Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 3/1/2019
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(ACC Mentioned) Quoted: Reaction to Andrew Wheeler's Confirmation
Feb 28, 2019 | Inside EPA
After Senate Republicans confirmed Andrew Wheeler to be the Trump EPA's second full-time administrator Feb. 28, opponents and supporters of the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda began offering their reaction. -
(ACC Mentioned) Senate Confirms Wheeler as Head of US EPA
Mar 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US Senate has confirmed Andrew Wheeler to the role of EPA administrator. The 52-47 vote – largely along party lines – solidifies him in a role he has filled in an acting capacity since the embattledformer chief, Scott Pruitt, resigned last year. -
(ACC Mentioned) Andrew Wheeler Is Officially the Head of the EPA
Feb 28, 2019 | Popular Science
By Rachel Feldman
On Thursday the United States Senate voted to confirm Andrew Wheeler as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Recycling Makes Waste Plastic a Resource
Mar 1, 2019 | Chemical Engineering Online
By Scott Jenkins
With an eye toward a circular economy, technology developers are advancing a host of new approaches to chemical recycling of post-use commodity plastics -
Andrew Wheeler, Former Energy Lobbyist, Confirmed as Nation’s Top Environmental Official
Mar 1, 2019 | The Washington Post
By Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin
The Senate on Thursday approved former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to head the Environmental Protection Agency by a vote of 52 to 47, elevating a veteran of Washington political and industry circles who has advanced President Trump’s push to rollback Obama-era environmental regulations. -
Senate Confirms Wheeler as Trump’s Permanent EPA Chief
Feb 28, 2019 | Politico Pro
By Alex Guillen
The Senate confirmed Andrew Wheeler as EPA’s fifteenth administrator Thursday, cementing the authority of one of President Donald Trump’s most effective and prolific de-regulators. -
Andrew Wheeler, Who Continued Environmental Rollbacks, Is Confirmed to Lead E.P.A.
Mar 1, 2019 | The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman
The Senate on Thursday confirmed Andrew R. Wheeler to be the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, giving oversight of the nation’s air and water to a former coal lobbyist and seasoned Washington insider. -
Plaintiffs Push to Initiate Asbestos Reporting Rules
Mar 1, 2019 | Lexology
By Hannah Reed
Last week, various public health and environmental organizations sued to compel the Environmental Protection Agency to initiate an asbestos reporting rule under the Toxic Substances and Control Act (“TSCA”). -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Proposes Comprehensive Plan to Address PFAS
Feb 28, 2019 | EHS Today
By David Sparkman
A large-scale federal plan to address the regulatory issues surrounding Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) has drawn both praise and criticism in nearly equal measure. -
Lawmakers, Environmentalists Seek Hearing on ETO Analysis
Feb 28, 2019 | Inside EPA
Three Illinois lawmakers and several environmental groups are urging EPA to host a public hearing on its proposed air toxics rule that seeks comment on whether the agency should continue to use its conservative Obama-era risk value for ethylene oxide (EtO) for regulatory purposes... -
Chemical Safety Data Lacking in Company Reports, EU Says
Feb 28, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Chemical companies are still failing to provide the right substance safety information in their REACH registration dossiers, with the problem showing no signs of improvement, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) said Feb. 28. -
Exposure to Environmental Chemical PFAS May Not Increase CHD Risk for Adults with Diabetes
Mar 1, 2019 | Healio
By Honda-Kohmo K
Exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances may not increase the risk for coronary heart disease in adults with diabetes, according to findings published in the Journal of Diabetes and its Complications. -
We May Not Know Toxic Waste Dangers until It’s Too Late: Researchers
Feb 28, 2019 | New York Post
By Hannah Sparks
Humans are dumping more untested, potentially dangerous chemical waste into the environment than can be assessed, according to a team of UK-based researchers who published a foreboding paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. -
(ACC Mentioned) US VCM Capacity Expansions May Bring Spot Business
Feb 28, 2019 | ICIS
US vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) may get a higher profile as US producers expand capacity for the precursor chemical’s derivative, polyvinyl chloride (PVC). -
Legislation Aimed at Speeding up Permits
Mar 1, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Jeremy Dillon
Republican lawmakers introduced workforce pay legislation yesterday they say would help address the backlog of infrastructure projects at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy. -
Colorado Drilling Rules Would See Seismic Shift Under Bill
Mar 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Catherine Traywick and Tripp Baltz
A coming bill in Colorado would prioritize health and safety over fostering oil and gas development, Gov. Jared Polis (D) and top state lawmakers said Feb. 28. -
Maine Governor Reopens State to Renewable Investment
Feb 28, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
Maine is joining 21 other states to ramp up efforts to cut harmful greenhouse gas emissions by expanding renewable energy, Gov. Janet Mills (D) announced. -
Investors Call on Utilities to Commit to Net-Zero Plans
Mar 1, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By David Iaconangelo
A coalition of large investors is pressing the nation's 20 biggest power utilities to commit to full decarbonization by 2050. -
Preparation for Potential PTT Global Chemical Cracker Continues on Both Sides of Ohio River
Mar 1, 2019 | Wheeling Intelligencer
By Miranda Sebroski
Community leaders on both sides of the Ohio River want to ensure the local region is prepared if an ethane cracker plant proposed for Belmont County becomes a reality. -
Alaska Might Give up on North Slope Gas Pipeline, LNG Export Terminal: Official
Feb 28, 2019 | Platts
By Tim Bradner
The new CEO of Alaska's state gas corporation told legislators Thursday he is prepared to shut down the project and return unused funds to the state treasury if customers or investors do not appear in the next few months. -
KBR Lands Design Contract for LNG Export Terminal Planned in Mexico
Feb 28, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Sergio Chapa
Houston engineering, procurement and construction company KBR has landed a design contract for liquefied natural gas export terminal planned along the Pacific Coast of Mexico. -
Sensible Economic Rail Regulation
Feb 28, 2019 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Brigham A. Mccown
When it comes to regulating freight railroad rates and service, there are two truisms to consider. -
New Federal Railroad Rules Aim to Improve Response to Derailments
Feb 28, 2019 | Government Technology
By Jim McKay
A new federal rule announced by Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao proposes to make safer the transport of energy products via railroad. -
NJ Transit Secures Extension for PTC Implementation
Mar 1, 2019 | Railway Technology
New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) in the US has secured an extension for the implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) system. -
‘He Gets to Decide’: Trump Escalates His Fight against Climate Science Ahead of 2020
Feb 28, 2019 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Toluse Olorunnipa
From the earliest days of his administration, President Trump has been at war with his own government over climate change. -
US Congress Displays New Interest in Climate Change
Feb 28, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
After years of showing little interest in climate change other than to challenge science, the US Congress has launched a series of hearings on the issue. -
Senate Democrats Release Slimmed down Climate Resolution and Ask Republicans to Join Them
Feb 28, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna and Nick Juliano
Senate Democrats today formally unveiled a simple climate change resolution that the party can unanimously agree on and pressured Republicans to get on board. -
EPA Touts Enforcement Deference Policy but Also Eyes State ‘Assists’
Feb 28, 2019 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss and Dave Reynolds
A year after issuing interim guidance that mandates “deference” to states in environmental enforcement, top EPA officials are touting the Trump administration’s success in shifting enforcement action to the states, though they are weighing changes to the guidance... -
Louisiana’s Garret Graves to Lead GOP on House Climate Panel
Feb 28, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker and Abby Smith
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), a former coastal protection official in an oil-producing state, will lead Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. -
Committee Roster Exposes Republican Fault Lines
Mar 1, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk and George Cahlink
One has a deep background in climate and coastal adaptation. One is a good friend of the Koch political network. Two come from coal country. -
GOP Assigns Climate Doubters to 'Crisis' Committee
Mar 1, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews
Most of the six Republicans assigned yesterday to a new House committee on climate change have a history of either doing little to confront global warming or have opposed efforts outright to address the causes and consequences of a hotter planet. -
Agencies in ‘a Corner’ on Using Carbon Cost in NEPA, Environmentalists Say
Feb 28, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Environmentalists are increasingly confident they can force the Trump administration to use the social cost of carbon (SCC) metric to calculate the future climate damages of its fossil fuel extraction policies... -
Former CASAC Chair Alleges ‘Procedural Irregularities’ In NAAQS Reviews
Feb 28, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
A former chairman of EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) is alleging “procedural irregularities” in the conduct of current panel chairman Tony Cox, charging it further undermines the credibility of the EPA’s truncated process for reviewing...
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(ACC Mentioned) Quoted: Reaction to Andrew Wheeler's Confirmation
Feb 28, 2019 | Inside EPA
After Senate Republicans confirmed Andrew Wheeler to be the Trump EPA's second full-time administrator Feb. 28, opponents and supporters of the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda began offering their reaction.
Here's a roundup of the best of the early statements:
It is truly humbling to serve the American public as EPA Administrator. I want to thank President Trump for nominating me and Leader McConnell and Chairman Barrasso for navigating my confirmation through the Senate. I am deeply honored, and I look forward to continuing the President’s agenda and the work of the Agency alongside all my EPA colleagues.
-- EPA Administrator Andrew WheelerI believe he will do an excellent job leading the agency. As acting administrator of EPA, he has prioritized commonsense policies that protect our air and water, while allowing our economy to grow. I look forward to working with Administrator Wheeler in his new role.
-- Senate Environment & Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY)Andrew Wheeler is another poster boy for the capture of our [EPA] by the polluters it regulates. He is a former coal lobbyist famous for literally delivering the political playbook for the coal industry. And since becoming the number two at the EPA, he has bent over backwards and forwards and sideways for polluting industries. He’s pushed to unwind climate safeguards, failed to act to protect drinking water from carcinogenic chemicals, slow-walked protections from toxics in consumer products, and undermined a crucial safeguard for mercury from power plants. Other than Scott Pruitt, he’s the last person Americans want at the helm of the EPA.
-- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)With more than 25 years of experience with environmental policy, he understands the importance of protecting public health and the environment while also creating a stable regulatory climate to unleash the American economy.
-- House Energy & Commerce Committee ranking member Greg Walden (R-OR) and environmental panel ranking member John Shimkus (R-IL)When it comes to protecting public health, Andrew Wheeler’s record is abysmal. . . . Now as administrator, we expect he will continue doing the bidding of the polluters he used to represent. And what he can expect from us, and many others, is a wall of opposition and legal challenges to stop this dangerous agenda.”
-- Natural Resources Defense CouncilThe senators who supported Andrew Wheeler’s nomination to lead the EPA are now responsible for his policies, which seek to undermine safeguards for clean air, clean water, and our children’s health. The real world result will be more asthma attacks, more health problems, and more pollution.
-- Environmental Defense Fund[Wheeler's confirmation] provides the American people and regulated communities with more certainty and confidence in the agency’s ability to continue meeting its mission of protecting human health and the environment, including the ongoing implementation of the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act as Congress envisioned.
-- American Chemistry CouncilRFA looks forward to continuing to work with him to implement a strong Renewable Fuel Standard, make year-around E15 a reality and to repair the damage done as a result of the unprecedented number of small refiner waivers granted by his predecessor.
-- Renewable Fuels Association (RFA)The cement industry looks forward to continuing to work constructively with Wheeler to expand the use of alternative fuels, and modernize permitting to assist manufacturers in making efficiency improvements that will benefit industry and the public.
-- Portland Cement AssociationIt is a good day for EPA now that the Senate has confirmed Andrew Wheeler to be the Administrator. He is one of the most qualified individuals to lead it. Few have had such a 360-degree view of how environmental policy is developed and implemented as well as how regulations impact average Americans. Even in the acting capacity in which he has served to date, it’s pretty clear that he understands the Agency, cares for its professionals, and respects the rule of law.
-- Scott Segal, Bracewell lobbyisthttps://insideepa.com/daily-feed/quoted-reaction-andrew-wheelers-confirmation
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(ACC Mentioned) Senate Confirms Wheeler as Head of US EPA
Mar 1, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US Senate has confirmed Andrew Wheeler to the role of EPA administrator. The 52-47 vote – largely along party lines – solidifies him in a role he has filled in an acting capacity since the embattledformer chief, Scott Pruitt, resigned last year.
Mr Wheeler worked at the EPA and with the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) earlier in his career, before serving as an industry lobbyist. In his time at the helm of the agency, however, his commitment to protecting to the environment amid potential conflicts of interest has been questioned.
The EPW only narrowly approved Mr Wheeler’s mid-shutdown nomination in January, by a party-line vote of 11-10. And when considered by the full Senate, he was again unable to garner support from the minority party. One Republican – Susan Collins of Maine – defected in the final hour to vote with the Democrats.
Senator Tom Udall (D–New Mexico) was among those who opposed the nomination, citing relaxed enforcement and lack of action on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination among his concerns.
"Mr Wheeler was not nominated to protect the environment and human health; he was nominated to unravel and undo the environmental protections that are now in place," he said. "The EPA under this administration has reached an all-time low."
However, chairman of the EPW, John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) praised Mr Wheeler’s leadership and "common-sense regulatory proposals".
"The agency is now putting forward proposals that both protect our environment and allow the country’s economy to flourish," he said. He also noted the "critical role" Mr Wheeler has served in implementing amendments to TSCA.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) similarly supported Mr Wheeler’s confirmation, saying it provides "more certainty and confidence in the agency’s ability to continue meeting its mission of protecting human health and the environment, including the ongoing implementation of the 2016 amendments to [TSCA] as Congress envisioned."
But environmental advocates were quick to announce their disapproval.
The Environmental Working Group’s Ken Cook said the confirmation marks "a sad day for public health and the EPA, but mission accomplished for the fossil fuel and chemical industries".
"They have longed for one of their own calling the shots at the agency, and now they finally have their man in Andrew Wheeler," said the EWG president.
Meanwhile, John Bowman, senior director of federal affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said that environmental advocacy groups will continue to resist the agency’s course.
"What he can expect from us, and many others," said Mr Bowman, "is a wall of opposition and legal challenges to stop this dangerous agenda."
https://chemicalwatch.com/74756/senate-confirms-wheeler-as-head-of-us-epa
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(ACC Mentioned) Andrew Wheeler Is Officially the Head of the EPA
Feb 28, 2019 | Popular Science
By Rachel Feldman
On Thursday the United States Senate voted to confirm Andrew Wheeler as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The 52-47 vote mostly followed party lines, with Republicans voting to confirm President Trump's pick and Democrats voting against. But Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine opposed the confirmation. She cited Wheeler's decisions during his months as acting administrator, which have seemed to favor protection of the fossil fuel industry over the mitigation of climate change.
While his predecessor Scott Pruitt was no friend to environmental causes, many experts worried that Wheeler would be just as bad—or perhaps worse—when he took over in July. He previously spent eight years as a lobbyist for Murray Energy, a large Ohio-based coal mining company. He has also expressed skepticism over the severity of climate change and the fact that it is driven by human greenhouse gas emissions.
Wheeler's time as acting administrator indicates his EPA will weigh the needs of industry higher than those of human health and planetary well-being. In October, the EPA disbanded two panels formed to determine whether air quality standards should change. One was a 26-person panel of experts previously tasked with evaluating evidence on fine particulate matter, a particular type of air pollutant associated with various health problems. The other was meant to review the dangers of smog. Instead, the agency announced, both national air quality standards would be reviewed by a group of seven people: a pulmonary physician, five representatives from local, state, and federal environmental agencies (including an aquatic ecology and invasive species expert with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), and a consultant whose clients have included the American Petroleum Institute, the American Chemistry Council, and tobacco company Philip Morris International.
The EPA also proposed an alternative to President Obama's Clean Power Plan—the Affordable Clean Energy rule, or ACE—that would increase national coal production.
https://www.popsci.com/epa-andrew-wheeler
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Recycling Makes Waste Plastic a Resource
Mar 1, 2019 | Chemical Engineering Online
By Scott Jenkins
With an eye toward a circular economy, technology developers are advancing a host of new approaches to chemical recycling of post-use commodity plastics
Plastics are indispensable parts of almost every sector of the economy, with wide-ranging economic, environmental and convenience benefits in their use stage. But increasingly, the sheer volume of plastics produced (estimated at well over 300 million metric tons annually) presents environmental risks if the material is not captured, and represents a waste of resources if the material is disposed of in landfills. Currently, only a small fraction of commodity plastics are recycled globally (some estimates peg the number at 14%), while the majority end up in landfills, incinerators or in the environment, particularly the ocean.
The past two years have seen an acceleration and expansion of efforts aimed at addressing the issues associated with waste plastic. Stakeholders from several industries and from along the plastic value chain are involved in a host of plastic-waste initiatives (see below, “Coordinated Efforts in Plastics Recycling”). One aspect of the overall effort is to foster the idea that plastic waste can be a resource and that even single-use plastics have value after they are discarded.
Jeff Wooster, global sustainability director with Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics (Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com), says “We are operating in a resource-constrained world, so we need to keep driving toward a circular economy. If plastics are landfilled, we lose their value. We put energy and resources into making those materials, and that is lost if we landfill the waste plastic. Recycling and energy recovery can retain the value of those materials for society.”
The majority of plastic-recycling processes today are mechanical, where waste thermoplastic material from end-use products are melted and used as a component of another manufactured product. While improvements continue to be made in this area (for example, in spectral identification and sorting of plastic items), it is clear that mechanical recycling processes alone are not sufficient to handle the volume of plastic recycling that is required to shift society toward a circular economy with regard to plastic.
“Making meaningful progress on the problems we are facing related to plastic waste will take a truly global effort — it needs to be ‘all hands on deck,’” says John Thayer, head of polyethylene business at NOVA Chemicals (Calgary, Canada, www.novachem.com).
