiating the minefield
EU-REACH is based on a joint registration for one substance, so many entities purchased a letter of access to data, entitling them to use data owned by third parties to support their registration. The arrangement allows them to avoid unnecessary animal testing.
The access letters don’t automatically confer rights on companies who might need to register chemical data for a UK-REACH system under a no-deal scenario, however. Entities need to do an audit, if they haven’t already, to determine what their data-sharing agreements allow, lawyers say.
BASF, the world’s largest chemical producer, headquartered in Germany, says its biggest data concern is about gaining access to data for UK-REACH registrations that it does not already hold.
"Our experience shows that data-sharing negotiations can be lengthy and it is BASF’s preference to obtain access to existing data rather than repeating studies, especially animal studies," Neil Hollis, BASF’s UK REACH coordinator, told Chemical Watch.
"Considering that EU-REACH registration dossiers regularly contain data possessed by multiple data owners, it’s not even a case that for each substance you are only negotiating with one data owner," Mr Hollis says.
BASF has conducted a supply-chain analysis and says it is aware that to maintain access to UK markets, companies will choose to register substances in the UK they did not previously register under EU-REACH.
"These companies will be challenged without experience or knowledge in working in these particular EU-REACH Siefs and joint registrations. Simply finding who are the data owners of these substances may be a time-consuming task," Mr Hollis says.
Company options
Some UK businesses have started registering companies in the EU, identifying ORs or looking to their EU importers to become the EU registration holder as an importer. None of it is easy.
"In Germany, for example, if you want to set up a company, you often have to have a minimum level of capital. You would have to think about what would be the language of operating and the language of documentation," says Ms Lloyd, who is director of Squire Patton Boggs’ environmental, safety and health group.
"A lot of companies are looking at either Ireland or the Netherlands as being, perhaps, the most straightforward places for a company," she adds. "It is not as simple as setting up a shell company or a post box."
Some of the more proactive businesses are assessing their data rights and planning a strategy both for obtaining access to required data, or evaluating whether there is financial benefit in the data within their ownership, says Simon Tilling of Burges Salmon law firm.
"I can see the potential for lots of challenges over access rights to data within the far too short two-year period for submitting dossiers. There is a real potential for a mess that will take far longer than two years to sort out," Mr Tilling adds.‘
Project Fear’
https://chemicalwatch
The CBA’s Peter Newport is not aware of any members who have obtained datasets from data owners as a result of existing letters of access for EU-REACH. He worries about spiralling costs.
"I don’t like ‘Project Fear’," Mr Newport says. "But if we spent more than €5bn on EU-REACH, what is there to suggest it is going to be much less for UK-REACH?"
Granted, Mr Newport says, the €5bn figure depends on the number of substances registered under UK-REACH and it could come down rapidly if companies are prepared, as data-owners, to share the data for free. He questions what incentive they’d have to do that, however.
Lawyers expect it is just a matter of time before more problems emerge.
"There is a real concern among my clients and contacts that the UK government has not got to grips with data sharing under EU-REACH," Mr Tilling says.
"Statements from ministers in the past year have betrayed a confusion over what the data-sharing principles of EU-REACH actually mean, muddling up ‘access to data’ with ‘data ownership’, and assuming that dossier submissions for UK-REACH is a bureaucratic exercise when the barriers are far more substantive."
A House of Lords sub-committee scrutinising the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) no-deal Brexit preparations in 2018 said they were "disturbed to hear" from environment minister Michael Gove that he was not aware of many of the issues surrounding chemical regulations post-Brexit.
In response to the complaints, Defra told Chemical Watch that the government has already issued technical notices with no-deal Brexit advice and is "committed to maintaining an effective regulatory system for the management and control of chemicals which safeguards human health and the environment, and can respond to emerging risks. This will not change when we leave the EU".
‘Unveiling the UK-REACH IT system’
Under the no-deal scenario, chemical companies worry they won’t just have to enter into new data-sharing agreements, but may also have to also upload the datasets into a UK-REACH IT system that’s still a work-in-progress.

EU-REACH was implemented more than a decade ago, from the 2007 adoption of the regulation to the completion of the registration phase-in in 2018.
"UK-REACH suggests that a task, similar in scale and complexity, can be accomplished in two years on a completely unproven IT system," says Bacs chair John Hibbs.
The UK scheme relies on downstream users becoming importers, and therefore registrants. But after talks with Bacs members, Mr Hibbs says "formulator" companies don’t have the skills or resource to undertake the additional duties.
"These range from small businesses importing and re-selling gardening chemicals, who have no regulatory resource, to large consumer goods companies who become responsible for their portfolio of 1,000 substances. The numbers just don’t add up."
The CBA was told in December that the pilot version of UK-REACH only covers basic registration functionality, so there may also be problems with initial 60-day registration.
"There is a potential problem for people that need to register large volumes of substances, and we have asked for automated upload capability on the new system. We have not received any assurance that will be available or not," says Mr Newport.
Even if the UK-BREXIT IT system works perfectly, data-sharing and other issues could cripple some UK companies. There’s still no credible mechanism for EU trade to continue without major disruption in the event of no-deal, Mr Higgs says.
"EU companies will continue to sell into the UK without regulatory barriers, while UK companies are potentially unable to sell into the EU until new registrations are in place."Echa’s advice for companies in a no-deal scenario
While Echa has already published guidance on data-sharing issues, the agency is also preparing an information package to draw companies’ attention to the steps they will need to undertake ahead of a no-deal Brexit.
"We are investigating the possibility to put into place changes to our IT Tools (REACH-IT) to enable UK-based companies to appoint an EU-27 OR already before 30 March," Echa told Chemical Watch.
"Simultaneously, we are putting together step-by-step instructions on what these companies need to do in REACH-IT to make the change and also advise them about the exact time frame when this can be done. We aim to publish this information by the end of this month/beginning of February."
https://chemicalwatch.com/73338/feature-chemical-sector-struggles-with-brexits-uk-reach-data-nightmare

