Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 04/02/19
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Hearing on Energy and Mineral Markets
Feb 5, 2019 | Energy and Natural Resources
Location: 366 Dirksen / 10:00 AM -
Hearing on Climate Change
Feb 6, 2019 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change
Location: 2123 Rayburn/10:00 AM -
Hearing on Climate Change
Feb 6, 2019 | Natural Resources
1324 Longworth/10:00 AM -
Hearing on Infrastructure Investment
Feb 7, 2019 | Transportation and Infrastructure
HVC-210 Capitol/9:30 AM -
Hearing on Energy Trends
Feb 7, 2019 | Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development
By 2361-B Rayburn/10:00 AM
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Hearing on Energy Innovation
Feb 7, 2019 | Energy and Natural Resources
366 Dirksen/10:00 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) Climate Change Denier Among Those Appointed to EPA Science Board
Feb 2, 2019 | CNN
By Caroline Kelly
The Environmental Protection Agency appointed several new members to its Science Advisory Board who have denied key findings of the harmful effects of man-made pollutants on the environment and human health. -
(ACC Mentioned) Palmer: Public Education Programs Continue on Recycling
Feb 2, 2019 | The Ledger
By Tom Palmer
State officials’ recent celebration of Florida Recycles Day was accompanied by some useful information that has some bearing on the current recycling contamination problems here in Polk County. -
(ACC Mentioned) Meet Washington’s Plastic Straw Cop
Feb 4, 2019 | The Dailywire
By Paul Bois
With all the municipal governments banning the use of plastic straws, somebody has to be the guy that enforces it. -
(ACC Mentioned) Push to End US Steel, Aluminum Duties Against Mexico, Canada Continues
Feb 4, 2019 | The Progressive Farmer
Two groups this week will urge the end of metal tariffs on U.S. allies Canada and Mexico. -
Wheeler Allows Re-Appointments For SAB But Taps Controversial New Picks
Feb 4, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler is allowing Obama-era appointees to the Science Advisory Board (SAB) to serve a second term, a change from his predecessor's policy that limited such re-appointments, though Wheeler is continuing to bar scientists who receive agency grants from serving and also named some controversial new SAB picks. -
Wheeler Tops List of Nominees, Bills Set for Vote
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler will take another step this week toward confirmation as head of the agency. -
Like Predecessor, Trump's New EPA Pick Favors Meetings With Industry
Feb 4, 2019 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Richard Valdmanis
Acting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler, President Donald Trump's pick to run the agency permanently, held nearly 20 times more meetings with industry representatives than with conservationists during his first two months on the job, according to a copy of his schedule. -
The Pervasiveness of Microplastics
Feb 4, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alex Scott
About a year ago, Philipp Schwabl, a research scientist and physician specializing in intestinal diseases at the Medical University of Vienna, read an article about plastic pollution and started to connect the dots. -
House Democrats Seek PV29 Data EPA Calls Trade Secret
Feb 4, 2019 | Inside EPA
House Democrats are urging EPA to release studies on the toxicity of the chemical pigment violet 29 (PV29), one of the first 10 chemicals that the agency is assessing under the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), echoing environmentalists' charges that the law does not allow withholding documents that EPA has deemed to be trade secrets. -
Attorneys General Petition EPA To Issue Asbestos Reporting Rule
Feb 2, 2019 | National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson
On January 31, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was petitioned by the Attorneys General of 14 states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) and the District of Columbia under Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 21(a) to issue an asbestos reporting rule to require reporting under TSCA Section 8(a) of information necessary for EPA to administer TSCA as to the manufacture (including importation), processing, distribution in commerce, use, and disposal of asbestos. -
(ACC Mentioned) Former Koch Official Runs EPA Chemical Research
Feb 4, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
The Trump administration has placed a former Koch Industries official in charge of research that will shape how the government regulates a class of toxic chemicals contaminating millions of Americans’ drinking water — an issue that could have major financial repercussions for his former employer. -
Senators Call on EPA to Restrict Key Drinking Water Contaminants
Feb 4, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A bipartisan group of 20 senators has called on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate allowable drinking water levels of two chemicals linked to various health problems. -
Wheeler Faces Bipartisan Concerns On PFAS Ahead Of Confirmation Vote
Feb 4, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is facing bipartisan concerns from 20 senators ahead of an upcoming confirmation vote over the agency's expected decision to refrain from establishing enforceable drinking water standards for two of the most common perfluorinated compounds, putting pressure on the agency to reverse course. -
Mich. Senator Slams Air Force Over PFAS Pollution
Feb 1, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Courtney Columbus
Sen. Gary Peters says the Air Force is "not working in good faith" with Michigan to clean up contamination near the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base and called on EPA to set federal standards for the pollutants. -
A Toxic-Chemicals Expert is Sounding The Alarm About 4 Cancer-Linked Chemicals That Could Be Making Us Sicker and Fatter
Feb 4, 2019 | Business Insider
By Hilary Brueck
Through the course of a single day, your hands, mouth, and body come in contact with countless pieces of paper, plastic, fabric, and furniture. -
Colgate Eliminated Triclosan from Its Toothpaste. Could a Ban Be on the Way?
Feb 2, 2019 | Quartz
By Corinne Purtill
Colgate-Palmolive’s newest product, a toothpaste called Colgate Total SF, rolled out this week with a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign that includes a celebrity-studded commercial that will air during Sunday’s Super Bowl. -
United States: The Chemical Compound—January 2019
Feb 4, 2019 | Mondaq
By Lawrence E. Culleen, Michael D. Daneker, Sean Morris, Peggy Otum and Thomas E. Santoro
This quarterly newsletter provides updates on litigation, regulatory, legislative, and other notable developments involving chemicals of concern to business. -
Upper Midwest Gas Market Finds Role as Crossroads of America
Feb 4, 2019 | Platts
By Arsalan Syed
The Upper Midwest market has become the crossroads of America for natural gas, and finding that sweet spot helped the region get through a record-breaking freeze without breaking the bank. -
Groups Sue EPA Over Refinery Standards
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
EPA's latest rewrite of key air regulations for oil refineries is facing a lawsuit from a coalition of environmental groups. -
Western Governors Urge Trump to Preserve CWA 401 Powers
Feb 1, 2019 | Inside EPA
Western governors are urging President Donald Trump to preserve states’ Clean Water Act (CWA) section 401 authority to review federally permitted pipelines and other energy projects in any future executive order, calling the review power “vital” to the cooperative federalism that Congress incorporated in the water law. -
How a ‘Monster’ Texas Oil Field Made the U.S. a Star in the World Market
Feb 3, 2019 | The New York Times
By Clifford Krauss
In a global collapse of oil prices five years ago, scores of American oil companies went bankrupt. But one field withstood the onslaught, and even thrived: the Permian Basin, straddling Texas and New Mexico. -
BP to Expand Emissions Disclosure on Oil Investments
Feb 4, 2019 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Ron Bousso
BP has agreed to broaden its disclosure on greenhouse gas emissions to show how it thinks future investments in oil and gas align with U.N.-backed climate goals, it said on Friday. -
Industry Calls on Court to Uphold FERC Climate Policy
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Energy trade groups are calling on the courts to preserve a federal policy shift on climate analysis for midstream natural gas projects. -
Supermajors Ride High on Gas Exports
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
The liquefied natural gas business delivered returns for the oil and gas supermajors last year, and executives expect more to come for 2019. -
Duke Energy Broke Rules Designed to Keep Electric Grid Safe
Feb 1, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Rebecca Smith
Duke Energy Corp. faces a record $10 million fine from federal authorities for serious and pervasive violations of rules designed to keep the nation’s electric system safe from physical and cyber attacks, according to people familiar with the matter. -
Sterigenics Allegedly Covered Up Toxic Emissions, Operated Secret Plants, Former Workers Say
Feb 4, 2019 | CBS Chicago
By Dave Savini
A local company accused of illegally dumping toxic chemicals for decades took extraordinary steps to cover up the release of a cancer-causing gas and secretly operated other dumping facilities in the suburbs, according to court filings and former workers. -
A Year After a S.C. Amtrak Wreck, Train Safety Tech Goes Online
Feb 4, 2019 | Government Technology
By David Travis Bland
A year ago this week, an Amtrak passenger train slammed into a stopped engine in Cayce, leaving a set of derailed passenger cars bent into a V shape, a smashed Amtrak conductor’s car laying on its side, and a totally demolished engine that looked like it had been run over. Two people were killed and nearly 100 were injured. -
Trump to Seek 'Substantial' Infrastructure Funding
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss and Nick Sobczyk
President Trump will renew his call for major infrastructure legislation during tomorrow's State of the Union address, as talks get underway among key House and Senate lawmakers from both parties. -
Hearing Will Set Stage for Infrastructure Talks
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Maxine Joselow
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing this week on the country's infrastructure needs — a key first step in the bipartisan push to pass a broad infrastructure package. -
Four Lawmakers Tapped to Lead Centrist Democrats’ Climate Group
Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
A group of centrist, pro-business Democrats on Feb. 1 picked four co-chairs to share power on a climate change task force that will develop what they see as more realistic approaches to combating climate change and building a more green economy. -
Hearings Headline Hot Week on Climate
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
House Democrats will lay out their broad visions for tackling climate change this week with a pair of hearings and a mix of high-profile witnesses. -
Top DOJ Official to Personally Argue Youth Climate Case
Feb 1, 2019 | Inside EPA
The Justice Department’s (DOJ) top environment official will personally argue the government’s position in a rare mid-case appeal urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to dismiss a novel constitutional climate case brought by a group of youth plaintiffs before it goes to trial at a lower court. -
Planned Agency Merger Draws Fire From Nebraska Environmentalists
Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Brown
Environmentalists are crying foul over a Nebraska bill that would combine the state’s environmental and energy departments and enable the state to take over Clean Water Act permitting authority from the federal government. -
EPA Nominee Andrew Wheeler is a Risk to Public Health
Feb 4, 2019 | The Hill - Opinion
By Georges C. Benjamin
Andrew Wheeler, President Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, does not seem to be interested in protecting the public’s health or the environment.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
TSCA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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Hearing on Energy and Mineral Markets
Feb 5, 2019 | Energy and Natural Resources
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Feb 6, 2019 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change
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Feb 6, 2019 | Natural Resources
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Hearing on Infrastructure Investment
Feb 7, 2019 | Transportation and Infrastructure
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Feb 7, 2019 | Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development
By 2361-B Rayburn/10:00 AM
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Feb 7, 2019 | Energy and Natural Resources
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(ACC Mentioned) Climate Change Denier Among Those Appointed to EPA Science Board
Feb 2, 2019 | CNN
By Caroline Kelly
The Environmental Protection Agency appointed several new members to its Science Advisory Board who have denied key findings of the harmful effects of man-made pollutants on the environment and human health.The appointments by acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler come following the former coal lobbyist and Republican Senate aide's confirmation hearing last month for him to assume the role permanently. Wheeler said at the hearing that he "would not call (climate change) the greatest crisis," adding that he considers it "a huge issue that has to be addressed globally."One of the newly appointed board members is Dr. John Cristy, a professor at University of Alabama in Huntsville who's a known climate change denier."I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see," Cristy wrote in a 2007 Wall Street Journal op-ed when he was on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a co-recipient of that year's Nobel Peace Prize.In the op-ed, Cristy accused colleagues projecting century-long weather patterns of having "overstated-confidence" and warned of "jump-to-conclusions advocates and, unfortunately, some scientists who see in every weather anomaly the specter of a global-warming apocalypse."Three new appointees have worked on projects dismissing the harmful effects of low doses of well-known toxins.Dr. Richard Williams served on the formaldehyde panel for the American Chemistry Council, which championed research that "supports it safety" (sic) despite EPA guidance that high-level formaldehyde exposure can cause some cancers. He is on the Board of Trustees of the International Life Sciences Institute, which includes several food industry giants and which disputed dietary guidelines that suggest limiting sugar intake.New appointee Dr. Brant Ulsh, who works for the consulting firm M.H. Chew and Associates, criticized how "right now we spend an enormous effort trying to minimize low doses" at nuclear power plants, he told The Associated Press in October. Both the National Academy of Sciences and the EPA have found that even low-level radiation can increase cancer risk.Dr. Barbara Beck, another pick for the board, wrote in 2006 that researchers should be cautious in determining that low-level lead exposure harmed children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have long asserted that "no safe blood lead level in children has been identified." Beck is a consultant at Gradient, an environmental consulting firm that has faced accusations of backing research with results favorable to its interests.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/01/politics/epa-new-board-members-climate-denier/index.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Palmer: Public Education Programs Continue on Recycling
Feb 2, 2019 | The Ledger
By Tom Palmer
State officials’ recent celebration of Florida Recycles Day was accompanied by some useful information that has some bearing on the current recycling contamination problems here in Polk County.
To bring everyone up to date, one of the factors that is affecting recycling revenue locally is the fact that residents are throwing a lot of the wrong stuff into their recycling bins.
As a result, Polk’s recycling contractor has asked for and received an increase of nearly double what it charges to process recycling loads.
Plastic bags and similar materials are one of the most commonly misplaced items in recycling bins.
Some of this material can be recycled, but not via the local curbside recycling programs.
That is where the latest information from the state comes in.
Florida Department of Environmental Protection officials, who encourage and compile information on recycling efforts in the state, on Florida Recycles Day recognized the Wrap Action Recycling Program, which aims to reduce curbside recycling contamination by providing information to the public on the appropriate places to take plastic bags and similar items.
It is a public-private partnership developed in cooperation with the American Chemistry Council, the people who came up with the formulas to make all this plastic in the first place.
Lakeland-based Publix Super Markets is among the participants in this program.
The effort has established a website at https://www.plasticfilmrecycling.org/ that contains a database where residents can find drop-off locations by simply entering their postal code.
In addition to listing drop-off locations, the site provides helpful information about precisely what items should be taken to these recycling sites and what items should go in the garbage instead.
This is the kind of user-friendly information that is essential for any public education campaign involved in recycling and is the kind of information that has sometimes been missing from local government recycling websites.
That may improve soon.
Polk County and the city of Lakeland have hired consultants to help them craft an educational program to aid residents in recycling the right way to reduce contamination.
Polk’s consultant held a series of focus group meetings in late 2018. The results of those meetings and other research has been presented to county officials to help them come up with an educational campaign. No date for that effort has been announced.
Lakeland plans to launch a public survey beginning Monday through Feb. 28 in cooperation with its consultant.
One of the continuing issues causing confusion with the public is the difference in the recycling rules among the local programs.
Polk County’s program, which collects waste in the unincorporated areas, has the most restrictive recycling rules. That program does not accept most types of plastic containers because of changing market conditions caused by China’s decision to no longer accept a lot of the plastics formerly exported there. The county program also no longer accepts glass bottles and jars because county officials contend there is no longer a market for it, adding broken glass contaminates other recyclable materials.
Lakeland’s program still accepts glass and a wide range of plastic containers.
City spokesman Kevin Cook said the city uses a different facility to sort its recyclables and has a market for its glass, though at a lower price than the city formerly received.
Residents interested in recycling properly should pay attention to these campaigns as they develop.
https://www.theledger.com/news/20190202/palmer-public-education-programs-continue-on-recycling
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(ACC Mentioned) Meet Washington’s Plastic Straw Cop
Feb 4, 2019 | The Dailywire
By Paul Bois
With all the municipal governments banning the use of plastic straws, somebody has to be the guy that enforces it. In our nation's capital, that man is Zach Rybarczyk, an inspector for the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment, who goes from restaurant to restaurant issuing notices to any violators, reports the Anchorage Daily News.
Rybarczyk described his recent patrol of D.C.'s Union Station food court, where one violator, the Chinese restaurant Lotus Express, was issued a warning: Should the restaurant fail to eliminate their stash of plastic straws, they would be fined up to $800.
"At Lotus Express, the inspector, one of three dispatched by the city to check cafeterias, bars and restaurants, scribbled the restaurant's name on the paper sleeve of the plastic straw and tucked it into his back pocket, along with two others from scofflaw restaurants," reports the Anchorage Daily News. "He planned to later check whether they floated in water, another telltale sign of prohibited plastic."
Julie Lawson, director of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser's Office of the Clean City, told the Anchorage Daily News that plastic straws will soon become as socially unacceptable as tobacco.
"It's pretty absurd the amount of resources we put into creating plastic materials that we are using for five minutes to an hour, and then never again," said Lawson. "Single-use plastics are taking the same cultural place as tobacco, where it's socially unacceptable."
City officials claim that plastic straws pose a problem to the local Anacostia and Potomac rivers because they are too small for common recycling machinery. The city allegedly cleaned 10,000 plastic straws out last April during the 30th annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup.
Laura Cattell Noll of the Alice Ferguson Foundation, a local environmental group, told the D.C. Council that plastic straws in the street end up in the water system during the rain seasons.
"Plastic pollution that ends up on the street is carried by rain water into storm drains and eventually into streams and rivers," said Cattell Noll. "In many cases, this stormwater is untreated, leaving local waterways choked with plastic bags, Styrofoam, plastic bottles and plastic straws."
Keith Christman, managing director of plastics markets for the American Chemistry Council, told the Anchorage Daily News that a complete ban on plastic straws goes too far, noting that one material will just be substituted for another.
"We don't think the ban is the right approach because it ends up substituting one material for another," said Keith Christman. "What we need to do here is reduce waste and not take a straw when you don't need one."
While some restaurants in D.C. have complied with the ban by switching out plastic straws for compostable material, the city's straw cop Rybarczyk says that other establishments are completely dumbfounded about the new law when he confronts them.
"Obviously there will be some holdouts until July, when we start issuing fines. But it's most fair to give businesses a heads up," said Rybarczyk.
Rybarczyk uses only metal straws when he goes out and keeps one for personal use in his backpack.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/42949/meet-washingtons-plastic-straw-cop-paul-bois
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(ACC Mentioned) Push to End US Steel, Aluminum Duties Against Mexico, Canada Continues
Feb 4, 2019 | The Progressive Farmer
Two groups this week will urge the end of metal tariffs on U.S. allies Canada and Mexico.
The Alliance for Competitive Steel and Aluminum Trade plans to meet with lawmakers Feb. 4-5 and press on the need to remove U.S. metal tariffs on Canada and Mexico before congressional vote on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
USMCA supporters say the steel and aluminum tariffs are diverting industry attention that should be focused on getting the new agreement with Mexico and Canada passed. The metal industry alliance includes businesses ranging from automobile manufacturing to pet food makers and farm groups such as the U.S. Grains Council.
The group Tariffs Hurt the Heartland is leading its own effort Feb. 6-7 with a message that tariffs are a bad weapon to use in trade skirmishes because consumers and industries are hurt.
Major associations participating in this second group include the National Retail Federation, Toy Association, Association of Equipment Manufacturers, Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, National Fisheries Institute, American Chemistry Council, and the American Apparel and Footwear Association. Businesses participating include IBM, Hasbro Wicked Cool Toys, Walmart, and Hewlett Packard.
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/perspectives/columns/washington-insider/article/2019/02/04/bated-breath-dc
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Wheeler Allows Re-Appointments For SAB But Taps Controversial New Picks
Feb 4, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler is allowing Obama-era appointees to the Science Advisory Board (SAB) to serve a second term, a change from his predecessor's policy that limited such re-appointments, though Wheeler is continuing to bar scientists who receive agency grants from serving and also named some controversial new SAB picks.
Among the new selections are scientists who are skeptical of mainstream science on climate change as well as the risks posed by low doses of radiation exposure.
EPA announced Jan. 31 that it will reappoint eight Obama appointees who are eligible to serve for a second term. “All eight of these first-term members were appointed during the prior (Obama) administration, and all eight will be reappointed ... to serve for a second three-year term,” EPA's Jan. 31 statement says.
Similarly, Wheeler also retained most first-term members who were eligible for re-appointment to SAB's four subcommittees, including the Agricultural Science Committee (ASC), the Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee (CAAC), the Drinking Water Committee (DWC) and the Radiation Advisory Committee (RAC).
Wheeler's decision to re-appoint eligible advisors indicates another area in which he breaks from former Administrator Scott Pruitt, who declined to reappoint several Obama appointees to SAB and two other advisory committees, the Board of Scientific Counselors and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). He also removed two CASAC members mid-term.
But while Wheeler -- who is slated to receive a vote as soon as next week in the Senate environment committee on his nomination to permanently lead the agency -- has continued the prior practice of retaining committee members for two terms of service, he hewed to Pruitt's controversial October 2017 policy barring appointment of EPA grant recipients to serve as advisors.
The policy has prompted oversight from congressional Democrats and legal challenges from environmentalists, who charge it keeps well-qualified scientists from serving, though no court has yet ruled on the issue.
The continued application of the policy forced at least one science advisor -- a member of the DWC -- to “step away,” EPA said in its statement.
Pruitt had argued the policy was necessary because EPA grant recipients were biased in favor of regulations. As a result, he selected a host of new advisors from industry, states and elsewhere who generally backed the Trump administration's deregulatory approaches.
