Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 3/12/2019
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(ACC Mentioned) Guest Column: A Day Without Plastic
Mar 11, 2019 | MyWebTimes.com
By Kevin Foster
I’ve noticed a lot of backlash lately about plastic in our society. We use a lot of it and a lot of that ends up in the middle of the ocean. This is a serious problem and it needs to be dealt with. Will a ban on plastic straws and bags really help? I doubt it. We’ve grown too reliant on plastic. -
(ACC Mentioned) Is Burning Plastic Waste a Good Idea?
Mar 12, 2019 | National Geographic
By Elizabeth Royte
WHAT IS TO be done with the swelling flood of plastic waste, if we don’t want to see it snagged in tree branches, floating in ocean gyres, or clogging the stomachs of seabirds and whales? -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals Start 2019 on Soft Note With Tepid January Growth
Mar 12, 2019 | Zacks
By Anindya Barman
Global chemicals production started 2019 on a sluggish note with January witnessing a slight uptick in production on lower capacity utilization, according to the recent monthly report from the American Chemistry Council (“ACC”). -
Trump’s 2020 Budget Proposes Deep Cuts to EPA Funding
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
US President Donald Trump is looking to cut the EPA budget by 31%, according to his recently released budget proposal for fiscal year 2020. -
Dems Predict 'Challenging' Bernhardt Confirmation Fight
Mar 12, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Michael Doyle and Kellie Lunney
The White House yesterday officially submitted the nomination of acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt for the department's top job, framing a lively debate that will run the gamut from public policies to private ethics. -
(ACC Mentioned) ACC 'More Confident Than Ever' on TSCA Implementation
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US chemicals industry is "more confident than ever" that the EPA is on track with its implementation of TSCA, delegates at the American Chemistry Council’s GlobalChem conference heard last week. -
(ACC Mentioned) To Head Off State Patchwork, Industry Seeks to Tout EPA's TSCA 'Success'
Mar 11, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Chemical industry officials are acknowledging that the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) does not go as far as they had hoped in preempting state rules and are seeking to assure local regulators and consumers that EPA's implementation of the new law... -
SBA Urges EPA to Bolster Small Business Review of TSCA Mitigation Rules
Mar 11, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Charging that past EPA reviews have given short shrift to small business concerns, the federal government's small business advocate is urging the agency to bolster consideration of the concerns in upcoming Toxic Substances Control (TSCA)... -
Chemical Oversight Funds Nudged Up While EPA Budget Chopped (2)
Mar 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
President Donald Trump’s requested fiscal year 2020 budget would boost funding for EPA’s chemical risk assessments and other tasks required by the Toxic Substances Control Act by around 8 percent from current spending. -
(ACC Mentioned) Washington State Priority Products Legislation Clears Senate
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Washington state’s Senate has passed a bill to create a new priority products programme that could see restrictions or prohibitions of identified chemicals of concern. -
California Extends Consultation on Nail Products Containing Toluene
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control has extended a consultation on its proposal to name nail products containing toluene as a priority product. -
Huntington Ingalls Can’t Keep Asbestos Suit in Federal Court
Mar 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Huntington Ingalls Inc. will have to defend in state court a ship worker’s claims that the company failed to warn of the dangers of asbestos on a U.S. Navy ship, the Fifth Circuit ruled. -
California Unfolds PFAS Investigation Plan With Broad Impact on California Dischargers
Mar 12, 2019 | Lexology
By Angela Levin, Andrew J. Perel, and Houston Shaner
At a public hearing on March 6, 2019, the California State Water Resources Control Board announced a “Phased Investigation Plan” for perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). -
U.K. Chemical Firms Face Double Compliance Costs Post-Brexit
Mar 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ali Qassim
U.K.-based chemical firms trading in the European Union post-Brexit could see costs double for complying with both EU rules and a new U.K. chemical regulatory regime. -
Echa Opens Brexit REACH IT Window
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Echa has opened its REACH IT window to enable UK companies to make changes and transfer their REACH registrations to EU-based entities. If an only representative (OR) is not appointed, the EU27/EEA importers will have to submit their own registrations. -
Bjorn Hansen: Living the REACH Story
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Mamta Patel
Europe’s ambitious industrial chemicals law reached the end of its first phase in 2018 after a decade of relatively smooth operation, far from the predictions of its unworkability when REACH was first mooted. -
Increased Funding Proposed for Offshore Drilling in 2020 Budget
Mar 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
The Interior Department’s office in charge of offshore oil and gas leases would get a bump in funding in the president’s fiscal 2020 budget request. -
Residents Fight to Block Major Drilling Project
Mar 12, 2019 | AP (In E&E Energywire)
By Dan Elliott
Frustrated residents of a Denver suburb say state law is forcing them to participate in a major oil and gas drilling project against their wishes, so they launched legal challenges with potentially significant consequences for the industry. -
Shell: Total Electrification Plausible Within 20 Years
Mar 11, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Ben LeFebvre
Electricity could squeeze out oil and natural gas to become the primary way people consume energy, a Shell executive said today. -
Trump Eyes EPA FY20 Infrastructure Cuts but Open to Deal with Congress
Mar 11, 2019 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2020 budget proposal floats a cut of more than $700 million to the agency’s water infrastructure grant and loan programs... -
Infrastructure Investment Pays for Itself
Mar 11, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Dennis Slater, Audrey Copeland and Michael W. Johnson
A recent Business Roundtable study found that $737 billion in public investment over 10 years would set us on the path toward reviving our national infrastructure. While those numbers seem daunting, the report also showed that every additional dollar invested... -
Spending Plan Attacks Climate — but Never Mentions It
Mar 12, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews
A 150-page summary of what President Trump wants to include in next year's federal budget uses the word "climate" exactly once — and the reference isn't about global warming. -
Wheeler: Green New Deal Plans Are 'Dangerous'
Mar 12, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Jenny Mandel and Edward Klump
Supporters of Green New Deal-style plans are recklessly calling to cut off Americans and populations around the world from critical energy supplies, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told an audience of oil and gas industry executives today. -
Murkowski, Manchin Break with Colleagues on Green New Deal
Mar 12, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Mike Lee, Jenny Mandel and Edward Klump
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and ranking member Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) delivered a message of unity on climate change here yesterday. -
Labor Groups Detail Opposition to Green New Deal
Mar 11, 2019 | Inside EPA
Major labor unions are detailing strong opposition to the Green New Deal (GND) climate change resolution, writing that they “will not accept” proposals that cause immediate harm to their members, including those that work for fossil fuel-heavy sectors. -
Socialists Jump into Green New Deal Debate
Mar 12, 2019 | E&E Clinatewire
By Adam Aton
The country's largest socialist organization has joined the race to define the Green New Deal. -
Top Oil Execs Call for Change as Climate, Technology Concerns Threaten Industry
Mar 11, 2019 | Wall Street Journal
By Bradley Olson
Some of the world’s top oil executives plan a call to action at a premier industry conference this week, arguing that companies need to actively address climate change and technology concerns that are scaring investors away. -
‘Time Is Running Short’ for Climate Fixes, UN Forum Warns
Mar 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Wachira Kigotho
Governments must start delivering real change to save the global environment, the acting executive director of United Nations Environment Assembly said March 11. -
Whites Are Mainly to Blame for Air Pollution, but Blacks and Hispanics Bear the Burden, Says a New Study
Mar 12, 2019 | Washington Post
By Isaac Stanley-Becker
Air pollution, the leading environmental cause of death worldwide, reflects the stark racial inequalities of American life. In the United States, the problem is disproportionately caused by the white majority, but its consequences are suffered mainly by blacks and Hispanics.
Industry and Association News
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Transportation and Infrastructure News
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(ACC Mentioned) Guest Column: A Day Without Plastic
Mar 11, 2019 | MyWebTimes.com
By Kevin Foster
I’ve noticed a lot of backlash lately about plastic in our society. We use a lot of it and a lot of that ends up in the middle of the ocean. This is a serious problem and it needs to be dealt with. Will a ban on plastic straws and bags really help? I doubt it. We’ve grown too reliant on plastic.
I am a bit biased on the subject. Plastics manufacturing put food on my table for the past 30 years and has made all our lives easier. To prove my point, just try to go a day without touching plastic.
When you reach out to silence your alarm clock be very careful. Unless it’s antique, it’s made of plastic.
Roll out of bed and stumble into the bathroom and what do you see? Plastic everywhere. You can’t even brush your teeth. Most likely you can’t shower either. Hopefully, someone left the toilet seat up.
Check those labels while getting dressed. If it’s not 100 percent cotton, odds are it’s got some type of plastic in it. Maybe it’s a casual dress day. T-shirt and jeans. That’s me.
Is the coffee ready? Too bad you can’t pour yourself a cup. That carafe handle is plastic.
Cereal for breakfast? Pull that cardboard box down and look inside. What do you see? You see you’re going hungry today. Think you’ve got me beat by pulling out the cast iron pan and gathering fresh eggs from your chickens in the yard? How do you plan on turning your stove on? Go ahead and try. I’ll wait.
Maybe there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge. If you haven’t upgraded to stainless steel you can’t even open the door, but let’s take a break from our little game. I want you to open the door. When’s the last time you ever noticed how much plastic is in your refrigerator? It’s an incredible amount, isn’t it?
Since you can’t make yourself a sandwich without touching plastic why not just grab a banana and head out the door. I hope it’s a nice day for a walk. The exercise will do you good. According to the American Chemistry Council, 50 percent of the materials in a modern automobile is plastic. On the plus side, plastic is only 10 percent of the weight.
Should you finally make it to work without touching plastic there’s not much you can do. Phones, printers, computers, pens, all made of plastic. Heck, you probably can’t even sit down. I haven’t even mentioned the plastic in your vinyl floor or wall-to-wall carpeting. It’s going to be a very unproductive day without plastic.
I could go on and on about how dependent on plastic we have become. I started thinking about writing this column when I first heard about banning plastic straws. Plastic straws? They’re 95 percent air! Try telling your hospitalized loved one that they can’t have a drink of water because someone banned flexible straws.
Our use of plastic isn’t polluting the earth. Our irresponsible disposal of it is the problem. Forcing us to go backwards in time is not the answer. A lot of energy goes into making plastic and that energy can be extracted and reused. Plastic didn’t create our pollution troubles. Our own laziness did.
KEVIN FOSTER is a former Write Teamer who lives in rural Ottawa.
https://www.mywebtimes.com/2019/03/11/guest-column-a-day-without-plastic/a8k6fgc/
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(ACC Mentioned) Is Burning Plastic Waste a Good Idea?
Mar 12, 2019 | National Geographic
By Elizabeth Royte
WHAT IS TO be done with the swelling flood of plastic waste, if we don’t want to see it snagged in tree branches, floating in ocean gyres, or clogging the stomachs of seabirds and whales?
Plastic production is expected to double in the next 20 years, according to a report issued by the World Economic Forum. Plastic recycling rates, meanwhile, hover around 30 percent in Europe, just nine percent in the U.S., and zero or close to it in much of the developing world.
This past January, a consortium of petrochemical and consumer-goods companies called the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, including Exxon, Dow, Total, Shell, Chevron Phillips, and Procter & Gamble, committed to spending $1.5 billion over five years on the problem. Their aim is to support alternative materials and delivery systems, beef up recycling programs, and—more controversially—promote technologies that convert plastics to fuel or energy.
Sophisticated incinerators that burn plastic and other municipal waste can produce enough heat and steam to turn turbine blades and generate electricity for the local grid. The European Union, which restricts the landfilling of organic waste, already burns almost 42 percent of its waste; the U.S. burns 12.5 percent. According to the World Energy Council, a U.N. accredited network that represents a range of energy sources and technologies, the waste-to-energy sector is likely to witness steady growth in coming years, especially in the Asia Pacific region. China already has some 300 waste-to-energy plants operating, with another several hundred in the pipeline.
"As countries like China close their doors to foreign waste and an overburdened recycling industry fails to keep up with the plastic pollution crisis,” says John Hocevar of Greenpeace, “incineration will increasingly be pushed as an easy alternative.”
Is it a good idea?
Burning plastic trash to create energy sounds sensible: Plastic is, after all, made from hydrocarbons, just like oil, and is more energy-dense than coal. But several obstacles loom to a big expansion of waste-burning.
For one thing, siting waste-to-energy plants, like siting landfills, is difficult: No one wants to live near a plant that may host hundreds of trash-filled trucks a day. Usually the plants end up near low-income communities. The U.S. has seen only one new incinerator since 1997.
Waste-to-energy plants are also expensive to build and operate, so they generally charge more to tip loads of trash than landfills do. And because plants run most efficiently with steady streams of waste, their owners often need to import material from far, far away.
Large plants do generate enough electricity to supply tens of thousands of houses. But studies have shown that recycling plastic waste saves more energy—by reducing the need to extract fossil fuel and process it into new plastic—than burning it, along with other household waste, can generate.
Finally, waste-to-energy plants have the potential to emit low levels of toxic pollutants such as dioxins, acid gases, and heavy metals. Modern plants employ sophisticated scrubbers, precipitators, and filters to capture these compounds, but as the World Energy Council cautiously states, in a 2017 report, “These technologies are useful as long as the combustion plants are properly operated and emissions controlled.”
Some experts worry that countries lacking environmental laws, or strict enforcement, may try to save money on emissions controls. And then there’s incineration’s constant production of greenhouse gases.In 2016, U.S. waste incinerators released the equivalent of 12 million tons of carbon dioxide, more than half of which came from plastics.
