PM ACC Clips Report - March 4, 2018

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) ACC's Chemical Activity Barometer Flat in February

   Feb 26, 2019 | Chemical Week

   By Vincent Valk
   
   
   The ACC’s chemical activity barometer (CAB), a leading indicator of economic activity, was flat sequentially on a 3-month-moving-average (3MMA) basis in February. On a year-on-year (YOY) basis, the CAB was up by 0.2% using a...
2. (ACC Mentioned) Gasification Bill Reignites R.I. Incinerator Debate

   Mar 4, 2019 | EcoRI News

   By Tim Faulkner
   
   
   Concerns about incineration are back, with a bill that seeks to approve gasification facilities in Rhode Island. Last year, a swift and sudden outcry stopped a woody biomass incinerator project from moving forward. In previous years, the...
3. John Hickenlooper Jumps into Crowded 2020 Field with Ground to Make Up

   Mar 4, 2019 | Politico

   By Nolan D. McCaskill
   
   
   John Hickenlooper announced Monday he’s running for president, drawing on 16 years of executive experience as Denver mayor and Colorado governor. “I’m running for president because we need dreamers in Washington, but we...

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

Chemical Management News

4. (ACC Mentioned) Court to Hear Lawsuit Challenging EPA Oversight Chemical Rules

   Mar 4, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Pat Rizzuto
   
   
   The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear oral arguments May 16 in a lawsuit challenging two of the EPA’s three core rules describing its oversight of chemicals. The court will hear arguments in Seattle from Safer...
5. (ACC Mentioned) California's Straw Law Gains Interest

   Mar 4, 2019 | Plastics News

   By Jeremy Carroll
   
   
   California's new plastic straw law seems to be gaining popularity. The law mandates restaurants only hand out plastic straws to customers if they ask for them. It's one of those compromises that most people on both sides say, "Well...
6. Frustrated by EPA, States Blaze Ahead on PFAs

   Mar 4, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire

   By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalde
   
   
   EPA's action plan on toxic chemicals found in drinking water did not satisfy several states that plan to push forward with their own policies. The per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, plan announced last month promised a...
7. EPA's Plan to Regulate Chemical Contaminants in Drinking Water Is a Drop in the Bucket

   Mar 4, 2019 | Common Dreams

   By Laurel Schaider
   
   
   After more than a year of community meetings and deliberations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in February 2019 that it would begin the process of regulating two drinking water contaminants, seeking to stem...
8. Erin Brockovich’s Continued Battle for Clean Water

   Mar 4, 2019 | PIX 11 News

   By Dan Mannarino
   
   
   One of the most hazardous chemical compounds can be found in nearly every household item from non-stick pans, cleaners and even cosmetics. It's called PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic acid). Environmental activist Erin Brockovich says...
9. Communicating Low Impact of Trace Pesticides in Food Trips Up EPA

   Mar 4, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Adam Allington
   
   
   The EPA says it needs to do more to tell people that small amounts of pesticides in food don’t pose significant health risks. Speaking at a meeting of state departments of agriculture on March, 4, Alexandra Dunn, the head of the...
10. The Government Has No Clue What’s in Your Beauty Products. Beautycounter Is Finding Out

    Mar 4, 2019 | Fast Company

    By Elizabeth Segran
    
    
    Do you really know what went into the lotion you slathered on your face this morning, or the soap you used in the shower? Well, I have scary news for you: Many of the ingredients that go into our beauty and skincare products are...

Energy News

11. U.S., China Close In on Trade Deal

    Mar 3, 2019 | Wall Street Journal

    By Lingling Wei and Bob Davis
    
    
    China and the U.S. are in the final stage of completing a trade deal, with Beijing offering to lower tariffs and other restrictions on American farm, chemical, auto and other products and Washington considering removing most, if not...
12. US Senate, House Bills Try to Ease FERC LNG Project Review Logjam

    Mar 4, 2019 | Oil & Gas Journal

    By Nick Snow
    
    
    US Sen. Energy and Natural Resources Committee member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and two other Republicans on the committee introduced a bill on Mar. 1 aimed at reducing delays in decisions for LNG export terminals and other...
13. A New Battle over Oil and Gas Drilling Just Broke out in Colorado

    | CNBC

    By Tom DiChristopher
    
    
    Colorado drillers are gearing up for a fight after Democratic lawmakers proposed overhauling the state’s oil and gas commission and reforming regulations that could create new roadblocks to fossil fuel development.Two of the state’s...
14. Oil Rises as U.S.-China Trade Deal Nears While Supply Tightens

    Mar 4, 2019 | Bloomberg (In Houston Chronicle)

    By Saket Sundria and Grant Smith
    
    
    Oil climbed as the U.S. and China were said to near a deal on trade that would underpin the outlook for crude demand, while supplies around the world showed signs of tightening. Futures in New York rose as much as 1 percent after a...
15. Shale Companies, Adding Ever More Wells, Threaten Future of U.S. Oil Boom

    Mar 3, 2019 | Wall Street Journal

    By Christopher M. Matthews, Rebecca Elliott and Bradley Olson
    
    
    Shale companies’ strategy to supercharge oil and gas production by drilling thousands of new wells more closely together is turning out to be a bust. What’s more, the approach is hurting the performance of older existing wells...

Chemical Security News

16. The U.S. Is Trying to End the Longest Oil Spill in History. and This Company Is Fighting against It in Court.

    Mar 2, 2019 | Washington Post

    By Darryl Fears
    
    
    As the longest offshore oil spill in U.S. history creeps toward its 15th year, the federal government is preparing to launch a determined effort to contain the oil and cap the leaking wells. But the energy company responsible for the...

Transportation and Infrastructure News

17. High-Speed Rail in the U.S. Remains Elusive: Illinois Shows Why

    Mar 4, 2019 | Wall Street Journal

    By Shayndi Raice and Paul Overberg
    
    
    Amtrak’s route from Chicago to St. Louis would seem an ideal place for the U.S. to adopt high-speed rail such as in Europe and Asia, where passenger trains can race along at 200 miles an hour. The stretch in Illinois is a straight shot...

Environment News

18. Wheeler Adds to Leadership Team In First Week as EPA Head

    Mar 4, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Abby Smith
    
    
    Andrew Wheeler is pulling the EPA’s Region 8 chief into his leadership team, the agency’s new chief announced March 4. Wheeler, confirmed by the Senate Feb. 28 as the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, said he added four...
19. Wheeler Brings on New Public Affairs Chief

    Mar 4, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire

    By Kevin Bogardus
    
    
    Fresh off his Senate confirmation, Andrew Wheeler has brought on a slate of new senior officials at EPA, including a public affairs chief, the agency announced this morning. Corry Schiermeyer will be EPA's associate administrator of...
20. Ewire: Democrats Plan Climate 'Counteroffensive' Ahead of 2020

    Mar 4, 2019 | Inside EPA

    Capitol Hill Democrats are increasing their focus on climate change politics ahead of the 2020 elections, betting that the issue with drive enough young voters and progressives to the polls to help the party re-take the White House and...
21. The Energy 202: Climate Change Is Jay Inslee's Top Priority in Washington. How Will It Play in 2020?

    Mar 4, 2019 | Washington Post

    By Dino Grandoni
    
    
    Climate change is poised to be a big issue in the race for the Democratic nomination. But there hasn’t been a candidate who has made the issue the center of his or her pitch for president — until now. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee...
22. Atmospheric Methane Levels Have Surged in the Last Decade, and Scientists Aren’t Sure Why

    Mar 4, 2019 | Newsweek

    By Hannah Osborne
    
    
    Levels of atmospheric methane—a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide—have surged over the past decade, and scientists are not sure why. The amount of methane released into the atmosphere since 2007 accounts...

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) ACC's Chemical Activity Barometer Flat in February

   Feb 26, 2019 | Chemical Week

   By Vincent Valk

   The ACC’s chemical activity barometer (CAB), a leading indicator of economic activity, was flat sequentially on a 3-month-moving-average (3MMA) basis in February. On a year-on-year (YOY) basis, the CAB was up by 0.2% using a 3MMA comparison.

   “The Chemical Activity Barometer reading was essentially flat in February following three months of decline,” says Kevin Swift, chief economist at ACC. “The cumulative drop was 1.0 percent—still well below the 3.0 percent threshold for a recession signal. The latest CAB signals gains in US commercial and industrial activity through mid-2019, but at a slower rate of growth as compared with a year earlier.”

   All four of the CAB’s components reported increases in February. The four components are production, equity prices, product prices, and inventories and other indicators. “Trends in construction-related resins, pigments and related performance chemistry were mixed and suggest slow housing activity,” ACC says. “Despite weakness in the latest retail sales report, plastic resins used in packaging and in consumer and institutional applications were positive. Performance chemistry gained and US exports were mixed. Equity prices rebounded sharply this month, and product and input prices rose as well. Inventory and other indicators were positive.”

   The US federal government shutdown delayed publication of some data that ACC compared with the CAB, creating difficulty in gauging current economic conditions, ACC adds.

   https://chemweek.com/CW/Document/101835/ACCs-chemical-activity-barometer-flat-in-February
   

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2. (ACC Mentioned) Gasification Bill Reignites R.I. Incinerator Debate

   Mar 4, 2019 | EcoRI News

   By Tim Faulkner

   Concerns about incineration are back, with a bill that seeks to approve gasification facilities in Rhode Island.

   Last year, a swift and sudden outcry stopped a woody biomass incinerator project from moving forward.

   In previous years, the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC), manager of the Central Landfill in Johnston, has unsuccessfully sought permission from the General Assembly to at least study the concept of incineration as an alternative to landfilling.

   The latest effort calls for approval to build plastic gasification plants. Plastic gasification is the process of converting plastics, or polymers, back to the their raw materials: fossil fuels and chemicals. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has been promoting this legislation around the country as a form of recycling and power generation. Three states, including Florida, have passed legislation allowing polymer gasification plants.

   Environmentalists say gasification has failed for decades to show any benefits.

   “What we know about these facilities is that they are polluting. The are very expensive. They are energy inefficient. They destroy resources that could and should be recycled,” Jerry Elmer, senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, said during a Feb. 28 House hearing for H5448.

   The bill excludes some plastics from mandatory recycling laws and exempts gasification plants from being classified as waste management facilities or incinerators. The ACC argues that the process of heating and breaking down the plastics, called pyrolysis, creates valuable liquid industrial fuels, chemicals, waxes, and lubricants.

   Elmer said gasification plants shouldn’t be excluded from the state’s ban on incinerators, because the emissions are worse than those from traditional trash incinerators, often referred to as waste-to-energy facilities. Heating the plastics and pulling out the raw gases and chemical release dioxins, lead, arsenic, mercury, and other pollutants linked to asthma and cancer. The emissions also include carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

   John Berard state director of Rhode Island Clean Water Action said the bill is a ploy to lift the ban on incinerators and justify the manufacturing of more plastic packaging and materials. Berard said plastic waste reduction should occur by finding alternative materials to plastics not through “end-of-pipe solutions.”

   The bill is also opposed by the Environment Council of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

   Joan Milas, the Rhode Island lobbyists for the ACC, said gasification will help alleviate the need for more space at the Central Landfill. She noted that Rep. Stephen Ucci, D-Johnston, and Sen. Frank Lombardo, D-Johnston, the sponsors for the House and Senate versions of the bill, are scheduled to meet March 20 with Joe Raposa, executive director of RIRRC, to discuss gasification.

   “We’re helping to help the landfill and at least do what we can to encourage the discussion,” Milas said.

   The bill was held for further study, as most bills are at the first hearing. The Senate version of the bill (S408) has yet to receive a hearing.

   https://www.ecori.org/government/2019/3/4/csl9tqsauq6hscbbbvyrwtud1rn20i
   

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3. John Hickenlooper Jumps into Crowded 2020 Field with Ground to Make Up

   Mar 4, 2019 | Politico

   By Nolan D. McCaskill

   John Hickenlooper announced Monday he’s running for president, drawing on 16 years of executive experience as Denver mayor and Colorado governor.