Wheeler appeared to continue that approach with some of his new appointees. For example, he appointed John Christy, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Alabama who has long been skeptical of the risks posed by climate change, to the SAB.
He also tapped Brant Ulsh, a physicist with M. H. Chew & Associates who has urged EPA to abandon its view that low doses of radiation pose a cancer risk.
Industry Officials
Wheeler also tapped several former industry officials to serve on the panel. Among them is Hugh Barton, an independent consultant retired from the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, as both a member of SAB and the CAAC chairman. Barton has served on ad hoc EPA advisory panels in the past, including three separate panels that reviewed EPA's efforts to assess the human health risks of perchlorate, a rocket fuel ingredient that has contaminated drinking water sources in some parts of the country.
Barton, whose expertise is in modeling biological systems, was a key member of the 2012 advisory panel that recommended EPA use a novel modeling approach to derive a drinking water goal for perchlorate -- advice that EPA has struggled since to implement, despite a court order.
Wheeler also named Mark Wiesner, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University and an expert in nanotechnology, as the new chair of the DWC and a member of the SAB.
And he tapped Richard Williams, a former official with the Food and Drug Administration, to SAB.
In all, Wheeler appointed eight new board members, four consultants and four academics, bringing SAB's total membership to 45.
Michael Honeycutt, director of toxicology at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, remains SAB chairman. Pruitt appointed Honeycutt to serve as SAB's chairman in 2017.
Like Pruitt, who argued that EPA's advisory committees contained too many academics representing limited regions of the country, Wheeler touts the geographic diversity of the new members and the boards, and appoints a number of consultants.
“In a fair, open, and transparent fashion, EPA reviewed hundreds of qualified applicants nominated for this committee,” Wheeler says in the announcement. “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://insideepa.com/daily-news/wheeler-allows-re-appointments-sab-taps-controversial-new-picks
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Wheeler Tops List of Nominees, Bills Set for Vote
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler will take another step this week toward confirmation as head of the agency.
Tomorrow, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a markup on several bills and nominations, including Wheeler's to be EPA administrator.
Wheeler, who was confirmed by the Senate as deputy chief last April, has held the top job on an acting basis since July. President Trump formally nominated him to lead EPA last month.
EPA's handling of the PFAS class of chemicals has emerged as a potential obstacle for Wheeler's confirmation. Reports last week that EPA planned not to set drinking water standards for two of the chemicals — perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) — troubled both Democrats and Republicans, whose constituents have seen widespread water contamination from the chemicals.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who sits on the EPW panel, was one of those lawmakers who voiced apprehension. After meeting with Wheeler last week to address her concerns, Capito said she would support his nomination.
Capito and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) led a letter Friday to Wheeler urging him to regulate the chemicals, saying specifically that EPA should include in its upcoming PFAS management plan "a commitment to develop federal drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS, pursuant to the Safe Drinking Water Act."
"Without enforceable drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS, it is doubtful that a national management strategy will sufficiently confront the challenges PFAS chemicals pose to states and communities," said the senators in the letter, which Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), also signed (Greenwire, Feb. 1).
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), ranking member on the EPW Committee, said last week both Democrats and Republicans are worried about PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. He pushed Wheeler to set a timeline to issue drinking water standards for the chemicals.
"What we would like from him is an ironclad commitment to do everything, move heaven and earth, to get it done by the end of next year," Carper told reporters. "The idea is to build a little fire under EPA and say, 'Let's get this done.' What we're looking for is a sense of urgency."
The acting EPA chief will also have to contend with some of his internal documents going public as senators consider his nomination. Under Freedom of Information Act litigation from Sierra Club, EPA began last week to release emails and other records related to Wheeler.
The agency will continue to produce those records throughout this month and next under the lawsuit. The group's past FOIA legal work helped uncover records that proved embarrassing for Wheeler's predecessor, Scott Pruitt, and helped lead to his resignation from EPA in July (Greenwire, Feb. 1).
Wheeler has not generated the same heated opposition from Democrats as Pruitt, whose ethics troubles plagued his tenure at EPA.
"To be clear, he is not Scott Pruitt, and Scott Pruitt was ethically bereft. ... Andy Wheeler is not ethically bereft, and that's a plus," Carper said last week. "I think the other thing — I don't think he does not go out of his way to demean the folks who work at the EPA and make them feel unappreciated, undervalued. That's important."Peter Wright, bills
The committee will also vote on the nomination of Peter Wright to lead EPA's Office of Land and Emergency Management.
Wright, a former DowDuPont Inc. lawyer, was up for confirmation last Congress but failed to advance in the Senate. Trump renominated him last month.
The panel will consider Nicole Nason as head of the Federal Highway Administration, former Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) to be assistant secretary of the Commerce Department for economic development and John Ryder to sit on the board of directors for the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Several bills are also on the committee's agenda, including the "Wildlife Innovation and Longevity Driver Act," S. 268, which would promote wildlife conservation, and the "Alaska Remote Generator Reliability and Protection Act," S. 163, which looks to prevent the shutdown of diesel engines due to emissions control devices.
Schedule: The markup is Tuesday, Feb. 5, at 10 a.m. in 406 Dirksen.
Reporters Geof Koss and Nick Sobczyk contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/02/04/stories/1060119405
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Like Predecessor, Trump's New EPA Pick Favors Meetings With Industry
Feb 4, 2019 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Richard Valdmanis
Acting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler, President Donald Trump's pick to run the agency permanently, held nearly 20 times more meetings with industry representatives than with conservationists during his first two months on the job, according to a copy of his schedule.
The industry focus fits neatly with the administration's efforts to reduce environmental red tape for companies, but could add fuel to criticism from Democrats that Wheeler - who is due to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate in the coming days - is too cozy with the industries he oversees.
Wheeler, a longtime Washington insider, took the reins at EPA in July after his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, resigned in a storm of controversy over his high spending on first-class travel, round-the-clock security and office equipment.
During his first several weeks on the job, Wheeler met 18 times with industry representatives, including executives from BP, Valero, FedEx Corp, Monsanto, a unit of Bayer, and the American Fuel Petrochemical Manufacturers trade association, according to the newly released record of his schedule.
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Wheeler met just once with a non-governmental conservation group, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, according to the schedule, which covers July and August and was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Sierra Club.
EPA spokesman Michael Abboud said Wheeler had met with a "diverse range of stakeholders" and added that Wheeler is "happy to meet with those who actually request meetings."
Pruitt also held the vast majority of his meetings with industry representatives, according to his public schedule.
But in Wheeler, Trump has seen another strong supporter of his deregulatory agenda and advocate for the fossil fuels industry without the constant criticism over alleged ethical violations that plagued Pruitt.
Wheeler had worked at the EPA in the 1990s and later in the Senate under Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, from the oil-rich state of Oklahoma and a skeptic of mainstream climate science, before moving to the private sector as a lobbyist and consultant.Editors’ PicksA $21,000 Cosmetology School Debt, and a $9-an-Hour Job‘The Taliban Made Me Fight’: What to Do With Child Recruits After They Serve Time?They Created a Muslim Enclave in Upstate N.Y. Then Came the Online Conspiracies.
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Wheeler has said that he is “not at all ashamed” of his lobbying for the coal company Murray Energy Corp, which he has said focused on securing the pensions of miners.
Wheeler also lobbied for utility Xcel Energy Inc and consulted for biofuels industry group Growth Energy, agricultural merchant and biofuels producer Archer Daniels Midland Co and International Paper Co, according to his public disclosures.
During a Senate hearing on his nomination last month, Wheeler said he did not believe climate change was "the greatest crisis" and defended the agency's moves under Trump to roll back Obama-era measures to fight global warming.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/02/01/world/europe/01reuters-usa-epa-wheeler-meetings.html
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The Pervasiveness of Microplastics
Feb 4, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alex Scott
About a year ago, Philipp Schwabl, a research scientist and physician specializing in intestinal diseases at the Medical University of Vienna, read an article about plastic pollution and started to connect the dots.
About 8 million metric tons of plastic waste enters the oceans every year; eventually those bottles and bags break down into particles. Schwabl wondered whether tiny plastic particles—known as microplastics—are entering the food chain and being consumed by people and, if so, whether they could harm cells and tissue in the human gut.
Schwabl could find no definitive answers, so he decided to undertake his own study. Serendipitously, he discovered that Bettina Liebmann, an analytical chemist who heads Environment Agency Austria’s effort to analyze microplastics, was based a few minutes’ bicycle ride away. The pair teamed up and in October 2018 released the outline of a small pilot study, now undergoing peer review, that they say is the world’s first to confirm that humans are consuming microplastics. In the study, the researchers identify a variety of common plastics in eight subjects’ stool. Because of the study’s small size, the researchers say they are now looking to undertake a bigger study using a larger population.
At about the same time that Schwabl was reading up on microplastics, public interest in plastic pollution erupted, thanks in part to the airing of a BBC documentary on ocean plastics. It was followed by a series of scientific studies adding to the body of evidence that seabirds and aquatic animals—including fish species eaten by humans—often consume microplastics.
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But as Schwabl has discovered, showing definitively that people are eating plastics is one thing, but determining whether they hurt humans is tricky, partly because not all microplastics pose equal risks: The tiny particles are highly variable in size, shape, and chemistry and are found in different concentrations in the environment. In addition, potential hazards presented by microplastics may come from the polymer itself, property-enhancing polymer additives, contaminants that particles have absorbed in the environment, and bacteria that they carry on their surfaces. Isolating exposure to microplastics from food versus the air is another challenge.
Related: Paper on microplastics in fish is retracted
In a bid to discover whether microplastics pose a risk to human health, organizations around the world—many of them in Europe—are now funding research projects to determine their fate and impact. While some scientists contend that consumption of microplastics from fish and other food poses little or no risk to human health, others say that more analysis is needed and that microplastics could harm the human gut and other organs. Much is riding on the research’s findings.VIDEO
Researchers at Aalborg University are developing software for analyzing microplastics. Watch the video, made by Agilent, here.
Last month, Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA), a European advisory body, published a 173-page meta-analysis of existing studies concluding that microplastics do not pose a widespread risk to the environment and human health. The analysis finds only isolated locations around the globe where concentrations of microplastics in sediments and water are so high that they could present a concern to human health.
“Of course, a lack of evidence for risk does not mean we should assume there is no risk,” says Bart Koelmans, chair of the working group that created the report. The group acknowledges that its conclusions are based on a series of assumptions. Measurement methods currently available have limitations, and there is a “need for more inquiry,” the SAPEA report states.
Ominously, SAPEA also concludes that the situation could change if pollution continues at the current rate. It cites one study concluding that risks posed by microplastics could become widespread by 2060.
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Heather A. Leslie, a toxicologist and expert in microplastics with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, is concerned that widespread effects could already be happening. Microplastics could be causing chronic inflammation, which she describes as a “silent killer because it can be a prequel to other diseases,” in people’s tissues. Further investigation is warranted, she says. Some insight into the possible physical effects of plastic particles can be gleaned from animal models and lab tests of human cells and tissues.
They include lung and gut injury, according to a study by Leslie and A. Dick Vethaak, a professor at the Dutch research institute Deltares (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2016, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b02569).
To go deeper, researchers say, a good starting point is looking at food sources that may be high in microplastics.
Related: President Signs Microbead Ban
In April 2018 at Analytica, a conference and trade show for analytical chemists held in Munich, Leslie suggested that shellfish could be the “canary in the coal mine” when looking at the effect of microplastics on organisms because shellfish concentrate particles—including those made from plastic—by filtering them from water.
A lab study led by the University of Plymouth published late last year in Environmental Science and Technologyappears to add credence to Leslie’s hypothesis (2018, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b05266).Nanoplastic in seafood could easily be eaten by humans; there is no reason to doubt this is happening.Richard C. Thompson, professor of marine biology, University of Plymouth
In the study, funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council, scallops—a shellfish species found on many restaurant menus—were found to accumulate billions of nanoplastic particles in their tissues within just a few hours of being exposed to them at a concentration similar to those in the oceans. Nanoplastics are extremely small microplastic particles that are below 100 nm in size. The authors say it is the first time that a study of its kind has used a concentration of nanoplastics similar to those found in the environment.
“The scallops were destroyed at the end of the experiment, but nanoplastic in seafood could easily be eaten by humans; there is no reason to doubt this is happening,” says Richard C. Thompson, a professor of marine biology at the University of Plymouth and one of the study’s contributors.
Whether this phenomenon translates into a health risk, though, is something of a leap, according to Thompson. “I don’t see any evidence at present of concern for human health in eating seafood,” he says.Credit: University of PlymouthScallops consumed billions of nanoplastic particles in a recent lab study by researchers at the University of Plymouth. A heat map (right) shows the concentration of particles taken up by one of the scallops. Yellow indicates high concentrations, and red indicates low concentrations.
SAPEA concurs with Thompson, asserting that shellfish pose no major human health risk. SAPEA draws its conclusion by comparing the amount of plastic people might consume from shellfish with their expected total environmental exposure. For example, one portion of mussels would contribute less than 2% per day of a person’s exposure to bisphenol A, a monomer used to make polycarbonate plastic, the report says.
But MedUni Vienna’s Schwabl is among a number of scientists who are more skeptical about the risks posed by microplastics that might be taken up by the body. “Now that we have first evidence for microplastics being ingested and excreted by humans, we need further research to understand if there is also microplastic uptake and if this potentially affects human health,” he says.
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Schwabl wants to investigate whether there is a link between microplastics and gastrointestinal disease. “Patients with a damaged gut barrier are more susceptible to uptake of microparticles,” he claims.
And the risk could go beyond the gut. “In animal studies, the smallest microplastic particles are capable of entering the bloodstream and lymphatic system and may even reach the liver,” Schwabl says.
He hopes to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund a second, more detailed version of his initial study to evaluate the effect of microplastics on individual cells. Such a study could determine whether cells can be damaged by exposure to certain microplastics, Schwabl says. While his initial research featured just eight subjects, a subsequent study would investigate a much larger human population.Microplastics at a glance
▸ What they are: Plastic fragments between 100 nm and 5 mm in size.
▸ How they form: Most microplastics result from the environment shredding littered plastics over time. They are also intentionally placed in paints and cosmetics.
▸ The scale of the problem: About 8 million metric tons of plastic enters the aquatic environment every year, but microplastics are also in the air, the soil, and our homes.
Potential hazards from microplastics
Credit: Shutterstock▸ Human pathogens:Bacteria such as Escherichia coli have been discovered on the surface of microplastics.
▸ Chemicals from the environment: Synthetic hydrophobic contaminants in oceans can adsorb to the surface of microplastics.
▸ Toxic monomers or additives: Chemicals such as bisphenol A, used to make polycarbonate, are endocrine disruptors.
▸ Physical obstruction: Large pieces of plastic can cause obstruction in animals’ guts.
New tools for analyzing microplastics
Credit: Shutterstock▸ Pretreatment:Improved technologies for isolating microplastics in wastewater harness chemicals and enzymes.
▸ Tagging:Radiolabeling of microplastic particles can identify whether they are consumed by shellfish and other animals.
▸ Standards: Standard operating procedures and method validation for lab testing of microplastics, along with improved reference materials, allow researchers to compare results.Sources: Environment Agency Austria, University of Plymouth, Joint Research Centre, Aalborg University.
Schwabl won’t just be repeating the first study but will investigate whether plastic gets taken up into the body from the gut and harms the intestinal tract or whether it simply passes through to the stool.
While some of the microplastics identified in the Schwabl-Liebmann study may have come from fish, the study included two non-fish-eating participants who had plastics in their stool. One possible source is food packaging.
People could also be consuming plastic particles, including those added intentionally to cosmetics and paints, from sewage used by farms. Approximately 43% of microplastics that enter wastewater treatment plants end up on agricultural land as part of fertilizers made from treated sewage sludge, according to Peter Simpson, senior scientific officer at the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the body responsible for regulating chemicals in the European Union.We are still at the initial stages of understanding human exposure and what the threat may be.Heather A. Leslie, toxicologist, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
“Their accumulation in agricultural land is a concern because we cannot currently assess the risks to the environment resulting from such long-term accumulation and exposure,” Simpson says.
The use of microbeads in cosmetics was banned in the US in July 2018, and Europe is expected to introduce a similar ban starting in 2020. ECHA says this would prevent almost 30,000 metric tons of microplastics per year from entering the environment.
ECHA, as well as the European Food Safety Authority, will draw on guidance from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, a research institute that seeks to develop, harmonize, and support standardization of analytical methods for assessing microplastics.ADVERTISEMENT
A hotbed of European microplastic analysis is Germany’s Ministry of Education and Research, which is funding 18 projects on plastics in the environment. Some of them are investigating the fate of microplastics, including particles from vehicle tires, or are developing tools for evaluating the toxicity of microplastics.
Such studies are needed to get a clearer picture of the risks that microplastics pose in the food chain, according to a number of experts in the field. “We know more about exposures, and there is no doubt we are exposed. But we still know little about whether there are effects,” says Chelsea Rochman, assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto.
Rochman led a 2015 study showing that microplastics were present in a substantial percentage of fish sold in Indonesia and California. Since then, she says, researchers have come no closer to determining the risks that microplastics pose to humans.
Some scientists warn that when eaten, microplastics can deliver component or contaminant chemicals in a way that is more harmful than if those same chemicals were inhaled.
Related: Showcasing science’s role in addressing plastic in oceans
“Because chemicals associated with microplastics are being delivered on a different chemical basis to the tissue, it could mean that they have a higher bioavailability,” says David Santillo, senior scientist at Greenpeace’s global analytical chemistry lab, which is based at the University of Exeter. “As a result, they should be investigated separately.”
Among the potential hazards posed by microplastics, endocrine disruption and exposure to pathogens are two that are little understood, Santillo says. Endocrine-disrupting substances, such as bisphenol A, could cause effects at extremely low levels of exposure if concentrated on or within microplastic particles, Santillo says.
Meanwhile, plastic debris in rivers and lakes has been shown to contain the human pathogens Escherichia coli, Bacillus cereus, and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2014, DOI: 10.1021/es503610r).
The potential risks posed by microplastics are starting to attract the chemical industry’s attention. The International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), a trade group, has set up a microplastics task force. Chemical industry executives say they are keen to determine the best ways of evaluating the risk that microplastics pose to human health and the environment.Patients with a damaged gut barrier are more susceptible to uptake of microparticles.Philipp Schwabl, research scientist, Medical University of Vienna
“We do not only need more data; we need suitable data,” says Philipp Hopp, an ICCA task force member and ecotoxicologist at BASF.
A whole host of standard practices needs to be agreed upon, Hopp says. These practices include methodologies, risk approaches, exposure modeling to properly assess hazard, lab-to-field extrapolations, and more, he says.
The ICCA task force held a symposium on the issue in 2018 and is planning a technical workshop in Europe later this year to bring experts together. “We can learn a lot from nanomaterial research; however, microplastic particles possess many unique features which have to be considered and investigated,” Hopp says.
As a member of ICCA, Cefic, Europe’s leading chemical industry association, has set aside about €650,000 ($680,000) for two studies: one to determine microplastic hazards and one to develop a model of how microplastics are transported in the aquatic environment and where they end up. Via its Long-Range Research Initiative (LRI), Cefic has contracted out the two studies to independent research organizations. Both are due to get underway by March 31.
In an indication that scientists have an appetite to investigate microplastics, the LRI program received three times the usual number of applications to undertake the studies, says Bruno Hubesch, head of LRI.
Less clear is whether overall funding matches researcher interest in studying the risks posed by microplastics. According to the University of Plymouth’s Thompson, there is “no particular uplift” in funding. He says he’s “concerned we need more science to help identify the best solutions.”
It is a point echoed by Greenpeace’s Santillo. “Microplastics have been an overlooked and underinvestigated source of chemical contamination,” he says.
Scientists across the board take the position that consumers should continue to eat shellfish and other fish even if—as we now know—they are likely to contain microplastics. “The most important thing at the moment is really not to worry or be frightened about this. We are far from calling microplastics a danger,” Schwabl says.
They also agree that the analysis is far from complete. As Leslie said at the Munich meeting, “We are still at the initial stages of understanding human exposure and what the threat may be.”
With microplastics comes the need to analyzeCredit: AgilentAgilent has developed a handheld Fourier transform infrared scanner that can be used to gather data on microplastics in the environment.To determine the risk that microplastics may pose to human health, researchers are devising a host of novel approaches and analytical techniques. There is also a surge of activity around the world by scientists, regulators, and instrument makers to harmonize and validate the best analytical methods so that studies can be directly compared. New techniques are required because of the complexity associated with analyzing microplastics.
Philipp Schwabl, a research scientist and physician specializing in intestinal diseases at the Medical University of Vienna, and Bettina Liebmann, an analytical chemist who heads the Environment Agency Austria’s effort to analyze microplastics, conducted a small study to determine whether people are consuming microplastics. They drew on novel techniques to assess the stool of eight people located around the world. None of the participants were vegetarians; six of them consumed seafood.