The limitations of existing recycling processes and the push toward circular economy ideals has driven development of chemical recycling processes — those in which polymers are taken back to their monomers. This class of processes need to be developed and deployed at scale to complement existing mechanical recycling efforts. “Plastics are too valuable of a resource to end up as litter or trash,” NOVA’s Thayer comments. “One hundred percent of plastics should be reused, recycled or recovered and regenerated. We believe that chemical monomer recovery is the best long-term solution, where end-of-life plastics become feedstock that is chemically indistinguishable from fossil-fuel-sourced monomer.”
Presented here are several advancements in chemical recycling processes, including several technologies that have recently been, or are soon to be, scaled up.
COORDINATED EFFORTS IN PLASTICS RECYCLING
The following are short descriptions of some selected consortia, alliances and collaborations that are aimed at various pieces of the plastics recycling movement.
Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW; www.endplasticwaste.org). Launched in January 2019, AEPW is an alliance of nearly 30 global member companies from across the plastics and consumer goods value chain. The alliance has committed over $1.0 billion, with the goal of investing $1.5 billion over the next five years to help end plastic waste in the environment. The Alliance will develop and bring to scale solutions that will minimize and manage plastic waste and promote solutions for used plastics by helping to enable a circular economy, according to AEPW. Member companies include BASF, Braskem, Chevron Phillips Chemicals, Clariant, Covestro, LyondellBasell, NOVA Chemicals, Sasol, Total, Veolia and others.
Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF; www.materialsrecoveryforthefuture.com). MRFF was formed by the non-profit arm of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) to foster the addition of flexible plastic packaging to the recycling stream. MRFF is trying to install sorters that can separate flexible packaging from recycled streams, so that consumers can include flexible packaging into their regular recycling bins. Members include the Dow Chemical Co., PepsiCo, SC Johnson, Nestle, the Association of Plastics Recyclers, Target Stores and others.
CEFLEX (www.ceflex.eu) CEFLEX is the collaborative project of a European consortium of companies representing the entire value chain of flexible packaging and continues the work of Project REFLEX and Project FIACE.
Recycle Across America (RAA; www.recycleacrossamerica.org). RAA created the world’s first and only society-wide standardized labeling system for recycling bins to make it easier for people to participate in recycling programs. The standardized labels are proven to help increase recycling levels and significantly decrease the costly garbage thrown in recycling bins, RAA says.
Project STOP (Stop Ocean Plastics; www.systemiq.earth) is a frontline initiative to prevent ocean plastic leakage in Southeast Asia. Its partners include Borealis, SYSTEMIQ, the Government of Norway, NOVA Chemicals, Borouge and Veolia and Nestlé.
PET UPCYCLINGA sizeable amount of activity in the recycling field surrounds polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a widely used polyester that appears in many packaging and clothing applications, among others. Among the major commodity plastics, PET has the highest recycle rates (near 30%), although much of the PET waste that is recycled goes into lower-value materials.
“Some effective recycling processes exist for PET, but they require uniform streams of material, and generally result in products that are not likely to be recycled themselves,” says Gihan Hewage, Lux Research Inc. (Boston, Mass.; www.luxresearchinc.com) analyst and co-author of a forthcoming report on waste products, entitled “Waste Conversion Innovations to Enable a Circular Economy.” “There are now a number of companies developing technology for PET waste that allows a more circular path for PET, and that can result in products from recycled PET waste that are indistinguishable from petroleum-derived PET.”
Among this group of companies is Loop Industries (Montreal, Canada; www.loopindustries.com). Loop has developed a technology that uses a catalytic process to convert low- or no-value waste PET and polyester fiber (plastic bottles and packaging, carpet and polyester textile of any color, transparency or condition and even ocean plastics that have been degraded by the sun and salt) into virgin-quality monoethylene glycol (MEG) and dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) for the manufacture of virgin-grade Loop-branded PET resin and polyester fiber.
In Loop’s process, waste PET, which the company refers to as “feedstock,” is introduced into a vessel at ambient temperature and pressure along with Loop’s proprietary and patented catalyst and a carrier agent. The catalyst selects only the bonds between the polyester monomers, so it depolymerizes PET only, and leaves other plastics, such as polypropylene (PP) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) intact, explains Nelson Switzer, Loop’s chief growth officer. This means that Loop’s technology can use low-value mixed streams of plastic and still yield virgin quality monomers. Because of this, the monomers can be separated easily from the process to produce food-grade quality Loop-branded PET. “Essentially, Loop’s monomers become a drop-in substitute for petroleum-derived monomers,” Switzer says.
Loop has established an industrial-scale pilot plant near Montreal, and is currently developing a full-scale commercial plant through a 50/50 joint venture with Indorama Ventures. Loop and Indorama are retrofitting an existing Indorama plant with the Loop technology to make Loop-branded PET resin. The commercial plant is expected to be operational in 2020. Loop also has an alliance with thyssenkrupp Indusrial Solutions to integrate the companies’ technologies.
Switzer points out that there are many advantages of Loop’s technology compared to conventional and mechanically recycled PET processes: notably the vast number of sources of PET and polyester fiber waste from up and down the PET value chain that can be used to produce Loop-branded PET. “We can use no-value or low-value PET waste that no one else wants,” he says. While the company won’t comment on costs, it says customers have agreed to its pricing.
Meanwhile, Carbios (Clermont-Limagne, France; www.carbios.fr) is taking a biological approach to depolymerizing PET. The company has developed a “biorecycling,” process, where waste PET bottles and fibers are crushed and ground to powder, then placed in a bioreactor and heated to 65˚C at atmospheric pressure. Specially bioengineered enzymes are added to de-polymerize, in less than 16 hours, the PET into monomers, MEG and PTA (purified terephthalic acid). Carbios has developed a proprietary filtration and purification process to generate high-purity monomers that can be re-polymerized by PET producers into high-quality PET with 100% recycled material.
The enzymes are extracted from naturally occurring bacteria that can break down PET, explains Carbios engineer Benjamin Audebert. “The enzymes have been engineered and optimized by our teams to be highly selective for PET, so only the PET is digested. In this way, the process can handle mixed-plastic streams,” he says. Because PET is broken down selectively, other polymers are alone and can be separated. “The enzyme does the sorting for you,” Audebert comments, “so you can use low-value mixed plastics materials as feedstock.”
The enzyme’s active sites cleave the ester bonds of PET. Carbios generated detailed models of the enzyme and its interaction with the polymer chains. The company will launch construction of a demonstration plant for this biorecycling technology in June 2019. It will be operational by the Q4 2020, Audebert says. Carbios will then license its technology for a commercial-scale facility to be fully operational by 2023. They are enlisting the help of the German division of Technip FMC, which has expertise in PET plants. Infinite recycling of PET is possible, Audebert comments. Carbios is working on enzymes for breaking down other polymers, and is also involved with technology for embedding specialized enzymes into single-use films of bio-based polylactic acid, so the plastic breaks down in an ecofriendly manner just after use.
In Switzerland, Gr3n Recycling (Lugano, Switzerland; www.gr3n-recycling.com) is also taking aim at PET, but instead of biological aids, they are using microwave technology to assist the depolymerization reactions of PET plastic into its constituent monomers. Gr3n’s process uses a saponification reaction with sodium hydroxide in water to break down the polymer. The key innovation is the application of microwaves to the reaction to speed it up. “The microwaves act like a catalyst,” says Mauricio Crippa, CEO of Gr3n. “The microwaves reduce the reaction times from multiple hours down to several minutes. Although the mechanistic details of how the microwaves catalyze the reaction at the molecular level are not clear, the process works on densified polyester fibers and on PET plastic.
The recycled waste is ground up and fed into a flow-through reactor, where the microwaves, generated by a standard magnetron, penetrate the mixture to aid the reaction and formation of MEG and PTA products. The company has built a demonstration-scale reactor and is currently building a demonstration plant in Italy that will process 1,000 ton/yr of PET feedstock. The demonstration plant will be completed at the end of 2019 or early 2020. The company’s vision is to build plants close to cities to reduce the need to transport waste PET feedstock. It is going to partner with a mechanical recycler to handle the waste PET that is not used.
In yet another approach, Ioniqa Technologies (Eindhoven, the Netherlands; www.ioniqa.com) is using an iron-based ionic liquid in a proprietary technology that is able to convert any PET waste, including colored packaging, back into transparent virgin grade material. The technology has successfully passed its pilot stage and is now moving towards testing at an industrial scale.
Ioniqa, a spin-off business from the Eindhoven University of Technology, has formed a partnership with Unilever, and the largest global producer of PET resin, Indorama Ventures, to develop the new technology which converts PET waste back into virgin-grade material for use in food packaging. Ioniqa’s Magnetic Smart Process is based on its proprietary Magnetic Fluid Catalyst (an iron-based ionic liquid). The platform technology is also being used in other applications beyond recycling.
In a process that was previously reported in this magazine (Chem. Eng., November 2016, and August 2018,), the BCD Group (Cincinnati, Ohio; www.bcdinternational.com) developed a modified base-catalyzed decomposition process for removing dyes from PET fabrics, and separating cotton from cotton-polyester blend textiles and fabrics is now being applied to bottles made from PET.
MAKING MIXED STREAMS WORK
One of the most difficult problems in plastics recycling is multi-component plastic packaging films. The use of these layered materials is widespread, and confers desirable functionality to the films in use. Examples are PE/PA, PE/PP, PE/PET. But the layering makes recycling the films after use problematic. A recently commercialized technology from APK AG (Merseburg, Germany; www.apk-ag.de) is aimed directly at this problem. The company’s NewCycling technology allows the recycling of multi-layer flexible films in packaging applications.
“In commonly used mechanical recycling processes, multi-layer films end-up in many cases in incineration or are recycled to re-granulates with a quality just suitable for low-value applications, such as grass pavers or pallets,” says Florian Riedl, director of business development at APK.
APK developed NewCycling as a way to separate the polymers in multilayer films so they can be used in applications normally for virgin-grade polymers. In NewCycling, the polymers are dissolved selectively by specially designed polymer-specific solvents. One component of the multi-layer film is dissolved while the other is left as a solid. Then the two components (solid of one species and liquid of another) are separated using a rotating system. The result of the process are sorted re-granulates (for example, PE and PA) with very high purity. The re-granulates are suitable to use them again in demanding applications, such as flexible packaging, Riedl says, so “we are offering an active contribution to the circular economy and help to achieve the growing recycling targets set by the industry and legislation.”
The APK solvents are removed from the plastic polymer to levels below 1,000 parts per million, Riedl says, and the pure stream of polymer is then sent to an extruder, where it is pelletized for sale to makers of plastic films for packaging. The solvents are recovered for re-use in the process. One initial application will be for non-food-contact plastic pouches for laundry detergent, Riedl notes.
After developing the process at pilot scale for the past three years, APK has built its first commercial-scale production line for making plastic pellets from recycled multilayer films. The plant, located in Merseburg, Germany, began production of pellets last month. The plant is capable of producing 8,000 ton/yr of pellets from post-industrial waste (off-specification film material). APK is planning to build a second commercial plant to produce plastics from post-consumer waste in the form of mixed films fractions from recycling sorting centers.
In another approach aimed at recycling waste plastic that is not currently recycled, BioCellection Inc. (Menlo Park, Calif.; www.biocellection.com) has developed a novel catalytic process that can break down PE into dicarboxylic acids, which can then be used as intermediates to synthesize other chemicals. The proprietary process is designed to work on PE films that are generally not being recycled currently, explains Erik Freer, BioCellection chief technology officer.
The overall process designed by the company effectively recovers and recycles the catalyst, using mild temperatures and pressures to keep costs low. “The raw-materials costs for our process are much lower than existing processes for making dicarboxylic acids,” Freer says, so it is a good way to create a high-value chemical intermediate from waste plastic.
After a bench-scale demonstration, the company built a pre-pilot unit that is an order of magnitude larger than the bench-scale system to validate the effectiveness of the catalyst. They are now designing a commercial pilot plant that integrates all the components of the process and aims to validate the complete process, Freer says. In 2018, the company won a $100,000 award from UCLA and the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Foundation for emerging environmental projects.
PRODUCTS FROM PYROLYSIS OIL
One approach to addressing the problems associated with recycling mixed-stream plastics is to break down the plastics via thermochemical means, such as pyrolysis (thermal decomposition in the absence of oxygen), then separate them into fractions, similar to the refining of crude oil. The wax/oil mix from plastic can then be fed to steam crackers to be made into olefins for plastic production. A number of companies are operating in this area, including Cynar (Ireland), Recycling Technologies Inc. (U.K.), Plastic Energy Ltd. (U.K.) and Recenso GmbH (Germany). The outlets for this material are expanding as the companies are partnering with others who can use the products from the pyrolyzed plastic.
One example of this is BASF SE’s (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) ChemCycling project. In late 2018, BASF announced the first pilot products made from oils derived from the thermochemical decomposition of recycled plastic waste for which no recycling solutions currently exist. Using oils from plastic waste generated by partner Recenso, BASF put the material into its steam cracker at Ludwigshafen to make ethylene and propylene. From these olefins, BASF made plastic packaging for mozzarella cheese, for example.
Another similar arrangement was recently established by Plastic Energy Ltd. (London, U.K.; www.plasticenergy.com), which has developed a process for making a raw material feedstock from mixed plastics known as TACOIL. TACOIL results from the recycling of low-quality, mixed plastic waste otherwise destined for incineration or landfill. The upgraded pyrolysis oil will yield a cracker feedstock with similar characteristics and quality as the fossil-based naphtha feedstock, the company says. The naphtha cracking process yields the same monomers, such as ethylene and propylene, that are used to manufacture low-density polyethylene (LDPE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP).
A partnership between Plastic Energy and SABIC (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; www.sabic.com) was recently announced where SABIC is building a facility in Geleen, the Netherlands to make plastics out of TACOIL. At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, SABIC announced that the line of certified circular polymers made from TACOIL will be used by key SABIC customers Unilever, Vinventions and Walki Group for packaging solutions for a variety of consumer packaging in the food, beverage, personal- and home-care markets. Those products will be introduced into the market this year. The plant in Geleen is anticipated to enter commercial production in 2021.
SUPPLY CHAIN CHANGES
While the processing side continues to advance, others are thinking about how the processes fit into the broader picture. “There are technical solutions available to the problems associated with plastic waste, but in order for them to make a difference, they have to be integrated with innovative supply-chain models,” says Jack Buffington, professor at the University of Denver (Colo.) School of management.
Today’s recycling business models largely aren’t profit-making. “Technologies to process and use recyclate exist, but they need to be further developed against goals around economies of scale and environmental footprint,” says NOVA’s Thayer.
Building new infrastructure for waste handling and chemical processing is needed, and supply-chain changes, including those surrounding waste collection, transport logistics, sorting and development of new markets for recyclate, can help close the gap. “The science needs to connect to the supply-chain side,” says Thayer.
Denver’s Buffington says, “Our central idea is to set up a community-based model in which smaller, regional chemical recycling plants are integrated with local collection systems, such that the recycling facility is not a centralized point, and the plastic waste does not have to be shipped” (shipping wastes some of the value intrinsic to the plastic waste). “The value of the plastic stays in the community and the economic force that it generates stays in the community,” he remarks.
RECYCLING HURDLESMany research groups, companies and partnerships around the world are active in many aspects of recycling, including improving recyclability of plastic products through upfront design, improving collection programs, developing new applications for plastic recyclates and others.
For any material to be recycled, first it must be collected. Next a process must benefact the material to useable status. And then there must be a market for the material at a price necessary to pay for the first and second step, explains Dave Cornell, technical consultant for the Association of Plastics Recyclers.
Collection of enough consistent material is usually the first and foremost hurdle. There must be a critical mass of material to allow for the economic activity to be self-sustaining, Cornell continues. “For the over 600 different resins used, there are only a limited number for which the critical mass allows for the other steps to be attempted,” he says.
Regarding current barriers to plastics recycling, NOVA’s Thayer says, “Key issues include the lack of curbside collection in the U.S., and the fact that many plastic films are multi-material, effectively rendering them non-recyclable. Also, there is a need to identify more valuable, high-volume end markets for the recyclate. As with all issues related to end-of-life plastics, it will take all of us working together to address these issues, and a range of solutions that best fit for a given geography, population and so on.”
Mechanical recycling approaches are suitable for some applications, including using recycled bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) to make polyester fibers, but the plastics streams need to be highly uniform because contamination by other types of plastic or by other materials reduces the quality of the resulting recycled plastic. This limits the number of outlets for recycled plastics to lower-value items.
“Recycled plastics produced by mechanical recycling generally do not achieve the same level of quality and purity as virgin plastics, because the properties of the plastics are changed during the use-phase and during re-processing” says BASF.
“The available plastic waste streams differ in quality to such an extent that both mechanical and chemical recycling will have roles to play: mechanical recycling will be used for higher-quality plastic waste streams and chemical recycling will be used for lower-quality plastic waste streams,” says Sabic. The two approaches will complement each other.
Cost-effective chemical recycling approaches would allow the end products to achieve the same quality as virgin-grade plastic material, and would allow the processing of more varied materials, such as mixed streams and multicomponent plastic films, neither of which can be recycled using mechanical approaches.
PROJECTS FOR FLEXIBLE PLASTIC PACKAGING (FPP)
To increase plastics recycling, there is a need to improve the collection system for plastics that cannot currently be recycled through mechanical recycling programs. One major category is FPP — films, wraps, bags and pouches — which are not widely recycled today. As it becomes a larger part of the packaging waste stream, the need for scalable recycling collection strategies is critical to its sustainability.
One initiative in this area has been undertaken by Dow and Reynolds. The companies started the Hefty EnergyBag program, a recovery program for consumers to collect their flexible packaging materials like chip bags, candy bar wrappers, plastic straws and utensils, and other hard-to-recycle plastics. Through the program, which complements mechanical recycling programs and uses existing recycling infrastructure, those materials are diverted from landfills and used to make diesel fuel, but we are looking at ways to use those materials in a chemical recycling process to create new packaging.
