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ACC AM 26/02/19
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(ACC Mentioned) Kim Reynolds Names Terry Branstad's Son, Marcus, to 2nd Term on State Commission
Feb 25, 2019 | Des Moines Register
By Stephen Gruber-Miller
Gov. Kim Reynolds has named Marcus Branstad, the son of former Gov. Terry Branstad, to serve a second term on the Iowa Natural Resource Commission. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Official Agreed to Help Former Colleague’s Husband Find ‘Senior’ Position at the Agency
Feb 25, 2019 | ThinkProgress
By E.A. Crunden
Newly-released emails between top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and chemical lobbyists show that the industry has kept a close relationship to the agency both before and after the departure of former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, under whose tenure the agency relaxed chemical regulations. -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Chemical Production on Gulf Coast Starts New Year with a Gain
Feb 26, 2019 | Oil and Gas 360
According to the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the U.S. Chemical Production Regional Index (U.S. CPRI) rose by 0.3 percent in January, following a 0.6 percent gain in December and a 0.2 percent gain in November. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industries See Few Consequences from EPA Ending ‘Once In’ Air Policy
Feb 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
Major manufacturing and other industries are defending EPA’s decision to scrap a years-old policy mandating facilities to always adhere to strict air toxics rules even if their emissions drop below regulated thresholds, saying critics’ suit over the move is unjustified because the decision will have few practical consequences. -
Federal Court Rejects Lawsuit on EPA Science Advisory Committee
Feb 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch
A District of Columbia federal court has thrown out the lawsuit filed by NGOs and researchers over the US EPA’s policy of barring anyone receiving agency grant money from serving on its scientific advisory panel. -
Democratic U.S. Lawmakers Seek Ethics Probe of Top EPA Officials
Feb 25, 2019 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Valerie Volcovici
Democratic lawmakers on Monday asked the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general to investigate whether two senior agency officials violated ethics rules by helping reverse an enforcement decision against their former client company. -
White House Plans To Seek 5 Percent Cut To EPA’s Fiscal Year 2020 Budget
Feb 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By David Laross
A top White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official says the Trump administration will seek a 5 percent cut to EPA’s overall budget and other non-defense discretionary spending in its upcoming fiscal year 2020 appropriations request, teeing up a fight with Congressional leaders who have balked at past attempts to cut those funds. -
Fluorochemicals Found in One-Tenth of Michigan’s Water Sources
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
One in ten Michigan public water systems contain fluorinated chemicals, according to a statewide study of the Wolverine State’s public drinking water. -
Overhaul of EPA Lead Rules Delayed for Eighth Time
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
The EPA won’t introduce an overhaul of its regulations on lead in drinking water this month, acting agency chief Andrew Wheeler said, the eighth time it has missed a self-imposed deadline on this issue since 2011. -
FDA Seeks Expert Panel Review of Neurodevelopmental Risk of Inorganic Arsenic in Food
Feb 25, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner
The United States has asked the Codex Alimentarius (Codex), the international standard setting body for food, to prioritize inorganic arsenic for evaluation of non-cancer effects such as neurodevelopmental, immunological, and cardiovascular effects. -
Bad Science May Banish Paper Receipts
Feb 25, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal - Opinion
By Steve Milloy
Having vanquished plastic straws, the California Legislature is now considering a bill to ban paper cash-register receipts. -
U.S. Trial Tests Claims Roundup Weed Killer Caused Cancer
Feb 26, 2019 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Jim Christie
Bayer AG on Monday faced a second U.S. jury over allegations that its popular glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer, six months after the company's share price was rocked by a $289 million verdict in California state court. -
Finding EPA Plan Disappointing, States Plow Ahead On Strict PFAS Limits
Feb 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
State officials say that EPA's recently unveiled action plan to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is disappointing and too slow, and are plowing ahead with developing their own strict standards to address heightened public concerns over the spread of chemicals in drinking water systems. -
What’s Next in Court for Bayer Toxic Chemical Claims
Feb 25, 2019 | Bloomberg (In The Washington Post)
By Joel Rosenblatt and Margaret Cronin Fisk
Many Bayer AG investors didn’t realize just how much litigation risk they were getting when the German company spent $66 billion in June to acquire Monsanto Co., the giant U.S. seed and herbicide maker. -
Phthalate Limits In Packaging Need No Revising, EU Panel Says
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Europe’s food safety regulator said it’s unclear to what extent chemicals used to help make plastics flexible migrate into food from wrapping and packaging—but the substances are highly unlikely to present a risk whatever the levels are. -
Gigantic Oil and Gas Lease Sale Begins in Wyoming
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
More than three-quarters of a million acres in Wyoming is available for drilling after the Bureau of Land Management opened an auction Feb. 25 for oil and gas leases on 568 parcels of public land. -
Judge OKs Settlement From Nation's Largest Natural Gas Leak
Feb 25, 2019 | AP (In The New York Times)
A $120 million court settlement from the nation's largest-known natural gas leak was approved by a California judge Monday despite objections from local residents and criticism from environmentalists. -
Shell Sees Continued Global LNG Growth as Coal Alternative
Feb 26, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
Royal Dutch Shell's new LNG outlook report projects that global liquefied natural gas demand will continue to rise in the years ahead - led by Asian growth - as Shell seeks to solidify its stake as the world's LNG leader. -
Fight Against Pollution to Lift LNG Demand-Shell
Feb 26, 2019 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Sabina Zawadzki
Global liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade is set to rise 11 percent this year as China leads a global drive to reduce pollution and tackle carbon emissions, Royal Dutch Shell said in an annual LNG report on Monday. -
Exxon Fights Investors on Climate Plans
Feb 26, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
Exxon Mobil Corp. is pushing back against pressure from investors to lay out its climate strategy, even as some of its competitors are stepping up their climate disclosures and targets. -
Burned by Russia, Poland Turns to U.S. for Natural Gas and Energy Security
Feb 26, 2019 | The New York Times
By Stanley Reed
Gargantuan tankers pull into this port on the Baltic Sea twice a month, ferrying liquid natural gas from producers in Qatar, Norway and, increasingly, the United States. -
FERC Divided on Aftermath of Export Approval
Feb 26, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's decision to authorize a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Louisiana last week may not be the breakthrough some had hoped for. -
$1.5 Million Fine for Missouri Company Illegally Storing Waste
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Brown
A Missouri company that illegally stored toxic waste near St. Louis has been sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay restitution of $1.5 million. -
MTA: LIRR's Crash Prevention Installation Slams Into Problem With Improper Calibration
Feb 25, 2019 | Newsday
By Alfonso A. Castillo
A $1 billion project to install federally mandated safety equipment on LIRR trains has been set back because the railroad's contractor installed faulty equipment. -
Ocasio-Cortez Critics See $93 Trillion Cost From Green New Deal
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ambitious plan to fight climate change won’t be cheap, according to a think tank led by a former Congressional Budget Office director. -
Feinstein Draft Climate Resolution Seeks To Reinstate Obama GHG Efforts
Feb 25, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
A new draft climate change resolution by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), offered as an alternative to the more ambitious Green New Deal (GND), would largely reinstate a suite Obama-era greenhouse gas rules and policies that Trump officials are trying to roll back, including EPA’s Clean Power Plan utility GHG rule and passenger vehicle GHG limits. -
Californians Drive Energy and Environment Debate
Feb 26, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Anne C. Mulkern
The new House of Representatives is rolling out its game plan and strategies for the next two years, and it's clear which state holds the most clout: California. -
White House Plans Group to 'Counter' Climate Science Studies
Feb 25, 2019 | Inside EPA
The White House is developing a group that would “counter” mainstream scientific conclusions that human-released greenhouse gases are causing climate change, according to a news report, taking aim at a series of major climate studies, including a November interagency report that showed significant harm. -
Governors Urge Appropriators to Preserve States' Oversight Roles
Feb 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
In advance of a hearing this week, the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) is urging House appropriators to clarify and preserve states’ lead role in implementing air and water rules within their borders, while seeking federal funds to support states’ Clean Act Air implementation, as well as for state and EPA research of ozone transport issues. -
More Enviros Join Legal Brawl Over 'Good Neighbor' Rule
Feb 25, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Three more environmental groups have waded into the legal fight over EPA's status quo "good neighbor" rule for its 2008 ground-level ozone standard. -
Democrats Won't Back 'Green New Deal' in 'Sham' Vote
Feb 26, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews and Nick Sobczyk
If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) calls a vote on the "Green New Deal," it looks likely that many — or even all — Senate Democrats would vote "present" to avoid a public intraparty fight, said activists, lawmakers and congressional aides. -
Dozens of Green New Deal Advocates Arrested at McConnell's Office
Feb 25, 2019 | Roll Call
By Katherine Tully-McManus
Advocates for the Green New Deal descended on Capitol Hill Monday, and demonstrations led by activist organization Sunrise Movement resulted in dozens of arrests in and around the Russell Senate office building. -
Ahead Of Wheeler Vote, Democratic Senators Praise EPA Water Loan Program
Feb 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Lara Beaven
As the Senate prepares to vote on Andrew Wheeler's nomination to be EPA administrator, Maryland's Democratic senators are praising Wheeler and the agency's work on providing water infrastructure loans, suggesting that he will enjoy some level of cooperation from Democrats even if they vote against him. -
Capturing Carbon: Can It Save Us?
Feb 25, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
Time is not on our side.
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(ACC Mentioned) Kim Reynolds Names Terry Branstad's Son, Marcus, to 2nd Term on State Commission
Feb 25, 2019 | Des Moines Register
By Stephen Gruber-Miller
Gov. Kim Reynolds has named Marcus Branstad, the son of former Gov. Terry Branstad, to serve a second term on the Iowa Natural Resource Commission.
Branstad, 35, of Adel, was one of many appointments to state boards and commissions that Reynolds, a Republican, announced Monday. He will need to be confirmed by the Iowa Senate.
Branstad was previously appointed to the Natural Resource Commission in 2013 by his father, then-Gov. Terry Branstad. At the time, the Iowa Senate unanimously confirmed him along with a slate of other nominees.
Commission members serve six-year terms and are not paid.
Branstad is a hunter and fisherman and said in a statement that he was interested in being re-appointed to the commission and felt he "brought a youthful energy to the role."Buy Photo
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds delivers a passionate speech about fighting to end abortions in Iowa during the 2019 Iowa Rally for Life on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019, at the Iowa Capitol Building in Des Moines. (Photo11: Bryon Houlgrave, The Register)
"I understand the importance of sustaining and preserving our natural resource heritage in this state," Branstad said in a statement. "My commitment to serving all Iowans who enjoy Iowa's natural resources is strong and I would feel extremely privileged to be called on again to serve in this capacity."
He works for the American Chemistry Council, an industry group, and has a degree in political science from Buena Vista University.
"Gov. Reynolds sincerely appreciates the work and experience of the individuals she appoints to serve on boards and commissions," Pat Garrett, a spokesman for the governor's office, said in a statement.
"We’re going to let the committee members on Natural Resources do their due diligence on appointees and once that’s done we’ll caucus about it," Senate Democratic Leader Janet Petersen said of the nomination.
The Natural Resource Commission has seven members who set policy, adopt administrative rules and hear appeals in contested cases related to fish, wildlife, conservation law enforcement, and park and forestry programs.
The list of nominations Monday came after Reynolds announced several appointments to her cabinet on Friday, including Kraig Paulsen, the former speaker of the Iowa House, to serve as director of the Department of Revenue.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/25/kim-reynolds-terry-branstad-son-marcus-second-term-iowa-natural-resource-commission/2983028002/
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Feb 25, 2019 | ThinkProgress
By E.A. Crunden
Newly-released emails between top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and chemical lobbyists show that the industry has kept a close relationship to the agency both before and after the departure of former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, under whose tenure the agency relaxed chemical regulations.
According to conversations over the past two years, EPA officials have been actively meeting with members of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and maintaining warm connections with the industry trade association. And on at least one occasion, that coziness has extended to an ACC senior director reaching out to an EPA official to ask for help with finding their husband a “senior level position” with the agency.
Emails obtained by the Sierra Club through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and shared with ThinkProgress show Komal K. Jain, a senior director with ACC, wrote to Nancy Beck at the EPA on August 4, 2017. Prior to joining the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention in May 2017, Beck worked as a senior director at the ACC.
In the email — entitled “hiring?” — Jain asked her former colleague about potentially looking into an EPA position for her husband.Advertisement
“I’d love to catch up whenever you can clear your calendar for lunch or a cocktail,” Jain wrote, noting that she heard Beck “may be hiring for several positions.”
“I’m not inquiring for myself, but for my husband Craig who has been in the environmental arena for a long time. In fact, he is a former EPA employee; he was with the Energy Star program for several years.”
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“He recently left Toshiba where he ran its environmental affairs program for the Americas for 10+ years. He’s looking for senior level position in a policy/management role (not a scientist). Anything come to mind? I can shoot his CV over if there is a possibility.”
In response, Beck asked if he might be interested in a “political position” and invited Jain to send her husband’s resume. She did so on August 7 in an email that has been largely redacted.
No further communication is immediately available in the exchange. An EPA spokesperson told ThinkProgress that Jain’s husband was never considered for a position within the agency. Jain similarly responded to a request for comment and said that the emails were sent on “a pure personal matter” and that her husband did not speak or meet with Beck, nor did he interview with the agency.
SCREENSHOT OF EMAILS BETWEEN KOMAL JAIN AND NANCY BECK.
SCREENSHOT OF EMAILS BETWEEN KOMAL JAIN AND NANCY BECK.
Andrew Rosenberg, a director at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy, told ThinkProgress that the email exchange between Beck and Jain made him “queasy.”Advertisement
While Rosenberg said he was unsure if such an exchange constituted an ethics violation, he noted that it underscores the close relationship industry has enjoyed with the EPA under President Donald Trump.
“[It’s] something I’ve been concerned about with this administration overall,” Rosenberg said. He also referenced the role Beck has played since joining the administration, including pushing back on controversial efforts to restrict the use of scientific data in policymaking. In emails made public last summer, Beck opposed such efforts because she worried they would open the chemical industry up to scrutiny.
In an email to ThinkProgress, Jeff Ruch, executive director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), said he thought it was unlikely that Beck’s exchange with Jain posed an ethical concern.
“Political jobs are not merit-based,” he said. He did caveat, however, that Beck’s prior employment with the ACC could still pose a problem if the official pledged to recuse herself.
And in a June 9, 2017 statement shortly after joining the EPA, Beck did recuse herself from “participating personally and substantially in any particular matter” involving ACC for a year. That time has since passed, but her email exchange with Jain occurred only two months after that recusal.
More broadly, the exchange, along with other emails released to the Sierra Club, offers a window into the relationship between the EPA and the ACC. They show a steady stream of communications between top-level EPA officials and ACC in 2017 and 2018.Advertisement
The New York Times reported in June 2018 that heavy lobbying by ACC has come in step with decisions by the Trump administration to scale back how the EPA decides health and safety risks associated with dangerous chemicals.
ACC’s clients include ExxonMobil Chemical and Chevron Phillips Chemical, in addition to Monsanto, and DuPont — which has been infamously involved in litigation over toxic man-made chemicals linked to cancer. At the EPA, Beck has worked to loosen regulations on such chemicals.
Meanwhile, the EPA has stalled a health review of hexavalent chromium, a toxic metal — another move that follows ACC’s efforts to influence the agency. ACC represents companies that either produce or utilize hexavalent chromium.
Beck’s relationship with staffers at her former place of employment also speaks to a larger trend within the Trump administration — that of a revolving door between industry and government officials responsible for regulating those industries.
In addition to Beck, former EPA public affairs official Liz Bowman — who departed the agency in May 2018 at the height of controversy surrounding Pruitt — previously servedas a spokesperson for ACC before joining the EPA. She now works for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA).
The ACC’s relationship with the EPA also extends to Bill Wehrum, assistant administrator for the EPA’s air and radiation office, who has come under increased scrutiny in recent days for his industry ties.
As ThinkProgress reported last May, for instance, Wehrum, a former attorney and lobbyist, had lobbied the EPA to loosen air pollution rules prior to joining the EPA. Since joining the EPA, Wehrum has remained close to former clients. He has also engaged with the ACC, according to emails reviewed by ThinkProgress.
Internal emails show top EPA official lobbied to loosen air pollution rules before joining agency
On Aug. 23, 2018, Wehrum met with five representatives from ACC for a little over an hour. They were joined by several representatives from Exponent, a controversial engineering and consulting firm that has historically been accused of bending science to meet the needs of clients, including supporting the tobacco industry’s downplaying of lung cancer risks.
Also present at the meeting were representatives from the company Balchem, which supplies the sterilizer industry, and the company Sterigenics, which markets itself as a “leading global provider of comprehensive sterilization solutions.” Earlier this month, lawmakers called for Sterigenics to be investigated over cases of cancer associated with leaking ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing gas, at a plant owned by the company.
The meeting also included EPA staffers Clint Woods, Alex Dominguez, Justin Schwab, and Richard Yamada; however it is unclear what was discussed.
Meanwhile, Wehrum has recently come under fire from Democrats and watchdog groups alike for his close relationships with other industries such as the utilities sector.
In a Feb. 21 letter, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) joined House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Tom Carper (D-DE) in calling for an ethics investigation into Wehrum’s actions at the EPA.
First widely-reported by the Washington Post, the letter specifically takes aim at Wehrum’s involvement with regulatory action directly impacting a former client.
Under Pruitt, the EPA moved to roll back key mandates under the Clean Air Act. DTE Energy, a utility company and client of Wehrum’s former law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth (formerly known as Hunton & Williams), was in litigation in 2017 after the Obama-era EPA accused the company of failing to account for pollution from the expansion of a Michigan coal plant.
But in Dec. 2017, Pruitt signed a memo pledging not to second-guess company pollution projections. That decision came just in time, with DTE’s case set to appear before the Supreme Court. After the memo, the court declined to hear the case. Wehrum has acknowledged he reviewed the memo.
“We believe an OIG [Office of the Inspector General] investigation is warranted in this case,” wrote Carper, Whitehouse, and Pallone. “No other federal agency or component of the EPA will be able to fully ascertain whether, and if so, the degree to which, ethics violations have occurred.”