In the study, the scientists identified up to nine different plastics sized between 50 and 500 µm in every stool sample, with polypropylene and poly(ethylene terephthalate) being the most common. On average, the researchers found 20 particles per 10 g of stool.
Liebmann adapted techniques used by the Environment Agency Austria for analyzing microplastics in wastewater. One of them involved applying a combination of chemicals and enzymes to the stool to remove organic matter and retain plastic particles. “We continue to broaden our toolbox of methods,” she says.
Liebmann then combined Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) with microscopy and imaging to identify various plastic particles. Each plastic type absorbs light of characteristic wavelength, allowing researchers to create a database for material identification. “The acquired FT-IR spectra can be compared against the database to determine which plastics are present,” Liebmann says. With the technique, stool that is put on a 47 mm diameter filter can be scanned in about 8 h, generating about 1 GB of data.
The technique, which can measure particles from 500 µm down to a few micrometers, allows Liebmann to determine whether a microplastic particle is a fiber or fragment by measuring its diameter. “We would need a different approach for measuring nanoscale,” she says.
Methods used by the University of Plymouth’s Maya Al Sid Cheikh and colleagues to determine the uptake of nanoplastics by scallops also required new techniques. Before the study, no analytical techniques had yet been applied that were sensitive enough to measure the distribution of microplastics in wild organisms, according to Al Sid Cheikh. So the Plymouth researchers developed their own approach by pouring radiolabeled particles into tanks of scallops. The university is now using the same technique with other fish.
The researchers fed the scallops 24 nm and 250 nm polystyrene particles at a dose of 15 µg per liter of water. This is equivalent to the concentration of nanoscale plastics found in the environment, the researchers say. They found that billions of particles lodged in the scallops’ intestines, kidneys, gills, and muscles. The results show for the first time that nanoplastics can be rapidly taken up by a marine organism and that in just a few hours they become distributed across most of three major organs, the researchers say.
A lack of standards in the assessment of microplastics has hampered direct comparison of studies. A host of organizations, including the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the scientific instrument makers Agilent Technologies and PerkinElmer, are looking to change this situation.
Agilent says it is developing instrument software featuring standard operating protocols for quantifying and characterizing microplastics.
To this end, the firm has teamed up with Jes Vollertsen, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Aalborg University. His research group has written a program that automatically analyzes Agilent’s FT-IR imaging data and presents color-coded images based on chemical identification.
PerkinElmer says it has used involvement in projects, such as its research collaboration with Greenpeace assessing microplastic pollution in Antarctica, to provide guidance for using FT-IR microscopy to assess microplastics. PerkinElmer has also created the Microplastics Scientific Network to share updates on research and regulatory activity, says Ian Robertson, a senior applications scientist for spectroscopy at the firm.
Meanwhile, the JRC is developing standard protocols for FT-IR combined with Raman spectroscopy. The approach is becoming a routine method for chemically identifying micrometer-range polymer particles, although it is currently too time consuming, says Brigitte Toussaint, project officer for the JRC. Depending on spatial resolution, analyzing a few square centimeters using this technique can take up to 24 h, Toussaint says. Another drawback of the combination is that it’s ineffective at analyzing particles below 0.5 µm, she says.
The JRC is seeking technologies that are faster and more sensitive. To identify polymer particles smaller than 100 nm, FT-IR could be combined with atomic force microscopy scanning technology, Toussaint says.
Other sensitive analytical techniques, such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, may have a role in assessing microparticles as well as providing information about absorbed surface contaminants, she says, but they are complex and costly and are most appropriate for resolving specific analytical problems rather than for routine analysis.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/pervasiveness-microplastics/97/i5
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House Democrats Seek PV29 Data EPA Calls Trade Secret
Feb 4, 2019 | Inside EPA
House Democrats are urging EPA to release studies on the toxicity of the chemical pigment violet 29 (PV29), one of the first 10 chemicals that the agency is assessing under the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), echoing environmentalists' charges that the law does not allow withholding documents that EPA has deemed to be trade secrets.
“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 as the EPA continues to work towards completing Risk Evaluations on the current ten and all future chemicals under review,” leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee write in a Jan. 30 letter to Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
The lawmakers, Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), the committee chairman, and Paul Tonko (D-NY), chairman of the committee's environment subpanel, ask Wheeler to respond by Feb. 6, and request as well “all documentation and email communication related to EPA’s decision to label as CBI the health and safety studies considered in the Draft Risk Evaluation for Pigment Violet 29, including any substantiating materials or certifications submitted by the manufacturer.”
Pallone and Tonko argue that EPA's decision to withhold as CBI the studies it bases its draft PV29 assessment upon is unlawful, pointing to the revised TSCA statute section 14(b), which defines information that is not protected from disclosure by EPA. The representatives point specifically to section 14(b)(2), which states that TSCA's CBI provisions “do[] not prohibit the disclosure of (A) any health and safety study which is submitted under this Act...”
Environmentalists' recent critical comments on the draft PV29 assessment also raise this concern. Like the Democrats, they argue that EPA is acting unlawfully and setting poor precedent with its decisions in comments that could hint at a legal challenge.
But the Color Pigments Manufacturers Association, Inc. (CPMA) says that EPA made the right call. They argue that section 14 “does not require EPA to publish confidential health and safety studies."
In the trade association's recent comments on the draft PV29 assessment, it says that if EPA were to publish such studies, the agency "would force companies which have expended considerable resources developing products to unfairly subsidize competitors in world markets. The implementation of such a restrictive interpretation would have a chilling effect on companies working voluntarily with the EPA in its review of existing chemicals. In particular, it would discourage companies from voluntarily expending resources on expensive toxicology studies to understand the potential health effects of their products. We do not believe that this reflects the intent of the TSCA statute."
Environmentalists first raised this issue last December, when they filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CBI studies.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/house-democrats-seek-pv29-data-epa-calls-trade-secret
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Attorneys General Petition EPA To Issue Asbestos Reporting Rule
Feb 2, 2019 | National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson
On January 31, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was petitioned by the Attorneys General of 14 states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington) and the District of Columbia under Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 21(a) to issue an asbestos reporting rule to require reporting under TSCA Section 8(a) of information necessary for EPA to administer TSCA as to the manufacture (including importation), processing, distribution in commerce, use, and disposal of asbestos. Specifically, the petition states that the Attorneys General are petitioning EPA’s Administrator to: [I]nitiate a rulemaking and issue a new asbestos reporting rule to: (i) eliminate any applicability of the “naturally occurring substance” (NOCS) exemption in the [Chemical Data Reporting (CDR)] for asbestos reporting; (ii) apply the CDR reporting requirements to processors of asbestos, as well as manufacturers, including importers, of the chemical substance; (iii) ensure that the impurities exemption in the CDR does not apply to asbestos; and (iv) require reporting with respect to imported articles that contain asbestos. In support of their requests in the petition, the Attorneys General state the following:NOCS Exemption: “[t]he identified uses of imported raw asbestos represent pathways of exposure that present risks to health and the environment that EPA must consider in conducting its risk evaluation and regulating asbestos, and accordingly EPA should promulgate an asbestos reporting rule to require reporting of such information. Moreover, the required asbestos reporting must capture information with respect to the quantities imported, and these potential exposure pathways so this information can be made available to inform the states’ and the public’s knowledge regarding asbestos exposure risks.”Reporting from Processors: “to to enable EPA to carry out its responsibility to impose requirements on processors to eliminate unreasonable risks of injury to health or the environment arising from exposures to asbestos, EPA must promulgate new regulations to apply the reporting requirements of the CDR to processors of asbestos notwithstanding that the current CDR does not expressly require such reporting. Should EPA fail to do so, EPA would be violating TSCA, acting arbitrarily and capriciously, and abusing its discretion in implementing TSCA.”Exemptions for “Impurities” and “Articles”: “while the CDR exempts reporting with respect to ‘impurities’ and for chemical substances imported as ‘part of an article,’ neither of these exceptions should be applied to reporting with respect to the presence of asbestos if EPA is to satisfy TSCA’s mandate to prevent unreasonable risks associated with exposures to this highly toxic chemical.”Reporting for Asbestos: “EPA must account for the many tons of asbestos that are imported into the U.S., whether as a raw material or processed, to evaluate adequately the current and likely future risks of exposure to asbestos, and must also account for asbestos in consumer products, whether or not the asbestos is intentionally included in those products. These data … are needed for EPA to be able to make informed technically complex decisions regarding the regulation of asbestos. Without these data to rely on, the agency will be unable to meet its obligations under TSCA to make its decisions based on the weight of the scientific evidence and using the best available science …. Accordingly, EPA must issue an asbestos reporting rule to ensure that the NOCS, the impurities, and the articles exemptions do not apply to asbestos and that processors of asbestos are required to report.”
The petition cites EPA’s denial of a petition submitted by a group of non-governmental organizations (NGO) seeking similar action that the Attorneys General are requesting but does not address the many reasons that EPA denied the first petition. Why the Attorneys General would follow up EPA’s well-reasoned denial with a petition of their own with very similar requests and only marginal additional facts, is unclear. More information on the NGO petition is available in our blog item EPA Denies Section 21 Petition Seeking Increased Asbestos Reporting.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/attorneys-general-petition-epa-to-issue-asbestos-reporting-rule
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(ACC Mentioned) Former Koch Official Runs EPA Chemical Research
Feb 4, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
The Trump administration has placed a former Koch Industries official in charge of research that will shape how the government regulates a class of toxic chemicals contaminating millions of Americans’ drinking water — an issue that could have major financial repercussions for his former employer.
David Dunlap, a deputy in EPA’s Office of Research and Development, is playing a key role as the agency decides how to protect people from the pollution left behind at hundreds of military bases and factories across the country.
President Donald Trump has not nominated anyone to run the office. That effectively allows Dunlap to avoid the Senate confirmation process while overseeing a central part of EPA's work that could impose cleanup costs on companies that have used the chemicals, including major Koch subsidiary Georgia-Pacific. The paper and pulp conglomerate is already facing at least one class-action lawsuit related to the chemicals.
Previously undisclosed documents obtained by POLITICO show Dunlap began working on the issue almost immediately upon arriving at EPA in October. He had spent the previous eight years as Koch Industries' lead expert on water and chemical regulations, a position that typically includes helping companies to limit regulatory restrictions and liability for cleanups.
Democratic lawmakers and environmentalist say the prevalence of administration officials who came from the chemicals industry contributes to its hands-off approach to the chemicals, which are appearing in drinking water supplies across the country to rising public alarm. Known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, the chemicals have been linked with kidney and testicular cancer, as well as other ailments.
Both Republicans and Democrats have urged a stronger approach from acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler — who faces a confirmation vote in the Senate Environment Committee Tuesday — but he has stopped short of using all the tools in the agency's arsenal.
Just last week, POLITICO reported the agency has decided against setting drinking water limits for the two most well-understood chemicals in the class in a forthcoming plan for the chemicals, and the new documents show Dunlap was involved in high-level meetings preceding that decision.
Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said Dunlap’s hiring adds to his concerns about the Trump administration's handling of the issue.
“Coming on the heels of Mr. Wheeler’s failure to commit to setting a drinking water standard for PFAS, this potential conflict of interest within the agency paints a bleak picture about EPA’s priorities on chemical safety with respect to these particular substances. I look forward to learning more about Mr. Dunlap’s role in the development of EPA’s PFAS management plan,” Carper said in a statement.
Dunlap’s ethics agreement bars him from “participating in any particular matter involving specific parties” related to Koch Industries, but the agency’s ethics officials have typically taken a narrow interpretation of such prohibitions. And while Dunlap voluntarily recused himself from work on formaldehyde, which Georgia-Pacific produces, the agreement includes no mention of PFAS.
Koch Industries spokesperson David Dziok said that Dunlap worked on a broad set of issues related to water and chemicals during his time with the company, but that "PFAs were not part of the portfolio he managed."
Dunlap did not respond to a request for comment. EPA did not answer specific questions about Dunlap’s involvement in the agency’s work and his potential conflict of interest.
Dunlap's calendars, obtained by POLITICO under the Freedom of Information Act, show he participated in at least nine PFAS meetings in his first six weeks onthe job, including an Oct. 22 briefing with Wheeler, chief of staff Ryan Jackson and other top political officials. At the time, agency leaders were writing a wide-ranging chemical management plan in which they decided not to set a drinking water standard for the two specific chemicals — PFOA and PFOS. That plan has been under review at the White House since December.
While those two older chemicals are no longer used in the U.S., EPA estimatesthat there are between 5,000 and 10,000 similar chemical compounds, used in everything from nonstick cookware to water resistant jackets to microwave popcorn bags. Industry has argued that the newer compounds are less dangerous to human health, but scientists say there is reason to worry that the entire class of PFAS compounds poses a risk. Public health advocates are pushing EPA to regulate the chemicals as a class, arguing that evaluating each one individually will take decades, if it happens at all.
The calendars also show Dunlap helping to shape EPA's approach to these newer compounds that are still in use. He participated in an Oct. 31 call with career staff in his division on two chemicals, GenX and PFBS, for which they were preparing health assessments. Research has shown those new chemicals can also be dangerous, and that those dangers may be greater when people are exposed to them in combination with other chemicals, as they often occur in drinking water. Environmental groups have said the chemicals should be evaluated together to account for those risks, but EPA took the opposite approach when it released the GenX and PFBS health assessments two weeks later.
Then on Nov. 5, Dunlap was scheduled to join a call with staff scientific leads to discuss the next slate of chemicals for which they would prepare health assessments. Dunlap's former employer has a stake in which chemicals EPA focuses on: A company spokesperson said Georgia-Pacific may still be using PFAS in its products, as it has in the past, but she would not say which specific chemicals it uses. There are very few legal requirements for companies to tell the public or regulators which chemicals they use in their processes and at which factories.
In response to questions about Dunlap's role, an EPA spokesperson said, "Addressing PFAS is an Agency-wide effort with David Ross, the EPA’s Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water, serving as the EPA staff lead on addressing PFAS."
However, the research overseen by Dunlap lays the groundwork for any regulatory decisions Ross is coordinating. EPA officials have underscored the importance of research to their PFAS work in a number of public presentations, including briefings to the agency's Science Advisory Board and at meetings in affected communities.
Georgia-Pacific, which manufactures products like Brawny paper towels and Dixie cups, has not only used PFAS in some of its food packaging products, but has also owned facilities where the chemicals were disposed, creating a cleanup liability that could prove costly.
The company is already facing a class-action lawsuit from citizens in the town of Parchment, Mich., where last summer state officials discovered the chemicals in drinking water at concentrations as much as 26 times higher than EPA’s recommended limit. That contamination was traced to a paper mill that Georgia-Pacific previously had a stake in.
Georgia-Pacific spokesperson Karen Cole said the company believes that “only a very small percentage of our food wrap and related products — if any” contain the chemicals today, and noted that PFOA and PFOS were phased out of use in food wrappers "several years ago." She said Georgia-Pacific does not apply the PFAS itself, but gets paper from a supplier that in some cases has previously treated it with PFAS.
“We are currently evaluating past manufacturing practices to better understand any potential previous use of these materials,” she said by email.
In his LinkedIn profile, Dunlap describes himself as the “lead and subject matter expert” on water and chemicals issues for Koch’s entire suite of companies during his eight years there. Even if he did not directly manage the company's work on PFAS, it would be “hard to believe that he had not touched any decisions on PFAS with that broad of a scope of responsibilities," said Erik Olson, who leads the Natural Resources Defense Council’s public health work.
Olson said Dunlap’s oversight of EPA’s research on the chemicals raises red flags. “You want an independent, hardheaded scientific review of these issues; you don’t want somebody who is already taking the industry party line,” he said.
According to federal disclosures, Koch Industries spent at least $90,000 in 2018 lobbying on issues related to chemicals. The American Chemistry Council, the chemicals industry’s largest lobbying group, which Georgia-Pacific has worked through in the past to influence policy on toxic chemicals, spent $9 million last year lobbying lawmakers, EPA and other agencies, including on PFAS issues.
The Food and Drug Administration governs the use of chemicals in food wrappers, and has approved 21 PFAS blends for such use, according to Tom Neltner, the chemicals policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund who has conducted research on paper mills’ use of the compounds. But he said the greater liability that paper companies like Georgia-Pacific may face comes from manufacturing waste that contains the chemicals, such as leftover paper trimmings.
That waste can end up in landfills or compost that is used to grow fruits and vegetables, Neltner said.
"There's a legitimate threat there and, from my perspective, the conflicts of interest that [Dunlap] has having worked as a regulatory compliance director at Georgia-Pacific raises questions about whether he can make those objective decisions or should be recused," he said.
Moreover, Georgia-Pacific may well have cleanup responsibility for other sites like the one in Michigan. During the time it operated the manufacturing plant, from 2000 to 2015, Georgia-Pacific closed a landfill that had also been used by other companies, including at least one that the company says it believes used a 3M-patented PFAS. The class-action lawsuit filed by citizens alleges that Georgia-Pacific did not properly close the landfill to prevent the chemicals from leaching into nearby water. Georgia-Pacific is currently working with the state of Michigan to trace the chemicals' movement through groundwater.
Under the Superfund law, a company can be held liable for cleanup even if it wasn’t primarily responsible for the contamination.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/agriculture/article/2019/02/former-koch-official-runs-epa-chemical-research-1136230
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Senators Call on EPA to Restrict Key Drinking Water Contaminants
Feb 4, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A bipartisan group of 20 senators has called on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate allowable drinking water levels of two chemicals linked to various health problems.
The letter was sent Friday by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and others, days after Politico reported that the EPA is expected to decide against setting drinking water limits for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) as part of an upcoming national strategy for dealing with the class of chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
“If this is accurate, EPA’s inaction would be a major setback to states and affected communities,” the senators wrote to acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler.ADVERTISEMENT
“Therefore, we ask you to develop enforceable federal drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS, as well as institute immediate actions to protect the public from contamination from additional per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).”
EPA did not directly deny Politico's report, but said in a statement earlier this week that officials had not published a final decision on whether to regulate the substances' levels in drinking water.
The letter comes days before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee votes on Wheeler’s nomination to be the EPA’s official administrator. Capito and many of the Democrats who signed onto the demand sit on that committee.
PFOS and PFOA have been used to manufacturer various products like firefighting foam and non-stick materials. They could be cancerous, and have been linked to other health problems like immune system disorders and developmental delays.
Communities around the country have started to discover PFOS and PFOA in their drinking water supplies, leading to growing calls for EPA action.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/428102-senators-call-on-epa-to-restrict-key-drinking-water-contaminants
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Wheeler Faces Bipartisan Concerns On PFAS Ahead Of Confirmation Vote
Feb 4, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is facing bipartisan concerns from 20 senators ahead of an upcoming confirmation vote over the agency's expected decision to refrain from establishing enforceable drinking water standards for two of the most common perfluorinated compounds, putting pressure on the agency to reverse course.
In a Feb. 1 letter led by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the senators urge Wheeler to develop “enforceable drinking water standards for [perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)] as well as institute immediate actions to protect the public from contamination from additional” per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
The letter responds to media reports that EPA does not plan to move forward on setting a maximum contaminant level (MCL) after months of weighing the possibility, though as Inside EPA has reported, the agency is weighing additional regulatory actions, including listing the substances under the Superfund law and site-specific enforcement orders under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
The chemicals, which have been linked to adverse health effects including certain cancers and ulcerative colitis and other conditions, have become a widespread contaminant in drinking water supplies in various communities.
EPA's 2016 health advisories for the two chemicals lack enforceability, and leave states without federal guidance on determining and implementing drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS, the letter says.
Without such standards, states have developed their own levels for PFAS, an “uncoordinated process” that has “led to a patchwork of conflicting drinking water standards and guidelines in nine states with widely varying maximum contaminant levels [(MCLs)],” the senators say. “Moreover, the varying levels of standards have caused confusion among regulated entities and affected communities who wonder if their regulations are sufficient.”
As a result, the senators say such inaction from EPA “would be a major setback to states and affected communities,” because such standards are critical to responding to public concerns “and allow for states to focus their efforts and limited resources on implementation and compliance assurance."
Wheeler said in response to the report that the agency has not yet made a final decision to refrain from setting a standard. But officials have said that they may not be able to meet the legal criteria under SDWA to craft an MCL though they have indicated they may act urgently to treat the chemicals as a hot-spot issue, rather than addressing it with a national standard.
For instance, Lee Forsgren, the politically appointed deputy in EPA's water office, told drinking water advisers late last year that PFAS is “a hyper-local national issue.”
There are "vast areas unaffected" but it is "cropping up in sufficient places" EPA "can't brush it off," he said, adding, "We've got to address it."
Nevertheless, the report that EPA has decided not to craft an MCL drew a firestorm of criticism, including from key Republicans like Capito, a member of the Senate environment committee, which is slated to vote as soon as next week on Wheeler's nomination to permanently lead EPA.