A better way to burn?
nother way to convert waste to energy is through gasification, a process that melts plastics at very high temperatures in the near-absence of oxygen (which means toxins like dioxins and furans aren’t formed). The process generates a synthetic gas that’s used to fire turbines. But with natural gas so cheap, gasification plants aren’t competitive.
A more attractive technology right now is pyrolysis, in which plastics are shredded and melted at lower temperatures than gasification and in the presence of even less oxygen. The heat breaks plastic polymers down into smaller hydrocarbons, which can be refined to diesel fuel and even into other petrochemical products—including new plastics. (The Alliance to End Plastic Waste includes pyrolysis companies.)
Seven relatively small pyrolysis plants now operate in the U.S., some still in demonstration phase, and the technology appears to be expanding worldwide, with facilitiesin Europe, China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The American Chemistry Council estimates that the U.S. could sustain 600 pyrolysis units handling 30 tons of plastics a day, for a total of around 6.5 million tons a year—just under a fifth of the 34.5 million tons of plastic waste the country now generates.
Pyrolysis can handle the films, pouches, and multi-layered materials that most mechanical recyclers cannot, says Priyanka Bakaya, founder of the plastic-to-fuel company Renewlogy. And it produces no harmful pollutants, she says, other than “a minimal amount of carbon dioxide.”
On the other hand, critics call pyrolysis an expensive and immature technology, with startups that have come and gone over the years, unable to meet their pollution control limits, or technical and financial goals. It is still cheaper to make diesel from fossil fuel than from waste plastic.
But is it renewable?
Is fuel from plastic a renewable resource? The European Union thinks so: It considers energy generated from burning any kind of carbon-based municipal waste renewable and thus eligible for subsidies. But plastics aren’t renewable in the sense that wood, paper, or cotton are. Plastics don’t grow from sunlight: We make them from fossil fuels extracted from the ground, and each step in that process has the potential to pollute.
Moreover, converting plastics to fuel that will ultimately be burned seems to contravene the European Union’s adoption, in 2015, of “circular economy” goals, which aim to keep resources in use for as long as possible and call for all plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2030.
“When you take fossil fuels out of the ground, make plastics with them, then burn those plastics for energy, it's clear that this is not a circle—it's a line,” says Rob Opsomer of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which promotes circular economy efforts. But pyrolysis, Opsomer adds, canbe considered part of the circular economy if its outputs are used as feedstock for new high-quality materials—including durable plastics.
Zero-waste advocates worry that any approach to converting plastic waste into energy does nothing to reduce demand for new plastic products and even less to mitigate climate change. “To uplift these approaches is to distract from real solutions,” says Claire Arkin, a campaigner with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives—that is, solutions that allow people to use less plastic and reuse and recycle more.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/should-we-burn-plastic-waste/
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemicals Start 2019 on Soft Note With Tepid January Growth
Mar 12, 2019 | Zacks
By Anindya Barman
Global chemicals production started 2019 on a sluggish note with January witnessing a slight uptick in production on lower capacity utilization, according to the recent monthly report from the American Chemistry Council (“ACC”).
January Sees Modest Growth
The chemical industry trade group said that the Global Chemical Producing Regional Index ("CPRI") rose a measly 0.1% in January on a monthly comparison basis, following a 0.3% growth in December.
The Global CPRI, which is measured using a three-month moving average, measures chemical production volumes for 33 major nations, sub-regions and regions. It is comparable to the Federal Reserve Board (“FRB”) production indices.
Per the ACC, the Global CPRI ticked up 0.5% year over year on a three-month moving average basis. Capacity utilization for the global chemical industry eased 0.2 percentage points to 83.1% in January. Utilization fell from 85.6% a year ago.
On a segment basis, growth was witnessed in agricultural chemicals, inorganic chemicals, plastic resins, synthetic rubber, manufactured fibers, coatings and other specialty chemicals for the reported month. This was offset by softness across consumer products and bulk petrochemicals and organics.
By regions, January witnessed higher production across North America, Africa and the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. However, output fell in Europe and was flat in Latin America.
Per the ACC, chemical production in the United States went up 0.3% on a monthly comparison basis in January. This follows a 0.6% sequential growth a month ago.
The trade group expects U.S. chemical production (excluding pharmaceuticals) to rise 3.6% in 2019, following a 3.1% growth in 2018. The growth is expected to be spurred by gains in manufacturing and export and sustained demand across light vehicles and housing markets.
Chemical Industry Faces Several Challenges
Trade tensions between the United States and China have clouded the prospects of the chemical industry. The Trump administration slapped punitive tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese products last year while China has imposed retaliatory tariffs on $110 billion in U.S. goods. China’s tariffs on American products include a wide range of petrochemicals, specialty chemicals and plastics.
While recent talks between the two countries have raised hopes of a possible resolution of the trade dispute, the tariffs currently in place are already doing damage to the chemical industry. China’s retaliatory tariffs have hit more than 1,000 U.S. chemicals and plastics exports worth an estimated $10.8 billion, per the ACC.
China is one of the biggest export markets for U.S. chemicals. Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs have created an uncertain demand environment for U.S. chemical products in this significant market. Notably, the trade friction has led to a slowdown in demand in the automotive market (a major chemical end-use market) in China.
Chemical makers also face margin headwinds from a spike in costs of raw materials as a result of short supply partly due to production outages and plant shutdowns. The stricter environmental policy in China has led to the tightening in the supply of certain key raw materials as a result of plant closures. The disruption in the supply chain has pushed up the prices of inputs. Some of the chemical companies are also exposed to challenges from elevated logistics costs.
Nevertheless, chemical companies remain focused on offsetting these challenges through strategic actions including productivity improvement, capacity expansion, price hike initiatives and expansion of scale through acquisitions.
Chemical Stocks to Watch For
A few stocks currently worth considering in the chemical space are Ingevity Corporation (NGVT - Free Report) , Innospec Inc. (IOSP - Free Report) , W. R. Grace & Co. (GRA - Free Report) , American Vanguard Corporation (AVD - Free Report) and Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ICL - Free Report) . Both Ingevity and Innospec sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), while W. R. Grace, American Vanguard and Israel Chemicals each carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Ingevity has an expected earnings growth of 17.9% for the current year. Earnings estimates for the current year have been revised 2.7% upward over the last 60 days.
Innospec has an expected earnings growth of 3.5% for the current year. Earnings estimates for the current year have been revised 5.3% upward over the last 60 days.
W. R. Grace has an expected earnings growth of 10.4% for the current year. Earnings estimates for the current year have been revised 2.9% upward over the last 60 days.
American Vanguard has an expected earnings growth of 10.8% for the current year. Earnings estimates for the current year have been revised 2.3% upward over the last 60 days.
Israel Chemicals has an expected earnings growth of 10.8% for the current year. Earnings estimates for the current year have been revised 5.1% upward over the last 60 days.
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https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/358887/chemicals-start-2019-on-soft-note-with-tepid-january-growth
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Trump’s 2020 Budget Proposes Deep Cuts to EPA Funding
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
US President Donald Trump is looking to cut the EPA budget by 31%, according to his recently released budget proposal for fiscal year 2020.
His request for $6.1bn in agency funding is nearly $3bn less than the enacted FY 2019 level. This is in line with past requests, which have proposed slashing the EPA budget by 31% and 24% for FY 2018 and FY 2019, respectively.
The EPA’s current budget of $8.8bn – agreed in a recent deal which averted a second government shutdown – includes funding for activities like TSCA administration and chemical safety and sustainability research.
Mr Trump’s budget proposal for FY 2020, which begins October 1 of this year, highlights toxic chemicals protections as a budget priority, noting that the coming year will see work "accelerate as the agency reaches statutory deadlines to complete the first set of risk evaluations for existing chemicals and begins the next phase of work."
The proposal also allots $66.4m for chemical risk review and reduction, to supplement TSCA fees paid by manufacturers and processors.
In a press release, recently confirmed Administrator Andrew Wheeler called the request a "common sense budget proposal" that "would support the agency as it continues to work with states, tribes and local governments to protect human health and the environment".
But the NGO Environmental Working Group (EWG) has declared it a "disaster".
"The administration’s budget proposal reflects the president’s top priority: Appease his hard-right base and the fossil fuel and chemical industries that have infiltrated the top positions at the EPA," said EWG president Ken Cook in a statement.
Statement of priorities
The president’s budget is more a statement of priorities than a funding package. Congress holds the government’s purse strings, and has rejected Mr Trump’s attempts to hamstring the agency’s funding in the past.
Indeed, House Energy & Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D–New Jersey) was quick to issue a statement dismissing the proposal as "a sham [that] has absolutely no chance at ever becoming a reality."
"Congress simply will not support a proposal that makes drastic cuts to federal agencies," he added.
But talk of significant cuts can still send jitters through the system.
A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, for example, highlighted that Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) officials have said "that proposed budget cuts have caused them concern about whether they will have sufficient resources to expand assessment work in the future."
The president’s budget overview does not explicitly reference IRIS, an independent risk assessment programme which falls under the EPA’s purview. But past years have seen calls for significant cuts to the agency’s human health risk assessment area, of which IRIS’s budget makes up approximately half.
https://chemicalwatch.com/74947/trumps-2020-budget-proposes-deep-cuts-to-epa-funding
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Dems Predict 'Challenging' Bernhardt Confirmation Fight
Mar 12, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Michael Doyle and Kellie Lunney
The White House yesterday officially submitted the nomination of acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt for the department's top job, framing a lively debate that will run the gamut from public policies to private ethics.
On Friday, the president announced his "intent to nominate" Bernhardt. Yesterday, the administration sent senators his paperwork, an essential step before the confirmation process can begin in earnest.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is poised to schedule a hearing quickly, but not until after the weeklong congressional recess beginning March 18 E&E Daily, March 11).
The committee has to give members seven days' notice for hearings, according to its rules, which further pushes back the timetable.
The nomination comes a little more than a month after President Trump on Feb. 4 declared via Twitter his plan to elevate Bernhardt from his current Senate-confirmed status as deputy secretary (Greenwire, Feb. 21).
If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, Bernhardt would replace former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. A 49-year-old lawyer and former water and energy lobbyist, Bernhardt has gotten high marks so far from the GOP lawmakers who effectively hold his fate in their hands.
"I think he's doing a good job there at the department," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who leads the ENR Committee, said last year, adding that he is "working around the clock."
When Trump announced in February that he intended to nominate Bernhardt for the top job at Interior, Murkowski said she would "seek to move his nomination forward as expeditiously as possible."
Whip count
A veteran of more than a decade of Interior Department service across two Republican administrations, Bernhardt is praised by supporters — and acknowledged by some opponents — for his policy expertise and bureaucratic savvy.
Potentially reinforcing Bernhardt's prospects is the rise of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin to the role of the committee's top Democrat. Unlike his predecessor, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, Manchin voted for Bernhardt as deputy secretary in July 2017.
Bernhardt secured his prior confirmation on a 53-43 vote. Two of the other three Democrats who joined Manchin in supporting the nomination — former Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana — lost their re-election bids last year.
Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine voted for Bernhardt last time.
But in a sign of some heat to come, Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet — from Bernhardt's home state of Colorado — has since withdrawn support from the University of Northern Colorado and George Washington University Law School graduate he once voted for.
"During his tenure as deputy secretary of the Interior, Mr. Bernhardt has worked to revoke national methane standards, drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and limit input from state and local officials with respect to the oil and gas leasing process in Colorado," Bennet declared last month.
Another Western Democrat, Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, predicted the confirmation process will prove "challenging" for Bernhardt.
"I do think that this administration has been so obviously biased toward industry," Heinrich told E&E News in a recent interview. "He has been very much at the center of that ... and some would say he was the guy really setting the course."
Ethics concerns
Beyond these policies, which are key to the Trump administration's energy agenda, Democratic and environmental group critics will be hammering Bernhardt on the kind of ethics front that ultimately undermined Zinke's tenure (E&E Daily, Feb. 5).
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) foreshadowed this line of attack last month when he declared that "David Bernhardt might be the most ethically challenged, special-interest-driven nominee the president could have selected for this position."
In the approximately two months that he's served as acting Interior secretary, Bernhardt has been the subject of several overlapping complaints urging Interior's Office of Inspector General to probe his alleged actions benefiting the Westlands Water District, one of his former law and lobbying clients.
Interior says Bernhardt has acted properly throughout. "The Acting Secretary is fully in compliance with his recusal agreements," Interior spokesperson Faith Vander Voort said in an email last month.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/03/12/stories/1060126997
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC 'More Confident Than Ever' on TSCA Implementation
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US chemicals industry is "more confident than ever" that the EPA is on track with its implementation of TSCA, delegates at the American Chemistry Council’s GlobalChem conference heard last week.
Speaking in Washington, DC, Mike Walls, the ACC’s vice president of regulatory and technical affairs, said that newly confirmed EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler is "committed to full implementation of TSCA and to ensuring that sound science is at the heart of regulatory decision making."
But, he said, the task is challenging, with 2019 seeing deadlines for final risk evaluations on a first set of ten chemicals and the designation of the next 20 for assessment.
Industry, he said, has a "really important role in providing both information and feedback to the government in this process".
Mr Walls outlined several priorities that the ACC has with the ongoing implementation of TSCA. These include:
· "obtaining efficiencies" in the new chemicals programme;
· improving communication between industry and the EPA, both with respect to the new chemicals programme and to existing substances being evaluated;
· achieving "transparency and consistency in risk-based decisions" under the law; and
· getting a sound foundation of data and information.