It is possible, the politicians argue, that Wehrum may have violated federal ethics rules, something that could complicate his tenure at the EPA. It is unclear if OIG has responded to the request.
This article has been updated to include Komal Jain’s comments.
https://thinkprogress.org/emails-chemical-acc-pruitt-beck-wehrum-acc-epa-trump-ethics-24dfb9e502b8/
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Chemical Production on Gulf Coast Starts New Year with a Gain
Feb 26, 2019 | Oil and Gas 360
According to the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the U.S. Chemical Production Regional Index (U.S. CPRI) rose by 0.3 percent in January, following a 0.6 percent gain in December and a 0.2 percent gain in November. During January, chemical output rose across all regions, with the largest gains in the Gulf Coast region.
Chemical production was mixed over the three-month period. There were gains in the production three-month moving average output trend in inorganic chemicals, plastic resins, synthetic dyes & pigments, and other specialty ...
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https://www.oilandgas360.com/u-s-chemical-production-on-gulf-coast-starts-new-year-with-a-gain/
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(ACC Mentioned) Industries See Few Consequences from EPA Ending ‘Once In’ Air Policy
Feb 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
Major manufacturing and other industries are defending EPA’s decision to scrap a years-old policy mandating facilities to always adhere to strict air toxics rules even if their emissions drop below regulated thresholds, saying critics’ suit over the move is unjustified because the decision will have few practical consequences.
Environmentalists claim that ending the “once in, always in” policy on maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics regulation will encourage companies to increase air pollution once they have reduced emissions below the “major source” threshold that triggers regulation by a MACT standard. They argue that the long-running policy ensures facilities always keep emissions low by requiring ongoing compliance with a MACT rule.
But several industry groups, intervening to defend EPA against environmentalists’ suit over the policy decision, counter that it will not have the adverse impacts that its opponents are claiming.
“Contrary to the parade of horribles Petitioners predict, the 2018 Guidance appropriately and lawfully removes the disincentive for companies to innovate and reduce emissions beyond existing [MACT] requirements,” a coalition of groups write in a Feb. 22 amicus brief.
Critics of the once-in policy, which dates from 1995, say it stifles efficiency upgrades and technological innovation by forcing facilities to retain MACT controls even if they reduce emissions to below levels that trigger MACT under the Clean Air Act. Trump EPA air chief Bill Wehrum issued a Jan. 25, 2018, memo rescinding the policy, prompting environmentalists to sue in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Parties to litigation against the policy change being challenged in California Communities Against Toxics, et al., v. EPA, et al., slated for oral argument April 1, filed their final briefs in the case on Feb. 22.
The briefs largely repeat arguments EPA, environmentalists and others have made in the case -- including the agency’s claim that the memo is not a final agency action subject to judicial review.
But the industry coalition focuses its brief on the practical impacts of scrapping the policy. The Wehrum memo will not result in the increase in air toxics that environmentalists claim, say the groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Chemistry Council, American Petroleum Institute, Council of Industrial Boiler Owners and National Association of Manufacturers.
Environmentalists counter that ending the policy allows major sources to reduce emissions to just below these thresholds, reclassify as “area” sources, remove controls, and increase emissions. The major source thresholds are 10 tons per year (tpy) for one hazardous air pollutant (HAP) or 25 tpy for a combination of HAPs.
But removing MACT pollution controls -- “the central thesis of Petitioners’ argument - is not a realistic option for both legal and practical reasons. To become area sources, facilities will more likely have to continue to operate their [MACT] controls and reduce their emissions beyond those currently achieved by existing controls,” industry amici say.
EPA’s policy requires that facilities reduce their “potential to emit” below regulatory thresholds -- not their actual emissions -- and that potential “is always higher, often substantially so, than a source’s actual emissions."
A source with a potential to emit below 25 tpy because of installation of MACT controls “is unlikely to be physically or operationally capable of staying below 25 tons per year without maintaining those controls,” the groups say. Also, plants may need MACT controls to achieve regulatory limits for other pollutants, and area source rules and state-level regulations for HAPs can be as tough as MACT -- and even tougher in some states, the groups say.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/industries-see-few-consequences-epa-ending-%E2%80%98once-%E2%80%99-air-policy
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Federal Court Rejects Lawsuit on EPA Science Advisory Committee
Feb 25, 2019 | Chemical Watch
A District of Columbia federal court has thrown out the lawsuit filed by NGOs and researchers over the US EPA’s policy of barring anyone receiving agency grant money from serving on its scientific advisory panel.
Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt introduced the policy in October 2017, arguing that researchers dependent on agency funding could be biased, favouring policies that could prompt more funded research.
Two months later, the plaintiffs – led by the NGO Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) – filed a lawsuit arguing that the policy violates ethics regulations and procedural rules.
In last week's decision, Judge Trevor McFadden – a Trump nominee – determined that Mr Pruitt did not violate the law with his directive. He ruled that the law does not "dictate whom administrators must, or even should, appoint to federal advisory committees."
The law "delegates significant authority to agency heads" and therefore changing appointment policies is at the Administrator’s discretion, he continued.
Mr Pruitt left the office last summer and has been replaced by acting administrator Andrew Wheeler. Mr Wheeler appointed new members to the Science Advisory Board and subcommittees last month.
https://chemicalwatch.com/74553/federal-court-rejects-lawsuit-on-epa-science-advisory-committee
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Democratic U.S. Lawmakers Seek Ethics Probe of Top EPA Officials
Feb 25, 2019 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Valerie Volcovici
Democratic lawmakers on Monday asked the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general to investigate whether two senior agency officials violated ethics rules by helping reverse an enforcement decision against their former client company.
The request comes as Democrats, who now control Congress and oppose President Donald Trump's push to roll back environmental regulation to help businesses, scrutinize top officials at EPA who have worked as industry lobbyists in the past.
House energy committee chairman Frank Pallone and Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Tom Carper asked the acting inspector general of the EPA to investigate whether the agency's Assistant Administrator Bill Wehrum and Senior Counsel David Harlow violated federal ethics law.
At issue is their alleged involvement in a December 2017 EPA memo that changed agency policy in a way that benefited DTE Energy, a client of Wehrum and Harlow at their previous employer, Hunton & Williams, a law firm representing energy industry companies.
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DTE had been in a legal battle with the EPA since 2010 over whether the agency could fine it for expanding a coal-fired power plant in Michigan without having added new emissions controls, even before any significant increase in pollution from the facility had occurred.
In the memo, then-Administrator Scott Pruitt changed the EPA's stance to agree with DTE that fines should come only after emissions increase, not before - a decision that effectively took EPA's preventative effort to fine DTE off the table.
“The DTE memo is plainly a substantial decision that had a direct and predictable effect on a particular matter involving a client represented by their former law firm,” the lawmakers wrote.
EPA spokesman John Konkus said EPA appointees receive rigorous ethics training from career ethics officials.
"Each of them understand and strive to uphold their ethical obligations,” he said.
Wehrum told the Washington Post, which first reported on the officials' involvement in the memo, that he believed he complied with agency ethics policies.Editors’ PicksThe Judge Will Hear Your 223,000 Excuses NowAsia Argento, a #MeToo Leader, Made a Deal With Her Own AccuserThis Mutant Crayfish Clones Itself, and It’s Taking Over Europe
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“I have, from day one, tried to be absolutely strict and assiduous as to what I do about complying with my ethical obligations,” Wehrum told the Washington Post.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/02/25/us/politics/25reuters-usa-epa.html
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White House Plans To Seek 5 Percent Cut To EPA’s Fiscal Year 2020 Budget
Feb 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By David Laross
A top White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official says the Trump administration will seek a 5 percent cut to EPA’s overall budget and other non-defense discretionary spending in its upcoming fiscal year 2020 appropriations request, teeing up a fight with Congressional leaders who have balked at past attempts to cut those funds.
In a Feb. 25 article for Real Clear Politics, Deputy OMB Director Russ Vought writes that the White House will release its FY20 budget request “in the coming weeks,” and that it will include broad cuts to discretionary spending paired with defense increases.
“The president’s 2020 budget will meet the target of a 5 percent reduction to non-defense discretionary spending, by means of one of the largest spending reductions in history. Within these constrained levels, agencies will still be able to provide investments in key national priorities,” Vought writes.
President Donald Trump announced last year that he was ordering agency heads to identify funds they could cut to achieve a 5 percent overall spending reduction in response to rising budget deficits, which is the same justification Vought offers in his article.
He adds that those funding cuts will be coupled with a proposed increase in defense spending, despite Democrats’ insistence on linking any increase to the statutory caps on military budgets with hikes in other discretionary spending. Trump plans to pay for the defense spending increase with Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds not subject to those caps.
“Fiscal conservatives may feel uncomfortable using OCO in this way. Yet, as long as Congressional Democrats insist on demanding more social spending in exchange for continuing to fund defense spending, expanding the use of OCO funds remains the administration’s only fiscally responsible option in meeting national security needs while avoiding yet another increase to the spending caps,” Vought says.
That request sets the stage for lawmakers to once again push back against the Trump administration’s requests to significantly cut EPA’s annual budget from the current $8.2 billion; in FY18 and FY19 it sought funding levels of $5.6 billion and $6.1 billion respectively.
However, even under unified Republican control Congress balked at those figures. Prior to passing the current continuing resolution that holds EPA’s budget steady, the Senate passed a FY19 bill that would have essentially maintained the agency's existing funding level. A House-passed measure would have cut EPA funding by between $100 million and half a billion dollars, depending on which programs are counted as base funding.
Regardless of whether Congress approves the proposed budget cuts, EPA and other agencies could act on their own to trim their staffing levels -- a major component of the administration’s plans to shrink the executive branch -- through a pending rulemaking that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent to OMB on Feb. 22, with a projected issuance date of this month.
The draft proposal will revise OPM regulations “governing reduction in force; performance based reduction in grade and removal actions; and adverse actions.” However, it will have to work within the limits set by a federal district court decision from Aug. 24 that struck down major elements of three Trump executive orders issued earlier that year aimed at restricting union activity and collective bargaining at agencies, which among other issues governs disciplinary action against employees.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/white-house-plans-seek-5-percent-cut-epa%E2%80%99s-fiscal-year-2020-budget
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Fluorochemicals Found in One-Tenth of Michigan’s Water Sources
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Ebert
One in ten Michigan public water systems contain fluorinated chemicals, according to a statewide study of the Wolverine State’s public drinking water.
On Feb. 25, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality released its findings, believed to be the first statewide survey of its kind in the nation.
The state analyzed 1,114 public water systems, 461 schools, and 17 tribal water systems. Of the 10 percent of public drinking water sources with detectable per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), 3 percent of those sources had levels between 10 parts per trillion and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s advisory level of 70 parts per trillion. The EPA’s level applies to two specific types of PFAS chemicals.
The survey shows the prevalence across Michigan of chemicals that are raising health concerns due to their permanence in the environment and ability to build up in the human body.
Regulators also are broadening the search to other possible sources of exposure—such as childcare providers—and making data available on private wells, which supply about 25 percent of the drinking water to residents in the state.
“If 10 percent of Michigan’s water supplies were contaminated with lead or other well-known contaminants, the public would be alarmed,” Liz Kirkwood, executive director of Michigan environmental advocacy group For Love Of Water, told Bloomberg Environment in a Feb. 25 email. She said this shows an immediate need for both a state and federal drinking water standard.Forty PFAS Sites
In neighboring industrial Midwestern states Ohio and Indiana, environmental regulators have not prioritized PFAS.
Earlier this month, the EPA said it was pushing back to late 2019 a determination on whether to set national drinking water standards for two types of PFAS chemicals—a class of compounds which number in the thousands.
But in Michigan, a public attuned to drinking water pollution due to the Flint water crisis has clamored for more information and cleanup as the state finds pockets of PFAS in high concentrations.
High-profile incidents include switching the water for about 3,000 residents of Parchment, where PFAS was found at possibly dangerous levels in the municipal water system.
There’s also dozens of lawsuits filed due to high-profile contamination in which substances seeped from a Wolverine World Wide tannery operation and polluted drinking water sources in the towns of Rockford and Belmont.Exposure
EPA says exposures to PFAS can cause cancer, and reproductive, developmental, liver and immune system effects at sufficient doses.
Michigan’s next steps are to continue investigations and cleanup of 40 contaminated sites according to Scott Dean, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
The state also will continue to test water in municipalities and schools that had samples measuring over 10 parts per trillion of PFAS, he said.
Legislators have proposed statewide drinking standards for two PFAS chemicals as low at 5 parts per trillion. But the bills haven’t gone far in a Republican-controlled assembly concerned with the costs of enforcement, impacts to industry, and uncertainty over how the human body is impacted by these chemicals.
They are used in making firefighting foam, nonstick pans, packaging, and waterproof textiles.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/fluorochemicals-found-in-one-tenth-of-michigans-water-sources
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Overhaul of EPA Lead Rules Delayed for Eighth Time
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
The EPA won’t introduce an overhaul of its regulations on lead in drinking water this month, acting agency chief Andrew Wheeler said, the eighth time it has missed a self-imposed deadline on this issue since 2011.
Wheeler told reporters Feb. 25 he sent a draft of these new lead regulations back to the Environmental Protection Agency’s career staffers for revision.
“I want to make sure we’re prioritizing where the most corrosive lead pipes are,” Wheeler said. “It’s going to take 20 to 30 years to replace all of them across the country. I want to make sure the last mile to replace is not the most corrosive.”
He now anticipates formally proposing new lead regulations before the end of this year.
Corroded pipes are the primary cause when drinking water is contaminated with lead, a toxic metal that can cause irreversible neurological damage to children even in small amounts.
Current EPA regulations require water utilities to monitor tap water for lead, but do not require them to replace lead pipes unless contamination levels remain elevated for months.Multiple Presidencies
The EPA has been looking into updating these regulations (RIN:2040-AF15) since the early part of the Obama administration, long before the contamination crisis in Flint, Mich., brought the issue of lead in drinking water to national prominence.
Wheeler’s predecessor, Scott Pruitt, made combating lead exposure a top priority during his tenure at the EPA, but the new regulations still haven’t seen the light of day.
A major obstacle the EPA has struggled to overcome is how to require utilities to replace their lead pipes without imposing a massive unfunded mandate on these utilities, most of which are owned by municipalities.
Replacing these pipes would cost an average of $4,700 per pipe, according to a 2018 EPA presentation, with costs that could climb as high as $12,300 per pipe. The agency estimates that between 6 million and 10 million lead pipes are still in use across the country.
“It’s going to take a little bit of work up front,” Wheeler said. “And we want to make sure we get it right.”
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/overhaul-of-epa-lead-rules-delayed-for-eighth-time
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FDA Seeks Expert Panel Review of Neurodevelopmental Risk of Inorganic Arsenic in Food
Feb 25, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner
The United States has asked the Codex Alimentarius (Codex), the international standard setting body for food, to prioritize inorganic arsenic for evaluation of non-cancer effects such as neurodevelopmental, immunological, and cardiovascular effects. The evaluation would be conducted by an expert panel convened by the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization / World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), on which Codex relies for scientific advice.[1]
EDF will submit comments in support of the proposal and encourages others to do the same.[2] However, FDA should not wait for the review to be finished before incorporating this evidence into its long-awaited standards for inorganic arsenic in rice.
Evidence of harm from inorganic arsenic on children’s neurodevelopment has grown more compelling
Inorganic arsenic is a known water and food contaminant. FDA has measured it in many foods included in its Total Diet Study, but it’s mostly known for its presence in baby and infant foods such as riceand fruit juices. The presence of inorganic arsenic in staples of children’s diets is concerning due to its risk of potential lasting health effects. The risks posed by inorganic arsenic on fetal and child brain development has become increasingly clear since the early 2000s as epidemiological studies began to scrutinize more subtle effects such as learning disorders and epigenetic effects. Earlier studies mostly focused on gross measures such as low body weight or increased stillbirths.
In 2013, David Bellinger authored a review of the evidence on children’s neurodevelopment, concluding that, “The pace of research on the developmental neurotoxicity of arsenic is increasing, with the current evidence providing few firm conclusions but ample reason to be concerned about the neurodevelopmental impact of this chemical.” However, the review said “at present, the epidemiological data do not permit firm conclusions to be drawn regarding these issues,” and suggested that consistent measurements of exposure and of a core set of endpoints would allow firmer conclusions.
Three years later, FDA released a risk assessment for inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products and proposed a draft limit for the substance in rice based on the cancer risk. However, tucked in the last pages of the risk assessment is an updated literature search for non-cancer endpoints conducted by the agency’s scientists. Even though they stated that the search was not exhaustive, it allowed them to conclude that the “studies support our conclusion that exposure to inorganic arsenic either in utero or in early childhood has adverse effects on neurobehavioral development.” The agency acknowledged that, like low level exposure to lead and mercury, the harm from inorganic arsenic may be “manifested in intelligence test results in children.” However, the evidence was not yet sufficient to develop a dose-response relationship necessary to quantify the harm and societal cost.
In 2017, in a study commissioned by Healthy Babies Bright Futures, Abt Associates updated the literature search for inorganic arsenic effects on neurodevelopment and proposed a dose-response model that estimated IQ loss associated with increased inorganic arsenic exposure. Abt “concluded that, while there are uncertainties, it is feasible to draw upon the relationships from the peer-reviewed literature to quantify and monetize IQ loss associated with exposures to [inorganic] arsenic from infant rice cereal, rice, and other rice products.” Based on this relationship it estimated that, “In the U.S. population of children aged 0-6 [years], replacing all rice and rice products with alternate foods containing no arsenic would result in additional annual earnings of approximately $12 to $18 billion by avoiding losses of more than 9 million IQ points per year.”
FDA is conducting additional studies on neurodevelopmental effects
FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research is also studying the effects of in utero inorganic arsenic exposure in rats. Last month, it published results of a study showing a direct relationship between ingestion of the substance and the concentration found in the pup’s brains. The researchers saw motor function development delay and delays in other developmental milestones such as bilateral eye opening and incisor eruption, concluding that these effects “may indicate thyroid alterations, as endocrine disruption of thyroid hormones” are associated with delays in eye opening and tooth eruption in both rats and humans.