Local programs exist in Omaha, Nebraska, Boise, Idaho, and Cobb County, Georgia. A new local Hefty EnergyBag program will launch in Lincoln, Neb., later this year.
A related pilot program for FPP comes from Dow Chemical, as a member of MRFF. Dow announced a pilot program for recycling FPP in Berks County, Pa. in mid-2018. The pilot is expected to generate data to help inform municipalities and the recycling industry on the most efficient and economical ways to recycle FPP. This will turn used FPP materials, typically destined for disposal, into a bale that can be sold to a variety of end markets.
Braskem (Sao Paulo, Brazil; www.braskem.com.br) also recently announced new partnerships for the development of chemical recycling, with a focus on transforming post-consumer plastics, such as grocery bags and packaging films for snacks and cookies, into chemical products that can be used by various different value chains. The partnerships will further research technologies that can transform plastics that are more difficult to be recycled mechanically into new chemical products. The research is being conducted in partnership with the Polymer Engineering Laboratory (EngePol) at the Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute of Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the SENAI Institute for Innovation in Biosynthetics (SENAI CETIQT) and Cetrel, an environmental service company.
https://www.chemengonline.com/chemical-recycling-makes-waste-plastic-resource/
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Andrew Wheeler, Former Energy Lobbyist, Confirmed as Nation’s Top Environmental Official
Mar 1, 2019 | The Washington Post
By Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin
The Senate on Thursday approved former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to head the Environmental Protection Agency by a vote of 52 to 47, elevating a veteran of Washington political and industry circles who has advanced President Trump’s push to rollback Obama-era environmental regulations.
Wheeler, who began his career at EPA during the 1990s but spent years on Capitol Hill before heading to the private sector, has won praise from Republicans for his deregulatory agenda but criticism from Democrats for his refusal to take action on climate change and several public health priorities. He has been running the agency since Trump’s first administrator, Scott Pruitt, stepped down in July amid multiple scandals surrounding his management and spending practices. Trump said in November that he intended to nominate Wheeler for the top job, saying he had done a “fantastic job” in his interim role.
At his confirmation hearing in January, Wheeler highlighted dozens of significant rules that the EPA has begun to roll back during the past two years, and he made clear to lawmakers that he intended to continue the Trump administration’s reversal of environmental regulations.
“Through our deregulatory actions, the Trump administration has proven that burdensome federal regulations are not necessary to drive environmental progress,” Wheeler said at the time. “Certainty, and the innovation that thrives in a climate of certainty, are key to progress.”
Despite the litany of rollbacks, the EPA under Wheeler also has rolled out initiatives aimed at reducing lead exposures around the country and providing oversight for a class of unregulated, long-lasting chemicals known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl compounds, or PFAS, that pose serious health risks to millions of Americans. But the agency has yet to take definitive regulatory action on those proposals.
One Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, voted against Wheeler’s confirmation Thursday on the grounds that he had worked to water down federal rules curbing greenhouse gas pollution from power plants, as well as weaken fuel standards for the nation’s cars and pickup trucks.
“I believe that Mr. Wheeler, unlike Scott Pruitt, understands the mission of the EPA and acts in accordance with ethical standards; however, the policies he has supported as Acting Administrator are not in the best interest of our environment and public health, particularly given the threat of climate change to our nation,” Collins, who supported Wheeler’s confirmation as deputy EPA administrator last year, said in a statement.
While Democrats initially viewed Wheeler as a pragmatic technocrat with whom they could forge a handful of policy compromises, they expressed disappointment over key decisions he has made at the agency.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, had voted to confirm Wheeler as EPA deputy administrator last year. But he decided to oppose Wheeler this time, he said, in light of his push to freeze vehicle fuel efficiency standards and to revisit the cost-benefit analysis the agency used to impose limits on mercury pollution that power companies have already achieved.
“As Acting Administrator, he hasn’t demonstrated a desire or a will to make any meaningful progress on clean drinking water standards and has rolled back clean air standards that are directly impacting West Virginians,” Manchin said in a statement.
Democrats used the vote as an opportunity to call for greater action on climate change, with more than half-a-dozen senators speaking to a nearly empty chamber about why the federal government should press for steeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. “It ought to tell us a lot that the Republicans put up a coal lobbyist to represent the people of America, leading the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
The world has already warmed more than 1 degree Celsius since pre-industrial levels, and a United Nations report last fall concluded humans need to cut their carbon emissions nearly in half over the coming decade in order to stave off the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. So far, that appears unlikely, as many nations are failing to hit the emissions targets they set as part of the 2015 Paris climate accord. Global emissions also rose during 2018.
But most Republicans, including Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.), said Wheeler had eased the burden on industry without undermining key environmental protections. Barrasso pointed to EPA’s push to scale back limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plans and the federal government’s jurisdiction over water bodies in the United States.
“During the last administration, the EPA issued punishing regulations that would hurt the economy and raise costs on families. Under Acting Administrator Wheeler’s leadership, the EPA has taken a different approach,” Barrasso said.
Industry officials credited Wheeler at helping spur the economy by restraining what they view as federal overreach.
“Regulatory certainty has been key to the historic manufacturing job growth we’ve seen under the current administration, and that would not have been possible without Andrew’s leadership at EPA,” said Jay Timmons, president and chief executive of the National Association of Manufacturers in an statement.
And Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute, said Wheeler’s “extensive experience” had prepared him to serve as the nation’s top environmental official.
Elizabeth Gore, senior vice president for political affairs at the advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund, said in an email that senators who cast their vote on Wheeler knew exactly what sort of choice they faced.
“Unlike with some nominees, we do not have to speculate about what Mr. Wheeler will do in office,” Gore said. “From his actions as acting administrator for the past eight months, we have clear evidence of his agenda: undermine rules to limit toxic mercury, allow more smog and water pollution, and roll back protections against the threat of climate change. The senators who voted to entrust Mr. Wheeler with our environment know exactly what he will do with that power.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/02/28/andrew-wheeler-former-energy-lobbyist-confirmed-nations-top-environmental-official/?utm_term=.6c08e9595065
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Senate Confirms Wheeler as Trump’s Permanent EPA Chief
Feb 28, 2019 | Politico Pro
By Alex Guillen
The Senate confirmed Andrew Wheeler as EPA’s fifteenth administrator Thursday, cementing the authority of one of President Donald Trump’s most effective and prolific de-regulators.
He was confirmed by a vote of 52-47. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.) was the only Republican to vote against him; no Democrats voted for him. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) did not vote.
Wheeler, a former lobbyist, was thrust into EPA’s top spot by the July resignation of Scott Pruitt, who was forced out of the agency by ethics scandals ranging from major travel and security expenses and his efforts to find employment for his wife to the use of staff resources to search for housing, a used mattress and ritzy lotion.
In the eight months since he took over EPA, Wheeler — whose previous clients include coal company Murray Energy, as well as a uranium company and cheese giant Sargento — has efficiently carried out the president’s de-regulatory agenda while avoiding the same constant stream of scandals that plagued Pruitt.
“Under acting Administrator Wheeler’s leadership, the EPA has taken a different approach,” Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said on Wednesday. “The agency is now putting forward proposals that both protect our environment and allow the country’s economy to flourish.“
Democrats, however, panned Wheeler as unwilling to take significant action on climate change or air and water pollution. “We need someone leading the EPA who will put the health and well-being of the people of this country above the profits of corporate polluters,” said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
On power plants, Wheeler shepherded through a replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan that would secure significantly fewer carbon dioxide reductions and make it easier for companies to extend the life of coal-fired power plants. The "Affordable Clean Energy" rule, or ACE, would no longer push states to replace coal with cleaner sources of generation, and it would waive key air permitting requirements for renovations that would allow coal plants to run more efficiently — a move critics say would increase emissions if plants were run more frequently.
Wheeler has also overseen a rollback making it easier to build new coal plants, although he says significant new coal generation is unlikely to be built in the U.S., even with the higher emissions limits. And Wheeler has proposed changing how EPA calculates cost-benefit analyses that discounts incidental health and environmental benefits, making it harder to justify many future regulations.
On autos, Wheeler faces an impending legal showdown with California over EPA’s plan to revoke its special authority to enforce its own stricter limits. That is part of a broader rollback of Obama-era auto rules that EPA and the Transportation Department hope to have finalized in the coming months.
Collins, a moderate Republican facing re-election next year, cited "the threat of climate change to our nation" in explaining why she opposed Wheeler's confirmation Thursday. (She voted to confirm him as deputy administrator last year.)
Wheeler has made a splash on water issues as well.
In December he proposed a re-write of the Waters of the U.S. rule that would significantly shrink the number of streams and wetlands that receive federal protection, delivering on a long-running priority for agricultural, homebuilding and energy interests.
And it was Wheeler's handling of a class of toxic chemicals called PFAS contaminating millions of Americans' drinking water presented one of the biggest hurdles to his confirmation after POLITICO reported in January that the agency did not plan to set an enforceable limit for the chemicals.
Under intense pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Wheeler reversed course and said he intends to set the first-ever limits on the pollutant in drinking water when he unveiled the PFAS Action Plan unveiled earlier this month. However, the plan itself commits only to taking the first step in the process — making a formal determination of whether or not two of the chemicals warrant a drinking water limit — and even if the agency decides they do, it will be several years before EPA can finalize any such standard.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the only remaining Senate Democrat who voted for Wheeler's confirmation as deputy administrator, opposed Wheeler's bid to lead the agency, citing a lack of urgency on PFAS among his objections. Wheeler "hasn’t demonstrated a desire or a will to make any meaningful progress on clean drinking water standards," Manchin said in a statement Wednesday.
Although environmentalists have generally been critical of his work, Wheeler has made a few moves that received cautious approval from green groups.
After many months of hemming and hawing over whether EPA would try to roll back the ozone standard set in 2015, EPA decided instead to defend the rule in court against challenges from the coal industry and some Republican-controlled states. However, the agency hinted that it may re-work key details for the next update, planned to be finished by the end of 2020, that could lead it to weaken the standard again.
Wheeler also plans to review and likely update oxides of nitrogen pollution from heavy-duty trucks, following up on an Obama-era promise to do so.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/28/andrew-wheeler-epa-confirmation-1221189
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Andrew Wheeler, Who Continued Environmental Rollbacks, Is Confirmed to Lead E.P.A.
Mar 1, 2019 | The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman
The Senate on Thursday confirmed Andrew R. Wheeler to be the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, giving oversight of the nation’s air and water to a former coal lobbyist and seasoned Washington insider.
The confirmation formalized a role Mr. Wheeler has held in an acting capacity since the summer when President Trump’s first administrator, Scott Pruitt, resigned amid multiple ethics inquiries.
The vote, 52-47, went mostly along party lines and underscored partisan divisions over the Trump administration’s continued commitment to repealing environmental regulations under Mr. Wheeler.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican to vote against Mr. Wheeler.
“The policies he has supported as acting administrator are not in the best interest of our environment and public health, particularly given the threat of climate change to our nation,” Senator Collins said.
Nearly eight months after taking over the chief role from Mr. Pruitt, who was known for his combative style, analysts said Mr. Wheeler had brought a change in demeanor to the agency but virtually no difference in policy direction from his predecessor.
Jonathan H. Adler, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, characterized Mr. Wheeler’s soft-spoken style and willingness to listen to criticism as genuine. But, he said, “It’s not going to mean that his priorities suddenly go away or that he’s suddenly going to abandon the regulatory philosophy that the administration from the very top has embraced.”
“This is an administration that would like to reduce the overall regulatory footprint of the federal government,” Mr. Adler said.
Republicans said they have been delighted to discover Mr. Wheeler is as enthusiastic about repealing environmental regulations and promoting coal as Mr. Pruitt was, and are looking to him to cement Mr. Trump’s legacy as a warrior against what they see as regulatory overreach.
“He’s been a very solid follow on to Scott Pruitt.” said Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist. “He’s followed through in a fairly aggressive fashion on everything Scott started.”
Mr. Wheeler has moved to dramatically weaken two of former President Obama’s signature climate change initiatives, cutting emissions from power plants and from automobiles, while also proposing to make new coal-fired power plants easier to approve.
He also has also sought to unwind the legal justification for curbing toxic mercury emissions from power plants, limit federal protection of small waterways, and dismissed a panel of independent scientific advisers.
Some of the most consequential climate rollbacks are expected to be finalized in the coming months. That will most likely touch off a barrage of lawsuits from Democratic-governed states and environmental activists who have vowed to fight the rollbacks.
Mary D. Nichols, who leads California’s air quality agency, said she had experienced firsthand the dissonance between Mr. Wheeler’s demeanor and his actions.
By spring of 2018, relations between the state and the Trump administration had hit a low point amid a feud over California’s right to set automobile emissions standards stricter than the ones set by the federal government. Mr. Pruitt had virtually no engagement with Ms. Nichols. At one point, she asked him on Twitter to “call me maybe?”
So, about a week after Mr. Pruitt’s resignation, when Mr. Wheeler called her office at the California Air Resources Board, Ms. Nichols said she was encouraged.
“He wanted to make sure I knew he was going to be more open and accessible than his predecessor was,” Ms. Nichols said. Nevertheless, negotiations continued to stagnate.
“Everyone was polite, that was a welcomed change,” she said. “But there was no difference in policy.”
The White House announced last week that the E.P.A. and the Department of Transportation had ended talks with California over its clean-air waiver. The move signaled that the administration is closer to finalizing its rule to roll back tailpipe emissions standards that were put in place under President Barack Obama and will quite likely try to revoke California’s ability to set its own pollution rules.
“I have to say that I don’t find him materially different than Scott Pruitt in his policies or the mission that he has taken on,” Ms. Nichols said. “The only difference really is that he is more polished and more professional to deal with.”
On climate change, Mr. Wheeler also has taken a calibrated tone that contrasts with his policies.
Unlike Mr. Pruitt who went on television to say carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming and rising global temperatures might be good for humanity, Mr. Wheeler told a Senate confirmation panel in January that “climate change is real.” He rated his level of concern about climate change, on a scale of 1 to 10, at an eight or nine.
But, two weeks later, he appointed John Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, who has testified that the earth will benefit from more planet-warming emissions, to an influential E.P.A. scientific advisory board.
And asked whether he intended to work with Congress to finalize a ban on chlorpyrifos — an insecticide associated with developmental delays and cognitive impairments in children that Mr. Pruitt, acting against the advice of the E.P.A.’s own chemical safety experts, chose not to remove from use — Mr. Wheeler assured lawmakers in a written statement that the agency was “committed to fully evaluating this pesticide using the best available science.”
Yet the agency under Mr. Wheeler’s leadership had already challenged a decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordering the E.P.A. to ban the pesticide. This month, the court ruled in favor of the challenge and ordered a new hearing in the case.
E.P.A. officials did not respond to a request for comment on this article.
Mr. Adler said that Mr. Wheeler’s experience in Washington has helped him avoid waving red flags in front of lawmakers. But ultimately, he said, Mr. Wheeler is committed to fulfilling the president’s agenda.
“There is a tendency to assume if someone is reasonable they’re going to agree with you,” Mr. Adler said. “Wheeler has a very conservative view of environmental regulation and how it should be handled, and is very much in line with this administration’s overall regulatory philosophy.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/climate/andrew-wheeler-epa-confirmation.html
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Plaintiffs Push to Initiate Asbestos Reporting Rules
Mar 1, 2019 | Lexology
By Hannah Reed
Last week, various public health and environmental organizations sued to compel the Environmental Protection Agency to initiate an asbestos reporting rule under the Toxic Substances and Control Act (“TSCA”). Plaintiffs seek to compel importers, manufacturers, and possessors of asbestos and asbestos-containing materials to submit reports on the amounts of asbestos imported and used, the sites where use occurs, the nature of the use, and the resulting potential for exposure of workers and the public.
The complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief was filed in District Court for the Northern District of California by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, American Public Health Association, Center for Environmental Health, Environmental Working Group, and Environmental Health Strategy Center. Plaintiffs’ firms Motley Rice, Simmons Hanley Conroy, and Early, Lucarelli, Sweeney & Meisenkothen are sponsors of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization’s annual conference.
The EPA “shall promulgate rules” for asbestos reporting as the “Administrator may reasonably require.” Using its TSCA authority, the EPA promulgated the Chemical Data Reporting rule, which requires reporting of all chemicals imported and manufactured in amounts of 25,000 pounds or greater at a site. However, the EPA advised an asbestos manufacturer and importer in a letter that asbestos was not subject to the Chemical Data Reporting rule because it is a naturally occurring chemical substance.
The EPA denied plaintiffs’ December 2018 petition to expand the Chemical Data Reporting requirements, designate asbestos as a reportable substance, and eliminate exemptions. The EPA reasoned that the Chemical Data Reporting rule did not apply to all asbestos manufacturers or importers, and reporting would not provide information that is not already known by the EPA. Following this denial, plaintiffs have a right to de novo review in a judicial proceeding within 60 days. This lawsuit says asbestos should be subject to the Chemical Data Reporting rule.
This complaint is not alone. Last month, the Attorneys General of 14 states and Washington, D.C. petitioned the EPA to initiate similar rulemaking on asbestos reporting. If a judge rules in favor of the asbestos reporting rule, defendants that manufacture, import, or possess asbesto may be subject to the requirements of the Chemical Data Reporting rule. If an asbestos reporting rule is not initiated, plaintiffs and plaintiffs’ firms will surely continue to challenge the EPA.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7f3f6828-720d-4733-b4ac-0c82fbcb9211
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Proposes Comprehensive Plan to Address PFAS
Feb 28, 2019 | EHS Today
By David Sparkman
A large-scale federal plan to address the regulatory issues surrounding Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) has drawn both praise and criticism in nearly equal measure.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its PFAS Action Plan earlier this month in the face of accusations that it had done little previously to stem release of the chemicals into the environment. So far, the issue has been addressed largely through a combination of state actions and civil litigation.