In this Mr Walls was echoing a view expressed by the new head of the agency's chemical safety office, Alexandra Dunn: that much of the information about chemicals "necessarily comes from the industry".
Data from the recently updated TSCA inventory and collected under the 2020 Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule should help provide a better base of knowledge from which the agency can work, Mr Walls said.
But, he added, both the EPA and industry "need a consistent framework for identifying high-quality reliable science and data to support decision making."
With the draft TSCA risk evaluation of pigment violet 29 showing a high reliance on information generated under REACH, he said, it is important to consider data and risk management across international borders.
Mr Wall’s optimism comes as the EPA remains on track to hit an aggressive schedule of statutory TSCA deadlines. At the same time, though, the consumer advocacy community is becoming increasingly vocalover the direction this is taking.
Ahead of GlobalChem, an Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) blog accused the ACC of being "a central actor in industry’s effort to derail TSCA implementation", citing concerns with industry efforts to "scale back" the review of new chemicals. And how proposed bans on certain uses of three solvents have been abandoned or delayed, among others.
https://chemicalwatch.com/74940/acc-more-confident-than-ever-on-tsca-implementation
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(ACC Mentioned) To Head Off State Patchwork, Industry Seeks to Tout EPA's TSCA 'Success'
Mar 11, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Chemical industry officials are acknowledging that the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) does not go as far as they had hoped in preempting state rules and are seeking to assure local regulators and consumers that EPA's implementation of the new law will mitigate risks and the growing regulatory and retail patchwork.
During an annual GlobalChem chemical sector conference in Washington, D.C. March 7, industry officials said that preemption provisions in the June 2016 revised TSCA have failed to stop the growing patchwork of state chemicals regulations that was a major driver for industry to support talks that led to the revised law.
As a result, officials with the American Chemistry Council (ACC) urged industry participants to better communicate with state regulators, retailers and consumers to show that the EPA’s implementation of the new TSCA will adequately regulate chemicals and that state rules or retailers banning products from store shelves is unnecessary.
“There is not a lot of confidence at the state level about how EPA is implementing TSCA and what the process is, so they are continuing to pass regulations” restricting chemicals, ACC’s State Affairs Manager Kierstin Turnock told the conference during a panel discussion on “Explaining TSCA Implementation and Communicating Success.”
“For the time being it’s clear that state regulators are somewhat baffled by what TSCA is and how it’s being implemented,” she added.
A case in point is EPA's pending effort to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), where several states have indicated they are disappointed that the agency's recently unveiled action plan makes no firm commitment to regulate the substances under TSCA or other laws, prompting local officials to plow ahead on their own strict rules. By contrast, chemical industry officials say they are preparing for the possibility that EPA will select formaldehyde for TSCA review, an action that would preempt states from taking action.
The chemical sector’s acknowledgment that the June 2016 TSCA is failing to prevent a patchwork of state chemicals rules comes despite preemption of such rules being one of industry’s top priorities for the new law.
Whether, and how, competing Senate bills would preempt existing and future state chemicals programs was a major sticking point in negotiations over TSCA, with former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) at one point threatening to block a Senate measure if its preemption of state regulation was too sweeping.
Ultimately, the law provided a narrow preemption of state activities on a chemical-specific basis, a process that begins when EPA initiates a review of a specific chemical though states may petition for waivers.
During the conference, Mark Duvall, of the law firm Beveridge & Diamond, appeared to acknowledge that industry did not achieve the level of preemption officials had sought.
Responding to a comment from an auto industry official that TSCA preemption is not the “end all, be all” some had hoped for, Duvall said the law’s complex preemption provisions take up 18 pages, that preemption of state rules depends on the status of an EPA chemical review, and is subject to numerous exemptions.
“It’s not simple the way it was under the original TSCA,” Duvall said. “Once there is preemption and that is recognized then the states are free to apply to EPA for a waiver of preemption,” he added, citing one example of the complexity surrounding preemption. Preemption “doesn’t always apply, and even it does apply, it may not.”
Duvall also appeared to downplay states’ past desire for an updated TSCA to preempt a patchwork of state rules. While he acknowledged that a desire for state preemption provided incentive for industry to negotiate a revised TSCA, he emphasized that the “the key driver” was industry’s need for public confidence in the safety of chemical products.
'Marketplace Confusion'
Meanwhile, Kelly Montes de Oca, ACC’s director of partnerships and marketing, sustainability and market outreach, urged chemical producers to seek to assure retailers and consumers that industry is committed to safe and sustainable products, and to counter advocacy groups’ focus on chemical hazards by supporting risk-based reviews, such as those EPA is conducting under the revised TSCA.
There’s an “opportunity under the modernized TSCA to point to specific regulatory actions that will show how this is being effective … regulating chemicals in commerce,” she said, adding that consumers want to better understand products and how they are regulated.
But she said that a “patchwork” of state, local, and retail policies can lead to “marketplace confusion.”
Turnock told the conference that state legislators and regulators are increasingly targeting chemical classes, such as PFAS and flame retardants, and requiring disclosure of products’ chemical ingredients.
She also cited an “alarming escalation” in state legislation seeking to ban plastic straws, food containers, and other single-use plastics.
She said 34 states are considering 226 bills that would ban certain chemicals or products, while 11 states are weighing 24 bills imposing ingredient disclosure or other labeling requirements, and 13 states are considering
38 bills related to “green” cleaning products or procurement.
ACC’s focus on state chemical restrictions backs concerns other industry groups raised late last year in comments on EPA’s plan for selecting candidate chemicals to prioritize for review under the revised law.
The Downstream Users Coalition in Nov. 15 comments said that a single federal determination of a chemical’s risks facilitates interstate commerce because it generally preempts state action, but that states continue to enact new laws.
“[S]ince virtually all commerce is interstate, having the single federal safety standard determination that TSCA allows is important, and this goal was one of the drivers behind” the revised law. “Certain states continue to be actively engaged in activities such as ingredient disclosure, alternatives analysis, and imposing chemical restrictions."
The users coalition added that they have yet to see states show confidence in EPA’s TSCA oversight, and the coalition encouraged the agency to consider states’ interests in prioritizing chemicals for TSCA review. The group also said that they expect to see greater preemption of state restrictions over time.
“While we understand that a single federal standard and the preemption envisioned by TSCA will take time to realize, we support EPA efforts to maintain communications with the states and an awareness of substances that are of interest to states,” the users coalition said.
Meanwhile, a coalition of national and state-based environmental groups have said that state regulators are increasingly targeting classes of chemicals because they are tired of a “whack-a-mole approach,” where states restrict one chemical only to find similar problems with an alternative substance.
The group, Safer States, early this year released an analysis showing 22 states weighing 97 bills, targeting individual chemicals or substances, or groups of chemicals, for elimination or reduction. The approach is a change from some states' efforts before TSCA reform when they sought to establish their own chemicals management programs.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/head-state-patchwork-industry-seeks-tout-epas-tsca-success
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SBA Urges EPA to Bolster Small Business Review of TSCA Mitigation Rules
Mar 11, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds
Charging that past EPA reviews have given short shrift to small business concerns, the federal government's small business advocate is urging the agency to bolster consideration of the concerns in upcoming Toxic Substances Control (TSCA) rules that seek to mitigate risks of existing chemicals, a step that could delay EPA's rules.
In a March 7 presentation to GlobalChem, an annual chemical industry conference in Washington, D.C., Tayyaba Waqar Zeb, assistant chief counsel for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Advocacy, faulted several of EPA’s past Small Business Advocacy Reviews (SBAR) -- conducted under the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement and Fairness Act (SBREFA) -- and urged the agency to conduct more thorough and transparent reviews before finalizing rules restricting chemicals.
“These small entities that come to these SBREFA panels are taking time out from their small business” to suggest alternatives to a planned agency rule, Waqar Zeb told a conference panel on “TSCA Risk Management: Updates and what to expect” that she shared with EPA deputy toxics chief Erik Baptist.
Their “feedback needs to be seriously evaluated and the numbers need to be run, even if the answer is ‘no, that it’s not a viable option,’ we need to show that the work [is done] and that it’s meaningful.”
Waqar Zeb's calls could delay EPA actions to implement the revised TSCA, which imposes a series of milestones the agency must meet when crafting new rules.
In addition to calling for greater consideration of companies’ proposed alternatives, Waqar Zeb faulted reviews the Obama EPA conducted in advance of proposed restrictions of certain chemical uses under TSCA section 6, and of a proposed rule strengthening the agency’s Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program.
Specifically, she said a 2016 EPA review of proposed restrictions on certain chemical uses under TSCA section 6 considered risks of certain uses of methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), and trichlorothyelene (TCE) concurrently, failing to allow for adequate consideration of each chemical.
And Waqar Zeb reiterated past criticism from SBA, industry and GOP lawmakers’ that the Obama EPA pushed out proposed revisions to EPA’s RMP rule without allowing adequate time to fully consider recommendations from small businesses and local governments.
In that case, she says EPA sent the proposed RMP update rule for White House review before the SBAR panel had finalized its report. “That was a policy proposal where [small businesses] did not feel that their grievances were considered meaningfully,” she said.
SBA’s criticism of EPA’s Obama-era SBAR reviews comes as the Trump administration faces strict deadlines for reviewing risks of existing chemicals under the June 2016 revised TSCA and for mitigating any risks.
For example, the agency must complete by December assessments of the first 10 existing chemicals it is reviewing under the new law. Existing chemicals are those that were on the market when the original TSCA took effect in 1976.
Should EPA in a final assessment deem a substance poses unreasonable risk to human health or the environment, the agency must propose a rule mitigating those risks within one year and issue a final rule within two years. The law allows EPA a two-year extension, though such extensions are subject to limitations, an agency official told the panel.
Risk Mitigation Rules
Given EPA’s TSCA assessment plan, Waqar Zeb told the panel that EPA may need to conduct reviews of the effects of risk mitigation rules for the 10 existing chemicals that it is assessing. Should EPA choose to group the chemicals for SBAR review, the agency should allow adequate time to review each chemical and each use.
And before restricting any chemical substance, EPA should consider the potential risks and economic viability of alternative chemicals, she said. Any restrictions, she added, should be narrowly tailored to specific uses and consider differing exposures that may result from commercial and consumer uses.
Waqar Zeb faulted the Obama EPA’s rejection of small industry representatives’ calls for addressing worker exposures to methylene chloride in paint strippers through a training program rather than a ban. The Trump EPA appears slated to reverse the decision in a final rule, drawing pushback and lawsuits from labor groups.
While the SBA’s call for more thorough analysis during SBAR reviews could slow EPA’s TSCA implementation efforts, Waqar Zeb also urged EPA to consider use of a phase in period of up to five years that is allowed when imposing chemical restrictions to assist companies with the transition.
She also asked that EPA further consult with other federal agencies, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, in SBAR reviews and better document discussions to make for a more transparent process.
“I understand that in federal agencies the decisionmaking process is deliberative and not open to the public,” Waqar Zeb said. “But if there is communication between the agencies, especially OSHA [on] worker exposures, there needs to be a summary of those discussions and what the conclusions were so it’s a transparent process” and the public can provide meaningful input.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/sba-urges-epa-bolster-small-business-review-tsca-mitigation-rules
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Chemical Oversight Funds Nudged Up While EPA Budget Chopped (2)
Mar 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
President Donald Trump’s requested fiscal year 2020 budget would boost funding for EPA’s chemical risk assessments and other tasks required by the Toxic Substances Control Act by around 8 percent from current spending.
The budget requests $66 million in fiscal year 2020, which begins Oct. 1. That allocation would compare to the estimated $61 million the agency received this year, according to the agency’s Budget in Brief released March 11.
The increased budget request reflects the busy year the EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics faces in 2020. The 2016 TSCA amendments require the agency to assess the health and environmental risks of 20 chemicals next year, twice the number of compounds the agency is evaluating this year.
The law also requires the EPA next year to be crafting regulations to control any unreasonable risks it may find in the 10 chemicals it is evaluating this year.
The administration’s request for the chemicals program stands in sharp contrast to the overall requested budget for the agency. The White House requested $6.1 billion for EPA in fiscal year 2020, which would be a 31 percent reduction compared with the estimated $8.8 billion it will receive in fiscal year 2019.
Divergent Chemical Goals
he EPA’s Budget in Brief lists divergent goals for its oversight of existing versus new chemicals.
The agency plans to complete 100 percent of its risk evaluations of existing chemicals by deadlines set in the 2016 TSCA amendments, and it plans to complete 100 percent of required risk management actions.
These risk management actions would include issuing rules by December 2020 to reduce exposure to five chemicals that persist in the environment, build up in the food chain, and are toxic either to people, plants, or animals.
Yet the EPA expects to meet its statutory deadlines for new chemicals only 80 percent of the time.
Both original and amended TSCA directed the agency to complete its new chemicals reviews in 90 days. The amended law allows a one-time 90 day extension, meaning a total of 180 days, but it also—for the first time—requires the agency to make a specific finding about the risks a new chemical may pose. Those findings must be publicly available.
The agency’s efforts to reach these findings and implement other new chemical requirements of the amended law have substantially delayed the agency’s approval of new chemicals.
“We want to make hitting the 90 days the rule not the exception,” Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, EPA’s assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention said March 7 during the Global Chemical Regulations Conference. She described various actions the agency is taking to work towards that goal.