Using a nematode model, scientists at FDA’s Office of Applied Research and Safety Assessment have also shown that, as in humans and rodents, arsenic causes developmental hyperactivity in the nematodes, as well as marked growth delay as the doses increased.
Recognizing that heavy metals often occur in food in combination, FDA has established a Toxic Elements Work Group to prioritize efforts in this area. The Work Group charged agency scientists with assessing cumulative effects of lead, cadmium, mercury and inorganic arsenic on children’s neurological development. The analysis will enable the agency to prioritize setting limits for specific foods that significantly contribute to exposure and developing preventive controls and best practices to reduce that exposure.
Conclusion
We applaud FDA for seeking expert review by JECFA evaluation of the non-cancer effects of inorganic arsenic while continuing its research and analysis. Rather than wait for JECFA to complete the review, we encourage FDA to build on the dose response model developed by Abt Associates and incorporate this evidence into its long-awaited standards for inorganic arsenic in rice.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/02/25/fda-seeks-expert-panel-review-inorganic-arsenic-food/
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Bad Science May Banish Paper Receipts
Feb 25, 2019 | The Wall Street Journal - Opinion
By Steve Milloy
Having vanquished plastic straws, the California Legislature is now considering a bill to ban paper cash-register receipts. One reason offered for the ban is to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. The other is to reduce public exposure to bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical used to coat receipts.
Whatever one’s opinion about climate science, it’s clear that eliminating the carbon footprint of California’s paper receipts won’t affect the global climate. Some 1,200 new coal plants are being planned or built around the world, and oil and gas production and use are rising through the roof. Even a global ban on paper would have no significant impact on atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels.
The more interesting reason for the ban is the BPA argument, which is part of a broader trend of misuse of science in public policy. The alarm behind the California bill arises from the notion that BPA is an “endocrine disrupter”: a chemical that, even at low doses, can disrupt human hormonal systems. Such disruptions theoretically could cause a variety of ailments, from cancer to reproductive problems to attention-deficit disorder.Newsletter Sign-up
Like the panic over DDT that followed the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” the endocrine-disrupter scare made its public debut with a book, “Our Stolen Future” (1996). Written by three activist authors and including a foreword by Al Gore, the book lays out a case for regulating various pollutants.
“Our Stolen Future” was followed the same year by a highly publicized Tulane University study that reported certain combinations of pesticides and other chemicals in the environment were much more potent endocrine disrupters than the individual chemicals themselves. Within weeks, this study prompted Congress to pass a bill directing the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a program to test chemicals for their potential harm to hormonal systems.
In the months that followed, the Tulane study began to fall apart. Independent laboratories around the world reported that they could not replicate its results. By July 1997, the original study was retracted. Federal investigators concluded in 2001 that the Tulane researchers had committed scientific misconduct by falsifying their results.
Yet the law and regulatory programs spawned by the false study remained in place. The endocrine-disrupter scare gained steam through the 2000s, and BPA became its biggest villain. Generous federal funding led to the publication of hundreds of BPA studies. A movement to ban BPA was joined by several cities, states such as California, and foreign nations including Canada, resulting in the elimination of the substance from plastic bottles in those regions. Regulators at the Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority pushed back against the scare, to little avail.
Finally in 2012, the FDA decided to launch Clarity, a large $8 million study of BPA to be conducted according to regulatory guidelines known as the Good Laboratory Practices standard. Researchers, including those who had published studies claiming that low-dose exposures to BPA posed health risks, were provided with coded, pre-dosed animals to avoid bias and cheating. Researchers were required to upload their raw data to a government database before the identity of each dose group was disclosed to them.
The results of Clarity were published in 2018. The FDA concluded that the study failed to demonstrate adverse health effects from exposure to BPA in low doses—like the amount one might be exposed to by handling a paper receipt.
Yet despite its birth in scientific misconduct, its dismissals along the way by international regulators and science and public-health groups like the National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization, and finally its debunking by the FDA’s Clarity study, the BPA scare survives. Thanks to Congress, it lives on at the EPA, where a 22-year-old endocrine-disrupter screening program peddles merrily along despite producing no results of interest.
It is a sad state of affairs when actual science cannot vanquish adjudicated science fraud in public policy.
Mr. Milloy publishes JunkScience.com, served on the Trump EPA transition team, and is author of “Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the EPA.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bad-science-may-banish-paper-receipts-11551137837?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
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U.S. Trial Tests Claims Roundup Weed Killer Caused Cancer
Feb 26, 2019 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Jim Christie
Bayer AG on Monday faced a second U.S. jury over allegations that its popular glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer, six months after the company's share price was rocked by a $289 million verdict in California state court.
The lawsuit by California resident Edwin Hardeman against the company began on Monday morning in federal rather than state court. The trial is also a test case for a larger litigation. More than 760 of the 9,300 Roundup cases nationwide are consolidated in the federal court in San Francisco that is hearing Hardeman's case.
Bayer denies all allegations that Roundup or glyphosate cause cancer, specifically non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, saying decades of independent studies have shown the world's most widely used weed killer to be safe for human use and noting that regulators around the world have approved the product.
During the first phase in the trial, the nine-person jury is asked to weigh scientific evidence to determine whether Roundup caused Hardeman's lymphoma.
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Aimee Wagstaff, a lawyer for Hardeman, told a packed courtroom during her opening statement on Monday that chemicals in Roundup made the weed killer more toxic than glyphosate alone, causing the man's cancer.
But U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who presides over the federal litigation, repeatedly scolded her for "crossing the line" by referring to internal corporate communications the judge has said have no bearing on the science in the case.
"You completely disregarded the limitations," Chhabria said.
In a January ruling, Chhabria called evidence by plaintiffs that the company allegedly attempted to influence regulators and manipulate public opinion "a distraction" from the scientific question of whether glyphosate causes cancer.
If the jury determines Roundup caused Hardeman's cancer, the judge said such evidence could be presented in a second trial phase.
Plaintiffs criticized Chhabria's order dividing the trial and restricting evidence as "unfair," saying their scientific evidence allegedly showing glyphosate causes cancer is inextricably linked to Monsanto's alleged wrongful conduct.Editors’ PicksThe Judge Will Hear Your 223,000 Excuses NowAsia Argento, a #MeToo Leader, Made a Deal With Her Own AccuserMaria Butina, Suspected Secret Agent, Used Sex in Covert Plan, Prosecutors Say
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Evidence of corporate misconduct was seen as playing a key role in the finding by a California state court jury in August that Roundup caused another man's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and that Bayer's Monsanto unit failed to warn consumers about the weed killer's cancer risks. That jury's $289 million damages award was later reduced to $78 million.
Bayer's share price dropped 10 percent following the verdict and has remained volatile.
Brian Stekloff, a lawyer for Bayer, in his opening statement attacked the idea of a link between Roundup and cancer. He noted U.S. rates of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma have remained steady over time, even when Roundup use began to soar in the 1990s.
Hardeman began using the Roundup brand herbicide with glyphosate in the 1980s to control poison oak and weeds on his property and sprayed "large volumes" of the chemical for many years on a regular basis, according to court documents. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 66 in February 2015 and filed his lawsuit a year later. Hardeman is currently in remission.
But Stekloff on Monday said Hardeman's age and his history of chronic hepatitis C were known risk factors for developing lymphoma. The lawyer also said the majority of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma incidents are idiopathic, or have no known cause.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/02/25/business/25reuters-bayer-glyphosate-lawsuit.html
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Finding EPA Plan Disappointing, States Plow Ahead On Strict PFAS Limits
Feb 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
State officials say that EPA's recently unveiled action plan to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is disappointing and too slow, and are plowing ahead with developing their own strict standards to address heightened public concerns over the spread of chemicals in drinking water systems.
Since Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler unveiled the agency's long-awaited PFAS action plan Feb. 14, officials in several states facing contamination -- including New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina and Pennsylvania -- have expressed disappointment that the agency is not moving more quickly to craft an enforceable drinking water standard, known as a maximum contaminant level (MCL).
Pennsylvania officials also announced that they are formally launching an effort to craft an MCL while New Hampshire officials indicated they will likely strengthen any MCL they were already preparing.
Pennsylvania's top officials, including Gov. Tom Wolf (D) and environment chief Patrick McDonnell, “are pleased to see” EPA taking the first steps toward a regulatory determination on federal drinking water standards for two PFAS and undertaking an effort toward setting cleanup standards, a spokesman for the state's Department of Environmental Protection tells Inside EPA in commenting on EPA's action plan.
“However, EPA would not commit to a specific time frame and the people of Pennsylvania cannot wait on the federal government,” he adds, noting that the state now plans to start the process of setting a state MCL for two PFAS.
He says the state will soon hire a consulting toxicologist to review health studies with the goal of setting an MCL for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), the two most common substances in the class, and will obtain lab equipment, personnel and training to conduct in-house testing for PFAS, and plans in the coming weeks to finalize a PFAS sampling plan in order to monitor for the chemicals in public water systems across the state.
EPA's PFAS action plan, which the agency unveiled Feb. 14, takes a multi-media approach to addressing widespread concern over PFAS contamination through a host of short- and long-term efforts including enforcement and research.
But it only initiates water and waste regulatory steps and falls short of setting strict policy limits that environmentalists and community groups sought.
The plan includes a goal of proposing a Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) regulatory determination on PFOA and PFOS by the end of 2019, which could eventually lead to a MCL for the chemicals.
While top agency officials say they intend to set MCLs for the two substances, critics charge the commitment is not firm enough and that the chemicals are dangerous enough that EPA should act more quickly.
Wheeler also announced that under the plan EPA has already begun the regulatory process for listing PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under the Superfund law.
And he said the agency hopes to issue interim groundwater cleanup recommendations for sites contaminated by the substances, though the document remains stymied in inter-agency review
It also contains other measures, including a proposal to monitor for additional PFAS in drinking water in the future, and to supplement chemical safety requirements.
'Weak Action'
But state officials at the forefront of the issue in their states believe the plan falls short, and will be too slow-going.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) -- whose state has faced PFAS contamination from newer, replacement chemicals -- is critical of EPA's plan, saying in a Feb. 14 press release that the agency “must move faster to help states like North Carolina dealing with unregulated chemicals that are causing serious concerns about drinking water."
In particular, he says the plan fails to act fast enough or go far enough in addressing concerns over GenX, a new PFAS that replaced older, longer-chain chemicals in the class. A Chemours facility near Fayetteville, NC, produces the chemical.
“North Carolina needs strong leadership from the EPA on water quality and I am disappointed that the agency's action plan does not commit to setting standards, lacks detail on what research is planned on specific compounds like GenX, and seems to ignore the urgency of the problem,” Cooper says.
He adds that EPA's plan “contradicts promises” that EPA officials made in public meetings held last summer, where they committed to “work swiftly to set standards and recommendations for these compounds."
The governor, who previously pressed Wheeler to set standards, adds, “this weak action by the EPA negatively impacts state efforts to protect water quality and public health.”
New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) -- which has been one of the states at the forefront of setting strict standards -- also issued a statement citing disappointment with EPA's announcement.
“The Trump Administration is leaving millions of Americans exposed to harmful chemicals for too long by choosing a drawn-out process that will delay establishing a federal [MCL] for PFAS,” the NJDEP says. It says EPA should act more quickly.
The state says it is continuing “to lead the nation in comprehensively protecting residents from the risks posed by the PFAS family of chemicals,” noting, for instance, the NJDEP last September set the country's first MCL for the PFAS perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), and this spring will propose MCLs and groundwater quality standards for PFOA and PFOS.
“While some EPA action on PFAS is encouraging, New Jersey cannot wait for the federal government to address the risks posed by these chemicals,” it says.
The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) in a statement on the plan also expressed disappointment “that the federal regulatory process will not keep pace with states such as New Hampshire that have already taken significant steps to implement drinking water standards for four PFAS chemicals.” It urges EPA to set MCLs as soon as possible for PFOA and PFOS and to set health advisories for other common PFAS.
Further, it pushes for EPA to begin to address the chemicals as a class -- something community groups have been urging -- asking the agency to “develop a scientifically valid method for grouping PFAS chemicals together for regulatory action,” and asking it to work with industry to identify alternatives to PFAS.
The department also announced on Feb. 21 that its proposed MCLs for four PFAS may be strengthened, due to the release of a peer-reviewed assessment tool by the Minnesota Department of Health, which it says “allows for a quantitative estimate of infant and child exposure to PFAS through breastmilk and/or formula,” the NHDES says in a press release.
NHDES on Jan. 2 announced it was proposing a rule for setting MCLs for four PFAS, as well as ambient groundwater quality standards, proposing limits at less stringent levels than other states have recently been moving toward. The department, for instance, proposed 38 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA, 70 ppt for PFOS, or 70 ppt for those two combined, 85 ppt for perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) and 23 ppt for perfluoronononanoic acid (PFNA).
But now NHDES is calling into question the proposed levels for PFOA and PFOS, suggesting it may move to more stringent numbers, and asking for comment as it moves through the public comment period. NHDES assessed Minnesota's model, which was published in early January, to examine the interaction of PFAS drinking water levels and breastfeeding. This assessment “indicates that health-based drinking water or groundwater standards for PFOA and PFOS would potentially be lowered significantly below the initial proposal figures of 38 [ppt] and 70 ppt, respectively.”
In Michigan, where communities and lawmakers have pressed for cleanup actions and the state has led sampling of drinking water supplies across the state, the Department of Environmental Quality in a statement applauded EPA for listening and moving forward on PFAS, but also raised concerns over the agency's slow timeline.
Further, it notes that the state has made progress in identifying PFAS sites and “protecting the public from PFAS exposures” even “without the plans EPA announced today.
“Michigan citizens can rest assured that we will continue our efforts to address the PFAS challenge while the federal government works toward implementing the plans it announced today."
According to drinking water utility sources, 17 states “have formal policy statements on management of PFAS in drinking water,” while one has an MCL and three more have MCLs under development.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/finding-epa-plan-disappointing-states-plow-ahead-strict-pfas-limits
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What’s Next in Court for Bayer Toxic Chemical Claims
Feb 25, 2019 | Bloomberg (In The Washington Post)
By Joel Rosenblatt and Margaret Cronin Fisk
Many Bayer AG investors didn’t realize just how much litigation risk they were getting when the German company spent $66 billion in June to acquire Monsanto Co., the giant U.S. seed and herbicide maker. A San Francisco jury’s August 2018 award of $289 million to a groundskeeper who blamed Monsanto’s blockbuster weedkiller, Roundup, for his cancer sent shares down the most since 2001. While Bayer won a ruling to cut the award to $78.6 million, more than 8,500 additional plaintiffs are making similar claims. And with a flood of pending lawsuits over waterways contaminated with PCBs and fresh cases emerging over another Monsanto herbicide, dicamba, investors are left to ponder the final cost of Bayer’s increased legal exposure.
1. Why is Roundup such a big target for litigation?
It contains the weed-killing chemical glyphosate, which has become widely used by commercial farmers and home gardeners. Over more than four decades, about 3.5 billion pounds of glyphosate was sprayed in the U.S. The lawsuits were filed after glyphosate was declared a probable human carcinogen in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization. However, like other regulators around the world, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in 2017 that glyphosate isn’t likely to be carcinogenic to humans at current exposure levels. Monsanto developed Roundup in the 1970s, and then created a multibillion-dollar business around seeds that it genetically modified to resist the chemical.
2. Why was the San Francisco case so alarming to investors?
When Bayer sought to acquire Monsanto, much of the attention was focused on the regulatory obstacles of combining global makers of crop chemicals. But the Aug. 10 verdict in the groundskeeper’s case put a spotlight on the potential risk of litigation sparked by Roundup and other potentially harmful chemicals. Jonas Oxgaard, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., has estimated Bayer may face $5 billion in legal costs and plaintiff payouts as a result of its Monsanto acquisition, which would rank among the biggest ever by a company facing damage claims made by private individuals. This is on top of the litigation of its own that Bayer must contend with, including more than 16,000 lawsuits brought by women who claim they were injured by the company’s Essure birth control device.
3. What’s Bayer’s strategy for limiting its exposure?
Bayer vowed after the Johnson verdict to step up its defense, emphasizing scientific research that shows no link between Roundup and cancer in humans. Even as it pursues an appeal to set aside the Johnson verdict, the company is concentrating on getting wins in federal court in San Francisco, where cases on behalf of more than 9,000 plaintiffs have been collected and the company may stand a better chance of success. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria has expressed skepticism about the evidence linking Roundup to cancer, and has structured the second trial in a way that excludes some of the most damning material from a crucial first phase of the proceeding.
4. Where are the next trials happening?
The second trial is scheduled for Feb. 25 in San Francisco federal court. There’s another trial set for March in state court Oakland, California, and one in June in city court in St. Louis, where Monsanto was headquartered for 117 years and Bayer now runs its North American crop-science business. Bayer can’t count on a hometown advantage. Plaintiff lawyers have flocked to the circuit court for the city of St. Louis, which has produced some of the largest verdicts in U.S. product-defect claims. While the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017 made it harder to combine lawsuits in state courts by non-residents, Bayer, as a local defendant, has little chance of blocking the Monsanto trials in St. Louis given recent Missouri court decisions.
5. How big are Bayer’s other Monsanto-related risks?
While Bayer expects glyphosate to remain the world’s biggest herbicide for years, some weeds are growing resistant to the chemical. That’s led to development of genetically modified seeds that can be used in conjunction with another weedkiller, dicamba. However, dicamba can vaporize after application and drift onto nearby fields of non-resistant crops. In 2017, an Arkansas farmer was shot and killed by his neighbor in a dispute over dicamba damage. Scores growers across the Midwest have sued Monsanto over its dicamba product, known as Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System. The farmers are demanding compensation for soybeans, cotton, fruit trees and vegetable crops damaged by dicamba spraying, and they are seeking class-action status for thousands of claims. At least one trial is scheduled for October 2019 in Missouri federal court.