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Energy News

Bill Would Boost DOE Role in Pipeline Oversight

Feb 1, 2019 | E&E Daily

By Blake Sobczak

Senate lawmakers introduced legislation yesterday aimed at tightening physical and cybersecurity across the United States' 300,000-mile web of large natural gas pipelines.
The "Pipeline and LNG Facility Cybersecurity Preparedness Act," backed by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), would require the Department of Energy to develop and test tools for protecting pipelines from hackers and other threats. The bill, which mirrors legislation introduced in the House in 2018, would also authorize Energy Secretary Rick Perry to lead the federal response to a major attack on a pipeline system.
"Foreign adversaries are trying to infiltrate our critical energy infrastructure, and it's imperative that we're prepared for potential attacks on our energy systems," Cornyn said in a statement yesterday.
Heinrich added that the legislation "would empower the Department of Energy to coordinate a comprehensive approach to make our system of pipelines more resilient and secure."
Federal oversight of pipeline security is currently the domain of the Transportation Security Administration, an agency better known and better funded for its role guarding the nation's airports.
An E&E News investigation in 2017 found that TSA had only six full-time staff assigned to a voluntary pipeline security program. Meanwhile, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence sources have pointed out that Chinese hackers managed to steal troves of sensitive data on pipeline control systems (Energywire, May 23, 2017).
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats apparently alluded to that 6-year-old hacking spree in testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence earlier this week.
"China has the ability to launch cyber attacks that cause localized, temporary disruptive effects on critical infrastructure — such as disruption of a natural gas pipeline for days to weeks — in the United States," he wrote in a Worldwide Threat Assessment.
Unlike their peers in the electric utility industry, pipeline companies do not face mandatory or enforceable cybersecurity standards. But as U.S. power generators have grown increasingly reliant on natural gas as a fuel source, several lawmakers, as well as officials at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corp., have questioned whether TSA is equipped to handle fast-moving cyberthreats.
The bipartisan legislation introduced yesterday would not change TSA's voluntary system of oversight or transfer any existing TSA authorities to DOE.
The Senate bill is a companion to legislation of the same name unveiled by Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Dave Loebsack (D-Iowa) in the House last year.
"This is not a regulatory program, and we are not authorizing DOE to develop mandatory minimum standards," Upton said at a House Energy and Commerce Committee markup for the bill last year.
That legislation passed committee but failed to come up for a vote in the House. Upton reintroduced H.R. 370 in the new Congress early last month.
The natural gas industry has welcomed the proposed legislation.
The presidents of the American Gas Association and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America wrote last year they were "pleased" the bill "does not seek to regulate pipeline sector security operations."
"Natural gas pipeline companies are acutely aware of increasing cybersecurity threats to pipeline operations and are committed to secure operations," AGA President Dave McCurdy and INGAA President Don Santa said in a letter to House E&C leadership.
This story also appears in Energywire.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/02/01/stories/1060119239

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Petroleum Reserve Comment Deadline Is Extended Again

Feb 1, 2019 | E&E Energywire

By Margaret Kriz Hobson

The Bureau of Land Management has for a third time extended the public comment deadline for its plans to rewrite the integrated activity plan (IAP) for the 22.1-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
The current management plan for the reserve, developed in 2013 by the Obama administration, prevents the government from selling oil and gas leases in almost half of the NPR-A.
The last of a series of public meetings on the plan, set to be held in the remote Native village of Point Lay, had to be scrubbed in January after a storm hit the state's northwestern coast.
At the time the Point Lay meeting was canceled, BLM officials had already been forced to scrap their original lineup of public meetings after a massive earthquake hit southern Alaska on Nov. 30.
In the aftermath of the quake, regulators planned a new round of hearings and dropped their original Jan. 7 deadline for submitting written comments on the IAP. The new timeline required comments to be in regulators' hands by Jan. 22. But on deadline day, the cutoff date was quietly pushed to Wednesday.
The latest delay that came yesterday gives the public until Feb. 15 to submit statements on the NPR-A management plan.
This most recent timeline was set to coincide with BLM's newly scheduled public meeting in Point Lay on Feb. 4.
Regulators said they changed the comment deadline to give the public, including Point Lay residents, "a reasonable amount of time to digest the information received and provide comments."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/02/01/stories/1060119229

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These Dozen States Could Move to 100% Renewable Electricity