As such, Capito enjoys significant leverage to force EPA action because the committee's closely divided 11-10 margin means any Republican voting against Wheeler could block his nomination.
While Republicans enjoy a 53-47 vote margin in the Senate, Wheeler could also face potential difficulties over the issue on the Senate floor as another Republican, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), also signed the letter.
In addition, a number of Democrats from key states that President Donald Trump won in 2016 also signed the letter, including Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Robert Casey (D-PA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
Other Concerns
Wheeler is also facing a series of additional concerns over PFAS. For example, the senators also express doubt that the agency's national management strategy -- currently in interagency review -- “will sufficiently confront the challenges PFAS chemicals pose to states and affected communities” if EPA fails to develop MCLs for PFOA and PFOS.
They urge Wheeler to ensure that the PFAS action plan includes a commitment to writing SDWA standards for PFOA and PFOS, and ask for briefings on the agency's efforts on the issue. “We believe it is imperative that the EPA show leadership and help protect American families from these harmful materials,” they conclude.
They also contend that if EPA refrains from developing such standards, such a decision would fail to consider ongoing interagency work to determine the human health impacts of PFAS contamination, particularly the nationwide study being conducted by the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR). Under recent defense authorization laws, ATSDR has been given funding to study PFAS exposure and health outcomes.
In addition, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who signed the letter, also asks Wheeler a series of written questions for the record following his confirmation hearing last month though Wheeler declined to offer any commitments.
For example, Sanders asks Wheeler whether he will “commit to avoiding any actions that would preempt states' ability to enforce health advisory levels for PFAS enacted before April 22, 2016 that are more stringent than the EPA's standards?” Sanders notes the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reforms included a measure that protects states with more stringent standards on the books before that date, noting that Vermont's health advisories for PFAS are stricter than EPA's.
Vermont in 2016 set drinking water health advisories for PFOA and PFOS of 20 parts per trillion (ppt) -- much lower than EPA's 70 ppt for the chemicals individually or combined.
But Wheeler refrained from directly answering, saying that the agency will follow the TSCA reform law's preemption requirements.
Wheeler was also pressed by Sanders on updating the agency's PFOA and PFOS health advisory levels in light of ATSDR's draft toxicological profile issued last year, which would create minimal risk levels (MRLs) for the two chemicals at levels seven to 10 times more stringent than risk values EPA used to set its 70 ppt health advisory levels.
But Wheeler makes no commitments in his response to revising EPA's health advisories to match ATSDR's analysis, instead saying the agency is carefully reviewing the draft toxicological profile, acknowledging that other health agencies such as ATSDR may issue differing health-based values based on their own statutory mandates and analysis.
He says that the MRLs and health advisories “are two different tools that are used in different situations” and reiterated distinctions that ATSDR made when it released the draft profile, saying MRLs are only meant to be used as a screening tool to aid public health professionals in determining where “to look more closely,” and are not meant as a maximum safe exposure level. In contrast, health advisories are “a concentration in drinking water that is not expected to cause any adverse human health effects over an exposure period” -- in this case over a lifetime.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/wheeler-faces-bipartisan-concerns-pfas-ahead-confirmation-vote
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Mich. Senator Slams Air Force Over PFAS Pollution
Feb 1, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Courtney Columbus
Sen. Gary Peters says the Air Force is "not working in good faith" with Michigan to clean up contamination near the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base and called on EPA to set federal standards for the pollutants.
At issue is contamination near the base that has been polluted with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a toxic class of chemicals used in products including military firefighting foam and nonstick cookware.
The Air Force's "aggressive and defensive posture" is "unproductive at best, and it concerns me that so little has been accomplished since PFAS was confirmed at Wurtsmith in 2010," the Michigan Democrat wrote in a letter to Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson.
"The Air Force's refusal to meet the State of Michigan's water quality standards only serves to reinforce my sense that Congress must move swiftly to direct the Environmental Protection Agency to establish enforceable and protective federal standards," he wrote.
In the letter, Peters invited Wilson and John Henderson, assistant secretary for installations, energy and environment, to meet with people affected by the contamination and with officials from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality "to ensure unity of effort on addressing PFAS contamination."
The Air Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MDEQ issued a violation notice to the Air Force in October over contamination near the former base, stating that the concentration of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), a type of PFAS, in the area near Clark's Marsh far exceeded the state's water quality standard of 12 parts per trillion.
In December, the Air Force responded with a letter saying that it wasn't required to comply, MLive reported earlier this week.
In a separate letter, a group of senators including Peters today pushed for acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to establish federal drinking water standards for PFOS and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Politico reported earlier this week that EPA is not planning to set legal limits for them (Greenwire, Feb. 1).
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/02/01/stories/1060119335
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Feb 4, 2019 | Business Insider
By Hilary Brueck
Through the course of a single day, your hands, mouth, and body come in contact with countless pieces of paper, plastic, fabric, and furniture.
You probably don't think about the chemicals these substances might harbor, or consider that they have a drug-like effect on health. But some do. They can make metabolisms slow down, subtly lower IQs, contribute to ADHD in children, and mess with sperm counts in men.
They're called "endocrine disruptors," and they're around us all the time. The chemicals change how our bodies work by shifting the way hormones operate, according to Leo Trasande, a pediatrician and public-health researcher at NYU Langone Health.
"Hormones are the basic signaling molecules in our body that take on so many actions for practically every organ system," Trasande told Business Insider. "And endocrine disruptors are synthetic chemicals that scramble those signals, contributing to disease and disability."Jessica Alba, Marla Weston, and Leo Trasande join the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition on Capitol Hill to discuss the Safe Chemicals Act in 2011. Riccardo S. Savi/FilmMagic
In his new book, "Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future ... and What We Can Do About It," Trasande lays out the four big categories of endocrine disruptors he's most concerned about, based on evidence from scientific studies and observations in his patients.
They are:Bisphenols, like BPA, which are often found in the linings of aluminum-canned food and drinks and on cash-register receipts.Brominated flame retardants that are in some carpets, furniture, and clothing.Synthetic pesticides on food."Plasticizer chemicals" called phthalates that show up in plastic food packaging, lotions, and cosmetics.BPA makes fat cells bigger, contributing to obesity and lower sperm counts
The chemical BPA, and others like it, could make the body turn more calories into fat instead of muscle, predisposing people to obesity.
In the lab, BPA acts like an obesogen. "It makes fat cells bigger," as Trasande writes. This is especially true if human embryos are exposed to the chemicals while still in a mother's womb.
Trasande said the obesogen effects of BPA are fairly small compared to what diet and exercise can do for health, but they're real.
"BPA exposure may explain nearly 2% of all obesity in 4-year-olds," Trasande says in his book. That stat is based on his analyses of data on childhood obesity and adult heart issues published in the journal Health Affairs in 2014.
The chemical is also dangerous for babies and pregnant women; it can up the odds of a premature birth, and mess with placenta function.Bisphenols like BPA are chemicals that are used in manufacturing of both plastics and resins. We come into contact with them on thermal receipt paper, linings for canned food, some dental sealants, and plastic containers. Jimmy Kimmel Live
Men are not immune to the effects of BPA, either. The chemical can mess with androgens (male sex hormones) like testosterone, contributing to lower sperm counts, and even testicular-cancer rates.
The vast majority of us are exposed to the chemical. A 2013-14 CDC survey suggested 95% of US adults have detectable levels of BPA.
Counter to the adage that "the dose makes the poison," with hormone-disrupting chemicals there are often nonlinear relationships between the amount of chemical exposure and risk as the body's enzymes duke it out and compete with the hormone disruptors.
"The notion that everything needs to be linear — in a straight-line relationship — is really our own intellectual construct on a scientific reality that's much more complicated," Trasande says.
Many manufacturers are switching to BPA-free products. But that doesn't always mean they're safer, Trasande says, because many of the so-called replacements are just BPA relatives and the chemicals have similar effects on our health.
"To a large extent, when you don't know what's replacing [BPA], it's often BPS, BPF, BPP, BPZ — what I like to joke of as the artist formerly known as Prince," he said.Furniture foam often has firefighting chemicals in it. But they don't work very well, and they can change how our bodies process fat. ShutterstockBrominated flame retardants found in most furniture we use
Brominated flame retardants — flame-stomping chemicals found in furniture, carpeting, clothing, and car-seat foam — can change the way the thyroid functions in a similar way to BPA, shifting how the body processes fats and carbohydrates.
What's more, a 2012 Chicago Tribune investigation found that the firefighting chemicals, which are standard fare in foam cushions, don't work well to stop flames.
One large study of the flame retardants in houses pinpointed a link between ADHD and exposure to the chemicals. More research is ongoing.
Concentrations of the chemicals in human blood, sweat, and breast milk are much higher in the US than in parts of the world, such as Europe, where more brominated flame retardants are banned.Thomson ReutersChemicals we spray to kill bugs can mess with us too
Certain pesticides used on food are also a concern, including bug-killing chlorpyrifos pesticides. These have been shown to impede brain development, making changes to the way a woman's thyroid functions during pregnancy.
In the 1970s and '80s, before the chemical was banned in homes, doctors started noticing an increase in tinier and shorter premature babies being born, even in homes with low levels of the chemicals. After the Environmental Protection Agency banned the use of chlorpyrifos in homes, in 2000, birth weights went back up.
Exposure to chlorpyrifos can have lasting effects on child development. One 2015 study in kids between the ages of 11 and 14found prenatal exposure to the chemical was linked to more arm tremors, which are also common in adults who've been exposed to lead. The chemicals are still used in agriculture.Flexible plastics can also contribute to cancer
Finally, Trasande is concerned about phthalates, chemicals that help make plastics more flexible and durable. They appear in raincoats, flooring, hair spray, nail polish, plastic food packaging, and toys.
According to the US government, "one phthalate, Di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), is an endocrine disruptor and can cause cancer." Additionally, the government says some phthalates can mess with normal reproduction and child-development processes.
In some studies, women tended to have more of the chemicals in their bodies than men because of beauty products they use. But anyone who eats packaged food or breathes in household dust probably has phthalates in their system.
More research on what these chemicals are doing to us is needed, but we do already have some evidence that they're leading to premature births, which can set kids up for a whole host of health problems later in life, including vision and hearing issues, chronic diseases like diabetes, anxiety, depression, and learning disabilities.
The plasticizing chemicals may also be linked to decreases in male testosterone levels. Scientists need to know more about the plastics before they'll say that conclusively, though.
Read more: Dangerous 'forever chemicals' have been found in US drinking water at alarmingly high rates — here's what to know about PFAS
Recently, manufacturers, retailers, and state lawmakers have started to pay more serious attention to the dangers of hormone disruptors, and they're making some changes.
Since 2013, California no longer requires furniture to contain flame retardants (a previous requirement for 38 years).Beall + ThomasWhat you can do to reduce your exposureEat less canned food and more fresh produce. Trasande is a fan of organic farming because it generally excludes synthetic pesticides, but studies suggest that eating whatever fresh produce you can afford is the best strategy for your health.Say no to paper receipts. This can help receipt-handling cashiers, who often have elevated levels of BPA in their urine.Don't microwave plastic containers or put them in a dishwasher as the heat promotes chemical leaching. Throw kitchen plastics away when they become etched or scratched.Avoid the recycling Nos. 3, 6, and 7, which are common plasticsfound in shampoo bottles, Styrofoam trays for ground beef, and coffee-cup lids, among other things.Incorporate iodine-rich foods into your diet, including seafood, dairy, and cranberries. Iodine is a necessary ingredient for thyroid-hormone production, which helps bones and brains develop well.Look for cosmetics that are "phthalate-free" and made without parabens, triclosan, or benzophenones.Opt for naturally flame-resistant fibers, like wool, instead of chemically treated carpets, furniture, and clothes.Circulate fresh air through your home.
Small steps like these can make a big difference. The European Union has banned 1,328 chemicals from cosmetic use, and under the new bans French scientists have noticed a decline in chemical concentrations in people's blood, urine, and hair. In the US, the FDA forbids just 11 chemicals, and concentrations of the toxic chemicals in American bodies are elevated when compared to Europeans.
The US has taken steps to improve public health before. The phase-out of leaded gasoline and paint in the 1970s led to a measurable brainpower boost in kids: as blood lead levels dropped, IQs went up anywhere from 2.2 to 4.7%. The economic benefits of that ban tally up to $2.45 trillion every year, and Trasande compares the IQ hike's impact on productivity and the economy to a generous stimulus package:
As Trasande writes, "Each of us 300 million Americans gets the equivalent of as much as a $1,000 tax refund each year because we did the right thing and got lead out of gasoline in the 1970s."
Many of the chemicals on Trasande's danger list today stay in the body for hours or days, not months or years, which means it's never too late to reduce your exposure.
https://www.businessinsider.com/endocrine-disruptors-dangerous-chemicals-2019-1
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Colgate Eliminated Triclosan from Its Toothpaste. Could a Ban Be on the Way?
Feb 2, 2019 | Quartz
By Corinne Purtill
Colgate-Palmolive’s newest product, a toothpaste called Colgate Total SF, rolled out this week with a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign that includes a celebrity-studded commercial that will air during Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Colgate Total SF is a reformulated version of the company’s best-selling toothpaste, the antibacterial Colgate Total. The ad campaign stresses the supposed benefits of the new product (better flavor, fewer cavities) and doesn’t mention what’s been quietly removed from the old formula: triclosan, an antibacterial compound that for decades was Colgate Total’s active ingredient. (The active ingredient in the new version is stannous fluoride).
Triclosan kills bacteria, but it’s also been found to cause gut inflammation and endocrine disruption in animal studies. In 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a rule banning the chemical along with 18 other antimicrobial ingredients from soaps, arguing that the presence of those compounds made the washes no more effective than regular soap and potentially harmful in the long run. But when it came to toothpaste, the agency said the potential benefits of triclosan outweighed the risks—a decision that baffled some scientists and consumers.
Colgate Total has been the only toothpaste approved for sale in the US that contains triclosan. It’s also Colgate’s top-selling product. For years Colgate fought back against suggestions that the compound was unsafe, claiming in a special section on its website that “more than 90 clinical studies” supported its efficacy and safety. (It did not specifically cite any of the studies.)
In a Jan. 25 corporate earnings call, Colgate-Palmolive CEO Ian Cook brushed off an analyst’s query about why he hadn’t mentioned triclosan’s removal in an earlier description of the new formulation of the toothpaste, insisting that the compound’s sudden disappearance from Colgate Total was mere coincidence.
“Triclosan, we are indifferent,” Cook said. “We have a better product today than we had with the old product. And that was a great product and we stood behind that product all the time from a scientific point of view. This just happens to be a better product and that’s where we are moving to.”
The company’s most recent annual report suggests otherwise. In a section on significant potential risks, the company noted that regulatory agencies in the US, Canada and Europe are reviewing the use of triclosan in consumer products, and that some US states and cities were considering their own bans on the compound.
“A decision by a regulatory or governmental authority that triclosan, or any other of our ingredients, should not be used in certain consumer products or should otherwise be newly regulated, could adversely impact our business, as could negative reactions by our consumers, trade customers or non-governmental organizations to our use of such ingredients,” the report said.
Colgate-Palmolive did not respond to requests for comment. FDA spokesperson Sandy Walsh says only that the agency “will continue to evaluate” triclosan, and is monitoring the scientific literature on its safety.
Decades ago, when he was a science adviser at the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, David J. C. Constable advised the company to drop triclosan from its consumer health products. Constable left GSK in 2009, and is now the science director at the American Chemical Society’s Green Chemistry Institute. Triclosan is biodegradable, he says, but not in the quantities that have been released to the environment as a result of overzealous consumers demanding more antibacterial products. “Bans become necessary because of the excessive and in many cases, unnecessary, uses of some compounds added in response to consumer fear,” he says.
https://qz.com/1540815/colgate-eliminated-triclosan-from-its-toothpaste-could-a-ban-be-on-the-way/
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United States: The Chemical Compound—January 2019
Feb 4, 2019 | Mondaq
By Lawrence E. Culleen, Michael D. Daneker, Sean Morris, Peggy Otum and Thomas E. Santoro
This quarterly newsletter provides updates on litigation, regulatory, legislative, and other notable developments involving chemicals of concern to business. Our present focus is on substances which are the subject of regulatory activity or scrutiny by various government agencies and potential litigants. This includes emerging contaminants, such as perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), hexavalent chromium, trichloroethylene (TCE), 1,2,3-Trichloropropane (TCP), and 1,4-dioxane, as well as substances identified by EPA under the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for prioritization, risk evaluation, or regulation. We hope you find this publication informative, and we welcome your feedback on chemicals of interest to your organization. Impact of the Government Shutdown
On January 25, 2019, President Trump signed a three week continuing resolution to fund the federal government through February 15. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which had not been funded since December 28, 2018, had been operating with less than one percent of its staff. During the shutdown, EPA was permitted to undertake only activities such as conducting response actions at Superfund sites where failure to take action would "pose an imminent threat to human life," and supporting state and local agencies in responding to environmental emergencies.1 Many other activities were put on hold.
Numerous EPA actions are likely to be delayed as a result of the lapse in appropriations. For example, EPA did not process applications for the manufacture of new chemicals, or exemptions from pre-manufacture notice (PMN) reporting during the shutdown. EPA is required to review PMN applications for new chemicals within 90 days of receipt,2 for test-marketing exemptions within 45 days,3 and for low volume, and low release and low exposure exemptions within 30 days of receipt.4 If EPA fails to complete its review within the relevant time period, it is required to refund fees paid by the submitters.5
Neither TSCA nor its implementing regulations provide instruction about the impact of a government shutdown on TSCA Section 5 deadlines. However, EPA actions following previous government shutdowns shed light on how EPA is likely to proceed this time. Following the 1995-1996 and 2013 government shutdowns, EPA published Federal Register notices extending the review period for PMNs and PMN exemption applications.6 In extending the review period, EPA relied on its authority under Section 5(c) of TSCA, which gives EPA the power to unilaterally extend the review period for PMNs by up to 90 days.7 TSCA regulations qualify this authority, stating that EPA may extend the notice period "at any time during the notice review period,"8therefore raising questions about whether EPA may extend the review period if it has already expired during the government shutdown (though it does not appear that EPA has faced pushback on this basis in the past).
EPA is likely to again extend the review period for PMNs and exemptions. If this occurs: (1) PMNs and exemptions submitted during the shutdown would likely be deemed to have been received by EPA on the day that the Agency reopens; and (2) the review periods for PMNs and exemptions received by EPA prior to the beginning of the government shutdown would likely be extended by the length of the shutdown (35 days).9
» Return to Table of Contents Litigation In re Aqueous Film-Forming Foams Products Liability Litigation
On December 7, 2018, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (the Panel) centralized 75 lawsuits from across the country involving claims of PFC contamination from aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF).10 The cases have been transferred to Judge Richard M. Gergel in the District of South Carolina. In September 2018, Tyco Fire Products and Chemguard filed a motion to centralize these actions in the Southern District of New York. This motion was followed shortly thereafter by a motion from 3M Company which sought to include in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) nine actions involving PFCs outside of the context of AFFF in which 3M was also named as a defendant. The Panel granted in part the motion from Tyco Fire Products and Chemguard, centralizing the AFFF cases outlined in the parties' motion in the District of South Carolina, but declining to include the non-AFFF cases in the MDL as 3M Company had requested. With respect to the AFFF cases, the Panel held that these actions had common factual questions, including allegations of the "toxicity of PFOA and PFOS and their effects on human health; the chemical properties of these substances and their propensity to migrate in groundwater supplies; the knowledge of the AFFF manufacturers regarding the dangers of PFOA and PFOS; [and] their warnings, if any, regarding proper use and storage of AFFFs." On the other hand, the non-AFFF cases were held to be "quite different" from the AFFF cases, and the Panel held that including these cases in the MDL could cause it to become "unwieldy." Challenge to EPA's Failure to Issue Final TSCA Regulation for Methylene Chloride
Several environmental non-governmental organizations and individual plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit against EPA in the District of Vermont challenging EPA's failure to finalize its TSCA Section 6(a) rule regulating the use of methylene chloride-containing paint and coating removers.11 The plaintiffs are bringing the lawsuit under Section 20(a)(2) of TSCA, the statute's citizen suit provision.12 The plaintiffs argue that, under Section 6(a) of TSCA, EPA is required to issue a rule restricting the use of any substance that EPA determines presents an unreasonable risk of injury, and that EPA has violated Section 6(a) by failing to publish its final rule for methylene chloride. Plaintiffs seek a declaration from the court that, by failing to issue the final rule, EPA has not performed its "non-discretionary duty" under TSCA Section 6(a). The plaintiffs also seek an order requiring EPA to finalize the Section 6(a) rule to "ban" the use of methylene chloride-containing paint and coating removers and to file a civil action under Section 7 of TSCA (which allows EPA to file a civil action requesting relief to address "imminently hazardous chemical substance[s]").13 As discussed in further detail below, EPA sent its final Section 6(a) rule for methylene chloride-containing paint and coating removers to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review in December 2018. Challenge to TSCA Risk Evaluation & Risk Prioritization Rules
The Ninth Circuit partially granted EPA's request to remand three provisions of its Risk Evaluation Rule on December 18, 2018.14 In August, EPA moved to remand provisions of its Risk Evaluation Rule relating to how the Agency collects and analyzes information in the context of risk evaluations (40 C.F.R. §§ 702.37(b)(4), (b)(6)) and a provision imposing penalties upon persons who submit "inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading information pursuant to a risk evaluation" (40 C.F.R. § 702.31(d)).15 Plaintiff Safer Chemicals Healthy Families opposed EPA's request to remand the provisions of the rule relating to the collection and analysis of information relating to risk evaluations, but did not oppose EPA's request to remand the provision relating to criminal penalties.16 The Ninth Circuit granted EPA's request to remand the criminal penalties provision, but referred EPA's request to remand the provisions relating to the collection and analysis of information in the context of risk evaluations to the merits panel.