6. What’s Bayer doing about dicamba?
Before the takeover, Monsanto developed new formulations that it said would keep the weedkiller on the plants where it’s been applied, preventing drift onto untreated crops. In October, Bayer won EPA renewal of the registration for its dicamba-based product, XtendiMax with VaporGrip, albeit with restrictions on the chemical’s use. In 2018, U.S. farmers sprayed dicamba on about 50 million acres of soybean and cotton crops. Of that, about 1 million acres of soybeans were damaged by the herbicide. Should litigation further restrict dicamba and related products, Bayer could lose $1 billion in annual sales from a business that is key to expanding the agrochemical businesses it acquired from Monsanto.
7. Why are PCBs that Monsanto made decades ago a problem?
More than a dozen U.S. states, cities or port authorities allege the company is responsible for contaminating their waterways with PCBs, chemical compounds used in transformers, paints, sealants and multiple other products. PCBs were prized for their fire-resistant properties, particularly by defense contractors, but production was banned in the U.S. in 1979 over environmental concerns. The pending suits claim Monsanto knew that PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, were toxic to humans and wildlife and could cause contamination far into the future, but hid the risk and continued to make the product. Plaintiffs include the states of Washington, Oregon and Ohio as well as the cities of San Diego, Portland and Seattle.
8. What’s at stake in the PCB cases?
The ultimate bill for these lawsuits, should the plaintiffs prevail, is unknown. The state of Oregon asked for more than $100 million, but the others haven’t provided estimates of damages, including cleanup and rehabilitation costs. The first of seven scheduled trials will probably be in February 2020 in a lawsuit brought by the city of Spokane, Washington. Monsanto has countered that it never discharged PCBs into any waterways, isn’t responsible for dumping by third parties, and that the cities and states waited too long to sue. The plaintiffs contend the PCB contamination is a continuing nuisance, so their claims aren’t time barred. Several judges have agreed, rejecting Monsanto’s motions to dismiss. The lawsuits aren’t claiming any personal injuries caused by PCB exposure. The company settled those cases in 2016 for $280 million.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/whats-next-in-court-for-bayer-toxic-chemical-claims/2019/02/25/2963a284-391e-11e9-b10b-f05a22e75865_story.html?utm_term=.415994689287
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Phthalate Limits In Packaging Need No Revising, EU Panel Says
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Europe’s food safety regulator said it’s unclear to what extent chemicals used to help make plastics flexible migrate into food from wrapping and packaging—but the substances are highly unlikely to present a risk whatever the levels are.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said in a draft scientific opinion that safe limits for five hazardous phthalates in food remain valid, though the substances have been heavily restricted or banned in other areas.
The five substances—di-butylphthalate (DBP), butyl-benzyl-phthalate (BBP), bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP), di-isononylphthalate (DINP), and di-isodecylphthalate (DIDP)—are plasticizers used in plastic drink, vegetable oil and sauce bottles.
Because of the restrictions and bans on the phthalates under other EU laws, “by default and out of precaution, they should be banned as food contact materials,” Natacha Cingotti, policy officer with environmental group the Health and Environment Alliance, told Bloomberg Environment Feb. 25.‘Raised Concerns’
Restrictions or bans on a substance under EU law in one area didn’t necessarily mean there was a case for automatically doing the same in other areas, said Anthony Bochon, a lawyer with the firm Everest in Brussels.
“Phthalates have raised concerns, but it’s very difficult to call for a policy change without coming to a proper scientific conclusion beforehand,” he said.
Data on the substances in food showed that, even in a “worst-case scenario,” dietary exposure was unlikely to exceed a quarter of the safe level, the EFSA opinion said.
To understand how much of that dietary exposure could be linked to the presence of the substances in food contact materials would require more data, the opinion said.
According to EFSA’s draft opinion, there was “no need for further updates or any substantial changes to the legislation,” Bochon said.Draft Opinion Endorsed
The authority’s Panel on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes and Processing Aids on Feb. 6 endorsed its draft opinion on the five phthalates.
EU law on food contact materials permits the presence of the substances, though other EU laws, such as the REACH chemicals law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals), ban or restrict them from other uses because of the substances’ reprotoxic or endocrine-disrupting properties.
EFSA said the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, had asked it to look at permitted levels of the phthalates in food contact materials in the light of the scientific information that had underpinned other bans or restrictions.
The EFSA opinion could result in the commission proposing to revise the permitted limits in food contact materials.
The draft EFSA opinion reconfirmed acceptable daily intake levels of the substances in food that were established in 2005, before the various other restrictions were put in place.
The agency is accepting comments on its draft opinion through April 14. The agency also is holding a March 15 webinar on the issue.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/phthalate-limits-in-packaging-need-no-revising-eu-panel-says
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Gigantic Oil and Gas Lease Sale Begins in Wyoming
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
More than three-quarters of a million acres in Wyoming is available for drilling after the Bureau of Land Management opened an auction Feb. 25 for oil and gas leases on 568 parcels of public land.
The competitive, internet-only sale of oil and gas leases on 768,942 acres in the state will end March 1, the BLM said, and is open to the public, although bidders must be registered on the BLM’s web site.
The BLM dismissed complaints by the Wilderness Society, the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians, the Sierra Club, and other groups Feb. 22 in a 47-page response document. The dismissals cleared the way for the auction—the largest held by the Trump Administration in the lower 48 states.
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.Energy Impacts
Environmentalists raised concerns about the increase in greenhouse gas emissions from planned energy development on the lands to be leased, as well as the impacts of fracking and other oil and gas activities on greater sage grouse habitat, mule deer migration corridors and winter range, aquatic species, and lands with wilderness characteristics.
“The Department of Interior continues to ignore its obligations as steward of America’s public lands to protect wildlife habitat and wilderness, moving forward with yet another massive sale that will put greater sage-grouse, big game and the hundreds of other species that depend on this ecosystem at risk, while flouting the best science and practices of which they are well aware,” said Nada Culver, senior counsel at the Wilderness Society.
“This is part of this administration’s disturbing focus on giving away our public lands to the oil and gas industry at the expense of commitments made in the greater sage-grouse plans and their duty to manage these lands for all Americans,” she said.
The Wilderness Society said the acreage being offered in the sale was deferred from a December 2018 lease sale after a ruling in September 2018 in a federal district court in Idaho requiring the BLM to include 30-day public comment and administrative protest periods to future oil and gas lease sales that include greater sage-grouse habitat.
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, said the leases being offered comply with 2015 Obama Administration plans to protect the sage grouse.
“Companies understand all the strict restrictions that are placed on these leases, yet nominated them anyway,” she said. “They are willing to develop under those restrictions, which the Obama Administration deemed effective for protecting the sage grouse, and the Trump Administration is simply moving forward with those leases.”
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/gigantic-oil-and-gas-lease-sale-begins-in-wyoming
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Judge OKs Settlement From Nation's Largest Natural Gas Leak
Feb 25, 2019 | AP (In The New York Times)
A $120 million court settlement from the nation's largest-known natural gas leak was approved by a California judge Monday despite objections from local residents and criticism from environmentalists.
Judge Carolyn Kuhl in Los Angeles Superior Court signed a consent decree putting the settlement into effect after saying her role was limited in overseeing the deal between Southern California Gas Co. and the state and city of LA.
"If I find, as I was supposed to find, that it didn't violate the law or public policy, that's the end of my determination," Kuhl said.
The settlement was criticized by environmentalists for how it plans to mitigate the large amount of climate-changing methane that spewed for nearly four months from the 2015 blowout at the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility.
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Environmental groups complained the utility would get full credit for projects partly funded by state money to capture methane from a dozen dairy farms in the state's farm belt — more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from where the blowout occurred on the edge of Los Angeles.
"They get to count methane reduction that was already happening on the public dime," said attorney Nina Robertson of Earthjustice.
More than a fifth of the settlement will go to funding mitigation of the 109,000 metric tons of methane released after the well blowout. The incident sent a sulfurous stench over the community of Porter Ranch, where residents complained of headaches, nausea, nose bleeds and other symptoms.
The company has spent more than $1 billion related to the blowout with the majority of that going to temporarily relocate 8,000 families, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The utility still faces more than 385 lawsuits on behalf of 48,000 people.
Under the settlement, the utility agreed to pay up to $25 million to study long-term health consequences; reimburse city, county and state governments for responding to the incident; and monitor chemicals in the air near the facility for eight years. Costs of the settlement can't be passed along to ratepayers.Editors’ PicksHe’s a Superstar Pastor. She Worked for Him and Says He Groped Her Repeatedly.This Mutant Crayfish Clones Itself, and It’s Taking Over EuropeMaria Butina, Suspected Secret Agent, Used Sex in Covert Plan, Prosecutors Say
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The mitigation part of the deal calls for the utility to pay $26.5 million toward technology that captures methane from lagoons of cow manure and pipes it into the natural gas supply chain to be used to fuel trucks that run on compressed natural gas.
A coalition of environmental groups criticized that decision as an inefficient way to absorb the methane and said it would lead to larger and more concentrated dairies and lead to smoggier air in the already heavily polluted San Joaquin Valley while also creating more natural gas infrastructure at a time when cleaner alternatives are needed.
Hundreds of residents in the Porter Ranch area also signed a petition opposing the settlement. Several at the hearing complained about being deceived by public officials in allowing settlement funds diverted from the area where they identified other places where methane could be reduced.
"We were promised that money to be given to L.A. County for use in mitigation projects down here," said resident Patty Glueck. "That's what should have happened — not given to capturing cow farts from these dairy farms. It's ridiculous. We were lied to."
The California Air Resources Board said the settlement targeted dairies, which contribute 25 percent of the state's methane, and by capturing greenhouse gases on farm, it would provide energy to fuel trucks that will eliminate pollution otherwise created by diesel big-rigs.
"This agreement will mitigate the methane leak itself, and will have a positive impact across California while providing long-term funding for air quality improvements in the parts of the LA basin most directly affected by what happened at Aliso Canyon," said CARB Chair Mary Nichols.
Earthjustice criticized the deal because SoCalGas will receive full credit even though public funds are being used. It also said there's not enough information to determine what percentage of a project the gas company will fund.Sign Up for the Crossing the Border Newsletter
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If SoCalGas contributes 10 percent of the funding to a dairy where 5,000 tons of methane is captured, it should only get credit for mitigating 500 tons — not the full amount, Robertson said.
"Without such an adjustment, the mitigation agreement grossly overstates SoCalGas' contribution in achieving methane reductions and fails to constitute full mitigation for the Aliso disaster," Robertson wrote.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/02/25/us/ap-us-california-gas-leak.html
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Shell Sees Continued Global LNG Growth as Coal Alternative
Feb 26, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
Royal Dutch Shell's new LNG outlook report projects that global liquefied natural gas demand will continue to rise in the years ahead - led by Asian growth - as Shell seeks to solidify its stake as the world's LNG leader.
With natural gas continuing to replace coal as a cleaner-burning power source from the United States to China, Shell expects annual LNG demand worldwide to surge more than 30 percent from 292 million metric tons in 2017 to 384 million tons in 2020. Last year, demand grew by 27 million tons, or more than 9 percent, to 319 million, and this year demand should spike by another 11 percent or 35 million tons, Shell said.Recommended Video
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Asia and Europe are expected to absorb all this additional supply in 2019 now that a rebound in long-term LNG contracting is taking hold along with the second wave of LNG export projects, including a slew of new construction along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast.
Despite the LNG processing growth, Shell still expects supplies to tighten in the mid-2020s as demand keeps rising.
Environmentalists though remain divided on the merits of natural gas as a so-called bridge fuel as the world grows its renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power. Natural gas burns with about half of the greenhouse gas emissions as coal, but that doesn't mean gas-burning is anywhere close to emission free. And there are additional issues with methane emissions during the gas production process and along gas pipelines.
RELATED: BP, raising concerns about climate, puts much of blame on power sector
Still, ongoing efforts to improve urban air quality saw China's imports of LNG surge by 16 million tons in 2018, up 40 percent from 2017, Shell said, arguing that the switch from coal already has vastly improved air quality in Beijing and many other urban centers.
"The continued surge in Chinese LNG imports has helped improve air quality in some of its biggest cities over the last few years. China's success in making the air cleaner for millions of people shows the critical role that natural gas can play in providing more and cleaner energy around the world," said Maarten Wetselaar, Shell's director of integrated gas and new energies.
On the supply side, Australian LNG exports have nearly caught up with those of long-time leading supplier Qatar. Australia and the United States are expected to keep increasing their LNG outputs.
The number of LNG-importing countries increased to 42 in 2018 as Panama and Bangladesh joined the marketplace.
After a lull in large new LNG contracts the last few years, such deals began to spike again in 2018. LNG trade has increased from 100 million tons in 2000 to 319 million tons in 2018.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Shell-13642440.php
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Fight Against Pollution to Lift LNG Demand-Shell
Feb 26, 2019 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Sabina Zawadzki
Global liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade is set to rise 11 percent this year as China leads a global drive to reduce pollution and tackle carbon emissions, Royal Dutch Shell said in an annual LNG report on Monday.
Shell's forecasts, which see LNG demand rising to 354 million tonnes this year and to 384 million tonnes in 2020, reflect a burgeoning industry with new production facilities opening in Australia, the United States and Russia and more countries becoming importers by constructing receiving terminals.
Shell, the world's largest buyer and seller of LNG as well as a major producer, said that China is set to double its LNG consumption by 2035 after it accounted for over half of the growth in traded volumes last year.
For a graphic on global gas demand, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2U8l6gq
For a graphic on LNG demand growth, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2U82jSn
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Natural gas is expected to be the fastest-growing source of energy in the coming decades, displacing coal in power plants and heavy industries. LNG, where natural gas is chilled to minus 160 degrees celsius (minus 260 Farenheit), allows transportation of the fuel from gas fields to demand centres.
The transition to gas, the least polluting fossil fuel, has been in large part driven by government policies aimed at reducing pollution in China and India or by reduced reliance on nuclear power in countries such as Germany and Japan.
Asia dominates the market with Japan remaining the top buyer. China became the second largest in 2017.
Beijing has led an aggressive drive to switch coal-powered plants to gas in recent years with the aim of growing the share of gas in China's energy mix from 4 percent in 2010 to 10 percent by 2020.
"Around the world we see policy support for natural gas," Maarten Wetselaar, Shell's head of Integrated Gas told reporters.Editors’ PicksMaria Butina, Suspected Secret Agent, Used Sex in Covert Plan, Prosecutors SayAsia Argento, a #MeToo Leader, Made a Deal With Her Own AccuserYou Can’t Hurt Lindsay Lohan Now
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Shell is also betting on a rapid increase in demand for LNG in the ground transport and marine sectors.
For a graphic on LNG demand in transport, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2U8pr3s
SUPPLY CRUNCH
Global LNG trade rose by 27 million tonnes last year, with Chinese demand growth accounting for 16 million tonnes of that.
Due to the uneven progress of developing liquefaction-export facilities on the one hand and regasification-import terminals on the other, many analysts see the global market becoming oversupplied if not this year then next year.
But most, including Shell, also see a supply crunch around the mid-2020s because, at the moment, there are not enough liquefaction facilities being planned, financed and built.
For a graphic on LNG investments, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2U9gZ3O
Such projects are underpinned by long-term supply contracts struck years in advance by their operators. Between 2014 and 2017 buyers were signing shorter-duration contracts for smaller volumes, making financing difficult to complete.
However, Shell said the duration of contracts signed last year had on average more than doubled to 13 years.
"A rebound in new long-term LNG contracting in 2018 could revive investment in liquefaction projects," Shell said. "Based on current demand projections, Shell still expects supplies to tighten in mid-2020s."Subscribe to With Interest
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Spot trade amounted to 1,400 cargoes in 2018, which was close to 30 percent of the global market compared to 25 percent in 2017, Shell said. Spot trade, the buying and selling of cargoes for immediate delivery, signals a more flexible, mature market.
Shell sold 77 million tonnes of LNG in 2018, roughly 22 percent of the global market share, and produced around 35 million tonnes.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/02/25/business/25reuters-lng-trade.html
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Exxon Fights Investors on Climate Plans
Feb 26, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
Exxon Mobil Corp. is pushing back against pressure from investors to lay out its climate strategy, even as some of its competitors are stepping up their climate disclosures and targets.
In December, the New York State Common Retirement Fund and the Church of England's investment fund filed a shareholder resolution calling on Exxon to set and publish greenhouse gas reduction targets "covering emissions from both its operations and the use of its products." Those targets would align with the Paris climate agreement's goal of limiting global average temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
The resolution calls on Exxon to disclose short-, medium- and long-term goals consistent with those targets starting in 2020.
In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Exxon argued that it should not be required to put the proposal before shareholders at its next annual meeting. The resolution is "impermissibly vague and indefinite so as to be inherently misleading," the company argued.
Exxon said that reducing its oil and gas footprint could actually increase global emissions if they were sold to entities that developed them less efficiently, while its customers could be harmed if they lost access to the company's products.
"Oil and gas are global commodities produced by hundreds of different producers ranging from small private companies to vast state-owned enterprises," the company said.
Exxon added it has already "substantially address[ed]" the proposal through an annual "energy and carbon summary" report and by taking steps that include limiting operational emissions and engaging on climate policy.
Exxon has publicly endorsed a revenue-neutral carbon tax, but the company has not supported any bills in Congress to implement such a tax. Lobbying records show that Exxon has lobbied on climate on Capitol Hill, but they do not indicate the specific positions the company has backed (Climatewire, Sept. 26, 2018).
Announcements by oil and gas companies of new climate disclosure policies and voluntary commitments have increased in frequency over the last year, as firms including Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, Total SA and Chevron Corp. have become more proactive on the issue, often under shareholder pressure.
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said that as part of an investor group with $1.9 trillion under management, the state would continue to push Exxon to disclose its climate plans.
"Exxon is trying to deny shareholders' right to vote on a significant climate risk concern," DiNapoli said. "Exxon's failure to show that it's prepared for the low-carbon global economy is a significant long-term risk."
A spokesman for the comptroller's office said it would respond to Exxon's argument before the SEC, which will decide whether the resolution is voted on by shareholders.
The Financial Times first reported on the Exxon letter.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/02/26/stories/1060122387
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Burned by Russia, Poland Turns to U.S. for Natural Gas and Energy Security
Feb 26, 2019 | The New York Times
By Stanley Reed
Gargantuan tankers pull into this port on the Baltic Sea twice a month, ferrying liquid natural gas from producers in Qatar, Norway and, increasingly, the United States. The fuel will help light and heat millions of Polish homes, while gradually cutting the country’s dependence on coal.