   “I’m running for president because we need dreamers in Washington, but we also need to get things done,” Hickenlooper says in a video announcing his candidacy. “I’ve proven again and again I can bring people together to produce the progressive change Washington has failed to deliver.”

   After a kickoff rally in Denver on Thursday, Hickenlooper’s next stop as a presidential candidate will be a two-day tour through Iowa, an early state that will be pivotal to his fortunes in a crowded Democratic field.

   The former Colorado governor begins at a disadvantage there, with low name recognition and a smaller campaign infrastructure than most rivals. While his name is a familiar one to older Iowa voters — a cousin, the late Bourke Hickenlooper, served as a Republican governor in the 1940s and later represented the state in the Senate for 24 years — John Hickenlooper was excluded from the latest poll.

   During a recent appearance at the Story County Democratic Party’s annual soup supper in Ames, the former Colorado governor was the only presidential candidate who wore a name tag. California Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, who also attended the supper, didn’t feel the need.The most reliable politics newsletter.

   Iowa Democrats say there’s precedent for a candidate like Hickenlooper to do well in the caucuses — only it was nearly a half-century ago, when then-Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter was largely unknown before he finished ahead of the four other candidates here in 1976.
   

   “It’s a place where people who may not be walking in with the most name ID or the most money can still do quite well,” said Troy Price, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party. “It’s not just name ID. It’s not just money. It’s who’s gonna go out there, make those connections and build those relationships.”

   Penny Rosfjord, a former chair of the Woodbury County Democrats who attended a recent meet-and-greet with Hickenlooper in Sioux City, said after hearing Hickenlooper speak, he might qualify as such a candidate.

   “I do think that everybody really has a shot at this,” she said, pointing to Carter’s surprise finish as proof. “Who’d have thought he would have won? By all accounts, he shouldn’t have, you know. I think that you can’t discount anyone. Yeah, name ID is a big thing, but if you can connect with the people, I think that’s a major part.”

   Hickenlooper’s announcement comes on the heels of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who launched his campaign on Friday.

   In a Democratic field featuring numerous legislators, Hickenlooper will attempt to distinguish himself by pointing to his executive accomplishments over two terms as Colorado governor and two terms as mayor of the state’s largest city. His electability is also a selling point: Hickenlooper became the first Denver mayor elected to the governorship in 120 years, and he did it in a 2010 election cycle that proved devastating for Democrats across the country.
   

   He was also one of just two Democrats to win gubernatorial elections in swing states in 2014, another tough year for Democratic candidates.

   Hickenlooper’s pitch, which often comes in small venues — during his last swing through Iowa he hosted meet-and-greets with roughly 20 voters inside a coffee shop and a table of 10 at his next stop inside a bar — is that he is the only “doer” in a field of talkers.

   “What I’m trying to do is run as the person who gets stuff done,” he told a handful of reporters last week inside a bar in Carroll, where he briefly engaged with the media before heading to his third and final stop of the day after campaigning in western Iowa. “There’s not a lot of people that bring people together.”

   A former geologist who once spent two years out of work, Hickenlooper became an entrepreneur, launching a successful brewpub in Denver in 1988. He opened two more brewpubs in Colorado and a dozen more across the Midwest, including in Des Moines.

   “They may be debaters or dreamers, and we need that,” he added of other candidates. “We need debaters. We need to debate policy and dreams to create new policy. But I’m a doer, and I think in a funny way I’m the one person that can say I have again and again and again brought people together.”

   Hickenlooper tells voters that he brought the oil and gas industry and environmentalists together to create methane regulations in Colorado and that he got Republicans and Democrats to work together to expand Medicaid in a state that’s nearing 95 percent coverage.
   

   Part of his strategy will be campaigning in western Iowa, the most conservative part of the state.

   “That goes to the type of voters he feels he can speak to,” said Lauren Hitt, a Hickenlooper spokeswoman. “He’s never had the luxury of just talking to people who already agree with him. He’s always had to go talk to people who may be skeptical or may be independents or may be looking for something different.”

   Hickenlooper’s advisers see parallels between Iowa and Colorado, two states with a near even divide of one-third Republicans, Democrats and independents. Colorado was also a caucus state in presidential years until 2016.

   While his campaign insists it won’t attempt to bypass New Hampshire and South Carolina — there are plans to hire teams in both early states — Hickenlooper’s Iowa focus is apparent from his already announced there: Sam Roecker and Ferguson Yacshyn, who were originally hired by Hickenlooper’s GiddyUp PAC, are transitioning into campaign roles as Iowa state director and caucus director, respectively.

   Roecker, who formerly ran former Lt. Gov. Patty Judge’s Senate campaign and worked on Christie Vilsack’s race against Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), said he was drawn by the campaign’s commitment to Iowa. He believes Iowa Democrats are looking for a candidate who can oust President Donald Trump in the general election — and authenticity is an essential trait.

   “It’s been several years since we’ve had a caucus cycle where you’ve got a really big field where you have candidates who have to really pay attention to retail politics,” he said. “And I think the governor is somebody who can really do that well. He comes off as very personable, very authentic and very willing to have these conversations that you have to do if you’re serious about running in the caucuses.”

   https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/04/john-hickenlooper-launches-presidential-campaign-1200725
   

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

Chemical Management News

4. (ACC Mentioned) Court to Hear Lawsuit Challenging EPA Oversight Chemical Rules

   Mar 4, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Pat Rizzuto

   The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear oral arguments May 16 in a lawsuit challenging two of the EPA’s three core rules describing its oversight of chemicals.

   The court will hear arguments in Seattle from Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and other nonprofit organizations concerning the Environmental Protection Agency‘s rule describing how it will select or “prioritize” chemicals for risk evaluation (RIN:2070-AK23) and its rule describing how it conducts risk evaluations (RIN:2070-AK20).

   The heart of the case involves the scope of chemical uses the EPA must examine under the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act amendments.

   The agency maintains that the law gives it discretion to exclude ways chemicals are made, used, distributed, and disposed of as it evaluates their potential to cause undue harm to people or the environment.
   

   Friends of the Court

   Nineteen industry trade associations representing companies that make, mix, distribute, use, and dispose of chemicals have intervened in the case as friends of the court, submitting their own reasons for backing the EPA position.

   These associations include the American Chemistry Council, American Forest & Paper Association, National Mining Association, Polyurethane Manufacturers Association, Silver Nanotechnology Working Group, and Utility Solid Waste Activities Group.

   The statute doesn’t give the EPA discretion to focus only on some uses of a chemical, the environmental, health, and labor organizations that are suing the agency said. Ignoring ways people and the environment are exposed to chemicals will result in the EPA illegally underestimating the chemicals potential for harm, they added.

   The case is Safer Chem Healthy Families v. USEPA, 9th Cir., No. 17-72260, 3/3/19.

   https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/court-to-hear-lawsuit-challenging-epa-oversight-chemical-rules
   

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5. (ACC Mentioned) California's Straw Law Gains Interest

   Mar 4, 2019 | Plastics News

   By Jeremy Carroll

   California's new plastic straw law seems to be gaining popularity. The law mandates restaurants only hand out plastic straws to customers if they ask for them.

   It's one of those compromises that most people on both sides say, "Well, yeah, that makes sense."

   After all, banning plastic straws outright seems shortsighted. There are legitimate reasons to have them, including for people with disabilities that count on straws to be able to drink. But it seems silly to stuff straws in drinks before it even reaches the table.

   NBC News took a look at the issue, with a report that quotes Scott DeFife of the Plastics Industry Association saying the organization supports these types of measures. The American Chemistry Council previously has said it is in favor of such laws. According to the report, seven other states are now considering similar legislation. They include Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Montana, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island.

   Not everyone is in favor of this approach. Groups like Greenpeace and U.S. PIRG would prefer outright bans. And they push back against states that move to pass preemption laws that essentially put a ban on bans.

   But the story is an interesting national look at the issue.

   I bring this story forward because five of the 10 straws I used in February were already in my drink before it ever came to me. Had a law existed in Michigan that limited my straw usage to only when I request one, I probably would have used half of the straws I used last month.

   As my quest to count my straws moves into its third month, here are my totals for the year so far:

   January: 9 straws or 0.29 straws a day.

   February: 10 straws or 0.35 straws a day.

   Total: 19 straws or 0.32 straws a day.

   https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20190304/BLOG02/190309989/californias-straw-law-gains-interest
   

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6. Frustrated by EPA, States Blaze Ahead on PFAs

   Mar 4, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire

   By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalde

   EPA's action plan on toxic chemicals found in drinking water did not satisfy several states that plan to push forward with their own policies.

   The per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, plan announced last month promised a decision from the agency within the year on maximum contaminant level regulations for two chemicals, PFOA and PFOS.

   Some experts say the regulatory process could take as long as 10 years before a rule is finalized.

   And while EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said he has "every intention" to set a limit, the agency could come back in a year and decide it won't regulate the chemicals, which have been linked to cancer and thyroid problems.

   That is why states should "press on," said Betsy Southerland, the former director of science and technology in EPA's Office of Water.

   So far, only New Jersey has a maximum contaminant level, or MCL, for a chemical in the PFAS family.

   Citing federal inaction, however, several states have stepped up with their own plans to regulate types of PFAS, including PFOA and PFOS.

   At least seven states have policies or have indicated they are pursuing policies stricter than EPA's current health advisory of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA and PFOS. They include Alaska, California, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont.

   "I have never seen anything this big happen this quickly, and I attribute this to the ability of communities to organize," said Wendy Heiger-Bernays, a clinical professor of environmental health at Boston University.

   "I think the states should be running with it," Heiger-Bernays continued. "By waiting, we are exposing people unnecessarily."

   At least eight states have adopted 11 bills related to PFAS, according to Safer States.

   "EPA's plan only increases the need for state policies that ensure safe drinking water and healthy communities," said Sarah Doll, the national director of Safer States. "The bottom line is that we need to stop the use of these harmful chemicals and states are stepping up to do that."'Disappointed but not surprised'

   Many states said the action plan overall fell short of expectations and pledged to continue their own efforts to regulate the chemicals.

   New York State Department of Health Deputy Commissioner Brad Hutton said he was "disappointed but not surprised at the continual lack of federal leadership to move forward aggressively."

   An advisory council last year recommended the state set a maximum contaminant level for PFOS and PFOA at 10 ppt, which would be the toughest standard proposed yet. Hutton said he anticipates a final rule implementing those levels by the end of the year.

   When asked if EPA's action plan has any effect on the state's work to regulate the chemicals, Hutton said: "I would say there is no change in the plans at all."

   PFOA was discovered in water sources in New York's Hoosick Falls in 2015, according to a mapof contaminated sites by the Environmental Working Group and Northeastern University's Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute.

   Hoosick Falls Mayor Robert Allen called EPA's action plan "high on rhetoric, low on action."

   "The Village of Hoosick Falls stands ready to offer its experience on the issue to advance awareness and promote policy that leads to real action," Allen said in a statement.

   Still, some people don't think New York is acting fast enough.

   "Despite starting nearly a year and a half ago, New York state has yet to follow through on the promise made by Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo and the Department of Health, in the face of federal inaction, to set drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS," said Liz Moran, the environmental policy director for New York Public Interest Research Group.

   "EPA's repeated inaction underscores the urgency for New York to lead," Moran continued.

   Next door in New Jersey, officials expect this spring to propose maximum contaminant levels for PFOA and PFOS at 14 and 13 ppt, respectively. Those numbers were recommended by the New Jersey Drinking Water Quality Institute.

   The Garden State already has an MCL for perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) at 13 ppt.

   [+] Several states are moving forward with policies stricter than EPA’s health advisory for PFOA and PFOS. Claudine Hellmuth/E&E News(graphic); EPA and state agencies(data)

   "While some EPA action on PFAS is encouraging, New Jersey cannot wait for the federal government to address the risks posed by these chemicals," said the state's Department of Environmental Protection.

   Generally, state officials said they support federal action but are looking for more out of EPA.

   "While we continue to support federal action on PFAS, we are concerned that the timeline for federal action on PFAS standards and regulations is not more aggressive," said Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality.

   Michigan uses EPA's health guideline of 70 ppt for any combination of PFOA and PFOS.