Jan 31, 2019 | CBS News

By Irina Ivanova

Last year, California set the most ambitious energy goal in the nation: reaching 100 percent renewable energy in just over 25 years. This year, as many as 13 other states are rearing to join it.
While the federal government seeks to roll back climate-change regulation, state politicians -- many, though not all, Democrats with newfound majorities -- are signaling they won't wait for the feds to reverse course again.
"Despite the fact that this isn't going to happen on the federal level, there are places around the country, in a lot of the most populated states, where people want this," said Mark Morgenstein, a spokesman for Environment America.
Environment America has launched a campaign calling out nine states to become 100 percent renewable by 2050. Several other states are already on their way toward reaching that goal. Together, they represent 42 percent of the U.S. population and more than a quarter of its economic output.
The push for state legislation comes as renewable energy is growing overall, spurred by consumer demand and favorable economics. By 2050, if no new laws are passed, 31 percent of U.S. electricity will come from renewable sources, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Here are the states that are set to go even further.
The climate leaders: Washington, Massachusetts, New Jersey
Massachusetts, by many measures the bluest state in the U.S., started work last year on the country's first commercial-scale offshore wind farm and plans to double its wind generation in the next two years. Lawmakers in both houses of the legislature have introduced bills to make the state's power 100 percent renewable by 2045.
New Jersey has taken a series of aggressive climate steps since the 2017 election of Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. The state adopted a goal last year of 50 percent renewable electricity and is in the process of creating an Energy Master Plan, which environmentalists hope will push renewables further.
Washington came close to becoming the first state to tax carbon last year. A bill introduced this year aims to eliminate coal within six years, require 80 percent clean utilities five years after that and make all electricity carbon-free.
Washington has a leg up as the nation's top producer of hydroelectric power, which accounts for two-thirds of all electricity generated in the state. Last year's wildfires across the Northwest also mean the state is deeply familiar with the effects of climate change.
Former coal producers: Pennsylvania and Illinois
Pennsylvania is the fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the country (after Texas, California and Florida). The state's economy, until a few decades ago, relied largely on coal. In recent years, it has become a lead generator of natural gas, a coal replacement that still creates carbon emissions, but on a smaller scale.
That's why its recent about-face on clean energy is notable. Last year, a Republican legislator led a bill to put the state on a path to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. Another Republican is set to introduce it sometime this month, according to PennEnvironment, a state environmental group. The group is hopeful this will be the year it passes.
"We're not California. We're not Hawaii," said David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment. "When you have a purple state that Trump won, where the general assembly is dominated by conservative Republicans, it's significant and shows that other states with a history of fossil fuel production can lead the way."
Illinois' statehouse is far bluer than Pennsylvania's, but the state is just as dependent on coal. The country's sixth most populated state, it still gets nearly two-thirds of its energy from fossil fuels.
But the new Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker, has signaled a change in direction. Last week he signed on to the U.S. Climate Alliance, a pact that commits the 18 states in it to the goals of the Paris climate agreement, which the U.S. exited in 2017. Pritzker also campaigned on a goal of 100 percent clean energy.
Solid blue states: Colorado, Maine, New Mexico, New York
All four of these states have newly elected Democratic "trifectas," in which the party controls both chambers of the state legislature and the governor's mansion -- and they're pushing for an energy overhaul.
In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis has set the most ambitious target of any state -- going to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040, a full five years earlier than California and Hawaii. A recent study found that consumers would save $250 million if the state achieves that goal. Colorado's largest utilty, Xcel Energy, last month promised to go carbon-free by 2050, a move it a said was "motivated by customers who are asking for it."
"Consumers look to their utilities to be good citizens, and that includes protection of the climate," said Andrew Heath, senior director of the utilities practice at J.D. Power. When utilities announce they're shifting to renewable energy -- whether it's a response to law or on their own initiative -- it's met favorably, he added.
Maine is already the top wind-power producer in New England, and new Gov. Janet Mills offers the strongest contrast with her Republican predecessor. Former Gov. Paul LePage routinely drew criticism for his anti-environment moves, including quashing bipartisan pro-solar legislation and putting a moratorium on new wind turbine development.
On her inauguration, Mills set a goal to have 80 percent of the state's electricity come from renewable energy sources. Another Maine legislator is already leading the push for a "Green New Deal" in Maine, which would make the state's energy entirely renewable by 2030.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has called for 100 percent clean energy by 2040, a plan that would require boosting the state's solar, wind, hydroelectric and nuclear resources. The state legislature, which is Democrat-controlled for the first time in 10 years, must approve his plan by April 1.
And New Mexico is eyeing a goal of 80 percent renewable electricity by 2040, which Environment America calls "a first step" to being 100 percent renewable.
Great Lakes states: Michigan and Minnesota
Both these states have Republican-controlled legislatures and Democratic governors, and they have a higher-than-average reliance on coal (getting 36 percent and 41 percent of all electricity from it, respectively). Minnesota environmental groups, in addition to pushing for 100-percent renewability by 2030, are seeking a moratorium on new pipelines in the state. Those in Michigan have set 2050 as the target date.
Both states have a higher-than-average reliance on nuclear power (as do others on this list, like Pennsylvania and Illinois), which is excluded from the planned legislation -- and that could be a problem when it comes to emissions.
Nuclear power has divided environmentalists because, while it emits no carbon, it isn't renewable and has the potential to cause massive devastation. Many clean-energy groups favor phasing out nuclear, but doing so makes it harder to reduce emissions.
"What we're starting to see is [renewable-energy requirements] are increasing market pressure on nuclear power plants, and the emissions increase from the loss of those plants offsets the gain in renewable energy," said Whitney Herndon, a senior analyst at Rhodium.
She added: "In order to get the emissions benefit, you really want an increase in renewables, plus keeping the existing nuclear power there."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/these-dosen-states-could-move-to-100-percent-renewable-electricity/

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Is 100 Percent Renewable Energy for the U.S. Possible? Yes.