This fuel is also an important geopolitical strategy.
Poland is determined to end its reliance on Russian energy within the next few years, part of a broader effort in Europe to diversify the region’s energy supply. Relations with Russia have been unsettled, sometimes perilously, over political differences as well as the role of Poland, a former Soviet satellite, in NATO.
The country has found a ready replacement in the United States, which has an abundance of natural gas from the shale boom and a political incentive to ease Russia’s chokehold on Europe. Once it is chilled into a liquid, natural gas can be shipped around the world. American companies now have contracts that span decades and promise to supply Poland with the equivalent of about half of its current gas imports.
“Given a choice of suppliers and a good commercial deal, Poland was happy to buy American,” said David L. Goldwyn, who served as the State Department’s international energy envoy in the Obama administration and now heads an advisory firm, Goldwyn Global Strategies.
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Poland’s resolve is etched in this port in Swinoujscie. Ten years ago, a conflict between Russia and Ukraine left Poland and some of its neighbors in the cold when the Russian energy giant Gazprom shut down a critical pipeline for three weeks over a politically tinged pricing dispute. Much of the gas that Russia exports to Europe flows through Ukraine.“The strategy of the company is just to forget about Eastern suppliers and especially about Gazprom,” said Piotr Wozniak, president of PGNiG, which dominates Poland’s gas market.CreditKrzysztof Pacholak for The New York Times
Image“The strategy of the company is just to forget about Eastern suppliers and especially about Gazprom,” said Piotr Wozniak, president of PGNiG, which dominates Poland’s gas market.CreditKrzysztof Pacholak for The New York Times
This 2009 shutdown spurred Poland to build the terminal, which cost an estimated 1 billion euros, some financed by the European Union. The facility is named for Lech Kaczynski, the Polish president who died in a plane crash in Russia in 2010, a loss that hardened anti-Russian sentiment in Poland.
“The strategy of the company is just to forget about Eastern suppliers and especially about Gazprom,” said Piotr Wozniak, president of PGNiG, a listed but state-controlled company that dominates Poland’s gas market.
“For us it is a new world,” Mr. Wozniak added. “If I pay to Americans, I pay to my NATO allies.”
There is a sense of purpose and camaraderie among the 90 or so people employed inside the tightly guarded 100-acre compound in this picturesque harbor town. Many have moved to the area recently and say they have bonded, helping one another with chores like home repairs.
“We know that the terminal plays a very important role in the energy security of Poland,” says Grzegorz Bledowski, the deputy director of operations, adding that the plant can quickly pump out enough natural gas to meet any interruptions in supplies to Poland.Editors’ PicksThis Mutant Crayfish Clones Itself, and It’s Taking Over EuropeMaria Butina, Suspected Secret Agent, Used Sex in Covert Plan, Prosecutors SayYou Can’t Hurt Lindsay Lohan Now
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The port is already reshaping Poland’s relationship with Russia.
Gas deliveries from Qatar began in 2015, which have been supplemented with one-off shipments from producers like Norway and the United States. PGNiG says the liquid natural gas shipments rose by almost 60 percent last year compared with 2017, squeezing imports from Russia and the East down by 6 percent. Russia currently supplies roughly half of Poland’s fuel.The L.N.G. facility is named for Lech Kaczynski, the Polish president who died in a plane crash in Russia in 2010, a loss that hardened anti-Russian sentiment in Poland.CreditKrzysztof Pacholak for The New York Times
ImageThe L.N.G. facility is named for Lech Kaczynski, the Polish president who died in a plane crash in Russia in 2010, a loss that hardened anti-Russian sentiment in Poland.CreditKrzysztof Pacholak for The New York Times
In the last six months, three American companies, Cheniere Energy, Venture Global LNG and Sempra Energy, have all signed long-term agreements with Poland. The financial terms of their deals have not been disclosed and some depend on export facilities still to be built. But the expected shipments to this country of 38 million people could generate billions of dollars of revenue for the American suppliers.
“The attractiveness of L.N.G. is its flexibility,” said Anatol Feygin, Cheniere’s chief commercial officer.
If all sources prove successful, Poland will have more than enough gas to replace its flow from Gazprom. Two of the American contracts also allow the Polish energy company to accept cargoes from the companies and then sell the gas to other markets.
In an interview in his Warsaw office, Mr. Wozniak, a geologist and a former economy minister, portrayed Gazprom as both predatory and unreliable. Waving a cigarette, he traced Gazprom’s pipelines snaking from Russia into Europe’s industrial heartland on a map.
Gazprom’s intention, he said, “is to capture this vital part of the European market and monopolize it in a way they please.”Subscribe to With Interest
Catch up and prep for the week ahead with this newsletter of the most important business insights, delivered Sundays.SIGN UP“We know that the terminal plays a very important role in the energy security of Poland,” says Grzegorz Bledowski, the deputy director of operations.CreditKrzysztof Pacholak for The New York Times
Image“We know that the terminal plays a very important role in the energy security of Poland,” says Grzegorz Bledowski, the deputy director of operations.CreditKrzysztof Pacholak for The New York Times
A Gazprom spokesman declined to comment.
Liquefied natural gas has shaken up pipeline politics, creating competition for longtime suppliers like Gazprom.
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Global L.N.G. imports grew by more than 9 percent last year, a much faster rate than oil or gas, according to Rystad Energy, a market research firm. While the United States is only a modest gas exporter now, it is on pace to be a global leader like Qatar in the coming decades, made possible by the disruptive technologies like fracking.
Against that backdrop, there is a kind of Cold War playing out among energy suppliers like Russia and Algeria and new energy exporters from the United States.
The Trump administration has promoted sales of American gas to Europe as a bulwark against Moscow. The administration, in general, has sought closer ties with the government in Poland, where the United States has around 4,500 troops stationed. In November, the United States energy secretary, Rick Perry, flew to Warsaw for the Cheniere contract signing.
President Trump also has broadly pushed Europe to buy more natural gas, as officials there try to avoid tariffs on the important automobile industry. Washington scored a victory this month when Germany, the single biggest consumer of Russian natural gas, agreed to build its first L.N.G. terminal, preparing for possible trade.The PGNiG headquarters in Warsaw. The company is investing in a network of gas fields in Norway intended to insulate Poland from political interference.CreditKrzysztof Pacholak for The New York Times
ImageThe PGNiG headquarters in Warsaw. The company is investing in a network of gas fields in Norway intended to insulate Poland from political interference.CreditKrzysztof Pacholak for The New York Times
“Reliance on Russian gas is a strategic liability,” Dan Brouillette, the United States deputy secretary of energy, said in an event in Berlin to promote the terminal.
But it’s a complicated calculation.
Germany has relied on Russian pipelines in the past, and Europe’s largest economy is certain to need Russian fuel in the future. Berlin is permitting the construction of a large new pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia that is called Nordstream 2 — to the displeasure of both Poland and the United States.
Price, too, is an issue. Gas prices are largely set by financial markets, and Russia can produce gas cheaply.
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The prospect of competition as well as antitrust proceedings brought by the European Union has forced Gazprom to adjust how it does business. In much of Europe, the Russian giant has shifted its contract terms to mirror market prices for gas rather than the price of oil, which can be wildly different, according to Jonathan Stern, a distinguished research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
Liquefying gas in the United States and sending it to Europe can double the price for American companies. At current prices, margins are thin, although the large volumes coming into Europe have helped.
For Poland, the politics may ultimately trump the price. The government plans to expand this facility, which currently has the capacity to import about a quarter of Poland’s yearly needs. It also wants to build a pipeline from Norway, where the state-controlled PGNiG is investing in a network of gas fields intended to insulate Poland from political interference.
“In the L.N.G. trade price is only one component,” said Jeffrey W. Martin, chairman and chief executive of Sempra Energy in San Diego, which signed a contract to supply Poland from a planned Texas plant last year. “Security of supply is a big issue.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/business/poland-gas-lng-russia-usa.html
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FERC Divided on Aftermath of Export Approval
Feb 26, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's decision to authorize a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Louisiana last week may not be the breakthrough some had hoped for.
Two of the key players — Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur — used nearly the same language in explaining the commission's decision, which took into account the direct impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from the project.
But in interviews, each emphasized a different aspect of what the order approving Venture Global LNG Inc.'s $4.5 billion Calcasieu Pass LNG project in Cameron Parish, La., portends for the future of about a dozen pending applications for similar projects.
Chatterjee, a Republican, said it's a "case in the books" that sets a precedent FERC can look to as it considers similar projects.
LaFleur, a Democrat and former chairwoman, said that while precedent does come into play at FERC, "each case has its own facts and set of circumstances." It may not be time to summon "a big brass band," she added.
Both LaFleur and Chatterjee credited Republican Commissioner Bernard McNamee with playing a key role in leading discussions toward a compromise on the LNG project — something that had eluded the commission since the Oct. 18, 2018, approval of National Grid's Fields Point Liquefaction Project in Providence, R.I.
FERC approved the project on a 3-1 vote with Democratic Commissioner Richard Glick dissenting again on a natural gas project because of FERC "deliberately ignoring the consequences that its actions have for climate change."
The American Petroleum Institute and senior Department of Energy officials hailed the FERC action as effectively breaking a two-year logjam on LNG project approvals.
The Calcasieu Pass project has been pending at the commission since 2015. It and the related TransCameron pipeline are expected to feed a hungry global gas market while easing the oversupply of U.S. producers.
The commission had certified three projects in 2017 and 2018 after having approved nine in 2015 and 2016 under Democratic FERC Chairman Norman Bay.Facing an 'impasse'
The Calcasieu Pass project was on the commission's agenda for its December meeting, but Chatterjee had to pull it at the last minute when it was clear there were not enough votes for approval.
Then, the commission had just four active members as Commissioner Kevin McIntyre, a Republican, was too ill to participate. But McNamee had been sworn in just days before and said he would be voting present on all agenda items. That left just Chatterjee and the two Democrats, LaFleur and Glick, to vote.
The "impasse" on climate was "evident to most people," Chatterjee said, "particularly after we had to pull down Calcasieu Pass from the December meeting agenda that there was some disagreement on the question of how and if to consider direct GHG emissions."
Since then, FERC staff and commissioners had worked to include "the percentage of the project's direct (GHG) emissions in the context of total emissions nationally in 2016" as part of its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review, he said.
Calcasieu Pass' environmental impact study estimated it would emit directly 4 million tons of greenhouse gases annually.
"We're a quasi-judicial regulatory body that operates by precedent. And now we have a case in the books so there's a precedent in place. So I feel confident that precedent will be applicable as we lawfully consider applications moving forward," Chatterjee said.
As to McNamee's pivotal role, "There's no question about it. He is a very diligent, thorough, thoughtful, capable attorney," Chatterjee said. "When you look at the delta between Commissioner LaFleur's concurrence and what was in the final order you can see the trajectory of the negotiations."
As to the pending LNG projects, Chatterjee, like LaFleur, said each will be considered "individually on their own merits."
But he expressed "optimism" that "if they're lawfully submitted applications that don't otherwise have unforeseen hiccups then it seems as if what had been the biggest sticking point in assessing these applications, we have agreement of the majority of the commission on how to expeditiously approve them."
That's not quite the outlook held by LaFleur.
She said she has "been very troubled about the narrative around this for the last two months. First there was this narrative we couldn't shake that somehow FERC couldn't do any LNG or pipelines cases because of the partisan 2-2," she said.
That "doesn't fit with the fact that I had said way back in December and I've said continuously I'm ready to work with my colleagues" in getting to approval of gas projects, she said.
"We've been bipartisan and gotten out these cases for years," LaFleur said, noting that all eight current LNG projects either approved or under construction were approved during the Obama administration.
"[The narrative] was so persistent I couldn't figure out how to defeat it. And now the narrative is — get the brass band, there's a big breakthrough, peace has been achieved. Now we're going to do 11 or however many cases," she said.
"We decide all of our cases by law, one by one," she said, stressing each word.
"We are an agency that relies on precedent, and to the extent we have found a way to do direct emissions, that might be a way that we can deal with direct emissions in another case," she said. "But each case has its own facts and set of circumstances."
"I thought we had to disclose those emissions and consider them in our own order," LaFleur said, crediting McNamee as "very valuable in being willing to have that conversation and work with me on language."
She called it a "seemingly modest change but very important to me because I thought it was needed to satisfy NEPA."
McNamee did not respond to a request for comment.Cumulative impacts
LaFleur's second concern regarding greenhouse gases was not satisfied in the order — a permitted NEPA cumulative impacts analysis considering the effects of Calcasieu Pass with other emitting projects in the same geographic region.
"I decided I could handle that in my concurrence," LaFleur said, but she'd like FERC to consider cumulative impacts in future orders.
Along with Glick, LaFleur has made climate change a key concern as she weighs LNG and gas pipeline projects (Energywire, Dec. 21, 2018).
"I've drawn the line a little differently than Commissioner Glick, although I completely respect where he's coming from," she said.
LaFleur said she considers the purpose of a project, why it's needed and what the commission knows about its impact, and then makes her best judgment "on the record as it exists, even if it's not the record as I wish it existed."
LaFleur said she would ideally like FERC and the Department of Energy to work together to "get our arms around" the overall climate impacts of the facilities, positive or negative.
"As for FERC, I would like us to continue to explore how we assess the significance of climate impacts by using the social cost of carbon or other metrics to try to put some significance around what we're increasingly disclosing in our orders," she said.
"Neither I nor my colleagues are going to prejudge the outcome of any of these other applications that still need to come before us," Chatterjee said.
He would not speculate as to when the commission might act on its next LNG project approval, but ClearView Energy Partners LLC said five more could be on track for approval by the end of June.
DOE splits jurisdiction with FERC and has the final say on whether the export of LNG is in the public interest.
ClearView says the timing for approval is "unclear." During the Obama administration, DOE "waited until the Commission acted on rehearing requests before it issued its approvals," it said.
The Trump administration has yet to issue a new LNG export facility license.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/02/26/stories/1060122397
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$1.5 Million Fine for Missouri Company Illegally Storing Waste
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christopher Brown
A Missouri company that illegally stored toxic waste near St. Louis has been sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay restitution of $1.5 million.
The case concerns 9 million pounds of hazardous waste rife with heavy metals, including cadmium, chromium, and lead, that has been shuttled between two states, involved numerous companies, and sparked legal cases stretching back more than a decade.
The company, Missouri Green Materials LLC, and its owners pleaded guilty in November 2018 to conspiracy in connection with the storage of the hazardous waste at a warehouse in Franklin County, Mo.
The toxic waste was generated by an Ohio company that used blasting materials to strip paint from military planes, tanks, and other military equipment.
Also pleading guilty in November was U.S. Technology Corp., the company that leased blasting materials to military bases and agencies to remove the paint.Mississippi Site
According to the indictment, U.S. Technology originally hired a Mississippi company to recycle hazardous waste at its facility in Yazoo City, Miss.
But that company, Hydromex, dumped the waste on its own grounds rather than recycling it. Hydromex’s owner pleaded guilty in federal court in 2006 for his role in the dumping scheme, according to a previous statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office in St. Louis.
Later, under pressure from the Mississippi Department on Environmental Quality, U.S. Technology agreed to clean up the waste from the Yazoo City site, the indictment said.
But instead of cleaning it up, U.S. Technology contracted with Missouri Green Materials to have the 9 million pounds of waste shipped to a warehouse in Missouri. U.S. Technology didn’t have a permit to transport hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and Missouri Green Materials didn’t have a permit to store the waste, the indictment said.
U.S. Technology and its owner, Raymond Williams, were each sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay restitution of $1.5 million.
Daryl Duncan and Penny Duncan, the owners of Missouri Green Materials, were sentenced in October 2018 to five years of probation and must share the $1.5 million payment in restitution.
The case is U.S. v. U.S. Technology Corp., E.D. Mo., No. 4:17-cr-00189, Sentenced 2/22/19.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/1-5-million-fine-for-missouri-company-illegally-storing-waste
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MTA: LIRR's Crash Prevention Installation Slams Into Problem With Improper Calibration
Feb 25, 2019 | Newsday
By Alfonso A. Castillo
A $1 billion project to install federally mandated safety equipment on LIRR trains has been set back because the railroad's contractor installed faulty equipment.
The latest delay in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's effort to install "positive train control," or PTC, technology on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trains was detailed at a meeting of the MTA's railroad committee in Manhattan on Monday.
PTC uses radio transponders along tracks and antennas installed underneath trains to communicate with each other and automatically stop a train if it is at risk of being involved in an accident. The LIRR has a deadline of 2020 to have the equipment installed.
MTA committee members hammered representatives from its PTC vendor, a joint venture of Bombardier Transportation and Siemens Rail Automation, for a host of problems. Chief among them: more than 4,000 installed "scanner antennas" recently recalled because of a mistake by the contractor, which is being paid nearly a half-billion dollars — of the $1 billion — to design and manufacture the technology.
As a result of the recall, and other new challenges, MTA positive train control project director Deborah Chin said the LIRR and its sister railroad, Metro-North, “do not have a lot of confidence” that the contractor, which operates out of Pittsburgh, will meet its schedule.
“The railroads are concerned that there may be other equipment issues lurking and not yet known,” said Chin, who called the situation “unacceptable” and urged the contractor to “have the same sense of urgency that the railroads have.”
Chin did not specify the financial impact of the various problems, but said project officials "anticipate that we will need additional funds to complete the project."
The federal Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which stemmed from a Chatsworth, California, commuter train crash that killed 25 people, originally required railroads to have PTC in place by the end of 2015. When it became apparent that most railroads could not meet the deadline, federal lawmakers agreed to push the deadline to 2018, and to 2020 for railroads that met certain minimum milestones by the end of last year, including the LIRR.Get the Breaking News newsletter!
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Federal officials have said missing a PTC deadline could result in fines of up $27,904 a day for every day a railroad is in violation of the law.
"We're in a very bad place right now," acting MTA Chairman Fernando Ferrer said of the latest PTC setbacks. "We need to be in a much better place very soon."