“The PFAS Action Plan is the most comprehensive cross-agency plan to address an emerging chemical of concern ever undertaken by EPA,” said Andrew Wheeler, EPA acting administrator. “For the first time in EPA history, we utilized all of our program offices to construct an all-encompassing plan to help states and local communities address PFAS and protect our nation’s drinking water.”
The PFAS family of toxic chemicals are believed to cause certain kinds of cancer. Initially believed to be non-toxic, they have been used in a broad range of products until recent years, when manufacturers withdrew them from production in the United States. Among the most widespread uses were in the manufacture of Teflon coatings, firefighting foam, waterproofing clothing, carpet treatments, and popcorn and pizza boxes.
Although imports are essentially unregulated and remain an ongoing concern. PFAS also are found throughout the country in drinking water as the result of manufacturing process discharges. EPA said it has identified several industries that are likely to be discharging PFAS in their wastewater and will begin a more detailed study to evaluate the potential for PFAS presence in these wastewater discharges.
As part of this study, EPA plans to gather more detailed information for the following point-source categories: organic chemicals, plastics, synthetic fibers, pulp and paper, textiles and airports.
The EPA plan includes steps that the agency already had announced in May 2018, along with certain other short-term solutions (defined as taking less than two years) and long-term strategies (defined as taking two years or longer).
Announced last year were initiation of steps to evaluate the need for a maximum contaminant level (MCL) for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS); beginning the necessary steps to propose designating PFOA and PFOS as “hazardous substances” through one of the available federal statutory mechanisms; developing groundwater cleanup recommendations for PFOA and PFOS at contaminated sites; and developing toxicity values or oral reference doses (RfDs) for GenX chemicals and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS).
New short-term steps announced by EPA are developing new analytical methods and tools for understanding and managing PFAS risk; promulgating Significant New Use Rules (SNURs) that require EPA notification before chemicals are used in new ways that may create human health and ecological concerns; and using enforcement actions to help manage PFAS risk, where found to be appropriate.
Long-term regulatory and research approaches EPA said it will pursue include reducing exposures and seeking better understanding of the potential human health and environmental risks associated with PFAS. It added that some long-term actions may result in intermediate steps and products that can help to reduce PFAS exposures and protect public health.
“Ecological risks are of great concern to many stakeholders due to the widespread distribution and persistence of PFAS in the environment and the wide variety of PFAS chemicals for which environmental fate and transport is currently uncharacterized,” the agency said. “While this Action Plan focuses mainly on human health, characterizing potential ecological impacts and risks are important areas of work for the EPA.”
Among the other federal agencies EPA intends to work with are the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences National Toxicology Program, the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Defense. To support states in managing their water quality, EPA says it will evaluate development of ambient water quality criteria.
Based on the very limited amount of data available, EPA points out that it has identified several industries likely to be discharging PFAS in their wastewater and will begin a more detailed study of the potential for PFAS presence in their discharges. As part of this study, the EPA said it plans to gather more detailed information for the point-source categories including organic chemicals, plastics, synthetic fibers, pulp and paper, textiles and airports.
The chemical industry likes the new plan. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) said it supports inclusion of initiatives that can be implemented quickly that are based on the best-available science. “It is also essential that EPA communicate effectively to the public to build confidence, transparency and credibility in the actions it is taking,” ACC stressed. “A science-based management plan will help states by providing access to a broader range of resources; ensuring uniform standards across the country to enable straightforward compliance; and minimizing the burden on states that are already short on resources.”
Not so happy are state agencies and environmental advocacy groups. New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection accused the EPA of “leaving millions of Americans exposed to harmful chemicals for too long by choosing a drawn-out process.” EPA countered: “This is not a delay. This process will provide regulatory certainty, while ensuring the legal defensibility of EPA’s regulatory actions,” adding that it expects to issue a proposed regulatory determination by the end of the year.
“This is an action plan with no action,” declared Suzanne Novak, an attorney for Earthjustice. She described the announced plan as “a long list of initiating steps that EPA should have been doing for the past few years, but no concrete actions. Meanwhile, PFAS are linked to chronic health issues, even death, and are highly unregulated despite a national emergency affecting entire towns.”
The National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) asserted: “The EPA just kicked the can down the road again,” adding that the plan “pushes enforceable standards, if they come at all, five to 10 years down the line.” Erik Olson, senior director for Health & Food at NRDC, offered, “While the agency fumbles with this ‘mis-management plan,’ millions of people will be exposed to highly toxic PFAS from drinking contaminated water.”
https://www.ehstoday.com/environment/epa-proposes-comprehensive-plan-address-pfas
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Lawmakers, Environmentalists Seek Hearing on ETO Analysis
Feb 28, 2019 | Inside EPA
Three Illinois lawmakers and several environmental groups are urging EPA to host a public hearing on its proposed air toxics rule that seeks comment on whether the agency should continue to use its conservative Obama-era risk value for ethylene oxide (EtO) for regulatory purposes, the latest sign of opposition to the agency's plan.
“It is not proper for EPA to be requesting comment on, or considering any change in use of the health risk factor for EtO in this source-focused proposal,” environmental groups, including the Alliance for the Great Lakes, Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, say in Feb. 11 comments.
At issue is EPA's proposed Residual Risk and Technology (RTR) Review of its National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for the hydrochloric acid production sector, which may produce or can be co-located with EtO-emitting facilities.
The agency's proposed rule found elevated cancer risk from the sector, though it says these risks are largely driven by the agency's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) value for EtO that was updated in late 2016.
“Although this updated risk value is also responsible for the elevated facility-wide risks calculated here, as noted earlier, these risks are due to emission sources that are not part of the HCl Production source category. Nevertheless, the EPA is interested in receiving public comments on the use of the update risk value for regulatory purposes."
EPA's IRIS assessment of EtO, coupled with EPA's modeled National Air Toxics Assessment data released last summer, has already indicated elevated cancer risk levels for those living near industrial plants that emit EtO, including the Sterigenics plant in Willowbrook, IL.
The Illinois EPA shuttered that Sterigenics plant Feb. 15, following EPA's publication of its latest monitoring of EtO levels at sites in the town.
EPA's request for comments on future use of its IRIS value has already drawn concern from key Illinois Democrats, who warned last month that any move to sideline the IRIS value would undermine other air toxics rules, including those regulating several local medical sterilization facilities that are large emitters of EtO.
The lawmakers, Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and Reps. Sean Casten, Bill Foster, Dan Lipinski, and Bradley Schneider, warned that the chemical industry had already petitioned EPA to overhaul the risk value and urged Wheeler to retain the IRIS assessment and “publicly commit to at least preserving, if not strengthening, EPA's current risk value of EtO.”
In a Feb. 8 letter, Casten, Foster and Lipiniski reiterate such concerns and urge the agency to hold a hearing in Chicago on the issue.
They also emphasize that EPA should continue using IRIS values in regulations. “Using the agency risk value to inform regulations is critical for protecting public health, and as representatives of districts subject to elevated emissions of ethylene oxide, we want to make sure that there is ample time and opportunity for public comment on this provision.”
And environmentalists, in their letter, add several additional reasons for dropping review of the IRIS value, arguing it was “established through the systematic, peer-reviewed process of another program. The IRIS program is intentionally separated from policymaking to ensure independent, impartial, and robust consideration of toxicity information, by a science-focused EPA office.”
The groups also argue that EPA's “proposal regulates one particular source category (hydrochloric acid production) under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act, and attempts to ignore the importance of assuring EtO protection, both from co-located facilities and from many other sources not addressed in the proposal. The subject of this 112 rulemaking is the facilities under review, not the EtO IRIS value.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/lawmakers-environmentalists-seek-hearing-eto-analysis
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Chemical Safety Data Lacking in Company Reports, EU Says
Feb 28, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Chemical companies are still failing to provide the right substance safety information in their REACH registration dossiers, with the problem showing no signs of improvement, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) said Feb. 28.
Of 286 REACH registration dossiers checked in 2018 for compliance with the law’s information requirements, 211 were found to have shortcomings, the agency said.
Several companies told Bloomberg Environment they are working on improving compliance but that the process is complex and can take time.
Under REACH (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals), companies are obligated to assess the risks their substances pose and to provide detailed data to ECHA in registration dossiers for the chemicals they sell in the European Union.
But ECHA has for several years said companies aren’t meeting the obligation.
The 2018 registration dossier checks showed “a similar picture to previous years—in the majority of registration dossiers that ECHA checks, important safety information is missing,” the agency said.
Companies Respond
Germany’s Lanxess AG has submitted approximately 1,000 registration dossiers to ECHA over about a decade and is presently reviewing some earlier dossiers, spokeswoman Daniela Eltrop said Feb. 28.
Lanxess supports the REACH goals of safeguarding health and the environment, but “increasing requirements during the registration phases and changes in guidance and dossier formats make updates often very complex and time consuming,” Eltrop said.
Some older registrations were compliant with REACH when filed, but now needed to be updated to account for increased knowledge about chemicals, Volker Soballa, head of product stewardship at Evonik Industries AG, said Feb. 28.
Evonik has updated its dossiers in line with REACH requirements and is “working on an internal workflow to further improve dossier quality,” Soballa said.
Joost Ruempol, spokesman for AkzoNobel NV, said Feb. 28: “We are aware of the views outlined by ECHA and where appropriate upon review of a dossier, amendments will be made.”
Risk Of Enforcement
The chemicals agency said in looking at dossiers, it “verifies key information requirements” allowing authorities to identify if the substance could cause cancer, can induce or increase the frequency of mutation, or have a toxic effect on the reproduction process.
If information is missing, ECHA can send binding decisions to companies requiring them to fill gaps. Ultimately, details of noncompliant companies could be passed to national enforcement authorities in EU countries.
In 2018, according to ECHA data, companies were referred to enforcement authorities in 41 cases. In 16 of those cases, companies subsequently complied with ECHA’s requests.
ECHA didn’t provide details of any enforcement measures taken against companies.
REACH Amendment Promised
An ECHA breakdown showed that the most common information demands were for data on possible cell damage caused by chemicals, and on the effects of chemicals on reproduction and unborn children.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has said it will propose in early 2019 an amendment of REACH that would specify more tightly when companies are required to update their registration dossiers.
That amendment is still currently in preparation, ECHA said in a Feb. 28 email. The commission didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The amendment “will be helpful for everyone—for authorities to better assess whether a dossier needs to be updated or not and for registrants to proactively update their entries, if needed,” Maria Linkova-Nijs, spokeswoman for the European Chemical Industry Council, said Feb. 28.
In relation to REACH dossier shortcomings, “we are still assessing the situation and looking into ways of helping our members deal with this issue,” Linkova-Nijs said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemical-safety-data-lacking-in-company-reports-eu-says
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Exposure to Environmental Chemical PFAS May Not Increase CHD Risk for Adults with Diabetes
Mar 1, 2019 | Healio
By Honda-Kohmo K
Exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances may not increase the risk for coronary heart disease in adults with diabetes, according to findings published in the Journal of Diabetes and its Complications.
“Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of highly fluorinated chemicals, perfluorocarbons, with a wide variety of functional groups and industrial and consumer uses,” Baqiyyah N. Conway, PhD, of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics in the School of Rural and Community Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Tyler, Texas, and colleagues wrote. “PFAS contamination has raised public health concerns because these compounds are mobile and persistent in the environment, are readily absorbed into most vertebrate species, including humans, and have been linked to adverse health effects.”
Conway and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study of 5,270 adults with diabetes who were included in the C8 Health Project, which is a health survey that collected data from individuals in West Virginia and Ohio who may have been exposed to PFAS through water contamination between 1950 and 2004.
In the survey, CHD and diabetes were confirmed by self-report or clinical diagnosis. Among the total cohort, 1,489 participants had CHD (mean age, 64.2 years; 39.9% women) and 3,781 did not (mean age, 55.3 years; 54.7% women).
The researchers found an inverse association between all PFAS and CHD, including perfluorohexane sulfonate (OR = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.78-0.84), perfluorooctanoic acid (OR = 0.91; 95% CI, 0.89-0.93), perfluorooctane sulfonate (OR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.82-0.89) and perfluorononanoic acid (OR = 0.83; 95% CI, 0.78-0.88). This association held after the researchers controlled for diabetes duration, BMI, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, white blood cell count, estimated glomerular filtration rate, uric acid, hemoglobin and iron, particularly in perfluorohexane sulfonate (OR = 0.72; 95% CI, 0.65-0.79), perfluorooctanoic acid (OR = 0.9; 95% CI, 0.85-0.96) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (OR = 0.9; 95% CI, 0.81-0.99), which all retained a statistically significant association.
To further confirm the inverse association, the researchers divided participants into five quintiles of PFAS measurements. CHD odds decreased with each increase in quintile, ultimately reaching their lowest mark in the fifth quintile of perfluorohexane sulfonate (OR = 0.45; 95% CI, 0.34-0.58), perfluorooctanoic acid (OR = 0.73; 95% CI, 0.57-0.94), perfluorooctane sulfonate (OR = 0.71; 95% CI, 0.55-0.92) and perfluorononanoic acid (OR = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.62-1.05).
Lastly, the researchers examined the association between PFAS and CHD when controlled for chronic kidney disease in the 22% of the study population with CKD, but they did not find a significant interaction between CKD and PFAS.
“Although mechanisms by which PFAS may lower risk for CHD are unknown, the inverse association observed in this study may reflect the anti-inflammatory and/or insulin-sensitizing properties of certain PFAS, as well as their potentially high oxygen transport capacity,” the researchers wrote. “While our results should not be interpreted as suggesting that exposure to these environmental contaminants is beneficial, these findings may, if confirmed in future studies, may provide new physiologic understanding of CHD prevention strategies.” – by Phil Neuffer
Disclosures: Conway reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see study for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
https://www.healio.com/endocrinology/diabetes/news/online/%7B6189660f-4410-4e5f-a5fb-de3246864fea%7D/exposure-to-environmental-chemical-pfas-may-not-increase-chd-risk-for-adults-with-diabetes
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We May Not Know Toxic Waste Dangers until It’s Too Late: Researchers
Feb 28, 2019 | New York Post
By Hannah Sparks
Humans are dumping more untested, potentially dangerous chemical waste into the environment than can be assessed, according to a team of UK-based researchers who published a foreboding paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
And we may not know the damage they cause until it’s too late.
These chemicals, they say, can come in many forms: pesticide runoff, landfills, flushed medications, cleaning products and manufacturing are all major contributors — much of which shows up in our bodies later.
During the study, scientists focused on the endocrine disrupting chemical called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), included in many products including antidepressants and plastics. These compounds, which was proven to interfere with reproduction in marine animals, recently turned-up in a beached killer whale with levels of PCBs 100 times higher than what is considered toxic.
They note that her “pod,” which scientists have been tracking of the coast of Scotland, has not produced a calf in 25 years or more.
This month, the EPA announced that they would begin closely monitoring per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — a class of endocrine disrupting chemicals found in myriad products including food packaging, non-stick surfaces (i.e. Teflon), cleaning products and even dental floss — in an effort to set official standards for the dangerous chemical, which has been linked to cancer, low birth weight and other negative impacts on the immune system.
But this is barely scratching the contaminated surface. Cleaning-up the chemicals we know are harmful is daunting enough; yet it’s the sheer volume of new and unvetted chemicals entering the ecosystem that has scientists worried. They’re calling on more scientists and officials to come together and address this potentially catastrophic trend.
https://nypost.com/2019/02/28/we-may-not-know-toxic-waste-dangers-until-its-too-late-researchers/
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(ACC Mentioned) US VCM Capacity Expansions May Bring Spot Business
Feb 28, 2019 | ICIS
US vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) may get a higher profile as US producers expand capacity for the precursor chemical’s derivative, polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
VCM has all but disappeared from the US Gulf spot market for export as US producers use the precursor internally to make PVC and to expand export sales.
Three US chlor-vinyls producers have PVC capacity expansions in the works as they incrementally grow production to capitalise on the US feedstock advantage derived from using natural gas to produce feedstocks, particularly ethane to ethylene.
A year ago, Westlake Chemical announced that it would expand its PVC capacity by 340,000 tonne/year globally: divided between its Geismar, Louisiana, and at a Burghausen, Germany, plant. The company is also adding 25,000 tonne/year of chlorine capacity at its plant in Gendorf, Germany.
The projects will increase Westlake’s capacity by 750m lb/year of PVC and 200m lb/year of VCM.
Plans are to complete these expansions this year, though production is not likely until 2020, according to participants familiar with the situation.
Formosa Plastics has announced that it plans to expand PVC capacity at its Baton Rouge complex by 136,000 tonne/year by 2020. The complex has a current capacity of 470,000 tonne/year.
Shintech has also indicated that it plans to expand PVC production at its nearby complex in Plaquemine, Louisiana, by 370,000 tonne/year, according to a public notice filed with the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Shintech said it would also expand chlor-alkali production and add new ethylene dichloride (EDC) and VCM capacity to support the PVC expansion.
No timetable has been set for the Shintech expansion. A 2020-2021 time frame appears likely.
The US subsidiary of Tokyo-based Shin-Etsu is now cranking up its 500,000 tonne/year ethane cracker in Plaquemine, Louisiana. The cracker is part of a $1.45bn expansion planned to support ethylene feedstock for the vinyls expansion.
All of these moves may free up some VCM production for export business.
US VCM has become captive to the success of US PVC producers’ progress in gaining export sales that support additional capacity.
In 2018, PVC producers in the US and Canada exported almost exactly one-third of total production, according to data from the American Chemistry Council (ACA).