Jan 31, 2019 | Environmental Working Group

By Grant Smith

Across America, devastating hurricanes, hellish wildfires, deadly heat waves and other disasters have brought the climate change crisis close to home. In response, more than 100 cities, counties and states – including the two largest, California and New York – have committed to use only renewable or zero-emissions sources for electricity by midcentury.
Should the nation as a whole shoot for such an ambitious goal? Is it even possible for the entire U.S. to supply electricity reliably with 100 percent renewable energy sources?
The bottom line: Yes. But the devil’s in the details, and the debate rages over how to get there.
Pressing the issue are newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and hundreds of public interest groups supporting her proposed Green New Deal. In a letterto lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the groups say heading off catastrophic levels of global warming demands a shift to 100 percent renewable power generation by 2035 or earlier. EWG also supports the goals and spirit of the Green New Deal.
That’s ambitious, and not just because 2035 is so close. According to the Energy information Administration, in 2017 renewable energy sources accounted for just under one-sixth of U.S. electricity generation. Transitioning to 100 percent clean, safe and renewable energy in less than two decades means quickly ending the use not only of fossil fuels, including natural gas, but also of nuclear reactors. Nukes don’t emit greenhouse gases, but they’re dangerous and obscenely expensive, and they generate mountains of radioactive waste. And besides boosting renewables capacity, we must increase the energy efficiency of homes, businesses and other buildings, and adopt the widespread use of batteries to store the energy from renewables.
The naysayers of 100 percent renewables are known as the all-of-the-above faction. They agree with the need for deep cuts in carbon pollution. They acknowledge that coal is dead, despite the Trump administration’s schemes to keep it on life support. But they argue we’ll continue to need nuclear power, and need to replace coal with natural gas plants equipped with technology to capture carbon and store or sequester it deep in the earth. They say an all-renewable grid would be too expensive, and there is no convincing evidence it’s feasible.
None of those arguments stand up.
The Department of Energy recently estimated that initial costs for carbon capture at natural gas plants would increase the cost of power by half. Studies show it could not be applied at great enough scale to justify the costs, and it would only slow down the transition to renewables. The extraction, transport and burning of natural gas releases methane, a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon. And the current natural gas boom depends on fracking, which uses toxic chemicals that pollute air and water, threatening the health of nearby communities.
A 2015 analysis conducted by researchers at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley found that 100 percent wind and solar power – in conjuction with energy efficiency, energy storage and other advances to complement renewables – could provide electricity to the continental U.S. more reliably than the current system by 2050, and at lower projected costs.
That study is among 60 from around the world reviewed in a recent paper by an international team of scientists, showing why 100 percent renewables is an achievable and affordable option.
They concluded:
·    There’s more than enough solar, wind and hydro potential – 30 times more than business-as-usual forecasts for energy demand in 2050.
·    Technology already exists to account for the variability of wind and solar generation, so that the lights will stay on even when the weather doesn’t cooperate.
·    We do not need to alter the design of the electric grid radically to accommodate 100 percent renewables: The shift is well underway and accelerating.
·    Costs won’t be overwhelming. A grid based on 100 percent renewables can compete in cost with fossil fuel systems, even before factoring in the tremendous costs of pollution, global warming and water usage.
·    A number of nations and regions are at or close to 100 percent renewables already, including Denmark, Norway and parts of Germany. Canada is at 62 percent renewables and Brazil at 76 percent.
In the U.S., it’s not just coastal, blue-district cities that are taking the 100 percent pledge. According to Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 campaign, the list includes not only San Franciso and Washington, D.C., but also Atlanta, Cleveland, Kansas City and Salt Lake City. The Rocky Mountain Institute reports that more than 160 companies worldwide have committed to 100 percent renewables, including Apple, Bank of America, Facebook, General Motors, Microsoft and Walmart.
We’d say 100 percent renewables is an idea whose time has come – except that the transition should have started decades ago. Now there’s no time to lose. The nation that put a man on the moon in less than 10 years can do this, but only if we start now.

https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2019/01/100-percent-renewable-energy-us-possible-yes-0

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US Crude Exports to Asia to Swell in Mar, Apr on Cheaper Freight