Bombardier and Siemens notified the railroads last month that the scanner antennas already installed on LIRR and Metro-North trains were being recalled because it was recently discovered that the machine used to test the devices at a manufacturing plant had not been calibrated since 2016.
Paul Eliea, project director for Siemens, acknowledged at the meeting the mistake was a result of the vendors not following procedure and allowing the same employee who was responsible for preparing the antennas for use also to test them — making for a “single point of failure.”
“This was a mistake in the way that it was set up,” said Eliea, one of several representatives from the joint venture who attended the meeting. “Obviously, this hurts us quite a bit, not only in our reputation, but in the project, as well. We are sorry for it, and we have taken the correct steps to address it.”
Those steps include swapping out all the recalled devices for new ones, a process that will take months.
MTA officials hammered the vendor for other recent obstacles, including a separate recall of about 200 "radio" units manufactured by GE that are installed on trains and along tracks, a lack of PTC experts to assist the railroads in installing the new technology, and problematic software that resulted in the LIRR recently suspending testing of it on the Port Washington branch until March. The vendor also has failed, so far, to design another piece of software that is necessary for the LIRR’s unique switching system.
Ronald L. Birkelbach, of Bombardier, acknowledged the task of installing the new technology across two of the busiest commuter railroads in the United States has been “probably more complex, I suppose, than we initially considered.”
But he assured railroad officials that the vendors remain “completely committed” to meeting the deadlines and have a new "road map" for doing so.
MTA board member Neal Zuckerman, who heads the board's PTC working group, said "talk, unfortunately, is kind of cheap."
"We had a road map before, too," Zuckerman told the vendor representatives. "So the presence of a new road map does not give me anymore confidence."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, who helped secure the $1 billion federal loan to fund the PTC project, said Monday that he was "blindsided" by the news of the latest delays and called them "unacceptable."
The LIRR Commuter Council, the state-mandated watchdog group for railroad riders, said Monday it was "very concerned" about the latest developments.
“Despite the fact that PTC is an unfunded federal mandate, it must be completed to ensure the safety of riders," council chairman Mark Epstein said in a statement. "The LIRRCC demands that corrective action be taken immediately, and any costs relating to same be borne by those responsible."
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/positive-train-control-deadline-lirr-1.27749548
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Ocasio-Cortez Critics See $93 Trillion Cost From Green New Deal
Feb 25, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ambitious plan to fight climate change won’t be cheap, according to a think tank led by a former Congressional Budget Office director.
The so-called Green New Deal may tally between $51 trillion and $93 trillion over 10-years, concludes the center-right policy American Action Forum, which is run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who directed the non-partisan CBO from from 2003 to 2005.
That includes between $8.3 trillion and $12.3 trillion to meet the plan’s call to eliminate carbon emissions from the power and transportation sectors and between $42.8 trillion and $80.6 trillion for its economic agenda including providing jobs and health care for all.
“The Green New Deal is clearly very expensive,” the group said in its analysis. “It’s further expansion of the federal government’s role in some of the most basic decisions of daily life, however, would likely have a more lasting and damaging impact than its enormous price tag.”
Backers of the plan say cost of inaction would be more expensive. The resolutionitself, released earlier this month by Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey points to a major report on global warming released by the United Nations last October that says catastrophic climate change could cost more than $500 billion annually in lost economic output in the U.S. by 2100.
“It is the moral economic national security issue of our generation,” Markey said in a recent interview.
Representatives of Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, and Markey didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Republicans have embraced the sweeping plan because they think they can use it to cast Democrats as extreme, take back seats in Congress, and possibly keep the White House in 2020.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/ocasio-cortez-critics-see-93-trillion-cost-from-green-new-deal
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Feinstein Draft Climate Resolution Seeks To Reinstate Obama GHG Efforts
Feb 25, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
A new draft climate change resolution by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), offered as an alternative to the more ambitious Green New Deal (GND), would largely reinstate a suite Obama-era greenhouse gas rules and policies that Trump officials are trying to roll back, including EPA’s Clean Power Plan utility GHG rule and passenger vehicle GHG limits.
Feinstein’s Feb. 22 draft resolution would also set a 2050 deadline for the United States to reduce its net GHG emissions to zero, rather than the GND’s 2030 deadline. It also stops short of seeking the job guarantees and dramatic social changes in the GND that Republicans have seized on to argue the plan is too costly and extreme.
Feinstein shared the draft resolution after a testy confrontation with youth climate advocates from the group Sunrise Movement in her San Francisco office earlier the same day, though it is unclear how long she has been writing the measure, when she will introduce it, or whether she has cosponsors.
Her office did not respond to questions on the resolution by press time.
The long-serving senator is facing strong criticism for her response to the Sunrise activists after video of the encounter went viral. It shows Feinstein calling the GND impractical and citing her long experience in the upper chamber to bolster claims that it cannot pass.
The New York Times detailed the confrontation, noting Feinstein told the youth, “That resolution will not pass the Senate, and you can take that back to whoever sent you here and tell them. I’ve been in the Senate for over a quarter of a century and I know what can pass and I know what can’t pass.”
During the exchange, one of the attendees told Feinstein that “if this doesn’t get turned around in 10 years, you’re looking at the faces of the people who are going to be living with the consequences.”
But Feinstein replied that she has seven grandchildren and is mindful of climate change threats. “You know what’s interesting about this group? I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I know what I’m doing. You come in here and say it has to be my way or the highway. I don’t respond to that.”
Following the exchange and the subsequent criticism, Feinstein wrote on Twitter that, “I want the children from the Sunrise Movement to know they were heard loud and clear. I have been and remain committed to doing everything I can to enact real, meaningful climate change legislation.”
She called the discussion “spirited” and noted she presented the group with her draft resolution that “provides specific responses to the climate change crisis, which I plan to introduce soon.”
GND Vote
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is expected to schedule a floor vote on the GND resolution as soon as this week, absent any hearings -- a decision Democrats and environmentalists are calling a political ploy to divide Democratic senators and tar the GND as a political non-starter.
The GND resolution -- which calls for the United States to eliminate its GHG emissions by 2030 and was introduced by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) -- is largely a collection of aspirational goals with few detailed policies. But it has prompted widespread criticism from Republicans and others who claim it would ban cars, airplanes, cows and farms.
McConnell’s vote is intended to force Democratic senators to take a public position on the GND, especially the slate of 2020 presidential contenders, as well as embarrass the party with a likely split vote. But Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) dismissed the tactic, arguing Americans know the Republican Party is wrongly dismissing climate change threats.
“They’re bringing a resolution forward so they can vote against it. This cheap, cynical ploy evidently represents the sum total of Senate Republican’s leadership on climate change,” he said during a recent floor speech. “I say, ‘go for it, bring it on.’”
Reports have said Feinstein intends to vote “present” when the GND resolution comes to a vote, though her office did not confirm that.
Meanwhile, her draft resolution calls for “recommitting to emissions reduction policies that have already been prepared under existing law,” including remaining a party to the United Nations Paris Agreement and maintaining the Obama EPA GHG regulations for passenger vehicles, new and existing power plants, and the oil and gas sector.
It also calls for the resumption of Department of Energy efficiency standards for ceiling fans, walk-in coolers, freezers, and more. Further, it would ask the Senate to ratify the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, while also reinstating an interagency working group to further develop a climate damages tool called the social cost of carbon -- which the Trump administration scrapped in March 2017.
Other policies in the draft include setting a price on carbon that increases over time, transitioning to zero-emission electricity systems and electric transportation systems, quickly eliminating all avoidable industrial emissions as well as those from commercial buildings, residential buildings, aviation, shipping and agriculture. It also seeks to maximize GHG removal from the atmosphere through reforestation, carbon capture and sequestration, and direct air capture.
Additionally, it calls for adaptation measures such as rebuilding infrastructure to be more resilient to extreme weather, fortifying coastal communities against sea level rise and preparing the public health system for greater risks of climate-related impacts.
Feinstein’s measure stops short of including a “job guarantee for all” policy, but it does seek to “ensure a just and equitable transition for all communities,” including by guaranteeing pensions for workers in the coal, oil and gas industries as well as meaningful job training. It would also ensure that infrastructure investments offer high-wage jobs, while prioritizing the development of zero-emission technologies in environmental justice communities.
Feinstein’s resolution would have been considered progressive in the last Congress, but with a new wave of insurgent Democrats elected in the midterms, particularly in the House, it has faced criticism as not ambitious enough.
Ocasio-Cortez blasted Feinstein’s response to the youth as well as her resolution during a Feb. 24 Instagram livestream, according the Washington Examiner.
“The issue has gotten worse. So I don’t think that working on an issue for 30 years alone is what qualifies as -- as what makes someone qualified to solve an issue,” she said. “What we need to do is say, ‘What solutions have not been tried yet? And what ambitious scale have we not shot at yet.’ And let’s do it.”
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Californians Drive Energy and Environment Debate
Feb 26, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Anne C. Mulkern
The new House of Representatives is rolling out its game plan and strategies for the next two years, and it's clear which state holds the most clout: California.
The Golden State sent 46 Democrats to the House after flipping seven Republican-held seats in November. California now has more Democrats in the lower chamber than the entire congressional delegations of Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Washington combined.
On top of that, the leaders of both political parties in the House call California home. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D) may be speaker and second in line to the presidency, but her home base is San Francisco. Rep. Kevin McCarthy leads the GOP and represents Bakersfield in the Central Valley.
"Speaker of the House and minority leader, that's a lot of juice," said John Russell, principal at the Dentons law conglomerate.
The state's power to shape the agenda goes beyond leadership. In the environment and energy fields, 12 Californians are subcommittee chairs and vice chairs. Californians make up the majority of rank-and-file committee Democrats, as well. Pelosi likely had a hand in this, too.
"Speaker Pelosi has a significant amount of control," Russell said. All members of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee voted on committee assignments, but "as the speaker, you get the votes," Russell said.
It didn't hurt that two of the three co-chairs of the Democratic Steering Committee are from California — Reps. Eric Swalwell of suburban east San Francisco and Barbara Lee of Oakland. The third member, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), is a longtime Pelosi ally.
One of the big things the delegation brings to the table is a foundation in what has already been done at the state level to combat environmental issues, said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California.
This includes a mandate passed last year that 100 percent of electricity come from clean sources by 2045, a push for zero-emissions vehicles and a carbon cap-and-trade program requiring cuts in greenhouse gas pollution.
"They can be on [panels] sort of from an informed perspective about what happens when you address climate change," Phillips said. "They're also coming from districts that see the impact of climate change. It makes a difference when you go home and a lot of your folks have been burned out because of incredibly dry weather" and unusual high winds at nontraditional times of the year.
California is the nation's most populous state, home to nearly 40 million people. Members of the Golden State delegation are proud of their clout.
"Just in terms of the practical effect, it means we will have more members on committees, more votes at the committee level, more influence within the Democratic caucus on the Steering and Policy Committee and other places where key decisions get made," said Rep. Jared Huffman, a third-termer who represents California's 2nd District, along the north coast of the state from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border. "It helps in every way."The big picture
Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. Napolitano/Facebook
It doesn't take more than a glance at committee rosters to see the strength of the delegation.
Rep. Anna Eshoo of the San Jose region leads the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. The E&C Committee alone has four Californians as vice chairs: Rep. Doris Matsui of Sacramento on Communications and Technology; Rep. Tony Cárdenas from the San Fernando Valley on Consumer Protection and Commerce; Rep. Jerry McNerney of Stockton on Energy; and Rep. Raul Ruiz of Palm Desert on Environment and Climate Change.
On the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Grace Napolitano of suburban southeast Los Angeles leads the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee. On the Agriculture Committee, Jim Costa of Fresno chairs the Livestock and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee.
The Natural Resources Committee is another panel that has a strong California-bent. Rep. Alan Lowenthal of Long Beach leads the Energy and Mineral Resources panel, and Huffman of San Rafael heads Water, Oceans and Wildlife.
It isn't just veteran members who are holding the gavels. Rep. T.J. Cox of Fresno leads the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (see related story). Rep. Harley Rouda of Laguna Beach is chairman of the Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment, and Rep. Katie Hill of Santa Clarita is vice chairwoman of the Oversight and Reform Committee.Boosting re-election chances
Rep. Harley Rouda (D-Calif.) during a television interview on Capitol Hill. He chairs the Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment. @RepHarley/Twitter
The Democratic Steering and Policy Committee that named the chairs likely looked at areas of interest and expertise, but also who would need help in their 2020 re-election bids, Russell said. That probably helped several freshmen get put in notable slots.
The California Democrats who flipped GOP seats are "going to need some high-profile wins" to stay in office, said Russell. "You want to put them on committees where they're going to generate press coverage. Especially in a crowded media market like California, finding a way for members to raise their profile is incredibly important."
Rouda said in an interview that Pelosi "plays the long game as well as anyone. ... She recognizes that to maintain the majority, we have to keep these seats we flipped from red to blue. We need to keep other seats in difficult districts, and we need to add more to it."
One way to do that, he said, is "you position the people in those difficult districts. ... You set them up for success. One way you set them up for success is to make sure that they are on the appropriate committees and where it makes sense have the opportunity to chair a subcommittee, as well, or be vice chair of the main committee."
Rouda's district includes Newport Beach, which plans to raise an entire island as sea-level rise causes flooding (Climatewire, March 29, 2018). The city has already begun by raising the sea wall around Balboa Island.
Rouda, a real estate executive and former Republican who defeated a 30-year veteran GOP lawmaker last fall, said he plans to focus on climate issues.
The Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment can "help better understand what we need to do to fight climate change long term," Rouda said. "As climate change creates bigger, badder, bolder storms, we need to make sure preparation, response efforts are much better than what we currently have."
He sees California's actions on warming as "a blueprint for what our country could be doing on a much larger scale in addressing climate change — creating new jobs, creating new industries and creating healthier Americans."Changing committee directions
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) chairs the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife. Frank Schulenburg/Wikipedia
Other subcommittee chairs said they had plans to redirect the priorities and actions of their panels.
Huffman, the chairman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife, said he has two types of priorities.
"One is oversight, which has been totally missing for the last two years," he said. "The second is putting forward good policy ideas. ... We've mostly played defense."
Huffman said he'll work to block the Trump administration from allowing more oil drilling in federal waters. Other issues he'll look at include water supply, forest management and fire resilience.
"We have heard nothing but the same old attacks on our environmental laws from Republicans for the last few years," he said in an interview. "We all recognize that we've got a wildfire problem. We need to come up with some actual solutions that work within our environmental values, but also make our communities safe and our forests healthier."
On water, he said, "What we've had for the last six years in this Congress is a very tired recycling of these old arguments that pitch fish against farmers."
He wants to address funding for water recycling and water efficiency programs. Those could include agricultural water reuse and investments in more efficient water systems, in leak detection or in landscape water efficiency.
Napolitano's priorities for the T&I Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment include addressing "the growing water infrastructure crisis facing all communities — large, small, rural, and tribal," her communications director Jerry O'Donnell said in an email.
"Additional investment in water infrastructure and drought resiliency measures will ensure the availability of clean, safe, and affordable water and wastewater services for our families and businesses, while supporting the creation of additional U.S. jobs," O'Donnell added.Feeling climate impacts firsthand
The Energy and Commerce Committee is tough to get on, so finding spots for members in other places is important, political analysts said. That's why Pelosi's decision to re-establish a select committee on climate change — now named the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis — is notable.
Freshman Rep. Mike Levin of San Juan Capistrano in Orange County grabbed a seat on that committee.
Two other California Democrats are on the committee: Huffman and third-term Rep. Julia Brownley, representing the 26th District in Ventura County. The Californians make up a third of the select committee.
All three said they've seen climate impacts in their districts. In some cases they've faced them firsthand.
Brownley had to evacuate her home when the Woolsey Fire swept through Ventura County last November, starting on the same day as the catastrophic Camp Fire north of Sacramento.
"California knows all too well the devastating economic and human toll brought by climate change, which has led to longer wildfire seasons and deadly disasters that have wreaked havoc on our local communities," Brownley said.
Ventura County has a 43-mile coastline and more than 300,000 acres of agricultural production, she said, and is affected by rising sea levels, higher temperatures and prolonged drought conditions.
Levin, an environmental attorney who also headed a clean technology trade group, ran with the ballot description "Clean Energy Advocate." He's called for rejoining the international Paris Agreement on climate and other actions to limit warming.
In an interview he said the select committee "has the opportunity to bring to life much of the written research that we're hearing about and reading," including the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and the National Climate Assessment.
"In coastal areas, such as my district, we're already directly seeing the impacts. My hope is we can bring the evidence to light in the way a report cannot," he said.
Levin represents a mostly coastal area, from Dana Point in Orange County to where the University of California, San Diego, sits. Communities battling climate issues include Del Mar (Climatewire, July 21, 2017) and Solana Beach (Climatewire, July 31, 2017).
"We're seeing significant coastal erosion and sea-level rise throughout my district," Levin said. "You have structures that have been in place along the coast for decades or longer that are now at risk of being lost."
Huffman said residents "on the North Coast of California are already feeling the impacts of climate change, including warming and acidifying oceans, drought, and devastating wildfires."
Brownley said the climate change committee can bring to the federal level "the forward-thinking policies that California has long been a leader on, from limiting harmful industrial emissions; to supporting development of clean, alternative transportation infrastructure; to promoting wind, solar, hydropower and other renewable resources; to spurring action to conserve energy and improve energy efficiency."
Asked how she'd persuade people to follow California's efforts, she noted the state has the fifth largest economy in the world alongside "incredibly diverse regional viewpoints and policy priorities." It has led the way on advancing renewable energy, alternative transportation infrastructure, energy efficiency and protecting the environment, she said in an email.
"California is a clear case study in how bold, environmentally-friendly energy policy and economic success are not mutually exclusive." Brownley said. "The saying 'As California goes, so goes the nation,' is true when it comes to climate policy."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/02/26/stories/1060122415
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White House Plans Group to 'Counter' Climate Science Studies
Feb 25, 2019 | Inside EPA
The White House is developing a group that would “counter” mainstream scientific conclusions that human-released greenhouse gases are causing climate change, according to a news report, taking aim at a series of major climate studies, including a November interagency report that showed significant harm.