For the year, US and Canada production was up 2.8%, or about 200,000 tonnes, according to the ACA. All of that total and then some went to support export sales, up 10%, or by 225,350 tonnes.
Domestic sales were essentially flat for the year, highlighting the importance of exports.
Most US VCM exports are now done through an agreement between OxyChem and Mexichem, which have a joint venture ethane cracker on the Texas Gulf Coast near Corpus Christi. That plant then supplies VCM to Mexichem PVC plants in Mexico and Colombia.
Major US VCM producers include Olin, Occidental Chemical, Westlake Chemical and Formosa Plastics.
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2019/02/28/10325565/us-vcm-capacity-expansions-may-bring-spot-business/
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Legislation Aimed at Speeding up Permits
Mar 1, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Jeremy Dillon
Republican lawmakers introduced workforce pay legislation yesterday they say would help address the backlog of infrastructure projects at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy.
The bill, S. 607, would give officials more leeway in giving out pay raises to retain and attract specialized employees like engineers and scientists capable of reviewing complex applications.
With an expanded and capable workforce, the bill's sponsors argue, permit reviews could move faster than their current pace.
"FERC's backlog of applications for these infrastructure projects is standing in the way of good-paying jobs for Louisiana families," Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said in a statement.
For Cassidy, that workforce could help some dozen liquefied natural gas export facilities still awaiting FERC approval maneuver through the process. Those export terminals and related pipeline infrastructure are mainly located on the Gulf of Mexico.
"FERC needs the expertise and manpower to speed up the review process and end long wait times for new natural gas terminals that benefit Louisiana workers and their families," he added.
FERC approved its first liquefied natural gas export terminal in a while last week after the Republican commissioners and Democratic Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur found a compromise that enabled some consideration of greenhouse gas emissions (Energywire, Feb. 22).
But the issue of workforce retention and recruitment is one FERC is conscious about. Chairman Neil Chatterjee listed it as one of the areas hurting the commission's work rate in a series of tweets last year.
FERC ranked as one of the top mid-sized federal agencies for employee engagement in 2018, according to the Partnership for Public Service.
"Our bill would give FERC the ability to hire more people with the right technical expertise to streamline this process and make timely decisions," said Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
Reps. Pete Olson (R-Texas) and Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) introduced companion legislation in the House. The lawmakers introduced similar legislation at the end of the last Congress (Energywire, Nov. 29, 2018).
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/03/01/stories/1060122745
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Colorado Drilling Rules Would See Seismic Shift Under Bill
Mar 1, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Catherine Traywick and Tripp Baltz
A coming bill in Colorado would prioritize health and safety over fostering oil and gas development, Gov. Jared Polis (D) and top state lawmakers said Feb. 28.
The legislation, yet to be introduced, would represent a major shift in how the state regulates drilling.
It would propose amending the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Act to clarify that the mission of the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is to regulate drilling and production activities, not foster development of fossil fuel resources.
“Right now, oil and gas laws in Colorado tilt heavily toward the industry,” said House Speaker KC Becker (D), who will be one of the co-sponsors of the bill. “We are going to correct that tilt so that health, safety, and environment are no longer ignored by state agencies.”
The bill will also give local communities a chance to provide meaningful input when permitting decisions are made about large oil and gas projects, Polis said.
“While we know this doesn’t solve all of the problems our communities face, it is a practical approach to finding a solution for many of our issues and providing more stability by updating our laws to reflect today’s realities,” he said.
The American Petroleum Institute said the decision by the state’s lawmakers to draft a bill without input from the oil and gas industry is “unprecedented,” adding the group will study the legislation once it’s available.
Health, Safety First
The bill would put health and safety first and take steps to fix what some see as a broken oil and gas regulatory system, Polis said at a news conference with Becker and other legislative leaders.
Lawmakers have told Bloomberg Environment the oil and gas proposal is one of the highest priority bills of the 2019 session of the Colorado General Assembly.
The bill, which Becker said she hopes to introduce by March 4, would add a public health expert to the oil and gas commission.
It also proposes changing the state’s “forced pooling” law, in which small tracts of land are combined—often against the will of those owning the mineral rights—to get a permit for natural gas drilling. Fifty percent of mineral owners would have to consent to the development instead of allowing the activity to proceed if operators own or have leased any acreage within the relevant drilling unit.
Current law forces all mineral owners to lease a parcel if just one in the area consents.
The bill would also give local governments more authority to regulate oil and gas operations including land use, siting, and surface impacts, and to establish setbacks between drilling operations and homes.
“This has the potential to be a major shift in the way the COGCC does business, but it all comes down to enforcement and execution,” according to Anne Lee Foster, spokeswoman for Colorado Rising, which pushed a failed November 2018 ballot measure that would have restricted fracking in Colorado.
(Adds comment from the American Petroleum Institute in the seventh paragraph. )
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/colorado-drilling-rules-would-see-seismic-shift-under-bill-1
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Maine Governor Reopens State to Renewable Investment
Feb 28, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adrianne Appel
Maine is joining 21 other states to ramp up efforts to cut harmful greenhouse gas emissions by expanding renewable energy, Gov. Janet Mills (D) announced.
Mills’ decision is an about-face from the anti-renewables stance of former Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R).
“There is a lot of excitement that Maine is again open for business and a willing host of our investment capital,” Jeremy Payne, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, a trade group for the renewable industry, told Bloomberg Environment Feb. 28.
The association’s members include NextEra Energy, EDP Renewables, and Clearway Energy.
Climate Allies
Maine will also become the 22nd state to join the U.S. Climate Alliance. The bipartisan group is working to reduce carbon and other emissions that lead to climate change, as called for by the United Nation’s Paris Climate pact, Mills said Feb. 28 in remarks at a conference in Augusta.
Mills, who took office in January, also said she would introduce legislation to create a state climate council, which would map out a path for the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The council will include state officials, scientists, non-profit leaders, and representatives of industries affected by the climate, she said.
She added that the state would seek to source 80 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050. Maine currently mandates that about 40 percent of its electricity come from renewable sources, including hydropower and biomass.
Paris Responsibility
“While the federal government ignores its responsibility to combat climate change, Maine will work with states across the country to meet the goals outlined in the Paris Climate accord,” Mills said.
Maine also will join other Northeast states to tackle transportation emissions.
“New England has struggled to find unity on battling climate change,” Greg Cunningham, a director at the Conservation Law Foundation, said in a Feb. 28 statement. With Maine’s support, the region should be able to better work together on climate change, he said.
Windy Welcome?
Maine’s windy mountaintops have long attracted wind projects, with 900 megawatts already installed.
But further wind development took a nosedive last year after LePage placed a moratorium on new wind projects due to a concern it would harm the tourism industry.
Christopher King, secretary of the Moosehead Region Futures Committee, told Bloomberg Environment Feb. 28, that “If wind turbines start cropping up here, our tourism economy will be greatly, negatively affected.”
Mills lifted the moratorium Feb. 15, a signal to the industry that it can “deliver on reasonable and predictable regulatory outcomes,” Payne said.
Maine has the best wind resources in New England and is 19th in the nation for wind potential, he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/maine-governor-reopens-state-to-renewable-investment
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Investors Call on Utilities to Commit to Net-Zero Plans
Mar 1, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By David Iaconangelo
A coalition of large investors is pressing the nation's 20 biggest power utilities to commit to full decarbonization by 2050.
New York City's comptroller in a letter made public yesterday called on utilities that contribute to nearly half of all the emissions from the U.S. power sector to make public commitments within six months when they hold annual meetings with shareholders.
The letter was signed by a group of private investment companies and state and municipal pension managers that together control some $1.8 trillion in assets. The investors and the NYC comptroller's office are working on the effort with the Climate Majority Project, an investor-responsibility group.
Without a 2050 plan, investors warned, utilities could make decisions that lock in extra emissions, like building new natural gas plants. And they cite mounting risks to utility profitability associated with climate change over the longer term.
"These are investors who know that what matters in 10, 20 or 30 years is going to matter just as much as over the next quarter," said Eli Kasargod-Staub, executive director of the Climate Majority Project.
Most of the utilities to which the letter was addressed — including Exelon Corp., NextEra Energy Inc. and Dominion Energy Inc. — have set some kind of goal for carbon reductions through 2030. But a majority haven't made commitments of any sort through 2050, and those that have stop short of completely decarbonizing their power supply.
"These are 20 companies that, if they made the responsible choices to their long-term investors and society at large, could really move the needle in terms of decarbonization," said Kasargod-Staub.
The signatories of the letter urged the utilities to identify a board member responsible for overseeing progress on a 2050 goal and interim targets for 2025 and 2030, base executive compensation in part on how well they've guided the company toward the targets, and publish detailed plans for carrying out the transition.
Utilities should also account for how the transition will affect their workforce and communities, and plan to redeploy workers differently or take other steps to mitigate negative effects, according to the letter. Utilities should also disclose how their lobbying activities support the decarbonization goal.
The 2050 date stems from last fall's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report finding that the world's power generators would need to decarbonize by then in order to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"I think the conversation is changing so rapidly that it's our hope these utilities will say, 'We have to be on the right side of this,'" said Kasargod-Staub. "We hope leadership will respond positively."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/03/01/stories/1060122749
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Preparation for Potential PTT Global Chemical Cracker Continues on Both Sides of Ohio River
Mar 1, 2019 | Wheeling Intelligencer
By Miranda Sebroski
Community leaders on both sides of the Ohio River want to ensure the local region is prepared if an ethane cracker plant proposed for Belmont County becomes a reality.
PTT Global Chemical America and its partner, Daelim Industrial Co., have acquired the necessary property and permits to build a petrochemical complex that could require an investment of up to $10 billion. One of the needed environmental permits has been challenged, and the companies are awaiting the results of the appeals process. There has been no official announcement yet regarding whether the plant will actually be built.
In hopes that an announcement to that effect will come soon, Belmont County Tourism Council, Wheeling Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Greater Moundsville Convention and Visitors Bureau hosted an event Thursday at Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack where community members could ask questions and learn more about the proposed plant and about other communities that have experienced similar development.
If it is constructed, the cracker plant will be located in Dilles Bottom near south of Shadyside. A cracker plant processes ethane, a liquid portion of the natural gas stream found throughout Eastern Ohio, to create ethylene and other components used to manufacture plastics and chemical products. Ethane is abundant in the local region, though the area currently lacks the facilities to process it.
Barb Ballint, Belmont County Tourism Council executive director, said the idea to have the community discussion came about when several local people attended a similar event in Washington, Pennsylvania.
“We were intrigued by that event and felt that it was important for this area to have a similar event,” Ballint said. “We want to keep our communities informed about what could potentially happen with a cracker plant. I reached out to the other CVBs in the area — not just Ohio, but across the river because we all going to be affected by this. It’s important for us to be prepared and know what to expect. I’m sure that there will be surprises along the way, I’m certain. To be prepared and know, that is better than not knowing at all.”
Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott said the potential for the cracker plant has influenced the city to upgrade underground water and sewer facilities so the city will have the right infrastructure to prepare for the plant and the people it would bring to the region. Colleges in the area such as Belmont College and West Virginia Northern Community College also are preparing by starting programs to help local residents find jobs in the natural gas and oil industry. Kuhn said these career fields will provide long-term jobs and can start with a $60,000 salary.
Representatives from Potter Township, Pennsylvania, attended the discussion to offer input because they are experiencing similar development with the Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC cracker plant that is under construction in Potter and Center townships in Beaver County.
“If we are able to learn from one another and work together, I think that will be better for everyone,” Matsco said.
“We learned early about what was to come with our plant. I think it is worth sharing the information that we have.”
Beaver County residents have learned that there are pros and cons for their communities related to the cracker plant. Matsco said there has been a rise in traffic, drugs and prostitution in that area. But Matsco said she believes the cracker plant has been more positive than negative and has created a large number of jobs for people in the area.
“It is important to plan for this, especially at the municipal level,” Matsco said. “Having a plan gives us a road map forward. Without it, we will stumble.”
http://www.theintelligencer.net/news/community/2019/03/preparation-for-potential-ptt-global-chemical-cracker-continues-on-both-sides-of-ohio-river/
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Alaska Might Give up on North Slope Gas Pipeline, LNG Export Terminal: Official
Feb 28, 2019 | Platts
By Tim Bradner
The new CEO of Alaska's state gas corporation told legislators Thursday he is prepared to shut down the project and return unused funds to the state treasury if customers or investors do not appear in the next few months.
Joe Dubler was named in January as CEO of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. by Governor Mike Dunleavy.
Dubler told a state Senate budget subcommittee that Dunleavy wants an evaluation of the viability of the $43 billion Alaska LNG Project.
Despite marketing efforts and about $1 billion spent in recent years on engineering and environmental work, the project has not attracted customers and faces increasing competition from other LNG projects. That includes a Shell-led project in British Columbia that would export LNG to the same Asian markets Alaska is targeting.
Alaska LNG involves a proposed 800-mile, 42-inch-diameter gas pipeline from the North Slope to an LNG export terminal on the Kenai Peninsula in southcentral Alaska. There are currently 35 Tcf of proven gas reserves on the slope.
The pipeline and terminal project would be capable of exporting 20 million mt/year of LNG.
"Our current plan is to step back and evaluate technical and commercial aspects of the project. If it is viable and we can solicit partners, we will continue into front-end engineering and design," Dubler told the lawmakers.WOUND DOWN
"If it is not viable, then the project will be wound down and all remaining funds will be returned to the (state) general fund," Dubler told the committee.
A draft environmental impact statement being prepared by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is expected in March after being delayed by the federal government shutdown. Under FERC's current schedule, the final EIS and federal permits are expected in the spring of 2020.
Dubler said AGDC will continue spending state funds on technical studies that federal agencies and FERC may require. Dunleavy said he does not want to spend anything beyond that absent investors or customers.
Alaska is facing a $1.6 billion budget deficit and the governor is pulling funds from state corporations. He has taken $5 million from AGDC already.
AGDC has appropriations sufficient to keep its doors open until mid-2020, and its current year operating budget of $10 million is approved. But a major expenditure, such as final engineering, would require an investor, Dubler said.
Talks with a Chinese investor group of Sinopec, Bank of China and China Investment Corp. appear stymied by the US-China trade discord.
Dunleavy has asked major North Slope gas owners BP, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil to consider rejoining the project. The three companies were partners with AGDC in Alaska LNG until 2015 when they withdrew, citing market concerns.
Dubler said AGDC is already downsizing, closing an office in Houston and reducing its leased office space in Anchorage by half. A small marketing office in Tokyo with a part-time representative is being retained.
The state has already invested about $500 million in Alaska LNG; the North Slope producers, prior to their withdrawal, invested a similar amount.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/022819-alaska-might-give-up-on-north-slope-gas-pipeline-lng-export-terminal-official
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KBR Lands Design Contract for LNG Export Terminal Planned in Mexico
Feb 28, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Sergio Chapa
Houston engineering, procurement and construction company KBR has landed a design contract for liquefied natural gas export terminal planned along the Pacific Coast of Mexico.
KBR announced on Thursday that Mexico Pacific Limited awarded the Houston service company a contract or Pre-Front End Engineering Design, or Pre-FEED, services for an medium-sized LNG liquefaction plant planned in Puerto Libertad, Sonora.
"We are excited to be a part of this Mexico Pacific Limited LNG project and to deliver innovative LNG technology solutions for our customers," KBR President of Hydrocarbons Delivery Solutions Farhan Mujib said in a statement. "We believe midscale LNG projects have an important part to play in the global LNG market."
Located along the Pacific Coast about 250 miles southwest of the border town of Nogales, the Puerto Libertad facility is permitted to produced up to 12 million metric tons of LNG per year.
Described as a midscale plant, the export terminal plans to take natural gas from the Permian Basin of West Texas and ship it to Puerto Libertad via an existing natural gas pipeline.
Under its contract, KBR will provide Pre-FEED services and a cost estimate for the project. The plant will be using equipment made by ConocoPhillips to supercool natural gas and convert into a liquid form that is easier to transport via tankers to customers around the world.
"We look forward to working with an LNG industry leader in KBR, and continuing our efforts to provide a world class project with best in class delivered pricing for our Asian buyers," Mexico Pacific Limited President Josh Loftus said in a statement. "The contract continues a broader competitive process with FEED expected to start mid-2019."
With roots going as far back as 1901, KBR was created by the 1998 merger of M.W. Kellogg with Brown & Root Engineering and Construction.
Oilfield service giant Halliburton bought Brown & Root in December 1962 with KBR remaining a subsidiary of Halliburton until April 2007.
More than 10 years later, KBR remains an independent service company that employs more than 36,000 people in 40 nations.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/KBR-lands-design-contract-for-planned-LNG-export-13652389.php
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Sensible Economic Rail Regulation
Feb 28, 2019 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Brigham A. Mccown
When it comes to regulating freight railroad rates and service, there are two truisms to consider.
First, some shippers, such as farmers or manufacturers, sometimes lackmultiple rail shipping options. And challenging rates through available options at the federal government is a laborious, inefficient and expensive process.
On the flip side, however, freight rail transportation is an essential part of the United States economy and infrastructure network. Blunt force regulatory action is not only unnecessary, but would be counterproductive to improving outcomes for shippers and railroads alike, and would be in direct conflict with the deregulatory agendafavored by the current administration.
At issue is a prolonged debate that has pitted industry against industry. More specifically, a debate between a segment of companies and industry groups who use rail to ship products, and the private rail carriers who own and maintain the network. The squabble dates back as far as 1980, when Congress partially deregulated the rail sector – allowing it greater freedom to set rates and run operations with minimal government interference – but now is contested in earnest at the Surface Transportation Board (STB), an independent agency of the federal government responsible for resolving railroad rate and service disputes and reviewing proposed railroad mergers.