Feb 1, 2019 | Platts

By Andrew Toh, Oceana Zhou, Wanda Wang, and Gawoon Philip Vahn

US crude exports to Asia are set to swell over March and April as a drop in freight rates makes US cargoes more competitive against barrels from Asia or the Middle East, according to market participants and shipping fixtures Friday.
Industry sources indicated that US crudes continued to attract the attention of plenty of Asian buyers as various flagship North American export grades have been consistently trading at a discount against comparable light and medium Persian Gulf grades.
"Arbitrage economics remain highly favorable for more US crude purchases. The latest OPEC cut seems to be keeping the Dubai price complex relatively expensive," a senior official at Seoul-based Korea Petroleum Association said.
Freight rates from the US Gulf Coast to Asia have fallen by about a third since early-December, making the case for greater loadings of US crude to the region.
Around 17 VLCCs have been fixed to load crude from the US Gulf Coast to Eastern destinations for February-loading cargoes, shipping reports showed, with many more likely booked outside of reported fixtures.
For January-loading cargoes, 16 VLCCs were seen carrying US crude from the US Gulf Coast to Eastern destinations, according to Platts vessel tracking software cFlow and shipping reports.
December-loading US crude cargoes, meanwhile, saw only seven VLCCs leave the US Gulf Coast for the East, cFlow and shipping reports showed.
Among fixtures seen, US producer Occidental Petroleum had four VLCCs for the USGC-East route for February-loading cargoes -- Landbridge Majesty on February 7, Hong Kong Spirit over February 20-25, DHT Colt on February 24 and Maran Ares on February 27.
South Korean refiner SK Innovation is slated to load three VLCCs -- Apolytares on February 5, Nasiriyah on February 9 and New Horizon over Februray 15-17 -- all for delivery to South Korea.
Other charterers of February-loading cargoes for the USGC-East route include Vitol, Equinor and South Korea's GS Caltex, among others.ARBITRAGE WINDOW
Traders said the US' medium, sour Mars crude was currently being offered at premiums in the high-$3s/b to Dated Brent on a CFR North Asia basis, while light, sweet crudes like WTI Midlands were being offered at premiums in the low-$2s/b to Dated Brent on a CFR North Asia basis.
WTI Midland, Eagle Ford and Mars are among the most popular grades typically sent to Asia, though there are the occasional cargoes of Southern Green Canyon, Bakken and White Cliff crude, among others.
S&P Global Platts assessed WTI Midland crude at an average premium of $2.09/b to Platts Dated Brent on a CFR North Asia basis for January, down from an average premium of $2.74/b to Platts Dated Brent on a CFR North Asia basis for December.
"January seemed more shut than February [loading] cargoes," one trader said. "Mars looked completely shut. Sweet still marginally open."
The outright price spread between Platts WTI MEH, or Magellan East Houston, assessments on a CFR Northeast Asia basis and Abu Dhabi's light sour Murban crude assessments on a Northeast Asia delivered basis averaged minus 77 cents/b in January, down from minus 13 cents/b averaged in December, S&P Global Platts data showed.
WTI Midland has also been trading at considerable discounts to Asian low sulfur crudes such as the Malaysian basket crude grades.
Against WTI Midland's average premium of $2.09/b against Dated Brent on a CFR North Asia basis for January, Malaysia's Kimanis crude was assessed at an average premium of $5.24/b to Platts Dated Brent on a FOB basis.
Northeast Asia and India typically take the bulk of US crude deliveries to Asia, though small volumes are also taken by Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.CHINA VOLUMES
While market participants expect China to resume imports of US crude soon, company officials at Unipec, the trading arm of Chinese oil major Sinopec, said the company's purchases remained minimal, though specific volumes were unclear.
"We have not started massive purchasing [for US crude oil] yet," a Unipec executive said.
The executive declined to say how much they have bought and when the first US cargo for the year would arrive in China, adding that they were still watching for progress on US and China trade talks.
China ended the year with zero shipments from the US in December, the second month of no US crude imports in 2018 in addition to October, due to US-China trade tensions.
However, its total supplies of US crude in 2018 posted a sharp increase of 60.4% on the year to 247,624 b/d.
January is also unlikely to see any arrivals from the US, and the first cargo of US crude in 2019 is expected to arrive in February, cFlow data indicated.
Similarly, several refining sources from Sinopec said they have not received any offers for US crude.
"We expect that Unipec would offer some US crudes in February for May delivery," a Guangdong-based refining source with Sinopec said.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/020119-us-crude-exports-to-asia-to-swell-in-mar-apr-on-cheaper-freight

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Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Trump Widens ‘Buy American’ Rule to Infrastructure Projects

Feb 1, 2019 | Roll Call

By Ellyn Ferguson

The Trump administration will use a new executive order to expand “Buy American” requirements to infrastructure projects that receive federal financing as a way to boost the use of American-made products and support U.S. manufacturing and jobs, White House adviser Peter Navarro said Thursday.
“These programs create good manufacturing jobs at good wages and thereby help lift workers into middle class prosperity,” Navarro said.
President Donald Trump signed the order Thursday.
Navarro, director of trade and manufacturing policy, told reporters Buy American requirements generally apply to direct federal purchases of goods or products.
He said the administration wants to close “possible gaps in Buy American coverage” that allows agencies to provide loans, loan guarantees, grants, insurance, interest subsidies or other forms of financing for bridges, roads, sewer systems, broadband internet, cyber security and other projects without encouraging the purchase and use of U.S.-made steel, aluminum, cement and other products. The use of American-made products would apply to contracts, subcontracts, purchase orders and subawards.
“If an agency like the Department of Transportation spends money directly on the construction of a road or a bridge or some other piece of infrastructure, Buy American generally comes into play. But if an agency provides indirect support through this federal financial assistance such as loans, loan guarantees or grants, Buy American may not apply,” Navarro said.
He said extending Buy American requirements would keep “Buy American dollars from falling through the cracks.” Navarro said a review of projects that received federal financing in fiscal 2016 found that Buy American requirements did not apply to 200 of 265 infrastructure projects that received financing. He said the 200 projects across 14 agencies added up to $45 billion.
Several federal laws are designed to boost the procurement and use of American-made products, and by extension support U.S. manufacturing and jobs. The laws include 1933 legislation for government purchases of more than $3,000, the 1982 legislation for government infrastructure projects and 1994 legislation that, among other things, applies to certain purchases made by the Defense Department.
Navarro said the new order builds on an executive order issued in April 2017 that launched reviews of so-called Hire-American, Buy-American practices in federal agencies and to limit exemptions or waivers to Buy American provisions. The 2017 order focused on scrutinizing visa programs that allow companies to hire foreign workers and government procurement provisions in trade agreements that allow federal agencies to buy goods from foreign companies.
The trade pacts allow the U.S. and its trading partners to waive requirements that procurement contracts for government-funded projects can only go to domestic companies. The U.S. can select foreign companies that successfully bid on government projects, and trading partners can do the same with American companies. However, the Trump administration said trading partners have not treated U.S. companies fairly.
Navarro said the 2017 order led to a “fairly dramatic reduction across the agencies from the EPA to the Federal Highway Administration” in waivers or exemptions from Buy American requirements. He said there’s been a $24 billion increase in federal spending on U.S. goods and a 10-year low in U.S. purchases of foreign goods.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/whitehouse/trump-widens-buy-american-rule-infrastructure-projects