“While we appreciate EPA’s work to address issues with the new chemicals program, we believe the agency’s objective should be to meet 100 percent of TSCA deadlines,” Jon Corley, an American Chemistry Council spokesman, told Bloomberg Environment March 11 regarding the 80 percent goal described in EPA’s budget request.
Delays in EPA’s new chemical reviews affect research and development expenditures, plans to launch new products, companies’ development of more sustainable chemistries, jobs, innovation, and competitiveness, he said.
On the Chopping Block
As it did last year, the president’s requested budget would cut discretionary activities such as funding for the chemical office’s pollution prevention activities.
These pollution prevention activities include the Safer Choice program, which recognizes cleaning and other products. Only products made with chemicals that meet strict environmental and health criteria can bear EPA’s label. The program recognizes those products as containing chemicals that are among the safest for the particular function they serve, such as helping to dissolve grease.
The president’s budget would zero out the $11.2 million in funding Congress appropriated this year for pollution prevention.
The budget also would eliminate EPA’s Lead Risk Reduction Program, which does public outreach and other activities to reduce exposure to lead-based paint.
That program received an estimated $12.6 million this year, and $12.5 million in fiscal year 2018.
The requested budget would cut by $40.4 million funding the EPA’s Office of Research and Development spends understanding the risks of chemicals.
The White House asked for $86.6 million for chemical safety and sustainability next year. That would be a cut of about 32 percent from the estimated $126.9 million Congress approved this year.
The chemical safety and sustainability program includes the agency’s Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, effort that evaluates the hazards of chemicals and doses at which those hazards could manifest. The agency’s air, water, waste, and other programs use IRIS’ health assessments.
The safety and sustainability program also includes the EPA’s computational toxicology research effort, which is helping develop tools that quickly predict how chemicals might affect people or the environment.
(Updated with additional reporting throughout.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemical-oversight-funds-nudged-up-while-epa-budget-chopped-2
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(ACC Mentioned) Washington State Priority Products Legislation Clears Senate
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Washington state’s Senate has passed a bill to create a new priority products programme that could see restrictions or prohibitions of identified chemicals of concern.
The Senate passed SB 5135, the so-called Pollution Prevention for Our Future Act, by a narrow 25-24 margin on 7 March.
Now under consideration in the House, the measure calls for the state to identify, on a five-year rolling basis, consumer products that are a significant source of priority chemicals such as PFASs, phthalates, organohalogen flame retardants, phenolic compounds and PCBs.
Once determined, the Department of Ecology (DOE) would be tasked with developing regulatory responses to increase the transparency or reduce the use of the substances, for example by requiring notification for their use.
The bill would also authorise the DOE to restrict or prohibit a substance’s use if it determines:
· a safer alternative is available;
· it is not functionally necessary;
· another state has already acted on it; or
· if such action is necessary to protect sensitive populations or species.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) and Consumer Technology Association (CTA) were among the groups that spoke in opposition to the bill during the Senate’s consideration of it. In public testimony, they argued the bill lacks an open stakeholder process and an opportunity to present best available science during the formation of new regulations.
They recommended that the state use its existing programmes, such as its chemical action plans (CAPs) and Children’s Safe Products Act (CSPA), rather than develop a new programme.
But testimony in support of the legislation – which came from representatives of the DOE, the governor’s office and an NGO – said that prevention is the most cost effective way to address toxic chemicals coming from consumer products.
And supporters also argued that the action is aligned with the governor’s direction to address local sources of toxins that can negatively affect the state’s endangered resident killer whales. A taskforce responsible for setting recommendations for protecting the area’s orcas last year identified toxic contaminants as a priority threats.
Toxic-Free Future executive director Laurie Valeriano said the bill is "a key piece of the plan" to help protect the whale population, as well as human health.
"The state spends hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up toxic chemicals. By eliminating sources of these chemicals, we can save money by preventing future cleanups and cutting healthcare costs," said Ms Valeriano.
The bill has been referred to the House Environment and Energy Committee.
https://chemicalwatch.com/74948/washington-state-priority-products-legislation-clears-senate
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California Extends Consultation on Nail Products Containing Toluene
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control has extended a consultation on its proposal to name nail products containing toluene as a priority product.
The consultation, which is being carried out under the state's Safer Consumer Products programme, will now run until 1 April.
The agency is also holding a workshop on 13 March as part of its effort to solicit public input on a draft technical report outlining the scientific basis for its proposal.
The DTSC plans to update the report based on the comments it receives before submitting it to an independent scientific review panel.
https://chemicalwatch.com/74949/california-extends-consultation-on-nail-products-containing-toluene
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Huntington Ingalls Can’t Keep Asbestos Suit in Federal Court
Mar 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Huntington Ingalls Inc. will have to defend in state court a ship worker’s claims that the company failed to warn of the dangers of asbestos on a U.S. Navy ship, the Fifth Circuit ruled.
The case will be heard in state court because there is no showing that the U.S. or any of its officials exercised control over Huntington Ingalls’s safety practices.
The company sought to remove the case to federal court under the the Federal Officer Removal Statute, which allows removal by a private party when a defendant acted under the authority of a federal officer.
Although the government contractually required Huntington Ingalls to use asbestos in refurbishing the Navy vessels the plaintiff worked on, it failed to show the Navy issued any orders relating to safety procedures, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said March 11.
Defendants typically prefer to litigate in federal court to avoid inconsistent state-court rulings; plaintiffs may view state courts as better positioned to enforce state law protections.
Huntington Ingalls is the corporate successor of Avondale Industries.
James Latiolais worked as a machinist aboard the U.S.S. Tappahannock, where he was allegedly exposed to asbestos while his ship was being refurbished at Avondale shipyards for several months.
Latiolais was diagnosed with mesothelioma, and died in October 2017 after suing Huntington Ingalls in state court.
The complaint alleges negligent failure to warn and failure to provide adequate safety equipment.
Huntington Ingalls removed the case to federal court, and the Latiolais estate moved to remand.
Affirming the trial court’s order to remand the case, the Fifth Circuit said no “causal nexus” exists between Huntington Ingalls’s work under the direction of the federal government and Latiolais’s injuries.
Judge Edith H. Jones wrote the opinion, joined by Judges Catharina Haynes and Andrew S. Oldham.
Waddell Anderman, LLC and Flanagan Partners, LLP represent the estate.
Irwin Fritchie Urquhart & Moore, LLC represents Huntington Ingalls.
Latiolais v. Huntington Ingalls Inc., 5th Cir., No. 18-30652, 3/11/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/huntington-ingalls-cant-keep-asbestos-suit-in-federal-court
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California Unfolds PFAS Investigation Plan With Broad Impact on California Dischargers
Mar 12, 2019 | Lexology
By Angela Levin, Andrew J. Perel, and Houston Shaner
At a public hearing on March 6, 2019, the California State Water Resources Control Board announced a “Phased Investigation Plan” for perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The Investigation Plan represents a coordinated effort by the Water Board to identify PFAS in discharges and drinking water sources across California. This new initiative leverages the Board’s enforcement and permitting powers to order testing and will proceed in three phases. Under each phase, the Water Board will issue orders to the covered facilities requiring at least one round of testing of their discharge to identify whether PFAS are present.
Phase 1 will target airports and landfills, along with sources of drinking water within a 1-mile radius of systems that historically have been identified as having PFAS in their discharge. Testing orders under Phase 1 may be received as soon as this month. Phase 2 will focus on discharges from refineries, bulk terminals, and certain facilities for firefighting training, while Phase 3 will cover an as-yet-undetermined set of “secondary” manufacturers.
The Investigation Plan appears to be the start of a long-term regulatory focus on PFAS in California, notably following on the heels of U.S. EPA’s own PFAS Action Plan (discussed in a previous blog post here) and coming less than a year after California issued interim notification levels for two high-profile PFAS, PFOA and PFOS. Notably, state officials at the same public hearing disclaimed an intent to set state-level Maximum Contaminant Levels (“MCL”) for any PFAS, at least in 2019. Nevertheless, the regulated community should expect that the data collected through the Investigation Plan will be a key piece of information that the Water Board will use to later decide whether and how low to set a California MCL for PFAS, including whether to establish a class-wide regulatory framework or to focus on individual PFAS, like PFOA or PFOS.
Industry targets and observers will want to closely follow the interaction of the state and federal PFAS initiatives throughout 2019 and beyond. We will continue to monitor both the Investigation Plan and Action Plan as they continue to unfold.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6a1f1770-293e-43d8-a709-27cd5a27ce96
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U.K. Chemical Firms Face Double Compliance Costs Post-Brexit
Mar 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ali Qassim
U.K.-based chemical firms trading in the European Union post-Brexit could see costs double for complying with both EU rules and a new U.K. chemical regulatory regime.
Chemical companies have already spent some half a billion pounds ($657.6 million) registering their products under the EU’s REACH regulation (EU 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals), which allows them to make, sell, or import chemicals in the trade bloc lawfully and safely, Stephen Elliott, the chief executive of the Chemical Industries Association said.
“This spend will, at the very least, be duplicated in responding to both EU and UK REACH,” he told Bloomberg Environment.
U.K. REACH, a domestic version of the EU REACH, will come into effect either at the end of March under a ‘no-deal’ Brexit or at the end of 2020 if Prime Minister Theresa May manages to secure support for her separation deal from the EU in a crucial March 12 vote.
Peter Newport, chief executive of the Chemical Business Association representing chemical distributors, traders, and logistics services companies, said the government’s plans for U.K. REACH are “unworkable” because they “represent a potentially massive hike in the industry’s compliance costs.”
The House of Lords’ EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee made a similar point in a March 6 letter to Environment Minister Therese Coffey, saying she has underestimated the costs some companies may face in registering with both the EU and U.K. chemical regulatory systems.
Costly Data Access
Dr. Emma Meredith, director-general of the Cosmetic, Toiletry & Perfumery Association, said one of the major problems with U.K. REACH as proposed is that companies aren’t allowed to “grandfather substances currently registered under EU REACH” by the Helsinki-based European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).
Speaking for cosmetic firms that include U.S. multinational Pfizer Inc., Germany’s Beiersdorf, and France’s L’Oreal, Meredith said “companies will have to negotiate access to the data already existing under EU REACH to be able to fulfill their obligations under UK REACH.”
“This would involve legal costs to change the contracts protecting data sharing, and the actual purchase of the data from the registrants or lead registrants,” she said, leading to “considerable costs for industry at a time of economic uncertainty, with no benefit to safety or the environment.”
Complying with U.K. REACH could cost businesses between 230 million pounds ($302 million) and 2.3 billion pounds ($3 billion) for existing substances. In addition, “companies will also have to pay the registration fees for new substances in the future,” she said.
The U.K. cosmetics market was worth 9.3 billion pounds ($12.2 billion) in 2016, according to the CTPA.
More Animal Testing?
The risk for companies that are “unable to obtain the registration data” is that “they will either need to drop the supply of that raw material to the UK or create new data which would require new [duplicate] animal test data,” Meredith said.
She stressed that the U.K. cosmetics industry “cannot and will not condone the consequence of the requirements of reproducing data by animal testing.”
CBA’s Newport shared the view that the requirement to duplicate data could “involve potentially higher levels of additional animal testing.”
Defra spokeswoman Paola Salcedo played down these concerns. “The UK is already a world leader in animal welfare standards and these will be enhanced as we leave the EU. EU REACH legislation was designed to reduce the use of animal testing and these provisions will roll over into UK legislation,” according to Salcedo.
In its letter, the parliamentary committee asks the government to formally announce by the third week of March how it plans to minimize or eliminate the need for additional animal testing.
Replicate ECHA Model
Chemical firms also are pressing the future domestic regulator—the Health and Safety Executive—to follow ECHA’s practices as closely as possible.
The CIA “has raised questions on how the various committees and processes currently governed by ECHA to manage chemicals will be replicated in the UK,” Elliott said.
“Maintaining key concepts such as membership transparency, independency, and range of expertise will be necessary in the decision-making process for chemicals,” he added.
Meredith agreed that the ECHA’s risk assessment committees “provide expertise in the areas that are necessary to formulate opinion on specific matters.”
She added that “therefore we feel that UK REACH should have a similar process of review and appeal that is currently required under EU REACH.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/u-k-chemical-firms-face-double-compliance-costs-post-brexit
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Echa Opens Brexit REACH IT Window
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Echa has opened its REACH IT window to enable UK companies to make changes and transfer their REACH registrations to EU-based entities. If an only representative (OR) is not appointed, the EU27/EEA importers will have to submit their own registrations.
The window, which will be open from 12-29 March – the day the UK is due to leave the EU – has already drawn 200 enquiries.
Last month Echa sent messages to all UK-based registrants – about 1,800 companies – on how to prepare for Brexit. At the same time it published a list of the substances registered only by UK companies, which numbered 1,181, Echa deputy executive director Jukka Malm told Chemical Watch.
Since January, Echa has received 300 general Brexit-related enquiries, 180 of which were submitted last month when the agency published comprehensive chemicals instructions on the UK’s withdrawal. They range from queries on practical issues related to transferring registrations to setting up legal entities in the EU27.
In addition to other EU stakeholders – member state national helpdesks, trade bodies and NGOs – Echa also told chemical industry associations in China, India, Japan, Switzerland and the US about the window. This was because they are the top five importers to the trade bloc, Mr Malm said.