» Return to Table of Contents Federal Developments Alexandra Dunn Confirmed as Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety & Pollution Prevention
On January 2, 2019, Alexandra Dunn was unanimously confirmed by the US Senate as the Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Ms. Dunn previously served as Regional Administrator for EPA Region 1.17 The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a confirmation hearing for Ms. Dunn on November 29, 2018.18 During the confirmation hearing, many senators focused their questioning of Ms. Dunn on the implementation of TSCA. Specifically, numerous senators asked Ms. Dunn about the status of EPA's final TSCA Section 6(a) rule to regulate the use of methylene chloride in paint and coating removers. Additionally, several senators expressed concern to Ms. Dunn about EPA's exclusion of reasonably foreseen uses from the scopes of risk evaluations being conducted under TSCA. Ms. Dunn committed to conducting risk evaluations in accordance with the law.
Following Ms. Dunn's confirmation hearing, Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler sent a letter to Senator Carper, the Ranking Member on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, outlining steps that the Agency intended to take to address concerns about TSCA raised by Senator Carper and others during Ms. Dunn's confirmation hearing.19 Specifically, Acting Administrator Wheeler committed that EPA would: (1) begin to publish PMNs and their attachments (including health and safety studies) within 45 days of receipt; (2) publish an updated version of its New Chemicals Decision-Making Framework during 2019 and seek public comment on the updated version; (3) submit its Systematic Review Method to the National Academy of Science for peer review, and seek peer review of the Agency's collection and evaluation of data in the first ten risk evaluations conducted under the amended TSCA; and (4) provide 60 days for public comment on each of the first ten risk evaluations (as opposed to the 30 days required by TSCA),20and to stagger the release of the first ten risk evaluations to enable interested parties to comment more readily on multiple assessments. Andrew Wheeler Nominated to Serve as EPA Administrator
On November 16, 2018, President Trump announced his nomination of Andrew Wheeler as EPA Administrator.21 Andrew Wheeler is currently serving as the Acting Administrator of the EPA. He assumed this position in July 2018 following the resignation of Scott Pruitt.22 In an interview with the Washington Post in late November, Acting Administrator Wheeler discussed EPA's long-anticipated National Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Management Plan, describing it as a strategy to "help communities reach drinking water standards and protect them on PFOA and PFOS issues."23 Acting Administrator Wheeler also announced that EPA intends to release the National PFAS Management Plan in early 2019.24
Acting Administrator Wheeler's confirmation hearing was held on January 16, 2019. During the hearing, Acting Administrator Wheeler stated that the National PFAS Management Plan was undergoing interagency review and would be released shortly after the shutdown. He declined to promise that the management plan would recommend setting a drinking water standard, noting that he could not go into specifics about the plan because it was still under review. Acting Administrator Wheeler was also asked during his confirmation hearing about the status of EPA's TSCA Section 6(a) rule for methylene chloride in paint and coating removers. He responded that he had hoped to publish the rule in the Federal Register in early January 2019, but that the release of the rule had been delayed by the government shutdown. He then stated that he hoped that the rule would be ready once the government reopens. EPA Releases Draft Risk Evaluation for Pigment Violet 29
On November 15, 2018, EPA released its draft risk evaluation for Pigment Violet 29, concluding that Pigment Violet 29 does not present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment under the conditions of use evaluated.25 This risk evaluation is the first of ten draft risk evaluations that EPA must finalize by December 2019 (though the Agency may seek an extension to June 2020).26 EPA is expected to release the remainder of the risk evaluations in early 2019.
EPA's draft risk evaluation for Pigment Violet 29 provides interesting insight into how the Agency is developing risk evaluations for the first ten chemical substances.27 In particular, the draft makes clear that the Agency is willing to narrow the scope of a risk evaluation in response to comments it receives during the "scoping" and problem formulation stages.28 Additionally, EPA made clear in the draft risk evaluation for Pigment Violet 29 that, if a party does not believe that comments it submitted regarding the problem formulation statement for Pigment Violent 29 are adequately addressed by the draft risk evaluation, the party may resubmit its past comments to the docket for the draft risk evaluation and must do so if the party wishes the Agency to consider these comments further. Therefore, interested parties should keep an eye on the Federal Register for the release of additional draft risk evaluations of interest to them, and should be prepared to submit new comments or to resubmit prior comments to the extent that EPA has not adequately addressed the comments in the draft risk evaluation. National PFAS Management Plan
EPA's Local Government Advisory Committee for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (LGAC) submitted its report to EPA in November 2018.29 LGAC was formed in May 2018 to provide advice to EPA regarding the National PFAS Management Plan. LGAC recommended that EPA prioritize actions relating to PFAS to first "address communities and citizens at highest risk of PFAS contamination and potential harm," including "communities located near military sites, areas with historical or active large-scale fire-fighting operations (such as airports), [and] industrial sites or landfills where PFOS and PFOAs have a legacy of use and known releases."30 LGAC also recommends that EPA develop a maximum contaminant level (MCL) for PFOA and PFOS, and that EPA designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).
» Return to Table of Contents TSCA Regulatory Actions EPA Releases First List of Unique Identifiers
On December 12, 2018, EPA published its first list of "unique identifiers" for substances for which EPA has approved a confidentiality claim for chemical identity.31 EPA is required under TSCA to publish annually a list of generic chemical substances and the unique identifiers associated with those substances.32
Pursuant to TSCA Section 14(g)(4),33 EPA was required to "develop a system to assign a unique identifier for each specific chemical identity" for which EPA approves a confidential business information (CBI) claim for chemical identity.34 The unique identifier is not permitted to be the "specific chemical identity" or a "structurally descriptive generic term."35 In May 2017, EPA proposed two systems to assign unique identifiers, but the Agency acknowledged that it was struggling to reconcile the statutory requirements that it apply the unique identifier to all non-confidential information about a chemical substance while also protecting the specific chemical identity of the substance.36 After receiving public comment on its two proposed systems, EPA proposed a third alternative in February 2018.37 EPA adopted the third alternative in June 2018.38
Under EPA's adopted unique identifier system, EPA will review a document it receives prior to applying the unique identifier to that document to determine if the document contains the specific chemical identity of a chemical substance. If it does, EPA will determine whether a CBI claim previously has been or is being asserted for the chemical identity of the substance to determine whether the claim is unexpired and/or is otherwise valid and should be granted. If the CBI claim for chemical identity is not expired and is otherwise valid, EPA will apply to that document the unique identifier assigned originally for the chemical substance. However, if no CBI claim for the chemical identity is being asserted by the submitter of a new document, EPA will not assign an existing Unique Identifier (UID) to the document in question if doing so would itself disclose to the public the confidential specific identity that the UID was assigned to protect. If the document contains no specific chemical identity information, or the CBI claim for the information has expired or is otherwise invalid, EPA will apply the unique identifier.
In the Agency's response to comments on its unique identifier system, EPA rejected an argument that the Agency must assign a UID to each chemical substance for which an identity CBI claim was made relating to the publication of the first TSCA Active-Inactive Inventory.39 However, EPA noted that the Agency believes it is required to assign UIDs to chemical substances for which a chemical identity CBI claim is re-substantiated or reasserted and substantiated. EPA indicated that it intends to promulgate a rule establishing how the Agency will review all claims to protect the identity of chemical substances on the confidential portion of the Inventory asserted pursuant to the claim maintenance provision of TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(B) and the TSCA Active-Inactive Inventory Rule. That rule is expected to be published in early 2019.40 EPA Publishes Draft Toxicity Assessments for GenX and PFBS
In mid-November 2018, EPA published draft toxicity assessments for two PFAS chemicals – hexafluoropropylene oxide (HPFO) dimer acid and its ammonium salt (GenX); and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid and related compound potassium perfluorobutane sulfonate (PFBS).41 EPA accepted comments on the draft toxicity assessments through January 22, 2019.42 EPA describes the draft toxicity assessments as providing "health effects information" for PFBS and GenX and as describing how the Agency considers health effects when developing draft toxicity values for these substances.43 EPA notes that these draft toxicity assessments are distinguishable from risk assessments in that toxicity assessments do not consider exposure. Upon finalization of the toxicity assessments, EPA suggests that the assessments may be used "along with specific exposure and other relevant information" to develop regulations for these chemical substances.44 Office of Management and Budget Reviewing Methylene Chloride Rules
The White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing two rules relating to EPA's regulation of methylene chloride in paint and coating removers. On December 21, 2018, OMB began review of EPA's final TSCA Section 6(a) rule governing the use of methylene chloride in paint and coating removers. The final rule is expected to prohibit the consumer use of methylene chloride in paint and coating removers, and to restrict the commercial use of methylene chloride in paint and coating removers.
EPA published its proposed rule governing the use of methylene chloride and N-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP) in paint and coating removers in January 2017.45 EPA subsequently decided to include use as a paint and coating remover within the scope of the Agency's ongoing risk evaluation of NMP.46 Thus, the use of NMP in paint and coating removers would be addressed in a subsequent rulemaking, if undertaken.47 Additionally, although EPA intended to address the use of methylene chloride in commercial furniture refinishing in the same final rule as methylene chloride in paint and coating removers,48 EPA has decided to address commercial furniture refinishing in a separate rulemaking.49 EPA also is preparing to issue a "pre-rule" that would establish a "Commercial Paint and Coating Removal Training, Certification and Limited Access Program."50 This program is intended to provide a pathway for commercial users to continue to use methylene chloride-containing paint and coating removers. PFAS Groundwater Cleanup Recommendations Likely to Reflect EPA Health Advisory
EPA's "draft interim recommendations" for the cleanup of PFAS in groundwater are likely to recommend a cleanup standard of 70 ppt—the same as EPA's current health advisory level for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water.51 The OMB has been reviewing the draft interim recommendations since August 2018, and the target date for the publication of these recommendations was initially September 2018.52 EPA has not provided an updated estimate of when these recommendations will be published.
» Return to Table of Contents Legislative Developments America's Drinking Water Infrastructure Act Becomes Law
On October 23, 2018, President Trump signed into law the America's Water Infrastructure Act, which expands requirements for the monitoring of unregulated contaminants.53 This legislation increases funding allocated for EPA's Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, which provides financial support to state drinking water systems.54 The legislation also requires drinking water systems serving more than 3,300 people to test for unregulated contaminants pursuant to EPA's Unregulated Contaminants Monitoring Rule.55Previously, only drinking water systems serving more than 10,000 people were required to monitor for unregulated contaminants.56 Past chemical substances covered by the Unregulated Contaminants Monitoring Rule include PFOA, PFOS, 1,2,3-trichloropropane, hexavalent chromium, and 1,4 dioxane.57 EPA has been asked to include PFAS chemicals again in the next iteration of the unregulated chemicals list.58 Monitoring requirements for chemicals on the next iteration of the unregulated chemicals list would likely take effect in 2022.59 Legislation Introduced to Designate PFAS Chemicals as Hazardous Substances Under CERCLA
A bipartisan group of members of the House of Representatives representing Michigan introduced legislation to designate PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances under CERCLA on January 14, 2019.60 The "PFAS Action Act of 2019" was introduced by Representatives Debbie Dingell, Fred Upton, and Dan Kildee. The legislation would require EPA to designate PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances under CERCLA within one year after enactment of the legislation. Designating these substances as hazardous would expand EPA's authority to respond to releases of PFAS chemicals.61 In testimony before House of Representatives and Senate subcommittees during the fall of 2018, then-EPA Director of the Office of Water Dr. Peter Grevatt testified that EPA was considering listing PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under CERCLA.62 EPA's website also indicates that the Agency "is beginning the necessary steps" to propose PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under CERCLA.63Notably, the PFAS Action Act of 2019 would require EPA to designate all PFAS chemicals (not just PFOA and PFOS) as hazardous substances under CERCLA.
» Return to Table of Contents State Regulatory & Legislative Action Alaska
Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) sought comment through November 13, 2018 on a proposal to set soil and groundwater cleanup standards for six PFAS chemicals. The DEC offered the proposal following the discovery of PFAS contamination in numerous areas across the state, primarily in areas near airports and Air Force bases.64 The proposal recommends the use of EPA's drinking water health advisory level for PFOA and PFOS—70 ppt—as the cleanup standard for PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS, and PFHpA in soil and groundwater in Alaska.65 The proposal also would set a cleanup standard of 400 ppt for PFBS in soil and groundwater in Alaska.66 The DEC is currently reviewing comments received on the proposal during a public comment period.67 California
As of November 10, 2018, businesses that may expose persons (including workers and consumers) to PFOA or PFOS must provide "clear and reasonable warning[s]" about the potential health impacts of exposure to these substances.68 This requirement is a result of California's listing of PFOA and PFOS as developmental toxins under Proposition 65 in November 2017.69 Entities subject to this listing requirement include those that may expose persons to PFOA or PFOS through consumer products, occupational exposure, or environmental exposure. Michigan
On December 28, 2018 then-Governor Rick Snyder signed Michigan Senate Bill 1244. Senate Bill 1244 generally requires the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) to rely on toxicity values from EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) in developing cleanup criteria for environmental remediation.70 If a toxicity value for a chemical substance is not available through IRIS, MDEQ must use toxicity values from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry or EPAs provisional peer-reviewed toxicity values. If toxicity values are not available for a chemical substance through either of these means, MDEQ must use a toxicity value from EPA's Health Effects Assessment Summary Table, or toxicity values developed by other states, the European Union, Canada, or the World Health Organization to set cleanup criteria. If a toxicity value is still not available, MDEQ may develop its own toxicity values to support cleanup criteria.
If MDEQ wishes to develop its own toxicity values to support cleanup criteria despite the existence of IRIS toxicity values, it may do so only if (1) the IRIS value is based on a determination greater than 10 years old; (2) there is more recent peer-reviewed and widely accepted data; and (3) the weight of the evidence supports the use of the proposed toxicity value to support cleanup criteria. If all three of these criteria are met, MDEQ must provide public notice of its development of a toxicity value and provide for stakeholder engagement.
The sponsor of the legislation in the Michigan Senate, Senator Jim Stamas, stated that the bill is intended to move the process of updating cleanup criteria forward by resolving concerns from private industry about how these criteria are developed.71 However, environmental groups have argued that this bill would stifle DEQ's ability to set cleanup criteria based on the most recent science.72 New Hampshire
The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) announced on January 2, 2019 new proposed groundwater and drinking water standards for perfluorinated substances.73Pursuant to July 2018 legislation, NHDES was required to initiate rulemakings to establish MCLs and ambient groundwater quality standards (AGQS) for PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, and PFHxS by January 1, 2019.74NHDES has proposed the following MCLs and AGQSs: (1) PFOA – 38 ppt; (2) PFOS – 70 ppt; (3) PFOA & PFOS (combined) – 70 ppt; (4) PFHxS – 85 ppt; (5) PFNA – 23 ppt. NHDES' proposed MCL for PFOA & PFOS is the same as EPA's drinking water health advisory level for these substances.75 NHDES also rejected a petition from environmental non-governmental organizations requesting that the Agency regulate PFAS compounds as a class.76
The July 2018 legislation also directs NHDES to develop a plan to establish surface water quality standards for PFOS, PFOA, PFNA, and PFHxS. The Department of Environmental Services is required to submit this plan to the New Hampshire legislature by January 1, 2020.77 New York
The New York State Drinking Water Quality Council (DWQC) has recommended that the state adopt MCLs for PFOA, PFOS, and 1,4 dioxane.78 On December 18, 2018, the DWQC recommended that the New York State Department of Health adopt MCLs of 10 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS, and 1 part per billion for 1,4 dioxane. The recommended MCLs for PFOA and PFOS would be the lowest in the country if adopted by the state's Department of Health. The MCL for 1,4 dioxane would be the first in the country. The Department of Health can either adopt the recommended MCLs and commence a rulemaking, or propose alternative MCLs.
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation announced in its Environmental Notice Bulletin that it is effectively delaying the compliance date for the state's Household Cleansing Product Information Disclosure Program from July 1, 2019 to October 2, 2019.79 Specifically, the department announced that it would not be enforcing the disclosure requirements of this program until October 2, 2019. The program was finalized in June 2018, and requires manufacturers of covered domestic and commercial cleaning products to post information about intentionally added ingredients (other than fragrances) and nonfunctional ingredients present above trace quantities on their websites.80 Manufacturers may assert confidentiality claims for trade secret or confidential commercial information. In general, manufacturers must include the following information about ingredients: Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number and chemical name; percentage of content by weight; the ingredient's presence on lists of chemicals of concern; presence of nanoscale materials; and the ingredient's functional purpose.81
http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/777434/Chemicals/The+Chemical+CompoundJanuary+2019
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Upper Midwest Gas Market Finds Role as Crossroads of America
Feb 4, 2019 | Platts
By Arsalan Syed
The Upper Midwest market has become the crossroads of America for natural gas, and finding that sweet spot helped the region get through a record-breaking freeze without breaking the bank.
Chicago demand reached an all-time high of 10.65 Bcf January 30, but cash prices in the region experienced a decline as inflows ramped up to add bearish sentiment.
At the same time, inflows to the Central region increased by approximately 1.04 Bcf on the day to 16.3 Bcf, according to Platts Analytics. The last time inflows to the region were greater was February 27, 2015, when they were 16.49 Bcf.
The cash price for Chicago city-gates fell $2.43/MMBtu to $4.995/MMBtu January 30.
The bearish sentiment can be connected to robust inflows from the Northeast, the Rockies and Western Canada. Last year the response to a period of high winter demand was very different. Chicago city-gate sat at $9/MMBtu on January 2 2018. At that time, Chicago demand was approximately 9.89 Bcf, about 76 MMcf lower than the new record high of 10.65 Bcf, according to Platts Analytics.
When Chicago city-gate reached the $9/MMBtu last year, inflows from the Northeast into the Upper Midwest were 2.03 Bcf. By comparison, Northeast inflows were 4 Bcf when Chicago demand reached the all-time high.
The jump of inflows from the Northeast year on year is largely due to the buildout of Nexus Gas Transmission and Rover Pipeline, both of which move gas to the Upper Midwest from the Northeast.
The first to come online was Rover Pipeline, which went into service in September 2017. That pipe was averaging flows into the Upper Midwest of 1.3 Bcf/d last January. So far this year, flows on Rover from the Northeast into the Upper Midwest have averaged 3 Bcf.
The Nexus Gas Transmission pipeline came online in October 2018 adding even more downward pressure to the Upper Midwest market. Flows from the Northeast to the Upper Midwest on Nexus have averaged 650 MMcf/d this January.
Rockies Express Pipeline takes gas from the mountains into the Upper Midwest. On January 30, those inflows on REX sat at 1.05 Bcf – the highest levels since totaling 1.1 Bcf on November 6.
Inflows from Western Canada also ramp up in times of high demand in the Midwest. Volumes transported via the Viking Pipeline increased 48 MMcf on the day to 451 MMcf on January 29. That marked the highest level seen since flows on Viking were at 475 MMcf on December 31, 2017.
Looking forward, the Upper Midwest market is positioned so that any demand spike can be mitigated by an influx of supply from several regions. As production increases in surrounding regions, that gas should find its way into the Midwest and alleviate volatility.
https://blogs.platts.com/2019/02/04/upper-midwest-gas-market-crossroads-america/
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Groups Sue EPA Over Refinery Standards
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
EPA's latest rewrite of key air regulations for oil refineries is facing a lawsuit from a coalition of environmental groups.
The suit, filed earlier this week by Air Alliance Houston and 10 other organizations, does not spell out the grounds for their challenge to the newly amended version of the regulations published in November (Greenwire, Nov. 26, 2018).
But in almost 30 pages of comments last summer on EPA's initial proposal, the coalition, joined by Earthjustice, criticized a half-dozen elements in the highly technical draft rule as unlawful and arbitrary.
EPA "must set emission standards that remove all unacceptable health risks," the groups wrote.
They also argued that minority and low-income communities in heavily industrialized parts of Louisiana and other areas would be disproportionately affected, "yet EPA has refused to acknowledge, much less to recognize, that it cannot and should not allow more pollution that would have these additional unjust impacts."