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Amid Dim Prospects, Democrats Eye Climate Options For Infrastructure Bill

Jan 31, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Dawn Reeves and Lee Logan

As House Democrats move closer to unveiling a long-promised infrastructure bill, supporters and other observers are floating options for how the measure can make good on their promise to address climate change, including a new funding mechanism to replace the fossil-based gas tax and spending on cleaner technologies and resilient infrastructure.
While any infrastructure bill faces steep hurdles in the current political climate, the expiration of the federal gas tax -- the current funding mechanism for the highway trust fund -- in 2020, months before the next presidential election, creates a strong incentive for lawmakers to at least debate policy options even if they eventually approve a short-term funding extension.
As the debate gets underway, environmentalists and others are pressing Democrats to ensure that an infrastructure bill makes climate change a core focus, both by reducing carbon emissions and increasing resiliency.
“Given the urgency of the climate crisis, policymakers need to know that these investments will reduce carbon pollution and other greenhouse gas emissions. As such, House leadership should set a clear, ambitious, and specific goal for reducing carbon pollution through the suite of infrastructure investments,” the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) says in a Jan. 31 plan that details policy options to connect new infrastructure spending with addressing climate change and social equity.
The group says any infrastructure legislation must be “climate smart” by helping states and cities plan for negative impacts with resilient infrastructure, while also including a “down payment” on a range of low-carbon technologies such as electric vehicle chargers or grid upgrades.
CAP's plan fills in some of the details of a demand made late last year by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who said climate action would be the “price” President Donald Trump and Republicans would have to pay for Democrats to support major infrastructure legislation.
Schumer's insistence on including climate policies in an infrastructure package is just one of several issues likely to complicate passage of any bill. Lawmakers are also at odds over Republican demands to streamline environmental review and permitting requirements. And there is widespread opposition to Trump administration plans to limit federal contributions while increasing state matching contributions.
In addition, many groups are urging lawmakers to expand the bill's scope to include clean water, drinking water and other sectors.
While any bill faces significant hurdles, some environmentalists see the pending efforts as a “dry run” for major climate legislation “that could be enacted in 2021 if Democrats keep the House, win the presidency, and get a few votes closer to 60 in the Senate in the 2020 elections,” according to a Jan. 25 article from Jeff Davis, a senior fellow with the Eno Center for Transportation.
Regardless of what is in any bill, the debate appears likely to step into higher gear. House transportation committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) has scheduled a Feb. 7 hearing, where he will make the case for increasing infrastructure spending. The hearing, titled “The Cost of Doing Nothing: Why Investing In Our Nation’s Infrastructure Cannot Wait,” will address highways, bridges, transit systems, ports and airports, the trillion-dollar backlog of maintenance and repair needs and the increasing cost of federal inaction, he notes.
Gasoline Tax
On the funding front, lawmakers are at odds over whether or how to revise the gas tax, the mechanism that has financed highway spending for decades.
While the tax is slated to expire in 2020, its usefulness as a funding mechanism is waning as fuel efficiency and the number of electric vehicles have increased, even as demand for highway spending has grown.
In addition, Eno's Davis says that the formula used to distribute federal highway funds to states is incompatible with efforts to deeply decarbonize the transportation sector, according to one analyst, because it ties funding to states' fossil fuel consumption and thus discourages officials from aggressively moving to limit carbon emissions.
“It is hard to see how a program that relies on fossil fuel usage as the primary determinant of how the federal government distributes money . . . is compatible with a Green New Deal or any other massive effort towards decarbonization,” he writes.
Davis notes for example that the current highway funding formula initially apportioned Texas $3.65 billion in fiscal year 2018, but the state got significantly more due to an “adjustment” in the formula intended to ensure states receive at least 95 percent of the estimated gas taxes that their drivers paid into the federal fund. That adjustment boosted Texas' share by $181 million, to $3.83 billion -- a funding tweak that essentially acts as an “incentive payment” for the state to continue its heavy reliance on large, fuel-hungry vehicles, Davis argues.
Such arguments could provide an additional justification for Democrats to embrace an alternative to the tax. “We are living on borrowed time with the current [gas tax] system. We have to fund the system of today, but we need to be thinking about what be sustainable in the future,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) earlier told reporters.
Despite his assessment, Blumenauer is crafting legislation that would boost the gas tax by 5 cents annually starting in 2020, a policy that echoes a January 2018 proposal by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
But policymakers are still looking to move away from the gas tax. DeFazio has already proposed a pilot program to generate revenue based on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) rather than gasoline and diesel sales, including congestion pricing in order not to penalize rural drivers. Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), his GOP counterpart, is open to the idea.
However, the concept of the government tracking consumers' VMT -- whether through annual odometer readings or electronic devices that report data to officials -- is raising privacy concerns among other lawmakers.
“That is not going to happen,” Rep. Doug Ferguson (R-GA) told a Jan. 28 event in Atlanta.
But one industry source previously told Inside EPA that transitioning from a gas tax to a VMT fee is “feasible” if Congress could address such privacy concerns, as well as “perceived inequities between urban and rural drivers.”
Infrastructure Spending
For now, CAP's focus appears to be less on how money is raised but how it is spent, though it also aims to limit fossil fuel consumption.
It says that climate change is “at its core,” an infrastructure problem because government investment has “centered around the consumption and combustion of fossil fuels” for the past century, with such fuels “inextricably embedded in the functioning of the U.S. economy.” At the same time, climate-related damages are straining infrastructure and those threats will only grow worse as the planet continues to warm, the group notes.
However, the United States cannot move to a clean energy economy “at the pace and scale that the scientific community has said is needed without conscious and ambitious infrastructure policy intervention. . . . Therefore, any infrastructure bill needs to tackle both parts of the problem: driving the clean energy transition to reduce carbon pollution while making communities more resilient to the climate change impacts that cannot be averted.”
As a result, the group calls for several measures. First, a “down payment on the long-term investments needed to put the economy on a low-carbon path,” including electric vehicle charging stations, replacing diesel buses with electric versions, deploying more clean energy, repairing leaky pipelines and accommodating renewables on the grid. The bill should also set a “clear, ambitious and specific goal” for reducing GHGs through infrastructure investments, CAP says.
And the group says any bill must also ensure that all new infrastructure is built to withstand the worst impacts of climate change. “It is not a question of if the next extreme weather event or devastating wildfire will come, but when and how severe it will be,” it says.
https://insideepa.com/weekly-focus/amid-dim-prospects-democrats-eye-climate-options-infrastructure-bill