With the U.S. Senate confirming two new Members to the Board in January and expectations for the White House and Senate to imminently fill the two remaining vacancies, policy debates previously on a bridge to nowhere may soon find solid ground.
The STB must address a few fundamental issues such as assessing competition in the market, the rate dispute process, and service quality for rail shippers. The most pressing regulatory matter though will be a concept known as reciprocal switching, or as the railroads deem it, forced switching. As the American Action Forum summarized the issue:
“In some cases, a given shipper’s facility is served by only one railroad, but another railroad can more efficiently move its goods. Under reciprocal switching, the shipper can use the second railroad further away. For this to happen, the second railroad pays the nearer railroad to ship the goods until it reaches the second, and at that point the cars are transferred. Reciprocal switching occurs naturally in the market and allows shippers to lower their costs. The STB also has authority to require it, though has yet to do so since adopting its applicable regulations in 1985. Because of this, a group of shippers petitioned the STB in 2011 to propose a rule that would make it easier to impose reciprocal shipping in cases meeting certain criteria.”
Put forth in 2016, that proposed rule still lingers today. The new-look STB Board can vote to proceed with a regulation to impose switching on railroads more frequently, or the STB could decide to scrap the idea altogether. Before deciding such an issue however, the STB will likely seek public comment on this issue.
Instead of imposing such a draconian result that runs counter to the deregulation atmosphere intended, the STB should consider abandoning the proposed measure and instead focus on focused reforms streamlining the Board’s rate adjudication processes. Advocates for widespread switching, a major shift in policy, are moving the goal posts, cleverly attempting to use this complicated government scheme to extract lower rates.
While not always a staunch supporter of rail, it must be said that running a railroad is complicated, and history indicates government control of rail routes and pricing is a perilous endeavor. The transportation market for shippers, which includes trucks, pipelines, and barges for many products, is an existing ecosystem best suited to ensure optimal outcomes. This is especially true given that the STB provides backstops for shippers, including strict rate oversight in the absence of pervasive competition.
In truth, the debate between rail shippers and rail carriers can be distilled even further. Shippers would prefer railroads be fully regulated utilities, subject to overt government rate regulation across the industry, while railroads would prefer to operate in free markets like many of their competitors, such as the trucking industry. Given the remarkably poor track record of Uncle Sam running enterprises or micromanaging sectors – including the railroads for the most part from 1920 – 1978, which nearly exterminated U.S. freight railroads – the choice is clear.
Some, including Roslyn Layton of the American Enterprise Institute, suggest we should consider abolishing the STB altogether. Yet in this case, the middle ground of sensible economic regulation is the best path. Shippers and railroads deserve oversight, but for the sake of the economy, that refereeing must not usurp free market forces and become burdensome.
Brigham A. McCown is a former federal government safety regulator, adjunct professor, and the founder of the non-profit Aii.org.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/432130-sensible-economic-rail-regulation
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New Federal Railroad Rules Aim to Improve Response to Derailments
Feb 28, 2019 | Government Technology
By Jim McKay
A new federal rule announced by Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao proposes to make safer the transport of energy products via railroad.
The rule calls for equipment and crews to be ready for dispatch and use following an oil train derailment that causes a fire. But some of the requirements of the rule and what’s not in the rule have sources concerned about its efficacy.
The regulation calls for equipment and crews to respond within a 12-hour period, which for various reasons, is a long time to respond to a large oil spill and/or resulting fire. Also, there is concern about communication with local first responder agencies that may be responding to a derailment.
The document says that the railroads will work with the states in administering the rules, notifying appropriate state-designated entities “who share information with local authorities upon their request,” but rail safety consultant Keith Millhouse said that isn’t very clear direction and he worries about a lack of coordination.
“The concern is that will it trickle down to communities and counties that have to deal with this, and it’s not clear to me from the rule how that has to happen,” Millhouse said. “One of the things we see in real accidents a lot of times is a failure of communications across the spectrum, whether it’s vertical or horizontal.”
Millhouse explained that vertical means the state talking with locals and horizontal means railroad entities such as one that works on railroad maintenance and another that presides over railroad operations.
Attemps to reach to reach someone at the Department of Transportation were unsuccessful.
“Railroads have safety personnel who will be dealing with preparation and materials, but they need the ability to have people with a trained background and experience in local government to facilitate discussions about what needs to be done on the local level,” Millhouse said.
Part of the concern is the 12-hour response period called for in the rule. That is a long time to let a fire burn, and coordination with local first responders could play a role in a quicker response. The volatility of the oil varies also and Bakken crude, for example, is especially flammable and explosive.
It’s pretty critical to with [a fire] in a timely manner if you’re going to protect other cars and be able to knock it down,” said Bob Chipkevich, a former director of railroad, pipeline and hazardous materials investigations for the National Transportation Safety Board. “Once you get down to a certain period of time, you get a certain amount of heat on those cars and you almost have to back off.”
Chipkevich said that with the 12-hour response time, it’s critical to ensure that local emergency response agencies become a partner with the railroads when developing plans.
Millhouse said it would be prudent for the railroads to reach out through the states and tribal entities, to local first responder communities, who will have boots on the ground, for local response preparation information.
Chipkevich also wondered why the plan didn’t include Canada, which has had two major spills recently and said that more emphasis must be placed on preventing these accidents in the first place. “A lot of these derailments with oil trains involved track conditions. They’ve made a move to improve the tank car [with newer, safer designed cars] but time will tell if those cars have been improved enough.”
http://www.govtech.com/em/preparedness/New-Federal-Railroad-Rules-Aim-to-Improve-Response-to-Derailments.html
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NJ Transit Secures Extension for PTC Implementation
Mar 1, 2019 | Railway Technology
New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) in the US has secured an extension for the implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) system.
In December, the New Jersey-based transportation system submitted an application to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for an alternate schedule that will enable it to complete full PTC implementation by 31 December 2020.
The FRA approved the request after NJ Transit fulfilled all necessary criteria to qualify for the extension.
PTC technology is a federally mandated train protection system that monitors the speed of trains, slowing it down during potential hazards.
The initial deadline to implement the system was 31 December last year.
NJ Transit executive director Kevin Corbett said: “This approval recognises all of the hard work that so many of our employees and contractors performed over the course of 2018.
“We had to accomplish four years’ worth of work in just ten months and couldn’t have been successful without the support and guidance from our partners at the FRA.”
The agency has completed the installation of PTC system hardware on 282 locomotives/cab cars, 120 wayside interface units and 112 poles.
It also acquired all necessary wireless spectrum and completed the training of at least 823 employees.
Additionally, the agency started field functionality testing on the Summit- Denville segment.
New Jersey Department of Transportation commissioner and NJ Transit board chair Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti said: “I commend the NJ Transit staff for the incredible work that was done to meet the December 2018 FRA requirements that ultimately resulted in the approval of the alternative schedule.”
Last month, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority also secured FRA approval to extend PTC implementation deadline.
https://www.railway-technology.com/news/nj-transit-secures-extension-for-ptc-implementation/
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‘He Gets to Decide’: Trump Escalates His Fight against Climate Science Ahead of 2020
Feb 28, 2019 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Toluse Olorunnipa
From the earliest days of his administration, President Trump has been at war with his own government over climate change.
He upbraided his first economic adviser by telling him that he didn’t care that American executives backed the Paris climate agreement because “my voters don’t live on Park Avenue.” He has told aides that he thinks the Earth’s climate will begin cooling again, so there is no need to act forcefully before then.
And he was enraged by a recent National Climate Assessment released by more than a dozen federal agencies showing climate impacts are ‘intensifying across the country” and that only aggressive action will avoid “substantial damages” in the future. The report spurred the White House to make plans for an internal working group to counter the scientific consensus that climate change represents a major threat to the United States and the globe.
For a president who has yet to receive an extensive scientific briefing on climate change, the topic amounts to a political litmus test ahead of the 2020 elections. Rather than accept the conclusions espoused by elites and loathed by many of his voters, Trump has opted to question the premise that global warming represents a major problem or, at times, if it even exists at all. And now through its new working group, his National Security Council is working to muster ammunition for his arguments.
Meade Krosby, a senior scientist at the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group, said the initiative showed a disconnect with reality. The world has already warmed more than 1 degree Celsius since preindustrial levels, and a recent U.N. scientific report concluded the world will have to cut its carbon output 45 percent by 2030 to avert some of the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.
“The idea that what we really need is to revisit the basic science of climate change when we are already feeling its impacts is absurd,” she said. “There is no meaningful scientific disagreement on the facts.”
The Milton R. Young Station, a lignite coal-fired power plant near Center, N.D., glows as dusk blankets the prairie landscape May 25, 2017.But Steven Milloy, a climate change skeptic who served on Trump’s transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency and questioned humans’ contribution to climate change, said Trump is simply keeping his promise to millions of voters who backed him in 2016 after he campaigned on the energy policies he is now pursuing.
“I don’t have a problem with people having different points of view. It’s the president that gets elected,” said Milloy, who previously ran a group that received funding from the oil industry. “In the end, it’s the president agenda, and he gets to decide.”
The White House’s push against climate science has exposed a modest rift within the Republican Party, as some are edging toward a more centrist position. And it has provided a potential political opportunity for Democrats, who have been grappling with their own intraparty fight over how ambitious to be when it comes to cutting carbon.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced this week that all 47 senators in the Democratic caucus had signed on to a resolution saying that climate change is real, caused by humans and that Congress needs to take immediate action on it.
On Tuesday, former Ohio governor John Kasich (R), who ran against Trump in 2016, said recent federal reports have settled the debate over climate science.
“The government is giving us reports saying this is [a] problem,” Kasich said at a University of British Columbia lecture. “And the Defense Department and America’s preparing for climate change, global warming and the implications of it all. So there are very little questions anymore.”
Trump sees the climate debate as a war of political messaging, according to several current and former administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly. Convinced that the scientific literature on climate change is funded and directed by liberals, he has said on repeated occasions that he expects the climate to change back to colder average temperatures. It amounts to an endorsement of the “global cooling” forecast some researchers made in the 1970s.
When Trump and his aides discussed whether to remain in the Paris climate agreement two years ago, he emphasized the impact low-carbon policies could have on average Americans. Under the accord, the United States pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions between 26 and 28 percent by 2025.
While Trump occasionally asks aides for their opinions on climate change, he has been unwavering in his denial that human activity bears the brunt of the blame.
“When you talk to him about it, he’s openly skeptical,” George David Banks, who served as special assistant to the president for international energy and environment during the start of Trump’s term, said in an interview. “The reason he’s skeptical is he sees it as being detrimental to U.S. manufacturing.”
White House officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Deputies who have sought to make the case for climate action to Trump have not fared well. During a meeting just weeks before the president announced the United States would exit the Paris agreement, then-National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn noted that several major chief executives had just published a joint letter urging him to stay within the deal.
“Gary, my voters don’t live on Park Avenue,” Trump responded, according to one participant who requested anonymity to discuss a private meeting. “They don’t care about the same things you care about.”
Since Trump announced a withdrawal from the Paris deal in 2017, climate change has rarely come up as a priority inside the White House, according to current and former officials. “He knows his voters see it as bunk,” a White House official said.
Trump’s views have been largely consistent for the better part of a decade, as he has railed against renewable energy and claimed that environmentalism puts U.S. industry at a disadvantage.
Trump’s rejection of climate science stretches back to at least 2010. Shortly after signing a letter calling for U.S. action to combat climate change, Trump changed course and began calling the whole concept “a con,” voicing many of the same arguments he uses today.
In a February 2010 interview on Fox News, Trump noted the “freezing” temperatures at the time, and claimed that the United States was “scrubbing” its coal while China, Japan and India pursued dirtier energy, putting American companies “at a competitive disadvantage.”
“It’s probably getting a little bit warmer,” Trump said. “And then, in a number of years or decades, it will get a little bit cooler.”
In 2012, he tweeted that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” And in the years leading up to his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump continued to opine about global warming, seizing on cold snaps to argue that the science showing rising temperatures and sea levels amounted to a “hoax.”
The anti-science views espoused by Trump allow him to cast aside inconvenient facts and shape an argument that aligns with his political goals and his other long-held views, said Tim O’Brien, author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.”
“It’s performance art,” he said. “I don’t think he authentically believes climate change was authored in Beijing. He just knows that it dovetails neatly with his anti-China, anti-free-trade, anti-climate-change mantra. And he can put that to political use.”
Trump has already begun targeting his potential 2020 opponents over their environmental positions. The president also touted January’s frigid temperatures in much of the United States but ignored his government’s announcement two weeks later that 2018 was the fourth-warmest year on record.
“Amy Klobuchar announced that she is running for President, talking proudly of fighting global warming while standing in a virtual blizzard of snow, ice and freezing temperatures,” Trump tweeted after the Democratic senator from Minnesota made her presidential announcement in a snowstorm.
Some federal officials in top scientific posts offer a more nuanced view on climate change, but they choose their words carefully.
“Certainly, the climate is changing; it has been changing. It’s a combination of natural variability and human influence,” Kelvin Droegemeier, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in an interview last week. “Over the past 70 years or so, human influence has played a significant role.”
In 2013, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report saying global warming is “unequivocal” and that it is “extremely likely” that humans are the “dominant” cause of climate change over the past century.
Trump own military leaders and intelligence heads have said in public reports that climate change poses a national security threat to the United States.
But as president, Trump’s views on environmental science have drifted further from the mainstream even as he has had access to the world’s greatest scientists and data.
In a November interview with The Washington Post, Trump claimed that dirty air from Asia “blows over” toward the United States. He also rejected calls for climate action by claiming that U.S. air and water is already “record clean.” He has claimed that California’s record wildfires in 2018 were caused because of the state’s improper “raking” of its forests.
Democrats are convinced that Trump’s position on climate change could prove a liability for congressional Republicans, most of whom have raised questions about climate science and worked to reverse Obama-era regulations aimed at curbing carbon emissions. Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he would force a vote on House Democrats’ Green New Deal, a sweeping measure that would spend trillions to wean the U.S. off fossil fuels.
The NSC is pressing ahead with its plan to convene federal researchers to decide how the White House might reassess the government’s climate findings, and it has asked agencies to find outside experts who endorse the idea.
Kasich, who called on lawmakers Tuesday to impose either a tax on carbon or a nationwide cap on emissions, said that eventually voters would pressure his party to act.
“Do you know why politicians will finally get off the dime?” Kasich said. “Because they’ll have no choice.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/he-gets-to-decide-trump-escalates-his-fight-against-climate-science-ahead-of-2020/2019/02/28/6e12dbbc-3aa3-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html?utm_term=.8b3d0cfec35f
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US Congress Displays New Interest in Climate Change
Feb 28, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
After years of showing little interest in climate change other than to challenge science, the US Congress has launched a series of hearings on the issue.
The House of Representatives, which Democrats have controlled since January, examined federal inaction on the global 2015 Paris Agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, federal research on climate, and the effects of climate change on oceans in hearings the week of Feb. 25. Holding those hearings were panels with jurisdiction over environment, federal funding, and science matters. Earlier in February, other House hearings probed the state of climate change science, the need to act on climate change, and the environmental and economic impacts of climate change.
The House is not alone in demonstrating renewed interest in climate change. On March 5, the Republican-controlled Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will focus on “the electricity sector in a changing climate.”
Notably, the House on Feb. 28 held what is probably the first congressional hearing dedicated to the repercussions of President Donald J. Trump’s move to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement. Trump announced in 2017 that in 2020 he would withdraw the US from the landmark climate change accord in which each country established its own targets for curbing emissions. The president claimed the deal was less about climate change and more about other countries gaining an economic advantage over the US. His administration is moving to dismantle regulations that the Obama administration instituted to implement the Paris deal.
Witnesses at the Feb. 28 hearing said that in the absence of federal leadership, a coalition of states, cities, tribes, businesses, and organizations, including hospitals and faith groups, has committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But they noted that these efforts can achieve only about two-thirds of the US emission reduction pledge in the Paris Agreement. National efforts are needed to meet that goal, to ensure the US retains a seat at international climate change negotiations, and to exert influence on global efforts to curb human climate change, they said.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/climate-change/US-Congress-displays-new-interest/97/i9
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Senate Democrats Release Slimmed down Climate Resolution and Ask Republicans to Join Them
Feb 28, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna and Nick Juliano
Senate Democrats today formally unveiled a simple climate change resolution that the party can unanimously agree on and pressured Republicans to get on board.
The bare bones resolution simply says climate change is real, that human activity is the "dominant cause" and that Congress should take "immediate action" to address it. It is an effort to turn the tables on Republicans who want to use an upcoming vote on the Green New Deal resolution to show internal Democratic divisions on how to address the problem. Its three paragraphs represent a much narrower vision than the ambitious Green New Deal — which envisions a 10-year plan to decarbonize the economy — but Democrats hope to use it as a starting point to argue that Republicans have no plan to address a pressing global crisis.
"The scientific consensus about climate change should no longer be an open question in the Republican-controlled Senate," Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.) wrote in a dear colleague letter sent to all Republicans urging their co-sponsorship.
GOP senators say the new resolution shows Democrats are afraid to stand behind the original proposal that has energized their liberal base.
“I don’t blame Senate Democrats for trying to duck this big green bomb,” Environment Chairman John Barrasso said Thursday. “You can’t escape the fact that nearly every Democrat senator running for president supports it."
All 47 Democratic senators back the new resolution, as POLITICO first reportedTuesday.
"This resolution is simply going to be just one of many examples of Democrats on offense and united on the seriousness of and the need to take urgent action on climate change while Republicans are focused on cynical show votes," Schumer said in a statement.
Republican senators up for reelection in 2020, such as Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), will face the most intense pressure to back the effort.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he will hold a vote sometime before August on the initial Green New Deal resolution, S. Res. 59 (116) but manyDemocrats have said they plan to vote present to protest what they see as a political stunt. West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin has said he would likely oppose that measure, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), another moderate, pronounced it a "not a good resolution" in a videotaped exchange with youth climate activists that went viral earlier this month.