   "The progress Michigan has made in identifying PFAS sites and protecting the public from PFAS exposures was completed without the plans EPA announced today," Michigan DEQ said after EPA's plan release.

   Some states have decided to work together and share data in an effort to expedite their processes.

   "We are coming together in the absence of federal leadership," said Peter Walke, the deputy secretary of Vermont's Agency of Natural Resources.

   Vermont currently has a health advisory for any combination of five PFAS — PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFHpA and PFNA — at 20 ppt. The state is planning to propose an MCL for the five chemicals at the same level, which could be finalized in late summer or fall, according to Walke.

   Walke said Vermont is lucky to have the authority to regulate PFAS as a hazardous substance to set these limits.

   Other states, like Arizona, can set guidelines only as strict as the federal health advisory.

   And more states simply don't have the capacity to develop their own standards, according to Heiger-Bernays.

   It might be that they lack the manpower to review the science or that they do not want to wade into the politics of the fight, which can involve pushback from chemical companies with deep pockets.

   "Many states feel that EPA should take the lead and that it's going to get very messy," Heiger-Bernays said.'Tip of the iceberg'

   For all the commotion over PFOA and PFOS, they are just two chemicals in a family of roughly 5,000 others.

   "The bigger issue is the class and what do we do about the class as a whole," Walke said.

   PFOA and PFOS are the most-studied chemicals in the PFAS family, according to EPA.

   Southerland questioned what the agency has been doing since its PFAS National Leadership Summit in May 2018, when then-Administrator Scott Pruitt committed EPA to looking into establishing a maximum contaminant level for PFOA and PFOS (Greenwire, May 22, 2018).

   "What the hell is the holdup?" Southerland asked.

   States that were present at the summit similarly questioned how EPA has moved forward since then.

   Holmes said he "had a sense that there was commitment" from EPA after the meeting. "Almost a year later and the next step ... is to propose the determination," Holmes said.

   The challenge to get just these two chemicals regulated has many concerned about the future of the substances.

   EPA should be taking steps to gather data on the rest of the chemical family, Heiger-Bernays said.

   "We have no data on many of the per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals because EPA doesn't require that those data be collected," she said.

   The PFAS class of chemicals face no restrictions on the market, although EPA does have the power to do so under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

   Testing the chemicals before they enter the market would yield useful information, Walke said.

   "It would certainly help us to not be chasing around every single chemical," Walke said. "We are absolutely in response mode."

   EPA is the agency leading action on PFAS, but the "elephant in the room" is the Defense Department, according to Heiger-Bernays.

   DOD is responsible for many sites contaminated with PFAS, which was used in firefighting foam on bases.

   The stricter the standards EPA decides on, the more cleanup DOD will be responsible for.

   "I think it's going to be a big challenge," said Heiger-Bernays. "It's sort of the tip of the iceberg."

   https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/03/04/stories/1060123043
   

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7. EPA's Plan to Regulate Chemical Contaminants in Drinking Water Is a Drop in the Bucket

   Mar 4, 2019 | Common Dreams

   By Laurel Schaider

   After more than a year of community meetings and deliberations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in February 2019 that it would begin the process of regulating two drinking water contaminants, seeking to stem a growing national public health crisis. If EPA follows through, this would be the first time in nearly 20 years that it has set an enforceable standard for a new chemical contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

   The chemicals at issue, PFOA and PFOS, have contaminated drinking water supplies across the country affecting millions of Americans. They belong to a class of synthetic chemicals called PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, that are widely used in products including firefighting foams, waterproof apparel, stain-resistant furniture, food packaging and even dental floss.

   These chemicals have been linked with numerous health problems, including cancers, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, low birth weight, and effects on the immune system. Studies show exposure to PFAS in children can dampen the effectiveness of vaccines—a topic my colleagues and I are currently investigating as part of a project called PFAS-REACH. In laboratory studies, low levels of PFAS can alter mammary gland development, which could have implications for increasing breast cancer susceptibility later in life. 

   What’s more, PFAS are highly persistent. Once released into the environment, they don’t break down—a fact that has led many to dub these substances “forever chemicals.”

   A persistent problem

   PFAS have been used for decades, but only in the last few years have we begun to grasp the full extent of contamination. A 2016 study reported that over 16 million Americans are exposed to these contaminants in drinking water, and a more recent estimate put that number at 110 million. 

   PFAS find their way into water supplies from military fire training areas and airports, as well as industrial sites and wastewater treatment plants. For instance, in 2010 my colleagues and I at the nonprofit Silent Spring Institute, which studies links between environmental chemicals and women’s health, first detected PFAS in public and private drinking water wells on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Department of Defense has identified approximately 400 current or former military sites with known or suspected contamination, stemming mostly from use of firefighting foams. 

   Today there are more than 4,700 PFAS substances in use. All are chemically similar and highly persistent. The United States phased PFOS out of products in 2000 and PFOA in 2006, but they are still turning up widely in drinking water, which is why states want EPA to set standards specifying what levels of exposure are safe. Meanwhile, studies suggest that some newer PFAS chemicals have similar health effects, and most have not been studied at all. 

   Scientists are working hard to better understand these chemicals in order to mitigate the public’s exposure. For example, researchers at the STEEP Superfund Research Program, a multi-institutional effort which I am a part of, are investigating how these chemicals move through the environment, their chemical characteristics, how they accumulate in our bodies, and their impacts on our health.

   A shifting landscape

   EPA has been considering regulating PFOS and PFOA in drinking water since 2009. The agency’s recent announcement is a step in the right direction, but still only addresses these two chemicals in drinking water and any new federal standard won’t be fully implemented for years. 

   Earlier this year my colleagues and I published an analysis in which we showed wide variation in the way state and federal regulators manage these contaminants in drinking water. We found that seven states have their own guideline levels for PFOA and PFOS. Of these, Vermont, Minnesota, and New Jersey have adopted levels that are more stringent than EPA’s current non-enforceable levels. 

   More recently, New Hampshire, New York, and California have also proposed guideline levels lower than EPA’s. The day after EPA announced its plan, Pennsylvania officials announced they would create their own standards, citing concerns about EPA’s sluggish efforts to address the issue.

   Meanwhile, some states are developing their own guidelines covering additional PFAS chemicals. For instance, Minnesota has included in its guidelines a chemical called PFBS, which is used in Scotchgard. North Carolina regulators are focusing their efforts on a substitute called GenX that seeped into local water supplies from a plant upstream and has been detected in their air and soil.

   A key question now is how EPA’s drinking water standard for PFOA and PFOS will compare with what states are doing. Will the agency consider the full body of scientific evidence on health risks associated with exposure to this class of chemicals when setting a “safe” limit in drinking water? Will it consider effects on sensitive populations, such as pregnant women and children? Although the science is still evolving, one thing is clear: The more we learn about these chemicals, the more we see health effects at lower and lower levels. 

   It is important to give states latitude to adopt more stringent approaches than those set by EPA, and a lot can be learned from how states set guidelines. However, the emerging regulatory patchwork raises concerns that some Americans are not adequately protected. Some states have the resources and technical know-how to conduct their own risk assessments, but others may lack the funding and expertise.

   Political and social factors, as well as pressure from industry, can lead to wide disparities in exposure, with some communities protected and others left vulnerable. A federal standard would ensure that everyone is protected, regardless of whether their states have the will and the resources to develop their own standards.

   It’s all in the family

   EPA’s plan includes other steps that sound promising, such as listing PFOS and PFOA as “hazardous substances” under the Superfund law to establish liability for contamination and support cleanup, enhanced monitoring in drinking water, and better reporting of releases from industry. But the plan largely focuses on addressing problems at existing contaminated sites, not on keeping these chemicals out of water supplies and the environment.

   Conducting risk assessments on individual PFAS compounds one at a time is impractical. As a result, many advocacy groups and scientists—including my colleagues at the Green Science Policy Institute—are calling for these chemicals to be regulated as a class.

   Under the Toxic Substances Control Act, EPA has authority to restrict approval of new toxic chemicals. But in reality, new ones are approved all the time without thorough evaluations. Given concerns about the extreme persistence and mobility of PFAS compounds, in my view it makes good sense to restrict this entire class of chemicals.

   There are precedents for such action. In 1979 the United States banned PCBs after these persistent and toxic chemicals became widespread in the environment. The global community banned chlorofluorocarbons in 1996 when scientists learned that they damage Earth’s stratospheric ozone layer. And in 2017 the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission voted to ban an entire class of toxic flame retardants from consumer products.

   There is ample evidence for treating PFAS the same way. The question is whether federal regulators have the will.

   https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/03/03/epas-plan-regulate-chemical-contaminants-drinking-water-drop-bucket
   

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8. Erin Brockovich’s Continued Battle for Clean Water

   Mar 4, 2019 | PIX 11 News

   By Dan Mannarino

   One of the most hazardous chemical compounds can be found in nearly every household item from non-stick pans, cleaners and even cosmetics. It's called PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic acid). Environmental activist Erin Brockovich says PFOA is the largest emerging contaminant in our water in this country today, and the chemical causes a variety of cancers including testicular, thyroid and kidney cancer. Elevated lead levels in the country's drinking water is also leading to health problems in young children. Brockovich says regular household filters do not protect from these toxins and has endorsed a tabletop filter, Aqua Tru, that uses a patented reverse osmosis purification system.

   FREE LEAD TESTING WATER KIT

   You can request a free kit to test your drinking water for lead through the Free Residential Lead Testing Program. Lead does not have any color, odor, or taste.

   The Department of Environmental Protection will send you a test kit with instructions for collecting a sample of your drinking water. The kit comes with a pre-paid label to send it to a laboratory for lead analysis, and the results will be mailed to you within 30 days of the sample being tested.

   This kit is for use in residences only and cannot be used to meet the lead testing requirements for day care centers or other businesses.

   You can order only one kit at a time. If you are a landlord who wants to order more than one kit for your building, you must make a separate request for each apartment.

   The Community Healthbook is a website created by Erin Brockovich to enable individuals and communities to post and share information about not only environmental but medical device, whistleblower and pharmaceutical drugs gone wrong issues in your community.
   

   https://pix11.com/2019/03/04/erin-brockovichs-continued-battle-for-clean-water/
   

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9. Communicating Low Impact of Trace Pesticides in Food Trips Up EPA

   Mar 4, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Adam Allington

   The EPA says it needs to do more to tell people that small amounts of pesticides in food don’t pose significant health risks.

   Speaking at a meeting of state departments of agriculture on March, 4, Alexandra Dunn, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said the agency needs to be more responsive to public concerns about pesticide exposure, particularly trace amounts sometimes found in food and beverages.

   “People are concerned,” said Dunn. “They want to know what it means if trace amounts of pesticides are being detected in their food, wine, or environment.”

   Dunn points to a number of recent news stories related to trace amounts of glyphosate, a common over-the-counter weedkiller, turning up in wine and beer, as well as similar fears over glyphosate found in cereal in 2018.

   “We are working hard to make sure that decisions around those issues are communicated well, but very few of us are trained as communications professionals, but we need to get better at that,” she said.
   

   State Officials Also Face Questions

   Many of the public concerns about pesticide exposure gets directed to state agriculture officials who are often tasked with communicating the underpinning of pesticide laws and safety standards to a public with growing concerns over exposures in everyday life.

   “I think the framework EPA has in place for pesticide registration reviews is good, I think the science is sound, but I think the concern among the general public is increasing,” said Liza Fleeson Trossbach, a program manager at the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Office of Pesticide Services.

   Fleeson Trossbach points out that almost every crop has a scientifically-approved tolerance level, below which trace amounts of pesticides aren’t deemed a threat to human health.

   “But then you could still have a consumer’s who say, ‘no, I just don’t want those chemicals in my food at all,’ and then it becomes a marketplace issue,” she said.
   

   Risk-Benefit Approach

   EPA’s Dunn says that regulators are increasingly straddling a fine line between preserving access to a chemical farmers claim they need to apply to their crops, but also assuring public that the agency’s tolerance levels are sound and protective.

   “If you would need to drink over 140 glasses of wine in one day to even hit the tolerance limit for glyphosate, I think you would have much bigger problems to worry about than the pesticide,” said Dunn.

   Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Dunn told Bloomberg Environment that regulators employ a risk-benefit approach, that is different than the standards under regulations such as the Clean Water Act. FIFRA countenances that some level of chemical exposures are warranted to produce food efficiently while still being “safe.”

   “So this issue of accurately communicating the risks posed by trace amounts of certain chemicals is part of the challenge we’re going to have to get better at,” said Dunn.

   Meanwhile, a federal judge in California is currently hearing the first of hundreds of lawsuits related to potential links between Roundup, Monsanto’s (now Bayer) massively popular glyphosate-based herbicide, and cancer.

   The verdicts of the first bellwether trials are expected to signal how the courts will apportion liability over the risk posed by glyphosate exposure going forward.

   https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/communicating-low-impact-of-trace-pesticides-in-food-trips-up-epa
   

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10. The Government Has No Clue What’s in Your Beauty Products. Beautycounter Is Finding Out

    Mar 4, 2019 | Fast Company

    By Elizabeth Segran

    Do you really know what went into the lotion you slathered on your face this morning, or the soap you used in the shower? Well, I have scary news for you: Many of the ingredients that go into our beauty and skincare products are poorly understood. While the food and medicine that we consume are regulated by the USDA and FDA, the government does not oversee the personal care industry. So who knows if that anti-aging cream you’re using is toxic?

    Researchers at Tufts University are eager to understand more about how the ingredients in our personal care products impact our health. Dr. Ana Soto and her team at the Tufts University School of Medicine are undertaking an ambitious study in collaboration with the clean beauty brand Beautycounter to study key ingredients commonly used in personal care products. They plan to publish the results in peer-reviewed journals, the gold standard for academic research. This will ensure that the findings are unbiased and available to the entire beauty industry.

    Soto is a leading researcher on the hormonal effects of chemicals. For instance, some chemicals are known to be endocrine disruptors, which weaken your immune system, and increase your risk of contracting certain forms of cancers. In the past, Soto and her scientific partner, Dr. Carlos Sonnenschein, published groundbreaking research about the endocrine-disruptive effects of the chemical BPA, which led the government to ban BPA from many everyday consumer products, including plastic water bottles and baby products. Now, with this project, Soto is focused on filling the data gap on the potential endocrine effects of ingredients used in personal care products and the plastic packaging in which it comes.

    The six-year-old startup has been in leader in pushing for better regulation in the personal care industry, and is lobbying lawmakers to pass the Personal Care Products Safety Act. The company also creates products that are free of more than 1,500 chemicals that are known to cause harm or are questionable. This research with Tufts will help bolster its own product development process.

    Beautycounter has been helping fund this Tufts research since 2016, although it is not disclosing how much funding is involved. This is the first time that the two organizations are announcing this collaboration. Tufts will soon be able to share its initial findings about phenoxyethanol and lavender extract, two ingredients it has been testing for the last few years. Gregg Refrew, the brand’s founder and CEO, sees this investment as a form of corporate social responsibility. “We’ve known for years that there are large data gaps in the beauty industry,” she says. “(This partnership) is a new type of giving.”

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90314904/the-government-has-no-clue-whats-in-your-beauty-products-beautycounter-is-finding-out
    

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Energy News

11. U.S., China Close In on Trade Deal

    Mar 3, 2019 | Wall Street Journal

    By Lingling Wei and Bob Davis

    China and the U.S. are in the final stage of completing a trade deal, with Beijing offering to lower tariffs and other restrictions on American farm, chemical, auto and other products and Washington considering removing most, if not all, sanctions levied against Chinese products since last year.

    The agreement is taking shape following February’s talks in Washington, people briefed on the matter on both sides said. They cautioned that hurdles remain, and each side faces possible resistance at home that the terms are too favorable to the other side.

    Despite the remaining hurdles, the talks have progressed to the extent that a formal agreement could be reached at a summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, probably around March 27, after Mr. Xi finishes a trip to Italy and France, individuals with knowledge of the plans said.

    As part of a deal, China is pledging to help level the playing field, including speeding up the timetable for removing foreign-ownership limitations on car ventures and reducing tariffs on imported vehicles to below the current auto tariff of 15%.

    Beijing would also step up purchases of U.S. goods—a tactic designed to appeal to President Trump, who campaigned on closing the bilateral trade deficit with China. One of the sweeteners would be an $18 billion natural-gas purchase from Cheniere Energy Inc., people familiar with the transaction said.

    The two sides continue to negotiate over issues involving Chinese industrial policy the U.S. argues gives Chinese domestic firms an advantage, especially state-owned enterprises. Last week, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the provisions involving protecting intellectual property total nearly 30 pages out of a working document of more than 100 pages.

    U.S. and Chinese negotiators are also working on setting up a mechanism through which complaints by U.S. companies could be addressed. The plan under discussion calls for bilateral meetings of officials from both countries to adjudicate disputes. If those talks don’t produce agreement, Mr. Lighthizer has said, the U.S. could impose tariffs.

    Others involved in the talks said the U.S. is pressing Beijing to agree not to retaliate—at least in some cases—if the U.S. levies sanctions. That would be a big concession for Beijing negotiators, who say they want to make sure the deal doesn’t turn out to be an unequal treaty for China of the sort imposed by Western powers in the 19th century.

    Even so, China hawks in the U.S. are concerned that enforcement measures may not be strong enough and will tie down the U.S. in endless talks.

    “The whole process is a fraud,” said Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, who argues the U.S. could better enforce its will by taking unilateral actions rather than getting hooked into consultations. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon urged the administration to increase tariffs to pressure China to agree to tougher terms even if that meant lengthier negotiations and market uncertainty.

    “For Trump to get the structural reforms he wants and the country needs could take the rest of 2019 to negotiate,” Mr. Bannon said.

    It isn’t yet clear whether conservative U.S. media, which has Mr. Trump’s ear, will pick up the criticism.

    For the Chinese, linking the Florida visit to Mr. Xi’s European trip is a way to blunt the impression that he is traveling directly to Mr. Trump’s estate to make concessions.

    In recent weeks, Mr. Xi has summoned senior officials from across China to warn them about “major risks” to the world’s No. 2 economy, and his administration issued new party directives demanding “unity and concerted action.”

    A test of Mr. Xi’s authority will unfold over the next two weeks, when roughly 3,000 lawmakers gather in Beijing to review the government’s economic blueprint for the year.

    One wild card in the U.S.-China negotiations is the impact of Mr. Trump’s failed summit in Vietnam with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. U.S. officials said they hope Mr. Xi learns from that episode that Mr. Trump would reject an offer he considers inadequate. But they fear Beijing might take the opposite lesson: that Mr. Trump is desperate for a win.

    “His failure to get a deal in Vietnam increases the pressure on him to get a deal with the Chinese,” said Fred Bergsten, founder of the Institute for International Economics in Washington.

    Both sides also recognize the need to win domestic support. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, the lead negotiator for Mr. Xi, has been holding meetings with various ministries and agencies to build consensus within a bureaucracy that is anything but monolithic.

    Mr. Lighthizer, meanwhile, plans to go to Michigan this week to talk to the United Auto Workers. He told Congress last week that he has tried to incorporate specific requests from labor, business, farmers and lawmakers in a deal.

    Any deal is likely to be welcome by markets, which have risen on the news that chances of an end to the trade battle were increasing. But given the administration’s heated rhetoric on China—Mr. Lighthizer last week said he considered Beijing an existential challenge to the U.S.—the provisions are already being criticized as inadequate, especially measures to remake Chinese industrial policies.

    In a move that would bolster administration’s claims of the benefits of a deal, China’s state-owned China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec, would agree to buy $18 billion of liquefied natural gas from Cheniere, people familiar with the transaction said.

    Cheniere would start delivering LNG to the Chinese counterpart as soon as 2023. Chinese banks could provide financing as part of the deal in the range of $3 billion to build additional facilities to meet the demand. The deal is still under negotiation and isn’t completed.

    “That would be a strong signal that there will be other (contracts) to follow,” said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, a trade association.

    China has hit U.S. LNG with 15% tariffs, as part of the trade fight, and has been buying the product mainly from Qatar, Australia and Malaysia.

    Other purchases include soybeans and other agricultural goods. In recent talks, Beijing has also discussed reducing tariffs and other barriers that have limited the sale of American-made chemicals and agricultural products, such as ethanol, which now face 70% Chinese retaliatory tariffs; an ethanol byproduct, dried distillers grains, which is used to feed cattle; and polysilicon, a raw material in solar panels that was hit with 57% tariffs as part of an earlier trade fight with China.

    Mr. Trump on Friday tweeted that he asked Beijing “to immediately remove all Tariffs on our agricultural products (including beef, pork, etc.)” in part, because he last week scrapped plans to raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25% from 10% on March 2 as scheduled.

    There has been less progress on other issues dividing the two nations, especially China’s industrial policies and subsidies. Beijing considers that support crucial to its state-led development plan and maintaining the Communist Party’s rule.

    Yang Guangpu, an associate research fellow at the Development Research Center, a think tank under China’s State Council, said Beijing is taking steps to enable state companies to operate more like commercial entities.

    “China is carrying out [state-company] reforms in an orderly fashion, and won’t change the pace because of the trade tensions with the U.S.,” Mr. Yang said.

    Beijing has pledged to remove “market distorting” subsidies, people tracking the talks said, but some in the administration consider that insufficient because Beijing doesn’t specifically enumerate its subsidies, at the central government and local level, and specify which ones it will eliminate.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-china-close-in-on-trade-deal-11551641540?mod=hp_lead_pos6
    

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12. US Senate, House Bills Try to Ease FERC LNG Project Review Logjam

    Mar 4, 2019 | Oil & Gas Journal

    By Nick Snow

    US Sen. Energy and Natural Resources Committee member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and two other Republicans on the committee introduced a bill on Mar. 1 aimed at reducing delays in decisions for LNG export terminals and other projects at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. S. 607 would address a shortage of qualified engineers, scientists, and mathematicians necessary to review such applications and begin to remove a serious backlog, Cassidy said.

    “The US now is the world’s largest producer of natural gas and oil, which means we are well-positioned to help other nations diversify their energy supplies and achieve a greater level of energy security. Yet that will only become a reality if we can resolve the application backlog at FERC and allow infrastructure projects to move forward,” said Lisa Murkowski (Alas.), committee chair and cosponsor of the measure with Cory Gardner (Colo.).

    The bill would give FERC’s chairman authority to increase salaries within a specific category if he determines employees are not being paid enough to carry out necessary functions after meeting certain certification requirements.

    House Energy and Commerce Committee members Pete Olson (R-Tex.) and Michael F. Doyle (D-Pa.) introduced similar legislation the same day. H.R. 1426 would require that FERC consult with the US Office of Personnel Management to determine appropriate salaries. These could be offered for positions where the commission determines a critical need. Senate bill S. 607 has a similar provision.

    Both bills require certifications of such positions to be reviewed 90 days before they expire every 5 years before they can be renewed.

    Responding to the measures, FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee said the commission has made marked headway in approving its review process, but added that more can be done.

    “By enhancing our ability to recruit and compensate the skilled staff needed to review these applications, this legislation would allow FERC to build upon the progress we’ve made already. Importantly, it would also help ensure that future commissions have the resources necessary to effectively evaluate projects going forward,” Chatterjee said.

    FERC currently has 13 pending applications for new LNG export facilities, and four projects in the prefiling process. Of these 17 projects, Alaska, Oregon, Florida, Arkansas, and Mississippi have one project each; the rest are in Louisiana and Texas.

    “The US LNG industry is on course for a remarkable year in 2019 with multiple projects entering service and many more navigating the regulatory process,” said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas.

    The bills would ensure a thorough and thoughtful reviews, and the CLNG welcomes the commitment to making this happen as shown by the measures’ Senate and House sponsors, Riedl noted.

    https://www.ogj.com/articles/2019/03/us-senate-house-bills-try-to-ease-ferc-lng-project-review-logjam.html
    

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13. A New Battle over Oil and Gas Drilling Just Broke out in Colorado

    | CNBC

    By Tom DiChristopher

    Colorado drillers are gearing up for a fight after Democratic lawmakers proposed overhauling the state’s oil and gas commission and reforming regulations that could create new roadblocks to fossil fuel development.