The ad hoc group would be led by the National Security Council (NSC) and would include “scientists who question the severity of climate impacts and the extent to which humans contribute to the problem,” according to a Washington Post article.
In an apparent shift from prior plans, the group is being created to skirt Federal Advisory Committee Act rules, which require open meetings and public involvement for formal advisory panels.
The decision harkens back to a strategy promoted by former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to hold a “red team, blue team” exercise to question mainstream climate science -- an effort the White House spiked under former Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Critics said that plan would have improperly elevated the views of fringe scientists who dismiss threats of anthropogenic climate change, and the new group appears to focus only on a “red team” that opposes mainstream climate science.
The group will reportedly include William Happer, an NSC senior director who ran a group called the CO2 Coalition that advocates for the notion that increased emissions of the planet-warming gas are beneficial.
The Post reports that a Feb. 22 meeting in the White House Situation Room included discussion that President Donald Trump was “upset” that his administration in November released the National Climate Assessment (NCA) -- a congressionally mandated inter-agency study on the latest climate science.
Deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman argued Democrats “seized upon the report” to bolster their case for ambitious policy to cut GHGs, the story says.
The story notes, however, that the NCA already received “intense scrutiny” in a peer review process before it was issued. “The whole review process is confrontational from the very get-go, but it’s based in scientific credibility, in a traceable chain of evidence through publications,” said Christopher Field, a Stanford University earth system science professor who served on a National Academy of Sciences review panel for part of the report.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/white-house-plans-group-counter-climate-science-studies
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Governors Urge Appropriators to Preserve States' Oversight Roles
Feb 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
In advance of a hearing this week, the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) is urging House appropriators to clarify and preserve states’ lead role in implementing air and water rules within their borders, while seeking federal funds to support states’ Clean Act Air implementation, as well as for state and EPA research of ozone transport issues.
In written testimony submitted before a Feb. 26 hearing of the House Appropriations Committee’s environment panel, WGA Executive Director James Ogsbury seeks language backing states’ primary authority for protecting water resources and lead role in implementing Clean Air Act rules in delegated states.
“WGA encourages Congress to include express and unambiguous language protecting states’ authority over groundwater resources in any water-related legislation, as well as clear direction to administrative agencies to respect such authority,” the letter says.
“Congress and EPA should recognize state authority under the Clean Air Act (CAA) and accord states sufficient flexibility to create air quality and emissions programs tailored to individual state needs, industries, and economies,” the letter adds.
Ogsbury also backs the Trump administration’s consultation with states in planning to revise the Obama EPA’s 2015 Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule and urges Congress to clarify states’ role as partners in federal reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) needed to advance transportation and other infrastructure projects.
WGA and other state groups have broadly backed the Trump administration’s push for cooperative federalism, where states take the lead in implementing federal environmental law. But they are currently at odds over Trump administration plans to scale back states' authority to review water quality impacts of federally approved projects, such as natural gas pipelines, under section 401 of the Clean Water Act.
Last week, WGA and other state groups sent a letter to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) chief R.D. James proposing steps for speeding state reviews while preserving states’ authority.
Ogsbury’s written testimony cites more frequent and intense wildfires in calling for funding to support state Clean Air Act programs, arguing that states face unique challenges in meeting National Ambient Air Quality Standards. WGA also seeks funding for states and EPA to research background, interstate and transported ozone.
Additionally, Ogsbury seeks language ensuring states’ role as partners in federal agencies’ NEPA implementation, saying that federal agencies should coordinate with states to ensure adequate data to support the reviews.
“Congress should clarify that state, local and tribal governments, as well as their political subdivisions, have unique and critical duties to serve their citizens and are not stakeholders or members of the public for purposes of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process,” Ogsbury says.
“In addition, existing state environmental review processes can supplement and inform federal NEPA reviews; federal agencies should work directly with states to obtain and use up-to-date state data and analyses as critical sources of information in the NEPA process.”
WGA also appears to back the Trump administration’s proposed rule seeking to revise the Obama EPA’s CWA jurisdiction rule, noting that EPA and the Corps’ proposed changes followed consultation with state regulators.
“EPA and USACE have promulgated new language to clarify the jurisdictional boundaries of the Clean Water Act and have taken positive steps to engage WGA and individual states with respect to this issue,” the letter says.
“WGA looks forward to working with the agencies to further develop and implement a new rule that takes into account the viewpoints of Western Governors and adequately protects states’ primary authority over the management and allocation of water resources."
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/governors-urge-appropriators-preserve-states-oversight-roles
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More Enviros Join Legal Brawl Over 'Good Neighbor' Rule
Feb 25, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Three more environmental groups have waded into the legal fight over EPA's status quo "good neighbor" rule for its 2008 ground-level ozone standard.
Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, Air Alliance Houston and Clean Wisconsin jointly brought the lawsuit last week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The suit, which was slow to show up in online judicial records, has been consolidated with two others brought last month by various states, New York City and other environmental groups (E&E News PM, Jan. 31).
The EPA rule, published in December, opts against requiring coal-fired power plants in 20 states to take any new steps to curb emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) that may make it harder for downwind states to meet the 2008 ozone standard of 75 parts per billion. As grounds for its decision, the agency said the 2016 Cross-State Air Pollution Rule update has already cut NOx releases by more than 20 percent and predicted that all states in those downwind areas will meet the 75 ppb threshold by 2023.
In comments last summer on the original proposal, however, Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services and other groups labeled it the "bad neighbor" rule and said the Clean Air Act requires EPA to do more to limit interstate air pollution. Like some Northeastern states, those groups questioned the air quality modeling underlying the agency's forecast.
At least broadly, that concern appears to have been shared elsewhere in the government. "Given the uncertainty in the modeling, why did EPA use one model and one future year instead of evaluating a range of output for different years and models?" one commenter wrote during a standard interagency review of the final rule conducted by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs before the rule was published.
Ozone, a lung irritant that is the main ingredient in smog, is formed by the reaction of NOx and volatile organic compounds in sunshine. In 2015, EPA further tightened the standard to 70 ppb; enforcement is still in its early stages.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/02/25/stories/1060122369
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Democrats Won't Back 'Green New Deal' in 'Sham' Vote
Feb 26, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews and Nick Sobczyk
If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) calls a vote on the "Green New Deal," it looks likely that many — or even all — Senate Democrats would vote "present" to avoid a public intraparty fight, said activists, lawmakers and congressional aides.
The environmental group behind the climate resolution is not planning to punish Democratic lawmakers for doing so — a departure from the Sunrise Movement's recent history of attacking both Democrats and Republicans who question the "Green New Deal," a massive government-led jobs program.
"This vote is a sham," said Evan Weber, co-founder and political director of the Sunrise Movement. "Mitch McConnell obviously doesn't support [the "Green New Deal"] so he's trying to put [the vote] forward as a political ploy."
Because of that motivation, Weber said he would be fine with Senate Democrats simply voting "present" on the resolution — as most of them did in July 2017 when Senate Republicans tried to split the Democratic caucus by holding a vote on "Medicare for All," a similar hot-button issue on the left.
"I think it's perfectly reasonable and respectful for Senate Democrats to call it out for what it is, and if voting present is how they want to do that, by all means go for it," Weber said.
The maneuver also could spare Senate Democrats and the Sunrise Movement from a politically difficult or embarrassing result.
So far, about a dozen senators have co-sponsored a Democratic-led resolution in favor of the "Green New Deal."
And since McConnell first floated the idea of holding a vote on the "Green New Deal," there's been little indication that Senate Democrats would come out in force to support the plan, which seeks to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030.
Asked last week how he would vote on the "Green New Deal," Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois wouldn't say. "At this point ... I can't tell you," Durbin said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "I've read it and I've reread it and I asked [sponsor Sen.] Ed Markey [D-Mass.], what in the heck is this?"
Democrats will talk over strategy for the "Green New Deal" vote during their caucus meeting today and come away with a "consensus position," Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) told reporters.
But the early signs suggest Democratic leadership will try to keep the caucus together to avoid political damage. To that end, several senators said yesterday they're leaning toward voting "present" and using the opportunity to point out that Republicans have not brought any real measure to the floor to address climate change.
One of those was Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who said McConnell's attempt to "troll" Democrats with the resolution vote is only giving them a bigger platform to talk about climate change.
"I think this was tactically clever on Leader McConnell's part, but strategically not smart at all because now we're talking about climate," he told reporters yesterday. "And that's not terra firma for them."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said a unanimous "present" vote would be fine with him, because it would discourage McConnell from using the Senate floor for "political theater."
"McConnell just said two weeks ago that he didn't think we should spend time on the floor bringing up legislation that won't get the president's support," Murphy said. "When it's an effort to own the libs, he thinks about the floor a little bit differently."
Still, widespread "present" votes on the climate resolution are unlikely to quell debate on the left over the proposal. Activists with the Sunrise Movement will fan out across the country today to lobby federal lawmakers, including moderate Democrats such as West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.
"What we would love for all Democrats to do is come to the table and begin to help flesh out the many policy details that will be needed to actually make the Green New Deal a reality," Weber said.
Whether the visits make a difference is another question. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) drew the ire of Sunrise Movement proponents Friday for lecturing its supporters on climate politics and the "Green New Deal."
"I've been doing this for 30 years. I know what I'm doing," she told one group of young activists. "You come in here and you say it has to be my way or the highway. I don't respond to that."
Instead, she offered a plan that would use policies such as a carbon tax to reduce climate-warming emissions (Climatewire, Feb. 25).
Inseparable from the "Green New Deal" debate is the high-stakes fight for the White House. At least six Democratic senators with presidential ambitions are co-sponsors of the climate resolution, a sign that they see the climate issue as a key to victory.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) likes it, too. "If you look at this Green Deal or whatever they call it, if you really look at it, I don't know why anyone could oppose it," Reid toldThe Nevada Independent.
Republicans also see value in the "Green New Deal" — though mostly as a caricature to pillory. Not one Senate Republican indicated he or she would support the resolution when contacted by E&E News. Several were quick to lay out their opposition.
"It's a socialist manifesto that lays out a laundry list of government giveaways, including guaranteed food, housing, college, and economic security even for those who refuse to work," Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a statement. "As Democrats take a hard left turn, this radical proposal would take our growing economy off the cliff and our nation into bankruptcy."
Overhanging all this maneuvering is the expectation that there's little chance for meaningful climate legislation to become law when the White House is occupied by President Trump, who has described global warming as a problem that can reverse itself (Climatewire, Nov. 15, 2018).
The lack of an actual bill to consider has thrust the "Green New Deal" into the spotlight, even though it's little more than a symbolic resolution at this stage. The lack of specifics also makes it easier for both liberals and conservatives to use it as a political weapon.
It's one reason why McConnell wants to bring the proposal up for a vote. And it's also why several hundred protesters descended on his Capitol Hill office yesterday to protest his lack of action on climate change and the amount of campaign contributions he's received from the oil and gas industry. (About $2.2 million over the course of his career, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics).
More than 40 activists were arrested during the rally.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/02/26/stories/1060122413
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Dozens of Green New Deal Advocates Arrested at McConnell's Office
Feb 25, 2019 | Roll Call
By Katherine Tully-McManus
Advocates for the Green New Deal descended on Capitol Hill Monday, and demonstrations led by activist organization Sunrise Movement resulted in dozens of arrests in and around the Russell Senate office building.
Protesters were focused on getting the attention of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who announced before the Presidents Day recess that he would bring the New Deal Resolution to a vote in the Senate.
The group, which included people from McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, filled the entryway of his office and lined hallways of the Russell building. As common for most lawmakers in leadership roles, McConnell works primarily out of his office in the Capitol building, not the one in Russell.
“Look us in the eye and tell us that the $1.9 million from oil companies is worth more than our lives,” said one young Kentuckian, referencing campaign contributions from industry groups McConnell’s campaigns have accepted.
“We have rights to good jobs and a livable future,” read the black t-shirts that many of the demonstrators wore.
The group had banners that read “Mitch, Look Us In The Eye” and “Kentucky needs a Green New Deal.”
The protesters, made up mostly of young adults, sang “whose side are you on, now, whose side are you on?” while jumping up and down in the hallway.
Capitol Police arrested 42 of the demonstrators, while those under arrest and their supporters continued to sing.
Those arrested were charged with D.C. Code §22-1307, “Crowding, Obstructing, or Incommoding,” according to Capitol Police spokesperson Eva Malecki.
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The demonstration then moved outside, where winds gusting above 50 mph didn't deter the protesters, who continued chantings and singing and speaking about the ambitious proposal on climate change that they came to support. They looked on as arrested activists were led into large Capitol Police vans to be transported for processing.
The Green New Deal, championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., is a massive proposal intended to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
The non-binding resolution has little chance of adoption in the Senate, where Republicans hold the majority. McConnell’s move to bring it to the floor is likely an effort to both get the many Democratic senators running for president on the record on the resolution, as well as to demonstrate that there are senators on both sides of the aisle opposed to the outline.
McConnell, who is running for re-election in 2020, also seems sure to run next year on his opposition to the proposal. His last Senate campaign featured his efforts to stop environmental actions by President Barack Obama’s administration, something he repeatedly referred to as the “war on coal.”
Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley praised the demonstrators on Twitter, saying “the YOUTH have the POWER.”
https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/dozens-green-new-deal-advocates-arrested-mcconnells-office
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Ahead Of Wheeler Vote, Democratic Senators Praise EPA Water Loan Program
Feb 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Lara Beaven
As the Senate prepares to vote on Andrew Wheeler's nomination to be EPA administrator, Maryland's Democratic senators are praising Wheeler and the agency's work on providing water infrastructure loans, suggesting that he will enjoy some level of cooperation from Democrats even if they vote against him.
At a Feb. 25 event here to award a $202 million loan to the city through EPA's Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program, Cardin thanked Wheeler -- currently the agency’s acting administrator -- for “helping clean water around the nation using the WIFIA funds.”
Wheeler called Cardin “a true partner” across many environmental issues but “especially when it comes to protecting the Chesapeake Bay.”
And Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), after thanking Cardin for his work to reauthorize WIFIA last year, said, “To our EPA administrator, thank you for taking that authority and running with it and putting Baltimore city, right at the top of the priority list” for WIFIA loans.
While few Democrats are likely to support Wheeler when his nomination comes to the floor as soon as this week, the two Democratic senators' comments suggest that once confirmed Wheeler is unlikely to have the same kind of rocky relationship with lawmakers as his predecessor, former Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Although Democrats are not likely to vote for Wheeler, he told reporters after the Baltimore event that he expected to be confirmed. It looks like things are “going well,” he said. Noting that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had filed for cloture on his nomination, Wheeler said, “They don't file for cloture unless they have the votes."
Before the Baltimore event, Democrats had signaled that they will continue to seek concessions from Wheeler even as they vote against him.
Both Cardin and Van Hollen sit on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which approved Wheeler's nomination on a party-line vote earlier this month. After the vote, both Maryland senators said they hoped to see commitments or concessions from EPA on several environmental issues.
Cardin said that while Wheeler has said the agency is not intending to weaken mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) for power plants, “it would be good if we saw action on it."
And Van Hollen said that when the nomination reaches the Senate floor, “hopefully some of our Republican colleagues who share some of our concerns will express them to Wheeler, and maybe we can get some concessions.”
Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE), the top Democrat on the panel, has listed several policy concerns in addition to MATS, including fuel efficiency standards, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorinated compounds and a paint stripper chemical. However, Carper has since said EPA's release of its per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) action plan that commits to pursuing a Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) standard for two PFAS has assuaged his concerns on that front.
WIFIA Loan
The Baltimore loan is the seventh EPA has awarded under the WIFIA program and is a part of a group of 12 projects EPA said were eligible for the first round of funding under the program in fiscal year 2017. EPA has invited 39 projects to apply for funding under the FY18 round.
“As you witnessed, there are very important things going on here. But we need this partnership to make sure we take it to the next level,” Van Hollen told Wheeler.
Wheeler, in his remarks, noted that there are 700 water main breaks daily across the country and that the American Society of Civil Engineers has given drinking water and wastewater infrastructure D grades.
“That's why [President Donald Trump] has made modernizing our nation's infrastructure a top priority. From highways and pipelines to waterways, the Trump administration is committed to improving our country's infrastructure across the board,” Wheeler said.
EPA is taking the lead on financing projects to upgrade water systems, Wheeler said, highlighting the ability to provide low-cost, supplemental loans throughout the nation through WIFIA.
“These loans fulfill several of the president's top priorities in one fell swoop: upgrading infrastructure, creating jobs and protecting public health. And that's what we're doing here in Baltimore,” Wheeler said. He called WIFIA loans “good government in action” with federal, state and local officials “working together to finance projects that will improve the lives of millions of Americans.”
Wheeler said the loan to Baltimore will help the city complete 14 separate projects that will reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and help Maryland meet its requirements under the EPA-developed Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan. While there has been progress in reducing nutrients and sediment in the bay, it is “important not to see those gains slip away,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler also told reporters the agency will propose this year revisions to the SDWA lead and copper rule but did not provide an expected timeline for the proposal. Originally expected by the end of last year, Wheeler delayed the proposal to better prioritize which lead pipes should be replaced first.
“I sent it back to the career staff because I want to make sure we are prioritizing where the most corrosive lead and copper pipes are,” he said. “It is going to take 20-30 years to replace all of them across the country, and I want to make sure the last mile of pipeline replaced is not the most corrosive. So that's going to take a little bit of work up front, and we're trying to make sure we get it right. We want to make sure we are replacing the most corrosive pipes.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/ahead-wheeler-vote-democratic-senators-praise-epa-water-loan-program
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Capturing Carbon: Can It Save Us?
Feb 25, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
Time is not on our side.
Catastrophic consequences of climate change are just steps away, according to a slew of reports released at the end of 2018. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that without swift action, global temperatures will rise by 1.5 °C by 2030 and 2 °C by 2050—and will continue to climb beyond then. Those increases will cause disastrous effects, including record-breaking sea-level rise, flooding, wildfires, extreme weather events, famine, and wildlife habitat destruction, the IPCC says. The impacts will hit the world’s poor particularly hard.