Republicans are using the Green New Deal vote to highlight the support for that earlier resolution from many of the party's declared or likely presidential candidates, including Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).
While there is no guarantee the new version will come to the floor, climate activists said that its mild language gives Republicans who say they want to do something about climate change a chance to back up that commitment.
"All those Repubs who are, allegedly, slowly, shifting on climate have a choice. They can sign on, or call this innocuous statement 'socialism,'" tweeted RL Miller, co-founder of Climate Hawks Vote.
Gardner accused the Democrats of "running scared" from the original Green New Deal resolution but did not say in an interview Thursday whether he agreed with the new proposal.
"I think the Green New Deal would cost trillions upon trillions of dollars and they’re trying to find every way they can to sweep it under the rug, which is going to create primary problems for Democrats," said Gardner, who has previously voted against acknowledging humanity's responsibility for climate change. "If you’re a Democrat and you don’t want to vote on the Green New Deal, I think that’s a primary problem."
The back-and-forth is the latest round of political gamesmanship over climate change in the Senate in which the two parties have tried to test each others' moderates, but the upcoming Green New Deal vote would be the first time since 2015 the Senate considered a climate resolution on the floor.
Four years ago, Democrats offered several climate amendments to legislation that would have approved the Keystone XL pipeline, the second bill to hit the floor that year. An amendment from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) — declaring simply that "climate change is real and not a hoax," — passed 98-1 after Republicans voted for it en masse because it said nothing about whether burning fossil fuels was to blame.
More than a dozen Republicans backed another 2015 amendment declaring that "human activity contributes" to climate change; it failed 59-40 after its sponsor, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), switched his vote to avoid endangering the underlying bill. Five GOP senators, including Collins, went a step further to endorse an amendment saying it "significantly contributes." Gardner voted against both of those amendments, as did Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another likely Democratic target in next year's Senate elections.
For Democrats, Manchin is the only remaining member of their caucus who routinely broke ranks on votes related to climate change, and he split with his party on a budget amendment later in 2015 from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that said humans were responsible for climate change and that "Congress needs to take action to cut carbon pollution." Three Republicans backed that Sanders amendment: Collins, Lindsey Graham and Rob Portman.
The new resolution Democrats introduced this year does not specifically mention carbon emissions in its call for action on climate change.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard/2019/02/senate-democrats-release-slimmed-down-climate-resolution-and-ask-republicans-to-join-them-1229677
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EPA Touts Enforcement Deference Policy but Also Eyes State ‘Assists’
Feb 28, 2019 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss and Dave Reynolds
A year after issuing interim guidance that mandates “deference” to states in environmental enforcement, top EPA officials are touting the Trump administration’s success in shifting enforcement action to the states, though they are weighing changes to the guidance even as Democrats and environmentalists continue to attack the strategy.
In her testimony at a Feb. 26 hearing of the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s environment panel, EPA enforcement chief Susan Bodine said her practice of deferring to states’ discretion on enforcement actions, set out in a memo to staff in January 2018, has not stopped the agency from putting pressure on states to step up their work when deficiencies arise.
“We have two examples where we’ve leaned heavily on states to take action and they have. . . . But then, at the end of the day the state finally did take the action, we didn’t have to, and all that work doesn’t show up on our results,” Bodine said in her opening statement to the panel.
Under Bodine’s 2018 interim guidance, “EPA will generally defer to authorized States as the primary day-to-day implementer of their authorized/delegated programs, except in specific situations.” Those situations include, among others, a need, documented in program audits, for EPA to “fill a gap” in a deficient program; significant noncompliance that a state has not “timely or appropriately” addressed; and any circumstance demands EPA’s resources or expertise.
Bodine said during the Feb. 26 hearing that formalizing the deference policy has bolstered relationships between EPA and state enforcement personnel, with benefits to joint inspections and other on-the-ground work as well as expanding federal training for state employees.
But she also suggested the policy may not allow EPA staff to get credit for work they do in assisting state-led enforcement actions.
“If we take a joint inspection in an authorized program of a state, it may be that the state takes the formal enforcement action, and not EPA. We call those ‘state assists.’ But we’re getting compliance. We’re also developing new measures to capture those efforts, because I want the staff to get credit for all of the work they’re doing,” Bodine said.
The note that “state assists” do not appear on EPA’s formal statistics was part of her defense of EPA’s fiscal year 2018 enforcement figures, which largely declined from prior years -- including some that reached historic lows, such as civil penalties for environmental violations.
Bodine did not elaborate on the circumstances that led EPA to “lean” on states’ enforcement programs, and EPA did not respond to a request to expand on her comments.
While the “interim” guide has been EPA’s most formal policy on that deference for over a year, a long-promised update to the policy appears to be taking shape, according to EPA Region 9 General Counsel Sylvia Quast.
Final Version
During a Feb. 28 Environmental Law Institute (ELI) webinar on cooperative federalism, Quast said agency officials are actively working toward a final version of the memo.
“We're in the middle of evaluating that interim guidance and seeing does it need to be modified. . . . We had a call yesterday where regional counsels talked about our experience implementing the interim guidance,” Quast said.
But she added that the updated policy, whenever it debuts, is unlikely to work dramatic changes to the Trump EPA’s practices so far.
Officials are “thinking about not changing that dramatically; just a reupping of our commitment to working with states. We have to because that is the resource situation we’re in and that’s the structure of environmental laws in the first place,” Quast said.
She also touted the benefits of the memo, saying it acknowledged and formalized a long-running practice between EPA and states.
“To me the notion that this is a new and dramatic and different change doesn’t really conform to the reality of how we have been living in the environmental sector . . . The states have been doing the vast majority of environmental regulation and enforcement for many, many years now,” Quast said.
“The notion that other states are going to step in, take over, and EPA is going to step back and not do anything is not realistic.”
State representatives on the webinar also defended Bodine’s memo. Julia Anastasio, executive director and general counsel for the Association of Clean Water Administrators that represents state water regulators, downplayed claims that the 2018 memo represented EPA withdrawing from its enforcement duties.
And Anastasio said the memo merely “institutionalizes” long-standing practices for EPA’s work with delegated states. She added that in many cases states prefer to work with EPA rather than alone, as long as that work is cooperative. “Entities need national partners for national minimum standards . . . because cooperative federalism is in fact messy,” she said.
‘Violations Just Sit’
But Democrats and environmentalists are keeping up their attacks on Bodine’s deference policy, including at the Feb. 26 hearing where they said EPA is letting active violations “sit” without action from either state or federal regulators.
“There are certain responsibilities that you can’t just push off to states, and I think that’s letting a lot of these violations just sit,” Eric Schaeffer, executive director of Environmental Integrity Project and a former top EPA enforcement official under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, said in response to a question from the subcommittee’s vice chair Joseph Kennedy III (D-MA) on whether states are filling gaps left by the deference policy.
Speaking to Inside EPA after the hearing, Bakeyah Nelson, executive director of Air Alliance Houston, said the Trump EPA, both before and after Bodine’s memo, has stood behind decisions by the Texas Council on Environmental Quality not to enforce against facilities that released toxic chemicals during the massive floods caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and to impose what she called inadequate fines on other violators.
“I think that we live in a state where we know that they’re not penalizing . . . if the penalty is not strong enough, there’s no profit incentive to comply. There’s enforcement there but no teeth behind it,” she said.
And Schaeffer in a separate interview with Inside EPA named the ongoing controversy over chloroprene releases from the Denka Performance Elastomers plant in LaPlace, LA, as an example of one such violation.
“To bring what states are doing into the conversation, that makes sense. What I’m going to keep doing with them is I’m going to take these big, dirty cases and keep dropping them on them, and say ‘what does cooperative federalism mean here? What’s the outcome? That’s what people care about,” Schaeffer said.
https://insideepa.com/weekly-focus/epa-touts-enforcement-deference-policy-also-eyes-state-%E2%80%98assists%E2%80%99
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Louisiana’s Garret Graves to Lead GOP on House Climate Panel
Feb 28, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker and Abby Smith
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), a former coastal protection official in an oil-producing state, will lead Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also announced Feb. 28 the appointments of five other GOP lawmakers to the panel: Morgan Griffith (Va.), Gary Palmer (Ala.), Buddy Carter (Ga.), Carol Miller (W.Va.), and Kelly Armstrong (N.D.).
“I think that there’s both a biogenic or natural impact and I think that there’s also a man-made impact that is contributing, and I do think that we should be looking at it holistically,” Graves told CNN last year to describe his views on climate change.
Graves, who was elected in 2014, was head of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, where he created a $50 billion, 50-year master plan to promote coastal restoration and improve hurricane protection, and coordinated the state’s response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
He was also staff director for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee’s panel on climate change and its impacts.
Graves said in a statement he would pursue an “all-of-the-above energy strategy” on the panel.
“So far, the entire climate debate covers only part of the whole equation,” Graves said. “Energy production and consumption, mitigation and adaptation, and shared responsibility must be discussed if we’re truly going to be ‘global’ in this important conversation.”
0 Percent LCV Score
Democrats revived the select committee on climate this year as a forum for ideas to address warming temperatures, extreme weather, and rising sea levels. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) is the chairwoman.
Graves hasn’t voted with Democrats on major environmental legislation. The League of Conservation Voters’ legislative scorecard gave him a 3 percent career rating, with a 0 percent score in 2018.
He led the House Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment last year, where he was a frequent critic of the Army Corps of Engineers. He currently sits on the transportation panel and the Natural Resources Committee.
Of the remaining GOP members, Griffith had the highest lifetime LCV score: 5 percent. Palmer’s lifetime score was 1 percent and Carter’s was 0 percent. Both Armstrong and Miller are freshmen.
Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the right-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute, said Graves wasn’t his first choice for ranking member, but is relieved the committee doesn’t include any members of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus.
GOP Carbon Tax Backer Left Off Panel
The Climate Solutions Caucus formed in 2016 to develop bipartisan policies to address climate change. Its chairs are Florida Reps. Ted Deutch (D) and Francis Rooney (R).
Rooney, who won’t sit on the select committee, praised Graves as “pretty reasonable and pretty smart” in the environmental space.
Rooney told Bloomberg Environment last month he would like a spot on the select committee. But he told reporters Feb. 28 at a Center for Climate and Energy Solutions event, “I think it’s probably just as good that I’m not on it if [Republicans] are going to use it as a political weapon against the other side.”
Rooney touted several of his carbon tax bills at the event, including one he introduced with Deutch. He also noted he is working again on a resolution acknowledging concerns about sea level rise caused by global warming, as well as legislation banning offshore drilling off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
“We have a lot of interested Democrats in the carbon tax bills. Everybody in Florida is concerned about sea level rise,” Rooney told reporters. “I wouldn’t want to have those agendas shanghaied by getting into one of those competitive partisan things.”
(Adds full roster of Republican members and additional reaction.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/louisianas-garret-graves-to-lead-gop-on-house-climate-panel-1
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Committee Roster Exposes Republican Fault Lines
Mar 1, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk and George Cahlink
One has a deep background in climate and coastal adaptation. One is a good friend of the Koch political network. Two come from coal country.
The Republican roster for the climate change select committee reflects the party's larger variety of stances on climate change, although its most outspoken advocates for aggressive action on emissions were left off.
In short, the GOP is all over the place.
The roster of Republicans for the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, announced yesterday by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), will be led by Rep. Garret Graves.
The Louisiana lawmaker served on his state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, where he helped craft a massive coastal restoration and levee program after Hurricane Katrina. And he was once a staff director for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Global Climate Change and Impacts under then-Sen. David Vitter (R-La.).
Graves is in some ways the quintessential Republican on climate. He's concerned about the effects of sea-level rise on his district, but he's not hesitant to tout the benefits of natural gas in reducing emissions or the "all of the above" energy agenda.
"I've been working in this area for a while, and Louisiana's in a unique spot just because we have both sea rise facing us and we're one of the top energy producers," he told E&E News last month. "I think it's a unique perspective."
Graves could use his spot on the panel to push climate adaptation measures for sea-level rise, which he said is "the threat that's closest to the door." He's already worked on water infrastructure issues on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and was heavily involved in the Disaster Recovery Reform Act, a major set of disaster reforms enacted last year.
But other Republicans on the select committee have openly disputed climate science or have deeper ties to the fossil fuel industry and conservative donors who have long opposed action on climate change.
They'll sit across from a group of Democrats, led by Chairwoman Kathy Castor of Florida, who will be tasked with driving home and publicizing the party's message on climate change (Greenwire, Feb. 7).Low scores, big dollars
The Republican roster is primarily defined by low ratings from environmental groups and big campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry.
It also represents a mix of energy interests and could help rally around the Republican claim that natural gas and nuclear are the path forward on climate.
Reps. Morgan Griffith of Virginia, Buddy Carter of Georgia, Gary Palmer of Alabama, Carol Miller of West Virginia and Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota round out the GOP roster.
While all the GOP picks are conservative, Griffith and Palmer are members of the House Freedom Caucus, the hard-right group filled with climate deniers and deep doubts about the regulatory role of EPA.
The conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, a fierce EPA critic, recommended six members for the panel, but only Griffith made the cut. The Virginia lawmaker said he has not talked with the group about the opening.
An Energy and Commerce Committee member, Griffith has often fought EPA rules that target coal, a large economic driver in his district located in the southwestern part of the state. He has sought funding for the redevelopment of abandoned mines.
"As long as we make it clear they have to follow rules and realistic science, I am fine with it," Griffith said when asked about EPA's role in regulating greenhouse gases.
Griffith does not deny climate change but has raised concerns that other countries are doing less than the U.S. to cut global emissions, a common Republican line echoed across the Energy and Commerce panel. He's an ally of the Koch brothers, who helped him oust Democrat Rick Boucher, one of the lead authors of the 2009 cap-and-trade bill.
Asked about allies on the panel, Griffith said he gets "along well" with Palmer and knows Democratic Rep. Don McEachin of Virginia from their days in the state Legislature.
Since his election to Congress in 2010, Griffith has taken more than $700,000 from the fossil fuel industry and electric utilities, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He has a 5 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters.
Palmer, who sits on the Science and Transportation and Infrastructure committees, has gone further than many Republicans in questioning not only the cause, but whether climate change is even underway. He has questioned the accuracy of global warming studies and was forced to correct himself in 2017 when he said Arctic ice sheets were expanding rather than, in fact, shrinking.
Palmer has consistently argued that Congress never gave EPA the right to regulate greenhouse gases and believes the courts are wrong in backing that right. Still, he told E&E last year it's "political nonsense" to say the GOP wants to eliminate all regulations, saying it only wants "sensible" ones.
Elected in 2014, Palmer has received $139,000 from energy and natural gas interests, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He has a 1 percent lifetime LCV score.
Carter has a similarly abysmal record in LCV's estimation, coming in with a zero percent lifetime score, but he doesn't take as hard a stance on climate science.
"I acknowledge that climate change is a problem," Carter said during his campaign last year, according to the Savannah Morning News. "I question sometimes how much of it is man-made but I acknowledge that we need to address it and I've always done that."
His district runs the span of Georgia's coast and is near Plant Vogtle, currently the nation's sole nuclear power project.
The two freshmen selected for the panel hail from rural states heavily reliant on the fossil fuel industry.
Armstrong, an attorney who worked for his family oil business and owns a few hundred wells himself in North Dakota, is the sole congressman from a state with huge gas and oil holdings in the Bakken Shale.
He has argued against the United States going it alone on climate policy and prefers that states, not EPA, regulate the environment (E&E Daily, Jan. 11).
Armstrong was elected to replace Kevin Cramer (R), who is now in the Senate, and his largest source of campaign donations was the oil and gas industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Miller, who won an open-seat race, is certain to tout White House policies that promote and protect domestic coal, one of West Virginia's leading exports. A bison farmer who owns a car dealership, she also has expressed doubts over federal spending on the expanding use of renewable fuels. In a year that saw a large number of women elected to Congress, Miller was the only new female GOP member.'I'll take that two ways'
While conservative and moderate climate activists praised Graves, there were also some notable omissions from the panel.
Not a single member who was on the Climate Solutions Caucus last Congress made it onto the roster, nor did Reps. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), the two most outspoken House Republicans on climate issues.
Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.). U.S. House/Wikipedia
Rooney had even asked McCarthy to be on the panel, as had Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the former ranking member of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming from 2007 to 2011.
But Rooney suggested it might be a good thing he wasn't selected if the committee ends up being a forum for partisan bickering about established science.
"I'll take that two ways," Rooney told reporters yesterday. "First of all, it shows that they're not where I am yet, and it makes me feel really good about being where I am."
Still, it's "a bit puzzling" that none of the Republicans from the Solutions Caucus made it onto the panel, said Steve Valk, spokesman for Citizens' Climate Lobby.
"Graves appears to be a good pick for ranking member," Valk said in an email. "His district faces many challenges with climate change, and he's expressed the need for action."
Alex Flint, executive director of the Alliance for Market Solutions, a conservative carbon tax group, similarly praised the selection of Graves.
"That is a clear signal that the Republican leadership is comfortable with someone who acknowledges climate change leading Republicans on this issue," Flint said in an email.
But even Graves has just a 3 percent lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters and took more than $130,000 from oil and gas political action committees in the last election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.'We're speaking for ourselves now'
The mix of Republican ideologies — and the tension between deniers and nominal believers — is also evident elsewhere on Capitol Hill.
On Wednesday, the Congressional Western Caucus gathered reporters outside the Capitol to rail against climate science and the "Green New Deal." House Natural Resources ranking member Rob Bishop (R-Utah) ate a hamburger, saying that the "Green New Deal" would ban cows, and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) falsely suggested that carbon dioxide is not bad for the planet because plants use it for photosynthesis (E&E Daily, Feb. 28).