    Two of the state’s top Democrats introduced the legislation late Friday. They are calling Senate Bill 181 — Protect Public Welfare Oil and Gas Operations — “the most meaningful changes to oil and gas regulations Colorado has seen in over 60 years.”

    The move comes just months after the Colorado oil and gas industry celebrated the defeat of new restrictions on drilling in a referendum in November.Colorado’s communities simply cannot afford to wait any longer ... These common-sense reforms will ensure the industry operates in an accountable and cooperative manner. ”

    The legislation could curtail drilling in one of the nation’s top oil and natural gas producing states, where advanced technology like hydraulic fracturing has sparked a production boom over the last decade. That could affect Colorado-focused frackers and larger drillers with a footprint in the state, like Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Energy.

    The bill would give cities and counties more influence over regulation, including inspecting oil and gas facilities and imposing fines over spills. It would also change the mission of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from fostering the development of the state’s fossil fuels to regulating the industry.

    The lawmakers also propose overhauling the powerful commission’s makeup, cutting the number of members required to have industry experience from three to one. They would require at least one member of the commission to have training in several fields, including wildlife and environmental protection, soil conservation and public health.

    Another measure would raise the threshold for the number of mineral rights holders that would need to give their approval before drillers can tap a shared pool of oil and gas, making it potentially more difficult to develop some reserves.

    “Colorado’s communities simply cannot afford to wait any longer,” said Colorado State Majority Leader Steve Fenberg, who co-sponsored the bill with House Speaker KC Becker.

    “These common-sense reforms will ensure the industry operates in an accountable and cooperative manner,” Fenberg said in a statement.

    The Colorado Petroleum Council and Colorado Oil and Gas Association accused the lawmakers of dropping legislation late on Friday and rushing a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday. The industry groups urged lawmakers to push back the hearing.

    “Senate Bill 181 would impact the livelihoods of Coloradans across the state, including many who live in rural areas and may not be able to make it to the Capitol to testify on such short notice,” they said.

    The groups successfully lobbied against last year’s proposition 112, which would have prohibited oil and gas drilling within about half a mile of homes, schools, businesses and water sources.

    Despite the win, Democrats took control of the state Senate in November, giving the party control of both houses of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/04/new-battle-over-oil-and-gas-drilling-breaks-out-in-colorado.html
    

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14. Oil Rises as U.S.-China Trade Deal Nears While Supply Tightens

    Mar 4, 2019 | Bloomberg (In Houston Chronicle)

    By Saket Sundria and Grant Smith

    Oil climbed as the U.S. and China were said to near a deal on trade that would underpin the outlook for crude demand, while supplies around the world showed signs of tightening.

    Futures in New York rose as much as 1 percent after a drop of 2.6 percent last week. The world’s two biggest economies are approaching an accord that could lift most or all U.S. tariffs, according to people familiar with the discussions. Working oil rigs in America fell to the least since May, according to data from Baker Hughes. OPEC’s output dropped last month, aided by unplanned supply losses in Iran and Venezuela.

    Oil’s rallied about 24 percent this year as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies started to cut production while American sanctions on Venezuela and Iran restricted supplies further.

    “Growing compliance with the OPEC+ deal and slowing rig count in the U.S. should remain fairly supportive for the oil market,” said Warren Patterson, senior commodities strategist at ING Bank NV.
    

    West Texas Intermediate for April delivery rose as much as 57 cents to $56.37 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and traded 54 cents higher at 10:32 a.m. in London. Prices fell last week following weaker-than-expected reports on U.S. factory orders and consumer sentiment.

    Brent for May settlement was at $65.88 a barrel, up 81 cents, on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark crude’s premium over WTI for the same month widened to $9.10.

    The drop in American oil rigs, by 10 to 843 last week, came as explorers were chastened by a near 40 percent collapse in prices late last year. In the Permian, the nation’s largest shale play, rigs fell by seven to 466, also the lowest since May.

    Nabors Industries Ltd., the world’s largest owner of land drilling rigs, said customers accounting for more than a third of the machines deployed across the U.S. plan to trim activity by about 3 percent this year.
    

    OPEC’s production slumped as key cartel members Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates delivered all -- and in some cases more -- of cuts they had pledged to make under a deal between the group and its allies. Russia produced the equivalent of 11.336 million barrels a day last month, down 82,000 barrels per day from the October baseline of the producer alliance known as OPEC+, Bloomberg calculations show.

    Substantial progress has been made in the talks with the U.S., a spokesman for China’s National People’s Congress said before legislative meetings this week. People familiar with the discussions earlier said a deal is likely as long as Beijing sticks to pledges ranging from protecting intellectual-property to buying U.S. products.

    “There continues to be very strong support for oil prices on the back of OPEC reducing their production,” said Howie Lee, a Singapore-based economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. “Also, if the U.S. and China manage to resolve their key differences, then we can raise the oil demand a few notches. I think there is hope.”

    https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Oil-Rises-on-Signs-of-Slowing-Shale-Growth-as-13660768.php
    

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15. Shale Companies, Adding Ever More Wells, Threaten Future of U.S. Oil Boom

    Mar 3, 2019 | Wall Street Journal

    By Christopher M. Matthews, Rebecca Elliott and Bradley Olson

    Shale companies’ strategy to supercharge oil and gas production by drilling thousands of new wells more closely together is turning out to be a bust. What’s more, the approach is hurting the performance of older existing wells, threatening the U.S. oil boom and forcing the maturing industry to rethink its future.

    To maintain America’s status as an energy powerhouse, shale companies in recent years have touted bunching wells in close proximity, greatly increasing the number of wells drawing on a promising reservoir. The added wells would produce as much as older ones, many drillers believed, allowing them to extract more oil overall while maintaining strong returns from each well.

    Those rosy forecasts helped fuel investor interest in shale companies, which raised nearly $57 billion from equity and debt financing in 2016, according to Dealogic, even as oil prices dipped below $30 a barrel. That was up from nearly $34 billion five years earlier, when oil topped $110 a barrel.

    Now the results are coming in, and they are disappointing.

    Newer shale wells drilled close to older wells are generally pumping less oil and gas than the older wells, according to early corporate results. Engineers warn the new wells could produce as much as 50% less in some circumstances.

    The newer shale wells often interfere with the output of older wells, because blasting too many holes in dense rock formations can damage nearby wells and lower the overall pressure, making it harder for oil to seep out. The moves could potentially cause permanent damage and lower the overall amount recovered from a reservoir.Tight SqueezeIn recent years, oil producers have drilled "child wells" in close proximity to increase the number of drilling locations and extract more oil and gas. New studies indicate that adding too many wells diminishes production in each well.

    Known in the industry as the “parent-child” well problem, the issue is surfacing in shale hot spots across the U.S. as companies ramp up production. Most of the tens of thousands of planned new wells will be child wells—wells drilled close to an already producing well.
    

    It is one of the primary reasons why thousands of shale wells drilled in the past five years are producing less oil and gas than companies forecast to investors, a Wall Street Journal examination of drilling data has found.

    Shale producers across the country are finding “you can get a lot of interference, one well to the other,” said billionaire Harold Hamm, who founded shale driller Continental Resources Inc., in an interview last year. “Laying out a whole lot of wells can get you in trouble,” he said. Mr. Hamm was discussing other companies, not Continental.

    Many of the largest shale producers, includingDevon Energy Corp. , EOG Resources Inc. and Concho Resources Inc., have disclosed they are facing the problem. Some have begun drilling wells farther apart to get around it, which means they have fewer total wells to drill on their land.

    Shale companies face the equivalent of an industrywide write-down if they are forced to downsize the estimates of drill sites they have touted to investors, some of which promised decades’ worth of choice spots. That raises questions about the high costs shale companies paid to secure drilling sites from Texas to North Dakota, and the true worth of their land positions, one of the primary ways they are valued.

    Companies continue to test the balance between making a single well as productive as possible and maximizing returns from a cluster of wells. Some say it still makes sense in many cases to place wells closer together to extract as much oil as possible from a reservoir and realize the best returns per acre. Others have acknowledged wells should be drilled farther apart.

    Two years ago, Laredo Petroleum Inc. had a market value of more than $3 billion and was thought to have some of the best land in the epicenter of U.S. drilling, the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico. It was also a strong proponent of packing wells close together to wring more oil out of its land and make logistics more efficient, reducing costs.

    Founder and Chief Executive Randy Foutch said a year ago that Laredo could likely drill 32 wells per drilling unit, usually about 2 square miles or more, with each well likely producing an average of 1.3 million barrels of oil and gas. Such spacing had scarcely been attempted before in the area on a large scale. Mr. Foutch said that gave Laredo at least 25 years’ worth of wells to drill.

    In November, Laredo disclosed that wells it fracked in 2018 were producing 11% less oil than projected, in part due to parent-child issues. It now plans to space wells farther apart, to 16 to 24 wells per unit. One of its biggest investors, SailingStone Capital Partners LLC, argued in a letter last month that Laredo’s decision to drill too closely, among other choices, had “come at a significant cost to shareholders.”

    Laredo’s market value has fallen more than 75% to about $800 million since the end of 2016.

    “We tightened spacing during 2017 and 2018 to increase location inventory and resource recovery in our highest-return formations, and we achieved this goal,” said Laredo spokesman Ron Hagood. He said the company moved to wider spacing to increase individual well rates of return.

    Shale companies are learning as they rapidly roll out thousands of wells, using fracking and horizontal drilling techniques that have only been deployed on a wide scale over the past decade. The technology has helped raise American oil production to all-time highs of about 12 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Department.

    The problems that have been revealed so far mean some of the more optimistic projections for production from shale regions may have to be lowered. In the Permian Basin, parent-child issues threaten more than 1.5 million barrels a day of projected growth, according to a 2018 study by energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. That’s more than the daily output of Libya, and the equivalent of more than $30.55 billion annually at current prices.

    “Unless there is a massive technological breakthrough, those child wells are going to be smaller,” said Robert Clarke, research director at Wood Mackenzie.

    The number of child wells in the Permian now makes up 50% of all wells there and will grow steadily, according to Schlumberger Ltd. , the world’s largest oil field services company. In other basins there are already more child wells than parent wells, Schlumberger estimates.

    A January 2018 study published by the Society of Petroleum Engineers found there is a 70% to 80% chance that a child well will produce less than a parent well per foot drilled. A September 2018 study published by the group found child wells could produce between 15% and 50% less in the Permian basin, depending on how close the wells are and other factors.

    Child wells also frequently cannibalize parent wells as they compete for the same resources and deplete the pressure of reservoirs more quickly. A 2018 study by Rystad Energy AS, an energy consulting firm, found that parent wells in the Permian basin will produce 10% to 12% less oil and gas on average when a child well is drilled nearby.South Texas SlowdownDaily production in the Eagle Ford dipped asthe number of child wells overtook parentwells and the price of oil dropped.

    In the early days of the shale boom, producers drilled single wells widely to test the potential of different areas and lock down land leases. After companies identified sweet spots, many told investors they could repeat their promising results by using advances in technology to drill many more wells around them, packing them into tighter spaces.

    Chesapeake Energy Corp.began aggressively testing tighter spacing in the Eagle Ford region in South Texas more than five years ago. On a call with investors in 2013, Chesapeake said it had begun drilling wells 350 feet apart, down from 500 feet, a practice known as downspacing.

    More than a dozen large drillers in the Eagle Ford were downspacing by 2015 to 350 feet between wells or less. That same year the number of child wells surpassed parent wells in the Eagle Ford, according to Schlumberger, and oil production there reached an all-time high, topping 1.7 million barrels a day, federal data show.

    But in a 2017 technical paper, two researchers for Norwegian oil giantStatoil AS A, now called Equinor ASA, found in a simulation that as wells in the Eagle Ford got closer together, they interfered with one another. One well’s fracking, or fracturing of rock formations deep underground to help release trapped oil and gas, could affect the productivity of the one next to it.