In the final version, EPA officials made modest tweaks to the draft but predicted that the total package would have an "insignificant effect on emission reductions."
"Therefore," they added, "the final amendments should not appreciably increase risk for any populations."
The original update to the New Source Performance Standards and National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants dates back to late 2015. At the time, EPA said they applied to almost 150 refineries nationwide and would eventually cut emissions of toxic air pollutants by 5,200 tons per year, as well as eliminate 50,000 tons of volatile organic compounds annually.
Groups like Air Alliance Houston particularly welcomed a new requirement that refiners install "fence-line" air monitors around their properties to keep tabs on benzene concentrations (Greenwire, Sept. 30, 2015).
That update is already the subject of long-running litigation brought both by industry and environmental groups that has been in abeyance since 2016 as EPA deals with administrative petitions for reconsiderations of various aspects of the rules.
The new lawsuit was filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but it took several days to show up in the federal courts' online records system.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/02/01/stories/1060119333
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Western Governors Urge Trump to Preserve CWA 401 Powers
Feb 1, 2019 | Inside EPA
Western governors are urging President Donald Trump to preserve states’ Clean Water Act (CWA) section 401 authority to review federally permitted pipelines and other energy projects in any future executive order, calling the review power “vital” to the cooperative federalism that Congress incorporated in the water law.
In a Jan. 31 letter to Trump, the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) cites recent news reports that the president is weighing an executive order to spur energy development that could revise current EPA draft guidance for states’ reviews under CWA section 401 and asks the president not to weaken states’ authority to protect their waters.
“We urge you to direct federal agencies to reject any changes to agency rules, guidance, or policy that may diminish, impair, or subordinate states’ well-established sovereign and statutory authorities to protect water quality within their Boundaries,” the letter says.
“Further, any executive order (or corresponding federal action) aimed at improving or streamlining the state water quality certification program under CWA Section 401 should be informed by early, meaningful, substantive, and ongoing consultation with state officials who have vast experience and expertise in the program’s implementation.”
The letter follows WGA’s statement late last month to Inside EPA, opposing any dimunition of states’ powers under CWA section 401.
CWA section 401 generally gives states authority to review and impose conditions on federal actions that may adversely impact water quality standards. But industry officials and some GOP lawmakers have suggested amending the program that governs state approval of federally permitted energy projects, charging that states have abused the authority to block construction of natural gas pipelines and other projects.
Also, EPA water chief David Ross told an Aug. 29 meeting of the Environmental Council of the States that EPA is considering revising the 401 process, including clarifying the timeliness and scope of state reviews, and raising the possibility of new guidance or rulemaking.
According to a Jan. 23 report in Politico, the White House is weighing executive orders to spur energy development to counter Russian gains in the international market, including potential revisions to Obama-era draft guidance on CWA section 401 compliance to preclude mostly Democratic states from blocking energy projects. The report said White House officials are calling Republican-led states and offering assurances that any order will not harm state sovereignty.
In the letter to Trump, WGA says that preserving states’ review powers is essential to the cooperative federalism Congress envisioned in the CWA, and that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in S.D. Warren Co. v. Maine Board of Environmental Protection, backed state 401 certifications as necessary for states to address a range of pollution.
WGA also urges the White House to consult states prior to amending the CWA section 401 certification or other regulatory programs.
“Western Governors are committed to establishing a framework to incorporate the early, meaningful and substantive input of states in the development of federal regulatory policies that have federalism implications,” the letter says.
“By operating as authentic collaborators in the development and execution of policy, the states and federal government can demonstrably improve their service to the public.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/western-governors-urge-trump-preserve-cwa-401-powers
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How a ‘Monster’ Texas Oil Field Made the U.S. a Star in the World Market
Feb 3, 2019 | The New York Times
By Clifford Krauss
In a global collapse of oil prices five years ago, scores of American oil companies went bankrupt. But one field withstood the onslaught, and even thrived: the Permian Basin, straddling Texas and New Mexico.
A combination of technical innovation, aggressive investing and copious layers of oil-rich shale have transformed the Permian, once considered a worn-out patch, into the world’s second-most-productive oil field.
And this transformation has apparently inoculated Texas against its traditional economic enemy, the boom-and-bust cycle pegged to oil prices.
Even now, with prices still far below their peak, the Permian is bursting with production and exploration, and the biggest concern is how to create more capacity to get all that oil to market.
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The shale-drilling frenzy in the Permian has enabled the United States not only to reduce crude-oil imports, but even to become a major exporter for the first time in half a century. Its bounty has also empowered the United States diplomatically, allowing it to impose sanctions on Iran and Venezuela without worrying much about increasing gasoline prices. Mounting Texas crude exports have pressured global oil prices down, and are a major reason that Russia and Saudi Arabia recently cut their own production to push oil prices back up.
“OPEC producers never thought the Permian could be the next star world producer,” said René Ortiz of Ecuador, a former secretary-general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. “They never thought one field — one, and not a country — could actually be the monster field of their imaginations.”
Last year alone, the Permian’s production rose by a million barrels a day, and it could surpass the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest, within three years. Now producing four million barrels a day, the Permian generates more oil than any of the 14 members of OPEC except Saudi Arabia and Iraq.Editors’ PicksThey Created a Muslim Enclave in Upstate N.Y. Then Came the Online Conspiracies.A $21,000 Cosmetology School Debt, and a $9-an-Hour Job‘I Feel Invisible’: Native Students Languish in Public SchoolsFloorhands work on an drilling rig contracted to Shell in West Texas. Shell produces 145,000 barrels of oil a day in the Permian and projects it can increase production to 200,000 barrels a day by 2020.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
ImageFloorhands work on an drilling rig contracted to Shell in West Texas. Shell produces 145,000 barrels of oil a day in the Permian and projects it can increase production to 200,000 barrels a day by 2020.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York TimesRon Dube, Shell’s Permian operations manager. Shell has made clear that it aims to continue to expand in the Permian, where big companies have been snapping up smaller ones.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
ImageRon Dube, Shell’s Permian operations manager. Shell has made clear that it aims to continue to expand in the Permian, where big companies have been snapping up smaller ones.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
All told, domestic oil production increased by two million barrels a day last year, for a record of 11.9 million barrels, making the United States the world’s top producer.
Permian production has quadrupled over the last eight years, in contrast with the decline of most other established oil fields, for several reasons.
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Companies found ways to lower exploration and production costs in tapping the Permian’s accommodating shale. New technologies for drilling and hydraulic fracturing helped bring the break-even price for the best wells from over $60 a barrel to as low as $33.
The Permian, as vast as South Dakota, is distinct from other shale fields because of its enormous size, the thickness of its multiple shale layers — some as fat as 1,000 feet — and its proximity to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Some shale fields produce too much natural gas, which is worth less than oil. Others have uneven layers of rock difficult to drill through. The Permian is rich in oil, and its shales are relatively easy to tap with today’s rigs.
Today the biggest risk, at least for producers, is that too much output might drive down prices too much and jeopardize their profitability. They could also prompt another round of aggressive actions from OPEC and its new ally, Russia.
“If U.S. production grows another two million barrels a day, we could take market share, but how long would OPEC allow that to happen?” said Scott D. Sheffield, chairman of Pioneer Natural Resources, a major Permian producer. “You could have another price war.”
That may be inevitable.
As many as 15 oil and gas pipelines serving the Permian are expected to be completed by the middle of 2020, potentially increasing exports from the Gulf of Mexico fourfold to eight million barrels a day after 2021, according to a recent Morningstar Commodities Research report.Subscribe to With Interest
Catch up and prep for the week ahead with this newsletter of the most important business insights, delivered Sundays.SIGN UPA Shell central processing facility, where crude oil and natural gas is first processed. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and Shell have been making big new investments in the Permian despite uncertainty about prices.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
ImageA Shell central processing facility, where crude oil and natural gas is first processed. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and Shell have been making big new investments in the Permian despite uncertainty about prices.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
The Permian has been producing oil for a century, and provided much of the fuel the allies needed to win World War II. By 2008, it was a field in steep decline. Many major oil companies left, selling their land to smaller ones for a song.
But as the big companies looked for fields deep under oceans and in the Arctic, independents like Concho Resources and Parsley Energy pioneered shale drilling here, giving the field new life.
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When oil prices took a dive, the upstarts experimented. They drilled longer wells and spaced them closer together in a zipper design to penetrate more shale. They tinkered with their formulas of chemicals and sands that they blast through the rocks, and they used computer technology to steer drill bits more accurately.
“OPEC changed the price of poker and the Permian had the best hand,” said Dale Redman, chief executive of ProPetro, one of the basin’s biggest fracking service companies. “They unleashed our creativity. They forced us to do things better and cheaper.”
ProPetro laid off 250 workers three years ago, after oil prices fell below $30 a barrel. But the company has since hired back those employees and added hundreds more, including 600 when they completed an acquisition on Jan. 1.
What makes the payroll additions all the more remarkable is that they come in the wake of the most recent downturn in oil prices — from $76 a barrel in early October to $42 in late December before recovering to more than $55 on Friday.
Despite the ups and downs, there are signs of expansion everywhere in the West Texas desert. Trucks line up at dawn for half a mile to pick up sand at local mines for the day’s fracking jobs. Competition for workers is so fierce that fast-food restaurants have blinking signs advertising their salaries. Anadarko Petroleum and Plains All American Pipeline are constructing new regional offices to add to those built in recent years for Chevron and Apache.Pump jacks, a common sight throughout West Texas, are painted on a wall in downtown Midland.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
ImagePump jacks, a common sight throughout West Texas, are painted on a wall in downtown Midland.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York TimesAn exhibit at the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum in Midland. The region has produced oil for nearly a century.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
ImageAn exhibit at the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum in Midland. The region has produced oil for nearly a century.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
Motel rates and apartment rents have climbed so much that trailer parks are the only option for many workers. But few seem to mind.
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“I will have work here forever,” said Mike Wilkinson, a truck driver who came from Dallas a year ago and moved into a trailer with his teenage daughter. “As hard a place as this is to look at, they are going to need guys like me to move equipment around here for years to come.”Mike Wilkinson, a truck driver, outside his trailer in Midland. “I will have work here forever,” said Mr. Wilkinson, who moved from Dallas a year ago with his teenage daughter.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
ImageMike Wilkinson, a truck driver, outside his trailer in Midland. “I will have work here forever,” said Mr. Wilkinson, who moved from Dallas a year ago with his teenage daughter.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
Mr. Wilkinson has reason for enthusiasm, given the giant new investments that Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and Shell have begun to make here despite all the price uncertainty.
With a major acquisition in New Mexico last year, Exxon Mobil became the most active driller in the basin, and projects that it will increase production fivefold by 2025. Also growing rapidly here, Chevron estimates that one in six of every barrels it produces globally will come from the Permian by 2021.
After regaining a foothold in the Permian last year, BP is expected to invest heavily, contributing to a total investment of more than $10 billion by the major oil companies here this year, according to IHS Markit, the energy consultant.
Royal Dutch Shell is just beginning to catch up, after buying acreage from Chesapeake seven years ago. It already has 1,300 wells that produce 145,000 barrels of oil a day and associated gas, a 200 percent increase since January 2017. The company projects it can increase production to 200,000 barrels a day by 2020.
Shell’s chief executive, Ben van Beurden, said Thursday that his company was seeking to increase its footprint in the Permian, the most recent sign that big oil companies will continue to snap up smaller ones.
“For Shell, the Permian is absolutely critical,” said Gretchen Watkins, president of Shell Oil. “The Permian is massive; it’s a game changer for U.S. shale. It is the powerhouse field.”
But the output of shale wells declines quickly, making the drilling here a never-ending treadmill. And that has been a challenge for the small companies that have been the innovators here but are now facing demands from investors to show financial discipline.
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Typical of the smaller producers is Parsley Energy, one of the most active drillers in the basin with some of the most productive wells. Its share price was cut in half over the last two years as it outspent its cash flow grabbing land and ramping up production.Technicians at work in a hydraulic fracturing operation at a Parsley Energy site. Parsley, a smaller producer, has been one of the most active drillers in the Permian, with some of the most productive wells.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
ImageTechnicians at work in a hydraulic fracturing operation at a Parsley Energy site. Parsley, a smaller producer, has been one of the most active drillers in the Permian, with some of the most productive wells.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York TimesA worker waits as oil is transferred from production tanks to a tanker truck at a Parsley Energy facility. Because of last year’s decline in oil prices, Parsley is reducing spending on exploration and production this year by $300 million.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
ImageA worker waits as oil is transferred from production tanks to a tanker truck at a Parsley Energy facility. Because of last year’s decline in oil prices, Parsley is reducing spending on exploration and production this year by $300 million.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
Late last year, as oil prices fell, Parsley changed course. It is reducing spending on exploration and production this year by $300 million. It decommissioned two of its 16 rigs late last year, and two more in January.
“We all have to be prepared,” said Matt Gallagher, Parsley’s chief executive, for a six-month slump in prices. “We’re one Twitter message away from a deal with Iran and $40 oil.”
The multinationals have the wherewithal to stick by their aggressive development plans and take a longer view.
They bring an arsenal of tools that the smaller companies lack. With their size and reach, they can make the best deals for equipment like drill rigs and fracking services. Many have their own pipelines, refineries and global trading personnel to sell their oil for the highest price.
In January, Chevron agreed to acquire a refinery in Pasadena, Tex., from the Brazilian company Petrobras for $350 million to refine more products coming from the Permian. The announcement came only days after Exxon Mobil announced a major expansion of its Beaumont, Tex., refinery to process more local crude.
The major companies also aim to cut production costs even further with increasingly sophisticated applications of artificial intelligence. Shell, for instance, has developed algorithms to replicate and standardize the most effective drilling and fracking methods worldwide.
“We are not here through one boom and bust,” said Amir Gerges, Shell’s Permian general manager. “We are here developing a generational resource.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/business/energy-environment/texas-permian-field-oil.html
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BP to Expand Emissions Disclosure on Oil Investments
Feb 4, 2019 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Ron Bousso
BP has agreed to broaden its disclosure on greenhouse gas emissions to show how it thinks future investments in oil and gas align with U.N.-backed climate goals, it said on Friday.
Following talks with a large group of investors, BP also agreed to back a shareholder resolution on the measures at its annual general meeting (AGM), further evidence of the way the energy industry and investors are engaging on climate issues.
The agreement with a group of investors with $32 trillion under management, known as Climate Action 100+, comes weeks after rival Royal Dutch Shell agreed to introduce broad carbon emissions targets linked to executive pay.
Unlike other companies, BP has agreed to detail how major future investments in fossil fuels will be consistent with the 2015 Paris agreement to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by the end of the century by phasing out fossil fuels.
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It will set out new metrics to measure greenhouse gas emissions from its operations.
BP said in a statement it would link carbon targets to the remuneration of 36,000 of its employees, including executive directors.
If the resolution is approved at the AGM, BP will introduce these changes into its reporting for 2019 onwards.
(GRAPHIC: Carbon emissions from Big Oil - https://tmsnrt.rs/2RFl5PN)
But the joint agreement revealed a fundamental rift with investors over BP's statement that its strategy today was in line with the Paris agreement.
"Investors remain concerned that the company has not yet demonstrated that its strategy, which includes growth in oil and gas as well as pursuing low carbon businesses, is consistent with the Paris goals," Climate Action 100+ said in statement.
BP plans to rapidly grow oil and gas production over the next five years thanks to more than a dozen new projects launched in recent years, as well as the $10.5 billion acquisition of BHP's U.S. shale portfolio last year.Editors’ Picks‘A Pumping Conspiracy’: Why Workers Smuggled Breast Pumps Into PrisonThey Created a Muslim Enclave in Upstate N.Y. Then Came the Online Conspiracies.A $21,000 Cosmetology School Debt, and a $9-an-Hour Job
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"We will be open and transparent about our ambitions and targets as well as our progress against them," BP Chairman Helge Lund said in a statement.
BP Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley has repeatedly said that while the oil and gas sector needs to play a role in the transition to low carbon energy, it still needs to meet growing demand for fossil fuels, particularly in emerging economies.
"BP is committed to helping solve the dual challenge of providing more energy with fewer emissions. We are determined to advance the energy transition while also growing shareholder value," Lund said.
Investors and analysts have said many oil and gas projects, such as complex and expensive investments in Canada or some deepwater basins, will not be needed in the transition to a low carbon energy.
While BP agreed to increase its disclosure around climate, it also rejected another resolution tabled by climate activist group Follow This calling for emission reduction targets for all its operations, including emissions from products it sells to customers, known as Scope 3.
BP announced in April plans to keep carbon emissions flat over the decade to 2025 even as its oil and gas output was set to grow. It also plans to invest up to $500 million per year on renewable energies such as solar, wind and power storage.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/02/01/business/01reuters-bp-climatechange.html
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Industry Calls on Court to Uphold FERC Climate Policy
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Energy trade groups are calling on the courts to preserve a federal policy shift on climate analysis for midstream natural gas projects.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officials were well within their authority when they decided last year to limit their reviews of upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions from pipelines and related infrastructure, several industry associations told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday.
"Instead of accepting Petitioners' invitation to rewrite the law, this Court should continue to allow FERC to exercise its expertise in determining the effects of a project it is charged with approving," the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and American Petroleum Institute wrote in a briefsupporting FERC's policy change.
The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America submitted a separate amicus brief Friday.
Democratic commissioners Richard Glick and Cheryl LaFleur, who announced last week she would not seek another term, dissented from the climate policy switch.
A lawsuit filed by the nonprofit group Otsego 2000 challenges FERC's policy shift, which the commission announced in a procedural document denying a rehearing request for Dominion Energy Transmission Inc.'s New Market Project in New York.
Industry interests asked the D.C. Circuit to distinguish between the Otsego case and the court's 2017 landmark ruling in Sierra Club v. FERC, which found that FERC fell short in its consideration of downstream greenhouse gas emissions from the Southeast Market Pipelines Project, which includes the Sabal Trail gas pipeline (Energywire, Aug. 23, 2017).
The "unique configuration" of Sabal Trail means it is reasonably foreseeable that the project would transport a predictable quantity of natural gas per day to a particular set of interconnected power plants, the industry groups said.
"That stands in stark contrast with a traditional midstream project like the New Market Project, which is designed to function as part of the interstate pipeline network that serves natural gas shippers who can receive gas from multiple upstream sources and deliver it to marketers or end-users who use the gas for multiple purposes at numerous destinations," according to one brief.
In their dissents, LaFleur and Glick cited Sierra Club v. FERC as a clear indication that the commission needs to conduct more robust environmental reviews.
A multistate coalition of Democratic attorneys general in their December amicus brief pointed to the case as evidence that the D.C. Circuit should scrap the FERC policy.
Oral arguments in the case have not yet been scheduled.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/02/04/stories/1060119439
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Supermajors Ride High on Gas Exports
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
The liquefied natural gas business delivered returns for the oil and gas supermajors last year, and executives expect more to come for 2019.
Strong LNG prices, sales growth and booming demand helped some of the world's largest oil producers ride out the crude price slump felt toward the end of the year. Companies reporting their fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 financial results gave their investors mostly upbeat news, crediting LNG for seeing their businesses through a volatile oil price environment.
Project expansions, ramp-ups and financial investment decisions on new LNG export platforms are all in store for the rest of the year.
In a call with analysts, Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods credited "strong LNG prices and seasonal demand" for his company's upbeat quarterly financial report. Exxon's earnings for the final three months of last year were down compared with the same period in 2017 but rose by 6 percent for the full 12 months year-over-year, to $20.8 billion.
Woods announced that Exxon Mobil plans to approve construction of a new LNG export base at Golden Pass in Texas, across the river from Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass project in Louisiana. The company is also close to approving a major LNG investment in Mozambique and work on a twin project to accompany its groundbreaking PNG-LNG project in Papua New Guinea.
Golden Pass will be developed in partnership with Qatar Petroleum, the state-owned concern of the Middle East's LNG export powerhouse Qatar.
"We continue to make good progress on projects in our LNG portfolio," Woods said. "PNG and Mozambique remain on track for a final investment decision. We've also been working closely with QP, our partner in Golden Pass."
On that project, "we look forward to announcing something here in the very near term," Woods added.
Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden also tipped his hat to his company's LNG portfolio, including Shell's LNG trading arm, for delivering a sizable chunk of that company's 2018 earnings.
Shell reported full-year 2018 earnings of $21.4 billion. Of that, $9.4 billion came from the company's "integrated gas" operations, which include LNG, Shell said.
Shell has the largest LNG portfolio of the peer group following its acquisition of BG Group PLC. China's surging LNG demand has been a driving force in the industry. Executives at Shell advised the company's investors to not worry too much about the sharp economic slowdown underway in China, as gas and LNG demand are seen as policy-driven there, with future growth much less dependent on China's economic output compared with the oil side of the equation.
"When it comes to gas demand in China, the drivers are a bit different," said Maarten Wetselaar, Shell's director of integrated gas. Beijing's determination to swap coal for gas and clean China's filthy air will see gas demand rising there for some time, he said. China's efforts to expand its own gas production are also falling flat, he added.