UK awareness
Echa has not directly liaised with the UK government or the Chemical Industries Association (CIA) on the Brexit window, Mr Malm said, but it has linked to their guidance documents on its website. This includes advice by Cefic and the CIA for registrants to use the suspensive condition clause in contractual arrangements when appointing ORs.
Meanwhile the CIA, its subsidiary organisation REACHReady, and the Chemical Business Association (CBA) have been actively raising awareness of the Brexit window among their members. The CIA told Chemical Watch that, while it hopes a deal can be secured in the coming weeks, businesses are "increasingly advancing their ongoing preparations for a no-deal outcome".
In the CBA’s recent REACH survey, respondents said they plan to notify 326 registrations under UK REACHand have indicated they are considering notifying a further 1,266 registrations as an importer from the EU27 countries.
Because the UK exports 60% of its chemicals to the EU27, the CIA said it anticipates a significant number of transfers will take place. "In particular the number of substances registered by UK companies only is higher than originally anticipated" and the reason why a deal is "even more urgent for our industry and many that we supply into".
No-deal 'chaos’
MPs are due to vote today on prime minister Theresa May’s latest Brexit withdrawal deal. Ahead of this, European businesses have been calling for a no-deal Brexit to be averted to avoid disruption to supply chains across all industries and to protect jobs.
In a joint statement, 14 associations say companies have benefited from more than 40 years of economic integration and 25 years of the single market. "As a result, value chains have become so closely intertwined that a no-deal Brexit will lead to chaos."
As a "matter of urgency" they have urged the EU and UK to secure the withdrawal agreement and transition period. "This will give businesses time to adapt to the new reality and allow the EU and UK to prepare and agree on their future relationship."
Participating organisations include:
· Cefic;
· the CIA;
· the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (Acea);
· metals trade body Eurometaux; and
· the European Apparel and Textile Confederation (Euratex).
https://chemicalwatch.com/74944/echa-opens-brexit-reach-it-window
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Bjorn Hansen: Living the REACH Story
Mar 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Mamta Patel
In the first of a new series of conversations with influential people in chemicals management, Mamta Patel speaks to Echa executive director Bjorn Hansen, tracing his involvement with Europe’s groundbreaking chemicals policy and hearing his thoughts about today’s challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities.
Europe’s ambitious industrial chemicals law reached the end of its first phase in 2018 after a decade of relatively smooth operation, far from the predictions of its unworkability when REACH was first mooted. But entering its 11th year of implementation, the law has also yet to convince many of its supporters who had hoped by now to see some clear evidence of its impacts in reducing the risks of chemicals.
The bones of the EU chemical policy were laid out in the European Commission’s 2001 White Paper, A Strategy for a Future Chemicals Policy, itself the culmination of five years rumination over the failures and successes of previous regulatory systems. The White Paper came after a decade that saw several global milestones on environment policy, including the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and its concrete calls to action to steer towards sustainable development, which included addressing the risks of chemicals. In Europe, the governments of North Sea countries adopted the Esbjerg Declaration in 1995, setting the goal of reducing concentrations of manmade chemicals in the environment "within one generation" (25 years). Seven years later, leaders at the World Summit on Sustainable Development would adopt a target of minimising the adverse impacts of manmade chemicals by 2020.
The White Paper correspondingly set its vision for a chemicals policy within the context of the overarching objective of sustainable development. While acknowledging the need to encourage European industry’s competitiveness, it overturned the status quo with the ‘precautionary principle’ and the concept of ‘no data, no market’ which, for the first time, put the burden of providing data on chemicals’ safety and carrying out adequate risk assessments on industry.
Such was the chemical industry’s dread of this cumbersome law, with its comprehensive substance registration requirements, that concerted lobbying was the result on both sides of the Atlantic with governments intervening in an unprecedented fashion in 2002, even before the first draft was published. US Secretary of State Colin Powell and the US Ambassador to the EU Rockwell Schnabel spoke publicly and behind the scenes to EU governments, complaining about the potential impacts of the EU’s proposals on US firms. When the first draft of REACH was published in May 2003 it prompted a joint letter by three EU member state leaders of the time: UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder expressing concern about its workability and cost to industry.
Right place, right time
Someone who has lived this history from REACH’s conception as one of the chief authors, to assuming leadership of Echa last year, is Bjorn Hansen.
Dr Hansen left the Marie Kruses School in Farum, Denmark, in 1981 with a strong interest in mathematics and physics that took him to the State University of New York to obtain first degrees in pure and applied mathematics, and economics. He returned to Europe to obtain a PhD in probability theory at Eindhoven University of Technology in 1988 and continued as a post-doctorate in this field in Germany until in 1991 – the year before the Rio Earth Summit – he got a job as a statistician at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy.
How did a Dane with a mathematical bent come to develop a lifelong career in chemicals policy? "I was all set to become a professor in my field when, through a series of events, this offer came my way to work in Ispra. I considered the pros and cons and concluded that I really loved what I was doing in the mathematics field but it was extremely theoretical and the people I would work with globally were very very few. I was married and had two young children at the time. My wife did not take any convincing to move to northern Italy to raise our family. I believed it was a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ and also that I was young enough to go back to my original field if I needed to."
Within a short time of starting work at the JRC, the centre was told to develop a database (Iuclid) for the capture of chemicals safety data under the 1993 EU Regulation on the evaluation of existing chemicals. "I just happened to be in the unit at the time and they didn’t have too many alternatives so they asked me," Dr Hansen recalls. He was therefore in place when a "grand opportunity" came along to lead the work, in which the JRC was asked by the Commission to establish a European Chemicals Bureau and continue to work on predictive chemicals toxicity modelling in the form of quantitative structure-activity relationships (Qsars).
"From day one at JRC I was trying to convert what I was doing into something that could be used in legislation to protect citizens. It was an absolutely fascinating area: it was all so necessary." The need to apply logic and science to policy needs presented a compelling challenge and a lesson that he feels is important to bring home to the 500-strong team of experts he now leads at Echa. "We need to be continuously reminded of what policy makers need. Instead of answering our own questions, we have to ask."
Within a few years of adoption, it became clear that the existing substances Regulation was making far too slow progress. In 1998 a Commission report found that of the 100,000 or so chemicals on the EU market, only 110 had been identified as ‘priority substances’, with comprehensive risk assessments completed for 38 and, of these, regulators had been able to conclude risk management for only 16. Still, Dr Hansen contends, it was the most productive risk assessment programme the EU had at the time. It was a period of fast-track collective learning for technical experts and policy makers in EU institutions and in member states. Efficiency of decision making was improving and experience accumulated to add to the communityacquis, but everyone knew things had to move faster.
In the run-up to the 1998 Commission report, the bureau reviewed what was and was not working. "I think that was one of the biggest challenges and definitely an achievement in the existing chemicals area in the mid-1990s – to write an honest and objective assessment of what worked and what did not."
In March 1998, a joint position paper by authorities in Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden pointed out the flaws in EU chemicals policy and the potential risks to human health and the environment chemicals posed. Meanwhile, an informal Environment Council in Chester, UK, the following month, resulted in calls for the Commission to take stock and find a way to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into the EU’s management of chemicals.
Developing the REACH proposals
In 2003, Dr Hansen left the chemicals bureau to join the Commission’s environment directorate, DG Environment, in Brussels. "I could look back at ten years of the existing substances Regulation, knowing what was wrong with the system, and then I was part of a very small group being given the chance to fix it. It was another once in a lifetime opportunity’." He recalls well the "extremely strong" political controversies that the Commission’s White Paper was met with. What saved it, he believes, was the decision to open a parallel track of technical thinking: "Basically the idea was to show that what we had proposed could work. Then an amazing thing happened. We had 15 REACH Implementation Project (RIP) working groups with up to 50 people in each, many from industry working with policy makers. I would say almost everything got sorted out … even industry people came round to the view that it could be done."
The achievement of the RIPs proved again to Dr Hansen that a strong technical-policy interface is essential for sound decision making. But it gives him concern for the situation today. In those days, he reflects, ministries had many more technical and policy experts who would meet frequently, resulting in better informed and effective decision making. In the last decade, the steady centralisation of chemicals policy and legislation in the EU has meant that many ministries have reduced their staff and ‘outsourced’ the science with fewer people overall. He cites the example of constantly missed targets in the approval of substances under the 2012 EU biocidal products Regulation as a sign of reduced capacity at member state level. The same factor has led to Echa providing significant support to member states to help them comply with their statutory roles under the REACH Regulation, such as preparing dossiers for evaluation and restriction, submitting these, guiding the scientific committees in coming to conclusions on the dossiers and then submitting their decisions to the Commission. "Yes, we do REACH every day, and you can see it makes sense for us to apply our expertise. But there is a fundamental question – should Echa be doing this? REACH, and the other laws we are here to regulate, need to be seen as robust mechanisms and the agency as a trustworthy machine. This is something for policy makers and member states to consider."
Alongside others, Dr Hansen left the Commission in 2007 to work on creating the agency foreseen by REACH to manage its implementation. After a year in Helsinki, he returned to the Commission where he eventually headed the chemicals unit of DG Environment. But ten years later, when the Echa executive director position came up again, he could not resist the urge to guide the agency through its next challenging phase of getting the desired results from EU chemicals policy.
In 2019, with a whole generation of children having grown up since world leaders pledged to minimise the adverse impacts of manmade chemicals, we are some way from that goal. Even with the EU’s powerful REACH engine and the unprecedented amount of data it has collected, the significant holes within this means there are still questions about the risks posed by many chemicals placed on the EU market in substantial quantities. Substances entering the EU market via imported articles is another problem still without an answer. Notwithstanding these flaws, many companies which have engaged in REACH compliance say the information it demands is raising awareness within their own firms and across global supply chains.
Ten months into leading Echa, Dr Hansen faced angry challenges at the European Parliament plenary in October 2018, with MEPs pointing out that a recent German study had shown many REACH registration dossiers lacked adequate data to enable an evaluation of whether those substances pose a risk. They demanded that Echa live up to its duty as a regulator and hold companies to account, upholding the ‘no data, no market’ principle of the law.
Dr Hansen does not deny the problem and has made addressing non-compliance a top priority for Echa in 2019. "We are moving in the right direction but we are behind schedule," he says. One conclusion he has reached, a year into his post, is that "the agency’s role must first and foremost be to protect human health and the environment. By doing this right, Echa contributes to a well-functioning internal market, competitiveness and innovation. Echa, he says, can continue and accelerate implementation of REACH, the Regulation on classification, labelling and packaging (CLP) and other laws. "Through that, we are basically preparing the ground for an improved chemicals policy in Europe."
Moreover, EU leaders have set their sights on competing in an increasingly turbulent and competitive global economy by creating a solid knowledge base and leading on circular economy thinking, which they believe will empower companies to innovate to compete effectively in future. Knowledge about chemical risks is fundamental to this.
Dr Hansen illustrates this with three examples:
·
To achieve the EU’s parallel ambition towards a circular economy that enables the sustainable use of resources, it will be essential that industries make the right choice of materials. That can only happen when they know enough about the chemicals that make them up. All attempts to create waste management and recycling infrastructures will founder unless they are fed with the right materials. "So, the timeline for getting the chemicals safety data we need under REACH is influencing the speed at which we can move forward to a circular economy in Europe."'The timeline for getting the chemicals safety data we need under REACH is influencing the speed at which we can move forward to a circular economy in Europe.'
· The perfect world that REACH strives for is to create a comprehensive, consistently accurate database of information about chemicals that will allow manufacturers to make the right choices of materials, through confident use of tools based on predictive toxicology in order to assess in advance their potential impacts in different applications. However, with the imperfect knowledge we have today, one consequence for innovation is that new chemicals can often become a victim of their own success. This is because, under REACH, full data packages are only mandated when chemicals are placed on the EU market in quantities above 1,000 tonnes per year. But by the time a chemical is enjoying this level of market success, the manufacturer of that substance has invested heavily in production, marketing and sales and has usually yet to recoup the anticipated value of that investment. This is a costly time to find out there is a problem that requires that chemical to be restricted or even subject to authorisation. It is therefore in industry’s interest to prioritise the need to provide adequate data for the substances already registered and those that are yet to come. "The quicker we can get comprehensive knowledge about the chemicals registered, the more innovative we can be. Companies have a choice to make – to invest in that knowledge now in order to gain a competitive edge in five to ten years’ time".
· The knowledge base and experience built in the EU in the last decade can become a powerful catalyst for other countries to increase their understanding and ability to manage chemicals in their own markets. Through the three core instruments that Echa manages – REACH, the CLP Regulation and prior informed consent Regulation – "we actually can have any model of chemicals policy that you could ever invent," Dr Hansen says. It should therefore be possible to map the chemicals control laws of other countries against at least some of the provisions of these three chemicals laws. If that is true, he says, it provides the key to the EU sharing its knowledge and experience with other regulators to enable them to devise their own laws – "The whole world does not need REACH." As well as the right legislation for each country, the second prerequisite to manage chemicals effectively is the competence of its industry. Here, the EU can also facilitate by cooperating with its own industry partners to help build capacity in other countries. The tools and ideas to share the knowledge have already been developed by several actors including the UN Inter-Organization Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals and the OECD. He says: "The EU has a lot to offer the world and the cost is not immense." What stands in the way of this promise is the need to build trust by openness over intentions, including that creating convergence of data formats and chemical management tools like Iuclid will benefit European companies wanting to compete abroad, but also vice versa.