And these effects seem all but certain. Humans are on a path to generate so much carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases that it appears nearly impossible to cut emissions enough to avoid the worst.50 billion
Metric tons of greenhouse gases currently emitted to the atmosphere annually
Source:United Nations Environment Programme.
Enter “negative-emissions technologies,” a term but a few years old. NETs are methods that physically and chemically remove CO2 or other gases from the atmosphere. Today, a handful of technologies capture emitted CO2 before it ever reaches the atmosphere. NETs would extract CO2 or other gases directly from the air, change land-use practices to plant more carbon-sequestering trees and plants, and aggressively use natural systems to remove CO2 from the environment.
NETs would not relieve the world of the need to cut emissions, but they could ease the path to reach net zero emissions by 2050—the timeline that the United Nations Environment Programme says is necessary to keep the global temperature rise below 2 °C, the original goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Emission cuts and NETs “are two tools in the same toolbox,” says Stephen Pacala, an ecology and environmental biology professor at Princeton University who chaired a 2018 US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study of NETs. “They both are necessary and are likely to coexist for a long, long time.”
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In the following sections, C&EN examines some NET approaches that are just getting underway. Whether they will be able to scale up to meet the need is an open question. The numbers are staggering: globally, nearly 50 billion metric tons (t) of greenhouse gases are emitted to the atmosphere annually, the UN Environment Programme estimates. Of those emissions, about 37 billion t is CO2 and the rest is mostly methane. And even with various efforts in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global CO2 emissions increased by nearly 3% in 2018.
Avoiding a climate disaster would require some 10 billion t of CO2 emissions to be eliminated from the atmosphere each year by midcentury through emission reductions or NETs, the National Academies study estimates on the basis of UN data. By 2100, that number grows to 20 billion t per year.
Scientists estimate that NETs, if scaled up successfully, could address roughly 30% of the needed reductions.
Getting there will require policy changes such as carbon taxes or new economic drivers. A separate National Academies report, also released in late 2018, examined the possible use of CO2 or methane as a feedstock to make chemicals, fuels, or other products. It found potential markets in construction materials, chemicals, and fuels. However, at best the marketplace could use about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, the report concluded. And if CO2 is used to produce fuels, little is gained unless CO2 emissions are again captured when that fuel is burned.
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Globally, advocates of the need to address climate change typically point to the US as not doing its share. The country has historically been the global leader in carbon emissions; it is currently second to China for total greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and the world’s largest emitter per capita. President Donald J. Trump has announced plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and his administration is working to reverse tighter emission requirements on coal-fired power plants.
Nevertheless, there are some bright spots for NETs in the US, Pacala says. For example, a 2018 federal law, the FUTURE Act, provides a $50 tax credit for each metric ton of CO2 that is captured and stored underground. Also, recent changes to the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard program allows greenhouse gas polluters that fail to meet a declining state emission cap to buy emission credits from companies that captured and sequestered CO2. Those emission credits have been trading at $190 per metric ton. Both programs could generate funds for NET development.
But to develop NETs further, and especially to get them to scale, additional investment is needed. The National Academies report estimates that the US may need to invest up to $900 million annually in NET R&D. In a world increasingly focused on constraining carbon emissions, such investment in NETs could have large economic rewards, with intellectual property rights and economic benefits accruing to nations and companies that develop the best technologies. However, the Department of Energy’s total budget for its Office of Fossil Energy, which covers development of carbon capture and storage and supports certain oil and gas resources, is just $740 million for 2019.
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Meanwhile, the European Union plans to spend approximately €15 billion ($17 billion) on what it calls climate, energy, and mobility programs from 2021 to 2027 as part of its Horizon Europe research program. The EU estimates that overall, Europe will need to invest €520 billion to €575 billion annually in its energy systems to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. China’s approach to NETs is unclear.
Given sufficient R&D investment and an appropriate policy framework, NETs could be a “powerful policy or economic lever” to offset future emissions, says Howard Herzog, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology senior research engineer, who for 30 years has specialized in carbon capture technologies. Nevertheless, NETs will come at a price—they will likely always be a more expensive option than approaches that limit emissions in the first place.
“If we as a people are unwilling to use the relatively cheap mitigation technologies to lower carbon emissions available today, such as improved efficiency, increased renewables, or switching from coal to natural gas, what makes anyone think that future generations will use NETs, which are much, much more expensive?” Herzog says. Expecting NETs to save the world on their own is, he says, “more hope than reality.” Extracting from air Credit: Climeworks/Julia Dunlop/Cover Images/Newscom Climeworks extracts CO2 from the atmosphere and sends it to greenhouses to promote plant growth.
Pulling CO2 out of thin air and piping it deep into Earth involves viable technologies already in use—but they have yet to be tried on a planetary scale.
Carbon capture has long been employed to treat air in submarines and spacecraft to keep sailors and astronauts alive. Similar approaches are used throughout the world to reduce CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, natural gas processing plants, fertilizer and biofuel manufacturing sites, and other industrial point sources. And the technology has been successfully coupled with underground injection and sequestration of CO2.Air capture at a glance
Primary benefits: Mobile, measurable
Primary constraints: Energy intensive
Current cost per metric ton of CO2: $200–$1,000
Estimated removal capacity: High
Research needs: Sorbent development to lower energy
But the current scale of these approaches is millions—not billions—of metric tons per year. And they’re capturing carbon from relatively concentrated sources, not extracting it after it’s been diluted into the atmosphere.
To capture CO2 at a power plant or other point source, costs vary from roughly $50 to more than $100 per metric ton. But CO2 in the atmosphere is orders of magnitude less concentrated than emissions blasting from a power plant’s smokestack. If the same technology is used to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, estimated costs run from $600 to $1,000 per metric ton.
Several companies are working to increase the capacity and lower costs of atmospheric CO2 extraction systems, also called direct air capture, to make them commercially viable. Among those companies are Carbon Engineering, Climeworks, and Global Thermostat. Climeworks, based in Switzerland, pipes its captured CO2 to greenhouses to enhance vegetable and other plant growth.
The basic operating principles of point-source capture and atmospheric extraction of CO2 are similar, says Christopher Jones, a chemical engineering professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology who is a technology development adviser for Global Thermostat and was a member of the National Academies study committee. A stream of air is sent through a liquid or solid sorbent that collects CO2. The sorbent is then heated to release CO2 in a concentrated form that can be sequestered or used as a feedstock for fuels or other products.
Conveniently, direct air capture can be placed near the location of sequestration or where the CO2 might be used as a feedstock, eliminating the need for complicated piping systems. The biggest cost driver is the energy used to heat the sorbent to release the captured CO2.
Jones and other researchers are focusing on developing sorbent materials that allow for spontaneous absorption and low-temperature desorption of CO2. Climeworks and Global Thermostat are working with amine-based solid materials, while Carbon Engineering is experimenting with a potassium hydroxide solution, Jones says. Pilot studies show promise at getting costs below $200 per metric ton of CO2, where the technology would become commercially viable. Scaling up and lowering costs will be a “significant but not an impossible challenge,” Jones says.
There is currently no marketplace sufficiently large to support enough innovators to explore and develop the chemical processes and physical machinery that might decrease the cost to extract CO2 from the air, the National Academies report says. Thus, direct-air-capture advocates are hoping for long-term government investments, a carbon tax, other state or federal tax incentives, or some other inducements that would mirror past efforts to develop solar cells or fossil-fuel extraction through hydraulic fracturing—efforts that led to upheavals in energy generation and fossil-fuel production. Burning new fuels Credit: Drax Group The 3,900 MW Drax power station in North Yorkshire, the UK’s largest power plant, has converted four of six electricity generation units from coal to biomass and is beginning to demonstrate carbon capture and sequestration at the site.
Combining energy production with carbon capture and sequestration could prove to be a powerful negative-emissions technology. So-called bioenergy systems use recently grown biomass as a feedstock to create energy in the forms of electricity and heat while permanently storing the resulting carbon dioxide underground, forever, explains Erica Belmont, a University of Wyoming mechanical engineering professor.
Importantly, the feedstocks—wood, energy crops such as elephant grass and switchgrass, agricultural waste, or other biomass sources—have all been grown recently. That means that they took up and concentrated “new” carbon from today’s environment. Burning new biomass, when combined with capturing and sequestering emissions, makes the bioenergy approach a NET because it captures carbon twice: first through photosynthesis and then through carbon-capture technology. Fossil fuels, in contrast, don’t have the benefit of incorporating contemporary carbon even if emissions are captured.Bioenergy at a glance
Primary benefits: Renewable energy
Primary constraints: Land availability, transportation infrastructure
Current cost per metric ton of CO2: $200–$1,000
Estimated removal capacity: 3.5 billion–5.2 billion t of CO2 annually
Research needs: Increase energy density of crops
It’s “a very appealing approach and carbon negative as long as we keep these CO2 emissions out of the atmosphere,” Belmont says. “But still, the problems are formidable.”
The primary challenge is growing enough biomass to make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions without affecting food production. Capturing and sequestering 10 billion t of CO2 annually from biomass energy production would require almost 40% of global cropland, according to the National Academies report. Realistically, 3.5 billion–5.2 billion t of CO2 per year globally could be captured without causing food shortages.
As for technologies to burn biomass for energy production while capturing CO2, processes are already used at small scales.
Overall, more research is needed to increase the energy stored in bioenergy crops and subsequently released by burning, improve infrastructure to move the biomass for processing, and scale up processes. Some solutions, such as heating and drying feedstock to make it easier to transport and burn, appear straightforward. Other problems, such as developing a transportation infrastructure for biomass feedstock akin to that already in place for moving coal, are more complex.
On the sequestration side of the bioenergy equation lies biochar, a solid carbon bioproduct of biomass burning. Technology developers hope to use it as a soil amendment to aid plant growth. However, there are outstanding questions around biochar’s long-term stability in soil and whether it would eventually become a carbon source rather than a sink. Burying underground Credit: US Department of Energy/National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Map of basalt formations (red) at and near the surface of the US that would be suitable for CO2 sequestration.
For two potentially powerful NETs—direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture—it’s not enough just to capture CO2. The substance must also be stored. Fortunately, deep geological reservoirs have sufficient space to sequester plenty of CO2, according to the National Academies report.
Sequestering CO2 underground involves compressing it to a supercritical fluid and then piping or shipping it to an injection well. Compressing the gas allows more CO2 to be transferred and sequestered than if it remained in gaseous form. At the well, the CO2 is injected into a geologic formation that is sufficiently deep—typically 1 km or farther underground—and impenetrable so that the CO2 stays in a supercritical form, explains Princeton’s Pacala, the National Academies panel chair.Geological sequestration at a glance
Primary benefits: Capacity
Primary constraints: Transportation infrastructure, long-term liability
Current cost per metric ton of CO2: Low, but amount unclear
Estimated total storage capacity: 2 trillion t of CO2
Research needs: Scale up injection
Suitable geological formations for storing CO2 are porous and permeable reservoir rock such as sandstone, limestone, dolomite, or mixtures of these rock types. Typically, the reservoir rock is overlain by an impermeable rock species such as shale.
The oil industry has used a similar process for years, in which it injects CO2 into nearly depleted oil fields to drive residual oil and natural gas to the surface for processing. Currently, about 64 million t of CO2 is injected annually as part of this process, which is called enhanced oil recovery. About one-third of the CO2 used for injection comes from captured emissions from sources such as power plants and natural gas processing facilities. The rest comes from natural sources.
A portion of the CO2 used to extract oil remains sequestered in the oil fields; hence, this process is considered a successful means to sequester CO2. But the demand for CO2 to enhance oil recovery is far too small to curb global warming.
Separate from oil fields, however, deep geological formations with the necessary rock characteristics are sprinkled around the globe. In total, they could hold more than 2 trillion t of CO2, enough to substantially contribute to greenhouse gas mitigation strategies. Carbon capture, coupled with underground sequestration, could contribute about 14% of the CO2 emission reductions needed to stabilize the climate at a 2 °C increase, the National Academies report says.
However, although the capacity for carbon sequestration exists, developing a sequestration infrastructure and addressing liability issues may be challenging. Sequestration sites are unlikely to be near large sources of CO2 emissions, and sequestration scaled to address global warming will require development of new large-scale and long-distance infrastructure to transport CO2 by pipelines or ships—with the accompanying risk of leaks or releases from accidents. Financial liability and legal responsibility issues will need to be sorted out as quantities grow to billions of metric tons and storage stretches to hundreds of thousands of years. Making rocks Credit: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2008, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0805794105 Reaction of atmospheric CO2 with alkaline spring water from a peridotite aquifer forms travertine deposits.
Carbon mineralization is an emerging NET that pulls carbon dioxide from the air and stores it in the permanent form of carbonate minerals, such as calcite or magnesite.Mineralization at a glance
Primary benefits: Capacity
Primary constraints: Speed, water needed, transportation infrastructure
Current cost per metric ton of CO2: $100
Estimated removal capacity: High
Research needs: Fundamental understanding of mineralization chemistry
Mineralization occurs naturally during the weathering of silicate materials such as olivine, serpentine, and wollastonite. It also occurs in rocks rich in calcium and magnesium—particularly peridotite, which composes Earth’s upper mantle, and basaltic lava formed by partial melting of the upper mantle.
Mineralization takes advantage of rocks that geological processes have brought from deep within Earth up near or to the surface, where they are far from equilibrium and therefore reactive. Because mineralization uses this naturally available chemical energy, the approach may offer a low-cost means to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. And because the CO2 is locked in solid carbonate minerals, storage is potentially permanent and nontoxic.
Carbon can be sequestered through mineralization in three main ways, the National Academies report says. One approach, called ex situ carbon mineralization, involves transporting rocks to a site of CO2 capture, where the reactants are combined with fluid or gas rich in CO2. Another process involves reacting a CO2-bearing fluid or gas with mine waste, alkaline industrial wastes, or sedimentary formations rich in reactive rock fragments. A third method, called in situ carbon mineralization, circulates CO2-bearing fluids through suitably reactive rock formations beneath Earth’s surface.
Carbon mineralization is not a new concept. Researchers have been investigating its potential to capture atmospheric CO2 for three decades. A recent study found that chemical reactions in common basalt rock can convert CO2 into solid minerals in less than two years—dramatically faster than the hundreds or thousands of years previously estimated (Science 2016, DOI: 10.1126/science.aad8132). However, mineralization could suffer from other resource problems. For example, the process requires 25 t of water for every metric ton of CO2 stored. And as with underground sequestration, it will require the development of transportation infrastructure. Growing plants Credit: Tampa Bay Estuary Program Some 8,000 salt marsh grass plugs were planted by 90 volunteers at Florida’s Perico Preserve during the “Give a Day for the Bay” environmental restoration program and celebration.
Improved coastal zone management, reforestation, and enhanced agricultural practices could increase carbon dioxide sequestration capacity while also benefiting the environment.
Tidal wetlands incorporating salt marshes, mangroves, and seagrass beds thrive in the soft sediment and shallow water of estuaries between high and mean sea level. These so-called coastal-blue-carbon areas also hold large amounts of carbon in their soils and vegetation and could contain more.Plant growth at a glance
Primary benefits: Environmental cobenefits
Primary constraints: Land availability
Current cost per metric ton of CO2: $20–$50
Estimated removal capacity: Blue carbon, 130 million t of CO2 annually; reforestation and enhanced agriculture, 2.5 billion–3 billion t of CO2 annually
Research needs: Impact of sea-level rise and land-use changes, increasing crop uptake of CO2
The plants take in some 840 million t of CO2 each year. The National Academies report estimates this level could more than double in the near future with active restoration and wetland creation, reaching additional cumulative storage of 5.4 billion t of CO2 by 2100.
Coastal wetlands are already targeted for restoration and management efforts because of the broad range of ecosystem services they provide, including coastal storm protection, water-quality improvement, wildlife habitat protection, and fishery support, notes Tiffany Troxler, science director for the Sea Level Solutions Center at Florida International University and one of the National Academies panel members. Enhancing the quantity of coastal plants available to sequester CO2 would give added weight to these protections, she says, and CO2 sequestration could be carried out with almost no additional expense.
Another advantage, she notes, is that these carbon benefits can occur right away, unlike other negative-emissions approaches that are still in early development.
However, coastal regions also face constant development pressure. Globally, some 450 million t of CO2 annually is lost to the atmosphere from excavation and other human activities in coastal areas.
Sea-level rise, Troxler says, could also be a problem, but that could be avoided by allowing sediments to naturally accrue on estuaries and wetlands—letting the soil keep pace with rising seas rather than be blocked by coastal development and artificial construction.
Similar carbon uptake can be achieved inland, through forest and soil amendments. In these areas, however, sequestration efforts quickly run into conflicts over land for food versus land for CO2 sequestration.
And there are other considerations. For forests, increasing sequestration means not only more trees but more trees that grow quickly and close together, to increase the amount of carbon uptake per unit area. Forests must be maintained over a long time, which necessitates the consideration of disease, fire, and harvesting operations, the National Academies report says.
For soil-based organic carbon, enhancing sequestration means adding organic waste to soil as well as reducing the decomposition rate of organic compounds into CO2.
Inland CO2 capture is inexpensive and can be deployed quickly, says Richard A. Birdsey, a forestry expert at Woods Hole Research Center and a National Academies panel member. However, expansion can be difficult. Birdsey notes there are 11 million US forest landowners, each with different objectives for their property. Some landowners want to raise more timber, some want land for hunting, and some just want to be left alone, he says. He estimates that maybe 10% of forest landowners would be willing to change their practices to promote carbon sequestration.
The National Academies report estimates that implementing inland carbon sequestration practices in a way that would not jeopardize food security and biodiversity globally would allow the capture of 2.5 billion to 3 billion t of CO2 annually from forests and agricultural soils combined.
The CO2-removal costs would be less than $50 per metric ton. If more aggressive land-management approaches prove to be practical and economical, rates of carbon removal for both forests and agricultural soils could double, the report says.
However, both inland and coastal-blue-carbon gains are reversible if the carbon-sequestering practices are not maintained. For example, forested land could be cleared again, and reverting agricultural soils to intensive farming practices could stir up and release captured carbon back to the atmosphere. And restored coastal wetland could be drained or simply dug up, ending any carbon benefit.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/greenhouse-gases/Capturing-carbon-save-us/97/i8
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