"In 2018, which was indeed mixed in terms of economic growth in China, the gas market still grew by 16 percent," Wetselaar explained. "Because domestic production isn't going so well, the energy imports into China grew by 40 percent, so if that's a disappointing year in China, then long may it last."
CEO van Beurden said Shell's floating Prelude project in Australia will produce and deliver its first LNG cargo this year. The boost in export capacity will help to solidify Australia's position as the world's largest LNG producer, usurping a status long held by Qatar. "Once fully operational, Prelude will produce 3.6 million tons of LNG and 1.7 million tons of natural gas liquids per year," said van Beurden.
Chevron Corp. CEO Michael Wirth also told investors and analysts that booming LNG exports lifted that company's earnings last year. Despite weaker crude pricing toward the end of the year, Chevron recorded earnings for 2018 of $14.8 billion, up from $9.2 billion in 2017.
Last year, Chevron launched a second LNG liquefaction train at its Wheatstone project in Australia. That and an aggressive expansion in the United States' Permian Basin represented the largest additions for Chevron during 2018, Wirth said.
Executives cautioned industry analysts that they do not expect the LNG ride to be always fun for shareholders.
Significant supply growth is in store for 2019, and the end of this decade will likely see a glut exceeding market demand, at least for a few years. But the longer-term outlook for LNG is increasingly looking positive.
Outside China, LNG import demand is expected to rise strongly in South and Southeast Asia, while some European nations are scrambling to import more LNG to reduce their dependence on Russian piped gas.
"Capacity will come on in big chunks. It won't necessarily be coordinated," Woods at Exxon Mobil acknowledged. "We'll see, I suspect, periods of oversupply, and when we see that period, we're going to have to make sure that our investments are robust to lower market prices, and as growth continues and the market tightens up, we'll see advantages there, as well."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/02/04/stories/1060119455
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Duke Energy Broke Rules Designed to Keep Electric Grid Safe
Feb 1, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal
By Rebecca Smith
Duke Energy Corp. faces a record $10 million fine from federal authorities for serious and pervasive violations of rules designed to keep the nation’s electric system safe from physical and cyber attacks, according to people familiar with the matter.
Some violations lasted for years; others apparently are continuing, according to the people and newly released documents in a federal regulatory filing.
Investigators have referred the proposed penalty and a settlement agreement with Duke to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval, according to the filing by the North American Electric Reliability Corp., the organization that since 1967 has been responsible for keeping the nation’s electric grid safe. The proposed fine is a fraction of the maximum amount allowed by law.
The filing refers to Duke only as an “unidentified registered entity,” upholding the practice in recent years of shielding offenders from public exposure.
Duke, based in Charlotte, N.C., is a giant utility that operates gas and electric utilities in seven states and owns nuclear power plants and gas-transmission lines. It committed 127 violations of safety rules, federal investigators said, which “posed a serious risk to the security and reliability” of the eastern interconnection, the web of electric utilities east of the Rocky Mountains that furnishes electricity to most Americans.
The filing didn’t say whether hackers gained access to Duke’s systems, but for six months a “configuration error” meant that system engineers weren’t alerted about some types of attempted hacks, the newly released documents show.
A Duke spokesman said the utility, “per standard policy, does not comment on enforcement filings.”
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The revelation of the extensive cybersecurity breakdown at a major utility comes as federal authorities are increasingly vocal about efforts by foreign actors, including those in Russia, to hack into U.S. utilities. In hearings this week before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the nation’s intelligence chiefs warned that Russians now have the technical means to disrupt electrical service in the U.S.
An investigation by The Wall Street Journal, published last month, showed how Russian hackers used the unprotected computer systems of small vendors hired by utilities in an attempt to break through the controls of the larger companies. But Duke’s systems, unlike those of small vendors, were presumed to be highly protected.
The case is especially striking because Duke is one of the nation’s biggest and best-resourced utilities with more than $138 billion in assets and 29,000 employees. As such, its security program should have been top notch, industry experts say.
That Duke was the unnamed company was first reported Friday by the trade publication Energywire.
Many of Duke’s violations involved “repeated failures to implement physical and cyber security protections,” according to NERC, the investigating agency that referred the case to FERC. The reliability organization added that Duke’s management “passively accepted” many shortcomings that employees reported and allowed “problems to continue for over five years.”
In the enforcement document released to the public, which exceeds 750 pages, important details are blacked out. As a reason for the secrecy, NERC pointed to the Journal’s investigation, published on Jan. 11, that explained how the Russians tried to penetrate the defenses of utilities. NERC said that any company shown to have weak defenses would be subject to more attacks.
NERC said it doesn’t comment on enforcement cases.
Among the violations identified by NERC, Duke failed to protect sensitive information on its most critical cyber assets and allowed employees without proper clearances to access computerized records for more than four years, the documents say.
Duke also allowed contractors, employees and former employees without proper clearances to gain unescorted access to sensitive locations, like substations and computer server rooms, sometimes for many months.
In one case, according to the documents, a technician shared his username and password with two people who, as a result, had access to some of Duke’s electronic systems for nearly three years, only losing access when the technician changed his password.
The utility company improperly configured firewalls for some of its networks and, in at least one instance, failed to “monitor for malicious communications,” the documents say.
The company allowed remote, computer access to some of its sensitive systems without requiring what is called multi-factor authentication. That requires a user to jump through a series of hoops to verify that the person seeking access had proper authority. Nor did it require encryption. NERC noted the violation “is currently ongoing.”
The lapses in the filing occurred at a time when foreign adversaries were known to be seeking ways to penetrate the defenses of utilities. U.S. intelligence agencies said this week, in the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, that Russia now has the ability to launch cyber attacks that include “disrupting an electrical distribution network for at least a few hours.”
Successful cyber attacks could cause enormous loss of life, especially if they happened during periods of extreme weather such as occurred this week with record-low temperatures in much of the U.S.
Industry observers said the widespread lapses in the filing shine an unflattering light on the utility sector, which is struggling to satisfy cyber security rules that have been getting more stringent since the first set was imposed in 2013.
“The state of compliance is pretty rotten,” said Tom Alrich, a utility consultant who helps utilities audit their security programs. He added that he knows Duke spends a lot of money on its critical infrastructure protections. “I really doubt they are much more insecure than anyone else,” he said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/duke-energy-broke-rules-designed-to-keep-electric-grid-safe-11549056238?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2
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Sterigenics Allegedly Covered Up Toxic Emissions, Operated Secret Plants, Former Workers Say
Feb 4, 2019 | CBS Chicago
By Dave Savini
A local company accused of illegally dumping toxic chemicals for decades took extraordinary steps to cover up the release of a cancer-causing gas and secretly operated other dumping facilities in the suburbs, according to court filings and former workers.
According to the ex-employees and documents, the practices by Willowbrook-based Sterigenics potentially exposed even more residents to toxins than previously thought.
Matt Haller, 45, lived about a mile from the Sterigenics facility in Willowbrook and now has stage-four stomach cancer. The married father of a four-year-old has lost 75 pounds, as the cancer ravaged his body.
He was healthy and active, and enjoyed playing hockey. He loved his career at ESPN in sales.
“I had a future that had success written on it, and now I have no future,” he told CBS 2.
Now he is fighting to stay alive long enough to make a few more memories with his greatest loves, his wife, Colleen, and son, Cullen.
He and other cancer patients want to know whether a chemical spewed by Sterigenics, a medical equipment sterilization company, made them sick.
“To think this company could have been literally behind my death is shocking. It’s utterly shocking,” Haller said.
Former Sterigenics employees allege the company ordered workers to dump toxic chemicals directly into the public sewer system. It also covered up just how much was released into the air, including cancer-causing ethylene oxide. It is the main ingredient used to clean medical equipment, such as surgical tools.
According to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, the chemical is linked to several cancers. The CBS 2 Investigators obtained documents showing the EPA warned the company 35 years ago that ethylene oxide caused stomach cancer.
“If they were responsible, someone should go to jail,” Haller said.
Former workers, who do not want to be identified, accused the company of improperly dumping ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol.
One former Sterigenics worker said the chemical would be washed directly into the factory drains.
“The people in the back would call it chamber scum,” said one former worker. “It was really nasty. They would have us scrub it out, hose it down and squeegee it right into the drainage pits.”
Workers say plant supervisors would dump ethylene oxide’s byproduct – ethylene glycol – down the public sewer drains to avoid the cost of shutting down operations. Ethylene glycol is found in anti-freeze.
To avoid plant shutdowns, former workers say, the company manipulated alarm systems meant to warn workers when they were over-exposed to chemicals.
The workers say they know of colleagues who have died of cancer. They, too, fear getting sick someday.
“One time I’ll go to the doctor and they will say, ‘You have cancer,’ ’’ said one worker. “Just like a ticking time bomb in you.”
Even when the warning monitors did go off, work still did not stop, one worker said.
In a declaration filed in federal court by the law firm of Hart, McLaughlin and Eldridge against Sterigenics on behalf of Haller and other alleged victims, a forklift operator said there were frequent warnings, but he was repeatedly told to ignore it, not talk about it and just deal with it or find work elsewhere.
He said he was told to just open the doors and let the gas out.
“Those who weren’t wearing a mask would have to evacuate the areas,” the worker said. “However, it happened so many times you’d be like, ‘Just leave the doors open, it will clear out.’ ”
Workers say fumes were often sent out without going through scrubbers to filter the chemical.
“There’d be a vent in the back of the chamber that would open up and the blower would kick on and it was made to suck out any extra fumes,” a worker said.
They say dangerous vapors also poured out after sterilized products sat in ventilation rooms. It’s a process called off-gassing. However, the doors to those rooms often were left open, spewing high levels of gas throughout the plant. As a solution, the workers were told to simply open all the overhead doors to get rid of the gas.
Katherine Howard has lived seven blocks from Sterigenics main plant in Willowbrook since 2002. She, like Haller, who also lives in Willowbrook, has stomach cancer and needs a feeding machine to live.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not in pain,” she said. “And my fear is that it’s inside of each of my children just waiting.”
She has devoted her life to digging through every public record available.
She blames Sterigenics for her cancer.
She said she blames the EPA, too.
“They’re the ones that are regulating,” she said. “They’re the ones that are giving them the operating permits.”
In fact, all the way back in 1984, the EPA knew the chemicals were linked to cancer and warned the company when it wanted to add more sterilization chambers. Then the company was known as Griffith Laboratories.
View this document on Scribd
According to a 1984 Illinois EPA letter, the agency warned the company that the 40 tons of ethylene oxide released the previous year, was “several magnitudes higher than desirable.” The company was warned at that time that ethylene oxide could cause cancers of the pancreas, bladder, brain and stomach. According to the letter, the EPA found the company was releasing it at levels 14 times to 445 times the acceptable level for people in a one-mile radius around the plant.
There are reportedly 20,000 people in that mile radius, including schools and parks.
View this document on Scribd
“They knew,” Howard said. “They knew”
The EPA allowed the company to expand, despite those numbers.
“They’re the ones who are responsible for protecting the residents,” Howard said.
The company was ordered by the EPA to test for ethylene oxide emissions and provide a report a year later.
CBS 2 requested that report, but the EPA said it does not have a record of it.
“Whether they did it intentionally or unintentionally, they [the EPA] failed us,” Howard said.
Howard plans to sue Sterigenics and is represented by the law firm of Salvi, Schostok and Pritchard.
Former workers say the state and federal EPA oversight was a joke.
“I don’t think [the company] really cared,” one worker said.
The state EPA allowed the company to do its own emission testing and reporting. The agency allowed it, despite the fact that the federal EPA in 2002 accused the company of failing to install monitoring systems and keep emission records.
“God forbid if they’re doing what they say they’re doing and they’re poisoning the community then they need to pay and I don’t mean monetarily I mean they need to pay ethically – people need to be going to jail,” Haller told CBS 2 Investigator Dave Savini.
“They are the black eye of corporate America,” said one former worker.
Sterigenics CEO Kathleen Hoffman, who has worked with the company dating back to the late 90s, refused to be interviewed for this story.
CBS 2 has learned there were three more warehouses where the former workers say the deadly gas was leaking.
Before Sterigenics built their second warehouse in Willowbrook, they used three other places to handle all the overflow. CBS 2 could find no record the EPA ever inspected them. These warehouses were all within a mile of Sterigenics. One was on the 7300 block of South Quincy Street in Willowbrook. Two more were in Burr Ridge – one on Shore Drive and the other on Heathrow Court. All were within a few blocks of homes.
According to former workers, skids of freshly sterilized medical equipment would be sent there to air out the saturated ethylene oxide. It can take up to seven days, all the while emitting toxic vapors. The former workers say those additional warehouses were not equipped to handle those kinds of vapors.
Shawn Collins is one of 30 attorneys working together on behalf of people with illnesses tied to ethylene oxide exposure.
“If that’s what went on, then hell is not hot enough for them,” he said. “If a company is falsifying reports, disregarding reports, operating in a way that is not allowed by law, it’s breaking the law.”
A 1998 Securities and Exchange Commission report written by the company owned by Griffith Microscience International Inc. lays out the dangers of cancer to workers and others. It also warned that if the government imposed more regulations, it could “result in fines, adverse publicity and increased capital and operating costs … and could force the company to alter or cease the operation of one or more of its facilities.”
Workers say the gas even stayed on their clothes when they went home. The only protective gear they received? Gas masks.
Workers who complained were fired.
Sterigenics denies all claims it dumped illegally or outside of any of the controlled limits set by regulatory agencies, and has no evidence to support any rigging of monitors to protect worker safety. The company says it never off-gassed at any other warehouses and all ventilation of product occurred in rooms equipped to do so. A company representative says Sterigenics will vigorously defend itself in court. (Read the full statement here)
View this document on Scribd
The EPA has yet to comment.
As the legal battles continue and as her husband fights for his life and grows weaker by the day, Colleen Haller is worried about the health of her son.
“I want to know the truth. I want to make sure my son is OK,” she said.
Mr. Haller becomes emotional as he thinks about his son.
“My son is four years old, and he is right at that stage, is he going to remember me?”
“I’m not going to be able to teach him to play hockey. So much loss. You know when you look forward, you just see loss.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help with the Hallers’ medical costs.
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/02/03/sterigenics-covered-up-toxic-emissions-operated-secret-plants/
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A Year After a S.C. Amtrak Wreck, Train Safety Tech Goes Online
Feb 4, 2019 | Government Technology
By David Travis Bland
A year ago this week, an Amtrak passenger train slammed into a stopped engine in Cayce, leaving a set of derailed passenger cars bent into a V shape, a smashed Amtrak conductor’s car laying on its side, and a totally demolished engine that looked like it had been run over. Two people were killed and nearly 100 were injured.
A top National Transportation Safety Board official called the wreckage “catastrophic,” The State reported.
“It’s a horrible thing to see to understand the force that is involved,” Gov. Henry McMaster said after seeing the Feb. 4 wreck.RELATEDRailroads Across U.S. to Miss Deadline for Safety ControlsWork Remains on New York Train Control Tech
A year later, new equipment, including technology that could have prevented the accident, has been installed and is operating on all major railroad tracks in South Carolina, according to CSX and Norfolk Southern, the two main companies that operate tracks in the state. What’s more, Amtrak says the technology required for its trains to interact with the new railroad technology is operating on the trains it sends through the state.
“It has moved in the right direction and the system is absolutely needed,” said Dimitris Rizos, an associate professor of engineering and coordinator of the railway engineering program at the University of South Carolina.
An investigation blamed the morning accident in Cayce on a switch left in the wrong position, which caused the Amtrak train to reroute onto a side track, where two CSX engines sat while railroad crews worked, The State reported. A signal that would have warned the moving train’s operators of the out-place-switch was also turned off by the crew working the railroad.
Ironically, the crew was installing components of Positive Train Control, or PTC, a system that is meant to automatically slow or brake trains in unsafe situations.
Killed in the crash were two Amtrak employees: engineer Michael Kempf, 54, of Savannah, Ga., and conductor Michael Cella, 36, of Orange Park, Fla.
“A fully operational positive train control system could have avoided this accident,” said Robert Sumwalt of Columbia, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, on the day of the wreck. “That is what it is designed to do.”
A federal law passed in 2008 required the system to be in place by 2015. But the deadline established by the national Rail Safety Improvement Act was changed by Congress in October 2015 to require installation by Dec. 31 2018. An extension to 2020 was granted to railroad companies that met certain criteria at the end of 2018.
In South Carolina, the system is installed in all trains and rails operated by CSX and Norfolk Southern in the state, the companies reported. The two companies are the main railroads in the state.
PTC relies on GPS, wireless radio and computers to monitor train positions and railroad conditions, The State reported in 2018. It is supposed to compensate for human errors, like the one the NTSB said apparently led to the switch misalignment in Cayce.
“PTC implementation is a very complex undertaking, and we are proud of the significant progress our dedicated employees have made,” CSX said in a statement.
Norfolk Southern spokesperson Susan Terpay said nearly 74 percent of the company’s nationwide trains and tracks that are required to have PTC are already operating the system.
But installing the system on tracks is just one part of the complicated process. PTC technology on the tracks must be compatible to what’s in the trains. Matching the different technologies has been “an enormous challenge,” according to Jeff Young, an expert on the new systems who worked for Union Pacific Railroad for nearly 40 years and is a consultant for the Association of America Railroads.
Ensuring compatibility is a complicated task that involves testing different companies’ trains over every mile of railroad. Young compared it to “...mapping all of the interstates and state highways across the country and validating the data in the field for every speed sign, milepost sign, traffic signal, exit ramp and other roadway features.”
In South Carolina, Amtrak trains use Norfolk Southern and CSX tracks. When the Cayce wreck occurred, the Amtrak train was traveling on CSX tracks.
An Amtrak spokesperson confirmed that its trains are operating with PTC on CSX rails in South Carolina. Nationwide, nearly 16,000 miles of track used by Amtrak has the PTC system, Kimberly Woods of Amtrak said.
Terpay of Norfolk Southern said Amtrak is running with the PTC technology on Norfolk Southern’s tracks in South Carolina.
Nationwide, the major railroads, including CSX and Norfolk Southern, are “meeting all the marks” towards having the PTC system fully working by 2020, said Jessica Kahanek, a spokesperson for the Association of American Railroads, an industry trade and lobbying group.
The railroad industry has spent $10.5 billion on installing PTC, according to the association. The system will cost hundreds of millions to maintain each year, the group reported.
Beyond PTC, CSX said that in 2018 it took further steps to enhance safety such as hiring a new chief safety officer, redesigning safety training, strengthening rules and testing and making it easier for employees to report safety issues.
“We are beginning to see positive results from our efforts,” with fewer personal injuries and accident rates, CSX said.“We recognize there is always more work to be done and we’re committed to building on our progress,” CSX said.
Immediately after the 2018 train crash, the Federal Railroad Administration enacted an emergency order to reduce train speeds in areas where switches and signals may be an issue, said Tom Allen with S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff. Railroad companies reviewed policies and took measures to ensure switch and signal safety.
Whether the new system could have been in place any earlier is hard to say, according Rizos, the engineering professor at USC.
“It’s like building a whole new highway system from scratch. It’s a huge investment and going to take time,” Rizos said “It could have been done faster maybe, but it’s not unreasonable for such an effort to take some time.”
But the safety measures come too late for Howard Spier, a personal injury attorney and 35-year veteran of railroad litigation. Spier represented Christine Cella, widow of the conductor who died in the 2018 crash, in a wrongful death suit against CSX and Amtrak that came down hard on the companies, particularly CSX, for negligence and safety failures. Cella’s suit was settled, Spier said, but that’s little compensation.
“Did we not learn a lesson ... from so many other crashes and collision?” Spier said. “Did anybody else have to die because the railroads said they didn’t have the money for PTC, did the FRA have to let them off the hook (on deadlines)?”
Spier questions why PTC wasn’t installed years ago if the intent was to save lives as companies say the technology will do.
“Why any lives had to be lost is a black mark on rail safety in this country,” Spier said.
http://www.govtech.com/fs/infrastructure/A-Year-After-SC-Amtrak-Wreck-Train-Safety-Tech-Goes-Online.html
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Trump to Seek 'Substantial' Infrastructure Funding
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss and Nick Sobczyk
President Trump will renew his call for major infrastructure legislation during tomorrow's State of the Union address, as talks get underway among key House and Senate lawmakers from both parties.
Infrastructure will be one of five areas in which the president will urge Congress to work on with him during the address, the theme of which is "choosing greatness," a senior administration official told reporters in a Friday conference call previewing the speech.
The White House declined to offer additional details but said Trump will "talk broadly about rebuilding America."
"He will ask Congress to produce an infrastructure package that delivers substantial investments in vital national infrastructure projects," said the White House official.
Trump is likely to emphasize his administration's efforts to curb regulations, but Friday's call did not offer any clues as to whether the president will talk about environmental or energy policy tomorrow.
The senior official said the president will use the address to "cast an inspiring vision of American greatness."