There is an imperative for governments to collaborate more effectively, Dr Hansen says. The sustainable development goals for 2030, adopted by 193 governments in 2015, set a new collective policy framework to address the most pressing issues adversely affecting the development of populations globally. Inherently, they require governments to fulfil their longstanding pledges to minimise the risks of chemicals, but this needs to be made more explicit within the context of the goals. Dr Hansen says: "It must be recognised that chemicals safety is pertinent to many, not just one, of the goals: You cannot achieve equality, you cannot remove poverty, without minimum global chemical standards. This recognition is vital for efficient allocation and targeting of resources."
https://chemicalwatch.com/74946/bjorn-hansen-living-the-reach-story
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Increased Funding Proposed for Offshore Drilling in 2020 Budget
Mar 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
The Interior Department’s office in charge of offshore oil and gas leases would get a bump in funding in the president’s fiscal 2020 budget request.
The Bureau of Offshore Energy Management is proposed to be funded at $136.9 million for FY 2020, which is an increase over the request of $129 million in fiscal 2019.
The request is a 5 percent increase over $129 million in appropriations Congress provided the sub-office in charge of leasing land on the Outer Continental Shelf for oil, gas, and mineral extraction, as well as offshore wind development.
This is part of the Trump administration’s overall proposed budget of $12.6 billion for the Interior Department, a 14 percent cut from fiscal 2019 estimated budget.
The Bureau of Offshore Energy Management also collects fees from industry for leases. It expected to collect $56.5 million in fees in 2020.
As of Feb. 1, 2019, the bureau managed about 2,623 active oil and gas leases on more than 13.8 million acres on the Outer Continental Shelf. In 2018, oil and gas generated $106 million in rent, $229 million in bonuses, and $4.3 billion in royalties from production, the agency said.
The BOEM budget includes a request of $21.3 million for renewable energy activities, including permitting for the siting and construction of offshore wind farms.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/increased-funding-proposed-for-offshore-drilling-in-2020-budget
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Residents Fight to Block Major Drilling Project
Mar 12, 2019 | AP (In E&E Energywire)
By Dan Elliott
Frustrated residents of a Denver suburb say state law is forcing them to participate in a major oil and gas drilling project against their wishes, so they launched legal challenges with potentially significant consequences for the industry.
Backed by a federal judge, they have a chance this week to ask state regulators to block multiple wells planned within about 1,300 feet of homes in the city of Broomfield, Colo.
The dispute is a microcosm of a broader battle in Colorado, where burgeoning subdivisions overlap with rich oil and gas fields, bringing drilling rigs and homes uncomfortably close.
The battle is playing out on multiple fronts. Broomfield residents are taking their case to both state regulators and federal court. In the Legislature, majority Democrats are pushing legislation that would give the Broomfield residents and others like them powerful new weapons to keep drilling rigs away from their homes.
In Broomfield, about 20 miles north of downtown Denver, Extraction Oil and Gas wants to drill in open areas amid the Wildgrass neighborhood of roomy new homes.
A group called the Wildgrass Oil and Gas Committee says the wells are dangerously close to their homes, although they would be beyond the 500-foot setback required by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates the industry.
They also argue that state law is forcing residents who own the mineral rights under their property to lease or sell them to Extraction through a process called forced pooling. It allows the oil and gas commissioners to require all the owners of nearby minerals to sell or lease them to an energy company in exchange for a share of the profits.
Created a century ago, forced pooling was designed to prevent the proliferation of oil derricks. Landowners were scrambling to drill their own wells to keep a neighbor's well from grabbing their oil. Forced pooling allowed a single well to gather the oil, and the income was distributed among the owners.
In Broomfield, some mineral owners are resisting.
"We did not have any interest in going into business with an oil and gas company," said Lizzie Lario, a member of the Wildgrass group, who along with her husband owns the mineral rights under their home that would be included in the project. She said she did not want to participate in something that could result in spills, fires and explosions so close to homes.
Many states have forced pooling laws, though some require a certain percentage of owners to consent before a pooled well can proceed. Colorado allows forced pooling with the approval of a single party, provided it has the means to get the minerals out.
The Wildgrass committee said the oil and gas commission repeatedly delayed a hearing on its objections, so the group filed suit, asking a federal judge to rule the forced pooling law unconstitutional.
The judge hasn't ruled on the lawsuit, but he ordered the commission to hold the long-delayed hearing. It's expected to take place today.
Extraction spokesman Brian Cain said the company met with Broomfield officials and a citizens task force more than 28 times over two years and adopted 95 percent of the task force's recommendations. The buffer zone around the well site is four times the state requirement, he said.
He called Extraction's operating agreement with Broomfield "the gold standard in Colorado."
Among other changes, the oil and gas bill making its way through the Legislature would require the consent of at least 50 percent of the mineral owners affected before forced pooling could proceed.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/03/12/stories/1060126977
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Shell: Total Electrification Plausible Within 20 Years
Mar 11, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Ben LeFebvre
Electricity could squeeze out oil and natural gas to become the primary way people consume energy, a Shell executive said today.
“It’s quite plausible that 20 years from now you will only be using electricity,” Maarten Wetselaar, director for integrated gas and new energies for Royal Dutch Shell told the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston. “To heat or cool your home, your mobility, the only energy you will need will be electricity. With business customers, we see significant move to electricity whenever possible.”
Such a transition would require more natural gas even as renewable energy production increases, Maarten added. This would force companies to do more to develop carbon capture technology at a faster pace in order to reduce carbon emissions.
“If you only have solar and wind, then energy storage becomes complicated. You can’t build enough batteries to keep your system whole,” Maarten said. “To have natural gas to keep your system whole is very important.”
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Trump Eyes EPA FY20 Infrastructure Cuts but Open to Deal with Congress
Mar 11, 2019 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2020 budget proposal floats a cut of more than $700 million to the agency’s water infrastructure grant and loan programs, but the White House is signaling openness to making a deal with lawmakers on potential funding hikes if they are able to craft a broad infrastructure package that can clear Congress.
Speaking on a March 11 press call ahead of that morning’s FY20 budget proposal release, a senior Trump administration official said the White House is specifically avoiding setting out its preferred terms for an infrastructure deal to provide space for Congress to craft a plan. That contrasts with past years when it floated proposals based on incentives and public-private partnerships rather than direct federal funding.
“We will provide less specifics this year than we have in the past because we really want to work with Congress on this . . . we really want Congress to come to the table,” the official said.
The FY20 budget request includes $200 billion for new, non-agency specific and undefined “infrastructure investments.” The official said the funds “will lever up to $1 trillion” in future years, but there are few details on how that money would be spent. “We wanted to be open to how Congress might be interested in constructing it.”
Yet at the same time, the request for EPA’s budget separately seeks deep cuts for the water infrastructure funds administered by the agency: the state revolving funds (SRFs) for clean water and drinking water, and the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program that leverages federal dollars to support borrowing at the state and local level.
Under the White House’s FY20 plan, funding for the drinking water SRF would drop from $1.1 billion in FY19 down to $863 million, while the clean water SRF would fall from $1.6 billion to $1.1 billion.
The administration is also seeking a cut to WIFIA appropriations, from $63 million in FY19 -- which is the first year the broadly supported program awarded loans -- down to $25 million for FY20.
Those cuts are part of a broader request that would see EPA’s budget cut down to $6.1 billion, from a baseline of either $8.1 billion or $8.9 billion depending on how prior years’ supplemental infrastructure spending is factored into the agency’s overall funding level. The White House proposal uses the larger figure, leading it to calculate the overall cut at $2.8 billion or 31 percent.
Thus, the request puts new pressure on Democrats in the House and Republicans in the Senate to negotiate an infrastructure package, which both parties have seen as a potential area for bipartisan work since President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 but which has remained elusive.
Most recently, House lawmakers floated a bill that would greatly boost the clean water SRF up to $4 billion annually -- a dramatic departure from the White House’s planned cut to that account.
The bill is backed by House infrastructure committee Chairman Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and panel members Reps. Grace Napolitano (D-CA), Don Young (R-AK) and John Katko (R-NY). It also enjoys broad support among industry, water, labor and environmental groups, suggesting it could advance given the long-standing calls from wastewater utilities, lawmakers and the White House for more infrastructure funding.
‘Falls Incredibly Short’
Despite the White House declaring support for a potential bargain with Congress, DeFazio is pushing back against the basic terms set out in the FY20 budget document, signaling that even with the administration backing off its more specific policy demands it could still be difficult or impossible for the two sides to agree on a path forward.
“It’s clear that our country needs significant federal investment to even begin to bring our nation’s infrastructure to a state of good repair, so it’s highly disappointing that once again, despite so much of his rhetoric over the past few years, the President put forth a budget that falls incredibly short,” DeFazio said in a March 11 statement on the FY20 request.
In his remarks DeFazio slams both the $200 billion in general infrastructure spending, which he calls an “already-rejected proposal to somehow turn $200 billion of federal investment into $1 trillion for badly-needed projects,” and the agency-specific cuts at EPA and beyond.
“On top of that, the president is proposing cutting the Department of Transportation’s discretionary funding by 22 percent, cutting half of EPA’s Clean Water infrastructure financing and drastically reducing funding for the clean water program, all while slashing the Army Corps’ budget by nearly a third,” he says.
The Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for building or maintaining many public water projects nationwide and also shares CWA permit authority over many construction projects with EPA, would see its funding level fall from $7 billion down to $4.8 billion under the FY20 request.
More generally, House Appropriations Committee interior panel Chairman Betty McCollum (D-MN) said Trump’s budget proposal is “dead on arrival,” criticizing the cuts to EPA.
“The president’s latest budget proposal is an attack on the well-being of the American people,” she said. “The Environmental Protection Agency exists to protect human health and the environment. The budget proposal itself acknowledges that ‘environmental protection and public health are key to U.S. prosperity and essential to America’s quality of life’ while simultaneously slashing the EPA’s budget by an egregious 31 percent.”
She added, “Cutting funding by a third would render the agency incapable of fulfilling its mission and ensuring Americans have clean air to breathe and safe water to drink.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/trump-eyes-epa-fy20-infrastructure-cuts-open-deal-congress
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Infrastructure Investment Pays for Itself
Mar 11, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Dennis Slater, Audrey Copeland and Michael W. Johnson
A recent Business Roundtable study found that $737 billion in public investment over 10 years would set us on the path toward reviving our national infrastructure. While those numbers seem daunting, the report also showed that every additional dollar invested in infrastructure delivers roughly $3.70 in additional economic growth over a period of 20 years.
Our organizations represent many of the companies and industries that maintain, improve, and expand our infrastructure to meet the needs of today and the future. Equipment manufacturers, asphalt paving companies and quarries supply materials to fix and modernize our infrastructure, yes. But, we are all users of this transportation system as well. We’re ready to go to work for America, but we cannot do it alone. We need policy solutions to fund and fix our infrastructure, so we can add to the millions of jobs we support and help generate millions of dollars’ more activity for our economy.
Clearly, increased investment is sound, fiscally responsible economic policy that ensures the long-term health and well-being of the infrastructure that is essential to the free movement of people and goods. Currently, the cost to commuters is a yearly average of $960, along with 42 hours of wasted travel time and 3.1 billion gallons of wasted fuel. By investing in improving our infrastructure, hard-working American families will see their disposable incomes increase by an average of $1,400 every year.
We were encouraged that both President Trump and Vice President Pence recently promised an infrastructure bill by year-end when speaking with a bipartisan group of more than 30 governors. The president even pushed them to urge their senators and representatives to craft the necessary legislation.
Poll after poll has shown that Americans want their federal government to improve their roads, highways and bridges. In the November 2018 elections, Californians even voted to keep an increased user fee on motor fuel to fund improvements to infrastructure. Nationwide, voters approved 96 state and local transportation ballot measures worth nearly $31 billion in 2018.
We are looking forward to Infrastructure Week this year, May 13–20, to focus attention on our nation’s needs — but we cannot only talk about these issues once a year. We’re urging Congress to provide a bipartisan solution before May that addresses funding in a way that a majority of members and their constituents can support. We need every member of Congress to leverage every tool at their disposal to pay for badly needed infrastructure maintenance, repair and modernization.
The Trump administration and Democrats and Republicans in the new Congress have all pointed to a willingness to work together on a comprehensive infrastructure package. It’s time to turn that willingness into action.
There are no more excuses. If voters are clamoring for better infrastructure, then there is no excuse for Congress and the administration to ignore the issue. It is time to work together to find a way.
Dennis Slater is president of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, which has over 1,000 members located across the United States and Canada. Audrey Copeland, Ph.D., P.E., is the president and CEO of the National Asphalt Pavement Association which represents the interests of the asphalt pavement material producer and paving contractor on the national level with 1,200 member companies. Michael W. Johnson is president and CEO of the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association which represents 90 percent of the crushed stone and 70 percent of the sand and gravel consumed annually in the United States.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/433538-infrastructure-investment-pays-for-itself
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Spending Plan Attacks Climate — but Never Mentions It
Mar 12, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews
A 150-page summary of what President Trump wants to include in next year's federal budget uses the word "climate" exactly once — and the reference isn't about global warming.
The single mention is part of an unrelated section on school safety; a word choice that speaks to how little this White House prioritizes the fight against global warming in its vision for fiscal 2020.
Broadly, the $4.7 trillion budget proposal unveiled yesterday would slash top-line funding at agencies that do much of the federal work on climate change, notably EPA and the Energy Department.
It also takes aim at individual federal efforts, from a planned NASA climate sensor to an Interior Department program designed to help Native American tribes adapt to global warming.