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Environment News

N.Y. Leads Suit Against EPA Over Rules on Drifting Smog (1)

Jan 31, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Amena H. Saiyid and Erik Larson

New York is leading a half-dozen states suing the Trump administration for allegedly failing to regulate interstate smog they claim is blowing in from upwind states.
The suit, filed Jan. 30 in federal court in Washington, seeks to force the Environmental Protection Agency to comply with federal law by requiring additional controls on ground-level ozone pollution alleged to pose a health threat to the downwind states, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
The suit claims the agency is balking at a Clean Air Act provision that requires states to control emissions that cross state lines and that prevent neighboring areas from meeting national air quality standards. Among upwind states are Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio.
Joining New York are Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and the City of New York.
Environmental groups also asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review EPA’s latest update to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, published Dec. 21, that said the 20 states covered won’t need to submit plans for additional steps to stop ozone-forming pollutants, chiefly nitrogen oxides, from blowing across state lines. The cross-state rule established a power plant emissions trading program to improve ozone pollution in downwind states.
The environmental groups and the states are particularly irked by the EPA’s conclusion that its latest round of modeling and monitoring of air pollution shows all eastern U.S. areas will meet the ozone standards by 2023. Ozone exacerbates breathing conditions such as asthma.
“Over two-thirds of New Yorkers regularly breathe unhealthy air due to smog pollution. Yet Trump’s EPA is ignoring the Clean Air Act and refuses to require reductions in the pollution largely responsible for this serious public health risk,” James said in a statement.
EPA Ordered to Draft Plan
The EPA was under orders from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in New York v. Pruitt to draft a federal plan by Dec. 6, 2018, to address ozone-forming pollutants that blow into downwind states from power plants in Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.
That decision came in response to a lawsuit brought in January by Connecticut and New York that haven’t been able to meet federal ozone standards because of nitrogen oxides pollution emitted by power plants in those states.
The states wanted the EPA to use the “good neighbor” provision of the Clean Air Act to require additional pollution controls at those power plants. However, the agency has so far refused all similar requests.
The coalition, comprised of allDownwinders at Risk, Appalachian Mountain Club, Sierra Club, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, is represented in this lawsuit by the nonprofit legal firm Earthjustice.
James is joined by her counterparts in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, and the City of New York.
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Environment is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.
The cases are Downwinders at Risk v. EPA, D.C. Cir., docket number unavailable, 1/31/19 and New York v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 19-1019, 1/30/19.
©2019 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission
(Updates throughout. )
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/n-y-leads-suit-against-epa-over-rules-on-drifting-smog-1

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EPA Reschedule Utility NSPS Hearing, Extends Comment Deadline

Jan 31, 2019 | Inside EPA

EPA has rescheduled a public hearing for Feb. 14 on its proposal to roll back Obama-era greenhouse gas standards for new power plants after twice postponing the hearing due to the government shutdown, and the agency is also extending the public comment deadline on the plan until mid-March.
The new March 18 deadline for comments on the changes to the 2015 power plant new source performance standards (NSPS) was set to conform to a Clean Air Act requirement that such deadlines be set at least 30 days after a public hearing is held.
However, the comment extension falls short of environmentalists' prior request to give the public an additional 60 days after the conclusion of the shutdown, which they argued barred access to several copyrighted technical materials related to the NSPS proposal that are available only in EPA's public reading room.
Before the latest extension was announced, one environmentalist said groups were hopeful that EPA would hold more than one public hearing, and that the agency would “take public participation seriously and remedy the concerns listed in the letter.”
Although it has announced the new date on its website, EPA must still formally announce the new public hearing in the Federal Register, per air act requirements. The hearing was initially scheduled for Jan. 8, and then re-scheduled for Jan. 28. But the latter date had to be scrapped when the shutdown continued until just days before that date.
While the new hearing will be held on Valentine's Day, environmentalists are unlikely to show EPA's proposal any love, given their prior criticism that it would impose far weaker GHG limits on new coal plants that could allow more emissions than what is achieved by state-of-the-art plants without carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
The 2015 rule based its coal plant targets on the use of partial CCS, and Trump officials have said the technology is too costly and unavailable in some regions to be used as the basis for a national standard.
Experts and EPA say the rule is unlikely to have any on-the-ground effects because no new coal plants are planned, but the measure does have an important legal role by creating an obligation for EPA to regulate GHGs from existing power plants.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-reschedule-utility-nsps-hearing-extends-comment-deadline

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This Is What a Climate Emergency Declaration Looks Like