"He will outline a policy agenda that both parties can rally behind to achieve this vision," said the official.
"The president will express confidence in this hopeful future and encourage Congress to reject the politics of resistance and retribution and instead adopt a spirit of cooperation and compromise so we can achieve it."
In addition to infrastructure, the speech will focus on immigration, trade, prescription drug costs and protecting national security, the official said.
Trump will urge Congress to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, while also handing him new powers to impose tariffs.
The president is likely in for a skeptical reception from Democrats and their guests for the prime-time address.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) announced Friday that he has invited 350.org founder Bill McKibbento the address, while Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) is bringing League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski.
Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) has invited Cathy Wusterbarth of Oscoda, Mich., an advocate for addressing contamination by toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) found in the city's water.
The White House is expected to announce its own guests later today.Hill girds for talks
Tomorrow's address comes after the GOP-led Congress failed to deliver on Trump's repeated campaign promise to enact a $1 trillion infrastructure package.
While Congress last year passed a bipartisan water infrastructure package that Trump signed, the broader infrastructure push never materialized as lawmakers shied away from the tough work of funding the measure.
Key lawmakers are determined to avoid a repeat of last year, already huddling to map out a strategy and launching hearings this week (see related story).
House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said he hopes the president will lay out a forceful case for infrastructure, a frequent topic during Trump's presidential campaign that became a punchline metaphor for White House policy dysfunction during the first half of his term.
"I hope that he dwells on it a bit," DeFazio told E&E News on Friday. "We will need support from the White House if we're going to do a major, longer-term bill. And it's going to require real federal investment, real federal partnership."
He noted "mixed messages" from the White House since Trump called for infrastructure legislation before Congress last year.
"The president upped the ante in the State of the Union last year, but there was no follow-through from his staff," DeFazio said.
He added that "nobody liked" the White House infrastructure proposal led by DJ Gribbin, who left the administration last spring. That plan relied largely on public-private partnerships and "massive tolling everywhere," said DeFazio.
Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), the ranking member on T&I, said he expects Trump to "reaffirm his commitment to infrastructure" during the speech, an aide said last week.
"This will be very symbolic and send the message that he is ready to get something done," said the aide, who noted that Graves is working closely with the administration to incorporate some its priorities in the package.
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who met with DeFazio last week to talk about infrastructure, said the two had a "very good" discussion during his visit to the House chairman's office.
Barrasso said infrastructure talks will initially focus on surface transportation, including roads and bridges. Once a transportation bill is done, "we can look" at other infrastructure items, he said.
Barrasso said he expects to have the White House's backing for whatever Congress produces. "It's a key issue for him," he said of Trump.
It's unclear whether Trump will outline specific pay-fors during tomorrow's address, but Barrasso said he is optimistic that Congress and the White House can reach a deal on funding.
"We're going to have to, we need to pay for this," he said. "Paying is part of it; the other part is just making it easier to be able to build things faster, smarter, better, cheaper, and so much of that is the regulatory component of that."
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who sits on the EPW Committee, noted that infrastructure was one of Trump's frequent talking points on the campaign trail, and despite initial enthusiasm, the plan the White House rolled out last year was stymied by myriad controversies and other policy issues.
"A lot of people on infrastructure, as you guys know, had anticipated something long before now," Inhofe told reporters last week. "We did not anticipate all the trauma that we would be competing with."Wish lists
Democrats and their supporters off Capitol Hill are already looking to gather support for their own vision for infrastructure legislation.
They're hoping it's an early opportunity to address climate change and promote clean energy in a bill that may have a shot at making it through the likes of Inhofe and the Republican Senate and getting Trump's signature.
In a December letter to the White House, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)offered a litmus test for any infrastructure bill, including "funding to transition to a clean energy economy and mitigate the risks that the United States is already facing due to climate change" (E&E Daily, Dec. 7).
And last week, the liberal Center for American Progress put together a report floating ideas for an infrastructure plan focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping cities prepare for climate change.
"Historically, infrastructure and protection of the environment have been treated as separate, with the former a foundational element of economic production and the latter an amenity — something nice to have but incidental to the economy and economic issues of wages, growth, and competitiveness," the group wrote.
"The increasing severity and frequency of catastrophic wildfires, droughts, floods, and hurricanes have laid waste to this false dichotomy. In truth, the economy and the environment are intricately linked and mutually reinforcing."
To address a wide variety of needs — including surface transportation and water and energy infrastructure — the group suggests spending an additional $1 trillion above the baseline, when adjusted for inflation, during the next 10 years.
Reporter Maxine Joselow contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/02/04/stories/1060119517
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Hearing Will Set Stage for Infrastructure Talks
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Maxine Joselow
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing this week on the country's infrastructure needs — a key first step in the bipartisan push to pass a broad infrastructure package.
The hearing, titled "The Cost of Doing Nothing: Why Investing in Our Nation's Infrastructure Cannot Wait," will take place Thursday in the House Capitol Visitor Center.
T&I Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) told E&E News that he plans to highlight the hefty cost of failing to invest in rebuilding the nation's aging roads, bridges and other surface transportation infrastructure.
"If we don't make these investments, we're looking at hundreds of billions of dollars of lost economic activity," DeFazio said in an interview Friday.
DeFazio met with Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to discuss agenda items for this Congress. @TransportDems/Twitter
"We are going to see costs that are 20 to 50 times as high in terms of lost economic activity when these things fail," he added.
DeFazio has previously called for passing a broad infrastructure deal within the first six months of the 116th Congress. Asked whether the 35-day partial government shutdown would push back this timeline, he said he remains cautiously optimistic.
"Definitely [the shutdown] has been disruptive, and it hasn't helped with discussions with the administration on some agreement on infrastructure," he said. "But, you know, I haven't been sitting around doing nothing. I mean, we've been planning the hearing, sketching out legislation."
In preparation for the hearing, ranking member Sam Graves (R-Mo.) plans to meet with "key players" in the Trump administration on infrastructure, according to a spokeswoman.
"Graves will be working closely with the Administration and incorporate some of their goals," spokeswoman Suzanne Youngblood said in an email.
"In fact he recently meet with [Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao] to talk infrastructure and plans to meet with other key players like National Economic Council (NEC) Director Larry Kudlow at the White House next week."
The hearing will occur two days after President Trump delivers his State of the Union address, which could touch on infrastructure, as well (see related story).
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, Feb. 7, at 9:30 a.m. in HVC-210 Capitol.
Witnesses: TBA.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/02/04/stories/1060119331
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Four Lawmakers Tapped to Lead Centrist Democrats’ Climate Group
Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
A group of centrist, pro-business Democrats on Feb. 1 picked four co-chairs to share power on a climate change task force that will develop what they see as more realistic approaches to combating climate change and building a more green economy.
The New Democrat Coalition, a group of more than 100 House Democrats backing what they view as more fiscally responsible policies, has tapped Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.); Sean Casten (D-Ill.); Susan Wild (D-Pa.); and Elaine Luria (D-Va.) to co-chair the coalition’s Climate Change Task Force.
The New Democrat Coalition is chaired by Washington Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer.
“Climate change is a generational crisis that warrants action from all political perspectives,” Beyer said in a statement. “The New Dems have a strong reputation for reaching across the aisle to get things done, and I’m ready to work with my colleagues to find common-sense policy solutions for one of the biggest challenges facing Americans today.”
The climate task force was one of several announced by the centrist Democrats. Others were the Future of Work Task Force; Healthcare Task Force; Technology Task Force; Housing Task Force; Infrastructure Task Force; National Security Task Force; and Trade Task Force.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/four-lawmakers-tapped-to-lead-centrist-democrats-climate-group
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Hearings Headline Hot Week on Climate
Feb 4, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
House Democrats will lay out their broad visions for tackling climate change this week with a pair of hearings and a mix of high-profile witnesses.
The Natural Resources Committee and Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change will both kick off climate hearings at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
After House Republicans largely ignored climate change for nearly a decade, the meetings will mark the issue's first formal moment in the sun in the 116th Congress.
And they'll come with a hectic political backdrop. Since Democrats won the House in November, newly elected progressives have pushed the "Green New Deal" with a flurry of protests and events with advocacy groups on Capitol Hill.
That's helped push climate change to the forefront of the Democratic agenda, with leadership and rank-and-file members alike talking up oversight hearings and looking to craft climate legislation in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.
On Natural Resources, some of those new progressives will get a platform for their ideas on climate change.
Reps. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) both sit on the panel, and both have been vocal backers of the Green New Deal, an ambitious set of proposals aimed at getting the U.S. to 100 percent renewables in just a decade.
The Energy and Commerce subcommittee, on the other hand, will have a more seasoned group of Democrats on the dais. Its chairman, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), has emerged as an important voice in working with leadership and big-name environmental groups to craft climate legislation (E&E Daily, Jan. 18).
Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) is new to the subcommittee, as is Rep. Don McEachin (D-Va.), a leading congressional voice on environmental justice issues.
Republicans on both committees, meanwhile, have been mulling over how to respond to the onslaught of Democratic climate messaging.
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), ranking member and former chairman of the environment subcommittee, has said he's reviewing the recent National Climate Assessment to prepare for Democrats eager to tackle the issue.
"We will question the science when the science has areas by which we can question it," he said last month. "We also reiterate that there is a cost-benefit analysis to everything you do."
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who doesn't sit on the subcommittee but is a former chairman of the full committee, said Republicans on the panel are "just getting started" on sussing out where their caucus will land on the issue with the new Congress.
"We're seeing where people are," he told E&E News last month. "I'm not a denier."
Natural Resources will bring in two panels of witnesses. The first, notably, will include Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who will appear alongside North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D).
The second will bring in a mix of witnesses from the environmental justice community, including the Rev. Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus, a grassroots advocacy group centered on hip-hop culture.
Kim Cobb, a professor at Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, will also testify on the second panel.
Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife Chairman Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said he's planning on having his first hearing on ocean health this week (see related story).
"Climate's part of all of it," Huffman told reporters last week. "My view and my approach, instead of saying we're going to have a dedicated hearing on climate, to me, we're going to identify all the priority issues in my subcommittee, and climate's part of that conversation."
Also this week, House leaders may finally release the names of lawmakers to sit on the new select panel on climate and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is said to be preparing legislative language surrounding the Green New Deal.
Schedule: The Natural Resources hearing is Wednesday, Feb. 6, at 10 a.m. in 1324 Longworth.
Witnesses:North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D).Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R).Kim Cobb, professor, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Tech.Nadia Nazar, co-founder, Zero Hour movement, co-organizer, Youth Climate March.Elizabeth Yeampierre, steering committee co-chair, Climate Justice Alliance.Lennox Yearwood, Hip Hop Caucus, advisory board member, The Climate Mobilization.Paula DiPerna, special adviser, CDP North America Inc.
Schedule: The Energy and Commerce hearing is Wednesday, Feb. 6, at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
Witnesses: TBA.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/02/04/stories/1060119339
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Top DOJ Official to Personally Argue Youth Climate Case
Feb 1, 2019 | Inside EPA
The Justice Department’s (DOJ) top environment official will personally argue the government’s position in a rare mid-case appeal urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to dismiss a novel constitutional climate case brought by a group of youth plaintiffs before it goes to trial at a lower court.
Jeffrey Bossert Clark, the recently confirmed assistant attorney general in DOJ’s Environment & Natural Resources Division (ENRD), will be presenting the government’s arguments at a special hearing later this year in Portland, OR, in the interlocutory appeal of Juliana, et al. v. United States of America, where 21 youth plaintiffs allege the government is violating the Constitution and public trust doctrine by promoting fossil fuels that will deprive them of a livable atmosphere.
Clark’s direct involvement in the oral arguments, which are likely to be held in July, is significant because top officials generally only argue cases of national significance. However, the case is also considered a long shot, given the novel arguments the plaintiffs are making, including that the Constitution includes the right to a stable atmosphere.
Dan Farber, a University of California-Berkley law professor, recently highlighted the case in a Jan. 21 Legal Planet blog post noting the plaintiffs “seem unlikely to surmount the legal obstacles before them. But there is an important insight at the heart of their case, and there may be other ways to operationalize that idea.”
The Trump DOJ has said that having a trial at the federal district court in Oregon, which would force administration officials to testify about their knowledge of climate change, would violate separation of powers. It has also argued that a court cannot order the government to stop permitting fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a level deemed safe.
However, attorneys for the youth argue that the climate protection plan order they are seeking would not be as proscriptive as DOJ claims.
Judge Ann Aiken of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon reluctantly granted the unusual appeal after DOJ made numerous attempts at winning a writ of mandamus -- in which a higher court would halt the case before she has finished her consideration. DOJ twice went to the Supreme Court and signaled it would continue to pursue all options to avoid trial.
Aiken previously rejected procedural arguments from both the Obama and Trump administrations for why the case should be dismissed and ordered it to go to what would be a high-profile trial that was to have started last fall.
She granted the interlocutory appeal in a Nov. 21 order, while noting, “This Court stands by its prior rulings on jurisdictional and merits issues, as well as its belief that this case would be better served by further factual development at trial.”
Aiken also granted the appeal after the 9th Circuit stayed the case to consider DOJ’s fourth mandamus petition.
The 9th Circuit accepted DOJ’s petition for interlocutory appeal in a Dec. 26 order, despite the youth plaintiffs’ opposition which argued that “every passing day is crucial for the ability of these young Plaintiffs to protect their fundamental rights to life, liberty, and property from the ‘direct existential threat’ of climate change.”
The appellate court on Jan. 7 granted the youths’ request to expedite briefing in the case, with DOJ’s opening brief due Feb. 1. The plaintiffs’ answer is due Feb. 22, and an optional DOJ reply is due March 8.
On Jan. 16, the court noted the case is being considered for oral argument in Portland and suggested dates in May, June and July. Due to conflicts that Clark and DOJ attorney Eric Grant listed with the earlier dates, it appears the hearing will most likely be scheduled between July 8-12. The court also suggested the possibility of the parties discussing a settlement.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/top-doj-official-personally-argue-youth-climate-case
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Planned Agency Merger Draws Fire From Nebraska Environmentalists
Feb 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Brown
Environmentalists are crying foul over a Nebraska bill that would combine the state’s environmental and energy departments and enable the state to take over Clean Water Act permitting authority from the federal government.
Supporters say the new combined agency would benefit from administrative efficiencies and would be better prepared as a single entity to deal with a coming wave of employee retirements than having the current agencies continue acting separately.
They also say that a state takeover of responsibility for a permit program under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act related to discharges of dredged or fill material would create a more streamlined permitting process without jeopardizing water quality.
But environmental activists see an inevitable conflict of interest between the combined agency’s duties to both promote energy use and regulate the environment, and argue they the state can’t be trusted to devote enough resources to responsibly carry out the dredge and fill permitting program.
“This is part and parcel of the Trump administration’s attempt to make a dead letter of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act,” said James Cavanaugh, counsel for the Sierra Club’s Nebraska chapter. “We’re strongly opposed.”
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 bill, L.B. 302, was introduced by state Sen. Dan Hughes (R) on behalf of Gov. Pete Ricketts (R). The bill was unanimously approved by the Natural Resources Committee Jan. 30, and now moves to the floor of the single-chamber Nebraska Legislature.
Single Agency?
Jim Macy, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, and interim director of the Nebraska Energy Office—the two agencies that would be combined under the bill—told the Natural Resources Committee that combining the agencies would make state government “more efficient, effective, and customer-focused.”
Efficiencies would come from eliminating paperwork from many of the combined agency’s processes, reducing duplication of back-office jobs, and combining programs that operate similarly.
As for the proposed state takeover of the dredge permitting program, Macy said that the state already reviews Section 404 permits for compliance with state water quality standards.
Allowing the state to assume full authority over the program would eliminate the duplication of effort between state regulators and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which enforces Section 404 along with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Work Ahead
Macy said the bill would allow the Department of Environmental Quality to carry out a detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of taking over the permitting program. Any final decision would require EPA approval and a finding that the state program was consistent with the Clean Water Act.
Michigan and New Jersey are the only states to have taken over the program to date, the EPA said.
Pat O’Brien, a spokesman for the Nebraska Association of Resources Districts which regulate water allocation in the state, told Bloomberg Environment Jan. 31 that the inevitable back and forth between state regulators and the Corps imposes costly delays for many state water projects.
“If we have a project that involves use of dredge or fill to make a dam, we work with the Department of Environmental Quality from early on,” he said.
“But then when we go to the Corps, we have to go through this whole process of educating them about the need for the project. This bill would allow us to eliminate that step.”
But Cavanaugh told Bloomberg Environment that state-level enforcement of Section 404 was a bad idea, particularly in a state run by Ricketts, “who’s not interested in environmental enforcement.”
“Gov. Ricketts will never give this new agency the resources to enforce the requirements of the Section 404 program” Cavanaugh said.
“You’re only going to get good enforcement in Nebraska if there is federal enforcement of the program, through the Army Corps and the EPA.”
Taylor Gage, a spokesman for Ricketts, told Bloomberg Environment Feb. 1, “There was no opposition to L.B. 302 at the hearing, and the director’s testimony made it clear that the agency would return to the Legislature for any needed funding at a later date.”
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/planned-agency-merger-draws-fire-from-nebraska-environmentalists
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EPA Nominee Andrew Wheeler is a Risk to Public Health
Feb 4, 2019 | The Hill - Opinion
By Georges C. Benjamin
Andrew Wheeler, President Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, does not seem to be interested in protecting the public’s health or the environment. Indeed, since replacing Scott Pruittand stepping in as acting administrator, Wheeler has steadily moved to make the environment less safe while increasing risks to our health.
By any reasonable measure, Wheeler has set the agency on a backward march toward the past when the air, water and land were dirtier, creating unhealthy environments for people across the United States.
Health professionals are rightly sounding the alarms. As a public health professional, I know how dangerous it can be when industry polluters dictate EPA’s decisions. If successful, Wheeler’s efforts could potentially lead to thousands of additional premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of additional asthma attacks, strokes, heart attacks and cancers.ADVERTISEMENT
Among the worst actions taken to date are:Undermining the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, a safeguard instituted to protect children from dangerous neurotoxins and carcinogens spewed by coal-fired power plants. The rule has been in place for years and by EPA’s own calculation saves up to 11,000 lives per year. Yet, Mr. Wheeler has targeted the standards, putting vulnerable newborns and children most at risk.Attacking clean car standards. Climate change is a direct threat to the health of our planet, and the transportation industry is now the No. 1 source of emissions in the United States. Clean car standards keep billions of tons of greenhouse gases from reaching our air and further endangering our climate. Wheeler, however, is looking to freeze current standards and stall efforts to abate global warming.Weakening toxic chemical laws. A 2016 congressional triumph saw bipartisan support for much needed reform of our country’s outdated chemical laws. Now, Wheeler is systematically undermining that public health victory by failing to implement transparency requirements and allowing EPA to ignore known exposures to dangerous chemicals when evaluating their risks. The result would be less rigorous safety evaluation and control of new and existing chemicals while consumers, who are often unaware of the potentially dangerous chemicals in many household products, are left in the dark.Increasing emissions from power plants. The Obama-era Clean Power Plan established the nation’s first limits on carbon pollution from power plants in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions harmful to our planet. The Trump administration has proposed an alternative plan that would result in as many as 1,400 additional premature deaths per year by 2030 in addition to increasing asthma and other respiratory diseases.Many other protections are being dismantled, including: weakening national standards on oil and methane pollution, delaying landfill pollution reductions, denying state petitions for relief from downwind pollution, disbanding EPA’s independent air pollution health expert panel, weakening carbon pollution standards for new coal-fired power plants, weakening health science reviews of smog standards, delaying reductions of soot from wood smoke pollution, and stalling a ban on a deadly paint stripper, methylene chloride. Most recently, Wheelers EPA has failed to adequately protect our drinking water from two known toxic chemicals; putting millions of people at risk.
The consequences of Wheeler officially taking the helm of EPA are grave. His agenda would mean more pollution in children’s lungs, more contaminants in our communities, and more greenhouse gases putting our planet at risk. This could lead to more sickness and more death. In 2019, in the United States, with the ready ability to reduce pollution and keep families safe and healthy, this is a travesty.ADVERTISEMENT
There is much room for debate on the best way to achieve environmental safeguards but over many years Democratic and Republican administrations alike have understood that the basic goal of EPA is to protect the environment and health. The administrator of EPA must completely embrace this mission and lead not only the agency but also all sectors of our society toward the goals of the EPA. Wheeler does not. His track record in the last six months as acting administrator leaves little need to speculate about what kind of administrator Wheeler would be.
As Wheeler continues his nomination process, it is imperative that senators protect their constituents by holding him to this standard with a careful examination of Wheeler’s track record. Wheeler’s agenda would fail to protect our health and environment — the most important standard for assuming the job on a permanent basis.
Americans deserve better and we should demand better.
Georges C. Benjamin, M.D., is the executive director of American Public Health Association.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/428272-epa-nominee-andrew-wheeler-is-a-risk-to-public-health
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