Then, the next morning at the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change, the Republican climate evolution some activists have been claiming to see for years was on full display.
Members including Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and full committee ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) continued to rebut the legality of the Paris climate agreement, but they also called for bipartisan climate action that stresses "innovation," pleas that would have been stunning just a few years ago.
"We're speaking for ourselves now," as opposed to letting Democrats control the message on climate, Walden told reporters.
"There's a lot of stuff we can work together on," he added.
What that atmosphere means for climate legislation and for debates on the select committee is still not clear, but Rooney said he's hoping to turn freshly converted Republicans into carbon tax believers.
Some Republicans might even jump on board with carbon pricing to counter the progressive "Green New Deal," which would rely heavily on government spending on infrastructure, research and development, Rooney said.
"I think the 'Green New Deal' may have gotten people's attention," Rooney said. "It certainly got Walden's."
Asked about carbon pricing yesterday as he ducked back into the House chamber, Walden didn't rule it out.
"I'm not going to get into all those discussions yet," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/03/01/stories/1060122773
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GOP Assigns Climate Doubters to 'Crisis' Committee
Mar 1, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews
Most of the six Republicans assigned yesterday to a new House committee on climate change have a history of either doing little to confront global warming or have opposed efforts outright to address the causes and consequences of a hotter planet.
They include freshman Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.), who defended coal as "clean" this week on Twitter, and Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), who rallied his colleagues in 2015 behind a letter that criticized the Obama administration for its plans to send money to a U.N. climate fund.
Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama, another GOP member named to the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, introduced a bill four years ago that aimed to stop EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
"The EPA has repeatedly claimed fighting climate change as justification for crafting onerous regulations that limit carbon dioxide, water vapor, and other compounds that are both essentially harmless and in fact required for life to flourish," Palmer said in a statement at the time.
Some on the left already have derided the new climate committee as toothless — in large part because the panel led by Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) won't have the power to issue subpoenas or move legislation (Climatewire, Jan. 2).
The panel's GOP members are unlikely to assuage concerns about the committee's long-term effectiveness.
"It is a dereliction of duty for Republicans to have named members to the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis who have questioned the validity of long established climate science and have accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from polluting fossil fuel interests," Sara Chieffo, vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, said in a statement.
In addition to Griffith, Miller and Palmer, the three other Republican members are Reps. Buddy Carter of Georgia, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota and Garret Graves of Louisiana.
Graves, who worked with the administration of former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) to try to prepare the state for rising sea levels, will serve as the committee's top Republican (E&E Daily, April 26, 2016).
He was described by several environmental groups as a potential bright spot.
"The most important decision was the designation of Congressman Graves as the ranking Republican," said Alex Flint, executive director of the Alliance for Market Solutions, a conservative group that touts the benefits of a carbon tax to address global warming. "Graves has acknowledged climate change, and he will set the tone for Republicans on the committee."
Steve Valk of the Citizens' Climate Lobby added: "Graves appears to be a good pick for ranking member. His district faces many challenges with climate change, and he's expressed the need ... for action."
In a statement, Graves highlighted the importance of a holistic response to global warming.
"The entire climate debate covers only part of the whole equation," he said. "Energy production and consumption, mitigation and adaptation, and shared responsibility must be discussed if we're truly going to be 'global' in this important conversation."
None of the Republican lawmakers named to the committee — including Graves — has a lifetime score above 6 percent with the League of Conservation Voters.
Nor did any of them who served in Congress last session join the Climate Solutions Caucus. Although that bipartisan group hasn't accomplished much legislatively, its members at least have raised concerns about global warming.
"It's a bit puzzling that none of the Republicans who were on the Climate Solutions Caucus were named to the climate committee," Valk said. "They were the ones who were most proactive on climate change, and their presence on the new committee would have been a positive sign."
In the case of Armstrong and Miller, their absence from the Climate Solutions Caucus and their nonexistent scores with the League of Conservation Voters are because both lawmakers are freshmen. But each has opined on climate or energy issues in recent weeks.
Miller savaged the "Green New Deal" in an opinion piece this week. She wrote that the liberal-led plan to fight climate change with a massive jobs program was "nothing more than societal engineering with the intention to restart Obama's War on Coal."
And in a related Twitter post, she voiced support for coal — a key contributor of the carbon emissions behind global warming. "It is important to remember that today coal is clean, affordable, dependable and allows our country to be self-reliant," she wrote.
As for Armstrong, he told E&E News in January that he doesn't deny the scientific consensus on climate change but added that the U.S. shouldn't move forward unless "you get the entire world to deal with it" (E&E Daily, Jan. 11).
In a follow-up statement yesterday, he made a similar point.
"Reducing carbon emissions must be a global effort that includes China and India, who respectively led the world in emissions and emissions growth last year," Armstrong said. "The United States can lead in reducing carbon emissions without jeopardizing our economy by focusing on technology and innovation."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/03/01/stories/1060122761
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Agencies in ‘a Corner’ on Using Carbon Cost in NEPA, Environmentalists Say
Feb 28, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
Environmentalists are increasingly confident they can force the Trump administration to use the social cost of carbon (SCC) metric to calculate the future climate damages of its fossil fuel extraction policies, even though the administration remains vehemently opposed to doing so, including in ongoing litigation over a coal mine expansion.
The SCC is a metric that monetizes the climate-related damage caused by emitting an incremental ton of carbon dioxide, providing a measure of the benefits of rules that cut greenhouse gases.
The Trump administration officials has shelved metrics developed by the Obama administration and has instead adopted “interim” estimates that are drastically lower, largely by using a higher discount rate and by considering only domestic climates damages, rather than global risks.
Like the prior administration, however, Trump officials have been reluctant to use the SCC in project-specific analysis, saying it is not appropriate.
But in a ruling earlier this month in WildEarth Guardians, et al. v. Ryan Zinke, et al., a magistrate judge in federal district court in Montana found that the Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining (OSM) acted arbitrarily when it failed to use the SCC in a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review for the planned expansion of the Spring Creek coal mine.
But like a 2014 landmark ruling by a Colorado federal district judge in High Country Conservation Advocates v. U.S. Forest Service, the court here is stopping short of requiring OSM to use the SCC.
Courts generally are unlikely to issue a ruling forcing an agency to use the carbon damage estimates because they do not like to substitute their judgment for an agency’s, according to one environmentalist involved in the case.
However, the magistrate’s finding that OSM’s reasons for not using the SCC were arbitrary “puts them into a bind and backs them in the corner we wanted them into. . . . We are feeling pretty confident that this might be the decision that gets us over the tipping point. It puts the agency in a position where there is no room to argue there are no carbon costs.”
In the findings, U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Cavan noted that the environmentalists do not argue that OSM’s disclosure of GHG effects was insufficient because if that were the case, the federal defendants would prevail. “Rather, Plaintiffs argue that because OSM quantified the benefits of the mine expansion, it was required to quantify the costs.
“The Court agrees. Because OSM quantified the benefits of the proposed action, it must also quantify the associated costs or offer non-arbitrary reasons for its decision not to. The question before this Court, then, is whether OSM’s decision not to use the SCC protocol was reasonable,” and the court determined it was not.
Cavan also rejected industry intervenors’ argument that OSM cannot be directed to use the SCC, which was developed by the Obama administration, because President Donald Trump withdrew the tool via an executive order.
“Regardless of administration policies that ebb and flow with the political tides, agencies must nevertheless comply with their obligation to properly quantify costs when they have touted economic benefits of a proposed action. The Court’s decision here does not mandate use of the SCC Protocol. But it does require OSM to comply with NEPA by either quantifying the costs associated with [GHGs] or by reasonably justifying why that cannot be done.”
Final Decision
The outcome of the case is not yet complete because the findings and recommendations must still go to Judge Susan Watters for a final decision.
Watters granted a Department of Justice (DOJ) request for an additional 14 days to file an objection to the magistrate’s findings, giving both the department and environmentalists until March 14 to submit any opposition.
The magistrate recommended that the court defer vacatur of OSM’s environmental assessment (EA) for 240 days, which is intended to give it time to prepare an updated EA addressing the carbon costs. Cavan also noted that if OSM determines it needs to conduct a more detailed environmental impact statement (EIS), it could ask the court for additional time.
If Watters accepts Cavan’s recommendations, environmentalists are confident that OSM would have little choice but to calculate the damages of expanded coal mining, including when that coal is burned for energy, using the SCC. “What we got here was a judge saying, ‘I am not buying your arguments,’” the environmentalist says. “And if they want to continue along this track of continuing to deny or exclude carbon costs, they’ve got their work cut out for them. All the scientific research says [the SCC] is valid, insightful and should be used in decisionmaking.”
The environmentalist adds that plaintiffs may also object to the recommendations because they want the NEPA review to be vacated now, rather than deferred. “We don’t feel like that is holding the agency accountable and is promoting the ongoing cycle of doing a shoddy job [under NEPA] and then getting overturned in court. At some point there have to be consequences on the ground, other than doing more paperwork.”
After the two sides submit objections, Watters is likely to issue a ruling in 30 to 60 days, the source says.
The source adds that this is the second time Spring Creek expansion NEPA review has come before the same court, including before the same magistrate and federal district judge.
This suit was filed in June 2017, while the original suit, filed in February 2014, challenged OSM’s original approval of the mine expansion without any public input. In an October 2016 decision, Watters agreed with the challengers and required OSM to conduct a NEPA review. When OSM proposed its EA, WildEarth Guardians commented on the need to calculate the mine expansion’s carbon damages using a tool like the SCC, which OSM rejected in the final EA, which is the subject of this case.
This suit “gets to the heart of the matter, that OSM is not addressing the climate impacts of more coal mining,” the source says.
However, one industry attorney is skeptical that environmentalists’ broad campaign to force more thorough climate reviews under NEPA is making progress. Seth Jaffe of Foley Hoag wrote in a Feb. 17 blog post that the case “does not really break any new ground, but it does add to the growing number of cases in which courts have rejected federal action approving a variety of large facilities related to energy production in one way or another.”
Here, the court acknowledged that OSM “went off the rails [when] it performed an assessment of the benefits of the project without considering the costs imposed by the combustion of additional coal in electricity generation.”
However, Jaffe says it is worth noting that the court “once again chose not to vacate the mining plan approval or enjoin mining operations. The plaintiffs have to be wondering what it will take to get substantive, and not merely procedural, relief. Perhaps the Court is waiting for three strikes.”
High Country Case
After the initial ruling in the High Country case, which was first litigated during the Obama administration, the Forest Service considered filing an appeal, but ultimately opted to move forward with a supplemental EIS issued in the final days of the administration that used a qualitative analysis to estimate the effect of the GHG emissions, instead of using the SCC.
It also approved the project -- which allows the construction of roads in a roadless national forest to facilitate coal mining -- and environmentalists went back to court over the revised analysis, with the Trump administration defending the decision.
In August, Judge Philip Brimmer issued a final judgment siding with the Forest Service, and on Sept. 10 environmental groups appealed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
Environmentalists filed their opening brief Nov. 21, addressing issues broader than the SCC and arguing the administration failed to consider approving narrower alternatives to lessen climate impacts.
The Forest Service reply brief is due March 14.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/agencies-%E2%80%98-corner%E2%80%99-using-carbon-cost-nepa-environmentalists-say
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Former CASAC Chair Alleges ‘Procedural Irregularities’ In NAAQS Reviews
Feb 28, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
A former chairman of EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) is alleging “procedural irregularities” in the conduct of current panel chairman Tony Cox, charging it further undermines the credibility of the EPA’s truncated process for reviewing national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
In written comments submitted to EPA Feb. 27, Chris Frey, CASAC's former chairman and a member of previous specialized subpanels, says Cox's conduct acting outside of formal public settings further compromises the integrity of NAAQS reviews.
Frey says that Cox asked EPA staff and a third-party organization, the Health Effects Institute (HEI), written questions outside of the formal CASAC process that is subject to federal regulations under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).
This flouts the ability of the public to follow proceedings, contrary to FACA, Frey says.
In a statement, an EPA spokeswoman rejected Frey’s claims that the agency’s interactions are at odds with FACA. “The open meeting and advance public notification requirements of FACA only pertain to committee meetings. The follow-up questions from a CASAC member and the responses from the EPA and the public are not considered committee meetings and therefore do not need to occur in a public setting nor do they require any public notification.
“The follow-up questions from a CASAC member and the responses from the EPA and the public are considered committee records and must be available for public inspection. We meet the public inspection requirements of FACA by posting these records on the publicly accessible meeting webpage,” she added.
Frey and other former panelists have leveled withering criticism of the current seven-member CASAC, charging that without the help of specialized subpanels that EPA has scrapped, the chartered panel lacks the expertise and capacity to properly oversee NAAQS reviews.
Their criticism is directed at policies put in place by former Administrator Scott Pruitt, who in a May 9 memo set out a policy to shorten NAAQS reviews, by producing fewer documents in the process.
Agency air chief Bill Wehrum has continued this policy and has encouraged CASAC to produce fewer drafts of documents, and less EPA consultation with the panel.
Wehrum’s goal is to complete review of the ozone NAAQS by the statutory deadline of October 2020, and the particulate matter (PM) NAAQS by December 2020, including “fine” particulate, or PM2.5. At a Dec. 12 and 13 public meeting of CASAC in Arlington, VA, the panel discussed the PM2.5 review, but some panelists requested further drafts of the integrated science assessment under discussion.
But Frey and other former panelists have already warned EPA and CASAC that the agency’s minimalist approach to review of NAAQS-related scientific documents risks making the eventual NAAQS rules themselves legally indefensible.
For example, he called the truncated review process a “joke” and warned the shortened approach undermines the panel's ability to credibly assess the PM NAAQS as mandated by law.
Accountability Studies
Now Frey is criticizing Cox's efforts, citing a Dec. 14 email to HEI on Cox’s behalf in which an EPA staff member asked HEI about the benefits of accountability studies, which evaluate the effectiveness of pollution control programs.
“To your knowledge, have accountability studies been completed from which it is possible to obtain quantitative estimates of the increases in life expectancy or decreases in all-cause or cause-specific mortality or morbidity rates caused by the independent direct effects of reductions in ambient PM levels?” the agency asked.
HEI, which is funded jointly by EPA and industry, is funding research in this emerging field.
But Cox, a longtime industry consultant, is a noted skeptic of some “causal” linkages between air pollution and certain adverse health effects.
In its Feb. 21 response, HEI said that none of the studies it is funding “has been designed specifically to provide the quantitative estimates mentioned in the question, [although] many of them do take advantage of the clear temporal variation in exposure before and after an intervention to determine . . . that the interventions resulted in clear and quantifiable changes in air pollution and different measures of health outcomes.”
But it caveated that statement by pointing to certain design elements in studies that could produce misleading results, observing that where multiple pollution reduction programs are in place, is hard to pinpoint which one is producing the most benefit.
It said it “stands ready to provide whatever additional information you might find useful, or to answer any further questions that CASAC might have.”
But Frey says the communication between EPA and HEI is not consistent with CASAC operating procedures or with FACA. And its apparent request for public comment from some but not all members of the public is unusual. “A request for public comment is properly conveyed via a Federal Register notice of a public meeting of the CASAC,” he says.
‘Unilateral’ Actions
And he says Cox’s “unilateral” actions give the false impression that Cox is speaking for the entire CASAC, when in fact he is speaking only for himself. “No one, not even the chair, can speak for CASAC. CASAC speaks for itself via letters to the Administrator that have been approved by the chartered CASAC,” Frey writes.
“The formal process for how CASAC can and should interact with EPA is not amenable to an ongoing dialectic approach of individual members peppering the agency staff with questions in a post hoc and ad hoc manner. The public has a right to expect that interactions between CASAC and EPA will take place at publicly noticed meetings in the full view of the public,” Frey writes.
Further, “such post hoc and ad hoc communications that circumvent the public meeting should not occur because they do not represent a clear operating procedure and potentially may be contrary to statute and guidance.”
Also, Frey takes issue with a memo written by Cox posing questions for the panel to consider at the December meeting. “It is highly unusual and inappropriate for the chair of CASAC to, in effect, create their own set of charge questions, as was the case” in the undated memo.
The memo file name includes an apparent date, “10302018,” suggesting it “may have been issued on October 30,” yet was not revealed to the public until Dec. 12.
Frey says, “CASAC does not exist to answer questions posed by the chair.” Therefore, “Members of CASAC should be informed that they have no obligation whatsoever to answer the ad hoc questions that were posed by the chair.”
The current CASAC lacks experience, Frey says. “The apparent lack of understanding of, attention to, and respect for proper operating procedures seems to be a culture of the current CASAC.” He references Cox’s suggestion to create a “tiger team” to look into certain issues, or other “creative” ways of doing things. Such remarks could create the impression “that communications may have taken place outside of the proper public deliberative process.”
In general, “the procedural irregularities” identified “significantly undermine confidence that the chartered CASAC is compliant with applicable operating procedures and laws and further undermines the credibility of the review process,” Frey concludes. He urges EPA to “publicly issue clarifications for the benefit of the public, and the members of CASAC, on how CASAC should conduct its work” at the next CASAC public meeting.
But it is unclear when such a meeting might take place. CASAC’s public calendar shows no scheduled meetings for 2019, though EPA in a Feb. 28 Federal Register notice sought applications to recruit an expert in ecology to the panel.
The EPA spokeswoman says that an unnamed member of the current panel “is retiring from federal service and has requested to resign from the CASAC.” However, CASAC member Timothy Lewis is listed on the CASAC website as a “supervisory research ecologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/former-casac-chair-alleges-%E2%80%98procedural-irregularities%E2%80%99-naaqs-reviews
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