Feb 1, 2019 | E&E Climatewire

By Mark K. Matthews and Scott Waldman

President Trump is again weighing whether to declare a national emergency on immigration, and it's prodding some Democratic lawmakers and environmentalists to ponder a similar declaration on climate change.
Much of the discussion is academic — as few believe that Trump's desire to circumvent Congress to build a border wall is constitutional.
But there's a touch of seriousness too, given the dire predictions for the United States and the rest of the world if global warming goes unchecked.
"It seems far-fetched now, but [it could happen] if we go down the slippery slope of using national emergencies to achieve the political ends of an administration," said Francesco Femia, co-founder of the Center for Climate and Security.
With the disclaimer that he thought it was a bad idea, Femia said there might be an opening for an emergency declaration on climate change if a future president faced a series of climate-fueled ecological disasters.
"It would only be invoked if you were talking about major direct impact on the United States from multiple storms, one after another, coinciding with major wildfires ... all happening in a short span of time, all happening with a high degree of certainty of climatic changes," said Femia, whose nonpartisan group advocates for policies that combat climate change and the security risks that go along with it.
In that scenario, he could see a future White House taking steps to nationalize large parts of the energy industry in an effort to reduce carbon emissions. It's a move, he added, that could lead to the replacement or closure of power plants that emit the most carbon, such as those that run on coal.
Another possibility: the forced removal of people who live in high-risk areas, such as floodplains or the coasts, Femia added.
That said, "in a plausible science-fiction scenario, this would probably get struck down by the courts," he added. "We don't want to enter a world like that where the United States has to make these kinds of decisions."
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who has been a big advocate for climate legislation such as a "Green New Deal," was similarly skeptical of an emergency declaration — though he's previously saidthat the U.S. needs to treat climate change like a national security threat.
"A Democratic president ... will be very reluctant to call a national emergency because they've actually read the case law and care about the Constitution," he said. "If Elizabeth Warren is president, having taught at law, there's no way she's going to usurp the Constitution."
Instead, Khanna said the best way forward would be the passage of climate legislation in Congress, which he said would require Democratic majorities and enough allied Republicans, such as Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).
But there are major hurdles there too. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who is set to lead a new House committee on climate change, acknowledged the limitations.
"The problem is the Congress is terrible at addressing long-term threats," she said. "So here's this building emergency when it comes to the climate that's impacting us every day and it's costing us more and more every day, and the Congress [has trouble focusing] outside a week's time [or] a month's time."
Even so, a national emergency would be a stretch, she added.
"Clearly, we're approaching an emergency when it comes to climate," Castor said. "But there are certain legal parameters for how you designate a national emergency."
In the past few months, major scientific reports like the National Climate Assessment have shown that global warming poses a serious threat to Americans and that it could exacerbate refugee crises around the world. This week, Daniel Coats, director of national intelligence, warned lawmakers that global warming is a national security threat.
"Global environmental and ecological degradation, as well as climate change, are likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond," said an analysis that Coats presented to lawmakers at a hearing with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
If Trump declares a national emergency for immigration, that could create a never-before-used pathway for similar assertions in the future, legal observers noted.
The National Emergencies Act, enacted in 1976, leaves it up to the president to define what constitutes an "emergency." It has been used by presidents more than 40 times in the past, 30 of which remain in effect.
Those that are still active include a number of terrorism provisions, measures that block sales of goods to hostile countries and sanctions against Russian election hacking. If Trump issues a declaration to fulfill a political promise, it would break established conventions related to national emergencies, which are often apolitical.
For weeks, Democrats and Republicans have warned that such a move could politicize emergency declarations in the future.
"If today, the national emergency is border security," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said recently, "tomorrow, the national emergency might be climate change."
Rubio's concern is not unwarranted. In the past few weeks, Democrats have countered Trump's drumbeat about violent migrants by suggesting that climate change was the real emergency.
"The scientists tell us that if we don't combat climate change aggressively, the severe damage done to our country and planet will be irreversible. Now that's a 'crisis,'" Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tweeted.
"Instead of declaring a national emergency to address a fictional emergency — @realDonaldTrump needs to stop denying a real one: climate change," tweeted former Secretary of State John Kerry.
Those are more than political slogans. They might signal future actions by Democrats. If Trump declares an emergency and it survives legal challenges, which is possible, Democrats would have a clear avenue created for them to address their concerns, according to Dan Farber, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Anything goes," he said.
If Republicans are willing to use the power for a policy priority, such as immigration, then Democrats could feel emboldened — and legally justified — to do the same.
"If Trump creates a precedent, I'm sure there will be a temptation to use it," Farber wrote in an email. "I think the strongest argument for calling climate an emergency is that only recently has it become clear what a short window of time we have in order to stabilize the climate, especially if we're going to be anywhere in the ballpark of the Paris Agreement climate targets. Moreover, it's important for us to take action in order to encourage other countries to do so, also within a relatively short time frame if we want to have maximum effect."
A future Democratic president could use a declaration in a few ways.
The National Emergencies Act gives the president the ability to shore up industrial shortfalls, which could be used to expand access to clean energy, Farber said.
That could include an expansion of battery and electric vehicle production as well as loan guarantees for the renewable energy industry, he noted. Restrictions could be placed on automakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. And the president could invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to address "any unusual and extraordinary threat," such as companies and foreign countries that sell fossil fuels, Farber said.
"If the courts do uphold him, there would seem to be a very strong argument for upholding similar use of emergency powers to address climate change," he said. "In effect, even more so, because the climate problem is getting worse while border crossings have trended down."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/02/01/stories/1060119231

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