    For wells spaced 375 feet apart, the interference could cause a 28% loss in production over the well’s life, compared with wells spaced 600 feet apart. For wells spaced 275 feet it could be as much as 40%, according to the study. In some cases, water and chemicals used to frack a child well could flood the parent through connected fractures, significantly impacting oil production in the older well.

    By the end of 2017, Chesapeake was discussing “upspacing” as the best way to maximize a well’s value, even though doing so meant recovering less oil and gas overall. The company later cut its production forecast by 327 million barrels of oil and gas in part due to spacing issues in the Eagle Ford, regulatory filings show.

    Chesapeake declined to comment. Tim Beard, a Chesapeake vice president, said in a December interview that the company was quick to respond when problems surfaced by increasing the space between its wells. “You’ve seen a lot of people destroy a lot of value in plays across the U.S.,” Mr. Beard said, referring to other companies.

    Across U.S. shale basins, producers have begun drilling wells farther apart to solve the parent-child riddle. But it comes at a cost: It means they have fewer wells to drill. Many companies haven’t publicly adjusted their inventory estimates as they revise their well spacing assumptions, but many have stopped touting how many potential wells they have. Analysts say new investments may have to be made to purchase new land.

    Oil currently trades around $55 a barrel, forcing shale companies to pay closer attention to how much it costs to extract resources.Out of FavorShale executives used terms associated withtouting tighter spacing or large land positionsless often as problems started cropping upwith the strategy.

    Some companies and industry analysts believe that shale drillers will innovate their way out of the parent-child problem. Many producers have drilled longer child wells and pumped more sand and water into them in response. Such techniques can help child wells extract as much oil as the parent, but come at a higher financial cost. Some companies are also fracking wells simultaneously, which they say avoids the pressure drops seen when drilling a parent well and subsequently adding child wells.

    Some shale executives privately admit that if they can’t fix the parent-child problem or turn out to have far fewer wells to drill, their companies will likely be worth far less. Wall Street has already lowered its valuation of some companies’ assets.

    In 2018, shale companies paid $40,000 or more per acre to lease land for drilling in the Permian Basin. Oil and gas data firm Drillinginfo recently analyzed 11 Permian-focused shale companies and found the untapped portion of their acreage was now worth only around $10,000 per acre, on average. Based on production so far, the land’s value should only have declined 10%, according to Drillinginfo.

    RSP Permian Inc. grew from an upstart to one of the largest drillers in West Texas, and it consistently touted thousands of “high-return” well locations in the Midland area of the Permian basin.

    The company said in February 2016 it had at least 2,591 drilling spots there, and could have 67% more, or 4,328 wells, according to an investor presentation. Zane Arrott, the company’s co-founder and chief operating officer, told investors on a call that month that it had “a lot of confidence” in its midlevel projection of 3,392 wells.

    In February 2018, RSP lowered its estimate of drilling spots in the area to 2,440 wells. The company said it had found that spacing wells closer than 400 feet hurt production, and it had come to believe that 450 feet was the optimum spacing in the Midland area.

    A month later, in March 2018, Concho Resources acquired RSP for $9.5 billion, or about $75,000 per acre, creating a Permian giant. In a presentation announcing the deal to investors, Concho estimated RSP’s total inventory of drilling sites, which includes areas outside Midland, was about 30% lower than RSP’s previous estimate.

    A Concho spokeswoman declined to comment. The company has previously said it would drill wells 660 feet apart in the Midland area and that synergies created by the merger will save money and allow it to go into a “manufacturing mode” of large-scale drilling projects.

    When the deal closed in July, the combined market cap of Concho and RSP was nearly $30 billion. The current value of the combined company is $22 billion.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/shale-companies-adding-ever-more-wells-threaten-future-of-u-s-oil-boom-11551655588?mod=hp_lead_pos9
    

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Chemical Security News

16. The U.S. Is Trying to End the Longest Oil Spill in History. and This Company Is Fighting against It in Court.

    Mar 2, 2019 | Washington Post

    By Darryl Fears

    As the longest offshore oil spill in U.S. history creeps toward its 15th year, the federal government is preparing to launch a determined effort to contain the oil and cap the leaking wells.

    But the energy company responsible for the spill has gone to court to stop efforts to fix a leak that is sending hundreds of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

    Taylor Energy of New Orleans recently filed four lawsuits against the Interior Department, U.S. Coast Guard and a private contractor to contest their assessment that the spill is catastrophic and to shut down plans to cap more than two dozen leaking wells.

    The wells were torn open in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan triggered powerful currents that collapsed the walls of a deepwater canyon. The tumbling walls slammed into an oil production platform that Taylor Energy operated 12 miles off the Louisiana coast, burying most of its 25 wells.

    According to one estimate, up to 700 barrels of oil per day are flowing into the Gulf, rivaling the catastrophic 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill. The estimate is based on an analysis by Oscar Garcia-Pineda, a specialist in remote sensing of oil spills, which the government accepted but Taylor Energy disputes.

    The BP disaster leaked 4 million barrels over five months. If Garcia-Pineda’s estimate is correct, the Taylor spill amounts to 1.5 million barrels to 3.5 million barrels in more than 14 years.

    A day after The Washington Post revealed Garcia-Pineda’s analysis, the Coast Guard issued Taylor Energy an ultimatum: hire a company to build a device to contain the oil or face a fine of up to $4,000 per day. When the energy company failed to negotiate a contract, the Coast Guard took over the cleanup effort.

    “The Coast Guard has federalized the portion of the spill that relates to containment,” Capt. Kristi Luttrell said in an email to The Post. Luttrell assumed command of the New Orleans-based station overseeing the spill and has taken a tougher stance against Taylor than her predecessors.

    On Wednesday, during oral arguments for Taylor Energy’s case against Couvillion Group, the private contractor hired by the Coast Guard to contain the spill, U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle wanted to know why the company is seeking to block efforts to clean it up. Taylor Energy’s attorney said the company believes the plan won’t work and could make the problem worse.

    “Look, you tried,” Lemelle said, according to a report by Channel 4WWL News in New Orleans. “But it’s still going on after all this time. Let’s get someone else to look at this.”

    Lemelle asked the Coast Guard’s lawyer why the cleanup is taking so long. “This occurred in 2004. How long does it take the government to decide what to do?” The attorney, Erica Zilioni, said new data shows that three leaks are ejecting more oil into the environment than previously thought. Before now, the government had relied almost solely on reports from contractors hired by Taylor Energy to estimate the size of the spill.

    Couvillion Group plans to build a device to contain oil on the surface of the Gulf and possibly find a path to some of the wells through the sediment. The $7 million cost will be extracted from the $440 million that remains in a trust fund Taylor Energy established for the cleanup in 2008. Couvillion did not respond to a request for comment.

    In the years since the fund was established, Taylor Energy has spent millions of dollars to recover its flattened oil platform and cap nine of 25 wells. For nearly a decade, the company convinced the federal government and its experts that digging into the sediment to cap the remaining buried wells was too risky because it might unleash oil trapped there — arguing that little oil was reaching the surface.

    But in recent months, the government’s cleanup effort, run by a Unified Command of four federal agencies, determined that capping the wells is less risky if pockets of oil released by digging can be contained. The Unified Command also discounts the company’s assessment based on aerial surveys that virtually no oil is oozing from its former lease site.

    Aerial surveys alone “can have a high degree of uncertainty” based on sea conditions, Luttrell said. Recent studies of the site, known as Mississippi Canyon 20, based on satellite data and samples from the water’s surface, “suggests oil discharge amounts far exceed those from overflights and have the potential to be in the hundreds of barrels per day.”

    The Coast Guard forged ahead with the Couvillion Group of Belle Chasse, La. According to its website, the Couvillion Group responded to the 2010 BP oil spill a few miles north of the Taylor site, deploying and managing “marine equipment, vessels, personnel and logistics for BP, the U.S. Coast Guard and National Park Service” for the extended cleanup.

    For the current spill, the contractor completed a survey of the canyon site in December and a system it designed to contain oil “is currently in the testing and acceptance phase,” Luttrell said.

    Taylor Energy asked the judge to stop the work, saying in a statement emailed to The Washington Post that “the Coast Guard has turned its back on sound science” that the company presented “to embrace a deeply-flawed theory, which is now driving response actions that could cause an environmental catastrophe.”

    The company called the Coast Guard’s reversal abrupt, and said that it was abandoning an opinion by government and private experts who said attempts to cap the wells could cause more harm than good.

    “The Coast Guard is basing potentially dangerous response actions on grossly exaggerated oil volume estimates," the company argued. Its wells were nearly depleted and were not capable of producing the amount of oil Garcia-Pineda claims.

    Garcia-Pineda provided his analysis as an expert witness for the government in a court case that resulted from a 2016 lawsuit filed by Taylor Energy. In that case, the company is seeking to reclaim the hundreds of millions of dollars that remain in the cleanup trust.

    For the analysis, Garcia-Pineda spent weeks at the Taylor Energy site studying rainbow-colored slicks, measuring crude and reviewing satellite images. There were several instances, he wrote, when the National Response Corp., which relies on pollution reports from companies such as Taylor Energy, presented low estimates on the same days he found heavy layers of oil in the field.

    Fumes from oil on the surface were so intense that researchers said they needed respirators to study the damage.

    “There is abundant evidence that supports the fact that these reports from NRC are incorrect,” Garcia-Pineda wrote. Later he said: “My conclusion is that NRC reports are not reliable.”

    Under its obligations with the Interior Department and the Oil Pollution Act, Taylor Energy is required to cap each of the wells that broke open and the government is determined to hold the company to the agreement.

    Taylor Energy says it filed its December litigation for two reasons: It wants to “head off action by the Coast Guard and Couvillion Group that can cause considerable environmental damage.” Also, the company believes the government’s rapid course reversal from a hands-off approach to aggressive moves to clean up the spill is unfair.

    A hands-off approach would also spare Taylor Energy the expensive cost of trying harder to stop any potential leak.

    None of the many lawsuits Taylor Energy has filed since 2004 “seek to relieve the company of its regulatory obligations,” the statement said. The company is committed to protecting the Gulf’s fragile ecosystem using science.

    But during a town hall meeting in 2012, the company’s president, William Pecue, said something different. The government should admit that the remaining wells could not be capped and that the funds in the trust should be handed over, Pecue said.

    The event that caused the spill, he declared, was “an act of God.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/03/02/us-is-trying-end-longest-oil-spill-history-this-company-is-trying-stop-it/?utm_term=.1e5aea9a5ce1
    

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

17. High-Speed Rail in the U.S. Remains Elusive: Illinois Shows Why

    Mar 4, 2019 | Wall Street Journal

    By Shayndi Raice and Paul Overberg

    Amtrak’s route from Chicago to St. Louis would seem an ideal place for the U.S. to adopt high-speed rail such as in Europe and Asia, where passenger trains can race along at 200 miles an hour. The stretch in Illinois is a straight shot across mostly flat terrain.

    In fact, a fast-rail project is under way in Illinois. Yet the trains will top out at 110 mph., shaving just an hour from what is now a 5½-hour train trip.

    After it’s finished, at a cost of about $2 billion, the state figures the share of people who travel between the two cities by rail could rise just a few percentage points.

    Behind such modest gains, for hundreds of millions of dollars spent, lie some of the reasons high-speed train travel remains an elusive goal in the U.S.All Aboard!The fastest passenger trains are abroad. Top speeds of existing high-speed rail lines, in miles per hour.

    The challenges faced by Illinois, among them limited federal funding and people’s ingrained travel habits, mirror those faced by other states that would like to upgrade the passenger rail network.
    

    The issue is drawing renewed attention as part of congressional Democrats’ “Green New Deal” to overhaul the country’s energy and transportation infrastructure. Some local governments are looking at ways to commit to reducing their carbon footprint, or to better serve an aging and urbanizing population.

    Yet just last month, California’s governor sharply scaled back a costly high-speed-rail project the state has been working on for years, shelving plans to provide fast passenger trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

    Illinois didn’t have the money, or the right-of-way, to lay tracks that would be exclusively for a high-speed service. So its fast passenger trains will have to share the track with lumbering freight trains.

    “To build the kind of infrastructure that is stand-alone—that is, just for high-speed passenger rail—it is just absurdly expensive and just takes years and years and years to get through the permitting and environmental process,” said Randy Blankenhorn, who was Illinois’s transportation secretary until this year.