To be sure, these cuts aren't being proposed in isolation. Trump is recommending smaller budgets across the government — save for a handful of priorities, such as an increase in military spending and $8.6 billion for a wall along the border with Mexico.
"This year, I asked most executive departments and agencies to cut their budgets by at least 5 percent," Trump wrote in a three-page note accompanying the budget summary.
That won't be the final word. Congress will have a huge say in what actually becomes law. For that reason, Trump's proposed budget is more like a mission statement or even a press release.
But the $4.7 trillion proposal encapsulates White House priorities over the coming year. And it shows where Trump hopes to start negotiations with Congress — an opening move that climate advocates said is hardly reassuring.
For example, the $8.6 billion Trump proposed for a new border wall is significantly more than the $6.1 billion he wants to spend on EPA, an agency that employs about 14,000 people.
If approved, a $6.1 billion EPA budget would constitute a dramatic 31 percent reduction from current spending, though Trump is unlikely to get the full cut approved by Congress — especially now that the House is controlled by Democrats.
"The climate crisis must be addressed through virtually all areas of American life and, as a result, virtually all areas of the President's budget should reflect this," said Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) in a statement. But Trump's request, she added, "ignores the climate crisis."
Castor, who heads a new panel on climate change, specifically pointed to the budget's plans to cancel an Energy Department program called Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E.
The goal of that program is to groom cutting-edge energy research. Trump's budget would move some of its work into the agency's "applied energy research programs," according to the White House summary.
Said Castor: "The Trump administration's budget eliminates ARPA-E and all-but shutters the Department of Energy office dedicated to incubating groundbreaking research into clean transportation, renewable energy, and energy efficiency — thereby eliminating the hope for our workforce and our planet they bring."
The latest Trump budget also would cut two NASA earth science missions called PACE and CLARREO Pathfinder.
PACE would study the exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and ocean; one aim of the CLARREO Pathfinder mission is to improve Earth climate modeling by gathering better data from space.
"While the PACE mission and CLARREO Pathfinder would provide additional capabilities over existing satellites, they are lower priorities within the current fiscal environment," wrote budget officials in a breakout summary of proposed NASA spending.
The State Department would see a 23 percent cut in fiscal 2020 compared with enacted levels — the most of any government agency apart from EPA.
Last year. the State Department built money into its budget to pay dues to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but it's unclear whether it plans to do so again. The budget requests about $1 million for U.S. contributions to international organizations for fiscal 2020 — roughly $81,000 less than last year's budget and $357,000 less than Congress authorized last month.
On one level, Trump's budget proposal does acknowledge problems from a world that's already warmed 1 degree Celsius — even if it largely ignores the cause of rising temperatures.
It sets the stage for long-delayed efforts to overhaul the government-run National Flood Insurance Program, which insures 5.1 million properties in flood-prone areas not covered by private insurers. The administration will seek to increase the subsidized insurance premiums paid by many property owners so that rates "reflect the risk homeowners face by living in flood zones."
Congress and the administration have debated overhauling the insurance program, which is more than $20 billion in debt, but have simply reauthorized it with no changes since September 2017.
The budget also proposes "significant investments" in the federal disaster relief fund, which pays for states and communities to recover from disasters. The budget document released yesterday provides no dollar figure, although Trump has publicly supported a $13 billion Senate disaster aid bill introduced last month.
Efforts to address the effects of climate change — though not the causes — are perhaps most clear on wildfires. The White House blamed last year's "unprecedented" wildfire costs on dry conditions, not climate. But it plans for more years like 2018.
The White House budget reaffirms a deal Congress struck last year to allow firefighters to draw from disaster spending accounts. So while Interior and the Forest Service would get about $1.4 billion to fight wildfires — a fraction of what last year cost — that would be backed up by access to $2.25 billion for emergencies.
The administration wants to bolster Trump's forest thinning executive order with a funding boost: $450 million to clear hazardous fuels and $375 million for timber programs — record funding for those programs, according to the White House.
Critics say cutting trees is more of a timber industry giveaway than a fire strategy.
The extra money for forest management would be offset by deep cuts: the $3 million Joint Fire Science Program would be eliminated, as would the $18.4 million for firefighting facilities.
The administration took a kinder eye toward some climate programs. The U.S. Geological Survey's climate adaptation centers would see a cut of almost 7 percent — rather than getting cut in half, as the administration proposed last year.
Others would be less lucky: Native Americans would see the $10 million for tribal climate resilience eliminated.
Reporters Adam Aton, Jean Chemnick, Tom Frank, Chelsea Harvey and Scott Waldman contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/03/12/stories/1060127019
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Wheeler: Green New Deal Plans Are 'Dangerous'
Mar 12, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Jenny Mandel and Edward Klump
Supporters of Green New Deal-style plans are recklessly calling to cut off Americans and populations around the world from critical energy supplies, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told an audience of oil and gas industry executives today.
"There are a few, loud voices calling for the complete dismantling of U.S. fossil fuel production. Not only would this be dangerous for the economy and national security, but it would be devastating for public health, both here and abroad," Wheeler said in a keynote address at CERAWeek by IHS Markit, one of the world's most closely watched energy industry gatherings.
"We are the standard of excellence when it comes to the regulatory structure needed to promote energy development and protect the environment," Wheeler told the gathering. "Suppose you are a developing nation looking to jump-start your own energy revolution; you should look to the U.S. as the model to imitate."
Wheeler pointed to the "billion people worldwide desperate for basic electricity" as a moral call to produce more fossil fuels. "A much better 'deal' would be to focus on improving power generation and maximizing the inherent value of our natural resources," he said.
Wheeler's remarks were made to an audience of oil and gas executives with whom Wheeler has been criticized as being overly friendly. The Trump EPA, first under former Administrator Scott Pruitt and now under Wheeler, has worked to roll back rules addressing emissions from power plants, vehicle fuel economy standards, and methane emissions from the oil and gas industry (E&E News PM, Feb. 11).
Questions about the rate at which oil and gas infrastructure leaks methane — the primary component of natural gas but also a powerful climate forcer that traps around 30 times as much heat as carbon dioxide — have become crucial to the natural gas industry, especially, as they threaten to overwhelm the fuel's carbon dioxide advantage over burning coal.
The EPA rollbacks on methane leak monitoring and repairs stand in contrast to actions that some high-profile oil and gas producers are taking to address the issue.
The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, which includes BP PLC, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Occidental Petroleum Corp., last year announced a target for members to reduce their collective average methane leak rate to below 0.25 percent of natural gas sold, from a 2017 baseline of 0.32 percent (E&E News PM, Sept. 24, 2018).
Wheeler noted that U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have fallen dramatically over more than a decade even as it has become the top energy producer in the world, while global energy-related carbon emissions have headed the opposite way.
"What the United States offers the world in terms of energy is that our fossil fuels are extracted and produced in a more environmentally conscious manner than anywhere else in the world," Wheeler said.
"If you want to purchase oil on the open market, we extract and refine our oil in a more environmentally conscious manner than other nations," he said. "If Europe wants to buy natural gas on the marketplace, we produce our natural gas in a much cleaner fashion than Russia, for example."
The EPA administrator said the U.S. would continue to encourage innovation across the energy sector, including for the creative reuse of fossil energy byproducts. "The truth is that those who oppose U.S. fossil fuel production are actually taking the most environmentally preferable energy source off the table for the rest of the world," he said.
Budget plans and a pitch for coal
At a news conference following his address, Wheeler commented on the proposed 31 percent cut to EPA's budget called for under President Trump's budget request, released this morning (Greenwire, March 11).
Wheeler said that EPA can accomplish its mission at the reduced funding level and that the plan targets cuts to voluntary and duplicate programs.
"We can certainly implement and complete our mission at that budget level," Wheeler said.
In an exchange with Daniel Yergin, the vice chairman of IHS Markit and a key figure at the CERAWeek event, Wheeler noted that environmental issues "have become much more politicized" in recent years. "The environmental issue has turned into a large campaign issue, a large moneymaker as far as campaigns are concerned, and I think this has created a lot of partisan divide in Congress," Wheeler said.
"In some media, it seems that 'Andrew Wheeler, Coal Lobbyist' is your full name," quipped Yergin.
Despite the oil- and gas-centric audience, Wheeler took the opportunity to support the U.S. coal industry.
"If we don't develop the cleaner technologies for coal here, they won't get developed anywhere else," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/03/11/stories/1060126969
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Murkowski, Manchin Break with Colleagues on Green New Deal
Mar 12, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Mike Lee, Jenny Mandel and Edward Klump
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and ranking member Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) delivered a message of unity on climate change here yesterday.
But their remarks at CERAWeek by IHS Markit meant sometimes contradicting party colleagues and leaders back in Washington, D.C.
Addressing an audience of several thousand people at one of the biggest oil and gas conferences in the country, the political moderates said they could find common ground.
"There's no such thing as a new green deal," Manchin said during a panel discussion with Murkowski. "There's a resolution that has a dream, but there's no bill, there's no contents at all."
Many of Manchin's colleagues are backing the Green New Deal, either because they support the resolution's tenets or they see it as a positive aspirational message to combat climate change.
But the West Virginian said he wants the U.S. to continue using fossil fuels — while developing technology to offset greenhouse gases and other pollution. And he said the Green New Deal framework that's being discussed is a non-starter.
Murkowski similarly appeared to disagree with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) strategy of calling a show vote on the Green New Deal.
"This is not the time to put everyone off in [their] corners and then let's come out fighting with more rhetoric," she said.
Murkowski, whose constituents pay some of the highest energy costs in the country, said any reform bill should ensure rural residents are protected from price spikes.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/03/12/stories/1060127027
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Labor Groups Detail Opposition to Green New Deal
Mar 11, 2019 | Inside EPA
Major labor unions are detailing strong opposition to the Green New Deal (GND) climate change resolution, writing that they “will not accept” proposals that cause immediate harm to their members, including those that work for fossil fuel-heavy sectors.
The AFL-CIO outlines its opposition in a March 8 letter to Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the sponsors of the GND resolution, which calls for ambitious greenhouse gas emission cuts by 2030, along with job guarantees for those affected by the low-carbon shift and other social programs.
“We will not accept proposals that could cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families. We will not stand by and allow threats to our members’ jobs and their families’ standard of living go unanswered,” the letter says.
It adds that the GND resolution “is far too short on specific solutions that speak to the jobs of our members and the critical sectors of our economy. It is not rooted in an engineering-based approach and makes promises that are not achievable or realistic.”
Unions signing the letter are part of the AFL-CIO’s energy committee, including the United Mine Workers of America, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, United Steelworkers, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Ironworkers, North America’s Building Trades Unions and others.
The unions acknowledge the need to address climate change, noting they have “advanced several potential solutions over time that could provide a basis for solid, realistic action.” They stress the need for “the voices of American workers be included in the discussion.”
Many of these same unions crafted a position paper late last year urging Congress to revisit the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill that passed the House in 2009 but died the next year in the Senate in lieu of the GND and a carbon tax, both of which are gaining political traction.
The paper says the decade-old bill is a “good starting point for discussions about future climate legislation,” and that improving the bill “could offer strong technology incentives while delivering significant longer-term emissions reductions.” The unions do not want to see the elimination of fossil fuels and believe the two other approaches would quickly lead to that option, with a tax being “instant death” for coal.
The new letter notes that the AFL-CIO is “ready to discuss these issues in a responsible way, for we all recognize that doing nothing is not an option. We want to engage on climate issues in a manner that does not impinge on enacting other labor priorities, especially much needed infrastructure legislation.”
The letter argues that part of the climate solution must be making investments in solar, wind, nuclear, hydro power, carbon capture and utilization, battery storage and high-speed rail, as well as energy efficiency. “All of these investments must be paired with strong la
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/labor-groups-detail-opposition-green-new-deal
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Socialists Jump into Green New Deal Debate
Mar 12, 2019 | E&E Clinatewire
By Adam Aton
The country's largest socialist organization has joined the race to define the Green New Deal.
The Democratic Socialists of America last week published more than a dozen articles outlining what to do about climate change — specifically, how to use the Green New Deal to achieve both emissions reductions and working-class political power.
"The GND won't be won as a single issue, but must be one among many popular working-class demands," one article said, praising the decision to mingle climate policy with health care, housing and other social programs.
The DSA has little inside-the-Beltway pull, but it does have some avenues of influence. About 50,000 people have joined since President Trump's election, the organization says.
At least two Democratic House members belong to the DSA. One is Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, whose candidacy was endorsed by groups like Climate Hawks Vote. The other is New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who last year helped jump-start the Green New Deal by joining a protest at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) office.
Seven DSA members are also state lawmakers in Maine, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania, according to the group.
In the new articles, the writers advocated for exploiting divisions within industry, offsetting corporate power with union strikes, continuing to pressure Democrats and hitching their cause to a socialist presidential candidate.
They framed those ideas as a continuation of the original New Deal (see related story).
Political and economic elites only accepted the New Deal "in the face of mass revolt," they wrote, citing Great Depression-era strikes that shuttered factories and ports. Those strikes forced a wedge between the owners of labor-intensive businesses, who were fighting to maintain the profitable status quo, and capital-intensive businesses, for whom the unrest was more troublesome than labor becoming more expensive.
Today, the socialists wrote, workers can again use pressure to divide energy companies from businesses that don't rely on fossil fuels.
"Though no industry is fully disconnected from oil, gas and coal, it is easy to imagine how capitalists heavily invested in telecom or pharmaceutical companies might allow a GND far sooner than the board members at Exxon," they wrote.