    “Land acquisition alone [would] take half a decade,” he said. “If we were to have said from the beginning, right off the bat go to 200-mile-an-hour service, we’d still be in the implementing and design phase.”

    Illinois settled for weaving improvements along the route and rebuilding an existing single-track line that is owned by freight railroads. In effect, it chose higher-speed rail rather than actual high-speed.A warning sign stands near a crossing in Pontiac, Ill.; a freight sits on tracks as an Amtrak train travels near Chicago.

    The targeted 110 mph speed is well above the top of 79 mph on Amtrak’s current Chicago-St. Louis Lincoln Service, yet far slower than the fastest trains abroad or even than Amtrak trains between Washington and Boston, which can reach 150 mph. In a first phase, passenger trains south of Springfield, Ill., should reach 90 mph. this spring or early summer, the Illinois Department of Transportation said. It hopes the top speed of 110 mph can be achieved not long after.

    California has been taking the opposite approach from Illinois’s—building a passenger rail service with dedicated track. But the price tag for its long-running project rose to an estimated $77 billion. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in mid-February the ambitious plan would cost too much and take too long, adding: “There simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to LA.”Fuller Speed AheadNumerous plans are afoot to improve U.S. passenger train service.

    Mr. Newsom said work would continue on a shorter stretch of high-speed rail over dedicated track between Merced and Bakersfield. New doubts arose a week later, however, when the Trump administration said that it intended to cancel more than $900 million of planned future funding for the California rail project, and that it was exploring legal options to recover $2.5 billion of federal money already spent on it. Mr. Newsom said California would fight to keep the funds.
    

    Amtrak’s strategic planning doesn’t focus on service over dedicated track, as in California, but on boosting some of its existing service over track that is shared with freights. An overhaul Amtrak is preparing concentrates on increasing the frequency of intercity service, such as between Chicago and St. Louis, on the notion that rail has a better chance of competing with cars and planes in growing commercial corridors than on long-haul routes.

    Back in 2009, in a federal economic-stimulus bill, Congress set aside $8 billion for high-speed passenger rail service. The Obama administration saw the funding as a pledge to build a national system.

    Illinois won $1.34 billion of the stimulus bill’s money. The state then scooped $300 million more from the same pot when Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin declined funds. Illinois’s government chipped in $300 million of state money.

    Illinois had been studying fast passenger rail service since the 1990s. Its goals, stated in an environmental study, included improving traveler safety and shifting travelers away from airport and highway congestion. The project got going before the state faced a severe budget squeeze.

    “It really is about more closely knitting together the economies in the Midwest with a transportation mode that is efficient, environmentally friendly and, from a business perspective, one that allows a business traveler to remain highly productive while he is moving from city to city,” said Joseph Szabo, executive director of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and a former Federal Railroad Administrator under President Obama.An Amtrak conductor closes the door of a passenger car.

    The twin cities of Bloomington-Normal, in central Illinois, are betting the improvements will be a boon to the local economy. Normal decided to abandon its old train station, which locals called “Amshack,” and invest in a multi-transportation center with new city-hall offices above, said Mayor Chris Koos. The city built a small park in front.

    The Illinois rail project has consisted of making major improvements to the route on which Amtrak provides service. Work started in September 2010 and was supposed to finish in seven years. A federal mandate requiring trains to have an automatic mechanism to prevent certain accidents helped push back the timeline.

    It has been a monumental undertaking that required dealing with railroad companies, cities and landowners, said John Oimoen, deputy director of railroads in the state transportation department. More than 300 road crossings had to have separate agreements covering upgrades or closures.

    By late 2015, agency officials feared the project was dead, simply because so many deals needed to be negotiated before a deadline to spend the federal grant. The agency ultimately assigned its highway real-estate department to help finish the project.

    Upgrading road crossings often meant rebuilding them, from drainage pipes up, to smooth passage for faster trains. Two extra signal arms were added to many crossings to keep drivers from going around them.A rail crossing with updated barriers in Pontiac, Ill.

    Sensors to trip signals were upgraded and moved to allow the same warning time for faster trains. In towns, sidewalks were rebuilt and gated as well. The track was fenced for the first time in many places.

    The state also faced years of delays in getting new rail cars. Nippon Sharyo of Nagoya, Japan, landed a contract in 2012. Because the federal grant that funded the work required cars to be built in the U.S. from U.S.-made parts, the Japanese company expanded a 460,000-square-foot factory in Rochelle, Ill., and rebuilt its supplier network.

    The company struggled to adapt designs and failed U.S. crashworthiness tests. In 2017 it withdrew from the contract and later closed the plant, meaning a side benefit Illinois hoped for—local jobs assembling rail cars—fizzled. The work moved to a Siemens AG facility in California.

    Track and station construction work now is largely finished. There are six new stations, upgrades of others and dozens of rebuilt bridges and culverts. New locomotives are in service, and new railcars are due next year.

    A map of the route shows some of the main results of the project.

    The improvements will make the train ride faster, more comfortable and more reliable. The question is whether this will be enough to lure a large number of people out of their cars.
    

    Heidi Verticchio takes the train a few times a week between her home in Carlinville, Ill., north of St. Louis, and Bloomington-Normal, where she directs a speech and hearing clinic for Illinois State University. Because the trains don’t run frequently enough, she often has to drive the 120 miles when she needs more flexibility.

    A higher speed won’t mean Ms. Verticchio will be taking the train more often. She estimates it might cut 10 to 15 minutes from her ride.

    “It’s not going to make any difference,” she said.

    Most of the Chicago-St. Louis train corridor remains a single track. Freight railroads Union Pacific and Canadian National own most of the route. They coordinate all traffic, including passenger trains.

    In the year that ended with November, according to an Amtrak report, Canadian National caused 1,672 minutes of delay per 10,000 Amtrak train-miles logged on the route. Union Pacific caused 1,036 minutes of delay per 10,000 Amtrak train-miles, Amtrak said. Both exceeded Amtrak’s target of 900.

    The report attributed about two-thirds of the delays to “freight-train interference.” It found that 73% of rail passengers arrived on time, but for those who faced delays, these averaged 45 minutes.

    “Chicago is the nation’s largest rail hub and as such experiences a complex and congested network,” said a spokeswoman for Union Pacific. Though Union Pacific owns the line from Joliet, Ill., to St. Louis and controls movement on it, operations can be affected by other railroads as well, she said.Train tracks snaking together outside Chicago’s Union Station.

    Canadian National said more than 80% of the delays were due to another railroad.

    Union Pacific has agreed to get at least 80% of Amtrak’s fast trains to Chicago or St. Louis on time once the project is complete. “The biggest game is reliability and on-time performance,” which builds ridership over time, said John Porcari, who was deputy U.S. secretary of transportation when the Obama administration awarded funds for the project.

    The Illinois project has built 24 miles of a second track, including bypasses to shunt passenger trains around freights. It’s estimated that hundreds of millions of dollars would be needed to end all freight-passenger conflicts, including untangling three railroads’ lines where they converge in Springfield.

    Outside of regular Amtrak funding, which in 2018 was about $1.9 billion, Congress rarely provided money for intercity passenger rail prior to a 2008 bill authorizing federal grants for such projects, according to a Congressional Research Service report. The federal government awards about $3 billion a year for airport construction and $45 billion for highway construction.

    Experts cite several reasons the U.S. trails similarly developed countries in high-speed rail. Chief among them are strong property rights, local land-use controls and the expense and benefits of extensive highway and aviation networks.The renovated Amtrak waiting area at Union Station in Chicago

    Robert Puentes, president of the Eno Center for Transportation in Washington, notes that the U.S. has used just one approach to passenger rail since the 1970s, Amtrak. The government-owned corporation was cobbled together from remnants of major railroads’ passenger services. It is funded through fares and state and federal subsidies.

    European rail networks feature a mix of government and business owners and operators. Mr. Puentes said new investor-owned passenger rail ventures in Florida and Texas bear watching.

    Rail advocates say one of the biggest challenges, after all the time and expense, remains showing American travelers there can be a better alternative than driving. “We’re the most car-dependent nation in the world,” said Andy Kunz, president of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, which advocates for a national high-speed rail network.Inside an Amtrak train outside Dwight, Ill.

    The Illinois project’s 2012 environmental study found that 97.5% of the 51 million annual travelers between Chicago and St. Louis drove. Slightly over 1% of travelers flew, 0.2% took a bus, and 1.3% rode Amtrak trains.

    Driving takes around five hours—comparable to the train—and costs about $40 for fuel, also roughly comparable to the train, where the cost now is between $25 and $70.

    The state says it has a realistic goal: reducing the share of travelers who drive to 94%—at best, 90%. In 2018, Amtrak reported that the corridor’s five daily trains in each direction carried 716,544 riders, about the same as 2017.

    Barbara Reynolds, 79, recently took the Chicago-to-St. Louis train for the first time, on a visit to her son. Usually she flies.

    Would shaving an hour off the 5½-hour train trip make much difference to her? Not really, she said. “You usually end up waiting somewhere for an hour.”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/high-speed-rail-in-the-u-s-remains-elusive-illinois-shows-why-11551713342?mod=hp_lead_pos8
    

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Environment News

18. Wheeler Adds to Leadership Team In First Week as EPA Head

    Mar 4, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Abby Smith

    Andrew Wheeler is pulling the EPA’s Region 8 chief into his leadership team, the agency’s new chief announced March 4.

    Wheeler, confirmed by the Senate Feb. 28 as the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, said he added four members to the agency’s top staff, including one top career position. The move, which includes two promotions from within the agency, will open up the top slot in the EPA’s Region 8, which covers six states in the northern Plains.

    Doug Benevento, the Region 8 administrator, will join the EPA’s headquarters office as a senior counselor for regional management and state affairs. The EPA hasn’t yet announced who will take his place in the region, headquartered in Colorado.

    Mara Kamen, who previously led the human resources office at the Small Business Administration, will become director of the agency’s Office of Human Resources, a top career EPA position. She also has worked at the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Personnel Management.
    Wheeler’s Staff Concerns

    Hiring a human resources director is part of Wheeler’s efforts to address concerns about the EPA’s ability to attract and retain career staff.

    “We have to figure out a way of attracting the best talent and keeping the best talent,” Wheeler said during remarks Feb. 8 at the Environmental Law 2019 conference.

    The EPA currently has just under 14,000 employees, according to agency documents, the lowest level of staff since the Reagan era.

    Wheeler also announced the promotion of Michael Molina, who was a senior adviser to the deputy administrator, to be the EPA’s deputy chief of staff.

    The EPA also will add Corry Schiermeyer, currently the acting director of media relations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, as associate administrator for the office of public affairs. Her resume includes work at the White House, the Department of Agriculture, and Capitol Hill.

    Kamen and Molina begin their new roles March 4. Schiermeyer will join the agency March 18, and Benevento will take on his new role later in the month.

    https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/wheeler-adds-to-leadership-team-in-first-week-as-epa-head
    

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19. Wheeler Brings on New Public Affairs Chief

    Mar 4, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire

    By Kevin Bogardus

    Fresh off his Senate confirmation, Andrew Wheeler has brought on a slate of new senior officials at EPA, including a public affairs chief, the agency announced this morning.

    Corry Schiermeyer will be EPA's associate administrator of public affairs, starting March 18.

    Schiermeyer comes from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where she is press secretary and acting director of media relations. She held several press roles during the George W. Bush administration, including at the departments of Agriculture and Energy as well as the White House, according to her LinkedIn profile.
    

    Schiermeyer also has corporate public relations experience and Capitol Hill experience and worked on Capitol Hill, having served as press secretary for former Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) and communications director for Rep. John Carter (R-Texas).

    EPA's press shop, which has taken on aggressive campaign-style tactics under the Trump administration, has already seen several leadership changes. Liz Bowman left in May last year. Her predecessor, J.P. Freire, left in July 2017.

    John Konkus, a deputy associate administrator in the public affairs office, was expected to leave last year for a post at the Small Business Administration but has remained at EPA.

    In other staffing news, Wheeler promoted EPA Region 8 Administrator Doug Benevento for a top position at the agency.