With union membership low, the socialists advocated engaging in three areas where they have the most leverage: active strikes, like the recent string of teacher walkouts, where they can build union infrastructure; the newly elected Democratic House majority, where confrontation can work against the "establishment"; and the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who can spread their message to a national audience.
The articles also outlined state and local efforts, including campaigning against utility rate increases to finance fossil fuel infrastructure. In Chicago, for example, the DSA is organizing to pressure the city to take more control of the electric utility after its contract with Commonwealth Edison Co. expires in 2020.
The articles carried organizing tips, too, like politicizing spaces such as public utility commissions and localizing campaigns.
"Hatred of one's local utility company is a pretty universal feeling," they wrote. "They can fit perfectly into a national fight for something like a Green New Deal by pointing people towards a tangible enemy living in their own backyard."
The articles were published as part of the DSA's Socialist Forum, which the organization says represents a range of its members' viewpoints rather than a party line.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/03/12/stories/1060127021
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Top Oil Execs Call for Change as Climate, Technology Concerns Threaten Industry
Mar 11, 2019 | Wall Street Journal
By Bradley Olson
Some of the world’s top oil executives plan a call to action at a premier industry conference this week, arguing that companies need to actively address climate change and technology concerns that are scaring investors away.
Rising climate activism, new technology and investor unrest have chastened and divided the global energy industry, a development set to define the CERAWeek by IHS conference, an annual gathering here that is usually dominated by a full-throated defense of fossil fuels.
The industry is facing a “crisis of confidence,” Eldar Saetre, chief executive of Norwegian energy giant Equinor AS EQNR 0.05% A, said in a speech Monday. BP PLC Chief Executive Bob Dudley is similarly planning in a Tuesday evening speech to call for the industry to do more to respond to new demands for climate action, even as energy use continues to rise.
“We need to drive this as an industry, to be part of the solution and not be dragged into a low-carbon future,” Mr. Saetre said in an interview Sunday. While there are some good efforts to bring about change, he said, “there is definitely denial within companies and in boardrooms, as well as ignorance and an unwillingness to act.”
Mr. Dudley, BP’s chief executive, is set to deliver a warning about eroding trust, suggesting a “progressive but pragmatic” approach to providing more energy while reducing emissions, according to people familiar with his remarks. Mr. Saetre and Mr. Dudley both see more engagement with critics and young people as essential in response to anger and frustration about climate inaction.
Maarten Wetselaar, director of integrated gas and new energy at Royal Dutch Shell PLC, said in an interview Monday that “the industry as a whole is behind the curve” on preparing for a transition to lower carbon energy.
Shell is the only giant Western oil-and-gas company that has agreed to set goals to reduce emissions from the end use of its products, a step that was applauded by some activists but has also been questioned due to concerns that it could lead to reduced production of oil and gas. Shell executives acknowledge that the step will be a challenge but say it is necessary for society.
“How would we be a successful energy company in 2040 if we’re not really good at providing our customers with low carbon energy?” Mr. Wetselaar said. “If you want to be a winner in this industry 20 years from now, that’s the game.”
Many oil-and-gas companies have been battered by investors in recent years because of volatile swings in prices. Energy stocks made up less than 6% of the S&P 500 at the end of last year, compared with about 15% a decade ago. The price swings and inconsistent performance in some business units, particularly in U.S. shale, have pushed some shareholders out of the sector. Meanwhile aggressive government proposals to deal with climate change, such as the Green New Deal floated by liberal Democrats in the U.S., threaten to upend the energy business, even if the ideas, for now, appear slow to gain political traction.
The impact of growing pressure on the industry has become more apparent this year, including last week, when Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign-wealth fund said it planned to sell off many smaller oil companies because of the risk of permanently lower crude prices. The fund will continue to hold billions of dollars in shares of many of the world’s largest oil companies, including Exxon MobilCorp. and Shell, although it will pressure those operators to diversify their business beyond oil.
There are questions about the future of oil-demand growth because of increasing regulations tied to climate, electric cars and other technologies. Some companies and forecasters see demand peaking in as soon as a decade; others only see modest increases continuing through at least 2040.
While those with bullish predictions may be proven right, many investors are holding off because of uncertainty about the future, said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. New technologies such as electric vehicles, plastics recycling or even a rise in 3-D printing are leading to major uncertainty, she said.
“The industry is under tremendous pressure,” said Ms. Jaffe, who recently published a paper about climate risks to fossil fuel companies. “Companies that are showing greater resilience and an increased ability to respond to these risks are performing better.”
BP recently agreed to share with investors how it plans to align its business strategy with the emission-reduction targets struck by almost 200 countries in the Paris climate agreement. The Trump administration withdrew from the accord in 2017.
While many large oil companies have set emission-reduction targets and expressed support for the Paris accords, most continue to defend increasing investments in oil and gas. More fossil fuels will be needed to meet the world’s growing energy demand, the companies say.
The U.S. and European companies, as well as oil-producing countries from Saudi Arabia to Russia, continue to differ in messaging and approach on how to reduce emissions while increasing energy production.
Last week, Exxon unveiled plans to spend about $220 billion to 2025 on a set of projects that may boost oil-and-gas production to more than 5 million barrels a day, up 25% from today. Chief Executive Darren Woods said the company is making the right decision to invest more at a time when others appear to be retreating.
“Society needs us to make these investments,” he said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-oil-execs-call-for-change-as-climate-technology-concerns-threaten-industry-11552315391?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2
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‘Time Is Running Short’ for Climate Fixes, UN Forum Warns
Mar 11, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Wachira Kigotho
Governments must start delivering real change to save the global environment, the acting executive director of United Nations Environment Assembly said March 11.
The world is warming rapidly, becoming more polluted, and quickly losing its biodiversity and “we have now surpassed several of the ecological thresholds mapped by science,” Joyce Msuya said at the Fourth Session of the U.N. Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya.
“Time is running short,” she added. “We are past pledging and politicking, and we are past commitments with little accountability.”
More than 4,700 delegates are meeting March 11-15 under the auspices of the U.N.'s environmental forum to negotiate and consider new policies, technologies, and innovative solutions on sustainable development.
Even as the global leaders gathered to ramp up global solutions for sustainable development, the meeting started in mourning.
At least 22 U.N. employees were among the 157 killed when Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 crashed March 10, just a few minutes after takeoff at at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, according to Maimunah Sharif, head of U.N. Human Settlements Program and acting director of the U.N. Office in Nairobi.
“I stand before you on the first day of the UN Environment Assembly, which has officially commenced today in the wake of this tragedy,” she told delegates.
The crash was a “terrible loss for the United Nations,” Msuya told delegates. “We lost U.N. staff, youth delegates traveling to the assembly, seasoned scientists, members of academia, and other partners.”
The U.N. office in Nairobi is working closely with Ethiopian authorities to establish the details of U.N. personnel who lost their lives in the crash and assisting families of the victims by providing counseling and support, she added.
Crash investigators recovered the airplane’s black box March 11 and are hoping to identify the cause of the accident.
Getting Down to Business
Delegates also are expected to address the issue of cutting global waste during the five-day forum.
The projected global population is expected to hit almost 10 billion by 2050, which will stress the world’s resources, the UNEA said in a report released at the forum.
In order to feed that expanded population, agricultural production will likely need to increase by 50 percent, while the environmental impact of food production will decrease by two-thirds.
“Much of the environmental impact is caused by meat production, with 77 percent of agricultural land currently linked to the production of meat,” the report said.
“If countries were able to cut food waste by 33 percent, this would enhance food security,” said Msuya. “The goal is to break the link between growth and increased resource use, and do away with throwaway culture.”
In addition, bold decisions and outcomes will be expected during negotiations in Nairobi for range of issues that will include dealing with a worldwide, population increase, managing food security and consumption, and achieving the 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) global warming target set under 2050 under the Paris Agreement on climate change, according to Siim Kiisler, president of the U.N. Environment Assembly and Estonia’s minister of environment.
“Our duty at this forum is to create enabling conditions for this to happen. And we will need to do things differently to build sustainable, prosperous and inclusive societies,” Kiisler said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/time-is-running-short-for-climate-fixes-un-forum-warns
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Mar 12, 2019 | Washington Post
By Isaac Stanley-Becker
Air pollution, the leading environmental cause of death worldwide, reflects the stark racial inequalities of American life. In the United States, the problem is disproportionately caused by the white majority, but its consequences are suffered mainly by blacks and Hispanics.
That is the finding of a new study, about five years in the making, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The results illuminate the fault lines of the lethal environmental danger, which is inseparable from the threat of climate change and responsible for more deaths globally each year than automobile accidents.
The research confirms with new statistical certainty the determination that racial and ethnic minorities are acutely vulnerable to air pollution because of the neighborhoods in which they live. But it also introduces a largely unstudied element into the analysis, examining who is responsible for the pollutants inhaled disproportionately by blacks and Hispanics. The answer, according to a nationwide team of engineers and economists, is white people.
The researchers argue that white people are disproportionately to blame for the consumption of goods and services generating dangerous particles known as “fine particulate matter,” which gets lodged deep in the lungs, causing inflammation that triggers strokes and heart attacks, as well as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. However, this segment of the population doesn’t endure an equivalent share of the consequences.
The study concludes that white people enjoy a so-called pollution advantage. They bear the burden of 17 percent less air pollution than is generated by their own consumption. Blacks and Hispanics, on the other hand, experience a “pollution burden.” They face 56 percent and 63 percent more exposure, respectively, than is caused by their consumption.
“That’s a pretty big difference,” the paper’s lead author, Christopher W. Tessum, a postdoctoral researcher focusing on civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington, said in an interview with The Washington Post.
One of his co-authors, Julian D. Marshall, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Washington, said the results sharpen the sense of injustice that comes from environmental degradation’s unequal impact.
“It seems even more unfair that some groups are more exposed to air pollution when one looks at who’s actually contributing to those unequal exposures,” he said.
The disparities persisted between 2003 and 2015, the time frame of the study, even as overall exposure declined during the same period by about 50 percent. The gap in contributions to pollution owed more to the level of consumption than to the types of goods and services consumed.
Income, which has previously been shown to matter less than race in exposure disparities, mattered crucially in discerning how much pollution a person causes because it tends to predict consumption, the authors observed. And differences in consumption, the data revealed, counted even more in determining the overall inequity than did differences in exposure.
The largest disparity between the racial groups was in “commercial cooking,” Tessum said — in other words, going to restaurants.
The activity is just one example of personal consumption, which can mean anything from building a house to driving a car to buying food. Personal consumption is the leading cause of premature deaths from domestic emissions of air pollutants, the paper notes, ahead of demand for exported goods and pollution stemming from government expenditures.
The authors broke down acts of personal consumption by race to assess how emissions were driven differently by people self-identifying as black or African American, representing about 12 percent of the population; Hispanic or Latino, representing about 17 percent of the population; and non-Hispanic whites combined with all other groups, together representing about 70 percent of the population.
“The thing that’s causing the disparity is the different amounts of consumption,” Tessum said. “White people spend more money.”
When it came to exposure, the study found that black Americans were more exposed than whites to every type of emission, from road dust to construction. The same held true for Hispanics, with the exception of agriculture, coal electric utilities and residential wood combustion — emissions concentrated in parts of the country where Hispanics tend not to live, according to the authors.
The study does not offer solutions but rather “reveals a new lens for looking at this problem,” Tessum said. Still, it became apparent in the course of the research that declining exposure between 2003 and 2015 was a product of government regulation.
“That’s something that, as far as we can tell, has been working,” he said. “It might be beneficial.”
The Environmental Protection Agency, which is responsible for overseeing federal standards, would sustain a budget cut of 31 percent under the 2020 budget proposal unveiled this week by President Trump. Meanwhile, a handful of states are suing the Trump administration over its plans to reverse a determination reached under President Barack Obama that would have required the EPA to do more to contain air pollution at risk of traveling across state lines. So, too, Democrats, newly in control of the House, have put the administration on notice that they plan to scrutinize its approach to policing pollution standards.
Notoriously, Robert Phalen, a Trump appointee to an EPA advisory committee, said in 2012 that the air was “a little too clean for optimum health.”
The United Nations calls air pollution “the most important environmental health risk of our time.” But the risk is not distributed evenly across the globe, just as it is not borne equally in the United States. A report released last week by Greenpeace and the software company IQAir AirVisual found that the world’s most polluted cities are concentrated in India. In North America, Anderson, Calif., ranks as the second-most polluted city, after Mexicali, Mexico. The next U.S. city in the report, Medford, Ore., is seventh.
Tessum got the idea to study inequities in contributions to emissions from a question a number of years ago at a conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. He was presenting preliminary results of his efforts to track differences in exposure across a broad swath of the economy, after first looking narrowly at vehicles.
“Someone asked — and I never got a name — whether it would be possible to look at how different groups of people are also consuming differently,” he recalled.
The answer was yes, and the conclusion was that different groups were indeed consuming vastly differently.
“Do I find it surprising? The answer is yes and no,” Marshall, the University of Washington professor, said. “It’s not surprising if you consider how our society is set up. But this hasn’t been quantified before."
He said he hoped there would be benefits in quantifying the inequity, perhaps initiating a dialogue not just about health outcomes and the environment but also about race and government regulation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/12/whites-are-mainly-blame-air-pollution-blacks-hispanics-bear-burden-says-new-study/?utm_term=.a3ec51cdd0c0
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