    Benevento will be senior counselor for regional management and state affairs, a job he will start later this month. Along with his post as head of EPA's Denver office, Benevento was executive director for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. He also has been an Xcel Energy Inc. executive and an attorney at law firm Greenberg Traurig.

    Benevento is a longtime friend of Wheeler's, the two having first met in the 1990s when they worked on Capitol Hill. Wheeler was a groomsman in Benevento's 2000 wedding (E&E Daily, Aug. 1).
    

    Kenneth Wagner, a close associate of former Administrator Scott Pruitt, held a similar role at EPA advising on regional and state affairs. Wagner is now Oklahoma secretary of energy and environment.

    EPA also announced today that Michael Molina will be deputy chief of staff, starting today.

    Molina joined EPA in May last year and has since been a senior adviser to Wheeler, first when he was deputy administrator and then acting administrator. Molina also worked before at EPA in 2004. He has experience in the departments of State and Agriculture and as a Defense Department contractor, as well.

    Mara Kamen, who has worked at the Small Business Administration, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of Personnel Management, also starts today as director of EPA's human resources office. Kamen's hire was announced in an internal email at EPA last month (E&E News PM, Feb. 21).

    https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/03/04/stories/1060123067
    

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20. Ewire: Democrats Plan Climate 'Counteroffensive' Ahead of 2020

    Mar 4, 2019 | Inside EPA

    Capitol Hill Democrats are increasing their focus on climate change politics ahead of the 2020 elections, betting that the issue with drive enough young voters and progressives to the polls to help the party re-take the White House and the Senate.

    “This is the first time Democrats have decided to go on offense on climate change,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told the New York Times. He outlined a strategy of weekly floor speeches calling out Republicans for inaction on the issue, a proposal for a special Senate climate committee and proposed legislation that his party could run on next year and bring up for a vote in 2021.

    Schumer conceded that in terms of a legislative proposal, “it’s going to take us a little while to come up with a consensus that works."

    But the Times suggests the effort is a “counteroffensive” to a GOP attempt to split the party by holding a vote in the coming weeks on the “Green New Deal” progressive climate resolution.

    Meanwhile, some Republican lawmakers are launching a counteroffensive of their own, trying to avoid being labeled as anti-environment. The Washington Examiner reports that members of both chambers are launching the Roosevelt Conservation Caucus to stress free-market solutions to environmental problems, in contrast to the Green New Deal's government intervention.

    The story says the group “will not focus on climate change,” but instead on public lands issues and maintaining U.S. leadership on advanced technologies and renewables. A letter announcing the group also cites “energy independence,” which is likely a reference to exports of oil and natural gas.

    Leaders of the group are Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Cory Gardner (R-CO), as well as Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Brian Mast (R-FL).

    https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-democrats-plan-climate-counteroffensive-ahead-2020
    

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21. The Energy 202: Climate Change Is Jay Inslee's Top Priority in Washington. How Will It Play in 2020?

    Mar 4, 2019 | Washington Post

    By Dino Grandoni

    Climate change is poised to be a big issue in the race for the Democratic nomination. But there hasn’t been a candidate who has made the issue the center of his or her pitch for president — until now.

    Washington Gov. Jay Inslee launched his bid for president Friday to address what he called in his first campaign video “the most urgent challenge of our time.” 

    While the crowded field for the Democratic nomination already includes five senators co-sponsoring the ambitious Green New Deal resolution, Inslee is prioritizing climate change to the exclusion of other issues. He said “climate change” or “global warming” in the video at least 10 times. It was the first, last and only issue he mentioned in his video announcement. 

    It's an issue Inslee has been passionate about as the governor of the other Washington since 2013. "We need to get something done. This is a moment of great peril but of also great promise, and it needs urgent action," he told The Energy 202 in an interview last month. CONTENT FROM AT&T BUSINESS Flexible tech solutions can prepare your business for nearly any challenge, but first you need a game plan.  Read More 

    The twice-elected governor has built one of the nation’s longest political resumes on the issue of climate change with his efforts to transition the state off of fossil fuels. The League of Conservation Voters has hailed him as “our nation’s greenest governor.”

    But his track record of success on those efforts, though, has been mixed — even in the true blue state like Washington. Inslee’s record shows both the promise and pitfalls of singularly focusing on an issue as difficult for voters to wrap their heads around — let alone actually tackle — as global warming.

    Forged in his failures, Inslee sees his approach to climate change at once both aspirational and pragmatic. He frequently makes analogies to the fitful yet eventually triumphant effort to land a man on the moon in the 1960s.

    “You have to be undaunted,” Inslee said in the interview. “The lessons of history is that every single major social advance we’ve made in our nation's history has taken years or decades, has taken many losses before we have eventual wins — and that's the nature of progress.”

    With his focus on climate change, Inslee is trying to forge a new “lane” in the Democratic primary where previously there has never been one.

    “Nobody until Inslee has flatly said, this is my issue,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

    Yet some polling from Leiserowitz’s group suggests there may finally be such an electoral lane in the Democratic Party. Last year, the Yale program found registered voters who identified as liberal Democrats listed environmental protection and global warming as their third and fourth most important issues out of 28 topics.

    Even those who haven't always supported Inslee's efforts in the past acknowledge his commitment to the issue.

    "It's not just fluff, and him just putting himself out there and separating himself from some of the other candidates," said Bill Dewey, senior director of public affairs of the family-owned Taylor Shellfish. "In my opinion, it's very consistent." A decade ago the Washington state-based company lost 75 percent of the oyster larvae critical to producing baby oysters due to the ocean absorbing more carbon dioxide. Still the firm stayed "neutral" on Inslee's carbon tax proposal in 2018.

    As governor, Inslee was busy launching initiatives promoting the use of electric cars and ferries and pumping tens of millions of dollars into clean energy research. He led Democrats in the Washington State Legislature to pass renewable energy requirements for electric utilities.

    That in part has lead Washington to rank second in its rates of electric vehicle adoption and renewable energy generation — in each category trailing its West Coast cousin California.

    But when it comes to renewable energy, Washington has a huge geographic advantage in its ability to produce hydropower with its many rivers. And Inslee’s biggest policy catch has eluded him.

    That would be installing a price on the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which many economists say as the most cost-effective way to drive emissions of the most prevalent climate-warming gas.

    Despite Washington’s leftward political tilt, twice voters there have rejected ballot initiatives imposing a statewide fee on carbon pollution. Similar proposals to place a price on carbon — either through a carbon fee or cap-and-trade scheme — have failed more than once in the state legislature.

    So Inslee and Washington Democrats, even after gaining seats in the legislature in the 2018 election, have decided on a different tack. They are pursuing passage of a suite of five pieces of legislation that would set higher clean-fuel standards and boost the energy efficiency of buildings.

    The aim of all that legislation is to reduce Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2035. Inslee is confident that hodgepodge of bills has a better chance of success than the 2018 carbon tax ballot initiative — all while having “roughly equivalent” carbon reduction.

    “These five tools have a better chance of passage, particularly on the heels of this initiative vote,” Inslee said. “So we made a very good strategic, sound and smart decision to pursue what will work.”

    That kind of nimbleness, moving from one proposal to the next, may be necessary in Washington, D.C., which saw the high-profile failure to pass a cap-and-trade program early in President Obama's first term. Already Inslee is addressing the political hurdles by calling for an end to what tripped up that 2009 cap-and-trade bill: the Senate filibuster.

    As Inslee announced his run Friday, the Washington State passed the biggest of those bills, which would seek to have the state eliminate fossil fuels from electricity generation by 2045.

    "It's not just aspirational," said state Sen. Reuven Carlyle (D), the bill's sponsor. "Our bill is hands down the clearest, most direct pathway toward shutting down fossil fuel in our state." Carlyle added that Senate passage was his legislation's largest hurtle.

    The question facing Inslee now as he departs for Iowa on Tuesday to tour a solar panel installation and meet local climate activists is how much that legacy will resonate with voters nationally.

    Historically, voters have placed environmental concerns behind pocketbook issues like job creation. Indeed, Trump mocked Democrats' focus on the Green New Deal, which Inslee has praised, during a rambling two-hour speech Saturday.

    "No planes, no energy — when the wind stops blowing, that’s the end of your electric,” Trump told supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland. Then, looking up, he added: “Darling, is the wind blowing today? I’d like to watch television, darling.”

    But Inslee sees recent two trends in his favor going into 2020. First, Inslee hopes to convince voters that transitioning to lower-carbon sources of electricity and transportation is in fact an opportunity for job creation.

    “He is so pessimistic; we’re the optimists in this debate. We know we can invent and create and build a clean energy economy,” Inslee told ABC News in response to Trump's speech. “We know we can do that because we’re doing it in my state.”

    Second, Inslee said in his Post interview, is that “the peril has become more urgent and obvious.”

    A mural by artist Shane Grammer adorns the chimney of a residence leveled by the Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

    In the past two years alone, Inslee noted, a deluge of rainwater from Hurricane Harvey brough devastating flooding to Houston in 2017 and years of drought helped stoke massive western wildfires in 2018 that destroyed towns like Paradise, Calif., which Inslee visited earlier this year.

    “This isn't just a fire. It was an apocalyptic feeling. This has actually been one of the challenges we have in this movement because you don't want to scare people into inaction,” Inslee said. “So sometimes it’s difficult to describe the nature of what we face.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/03/04/the-energy-202-climate-change-is-jay-inslee-s-top-priority-in-washington-could-it-win-him-the-white-house/5c7c209f1b326b2d177d5fb2/?utm_term=.682668fd0210
    

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22. Atmospheric Methane Levels Have Surged in the Last Decade, and Scientists Aren’t Sure Why

    Mar 4, 2019 | Newsweek

    By Hannah Osborne

    Levels of atmospheric methane—a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide—have surged over the past decade, and scientists are not sure why.

    The amount of methane released into the atmosphere since 2007 accounts for more than 6 percent of the total growth in emissions since the start of the industrial revolution. According to a paper published in February in the American Geophysical Union journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, the impact of the rising atmospheric methane could jeopardize our ability to meet targets set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

    In the agreement, nations across the globe pledged to keep global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on pre-industrial levels. World leaders mostly set out to do this by finding ways to reduce their CO2 emissions. 

    “The current growth [in methane] has now lasted over a decade,” the study said. “If growth continues at similar rates through subsequent decades, evidence presented here demonstrates that the extra climate warming impact of the methane can significantly negate or even reverse progress in climate mitigation from reducing CO2 emissions.”

    Pre-industrial methane levels were around 720 parts per billion (ppb). In 1984, they were recorded as at 1,645 ppb. Over the next 20 years, the growth appeared to slow down, with 2006 levels recorded at 1,775 ppb. After this, emissions started to rise again. In 2017, they had reached 1,850 ppb.

    Matt Rigby, an atmospheric scientist from the U.K.’s University of Bristol, who was not involved in the study, told the Los Angeles Times that researchers had hoped atmospheric methane levels would start falling. “But we’ve seen quite the opposite: It’s been growing steadily for over a decade,” he said. “It’s just such a confusing picture. Everyone’s puzzled. We’re just puzzled.”

    In the study, scientists noted that while the growth of methane had been reported across the globe, it was especially notable in the tropics and northern mid‐latitudes. “The increase is continuing,” the team wrote, adding that since 2007, the carbon isotope ratio—which is normally used to identify the origin of the methane—had changed significantly, indicating a shift of the source.

    So where is it coming from? Methane can be produced in a number of ways. Most commonly, we associate it with the breakdown of biological material. However, it can also come from the fossil fuel industry. Increases in either or both of these provide a plausible answer.

    A third idea is that the “cleansing power” of the atmosphere is declining, meaning methane is not being destroyed at such a fast pace. This means that even if emissions are not growing, methane is lingering in the atmosphere for longer.

    At the moment, it is unclear exactly how and why methane in the atmosphere is growing—and this is a big problem. "The need to determine the factors behind the recent rise in methane is urgent: indeed, essential if global warming is to be limited within the Paris Agreement limits," they concluded. 

    https://www.newsweek.com/mystery-methane-emissions-atmosphere-1350529
    

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